The sun was shining warmly on her face and for a brief happy moment her memory was completely blank. Would her mother come to wake her up for school any second, her husband bring hot coffee or the alarm clock shrilly force her to get ready for work? For a peaceful moment, it didn't matter at all.

The first sensation, besides the warm and the orange glow of the sun through her closed eyelids, was a raw, stabbing pain when she swallowed. Her throat was parched and seemed badly affected. Was she ill? She wanted to feel for her throat, but she had lifted her arm only inches when a painful tug on her wrist stopped it. As if something had cut into her flesh. She wrenched her eyes open and managed to raise her upper body halfway up before pausing powerlessly and sinking back into the soft pillow.

What is happening here?

Cautiously, she raised her head and her gaze settled on her arm. The darkly encrusted wrist was cuffed to the hospital bed.

Hospital? She looked around, trying to remember what had brought her here and to keep the rising panic at bay. The bare room was empty except for a sink, a plastic bedside table on castors, a simple wooden chair and a toilet attached to the wall without a screen. It was pathetic even for a hospital. And didn't explain the handcuffs.

What was the last thing she could remember?

The cruise ship, Isy and ...

All at once it was all back. She sat up carefully and grabbed her thickly bandaged throat with her free hand.

Those eyes, the murderous expression with which he tore my throat open. With his ... She paused at the thought, feeling her stomach contract convulsively and tears well up in her eyes. She finished it: with his teeth. Good God, what were those creatures?

Caroline did not believe in the supernatural. She did, however, believe that there were things in the universe that had not yet been explored or even known. She took a deep trembling breath. Scientific knowledge was not absolute.

Science was constantly questioning and evolving, that was its nature. Caroline considered herself a person who had a stable view of the world, but was quite willing to adjust it given proper evidence. She had long ago studied biology with a focus on human genetics and dropped out. A few years later, however, she had passed her Master's degree in psychology with flying colours. She had gone into private enterprise, so she couldn't treat anyone, but she could damn well ask the right questions!

So here goes. What observations have I made, what facts can be deduced from them and what does this mean for my future?

Caroline consciously took ten deep breaths in and out with her eyes closed. Her thoughts calmed, she could feel her heartbeat slowing and the urge to curl up in a fetal position subsiding.

She and Isy had been kidnapped, her friend having been the target. The kidnappers were human at first glance. They had shown on several occasions that they had far more strength than should be possible with a human muscular apparatus.

Piece by piece, Caroline rationally pieced together all the data that seemed important to her. She ignored the hastily judgmental voice inside her that relentlessly shouted at her throughout what it thought was obvious.

Before she could finish her analysis, it could only be minutes after waking up, the door opened. She forced herself again to breathe evenly and calmly.

She already knew two of the three people who entered the room: the woman, Rebekka, who had kidnapped her, and the tall man she had christened Mr America. The third man was a little shorter than Mr Amerika, though similarly muscularly built, and his black wiry hair was also cut military short.

Not only was the woman wearing her uniform, but the two men were also wearing some version of it. She lacked comparisons, but it didn't seem to be a classic military uniform, but more like a SWAT outfit. Rugged and ready to be used in combat.

The expression on their faces was serious, neither of them sitting down. She swallowed, noticing again how dry her throat was.

"Hello, Caroline." The woman went to her bedside table and pulled out a cup, filled it with water at the sink and handed it to her.

Caroline automatically wanted to thank her, but only a croak escaped her. She took a sip of water and choked it down painfully. The second was easier.

"Try it again," the woman ordered.

"Try what?" she uttered croakily but intelligibly.

"Drink up and take one of these!" She held out a packet of medicated lozenges to her. "You're going to need your voice. We have questions."

"Who are you and where are you from?"

After the cup was refilled again, Mr America had unlocked the handcuffs and Caroline had sucked on a green bonbon for a few seconds, Rebekka began to bombard her.

"Where did you get on the ship?"

"What do you do for a living?"

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"Why did you follow us over the rail on the ship?"

"How do you know Isabelle?"

"Where and with whom did you grow up?"

The questions pelted down on her and seemed to follow no concrete pattern. Every time she tried to ask a counter question, they ignored her. She answered truthfully and as succinctly as she could. The two men did not say a word, but did not take their eyes off her.

"Why did you throw the stone?"

This was the question Caroline had been waiting for and she had no retort ready. If she answered truthfully, it would reveal how much Isy meant to her and perhaps put the girl in danger.

"I managed to free my hands and was going to attempt an escape," she said blankly.

Mr America snorted softly and the woman raised an eyebrow.

"Now let's try the truth again."

"That's the truth, Rebekka!"

Attack is sometimes the best defence. Isn't it?

The men looked at each other and Rebekka put her notepad aside. Suddenly she smiled. It was the first time Caroline had seen her smile, and it scared the shit out of her.

"Caroline." She spoke the name lovingly, her voice soft. "I don't think you have any idea of the situation you're in. Let me explain." She pulled the chair towards her now and sat upside down on it, her arms casually folded on the backrest. "You seem to be a clever young woman, you must have noticed," she pointed to the thickly bandaged neck, "that you're not dealing with humans."

