My First Memory; Live Preview

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EquinoxSol

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This is the first chapter of a series I hope to continue on my FictionPress account. If you like it, check it out there on Thursday night, when it goes live~!

My first memory is of my parents’ death.

I was two years old; at least, that’s what they tell me. It was a cold, wintry day in Wales, where I lived then. I remember my father, and my mother, but I do not remember if I had any siblings. My father was sitting at the head of the table, as usual, I think. He had his hands steepled, his head bowed as he prayed to God, thanking him for all manner of things. That he got home from work okay, that he was able to bring home enough money to pay the bills, that we were all safe from harm, that sort of thing. I wasn’t paying attention much, as any toddler would.

That’s when it came. After a banging at the door broke my father and mother from their reverent reverie, he told her something. I can hardly remember it anymore, but I can remember the last two words. “Get Winifred safe!” Those few words always make me wonder if he knew what lay behind the front door, if he knew what was going to happen.

The pounding stopped. The silence stretched on for a good ten seconds, and it was almost as if whatever entity that lay behind it had quit in frustration. I distinctly remember my mom holding her breath, clutching my small body close to hers, as if she wouldn’t let me go, never. Why didn’t she run? I always think now. If she knew what was happening, surely she would have. And from the look on her face, I believe that she did indeed know what was happening and quite possibly why.

Her heart pounded, almost in time with mine as the seconds dragged on. Her mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out. I know now that she was praying.

Finally, with a deafening bang, the door flew open, little flurries of snow rushing in. I remember my heart jumping, like it was trying to beat itself out of my chest. But no one was standing in the doorway.

My father sighed with relief and smiled, before saying, “Was only the wind,” he was about to say more, but a black figure came behind him, grabbing his throat, and lifting my father up twenty centimeters, easily.

It threw my father against the stairway, some of the banister cracking, but not breaking. The figure strode for my mother, who was sobbing. I definitely remember her tears falling onto my forehead, mixing with my own.

My father, dazed but not injured terribly, shouted to my mother, “Go! Before it’s too late!” but she was frozen in place, as if all her muscles had locked up. Disentangling himself from the banister, he stood up, telling the shadow, “You’re quarrel is with me. Go ahead, fight me, but leave my wife and daughter alone.”
The shadow, in an almost amused fashion, turned to my dad, and, in the space of a blink, was at my father’s neck, exposing five centimeter long fangs where teeth should be. The figure bit into him, blood spurting everywhere. Within seconds, he was dead, and once more the shade turned to my mother and me. I could tell that she was panicking now, weeping freely, and shouting things like, “Please, don’t kill my baby, not my baby.”
Cold wind blew in from the still-open doorway, and as the figure started walking to us, she put me down, somehow knowing that it was the only way she could save me. Leveling her voice, even though it was just barely above a whisper, she told me, “Run. Run and don’t look back. Mommy and Daddy love you, Winifred.”
And I did. Like a coward, I ran for the back door, pushing it open, and dashing into the snowy night. However, I did look back, just once, and only long enough to see the shade bite into my mother’s neck, just like it had done to my father, her blood spraying across the pure white marble counters in our kitchen.

I don’t know how long I ran, but it couldn’t have been wrong. Eventually, I remember stumbling upon a wooden trap door in the snow, tripping over it. Cold, tired, and scared that whatever had killed my parents would follow my quickly-disappearing footprints in the snow, I opened it.

Later, they tell me that it was an old Second Great War bunker on my family’s estate, and that I wouldn’t have survived there if it wasn’t stocked with non-perishables.

A week passed, and miraculously, I survived. I was found by a constable, who said that he was following a missing person’s report for my mother and father when he saw the bloodbath that happened.

I didn’t speak to him, and wouldn’t speak to anyone for nearly ten years. Everyone attributed it to shock, saying that the trauma must have stunned me into silence. When I finally did speak, I told them everything, yet they didn’t believe me. Said I had created a fantasy for myself to cope with their deaths.

[FONT=&amp]But that’s a lie. By my name, Winifred Hanna Rowntree, I know that I saw a vampire, a nightwalker, whatever they are called, kill my parents. And no one will ever tell me otherwise[/FONT]