Disclaimer: Don't own, don't own...

A/N: For CCIMH12's 20 Words contest! Please forgive me if this entry sucks :D. I've been reading the others and they're SO. GOOD.!!

All right, here we go...

First word: DAWN

I was sitting on the edge of my cot, kicking dismally at the cold stone wall next to me. My diary lay open next to me with a pencil resting in its seam. There was no candle in my room, and obviously no windows; there was no source of light by which to write. The vampires had all turned into their coffins for the day and I had returned to my cell, hoping to update my diary. With Harkat being grilled by the Princes, my journal was the only friend I had. But there was no way for me to write in it if I couldn't see what I was doing. I might have half-vampire eyes, but that didn't mean I could write in the dark.

Mr. Crepsley had warned me not to wander around Vampire Mountain without someone who was familiar with the halls, and so I was confined to my room with nothing to do. I kicked the wall again, wishing there was at least a match or something that would give me just a tad of light, but there wasn't. I lay down miserably, making a mental note to ask Seba for a candle when he awoke the next night.

I shut my eyes and tried to fall asleep, even though I knew it wouldn't work. I couldn't sleep when I was tired, how was I supposed to sleep when I was wide awake? After several minutes I gave up. I swung my legs off the side of my cot and sprung to my feet, pacing around the room. I was tired of being contained in Vampire Mountain; it was a cave of eternal darkness. I hadn't seen the sun in weeks, and it was killing me. When I was a human, I used to love to wake up early and watch the dawn break. It was as though the night had wiped away any problems faced during the day, and when the sun rose, it allowed you to look at things from a different perspective. I had told Mr. Crepsley this once, but he only sniffed with contempt. "One will have the same problems during the day as in the night. In fact, more, because if one happens to be a vampire, they will be burning to a crisp." That was the closest Mr. Crepsley got to humor. But I guess he was right; what good did vampires, who couldn't survive in sunlight and lived for centuries, have for the dawn?

Whether it was my faraway thoughts or the obsessive pacing I didn't know, but a new attitude suddenly washed over me. I wouldn't get lost in the halls, I didn't need a guide. I knew how to get to all the main halls from my cell, and from those I knew how to get to the entrance of the mountain. Maybe it would be guarded and I wound't be let out, but it was a chance I was willing to take to watch the sun rise.

I silently cracked my door open and slipped out into the tunnel, pushing the door shut behind me. I lightly jogged down the hall, careful not to kick any stones of knock into anything that would make a sound and wake any sleeping vampires. After several minutes, my confidence seemed to slip from when I had left my room. I started wondering if I was going in the right direction. Of course I was, I walked this tunnel with Mr. Crepsley every day, I knew where I was going. But did I? Did it always take this long to get to the Hall of Khledon Lurt? Wasn't there a turn behind me that I missed; maybe I should go back? Something kept me moving forwards, straight through the tunnel, taking no turns or stops. I realized that if I had been going in the right direction to reach the Hall of Khledon Lurt, I would have arrived in it several minutes ago. But still I moved on. Something was telling me that this was the way to go. I wasn't worried about getting lost - after all, I was just going straight.

Twenty minutes later, I heard something that both startled and puzzled me from around a bend in the tunnel. It was Mr. Crepsley's voice. At first, I started to jog to meet up with him, but after a few feet I stopped in my tracks - if he was talking, it was because he was talking to someone. I listened closely for a voice to reply, and sure enough, several seconds one did. It was Arra Sails.

"...glad you remembered," she was saying, and her voice was much more gentle than it had been when I first met her.

"I am as well," Mr. Crepsley said. "Though it would be hard to forget. There are not many vampires who come to the same spot every morning."

"I don't know why," Arra answered, and I became a little braver and got close enough that I could hear them crystal-clearly.

"I suppose it has something to do with the fear of burning," Mr. Crepsley said dryly, and Arra laughed. I could tell by the way their voices carried back to me that they were facing forwards and wouldn't see me if I peaked around the corner.

"As long as you don't hang around too long, it won't hurt you," said Arra. "Even if it does, it's worth it."

I stretched my neck out to peer at them, and had to blink in the sudden golden light. The tunnel came to a very sudden end - not into a wall, but right out the side of the mountain to the outdoors. Mr. Crepsley and Arra were sitting side-by-side, backs to me, with their feet dangling off the cliff the abrupt stop in the tunnel made. With very few mountainside trees, they had a perfect view of the orange, glowing sun as it rose up into the sky.

"Dawn is a beautiful thing," Arra said wistfully. "I wish everyone would take the time to appreciate it."

I smiled to myself and fell back into the tunnel and out of sight. Maybe I had missed the first glimpse of the sun as it peeked over the trees this morning, but I had seen something better - I wasn't the only vampire who still enjoyed the little things in life.

Thanks for reading...review and I'll love you forever! Word two, BRILLIANCE, hopefully coming soon!