Blog Takeover: Amanda - No such thing

Amanda lives about one hundred years in the future. The world is ruled by those the humans call vampires. She's eighteen and a human, so you might be able to guess life isn't exactly great for her. Amanda is a character in my "The Mortal Cure" trilogy.

Journal Entry - 18th October

There is no such thing as freedom.

There is no such thing as a world without vampires.

I used to think there was. Young and impressionable, my mind full of Matty's stories, I was convinced that somewhere in the past a place had existed without those who now rule us. But it was all childish dreams. The reality of the present is far too clear. We follow the rules and edicts laid down by the vampires. We work their farms and their factories. They give us homes, clothes, food, and warmth... And, once a month, they select a group of us for the Market. There is no choice, no plea, no comeback. No one returns from the Market.

Such is the way of our society. The Dark War of almost a century ago eventually gave rise to the May Treaty, where the humans signed whatever rights we possessed then over to the vampires in exchange for survival.

Once the Dominion was established, the laws had already been in place for two decades, and our new lives were set. Whatever resistance appeared was abruptly quashed, any humans trying to escape their allotted industry executed by the Guardians or the Vigilari.

We don't keep to the laws – we are killed.

We do keep to the laws, and we suffer a different kind of death. A slower, perhaps less painful one, more expected, but death all the same.

There is no such thing as freedom.