CHAPTER 1

Vladimir’s POV

“They're getting bigger again,” My brother Van said anxiously as we drove down the dark alley. "He is really building an army," he added.

I did not answer what he said because I was irritated by the variety of smells I was inhaling. I wouldn't have gone with him and just let him do what he wanted to do but I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep when something bad happened to him.

"You should have told me that we are going here," I said. "You should have told me to bring a mask."

"I'm sorry, I thought you're not coming and Dad told me to keep this a secret from anyone until it's over."

I was about to speak when suddenly the surroundings became quiet. Out of the darkness, a man came out, smelled like a corpse. He slowly walked towards us, smiling as he tilted his head. It looks like a zombie in the movie people are watching now. Van and I once pulled out the silver knife and prepared for his approach.

I was suddenly startled when blood dripped from his lips. Annoying! I couldn't wait for him to get closer. I rushed and stabbed him in the neck and just like thunder and lightning an army of corpses came running towards us.

“That was uncalled for,” I said. "You probably have a plan, don't you?" I asked my brother. We are already surrounded by low-key, lowkie for short.

"No, actually," he laughed before he scratched his neck and started. I don't have to ask any more questions because I'm just annoyed with him. When did he plan? He just loved to rush things.

"Tsk," I hid my knife. We wouldn’t be able to finish if we continue to fight them with a knife because with every lowkie we kill they increase. "Let's finish it fast." I told my brother. We removed our gloves and released our power.

My name is Vladimir Fear. I am a vampire. If you are still wondering, yes, vampires still exist in the modern world. Though, we are just like myths and legends for people. They thought we only exist in movies. That’s what they thought, and what we want. 

We still want to live in darkness. That's why we are preventing these lowkie vampires from harming the people, though actually we are somehow exposed. Sad to say, it’s also because of our own blood that we’re getting exposed.

We vampires came from different houses, class, and rank. First house is the House of Nobles, they are our ancestors. They are actually rare nowadays, they don’t mingle with people because they are really the vampires who don’t come out during the day. They formed the highest council of our race, and mostly they are sleeping in coffins in their respective places. And, will go out if there is a war.

Second, the House of Pureblood with House Fear as the highest class, and there are two more, the House Ruin and House Fall respectively. I can't remember the other Houses but I believe there are more than ten houses of purebloods. I haven’t met those because they live on different continents that’s why I can’t name them. We, purebloods are given unique powers and abilities different from the half-bloods or commoners.

Half-bloods were formed when a vampire mate with a human. It is not actually accepted in our clan that’s why for the last hundred years they have been waging war to be named as one of the houses. They are also the reason why there are lowkie vampires. Lowkie vampires are humans turning into vampires but when they don't drink enough blood they will die.

The half-bloods used humans to build an army. They turned humans into vampires by the use of their blood. It turned out, for the last few years, the number of missing persons has been recorded. Some of them were successfully turned into vampires, others were dead because they weren’t able to feed blood. We, the houses, actually joined forces to stop them. That’s what we and Van are actually doing. Killing the lowkie vampires sounds evil because they have families looking for them but it would be more evil if they spread over the place.

"Woah, damn!" I heard Van say. "It's over, so what are we going to do with all of this corpse?"

"Turn them into dust," I ordered. My brother can turn everything he touches into dust. That’s his gift.

"Yes, sure." He touched a corpse resulting in a domino effect as they all turned into dust.

I blew away the dust in front of me. I was about to go home to the Van when I noticed the woman looking at us.

Wait, I didn't even feel her. Has she been there before? Did she see us?

I automatically approached her but she ran. I was right in my suspicion that she saw everything but why didn’t I even feel her presence. I couldn't even smell her blood.

We were at the end of the alley entrance, just one step away and I could reach her when she suddenly disappeared from my sight. I just stopped. I turned around but I could no longer see her shadow.

“Brother, why did you run? Who are you after? ”

"The woman, she saw us."

“Woman? Who, I didn’t see anyone.”

I looked at him and went back to the street. “Yeah, maybe it's just my imagination. Let's go home."

Next morning, I went to school. I still live a normal life, pretending that I am a human even though I am not. Since then, we have been moving from place to place. Every five years or six years we move so people will not realize that we don’t die. I’ve been to different places, lived in different houses, and used different names for the last hundred years. The name I am using is actually not my real name, but the surname always stays.

My sister, Via, actually has the ability to change and play with people’s memories. It’s her gift. We change some of the memories of the people we’ve met before leaving them. But there were few people we chose to remember us. They were the people whom we created lots of beautiful memories we can’t afford to lose.

I walk inside the hallway of the university. We stopped growing when we reached the age of 18. College days, so I usually start going to college in every town we move to. To tell you, if there is only one award for having the most degrees and medals in college I will be awarded. I tried so many courses along with Van, and my sister Via. I also have one more sister, Vanna, but she doesn’t like going to school so she’s just at home. The reason is she’s our owl. 

She’s our connection to the past, present, and future. She sees everything in her vision. Each house was given an owl. She was ours for the last hundred years. She usually spends her time in our library, she just goes out to buy the things she needs like books. It’s risky to let the owl go alone.

I chose Literature as my course now, never tried it before so I agreed with Via and Van though we don’t stay in the same class. I don’t like having them around with me, so do they. We keep a low profile wherever we go, we don’t create names for us. We just live like a normal student. But sometimes, we can’t because we need to avoid them and their blood. Though we don’t feed humans, there are circumstances when we can stop ourselves.

They can also see how unique we are from head to toe. We look like corpses. We have pale skin. It’s like the sun forgot to shine on us when we were kids. We don’t reflect on mirrors and pictures so we tried our best to hide ourselves from those things. Actually, on our first day at school we let them fear us. We wouldn’t be Fear for nothing. We created rumors about us that would make them avoid us. Mostly, they would believe. But I’ve also met people before who never believed and those people became our real friends.

I sat on my favorite spot beside the window. Of course, I have no one next to me. They usually avoided me because we spread rumors saying that we were once drug addicts and were taken into rehab. We created fights the first day we came here so Van and I avoided them. As for Via, she can be friendly, after all she can play with memories so she sometimes created names for her like joining on pageants, sports, and other activities. After that, she would change their memories like she doesn’t exist.

My usual routine would be sleeping in class and still passing though I sometimes fail the other subject and I just don't attend. To tell you, I am getting tired with my life. I no longer know what my purpose in life is. I kept on waking up, and living but with no real destination. I envy people, because no matter how short their life is they know what they want in life.

It was a literature class and we were asked to read books. I started reading, there was no problem at reading because I always love books. I don’t even know why I just now thought to try this course.

I thought for a minute that there was no problem, until the professor went in and introduced the new student. I wouldn’t care. I never care. What made me look at her was the smell of her blood, it’s type AB. The strongest and most delicious blood of humans. I have never seen one of her kind for quite some time.

But it wasn’t the blood that made me stare at her.

It was the fact that she was the girl who disappeared last night.