The Beginning

Chapter One

            I awoke yet another morning having dreamt of a country I have never even visited before. Normally dreams would not bother me but for years now I have been dreaming of a country and a man I have never seen before. This too would not bother me except for the fact that the dreams were of a man hunting and killing vampires. The dreams started the same time I began to hunt and kill vampires. My name is Jordan Kyle and I am a Peace Keeper. I track down and kill vampires that kill humans. Most humans make the assumption that all vampires are killers. This is far from the truth. In fact several of my very close friends happen to be vampires and they help me kill rouge vamps. A rouge vamp is a vampire that has made the choice to drink and kill humans. Most vampires prefer to fly under the radar by either drinking from animals, willing donors, or blood banks. There are even blood bars for vamps to go to for blood. They can drink it from a cup or straight out of the vein. These clubs hire women that let vamps feed on them. I would shut down the clubs but they are harmless. The humans need the money and they are safe no one has ever lost their life in one of these bars. The club owners have very strict policies and very big guards. If someone gets out of line they get shot in the heart with a wooden or silver bullet. You can kill rogues several ways, silver and wood through the heart works great. There is also decapitation, sunlight, and fire. Holy water works great but it only burns their flesh, if you want to kill them with it you have to get it into their bodies which isn’t easy to do. A cross will hold a rogue at bay but only long enough for him to figure out how to get around it to rip out your throat. I don't really know what age I realized that I had abilities that other humans do not have. I guess I just always knew that I was different from everyone else. I have always been faster and stronger than humans. I’ve always known how to kill rogues even when I was only ten years old. I'm not as fast or strong as vampires but pretty close. Since I was adopted I know nothing of my parents or why I am the way that I am.

            My adopted parents died when I was just eight years old. I was then sent to several different foster homes until the age of sixteen when I decided I would rather be on my own. I'm sure if my adopted parents had lived, they would have helped me fill in all the blanks about why I am so different than other people. I can't remember much about them except that they knew I was different from the start. They always told me how special I was and that I was put on this earth to make a difference in the lives of everyone around me. They also encouraged me to use my special abilities so that I could learn to handle them. This was of course a family secret; I was only allowed to use my abilities when no one else was around. This was to keep me from being treated differently than the other kids in our small town. My parents were not ashamed of me or my gift. They just knew that people would be scared of something they didn’t understand. We lived in a small town in Alabama called Selma. Normally I do not dwell on the past this much but for some reason when I dream of this man I feel a need to revisit the past. I can not explain it; it is just a feeling I have. Even if I try not to think of the past it is next to impossible to stop the past from sneaking into my mind after one of these dreams.

            It's like my mind is trying to tell me something but unfortunately it is something that I do not remember no matter how hard I try. The dreams started about ten years ago shortly after I realized that my abilities were best used to track and kill vampires that were killing innocent people. Back then I would have three or four dreams a year. Over the years I have started having these dreams three to four times a week. You would think that my mind has enough to worry about with the vampires that want me dead but apparently there is a place that thinks I still need more to worry about. Sometimes I think that is all I do is worry. Crissy my roommate agrees completely. She jokes that I am a warrior and worrier so she always calls me the worrying warrior.

            So just to prove her wrong I am not going to worry today. I had made up my mind that today was going to be a worry free day. So I finally decided to drag myself out of bed and have a cup of coffee. When I finally made it to the kitchen Crissy was already up and had made the coffee for me. I loved when she did that and I didn't have to wait for my coffee. So I grabbed my favorite coffee mug and sat down at the kitchen bar next to Crissy. She was just finishing off her O negative when I sat down with my coffee. We have lived together since we were sixteen and I still had a hard time watching her drink blood. You would think I would get use to it but it always makes me want to hurl.

            "You dreamed about him again" she said as she got up to wash her glass. "Is that a statement or a question?”  "Both I guess." She said as she washed and dried her glass then put it back in the cabinet. "Yes, I had another dream about him" I sighed. "And this one was just as different as all the rest?" She asked. "Yep" She seemed to think on that for a moment. I grabbed the newspaper and started flipping through it. "So in all these years you have never had the same dream?" "That's right" I replied getting a little aggravated. I had decided not to think about this today. It seemed like that wasn't going to happen so I folded the paper up and sat it beside my coffee cup. "You already know all of this, so what's with the twenty questions."

            She started to chew on her bottom lip, something she did when she was thinking. I don't even think she knew that she did it. I sat patiently and waited for her to tell me what was on her mind. Finally I had enough of waiting and asked “So, what are you thinking?" "I can't be certain of anything so I wasn't going to say anything just yet" she said. "Say anything about what?" I asked. "I've been doing a little research about the dreams you’re having and with your abilities I think it's safe to assume that this could very well be another ability." I was still confused so I just sat there and waited for her to continue. "What if what you are experiencing are not dreams at all but memories from another life, or even from another person’s life all together?" "That doesn't even make sense how would I dream of memories I've never even had?" "That's just it, Jordan, You are not like any other human so why would it be so insane for us to assume that you can get memories from other people or in this case a specific person?" I didn't even know how to respond to something like that so I didn't. I just sat there staring at her like she had completely lost her mind. "Ok, I get that this is hard to grasp but these dreams are not just dreams." She said, pleading with her eyes for me to just give her a chance to prove her theory right.

            "Maybe I don't want to grasp the idea that this may be yet another ability that I will have to learn to control." I said. I guess she wasn't expecting that remark because she looked like I had just told her that the Easter bunny wasn't real. "Look, I know you want to help me, but if this means that I have to learn to use and control yet another ability that makes me so different from everyone around me then no thank you." "Jordan, you are different, completely different than everyone and that makes you unique and amazing so why wouldn't you want to explore this more?" "This could even eventually become another asset when fighting or hunting a rogue." "How could this help me in a fight, I only have the memories of one man, if that is indeed what they are?" "But what if you could figure out how this works and make it work on other people or vampires."  I sat there shaking my head, this was just too much. "Jordan I know that you don't want to think about this right now, but we have to figure out if these are in deed memories of things that are actually happening." I rolled my eyes and asked "So how would you suggest we do that?"

            She sat there thinking for a moment. "Ok so do you know where these dreams take place? She asked. When I dream it’s like I’m there in a small remote village in Cambodia. I don’t even know how I know that, but I just do. It’s like I know every inch of the place, as if I’ve lived there for years. But why does it matter where my dreams take place? I asked. Because just maybe if we can figure out where this village is we can look into the things you have dreamt and see if any of them have actually happened there, or we could even try to track down this man you dream about" "If he's even a real person” I said, trying to convince myself more than her I think. She just cut her eyes at me and waited for me to think it through. "Fine, I'll do a sketch of the man and we can see what we can find out about him" She smiled and walked out of the kitchen, I guess that was mission accomplished for her. Crissy and I have been best years for most of our lives, she knows me better than I know myself at times. She knew that I could never tell her no even if I really wanted to, like right now.