Eclipse

“Let everything happen to you. Beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.”-Rainer Maria Rilke.

Prologue

Terror. Pure unadulterated terror of the kind only a child could feel coursed through her veins. It was raining, and Yekaterina and her twin sister Nadia got drenched.

Nadia curled up into a shivering dark haired ball in the corner of the small tree house their mother brought them to when the nightmare began; when the vampires came for them.

They had come to wreak vengeance on the Nightstorm family. Their father killed one of the vampire community leaders; and in a village run by the blood suckers, that couldn’t be allowed to pass without retaliation.

Kat’s father was a slayer; a soldier in a small group of people that hunted and killed those that walked the night. It was a dangerous profession and not conducive to raising a family, but a family they were.

Their parents had taken her and her siblings with them, teaching them the trade; how to fight and how to kill. There wasn’t a slayer alive who hadn’t been wielding a blade since they could pick one up.

Yekaterina’s five-year-old frame shook as a roar of thunder crashed near their little hideout. She crouched by the ladder and watched. Either her mother and father would walk out of those doors or the vampires would.

She looked around the backyard frantically as a blast of garish lightning rent the air and lit up her surroundings. Before the lightning struck, she hadn’t realized she and Nadia had been sharing the backyard with the corpse of one of their elder sisters.

Yekaterina glanced back at Nadia, who was staring at her with wide, terrified eyes. Out of the two of them, Kat was always the more aggressive. She was the strong one; never wavering, unlike Nadia, who was a gentle soul born into a family of killers.

There was no time for tears, though. Kat tensed and crouched down when she heard their father scream, and then nothing but the sound of the pounding rain. Kat moved over to Nadia and covered her with a small blanket, whispering to her to stay put until she came back to her.
Taking a deep breath, she climbed down the ladder and walked into the place that was no longer her home, sinking to her knees at the pure carnage inside. There was blood everywhere and nothing remaining of her sisters and parents.

Kat knew that crying was a weakness, that emotion is a weakness and so with willpower unheard of in a five-year-old she held her tears and sorrow inside of herself. Even though she knew it was important to get out of here and get her twin to safety she couldn’t move, her unreleased emotions a whirlwind inside her tiny frame; rooting her to the blood-soaked ground.

She shivered when she felt the temperature drop; a sign which was a sure indication of a vampire. She turned around slowly, moving into a crouch as she did so; balancing on the balls of her feet. Her twin wouldn’t survive alone. Kat had to make it out of this!

“Leave us alone!” She yelled, desperately trying to appear bigger than she was.

He was different than the vampires that had massacred her family. This vampire was older, stronger and far more dangerous than the others. Kat was glaring at him, hoping against hope he wouldn’t kill her. She knew she didn’t stand a chance. He studied the carnage around them, taking his time before finally looking down at her.

“I assume this was your family child?”

“You would know wouldn’t you?” She asked bitterly, finding courage from thin air. He seemed surprised.

“Who did this?”

“The vampires who live in the village. Did you come to finish it?” She growled, using a tone she’d heard her mother use when taunting her prey.

“You are not an ordinary child.” He mused.

“No. Are you here to kill us or not?” She questioned angrily. He smirked.

“They have grown too careless.” He muttered to himself, eyes never leaving her. “Gather your sister child. I shall escort you to the orphanage.” Kat walked closer and stared up into his eyes. She wanted to remember. It was part of what she had been taught.

His eyes were black, completely black with no whites.

On the opposite side of the world, Joy Parker woke from her nightmare, unable to shake the feeling that the nightmare was a memory, and that the memory was not her own.