Chapter 1

What is a Night Creature? An intelligent creature that used to come out at night to kill other beings and steal their vitality. What is the strongest Night Creature? The Vampire is the only creature capable of siphoning vitality from a living being. What creature has the most vitality? Sadly, we plain old humans possess vitality in abundance.

Several hundred years ago, Vampires rallied the other Night Creatures on a crusade to rally and capture humans worldwide. The humans were trapped in many Feeding Pits, large cities with lush farmland, surrounded by huge walls. By day, the captured humans lived their lives under watch from the lesser Night Creatures. At night, many creatures roamed the city and piggybacked off the work of the humans. All the while, the humans were taken from their homes, killed like cattle, and their vitality was harvested to feed the Night Creatures. Old Tarkovi was home to one of those Feeding Pits and was one of the most gruesome. Under the rule of Lord Alaric Ruthven, Night Creatures would attack humans in broad daylight and pillage their homes by night.

Until one day, a human servant of Alaric, Leon Kane, rallied the humans and lesser Night Creatures to revolt against their oppressors. Over the months, Leon had gathered information on the Night Creature’s weaknesses and distributed it as the “Memo”. Secretly spread around Old Tarkovi through stores like “The Mercado”, humans and lesser creatures were armed with the knowledge and time of the revolt to come. After a quiet night, and the sun rose, the revolt began. The guards were overwhelmed by the strategy and numbers of Leon’s army. Though it was not enough to stop the stronger night creatures in their tracks. Leon’s army stormed the estate of Lord Alaric and held him hostage. By the end of the day, both sides had sustained heavy casualties. Lord Alaric agreed to a surrender, and peace talks quickly began. In exchange for peace, Alaric tore down the walls and helped fund the reconstruction of what became New Tarkovi.

At this point, Leon and Alaric had grown close. “Domenic.”

The two spoke of how the town’s people could move on despite tensions being high. “” Mr. Mercado?”

So, the two began to plan a festival to celebrate a new chapter for the town. Just then, Mr. Florette took his hand out of his socket and threw it at my head. The open palm hand flew straight towards my face. By the time I noticed, the cold blue hand covered my face.

The class broke into laughter.

I took the hand, stood up, and placed it in Mr. Florette’s other hand. “Sorry, Mr. Florette.”

“It's fine, just pay attention next time.” He said while he took the hand, sprayed it with disinfectant, and placed it back into the socket. Mr. Florette is a zombie, a lesser undead night creature. Apart from his blue skin and flesh rotting to the bone, he was like any other history teacher, except he’s a total germaphobe.

While I walked to my desk, Mr. Florette tried to get the lesson back on track.

“Where was I? Ah, the Blood Moon Festival. The festival was created to celebrate the harvest in New Takovi and unite humans and night creatures. The festival will come tomorrow, and we even have one of the “offerings” in our classroom.”

Mr. Florette looked in my direction, and after a while, everyone looked in my direction.

“So Domenic, how does it feel to be in such a historic role?”

A historic role of humans who offered themselves to vampires to be ravaged, to keep them in line. That is the role I'm asked about. Humans are mistreated by vampires for the crime of being weak and delicious. As one of the few humans in the whole school, I respond appropriately. 

“I’d rather be dead.”

The classroom erupted in shock, as everyone’s faces were filled with horror. Except for Tauna, a werewolf whose maw bore a wide grin.

"Aww, don't be upset, Dom. You wouldn't be the chosen offering if you were the last human on earth."

"That means a lot coming from you. How many times were you an offering and never picked?"

Just then, the lunch bell rings. The tension dissipates as Mr. Florette struggles to control the students pouring out of the classroom.