The vampire she shouldn’t love

Lily’s POV: My name is Lily Salvatore, and this is my story. It all started for me, one morning as I got up from bed and began to dress up for my regular early morning run. I always ran in the mornings - it was good exercise for me and kept my body always in shape. Being the daughter of vampire hunters, I had always been taught that a sound mind and sound body would always come out on top. So even when my parents weren’t around me, and I was alone in this college in this small town of Gainesville, I always took those words to heart.

Dressed up in a grey hoodie and sweatpants set, I laced up my trainers and then entered the bathroom that I shared with Alyssa, my dorm roommate. Luckily she was usually not awake in the early mornings, as she was a relentless attendee of college parties, and wouldn’t be back in the dorm room until about 8am, when I would be out the door for classes. I quickly washed my face at the bathr sink. Reaching my hand to grab at the towel that was always by the side, I gently dried my face with it, before meeting the gaze of my reflection. My eyes traced over the grey eyes of my reflection, and the blonde hair which was tied back in a ponytail. Some unruly strands of my curly hair were coming out of the ponytail, and I used my finger to tuck them behind my ears. I sighed, deeply, shutting my eyes so that I could chant the morning vow in my head. “Night falls and Day breaks, but the heart of the Hunter remains. I vow to keep the blade, and fight until another day,” my voice came out in a whisper. I still kept saying the vows of the Hunter, despite not having actively hunted in the past few years. I had separated from my parents a long time ago, and from the rest of the vampire hunter community. I was no longer meant to love a life in the shadows, hunting vampires until the day that I drew my last breath. No, I was meant to go to college - the very reason I had left home in the first place - and I had to live a normal life. Still, it was a hard thing to let go of. I had only known the Code of Hunters all my life, and instead of playing with toys when I was a child, I trained with knives and crossbows until my body was tired and I would rest, only to continue the fight another day. I shook my head, watching my reflection do the same thing, before I turned and left the small bathroom, shutting the door behind me. I walked over to my bed and picked up my dagger from under my pillow, tucking it into my sock expertly, and lowering the hem of my sweatpants to disguise it. One would never know when they needed a dagger to protect themselves, after all. And I trusted my own instincts instead of running to the police. I walked out of the room which was on the second floor of the building. Making my way down the hallway and to the stairs, I didn’t bump into anyone or see anyone loitering the hallways as I ran down the stairs, until I reached the entrance of the dormitory building. Once I was out the door, I began my run. The cold air of autumn stung my nose and dried my lips as I began to pick up the pace. Gainesville was a small town - not easily found on any map, and it had a population of about 5,000 people, apart from the students from the college who made up another 3,000 or so people. It was a town that had a forest around it. I usually took a path down to that small forest during my morning runs, where I would end up practicing my skills, so as not to lose my reflexes from when I was actively hunting vampires. Due to the slowly cooling weather, I could see my breaths in front of me as I continued to jog. Despite it being 5.30am, it still looked like nighttime. The sun wouldn’t rise for another thirty minutes at least, and I savored it. As a small community of vampire hunters, we were not through the up to be afraid of the dark. Instead, we thrived in it. All over the world, we were the same. Unlike normal humans, generations of vampire hunters had evolved. Our eyes were much sharper than normal human eyes, and we could see in the dark pretty easily, because vampires knew how to blend into the shadows. We had also evolved to become a lot faster, stronger, and more agile naturally, than everyone else. However, we were still weaker than vampires, still mortal and still human - just a different kind of human. My run finally slowed as I entered the forest. I gradually began to come to a halt as I reached a clearing I was all too familiar with. It was my favorite training spot, and from there I could easily see the peaks of the hills at the other end of the forest, right in the outskirts of Gainesville. It was there that I began to practice my martial arts. Over the past months that I had been in this simple, small town, I had carved out a space for myself - being the invisible 21 year old that had no social life and only attended classes, wrote exams and did nothing much else. However, it was in the clearing of the forest that I could easily let loose. I could finally be myself - the vampire hunter I was trained to be. It took almost an hour more before I finally made it back to my dorm building. But as I reached the front door, I paused, my brows furrowed. Before me, were a crowd of people. I could see many panicked faces, and my confusion increased. “What’s going on?” I asked myself in a soft murmur that wasn’t heard in the crowd. But my question was soon answered, as I noticed a gurney being rolled out through the hallway of the dorm building. Someone had been injured.