It was a warm spring November evening in current day Australia where climate change was definitely making the days hotter.

I was walking back through the brightly lit park, on my way home from my best friend Leah's place. We'd been celebrating the end of our high school exams and hoping that we would get accepted into the same university.

"Hi Violet." Mrs Jenkins, the nice old lady that lived two blocks from me greeted me as strolled along walking her two gorgeous Labrador's. She was moving pretty fast for an older lady as she was pulled along by her dogs.

I gave her a wave back before continuing on my journey back home, it had been a busy few months with exams and I had to work in the morning. I groaned to myself at the thought, I just wanted to rest like any 18 year old.

I stopped further down the path when I heard what I thought was a muffled scream from off in the bushes. Now I'm not normally a brave person, but I would never leave someone in trouble.

When entered the scrub where the noise seemed to have come from it didn't take me long to find a man unconscious on the ground, blood still leaking out of the dual puncture marks on his neck.

I screamed for help to anyone that could hear me and then whipped out my phone to try and call an ambulance for the unconscious guy.

I heard the operator answer hello before I felt a sharp pain in my neck causing everything to go dark.

...

I was warm and comfy. I tried to resist the gentle touch on my arm and the calls back to the waking world. Why couldn't anyone leave me to sleep?

After mentally sighing I finally gave in to the incessant calls. I slowly parted my eyelids, still not ready to fully leave the comforting world of sleep.

I turned to focus on the source of the annoying tapping and calling.

Blinking the blurriness of sleep away, I looked into soft brown eyes.

All traces of sleep left me in an instant. Who is this person and why is she in my room?

I looked around at the white walls and lino floors before realising that this was not my room. I was in a hospital bed and there were a couple of doctors in the room as well.

My attention was drawn back to the brown eyed nurse that had woken me up.

"Violet" she said gently, "Can you tell me what year it is?"

"It's 2019." I answered, baffled.

"Good" the nurse continued, obviously pleased. "Now can you tell me who the current Australian Prime Minister is?" The nurse paused for a second before continuing "Actually don't answer that, we've had three Prime Minister's in the past 12 months alone. Instead, how many fingers am I holding up?"

"Three" I replied, growing concerned.

My eyes searched for and found her name tag. Xanthe. I squinted. How on earth do you pronounce that?

"Why am I in a hospital?" I asked the nurse while trying not to laugh at her stupid joke.

Nurse Xanthe looked at me for a full five seconds, obviously debating what to say before she finally answered.

"You were attacked." she said, pausing before continuing, "By a vampire."

My complete disbelief must have been clearly plastered on my face.

"If I had been attacked by a vampire, I would be a picture of health. Not waking up in a hospital bed." I stated.

I quickly looked in the mirror and saw my face and lips that looked like they had more colour in them then they'd had in a long time. My flame red hair falling over my shoulders in a mess of bed hair and my brilliant greens eyes that I hated when coupled with my red hair.

The doctor, having seemingly finished his conversation with his associate, came over and continued the conversation for Nurse Xanthe.

"It appears you've had a bad reaction to a vampire bite." he said in a droning voice that was trying to mimic sympathy. Not very successfully, I might add.

"This is the first time my colleagues and I have ever heard of a reaction like this." He paused as I started to wonder if this guy liked creating dramatic atmospheres when they're not needed.

'You've been unconscious for 36 hours." he finished.

I felt my mouth drop open in disbelief. I had slept for a full day and a half. I was never going to live this down.

'We've done every test we can think of that pertains to vampires and their bites. But we haven't been able to find anything wrong or even slightly out of the norm..." he continued in his pretending to care voice.

"You are a picture of perfect health and are free to leave after another hour or two of observation."

After finishing his monologue the doctor wished me a good day before leaving the room with his colleague.

Nurse Xanthe watched them go with a browbeaten expression on her face and sighed audibly.

"Don't worry about 'Doctor Spock'" she said with air quotes, "Even though he comes off as an emotionless robot, he does care. I promise you." She obviously had to regularly defend the doctor to a lot of pissed off patients.

She got up and proceeded to do my medical observations before preparing to exit the room herself.

Just before leaving she turned to me like she'd almost forgotten something and said "Your brother-in-law should be back soon to pick you up. We forced him and your sister to go home, shower and eat seeing as they haven't left your side since you were admitted. They've been really worried."

She turned to leave having delivered all the information I needed. At the same time I heard someone in the hallway yell "No running in the hallway." I knew who it was before their short, almost spiky dark brown hair came into view.

He looked at me, relief washing over his sharp yet gentle features. The corners of his mouth turning upwards into a smile that went all the way to his dark blue steely eyes.

"I heard someone was trying to imitate Sleeping Beauty and I just had to see for myself." he laughed. Although I wasn't sure if it was out of relief or at his own joke.

I looked down at myself with my hospital gown and 36 hours of bed hair before replying "Well, do I look like a beauty that woke up from a long nap Mr Sparkles?"

My brother-in-law Rhys groaned at the use of his oldest and most hated nickname. I called him that whenever he wanted to tease me.

"I've told you before. Just because I'm a vampire does not mean I sparkle in the sun." he grumbled in his good natured way. "You really should stop reading those silly books with their outrageous ideas or next you'll believe I can turn into a bat and fly."

"And to answer your question, you look like you desperately need a shower, a fresh set of clothes and a comb for you hair." He said before handing me a bag full of my comfiest clothes and toiletries.

After being handed my goodies, I was so eager to get clean and dressed in proper clothes that I jumped out of bed to go to the bathroom and change.

The mistake I made was that in my rush get out of bed, I miscalculated, tripped myself and nearly crashed to the floor before I managed to grab the end of the bed. This stopped myself from being a sprawling mess on the floor, but still ending up as a human pretzel clinging onto the bed. Classy.

After making sure I was ok, Rhys threw his head back and laughed like he had seen a clown performing while I felt my face go red from embarrassment.

After he finally managed to calm himself down he came over and helped me up from my half standing and half fallen over state.

"See?" he said. "This is what happens when you don't wear your glasses Miss blind as a bat."

I groaned as he made a bad vampire joke and hung my head, trying to figure out how this day could possibly get any worse.

I picked up my glasses that I'd been wearing since I was ten years old and slid them onto my face.

I felt their familiar, comforting weight on my face. Glasses and contacts are the perfect way to hide my vibrant green eyes and avoid people thinking that I'm a freak.

However, two seconds after putting them on, I felt my knees buckle underneath me. I couldn't help letting out a scream. Agonising pain ripped through my eyeballs all the way to the back of my skull. Excruciating. Like my entire head was on fire.