Before she could talk and ask everything that swirled in her head. The woman grabbed her and pushed her towards a nearby building that had no door.

“Come in, quickly.”

“Okay, okay.”

They entered a three-story building with a chipped and neglected facade. The inside appearance did not improve at all. Half of the stairs were rotten and the creaking doors barely hung onto the frame. Meryl did not like that place and her instincts warned her it was not safe to be there.

“Ned! Ned!” The woman shouted while hitting one of the doors that was barely hanging on. “It’s Tannia, open up!”

“Are you crazy?” A man who was rough looking and in his sixties came from inside the building. “They’ve put a price on your head,” he muttered, forcing them to enter. “You should have left town.”

“For that, I need food, asshole.”

“What do you have to trade?”

“This,” The woman smiled while raising Meryl’s arm.

“A frail girl?”

“A free girl.”

“And I’m a flying cat. It’s been over forty years that the resistance disappeared, and with them all the free people.”

“Look, look ...” she insisted, showing Meryl’s wrist, which was pale by now.

“Hey, I don’t know what you’re talking about, but...”

“Shut up! What do you want for her?” he asked with eyes full of greed. “I’ll give you whatever you ask.”

“I’ll take all the food that I can carry. Don’t look at me like that Ned,” The woman added with a grin. “I know you can get a lot for this idiot. Can you believe that she keeps asking what happened?”

They both looked incredulous and began to laugh their hearts out. Meryl was paralyzed from head to foot. As far as she could understand they were trading her as if she was an object at that moment and she could not do anything about it. Her breathing started to accelerate. She stopped listening, feeling and seeing. Meryl ended up fainting due to fear and her still weakened body.

When she opened her eyes Meryl felt a pressure on her bare feet. Meryl tried to get up with no memory of what happened as if it had been a horrible dream, but what she saw showed her reality. She was shackled and the shackle rattled at the slightest movement.

She looked around frowning nervously because she couldn’t understand what was going on. Meryl was not alone in the room. There were at least seven other people, mostly women. She shook her head in disbelief at the sight and suddenly felt the warmth of a hand on her right arm.

“Are you okay?” A young woman asked as she smiled softly.

“No, please tell me what does this mean ...”

“Sorry, but I don’t understand what you mean. My name is Johana Penn.”

“I’m Meryl Smith,” she whispered with a broken voice, “Why are we here?”

“They have sold you. Just like the rest of us.” Johana sighed with a reassuring smile that disappeared. “When you arrived you were unconscious.”

“Sold? How is it possible? That’s horrible!” Meryl shouted nervously while she wrung her shaking hands and looked at the blackened ground.

“You can’t tell me that it’s the first time that they sell you. That’s impossible!”

“Of course, it’s the first time. Oh my God, where did I end up?” Meryl cried running out of breath and unable to prevent the shaking of her body.

“No offense, but you act as if all this was new to you.”

When Johana’s eyes collided with Meryl’s something clicked. Johana thought something was wrong with that girl who seemed to come from another planet because in her life she had never known anything except this. Suddenly she wanted to know everything about this strange girl.

“Will you tell me your story?”

Meryl sighed trying to control her anxiety.

“Leave her alone Joanna she probably hit her head,” Another girl shouted causing everyone to laugh.

“I shouldn’t be here.”

“None of us should.” The other girl mocked her.

“Shut up stupid,” Joanna said furiously at the interruption. “Go on Meryl.”

Meryl waited a few minutes trying to relax and then closed her eyes trying to remember clearly. Then she started to speak in a whisper, little by little she recounted her story, and everyone listened raptly disbelieving the story she told.

It had been more than 150 years since the vampires revolted. According to history, humans had been the tyrants that had killed the vampire’s en-masse because they envied them and because they were different.

That was simply what history said and what the people now told Meryl.

However, Meryl was confident about the truth and angrily shouted that it was a lie. She insistedthat theyhadn’t even known vampires existed. In fact, she thought they were trying to make fun of her. It was surely a lie they had invented to excuse their cruel acts.

“You know,” Joanna said, “Just by looking at you I can tell that you are not lying.”

“Well then, old lady.”The young woman from before jokingly alluded to Meryl’s age. “Why did they sell you?”

“I don’t know.” Meryl tried to think clearly for a second. “But do you really believe that we had enslaved them? From what you have told me. They are a million times stronger than we are, almost invincible, and we are weak. We die without much effort.”

Her words were like a slap in the face. They had never really thought about it. The truth was simple. They had believed the vampires words, believed their parents. The story that Meryl had told them was surreal, the sun, the blue sky, daily human life, and fields of wildflowers.

“If that were true…” A fifteen-year-old boy said, “It would be wonderful, right?”

“I want to go home.”Meryl cried and lowered her head.

“I’m sorry to tell you, but you will never go back home. Fate decided that you should end up in that experiment that you told us about. Now you have to learn to live here.”

“How do you expect me to do that?” Merrill asked desperately. “I’m scared. None of this seems real.”

“The only thing I can do is wish that you end up in good hands.”

Meryl covered her head with both hands and started to cry. She was scared thinking about what could happen.

There were so many new things. Vampires! She had read a lot about them but never imagined that they really existed. That she could have been walking next to one when the planet had been normal.

It all seemed like a horrible nightmare. Truthfully, she tried to think of it like that.