Path of the Vampire forum

Days are measured by the ticking of a clock. One I can't ignore. She's missing. Gone. I can't find her. I can't even hear her. G---- I can't even pray! I hate this. I need someone who'll understand.

Someone who'll know what I'm going through.

Someone that I can tell everything to.

I can't even find Adriel. I can't. He'd listen to me. He's a priest - or was. I know he'd listen.

Who can I talk to now, though?

Am I going crazy? I can't find any trace of her. Where is she? Where am I? Am I even alive anymore? The music...the colors...I can't. It's not normal. Not right.

Someone help.

Someone bring me back.

Mama, I miss you. I want you back. Come back, Mama. Please come back.

Sam, Dee, Shell, Nay, I need you. Papa, I love you.

Come take me home.

The music is louder now. The voices won't stop.

Help.

The message was an unusual one. Samandra clicked it curiously. It was untitled, something strange for her younger sister. Her husband was nearby, playing with their four-year-old daughter, Marielle, while she read it. As she finished each line, her color sapped.

"Theo!" she called, trying to remain calm.

"What's up, Sammi?" he asked, picking up Marielle and approaching Samandra from the side.

"Yvette's in some kind of trouble. Can't figure out what, but she seems...not herself."

"Maybe someone hacked her account and is trying to scare you?" Theo leaned in, reading the message.

"Not possible. Who else would know our nicknames? Those are the names we came up with for each other."

"Maybe it's Renée or Rochelle trying to mess with your mind?"

Samandra shook her head. "No, they wouldn't go to this level. They know better. They know that if I got something like this, someone would end up in a hospital. Or worse." It had happened before, but wasn't something the couple enjoyed discussing. "So do you."

Theo nodded softly. "All right. I'll dig up her last destination and we can go find her."

"I'll call my sisters."

"Leaving your dad out of it?"

"She was asking for Mama. That'll just hurt him."

Yvette's hurt over their mother was something Samandra knew all too well....

When they figured out where Yvette’s last flight had taken her – a small town in Canada – Samandra decided to take drastic action. She called the second sister, Nadia, who’d settled down in far northern Montana, and was closest to the Canadian border.

“What’s this all about, Sam?” Nadia asked the moment she picked up the phone.

“Dee…Yvette’s in trouble.”

“Explain.”

Nadia might have been just as much a free spirit as Yvette was, but she cared. Family was the most important thing to her. If family was threatened, especially one of her younger sisters, the instigator was unleashing a wild force. Once angered, Nadia could not be caged.

“I forwarded the email to you, Dee. Check it out. I gotta go.”

“Love you, Sam. Give Theo and Marielle my love.”

“Love you, too. And of course.”

The moment Nadia clicked the receiver down, she opened her email account and saw the untitled email, a forward from Samandra. Yvette never left her messages untitled. Something was definitely wrong, made worse by the email’s contents. Begging for their mother. The woman who’d died when Yvette was only two years old. Taking a deep breath, she grabbed the suitcase she kept full of clothes for emergency travel that connected to her family, got into her car, and drove.
Yvette truly had no idea where she was anymore. Sometimes she saw her apartment, but it was all wrong. The corners were round, the walls were curved, the floors hurt, and the room spun constantly. Other times, all she saw was inky, swirling blackness. But she wasn’t unconscious, or asleep. She heard things. Voices. Whispers. Radio. Snippets of emails read aloud by her mind.

Her fear of this other place resonated through her no matter where she looked. She had no idea that the distressed mutterings from the first day and a half she’d experienced this strangeness had been sent to her oldest sister. She didn’t want to scare anyone. She was the peacemaker, the middle sister. She wasn’t the troublemaker. That was Rochelle’s job!

”Help,” she muttered, just as an independent, online radio station filled her mind, in the middle of an announcement.

”I got on the Harper Rock website last night, and surfed the forums. People don’t believe,” the announcer said. They think they’re safe sleeping on the street and in the banks. But they aren’t. They need their own homes. They have to know the truth, and it’s your job, listeners! Tell them, the vampires are among them!”

So some people knew. They knew the truth, and Yvette couldn’t even blame them. With an entire district under military quarantine and people walking around without shadows or looking like corpses without reflections, some people had to have noticed. It was nearly impossible not to. The world was hell, and it had no other name.

Then it happened again. Yvette’s worst nightmare in this strange place. The Christian music stations started swirling around her, as if they were attacking her. Her entire psyche and body felt like it was being doused in a swimming pool full of acid. She wanted to get away from them. She wanted them to stay away. But she couldn’t, and they never would.

She screamed.