Three weeks later – Sky's POV

Sitting on the cold stone windowsill, I looked down onto the Green Lands stretched before me. A never ending forest with endless possibilities. Everything looked so small from up here, so far away. Curiosity made my fingers tingle. What would it be like down there? My fingers touched the cool glass window, the light cascaded around me in a multitude of colors. In the reflection of the glass, two brown eyes with the softest red rim stared back at me. They were strange and unnatural, yet somehow my attention was solely on them. With my hand still outstretched, I reached for it.

A ball of rope hit the side of my face, waking me up from my daydream. The startle caused my body to search a tad longer for its balance on the soft gray stone I was lounging on. My eyes blinked away the last remaining images of my dream.

"Hey!" I groaned, while my hand rubbed my left temple.

With a frown, I turned my attention to my best friend, Ura, who was sitting on a pile of leaves on the ground, surrounded by broken bows, arrows and armor. Her calloused fingers were fiddling with the string of a wooden bow that she was trying to repair.

"Are you going to help or what?" The dark-skinned girl with wild frizzly hair grunted annoyed. There was no remorse.

Her back was leaning against one of the many broad-leaved trees. Behind her, the houses of our village, Helfarch, were visible and little Hunter kids were training with their bow staff on one of the training fields.

"All of this," she pointed with the tip of the bow to all the damaged material that lay in a circle around her, "needs to be fixed by morning. The council gave us the job, so it would be nice if you gave me a helping hand."

With a sigh, I rolled my eyes at her typical responsibleness and sat up.

"The council of Helfarch," my hands waved dramatically in the air, like a prayer, before dropping them again and tuning my tone down, making it sound even more sarcastic. "They are indeed not to be disappointed, we must do anything they ask of us as their respect is everything."

With my body leaning forward, I started to laugh at my own ridicule. Ura frowned.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," I waved my hands in the air to apologize. "I just find it funny that you show them so much respect, when all they do is give us garbage jobs every. Single. Time. They see us as tools. They don't respect us. So why do you keep trying so hard? Why is their respect more important than your own?"

Ura dropped the bow to the ground, a bit harder than she probably would've usually done with a weapon. She was after all still a Hunter and weapons were quite sacred to us.

"We are not tools!" She said while walking up to me.

Ura wasn't necessarily angry, she never was, but her tone had gotten louder and more serious. To be the perfect Hunter, you couldn't have emotions. They were for the weak-willed and considered a dangerous distraction that would get you killed sooner rather than later. Our community even went as far as forbidding most of them – emotions that contributed to survival were still allowed, but even they were taught in a very restricted and controlled manner.

"Fine, I'll bite. Again," the last word only to myself, "what are we then?"

"We are Hunters," Ura said with perfect pride, "we are the humans born with magic in their veins."

"Right, right," I jumped in, "the story that every Hunter knows by heart. The story of our creation."

Ura grunted in annoyance at me. She hated that I didn't take our way of living as seriously as I probably should. She was a true believer, whereas I was more of an independent thinker.

"Why do you always have to go against them, Sky?" She sighed.

"Because I just don't believe that what we do is right in every single circumstance," I answered honestly.

Before Ura responded, she picked up the rope she had thrown at me. Her fingers played with the unraveled ends of the single braided rope.

"The Ancient Witches saved the human race all those years ago. Without the Hunter race, the humans wouldn't stand a chance against those filthy vampires."

"I'm not denying that protecting people isn't important or right. That is pretty much the only thing I agree with, but why don't we get a say in the matter? We lose our freedom and our lives the moment they realize we have magic in our veins. Why is it our life's mission to kill every vampire in existence? Why don't we deserve a life outside of it? Humans have a job and a personal life, but because of our -," I raised my hands to dramatically air quote, "'Higher Calling', we can't have that."

"Because the Ancient Witches, those with power beyond imagination, gathered together and decided to make men equally strong to vampires. They created us so humans would have a chance at living, but magic always has a cost. Because of the power they needed, only four humans were chosen, two men and two women," Ura recited our history teacher with a tiny bit more emotion than was accepted in the Hunter community.

