Life in the Shadows

“Please,” Aurora begged “Don’t go Eva”
Evanna frowned at her cousin whose chocolaty eyes were looking straight into her minty ones. They were challenging her to leave.
The two girls were silent for a few minutes, both staring hardly at the other, daring them to look away. Like a more intense version of the classic staring contest.
Eventually, however, Evanna looked away and Aurora clapped and whooped in triumph.
“So you’re staying” Aurora stated.
Aurora and Evanna’s staring contests were different to normal human staring contests in many ways. 1- If you looked away the winner got what they wanted
2-They were competitive not for fun
3-They were intensive (because of #2)
and 4- To look in a vampires eyes for too long sometimes revealed lots about said vampire, but depending on how strong a vampire was depended on how long they could block other searching eyes and how long they could search through other vampires’.
“Fine” Evanna grunted, carrying her still packed case to her wardrobe and shoving it at the back. “Happy?” she said sarcastically, turning to face Aurora
“Very” She smiled, skipping out of the room.
‘Curse my weak eyes’she thought, climbing out onto her balcony.

****

A few hours later Evanna finally got bored with staring out over Schwarzes Lock, her kingdom. The kingdom that she had never stepped onto.
She decided, lamely, that she would hunt out Aurora. Her cousin was always on hand to cheer her up, and after all it was better than staying by herself for the rest of the evening, the evening which was quickly evaporating into dusk, and in due course it would be the pitch black night time, which she loved so dear.

“Evanna, can I talk to you for a second?” one of the maids asked as she roamed aimlessly around the Castle. Well, aimlessly wasn't strictly true; she had an aim, she just wasn't sticking to it.
“What?” she asked genuinely confused.
“I have been told to give you this” she said, passing over a blood red envelope. Evanna thanked the maid before she scurried of down the hall, muttering random spells under her breath, causing the hall to right itself and any washing to fly into her hands from the adjacent bedrooms.
“Witches” she muttered under her breath, a subtle tone of awe present. She had always been fascinated by these ‘lower’ beings. She wasn't sure why they were lower than her; all she knew was that all of them were apart from Auntie Mera, who strictly speaking wasn't her aunt, but her great aunt or something like that. Evanna’s tutors never focused much on genetics and more on teaching her defensive spells, that anyone could use. (Okay, so there was only two, but better than none, right?) The rest of the time she spent learning to hunt and kill efficiently in the grounds’ forests. How to use her fangs to their upmost potential and most importantly how to Change back and forth quickly, painlessly and emotionlessly. Evanna remembered feeling like they had been stamping it into her brain, making it like a reflex reaction not a secondary one, where she had to think first. And so far it seemed to be working. It wasn't painful to Change, unlike when she was younger and had dreaded the Change, scared of the bodiless feeling and the burning sensation in her heart. And she could Change in a matter of seconds now, not minutes as it had been when she was 4 and went through her first Change, which took her a little under an hour to complete. She shook her head, the memory quickly fading; Evanna didn’t like remembering those times. The times of her weakness’.
She shoved the envelope in her pocket, not expecting it to be anything important.
Aurora was walking past a slightly ajar door when she heard them.
“Why can’t I tell her, Daddy? Why?” Aurora’s voice sounded from the room. Aurora only ever called Keller ‘Daddy’ when she wanted something really badly. And she sounded desperate to tell someone something
“Evanna isn’t allowed to know. You know that, Aurora. Uncle Scott and Aunt Lia have told you a thousand times. She can’t know about you’re journey’s to the Human Realms.” Uncle Keller said firmly.
What was it that her own Mother and Father didn’t want her to know??! Evanna thought angrily, stepping closer to the door.
“But Dad!” she complained again and Evanna sensed her body temperature rise steadily, which meant that she was preparing to Change.
“Aurora, calm down. No need to Change.”
Aurora had a mutant gene; a random change of the gene’s that had been passed down to her and in this case the mutant gene was her Change gene. She could Change into whatever animal she wanted when she was angry but when calm, she couldn’t Change anything about her appearance.
“Aurora” Keller said sternly, trying to calm down his daughter
But, Evanna already knew that it was too late. Aurora was going to Change, and Evanna already knew what animal she had selected; a white leopard.
White leopards were quick and agile and able to swipe down pretty much whatever they wanted with their brute strength, but they were also beautiful and soft and relaxing to watch.
A menacing growl escaped from the room, and Evanna knew that she could no longer just stand listening.
She burst through the door, her dark red hair bouncing behind her. Her mint green eyes steadily being taken over by the dark brown outlines of them. And when her eyes had completely changed into a dark red colour she growled menacingly. She knew that there was nothing for it but to fight her cousin; loser would back off.
Keller stood there helplessly, he couldn’t Change into anything himself and he wasn't about to jump in between two ferocious predators fighting it out.

