Welcome to Sunnydale - Chapter One

"What made it so easy for you to be walking by?"1

A brown haired boy turned abruptly at the feminine voice that sounded out across the field. As he turned, his curly hair tangled in a tree branch, momentarily causing him to halt so he could reach up and remove himself from the large plant. When he finally managed to face the stranger, he was surprised to see a young girl who was shorter then him and looked to be about the same age. He was a bit disoriented and didn’t say anything, which the girl apparently took as an invitation to continue talking.2

“I mean, I came out for a merry jaunt through the cemetery, and I was jumped before I walked ten feet,” she drawled. The boy wasn’t quite sure if she recognized the irony in her statement about “a merry jaunt through the cemetery”. Just to be clear, he took a quick look around. Yep. Definitely a cemetery.3

“Well, in my defense,” he explained, “I didn’t mean to end up in a cemetery. I just kind of… woke up here.” He played with the zipper of his fleece jacket nervously. “Where is ‘here’, anyway?”4

The girl appeared confused for a moment, raking a hand through her shoulder length brown hair. “You don’t even know which cemetery this is? I know that there are, like, twelve or something cemeteries in this city, but Sunnydale’s so small that most people know them all. And what do you mean you, ‘woke up here’?”5

“Um, excuse me?” the boy choked out. Cold feelings of dread washed over him as he waited for the answer he knew would eventually come.6

“Oh, sorry,” the dark clothed girl amended, fiddling with an object sticking out of her pocket. “I babble like that sometimes. This is Shady Hill Cemetery.” She gestured to the various headstones and massive crosses littering the unusually green Californian grass.7

“No, I mean, what town did you say this was?” he asked, fear pooling in the pit of his stomach.8

“Sunnydale, California. It’s right outside LA.” His knees collapsed underneath him, causing the dark haired boy to promptly sit on the ground, unmoving. “Hey, are you okay?” the girl asked, kneeling down beside him. “Who are you, anyway?”9

He glanced over at the girl briefly, seemingly distracted. “Nick,” he offered carefully, giving her a strange look. “Uh, Nicolas Keller. You?”10

“Lyra Crosier, not that it matters, really,” she responded, grabbing Nick’s arm and pulling him to his feet. “So, you don’t seem to be from Sunnydale. Where’re you from, then?” Lyra brushed her jeans jacket and black jeans off, picking a few leaves from her hair for good measure.11

“LA, actually,” Nick stated, very confused at the moment. “But I don’t remember ever having heard of Sunnydale.”12

Lyra raised an eyebrow at this, appearing both suspicious and intrigued. “You too, huh?”13

“What?” asked Nick, not quite believing his ears.14

It seemed like Lyra was about to explain herself when a man like figure jumped out from behind a nearby crypt and rushed at them. Nick got a good glimpse of the man’s face and froze. Their attacker had shining yellow eyes surrounded by a furrowed, unusually lumpy and protruding brow. But as his mouth opened, it was his teeth that really shocked Nick. Where a regular human’s canine teeth would be, there were fangs. That’s right. This man had fangs.15

But that wasn’t all. No, the fanged, deformed man wasn’t enough. When he got closer, Lyra pulled a wooden stake from her pocket and confronted him. Nick had no idea what was going on. The man – or more appropriately, thing – swung his fist at Lyra to no avail. She ducked under his arm and delivered a solid upward punch that sent him back several feet. Before the creature could recover, Lyra gave him a great kick and pinned him to the wall of the crypt, slamming her stake into the middle of his chest. Then, he disappeared. The man had turned to dust – vanished like he had never been there.16

But he was there not two seconds ago. Nick had seen him.17

There was no time to think about the strange, unnatural brawl, however. Lyra gave Nick one look before directing him toward the cemetery gate. “C’mon,” she commanded, dragging him with her. “There’s a lot you need to know about Sunnydale.”18

“Like vampires?”19

“Yeah. Like vampires.”