She loved history and learning, it wasn't very Hunter-like, but I wasn't going to rat her out for it. If there was one person in Helfarch that displayed emotions and thoughts on a daily basis, it was me. So, I just sat there on my stone listening to that story for probably already the hundredth time.

At least, Ura would feel better after showing how good of a model student she was. Which she definitely was: she was smart and driven to learn. The problem was that she believed everything she heard, which was in clear contradiction to my inquisitive nature.

"They had to reproduce to make sure the blood and the power within would be passed along. We, Hunters, were created to protect humanity against vampires. Our sole purpose is to kill every single one of them. Why would we need a personal life, when we have this privilege?"

"I would list you multiple reasons why, but you know what, I'm just going to let it go. You already know all of them anyway. And yes, we were created to protect humanity. I won't deny that we had a bit of a vampire problem back in the day, it's just that I don't see the need to kill them all just because they're physiologically incapable of becoming vegans. Foxes kill our chickens, yet we never try to kill all of them. Why does it have to be any different for them?"

The gentle fall breeze carried my voice through the trees.

My dirty blonde hair, partly held together in two braids, were tickling my bare neck. In moments like these, I wished I wore something else than my typical green t-shirt. I loved this shirt during a fight, it's as if I'm not wearing anything, but its insulation properties leave something to be desired. I could feel the cold temperature of the stone seeping into my bones.

"Seriously Sky, I have told you this multiple times before: you are too good for this world. I mean, you were born a Vampire Hunter, you were trained as one and above all, you got some freaky spell on you that binds you to them. And still you think it's not right to kill them all because they might be innocent. I'm getting seriously worried about your definition of innocent to be honest."

Ura's ringing voice echoed through the woods. Snickering, she shook her head in disbelief. Her frizzly hair danced around her chocolate skin and her molten brown eyes were emphasized by her growing frown.

"You seriously need to explain to me how the hell you do it because I sure can't."

Her rising emotions were starting to show in her pacing and fiddling.

"They killed hundreds of our kind AND innocent humans who can't even protect themselves. They have their monthly quota of criminals, there is an agreement. Yet, here we are, still having to protect the humans from those bloodthirsty monsters. They don't follow rules, they are coldblooded murderers." Her voice became more aggressive with each word whilst she roughly disentangled a twig from her messy frizzed hair, almost pulling her own hair out.

My lips pressed into a thin line, trying not to smile. How can she not see that she is just as much an outsider as me? She might believe in the higher calling of the Hunters, but she was so far from the perfect emotionless little soldier they expected us to be. She fought so hard to belong, but she never seemed to understand that for that to happen, she can never truly be herself.

"So how can you be so sympathetic towards vampires?"

After the ritual, I felt a lot of changes. One of them was my growing irritability towards the Hunter's. Mostly because they made me feel like a tool, a means to an end. I had no say in anything.

"I don't sympathize with all of them. I know that breaking the accords is wrong. It's just that every one of them that comes on my radar is dead. I don't get to decide if they are indeed bad and need to be killed. I don't have control, Ura! And I don't like that, at all," I grunted sorely.

With my hands folded behind my head and a tired grunt, I laid back on the stone and went back to staring up at the blue sky. It was a nice day for the time of the year. Usually, autumn days consist of rain and lots of clouds. I prefered this peaceful blue.

Exhaustion settled over my body, I closed my eyes and slowly breathed out. Nobody seemed to understand. How could they, none of them saw vampires as people. They were the monsters from the children's horror stories. It wasn't hard to kill the big bad. They never questioned their beliefs though, they never wondered if vampires were indeed the big bad.

Except for me. The person that had been struggling the past few weeks with a need to kill so alike the Thirst of the vampires that it was a whole new level of disturbing. The person that was experimented on because she had the purest blood. The Hunter who was literally made to turn the tides in this endless war.

Life always had an interesting taste of irony.

Ura grunted. "I can't believe you. You have everything and still you find ways to complain," Ura said in a frustrated tone.

"Your mother is one of the most respected Hunters in our village, she is nice and understanding. Yes, your father died, but before that, he didn't hit you or thought you were worthless because the council didn't choose you for a mission. Instead, he gave you extra fighting lessons. Since the ritual, you're the most powerful Hunter alive. You've killed more vampires in two weeks than any other Hunter in a lifetime. You could become the most respected Hunter in our community. But instead, you lie here on a stone moping about how terribly difficult your life is, because you haven't gotten the chance to get to know the monsters that you have to kill. Any hunter would love to be you."

