The dark.

My thighs were burning, my throat was dry and screaming for water, my vision was blurry with tears but I kept going. I was running for my life, I was running to keep the only thing I had: my freedom. I couldn't get caught, no matter what happened I could not by any coast get caught. Jay wasn't beside me, of course, he wasn't. I couldn't let him get caught in this situation he'd get into too much trouble.

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I detached myself from him and watched as he argued with a deer and a flock of doves. Jay has the power of talking with animals: he can have actual conversations with them. The first time I saw it I thought he was crazy, that's actually how we met actually.

"Hurry up will you," I said because for someone who lived by a schedule Jay had zero sense of time, "you dragged me out of bed for this it better be worth it."

He whispered something to the animals I guess they said something back that made him smile and made them go back to the forest. "What did you say?" I asked folding my arms and narrowing my eyes.

"My dear El," he began draping his arm across my shoulders and leading me away from the clearing," The wild has many secrets."

When a vampire reaches the age of twelve they come into their powers, I mean when you are younger you get shocks which gives you glimpses of what they may be but eventually during your twelfth year you come into your powers: I didn't.

Funny story about me, I don't know my powers and I don't have my memories before the age of six. My earliest memory from then is of me being found by a guard by the palace gates. The doctor said the block on my memories is also blocking my access to the powers in me but I don't have enough money to pay a powerful witch to break them. Every once in a while though, when I'm feeling desperate enough, I try hard to go back to before the palace gates, I try to reach beyond them and all I end up with is a major headache and then I have to stop trying to remember until the next time.

"So where are we going?" I asked as he started leading me away from the forest.

"Back to the palace, we haven't explored the passages in a while and I need to hide away from my secretary."

Legends, stories and myths talked about passages under the castle. They talk about how armies used these passages to get to places in the kingdom without being noticed or how past royals used them to run from attacks and others say that every royal secret to ever exist is hidden down there somewhere. At the end of these speculations, they add that the entrances are secret and their locations hidden and forgotten by time, to everyone else at least. Jay and I have been using and playing in the passages for as long as we've known each other.

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I remember meeting Jay for the first time, I'd just finished my chores in the garden when I heard a voice behind the tall trees. When I walked I found a small boy of ten years talking to a rabbit in his hands, I thought he was crazy but he was sad so my 8-year-old self walked forward and decided to be friends with him, we played in the flowers until I showed him one of the entrances (the castle has many) we played in them and that begun our beautiful friendship. When Jay was Thirteen and I was eleven we thought that I'd be a tracker. Trackers are vampires who have a natural affinity for travel. They can lead you anywhere you want to go, they can find any road and path, so when I found the entrances, we hoped that be my power but turns out if I'm not in the passages I have zero sense of direction.

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"Fine come on." I pulled him in the direction of the nearest entrance, it was still in the forest inside the trunk of an old tree.

"I think these tunnels just appear for you because I've walked past this tree and never noticed the entrance," Jay said following behind me. The second he was through the entrance sealed up and Jay got a torch from his pocket. Where do you think we'll come out?" he asked. You can't come out the same place you came in.

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Walking around today we found a secret garden that opens to a cave near the beach... that's at the far end of the kingdom. "Let's get back I don't want anyone to call a search party for you." I joked bumping my hip with his. He laughed at that. Jay has a beautiful laugh, as I mentioned: I used to joke that he can copy animals so his laugh has a melody like some birds but we just laughed and left it that. "Sure you worry wort plus if I'm not wrong you're clumsy in the morning and you have the morning shift right?" I nodded as we kept chasing each other, everything was cool until we got out in the most wrong place we could: the treasury.

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The treasury: it's a big room in the castle where all the crown jewels and every other valuable thing is kept and only the king and queen know how to get in and it's supposed to stay like that and Jay and I just broke in. "Shit," I heard Jay curse under his breath with a little bit of fear. I understood him because if we're found in here then it'll be treated like an act of treason, the punishment? death at least for me it is. If Jay is found in here yeah he'll be killed but so will the rest of his family but not before torcher. I think I mentioned the laws are really old. Turns out old people were just that extra.