I woke up in the forest. No surprise there...I had run away from my foster home. The only biological family member I knew was my mother, and she was dead. So I had to live in foster care. But after a while, you get tired of passed around like a classroom note. So here I am, next to a river, covered in sand, mud, grass and blood.

I remembered what it was like before I had been sent to foster care...

Flashback

"Hey Mellie." My mom said as I walked through the front door.

"Mommy, don't call me Mellie. Call me Mel, if you wanna nickname me." I smiled.

"Alright, alright. How was school, Mel?" she grinned.

"It was fine." I grinned back.

I looked nothing like my mother, I noticed. While she had silvery blonde hair with light brown eyes, and pale skin, I had black hair, deep green eyes, and olive skin. And our taste of clothes were different. She usually wore a black pencil skirt with a black blouse. I usually wore skinny blue jeans with a fitted t-shirt, or a tank top, never wearing anything close to a skirt, or dress.

"Hey, earth to Mel!" Mommy teased, startling me out of my thoughts.

"Um, huh?" I said stupidly.

My mom laughed, "I asked what you wanted for dinner?"

"Pizza!" I said as if this were obvious.

"Ok." she agreed.

All of a sudden, the door was flung open. A weird girl with chalky white skin, one hairy leg, one bronze leg, red eyes, and fangs stood there.

Mommy gasped. Her face was deathly pale as she stared at this.

"It can't be..an empousai.." she moaned. She turned to me and reached into her pocket, bringing out some papers. She handed them to me.

"Melanie, go. Go to the Foster Care place I always show you. Give them the papers." she instructed.

The empousai hissed, and began to walk forward.

"Melanie, run!" Mommy yelled.

"B-but mommy, will you be ok?" I asked, my eyes filled with tears.

Mommy turned to me, and I saw she was crying also. "Baby, just remember that I'll always love you, no matter what. Now, run!"

I gave her one last look, and ran. I felt like my whole world was coming to an end. I was a scared 7-year old girl, who could assume she now had no family.

I made it to the foster care. I wasn't sure what to expect; all the books and movies I'd seen showed foster cares as lonely places, without good food, and bullies.

I saw a lady at the desk. She had really light brown hair, coffee brown skin, and blue eyes. Surprisingly, she was nice to me. When she saw me come in, alone and crying, she immediately ran over to me.

"Honey, are you alright?" she asked with a British accent. I shook my head no.

"Why don't you tell me what happened." she said kindly.

"I went to my Mommy's house, from school. She was gonna make me pizza. But a weird lady came in." I paused. What was I supposed to say? A vampire monster ate my mom? "I only know that she had red eyes, and two knives. (A/N: knives being the fangs) Mommy told me to run here. She gave me papers, and told me to come here. I didn't want to but she made me. So here I am."

The lady looked at me sadly. "I'm going to ask you some questions, ok sweetie? And could you give me those papers?" she asked.

I nodded, and handed her the papers. She looked them over and smiled.

"Ok, so your name is Melanie." she began.

"Yes, but don't call me Mellie. Call me Mel, if you wanna nickname me." I said.

"Ok. And you are 7?" she asked. I nodded.

"Do you have any other family? Grandmothers, Aunts or Uncles?"

"No. My Daddy went bye-bye, Mommy says. He's far far away, and we can't talk to him. And she never talks about Grandmothers, Aunts, or Uncles." I answered.

"Do you know your Daddy's name?" she asked. I shook my head no.

"Alright, follow me, I'll find you a room, until someone can claim you. Oh and my name is Miss Greene." she led me through a series of hallways. We came to a stop at room 177.

"This is your room...You're lucky, you won't have to share it, for now." she turned to me and smiled sympathetically.

She followed me into the room. It was very plain. The walls were gray, and the floor was white tile. There was one thin bed, with a thin white quilt, next to a small window without any curtains. There was a desk, with about 3 blank papers, and a pen. I saw 2 books on the ground, and a mirror on the wall. It looked very lonely and depressing to me.

"I can, ah, get more blankets, and pillows, and some of your personal things from your home." Miss Greene said. I nodded sadly, and went to sit on the bed. It creaked, and I could feel the metal springs in it. Miss Greene once again smiled sadly, and left the room.

End of flashback.

I shook myself out of my memories. It wouldn't help me to focus on the past.

Monsters started coming after me when I was ten. That was one of the reasons I left all of my foster homes. I didn't want any monsters to hurt them. One time, when I was in the park, having just run away, I came across an entire sleeping group of monsters. I was scared out of my mind, but i was smart enough to steal two knives from them. One was silver, the other was a bronze color. The bronze one seemed to work best on the monsters, but I kept the silver one around, as a back up weapon.

I took a deep breath, and stood up, my most recent cut hurting like crazy. It was located on my left leg, caused by a stupid snake lady carrying a large sword. It wasn't too deep, thankfully, but it did look like it was going to get infected, if i didn't treat it. But when you live in a forest, you don't exactly get to go to Walgreen's.

I pulled out my silver knife, and began to look for fish in the river I was next to. I had my sights on a large silver fish, when a figure stepped out of the trees, startling both the fish, and me.