When Reality Diminishes

PROLOGUE

She ran down the street as fast as she could, minuscule tears falling from her baby blue eyes. Her arms whipped back and forth as her body moved as fast as it could to get to her destination. If only she knew her destination, but a girl of five was hardly the type to run for her life and know where to go.

“You can’t escape,” a voice whispered in her ear. She screamed before quickly turning to where the voice came from. No one was there. Nothing was there. Her heart beat faster as she took small steps back, keeping her eyes in front of her, to where the voice had come from. She stepped further back and back, still no sign of the voice. The voice that had drove her from her home. That had drove her from protection and warmth. “You naive little child.” The voice whispered again, this time in her other ear.

With another scream, she turned. Yet again, nothing met her small afraid eyes. More tears tumbled down as she felt her legs weaken. A sob escaped her small innocent lips as fear gripped her.

Her legs gave way just as cold air hit her hard in the face. Sobs now forced their way out, her body shaking involuntarily with each one. With each sob, a new addition of fear would add onto her mind... only to make her body fear what was to come all the more.

The cold wind whipped her short black hair around her, it also aided in chilling her body to the bone. Her arms wrapped around her small waist, attempting to keep warm.

“I want my blanky.” She barely whispered out. Fear was etched in her voice, as was despair.

“And I want you,” the voice spoke again, this time right behind her. She could actually feel the cool breath on the back of her neck, sending shivers down her spine. Closing her eyes tightly she rocked back and forth, not daring to look back. Her body was numb in only a few minutes and her eye lids were heavy from all the crying.

Darkness was now around her, as the sun was almost set. The cool breath was no longer on her neck, but she knew that whatever was there wasn’t gone. If it chased her for that long, it wouldn’t just leave when she collapsed, being weaker than ever.

“Go away.” She sobbed out, knowing that whatever was there was still watching her. She was still chilled to the bone, and she was pretty sure it was the creatures doing.

“If only,” the voice breathed, “things were that easy.” Arms then wrapped around her body, pulling her back. With one last scream, she was pulled into the darkness.

End of Prologue

Her eyes fluttered opened slowly as the aching pain that resided in her back pulsated. A small moan escaped her lips as she slowly pushed herself off the mud and rocks she was laying on. Mud seeped into her open wounds on her hands as she put pressure on them, but she ignored the stinging sensation. A mere tingle such as that was not the least of her worries. However, the pain in her back was beginning to get to her. If it didn’t leave soon, she may have a problem.

Once in an upright position, she let her eyes scan her surrounding again, as she did before she went to bed. Everything seemed the same, except for the dew that now lay upon the little bit of green vegetation that was left. Winter was coming soon, much sooner than she would have liked. But what power did she have to control mother nature? None.

A yawn escaped her pale chapped lips as she continued to sit there. Her body ached in pain, letting her know that it didn’t want to get up. Ignoring her bodies pleas, she pushed herself to her feet. Immediately shots of pain sprang through her body, but none as bad as her back. After sleeping on nothing but rocks and dirt for a over a week, she was starting to pay the price. A deep sigh now came out of her as she thought about how pathetic her life was now.

Her name was Audrey. She was currently seventeen but her nightmare began when she was five. Her hair was black and was quite long, except for the few side bangs she had. Her eyes held the colour of baby blue, and she was quite in shape considering she was human.

When she was five, she was cruelly taken away from her home. She was then brought down to, as they called it, ‘The Dark Land.’ She soon found out that The Dark Land was a place on Earth, where she didn’t know, that got its name due to how rarely the sun showed. The sun rose and set like any other, but dark clouds were practically always covering it.

This place wasn’t meant to inhabit humans. Unless they were enslaved, test subjects or food. For in this place, vampires, demons, werewolves and any other gruesome mythical creature you could think of, lived. Sometimes, they even brought humans down to amuse themselfs. Not in ways a hooker would, but in ways a murderer would. This was her case.

She was brought down when she was little only to get beaten, almost drained of blood, then to regain her strength again. In where they would then do the whole process over again. Eventually she got use to it, and when she stopped screaming and crying in pain, which she was the age of eight at, the vampires she was with, sold her.

From the age eight to twelve, she lived with a family of half-breed werewolves. She was enslaved to them, and truth be told, they were actually compassionate. Though when in public, they wouldn’t show it. For in The Dark Land compassion was frowned upon. But once she was twelve, they were all murdered. She never did find out why, but she did get sold to another family which she lived with until she escaped.

The family she had been with were vampires, demons and werewolves. All of them lived together, much to her dismay. They got amusement from her pain, as the first vampires had, but they didn’t need her screams of pain. They just needed her eyes in which all the pain she had ever been through was held. It was like her own small little vault, a vault in which only she could unlock, but every one else could view due to the glass door.

After being tortured countless times, she had finally decided that she had to leave. Although the fact that every other human who had ever tried running had been slaughtered scared her, it didn’t stop her. It only made her plan it longer, and begin her training. When she wasn’t cleaning or being tortured, she worked on her agility. True, it would never match to theirs, but having just the slightest bit of knowledge of how they moved and fought helped her, for she trained herself on their styles. Once she worked out the plan, she put it into action.

It was a pretty straight forward plan, sneak out the window and hope no one notices. But if for some reason they did, she’d run. Before she had snuck out the window, she packed some food, a bit of money and three daggers. Stealing the money and food had been easy, but the daggers took a long time to get a hold of. But it was worth it when she had them, for when she did sneak out, a vampire had noticed.

He had then went after her as she ran, and of course when he caught her, he threw her to the ground, ready to kill her. He had put his head by her neck, looking for the vein. If he had been more aware, he would have noticed the dagger she had pulled out, but he was too concentrated on killing her that he didn’t notice... which led to her killing her first vampire.

A stab to the stomach wouldn’t usually be harmful to a vampire, but it was to this one due to the blade. The reason it had been so hard to steal the daggers were due to their value and purpose. They were meant for wars verse other vampires. The blades held a certain silver product that would and usually did, kill vampires upon entrance into their body.

After she killed that vampire, getting out of the city was easy. But the guilt of killing a life was on her shoulders, and always would be.

Though she may have been out of the city, she was no where near safe. They’d go after her until she was dead, and the worse part was that she was still in The Dark Land. It didn’t consist of merely one city, it consisted of many cities and towns. It was more like a country than anything.

She was still on the run, and at the moment she was in between two towns, slowly making her way to the other. For eventually, she would reach the end of The Dark Land but until that happened, she would have to get use to sleeping on the ground.