Page 7 of Fallen Star

I'd like to tell you my life flashes before my eyes.

That I see all the magical moments I've lived. A light at the end of the tunnel. God.

Nothing like that.

I do, however, see the one thing I want more than anything in the world.

I see my parents.

Looking just as they did the night they were murdered.

They were so happy that night. Celebrating a lead role my dad landed for a new movie. They dressed up, and I got to wear my fancy new gown, and we went out to our favorite restaurant. We laughed and talked and they listened to everything I had to say about my day, down to the fight my best friend and I had gotten into. (She was playing with another girl in class and I was sad and jealous.)

They gave me advice and helped me feel better.

I thought my life could never be happier.

And I was right. I've never been happier than I was that night.

When we got home, it wasn't immediately clear something was wrong. I could sense something bad was about to happen. I told them. Told them the door to our mansion had warned me. (I didn't have full control or understanding of my powers yet, so I sometimes sounded a bit mental.)

They thought I was tired. That my imagination was getting away from me. They tucked me in and kissed me goodnight. Smiling.

When I woke to the screaming, I knew that was it. They were dying, and I only saw a brief glimpse of the monster who killed them.

Their blood dripped from his lips, staining his teeth.

They lay in a heap next to each other, pale corpses that resembled the people I loved more than anything.

He'd drained them.

The cops were perplexed, but put no stock in a barely twelve-year-old's theories of vampires lurking in the streets of Malibu. It was ludicrous.

But now, as my life slips away, I see them again, as they were when they tucked me in. My mom's blue eyes, lit up with joy, her dark hair falling in waves around her pale face. My dad with his movie star looks, blond and tan, telling me a story, his green eyes crinkling when he laughs.

I'll be with them again. That's not a bad thing, I think. Dying isn't such a bad thing after all.

The pain in my body is fading. The heat from the day has dissipated, and I am bathed in the cool embrace of the moon as I fade away.

I feel my parent's hands grip each of mine.I'm ready,I tell them.

But they fade before my eyes, their faces sad, their arms reaching for me, but not reaching me.

And then they are gone.

A scream tears out of my throat, raw and visceral it claws through my body and into the wide void of life before me.

"Is this normal?" a woman's voice asks.

"There is no normal," a male British voice replies. "But it appears to have worked, so that's good news."

My eyes open, letting in light that feels painfully bright but is actually the dim flames of a fire. I try to sit up, but my body feels as if it's been run through by a herd of angry bulls.

"Easy there. You've been through an ordeal." That same sexy British voice is talking to me again, but I can't see the face attached to it. All I see are stars. Stars dotting a night sky in constellations that are unfamiliar to me.

I feel the man come closer and my body tenses as his arm slides behind my shoulders to help me sit up.

He holds a cup to my mouth, and I realize I am more thirsty than I've ever been in my entire life. Not just thirsty, but like a hungry-thirst. Like I will die if I don't drink whatever is in this cup, because it smells delicious and I'm nearly hallucinating with the promise of its pleasure.