Evanna won, after about 20 minutes of intense battle between the leopard and the wolf. Evanna Changed back slower than normal, as she was injured, but it was nothing life threatening. She then walked over to Aurora and began murmuring her favourite song lyrics, some of them eventually got to her.
“If you've ever felt....
Alone
Rejected
Confused
Lost
Anxious
Wrong
Wronged
Unclean
Angry
Ashamed
Curious
Used
Be prepared to feel
Revenge
Feel the Romance
My Brutal Romance
My Beautiful Romance
My Miserable Romance
My X-Rated Romance
My Harlequin Romance
My Innocent Romance
My Childish Romance
My Water cooler Romance
My Sandious Romance
My Selfish Romance
My Pathetic Romance
My Chemical Romance”Evanna sung under her breath, she wasn't the best singer in the world and no way compared to Gerard Way,(who was, albeit a human but human music, especially heavy rock, light metal and heavy metal made its way back into Schwarzes Lock via the many explorers of the Human Realms, Lia being a very hearty contributor to such music choices), but she was good enough in her opinion.
Gradually, Aurora bounced back into her human form and was able to sing along with her for the second time. Aurora was definitely a better singer than Evanna.

The two girls passed Keller and began walking down the corridor, all of the previous overheard conversation momentarily forgotten. As the two danced down the corridor the blood red envelope fell out of Evanna’s pocket and onto the floor, the inky black writing looking strangely inviting.
“Open it” whispered Aurora as Evanna leant down and scooped up the envelope.
She turned it over and sliced open the back, pulling out a black piece of paper, with blood red writing that looked aged. Evanna dreaded reading it, for it had most probably been written in blood.
“Is that blood?” Aurora voiced Evanna’s suspicions
“I think so” she replied gravely.
Even in Schwarzes Lock it didn’t mean anything good if a letter was written in blood. It most certainly wasn't a daily occurrence.

Miss Evanna Hartley,
It began in swirly handwriting, Evanna gulped, and wasn't sure whether she wanted to know what this letter said.
As you will know, you have been kept from exiting the grounds of that Castle you call home. I will have you know that this is just a joke; they want to know how long you will follow along with them. And, you are playing the game exactly how they want you too. It’s all a joke to them, but wrecking your life, am I right?
Evanna gulped, knowing this to be true, she looked behind her shoulder, making sure that Aurora wasn't reading the letter over her shoulder. She wasn't. Instead, she was staring at Evanna’s face worry clear on her flawless face, and running deep into her chocolate eyes. She was scared.
Evanna turned her attention back to the letter.
Dear child, you are missing out on life. The Human Realms, for one thing. I beg that you see past these monsters before your life is completely ruined.
I am begging you to leave that place, come and join me and my fellows on this side of the gate. We will be waiting.
Yours Sincerely,
J.

Evanna stared at the letter, not seeing the words just red on black.
And then she ran.
Ran to her room, the room with the fire.
She would burn this letter, it couldn’t be true.

....Could it?

And as if something wanted to prevent the burning of that letter as soon as she even got near to it the flame extinguished itself.
Eventually Evanna settled for chucking the letter in one of her drawers, slamming it closed on the letter of lies.

But, were they lies? Were her parents and everybody else just playing a game on her? If they were, it was not funny. Not even in the slightest