Disclaimer: This story is the first I’ve written in over ten years (!!!!), but thanks to C.J. (Psycho Chloe), I’ve drummed up the faith to start again! The reason I mention this is because, well, since it’s so long since I last did this, I have to make it up as I go along. Therefore, the rating is a theoretical one. Hopefully, the story won’t become too violent, but, as I’m allowing the story to evolve naturally, so to speak, it’s rather hard to tell! By the way, the story, for now, is being told by Lena herself, reflecting upon her past.

As always, please remember that this is a work of fiction, and is not intended in any way to be an overtly accurate representation of Yulia or Lena! (Yulia will feature in a future chapter, promise!)

Chapter 1:

I was young, too young, when my father first told me, or at least attempted to…

“Lena…” he said, his eyes seeming to quiver, as if he didn’t know where to look. “There’s, there’s something… something you must…” And then, it happened, the impossible, my father cried. I’d never seen such a thing. I had, of course, seen him fall, rise, fail, succeed, suffer illness and so on. But never, never before had I seen him cry. I felt so, so weak, vulnerable, awkward, as if my heart were nothing more than a fragile petal, floating amidst a sea of emotions.

“Father?” I said quietly, wanting the awkward moment to end. His damp eyes turned towards mine, and I realized he felt even more awkward than I. “Lena, have you felt… anything strange, lately?” His words seemed odd, as if he already knew the answer. “Well, erm, umm, yeah…” I stammered, the worry inside me growing by the second. “It’s… the light, the sunlight, it hurts my eyes so bad, like chilly peppers! It burns!” As I got myself worked up, I expected him to calm me down. I expected my father to tell me, like a million times before; that everything would be all right, that there was a perfectly rational explanation. I expected, no, wanted him to tell me I was being silly, and that I was suffering a minor problem that would soon pass. Alas, this was not to be.

Instead of calming me, my father appeared to have calmed himself. He sat, listening, silently. No response, no reply, not even a concerned glance. He just sat before me, looking less like a worried father now and more like a tainted priest in deep thought, moments before his own confession. Even his painful tears appeared to have halted, at least for the time being. A calm descended over the room, but it was not one that I welcomed.

As the seconds passed, the tension grew within me until I felt as though it might tear me asunder. The silence was so loud it was deafening, I could not bear it any longer. “What is it!? Tell me, please!” I shouted, impulsively grabbing his arm. “Lena, I’m sorry but, I have no choice, it’s begun sooner than I had anticipated,” he said, turning fully towards me once more. He stared deep into my eyes, as if by looking into them, he could see something else, someone else… “From this point forward, the sun is your enemy. If you find its gaze, it will engulf you!” As he said this, I searched his face for some evidence, any evidence, that he was joking. To my dismay, my search was in vain. “You must avoid it from now on!” he continued, oblivious to my bewilderment at his exclamations. “Please! You must promise me, you are not to go out during the hours of sunlight! Promise me!”

I had reached boiling point by now. Terrified by the bizarre but increasingly real thought of being consumed by the sun, and horrified by the idea of never seeing my friends again, my mind was about to implode. And still, even now, he had not told me… “Why!?!” I shouted, even though deep down I feared the answer. “My friends, school, why must I hide away? What’s wrong with me!?!” He shook his head slowly. “No Lena” came the unnervingly subdued response. “There’s nothing wrong with you, but you are different, you are special.” His voice was so quiet now, but very sincere. “There will be those, in the future, who will judge you, Lena, but pay them no attention, for they are ignorant, and fearful…” “Like racists?” I said, interrupting him. “Yes, exactly. Still so young, yet so intelligent” he responded, looking deep into my eyes again, as if there was someone else inside them looking back out…

“You see, Lena, you are… a succubus, like your mother, and it is for this reason that people will judge you, like they judged her… forgive me, but from now on your life will change. It must, otherwise, you’ll… die…” As he said that last, painful word, he started crying again. He grabbed me by the shoulders and hugged me tautly, as if he was trying to stop some unseen force from taking me away. As if Death itself, the manifestation of finality, stood behind me, it’s scythe burning brightly with an ethereal glow.

I still, of course, didn’t really understand. I’d never heard of a succubus, and father rarely mentioned my mother, it seemed to hurt him too much. All I knew, for sure, was that the person inside my eyes that he had been staring at was indeed my mother. When he looked long enough, he saw her… that much I had figured out for myself. I knew that, and the fact that this was no dream, or nightmare. It was real, the danger my father spoke of was real, and the sad fact that my life would never be the same again was real also.

In time, my father would tell me all about my mother, and what it meant to be a succubus. But it would be years before he fully explained everything, and in retrospect, I am glad it was so. After all, a ten-year-old girl, even a “special” ten-year-old girl, can only handle so much.