Nighttime. The absolute worst hours of the day. To Hayden, at least. Generally, he hated darkness’ span of control, but on occasion he found it could be very useful, especially when one had a lot to hide.
  It was warm and sticky out as he maneuvered the U-Haul truck around the curb. His sister Liz sat quietly in the passenger’s seat; her face, as usual, shooed away any conversation, and her thick, black, curly hair coiled into a ponytail in preparation for their upcoming work. Simply staring ahead, she propped her head up by her hand, unmoving.
  Hayden pulled up to their new three-story house, eventually meeting the incline of the driveway. The house… it was white. It was perfect.
  It was just like every other house on the street.
  "Wow…We really went for originality on this one, didn’t we?" Hayden observed dryly, cutting the engine. Liz returned a slight grunt in reply, but continued to scowl stubbornly ahead.
  "Okay. Well, I'm going to go open the house up and stuff. Be right back." And he slipped out of the truck, twirling the keys idly around his finger. After unsealing the front door, with once last glance at Liz, Hayden passed inside. He looked around him in appreciation. It was certainly a large improvement over the house he grew up in. The high ceiling and winding staircase made the house look spacious.
  Hayden slowly paced around, his footsteps echoing loudly in the empty shell of a house. He found himself at the bathroom and walked over to the sink, glancing at himself in the mirror that hung above it. Pale skin and damp, thick, black hair dared in his dark green eyes, greeting him. The noticeable grime from all of a day’s manual labor itched at him. And so, Hayden washed his face, refreshing himself for the toil ahead.
  Feeling cleaner, he swept his dripping bangs out of his eyes with a sigh. He stared at his reflection a moment longer, and then turned away. The hum had begun pulsing through his veins by then, and Hayden never looked in the mirror when he changed. The unearthly glow of his eyes did not impress him.
  He felt the light transformation through his being, and so stretched as the muscles sorely expanded on his admittedly lanky arms. But by the time he got out to the driveway, Liz had already thrown the back of the van up and was tossing furniture onto the front lawn.  
  "LIZ!" he hissed, mindful of the sleeping neighbors, "What the heck are you doing?! Don't throw our stuff!" She ignored him and started grabbing things from the grass, carrying them up to the house. Hayden gave an exasperated sigh and partook as well in unloading the truck, making sure he was considerably less quiet than Liz. Easily lifting a solid oak desk which would have taken at least two men to move, he mumbled, "If only the ladies could see me now…"
  Whisking the desk up the porch steps, he then set it down in the alcove. But it barely had time to touch the floor before Liz grabbed the sides and started dragging the same desk across the tile. Hayden cringed at the loud screech produced.
  "What are you doing?" he asked, his voice flat.
  "It's in the wrong spot," she said, her voice hinting crazy. Apparently, it was time for one of her obsessive compulsive moments.
  "Of course it's in the wrong spot!" he snapped, "We’re just bringing stuff inside, not decorating."
  "You bring the stuff in, and I'll put it where it belongs,” she said, waving him off, and continued dragging the desk, scratching the shiny tile. And Hayden stomped off, already fed up with his stupid sister.
  Grumbling, he started pulling things from the back of the moving truck then neatly stacking them outside on the porch so Liz could assemble them exactly where she wanted.
  After about an hour of walking to and fro, the truck was empty. Hayden flopped down on a couch that sat on the front lawn which he had yet to carry inside, and he lay there with his eyes closed, resting.
  A strange kind of feeling gripped at his stomach then. A mixture of nervousness and child-like excitement pended. Tomorrow he would be taking his papers to the school, and so would be enrolled. He wondered what school was like, and what normalcy was in actuality.
  And all these things he imagined, until, suddenly, the hairs on the back of his neck bristled, standing on end. He peered around, jumping up, and his mouth filled with saliva as a growl started low in his chest.
  "Who’s there?" he called.
  Blackness.
  Silence.
  Which did not fool Hayden. Over the years, he had learned to just trust his instincts in these cases, and therefore was convinced someone watched him. He focused his night vision, but saw no one. And smelled the summer air, but yet no one’s presence he detected. Still with his eyes darting about, he grabbed the arm of the couch and dragged it to the porch like a human, even though it meant his claw-nails slightly broke through the fabric.
  He reached inside the front door, and flicked the porch light off, sending his lawn into nothingness. He couldn’t shake that…feeling… And so backed inside the house, with every muscle tense, as the door closed quietly behind him.

