Her chest laboured up and down as she ran around the busy marketplace, there were noises all over as she manoeuvred her way deeper into the market, she was being careful of objects that could harm her and large people that could knock her down. A wide smile appeared on her lips when she caught a glimpse of it, the shop she had always visited no matter how busy she might be or the punishment that awaited her at home, she didn’t care and never will.

“Danika!” An old woman called out from the shop when she stood there, with her hands on her chest as she tried to catch her breath. She looked up with a smile on her face and walked further into the shop, slightly closing her eyes as a bright smile glowed on her face for nowhere in this world had ever felt like home to her like this shop.

She crouched down on her usual spot and gladly collected the water Faline offered to her. She waited until she had calmed down before she greeted the old woman, “Good evening, Faline.”

Faline went back into the shop as she mumbled, “I told you to stop running around in this market, didn’t I? How could you get a husband if you kept doing things this way?” That forced a burst of rustling laughter out of her. No one had ever related her with marriage but Faline and she wondered why. Besides, she knew that even if she did want to get married no one will marry her in Dewhurst, for a lady only got married when her family wanted her to and took her to the Runaways that took place after every three months.

Her father had never taken her to one, no one even thought of her as a girl that came to the age of marriage or even related her to it. She was just Danika, the girl everyone maltreated and go scot-free, for she had no one to stand for her. And it was good to say in Faline, she found the home and family she had never had.

She stood and walked into the shop, helping Faline in handing the goods a customer had bought. She waited until she watched him leave before she turned to her with a smile, “I told you, Faline, that I’ll never get married. Even if Papa will take me to the runaway this month, which I know he never will, I’ll never get a husband.” She sounded so sure and confident in the fact that no one will ever want her.

Faline softly smacked her head before she pulled the lunch she had always kept for her, “Here, eat this before you go back home.” She sat beside her as Danika immediately ventured into the meal, “And I’ve always told you, Danika, you’ll find a husband that no girl in Dewhurst will ever get even if they were to kill a thousand people. Just wait and see.”

She mumbled incoherently with her mouth filled with food when Faline uttered the words she had found a liking in, which Danika knew will never happen. They spent over an hour in the shop as she helped Faline with everything that she wanted and it was only late evening before she decided to go back home when Faline was about to close her shop for the day.

With a thumping heart and hands that had already got sweaty due to what she knew she had to expect, Danika walked into the house, making sure she walked soundlessly to her room, which was the attic. Some days sleeping in the attic had been her worse nightmare, there were scorpions, cockroaches and whatnot, but she was now accustomed to everything and it felt as though they knew her too. None of them bothered her anymore.

“Mama! Danika is just back and she’s trying to get to her room!” Riah, her stepsister shouted toward her mother and Danika knew it was time to stop playing the hiding game. She had been caught, she had always been caught and by no one but Riah.

She fixed her composure and looked up at Riah that was flashing her a smug look and Danika quickly looked away. There were times when she wanted to give her a medicine of her own but she could not, even though she was a year older than her. To her, Riah wasn’t a younger sister but a nightmare and she dare not even speak back to her!

She wasn’t expecting the smack that got in contact with her nape and she crouched down almost immediately at the pressure her stepmother, Lamya used in hitting her. “Didn’t I tell you to stop going to the marketplace? Are you trying to find a husband or what?”

What was with everyone today and talking to her about a husband? Even though she knew that Faline meant her good when she spoke to her about a husband but for these people, she was certain they belittled her and thought she would have to stay with them until her last breath. Somehow, somewhere within her mind, she wanted what Faline said to be true. She wanted to show these people who she was.

Papa walked through the front of them and he found that in that situation as Lamya scolded her over and over again. “Papa, I…” she began, but the sound of his belt on her was what made her shrill in a cry as Lamya kept conveying to him how Riah had found her in the company of another man and she had to beg her before she came back home.

He kept beating her to the point that Danika could not even cry and all her lungs were extinguished by her lack of energy and if she could add, her skin felt like burnt skin and it hurt as hell should. He beat her to his satisfaction and mercilessly threw her out of his way as he stomped to his room. He looked up to see Riah and Lamya smiling wickedly at her, this is what Lamya did, she hardly beat herself but she would do all she could to see that it was the Papa she thought loved her will treat her this way.

She picked herself from the floor and walked up to the attic, she had to cry her eyes out. Not because of the pain of the beating she had got, but for the way, her heart ached. She heard the sound of laughter and from the corner of her eyes she could see how lovingly Lamya had held her daughter and Danika wanted nothing but the arms of her mother.