"Straight to the point," Caroline muttered uneasily, but maintained eye contact. She couldn't deny that a part of her was eager to hear what would follow. In biology, the discovery of a new species was not exactly commonplace, and was already something special in insects and other non-vertebrates. On the scale of mammals, it almost didn't happen at all.

The only thing that dampened the excitement was being enslaved and probably killed by said species, she thought with a touch of pitch black sarcasm.

Rebekka looked displeased for a moment, but decided to ignore her interjection. Determinedly, she continued, "The closest thing to describing our kind in your culture is the word vampire."

If Caroline's inner voice had been a person, it would have jumped up now, pointed a finger at her and yelled, "I TOLD YOU SO!" Her instinct for self-preservation won out and she remained calm. There is nothing supernatural. There is only natural, and some of it is just yet to be discovered, she told herself.

This species, no matter how romanticised and mystified, was subject to the same natural laws and the same environment. Now it was time to find out as much as possible about what they were like.

The two male vampires, Caroline decided to use the term for simplicity's sake even if it felt wrong on all levels, cast glances at each other. Rebekka looked her in the eye searchingly. She was probably waiting for a reaction. When none came, she continued.

"Some descriptions and stories are very close to what we are, others are extremely absurd."

"Yes, as you can see, we don't sparkle," the unknown vampire interjected.

Rebekka looked up at him briefly reprovingly.

"Not that we mind you humans making up such nonsense." She turned back to Caro. "It helps to remain undetected and makes it harder for our enemies to find out who they are actually dealing with."

"Enemies? Do you mean werewolves, for example?" Caroline couldn't help herself and the comment slipped out bitingly.

"Wow, we've never heard that before!" retorted Mr America.

"Ten points for creativity, what do you think!" the other said and a small grin appeared on his face. Mr America also pursed his mouth in amusement.

"Do you want to maybe just move on?" Rebekka rolled her eyes at them in annoyance. "Werewolves or whatever."

Caroline didn't dare ask if Rebekka's answer was also meant sarcastically. Human-like bloodsuckers her brain could handle. Humans who could turn their entire appearance into an animal, that's where it stopped!

"To cut to the chase: Yes, we have enemies. And you," she pointed at Caroline's chest, "made sure you’re one of them by killing one of us."

Her voice was now deadly serious and the two men looked as if they were in no mood for fun either.

"What?" Caroline acted surprised. "You think I killed him?"

"You didn't?"

"No, damn it, I didn't kill anyone! I ran and then," her voice weakened.

Damn, the hesitation was taking too long.

"Then an accident happened," she finished the sentence weakly.

"An accident?" Rebekka's voice dripped with disbelief. "You couldn't think of anything better?"

"What else? Do you think I deliberately allowed myself to be captured so I could come at you with a rock?"

"Well, maybe that wasn't the original plan." Rebekka looked very friendly again. "What happened, then? Did something go wrong when you tried to sneak in?"

They couldn't be serious! Did they actually think she was some kind of spy or vampire assassin?

"I have a Buffy comment on the tip of my tongue, but I'm afraid I can't score any points with that either." She looked at the two men pointedly grimly and even thought she detected a tiny, barely perceptible twitch at the corner of Mr America's mouth.

"To answer the question quite clearly: I had no idea who you were or what was going to happen. I just wanted to help a girl who was apparently being kidnapped. I never wanted to kill anyone and I'm not part of any enemies. If I had wanted to spy on you, I would have dutifully allowed myself to be taken away and not got into a hopeless duel!"

Caroline hoped they would not see through the one lie in her claims. She had to convince herself it was true, believe it herself, that she hadn't meant to kill the psycho vampire. Then maybe she would get away with it.

"You know, I believe you." Rebekka pulled a thin stack of paper from under her notepad. "Your CV is too," she searched for the right word for a moment, then smiled with satisfaction, "average." It sounded almost spiteful the way she pronounced it. "Your only problem is that it's unlikely to matter." She put the notebook and the stack aside. Caroline thought she recognised her LinkedIn profile picture and a copy of her passport on it.

"You didn't kill just any vampire." Rebekka cleared her throat awkwardly. "You ended up here in one of the largest communities to exist since the beginning of our species. The model that works best for us so far is based on parliamentary monarchy. That means there is a king and a parliament of thirty members, the elders. In our case, neither leaders nor parliament are elected, but determined by responsibility."

She seemed to have made her speech many times before. Presumably it was part of her job to inform the newcomers about local conditions.

"Responsibility derives partly from a vampire's age, partly from his competencies and the contribution to the community they generate."

"Well, realistically, they could have just left it at age," Mr America interjected sarcastically.

Rebekka glared at him crossly over her shoulder. "It's just that with age comes a lot of competencies and ..." She interrupted herself with a deep sigh.

"What will be relevant for you," she looked again at Caroline, "is that this very Parliament, and above all the King, will determine your future fate."

She rose, stepped beside Caroline's bed and leaned down a little towards her. "And I cannot for the life of me imagine that they will be merciful." Her voice was serious now, without the slightest trace of humour, sarcasm or feigned friendliness.

"There is already a public execution on the murder of any vampire. And you, my dear, killed one of the elders."