ANGEL

My name is Angel. I live in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, a vampire now, but once, I was just a broken human trying to survive. For years, I was trapped in a nightmare. Sold, beaten, used, my body became a currency, my soul a shadow. My father, the man who should have protected me, was the one who sold me. Each day blurred into the next, pain and fear my only constants.

Then one night, he brought someone new. A man unlike the others, quiet, cold, and watching me with eyes that seemed to see everything. I didn't know it then, but he wasn't human. He was a vampire. When my father left the room, the man didn't touch me. He asked my name. Then he sank his fangs into my neck. Darkness began to swallow me whole. "I am sorry," he whispered. "I took too much of your blood."

Then I tasted blood - his blood - warm, metallic, ancient. He asked if I wanted to live. I didn't know what that meant anymore. Then he said something that changed everything: "You've suffered enough. Let me end it, or begin again." I thought he meant death. Maybe I even wanted it. But instead, he gave me something else, immortality. My veins burned like fire and ice, and when I woke, the world was sharper, louder, alive. My heart no longer beat, but for the first time, I felt free.

That night, I left the human world behind. The man, my maker, was gone, and I was free from my father. I learned that monsters aren't always the ones with fangs. Now, I walk the beaches of Myrtle Beach under moonlight, the waves whispering against the shore. I am Angel - no longer a victim, no longer prey. I am the storm that survived.