She went to the attic and slumped on the floor, her tears breaking through as though the rush of a tsunami. She knew she had never known her mother for she died the moment she gave birth to her, but she had missed her. Faline was the only figure close to a mother in her life but whenever she saw these people and how amazing it must’ve felt to have a mother, that ache resurface in her heart. She didn’t know what she did that was so terrible for them to hate her this way when all she did was loved them with everything in her being.

She got tired of crying and roamed through the darkness in the attic until she found the bathroom door and she washed her face, hopefully, if she went down now, they would be eating their dining as the lovely family they were, to themselves. And behold, that was what she saw as she silently walked to the kitchen, her eyes so red from her tears as she picked the small portion of food Lamya had always kept for her. She went out of the house through the back door and sat on the bench she mostly did every night.

Her eyes looked up to the moon while she kept the bowl by her side and slowly, tears pooled her eyes. “Hey,” she spoke to the moon, not trying to stop her tears. “I’ve always sat here and spoken to you about everything that bothered me, yet you’ve never said a word to me? Not even a comforting sound or anything that will let me know that you indeed heard all that I’ve said.”

She chuckled at her stupidity and wiped at her tears, “How foolish of me, right? I’m sorry.” With a sigh, she began to eat the food silently and abruptly, she looked up at the moon again. “Can you give me a husband as your way of comfort? Someone that will take me away from them and everything that reminds me of them. Someone that will love and take care of me.” The sky still looked the same, pitch black with the sprinkle of stars to brighten it and the moon, stagnant in its possible that Danika had to softly smile. “No response, right? If you were willing to grant my wish I would’ve seen a shooting star as an answer but…” before she closed her mouth, there, she caught a glimpse of a shooting star that passed just beneath the moon and she wasn’t able to jubilate when she heard a sound.

The most frightening and horrific sound she had ever heard. It wasn’t a howl, clearly far powerful and dangerous than a wolf could ever be. It was a screeching sound, a banging and horrific yet dangerous sound that immediately sent a chill down her spine for it screamed of danger! She got to her feet as her whole body shook with fear and she broke into tears while she ran back home, for it felt as if whatever made this sound was around her vicinity and she was taking no chances.

She rushed to the living room, crying as her body still shaking, she could still hear the sound and it was getting closer. Papa looked up at her, “What is it?” They looked so calm for people that just heard the sound she did.

“Something, I heard a sound…” She screamed when it felt as though the sound was right beside her ear and ran into Papa’s arms. “Papa, it’s a dangerous sound! It’s going to kill me!” She cried and hid her face in his chest, and no matter how he wanted to push her off him, she was trembling with so much fear for him to be that merciless.

“Danika, no one hears any sound. There’s nothing, okay?” She had always been strange, but nothing to the extent of hearing a sound no one did.

•

“Do you mean that the vampire prince slept for 500 years and now he has resurrected or what?” Her eyes bulged out as she heard the story Faline was telling her, which felt like a myth. Because were there real vampires? She had never seen one even though Faline told her that Dewhurst was half-human, half-vampire.

“Yes, Danika. He’ll resurrect and take the revenge for the reason he had been killed 500 years ago, which was his throne.” Faline spoke as though she had seen the future and while she opened her mouth to laugh at the horrified expression Danika had on her face, Danika stumbled from her chair and she moved back, pointing at Faline’s pangs!

“Faline, you’ve never had pangs! What’s all this?” The customer that just smiled at her also had his pangs peeking from his mouth but when he walked into the store, he looked human, normal!

Faline caught her trembling hands in hers, “Yes, I’m a vampire, Danika.”

With her heart racing in her chest, Danika asked further, “But I’ve never seen your pangs or anything that showed you’re a vampire.”

“That’s because all the vampires in Dewhurst agreed with the humans to always appear as a human that they became unable to see a vampire in his or her form.” Someone passed in front of the shop and she saw his pangs too, and his light purple eyes that reflected light.

She broke into tears, “Why is it that I could see it now? I’m human.”

“You’re human, so I wonder how you’ve seen it. And Danika?” She softly called out while Danika nodded her head, “The sound you heard yesterday, was a sign to all vampires that prince Ezra has resurrected. And no human was meant to hear that sound.”

So, after 500 years, he had finally resurrected. But why did she have to get tangled in this mess? “But I’m human, Oh Faline!”