The following morning, Hayden did not wake up. Because he never went to sleep. Every minute or so, he checked the windows and assured the locks and bolts to any doors. He switched off all the lights, and stalked any possible opening to his dwelling. And wished he’d explored the neighborhood sooner, as to know for sure the best possible escape routes and shortcuts available, if he and his sister did have to run. Provided, there were woods leading out of the backyard, one of the biggest reasons they’d chosen this house to live in, but he was supposed to investigate those tomorrow night. Yet through such adventures of territory, he explored down to the lowest levels of the house. Creepily, he descended to the basement.
  “North Carolina must be the last state on earth that still has cellars in their homes,” he observed, walking between the concrete walls. Deep below the sodden earth, Hayden oddly felt safer. “I guess I’m turning into a mole now,” he laughed, and an idea struck him.
  Returning to the surface, Hayden continued to the second floor, and visited his room. There, he began his search, ripping apart every cardboard box he had set there in his domain, until he found his treasure. Or, treasures, rather.
  His journals.
  Hayden wrote. A lot. He liked to think that he was recording history, as it were. Tonight, he’d have to make the journal entry of the day of the move-in, but first wanted to transfer his gold to the cellar. He liked it down there, and thought to make it his new boding, his writing place.
  But before the relocation to the basement, he became curious. Picking out one of the first of his chronologically organized journals, he reminisced in its old pages. Oh how happy now he was that he wrote in pen at that time…
  April 11, 1802
Somewhere in the Pacific Ocean

  We are still drifting senselessly in this over crowded ship, where tensions run high and the tempers run higher. Last night was probably the worst attack I've weathered so far. That strange English lad Grant helped me through it, though. This morning I thanked him full heartedly for his assistance and he explained that for some people it's harder to control. Since I wasn't snatched up by the Council so soon after I was "changed," my blood lust had a chance to grow, where as Grant had barely had a chance to figure out what had happened before they tossed him onto this ship.
  It's only been two full moons and already I feel as if I am the little birdie locked up in a wee little cage with no escape. It's not the ship itself, but rather the feeling of being trapped in my own skin. But as I begin to find the fight for my sanity less of a struggle, I grow restless.
  Being surrounded by all these hot-blooded men is not my idea of a jolly time. I am sorely missing the smile of the pretty lassies back home. I have no idea where our final destination is. Grant said something like the America's. But I do not want to go THERE. I want to go back home to Ireland and see the rolling hills again. Oddly enough I miss those lazy, good-for-nothing sheep that I would watch over while I slept out in the fields. It's a good thing they gave me this little journal. It's so droll out here I do not see how I would survive other wise. The bell for dinner is about to ring and since I'm getting smart I think I shall go before the rest of the savage beasts come and steal all the good food…

  “Dang…,” Hayden huffed out as he finished, “I sounded so weird.” And gave a small chuckle.
  Then wasting the rest of the night in nostalgia, he read through the rest of the notebook, and peeked at a few more journals, laughing at his dorkiness and remembering the pain from way back when. Then sat down and recorded this own night’s events.
  Afterwards, Hayden neatly arranged all his gold on shelves down in his new hole; the basement. All in all, his past filled two and a half shelves, which he proudly admired. Gently, he ran a finger over their worn spines, marveling at the content within.
  How different is the real world compared to what I know? he wondered. And the morning came, along with his sister. He opened one bloodshot eye as the basement door slammed open.
  “Hayden, take a shower. You stink. And hurry up. We have an appointment with the principal,” she yelled down the stairs when she found where he was hiding.
  “I know,” he replied sarcastically, “I know…”