Chapter 1

                      “Hey sleepy get up, we should get an early start. Never know what traffic is going to be like” I heard my gramps shout through my door.  

“I swear that is never going to stop being freaky!” I shouted from my bed.

For some weird reason gramps always knows stuff like that about me like if I'm awake or close by or if I'm in a mood. I call it our freaky bond and chalk it up to him raising me on his own, it’s hard to not have a bond like that when all my life he's been both my parents and more. My mom was seventeen when she got pregnant with me. Gramps, said that her body couldn't handle the strain and she died during child birth and my dad….. well according to gramps he was an ass that ran in the opposite direction when he found out mom was pregnant. I never really felt too bad about not knowing him after that.

“You do know that its 8 right? My flight isn't till 10 P.M.!” I screamed through my door as I hid my head beneath my pillows.

 “Traffic is unpredictable. Now get up and get ready”

“Fine, but there better be food”

I got up and went across the hall to the bathroom to do all the girly things I needed to do. I took a good hard look at myself in the mirror. I was pretty, but in an average way. Dusky brown skin, long dark loosely curled hair all over the place, sleepy hazel eyes that told of my East Indian roots and a pair of cute lips with the hint of a smile. Standing there, staring at my reflection I thought.

Happy 19^th birthday girly, in a few hours you'll be on a flight to Europe.

After finishing my morning routine I headed downstairs following the smell of coffee.“You know, if you had told me you were making omelets, I would have come down sooner.” I said to gramps as I sat at the counter with an empty plate waiting.

 Gramps makes the best omelets. 

He just smiled that little sad smile at me again. At first I thought it was because I was leaving for another continent for a few months, but for weeks he's been like this. Even before he gave me the plane ticket as a graduation gift, he's been all depressed like someone he knew just died. Whenever I'd try to bring it up or ask him about what's going on, he'd just shut down and immediately change the topic of conversation.

“Hey you know I could postpone this trip, I mean I'd much rather spend my limited freedom before higher education with you.” I told him.

“No, Toby. This is my gift to you. Go! Be young and stupid, far enough away from me that I'm not tempted to lock you in your room till your thirty.” he replied with a genuine smile that touched his eyes.

 “Gramps, I highly doubt my university experience, will be any different with or without the cultural experience of the Asian Pacific.” I quickly retorted.

He just sighed and went back to making his eggs.

At 9 pm with the car packed with all the things gramps thought I might need, which ended up being half the things in my room, we jumped into his old white Honda and set out for the Troian airport. With a half hour till my flight boarded, gramps helped me unload my stuff and walked with me into the terminal.

My grandpa is one of those old fashioned men that think that a real man doesn't cry. For an old guy in his early 60's gramps was huge. His arms and chest were big by any means, and at about 6"4 in height, he was pretty intimidating. So when he hugged me so tight, that I was starting to have trouble breathing and had to push him off, I was stunned silent to see him with unshed tears in his eyes. When he saw me looking at him, he pulled me into another bear hug and kissed my head.

“I'm going to miss you more than you'll know, Toby.” he whispered in my hair. 

“Gramps, you make it sound like were never going to see each other again, it's just for a couple of months…. I know your life is going to be boring without me but it'll be fine.” I shakily said into his chest. With a deep breath, I took in the smell of his shirt, inhaling that tobacco scent that was so intrinsically gramps, for the last time in months to come. Blinking back the tears welling up in my eyes, I pulled out his hold and gave him my 100 kilowatt smile. 

“I thought you said you said you stopped smoking those horrible cigars?” I asked him wiping away the tear that spilled over. Wincing he answered “Sorry….but my only granddaughter is leaving me and going off to a foreign country. Let's just let it go this time.” with a laugh in his voice. “Have fun. Be careful and watch out for those European boys, make sure they keep their hands to themselves.” Gramps pointedly warned smoothing his hand in my hair.

 “I'll be fine. Bye gramps, I love you.” 

 “I love you too.”   With goodbyes said and done I jogged off to my gate.

Looking back over my shoulder to where I was just standing I saw that gramps was already gone.

About an hour later still standing in line waiting to be boarded, thanks to a flight delay, an eerie feeling fell over me sending ripples of shivers through my body. Shaking it off, I took a small step forward as the line slowly moved, when another shiver comes over me causing my hands to tremble. 

It's just nerves. This is the first time I'm going to be away from home for so long, away from gramps. It'll pass.

I thought to myself, as I stuffed my hands into the pockets of the oversized wool hoodie I wore over my dark jeans and t-shirt. After a minute or so of steady trembling I started to feel them getting stronger and more painful, like the muscles in my hand were burning. Every move of my fingers felt like they were being held over an open flame.

Screaming with the sudden force of pain to my ribs, I fell to my knees gripping my chest. Trying to catch my breath as the pain continuously beat at my chest, threaten to rip me open from the inside out. I opened my eyes, looking up at the dozens of faces peering down at me with worry and curiosity. Pushing myself off the floor and trying to stand, I took off running or as close to running as I could get. Still holding unto the pain in my chest, as it started to slowly fade I headed out the terminals glass doors and started running down the streets heading down an all too familiar route.

After a couple miles of nonstop running, grateful I wore my comfortable converse shoes and that I ran a few miles every other morning. I finally reached my street and stopped, staring up in shock as the house in front of me is engulfed in fire. My house, realization snapping me out of my trance, I quickly looked to the open garage door to see that his car is parked there. “Gramps! Grandpa!!” I screamed out as loud as I could, waiting for a reply, a noise, anything. Nothing. Taking my cell phone out of my back pocket I called 911.  I couldn't take the chance of waiting for the fire trucks to come, what if he's still in there? Taking a deep breath and stifling the fear that knotted my insides, I ran through the already open door into my house screaming his name.

The ceiling was entirely engulfed in flames as I ran inside, my eyes watered from the heat building up in the air, making it a fight just to breathe. Racing through the house, glancing in and out of rooms calling for gramps, I almost cried in relief when I reached the entrance of our living room and found him lying there in the middle of the floor.

I almost ran to him, until I saw the man standing over his body. The man's back was facing me as he knelt down beside my gramps, so I couldn't see his face, but I could see his hands as they lifted over gramps chest and they were covered in something dark and wet, looking back down at my gramps on the floor I finally saw that he was covered in the same thing. Blood. The realization of what the dark liquid was, was  such an unnerving shock, that when the man brought his hand down on my gramps chest with such force, my scream stuck in my throat as I felt the entire house rattle.

That was when the man kneeling at my grandfather's body head turned and looked straight at me. His eyes were an impossible purple, even through the licks of fire there was no way to mistake the colour. Though it was his eyes that kept my gaze as he rose to face me, it was his face that had me frozen in the room's doorway. As the shadows around him began receding I could see that his face wasn't that of a man's or even close to human. 

At the moment the man took his first step toward me, I felt a brutal tug at my shoulders pulling me backwards and away from the purple eyed man and towards the front door.Strong male hands gripped mine as it kept pulling me away from my house, down my street and unto the side walk of the highway, running.