5 Familiar stranger- Part 2 (2/2)

”You are rather early today, sister. What took you so long? Had to wait for vegetables to grow?” Nora asked her sarcastically after letting Heidi in.

”If I was, it would have taken me weeks to get back home. It takes time to grow...just like your brain,” Heidi murmured the last part to herself.

”What did you say?” her sibling asked following her to the kitchen knowing she had said something.

”I said vegetables take time to grow. You are the educated one, you should know it,” she stated with an obvious tone.

”Don't think that I have no idea of what you speak and do. An illiterate like yourself should shut your mouth before someone cuts that long tongue of yours,” Nora said crossing her arms over her chest, ”Play nice, sister,” she smiled and turned on her heel to get back to what she had been doing.

She had heard of how siblings quarreled with each other and she took it as what had happened just now. It was the usual after all to 'play nice'. Some more time, she thought to herself, she just had to bear a little while longer.

Truth was that Heidi had far more knowledge than Nora had as their mother Helen had spent her time on the little girl when no one was home, teaching her how to read and write, explaining her about the Empire and its history.

The Empire was made of four lands- Mythweald, Valeria, Woville, and Bonelake. Mythweald was the South Empire which was ruled by a human Lord, the North Empire which was Woville was ruled by a human Lord again. Similarly, Valeria the West Empire and Bonelake the East Empire was ruled by Vampire lords. To maintain an equal balance between all the lands there was the council who took just actions in consideration for both the humans as well as vampires. Unfortunately, even though it had been centuries since knowing the existence of the vampires, the humans and vampires were in an internal conflict. The vampires and humans lived together physically but not mentally. They had their own ideas and view each other. While come had been accepting when it came to the coexistence of both the creatures, there were some who wanted to dominate the other.

All these years Heidi had maintained good distance with the vampires in their town. It would be a lie if she said the vampires didn't scare her. A few years ago when she had only been taken into the Curtis household she had witnessed a vampire sucking a woman's blood until she fell down dead. She still remembered it vividly, her mother then had to coo her to sleep telling her that it was a deranged half vampire who had sucked the woman's blood. As she grew up her mother had then explained to that vampires had different kinds. There were three types of vampires in the- the normal vampires, half-vampires, and lastly the pure-blooded vampires. The normal vampires and the half-vampires were the ones that fed blood from animals and humans while the pure blooded ones could feed on their own kind that is the vampires as well, making them the highest creatures in the entire hierarchy that ruled the lands.

The turned humans were the half-vampires, and when their transformations went wrong which the human body couldn't cope would usually turn them into rogue vampires.