Her frustrations kept growing, the more she spoke. It made me sigh even deeper. My eyes opened and I leaned on my left arm so I could look my best friend in the eyes when she spoke.

"All of that is luxury that I," she hesitated before she corrected herself, "that most of us don't have. We have to earn that respect, and we have to train to become powerful. We're not all born with blood like yours, not all of us are as lucky as you."

"Lucky?" I raised my voice. "You think that because I have all of those things, that I'm lucky?"

With energy that equaled boiling water, I pushed myself up to sit and looked my friend straight in the eyes.

"I agree, my parents are amazing and I'm sorry yours treat you like you are worthless, but my parents always looked after you like you were their own. I know that's not the same, but still."

My hand brushed a loose strand out of my face, a gesture that helped me keep control over my emotions. Emotions that were reaching dangerous highs.

"I'm a weapon for the council. I have no say in what I do. You think they treat me with respect? Well, think again. They send me out and don't care about the endless nightmares, the holes in my memory about that night or the physical pain every time a vampire is near. All they care about is the number of vampires that I kill. I don't even get a tattoo for each of my kills, I don't rise the ranks like all of you and I don't have a voice whatsoever."

My head shook in disbelief, I slammed my hand down on my knees and tried to breathe.

"And then I'm not even talking about the fact that I'm just as bloodthirsty as the vampires that I kill. You think that is luck, well, be my guest. "

I sighed, why was I even angry at her? It's not like it would make her understand my side of the story, she was too much in awe of the Hunters. She would wave it off as a typical overdramatic Sky-moment. Not that I saw myself as dramatic, they were just stoic.

"All of that is not what I want. That doesn't make me happy, it just makes me irritated and annoyed," my voice sounded tired, but sincere.

"It doesn't make you happy? What does that even mean? Emotions are for humans, not for people like us. We live for respect and power," Ura said, like every good Hunter would.

"I don't want to fight, Ura," I sighed in defeat and laid back on my stone.

"Whatever," she grunted, but let it go. "These weapons still need repairing and I won't get into trouble because you're having one of your Sky-moments."

Twigs and leaves crushed under her boots on her way back to her tree surrounded by weapons in need of repair.

With my eyes that were the same color as the clear sky, I searched for figures in the few clouds. The white fluffy shapes changed while passing, slowly it started to take form. It could be a mace or an ax, but then it kept changing at the top. It became more pointy, and slowly it started to look like a flaming torch.

Torches. There were so many at the night of the ritual. The whole place was surrounded and in the middle of the campsite was a big bonfire. A song in an ancient language was sung in the background. A knife was cut through the skin of my neck.

My hand reached unconsciously to the place, but nothing was there.

The typical pressing feeling in my head emerged. It wasn't as much of a headache as it was like walking into a wall. I pressed my eyes closed and sat up from the stone. My hands rubbed in circles over my temples, but the irritating pressure stayed.

Hoping that distracting myself would help, I walked -more like wobbled- to the damaged material.

Ura was sitting on the ground, fiddling again with the string of the bow.

"You want me to keep the bow bend? That way you have both your hands free to attach that string," I asked with a small smile, while my eyes were still squinted from the headache.

Her eyes met mine for a second but I averted mine. Gods, I hated seeing her so torn up about our discussion. Why did I always make things more difficult than they had to be? I could've just kept my mouth shut and pretended like everything was fine.

Without saying anything, her hand gave me the bow. Like Ura, I focused on the work beforehand. Ura leaned forward with her face right next to the tip of the bow, so she could attach the string on the small notch.

Before I realized what happened my hands went numb and the bow whipped back right in Ura's face. Her painful scream mirrored the excruciating pain strike that shot through my body.

Right before I lost complete control over my body, I realized what was happening: a vampire came too close and had just signed their death certificate.

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AN: The picture on top was the previous cover. What do you guys think is the better one? Also, thanks to my bestie for drawing the current cover for me. It was a blast trying to figure out how photoshop works with you!