1 Unwelcomed news

Ayano shivers beneath her silky covers, brows furrowed deeply in her sleep as she fights her nightmares. A dark silhouette lingers in the shadows of her mind, eyes red as blood. A creature of the night. Ayano herself had never had the fate to encounter them, but news spread like miasma about their sinful acts. Men and women were found completely drained of life force. No one knew the exact truth that these people had, in actuality caused their fellow men's demise, but it only took a look to know they were different.

Another twist and she wraps her body tightly within the covers as her body spasms involuntarily, from her subconscious thoughts. Hands as black as night reach out, binding her to him before something sharp invaded her skin, the warm liquid quickly pouring down her cleavage, an intense burning speeding from the area of trauma soaring throughout her limbs.

A glance at her attacker revealed eyes dyed with crimson, the color of lust, the figure garbed in darkness itself. Death incarnate.

Further away, the knob to her room twists open, before light footsteps sound against the hardwood floor, heading over towards her drawn curtains. Nimble fingers grip the soft material before tearing it apart, golden streams of sunlight suddenly invading the previously darkened space.

Ayano's thoughts began to crumble then, light invading the dark depths of her subconscious mind, and everything faded like fire burning at the edges of a paper. Death walks a step back as if avoiding the light, the last thing to become extinguished followed by his burning eyes.

"Mine" a voice echoes from the void before Ayano falls like a feather.

"Aaahh!!" Ayano screams sitting up immediately, panting heavily as she grips her neck, her eyes darting over the small interior only registering the lady of the house opposite her bed.

She breathed deeply, as her frightened heart hammered away in her chest. Ayano then proceeded to flipping back into the bed, covering her eyes with her pillow.

"Mother you do this every day!"

"And every day you never learn," Her mother responds tapping her feet at the end of the bed. "Your speech just now is uncouth for your caliber. Now wash up, there's something your father needs to discuss with you."

"Mother?" Ayano calls shifting the pillow from her eyes. "Is everything alright? "

Her mother smiled thinly, not quite reaching her eyes as she disappeared through the door. Five minutes later, Ayano descends the staircase of the large manor, heading towards the dining area, bowing her head at the door, meeting the gaze of her father.

"Mother, father," she greets, taking her seat at the table as the servants start serving their food.

Her eyes moved back and forth discreetly between her parents as they ate in a crypt of silence, gloom lingering above them. One minute turned into two, then five, until cutlery sounded against the plates and her father met her pleading eyes.

"Ayano, dear."

She held her breath, her fingers fumbling in her lap before she glanced at her mother who was sitting at the other end of the table, her chocolate eyes, misted over.

Was she crying? Why was mother in tears? She thought.

"Ayano dear, there's been a situation."

Her eyes moved back from her mother's to her father's, her fingers tangling with the hem of the tablecloth as jitters climbed up her arms.

"Situation? Is something wrong with the company?"

Mr. Tesler grimaced, removing his thick round glasses from his face, moving to clean it with the handkerchief from his pocket.

"Yes, sadly. We're..." He cleared his throat. "We're going bankrupt."

"Bankrupt! Bankrupt, father!" Ayano exclaimed astonished. "How could we be bankrupt? You said we'd get the loan!"

"Yes, well they declined my request."

"But we have equity, surely they'll reconsider" Ayano stays tersely gazing at her aging father. They couldn't afford to lose the business. How would they pay the servants, taxes? How would they pay the physician who looked after her father whenever his condition worsened?

"Ayano dear, calm down."

"Mother!"

"Listen to your father. He has something very important to tell you."

"I couldn't put up the house as security, if anything happens we'd have nowhere to live."

"So, what are we going to do? We need the money."

"A young man offered to help us, given the circumstances. He's offered to lend us the money over three months after which we'll start repayment once profits have picked up."

"Well, father that's a splendid idea!" Ayano squealed rushing to her father's side with untamed enthusiasm. "So why then do dark clouds linger amongst us, if that's all?"

Mr. Tesler painstakingly had attempted his utter best to keep the news from his daughter, hoping to avoid their estrangement for much longer. Thinking back on the stranger's request, he thought it quite odd to ask for a consort as a fail-safe for their agreement but with the dire situation that they were in, he found himself without options. But Ayano was all they had, all he had.

"Father?" His daughter's voice called him from his reverie. If only he could spare her. Meeting her brown eyes, and seeing her fear, his heart bled.

"They've asked for your hand my dear, that's the condition."

Without even thinking, Ayano's feet carried her away from her father as she stared at him completely dumbstruck, fear gripping her heart momentarily.

Marriage? She thought.

Surely this was to be expected since she came of age and many had sought her hand. All of which she managed to decline politely since she had no intention of leaving her mother to deal with the difficulties of running the house and albeit her father's occasional sickness. But a complete stranger? That surely wouldn't do.

"Isn't there any other way? Another condition that he might be interested in? Surely he doesn't want to marry a stranger."

"Sadly that were the only terms he laid down, Ayano. The goodman left shortly after to attend to business. Your father couldn't negotiate with him further." Mrs. Tesler explains somberly.

Ayano stared at her parents feeling completely betrayed before berating herself for thinking ill of the two persons who had loved and provided for her all her life. She had taken refuge in their arms so many times, how could she deny them asylum now?

Still, she couldn't shake the coincidence of her dream with this news. Some bad omen this was. Absolutely horrible. What man would take a family's only daughter? How did he know her father had a child, a daughter in fact, and not a son?

"When will I meet him?" Ayano asks returning to her seat at the table, much less enthusiastic than when she had first heard the news. She moved to sip her glass of water only to feel thoroughly revolted at the tasteless fluid.

"One week from now. You'll meet in town when he returns home." Her father replies. "Ayano I'm very sorry."

"It's not your fault we've fallen on hard times father. Depression is everywhere. It's only fair I help where I can."

Though living with a complete stranger was never a thought that crossed her mind as a means to do so. Still, the thought of what her suitor looked like still crossed her mind, though all that kept replaying was the same red eyes that lingered in the shadows, casting a chill down her spine.