• Once upon a time, next to a river called the Vein, named because it wound through the countryside like a vein that supplied precious oxygen to the organs of a human being, there lay a small village where a town of women lived. These women, rejected by the church when refusing to become nuns and pushed to become priests and ministers, were exiled to the village to prove they had what it took to become priests: the ability to fight off the demons called vampires on the other side of the river.
    These women wished to become priests, wished to help their friends and the townsfolk of other villages through faith, hope, and prayer, but in order to do so, they had to invite the demons into the village by constructing a bridge. The women were passionate, but they were not stupid. They knew that if they invited the vampires into their village, it would be destroyed and they would be drained of every last drop of blood.
    As the years went on, the women met with men from neighboring villages and bore children, but knew that if they brought their sons and daughters into the village, they would have to bear their mothers' curse, as well, and face the inevitable: they, too, would be required to construct a bridge and fight the demons that lay on the other side of the river in their own village until not one of them was left.
    However, one of the daughters grew curious and decided to move into the village with her mother to learn about the vampires. All she knew was that in the land that was on the other side of the great Vein, there lived strange creatures who once attacked the land of humans and were exiled, themselves, to the other side of the river.
    The girl began to see that like her, the sons and daughters of the vampires who attacked had nothing to do with their ancestors' deeds and should be allowed to commingle with the humans. Like her, there was an innocent young girl on the other side of the river, wishing for a bridge to be built.
    One night, using the light of the full moon, for lighting a torch would immediately blow her cover, the girl walked along the edge of the river until she found some rocks that could prove useful as a bridge. She hopped over the rocks until she met land and finally set foot on the land that lay on the other side of the great Vein.
    There, the girl met a girl quite like herself who called herself Naa. She said she wished she and her family could move into the villages of humans and for once feel normal in their lives. The village, Naa explained, was made up of the sons, daughters, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren of the vampires who attacked, therefore they really had no reason to be there. They had done nothing wrong. Their entire lives they spent on the other side of the river, cut off from potential friends, businessmen, and trading partners.
    The girl felt sorrow for Naa, and promised that on the next night of the full moon, she would return and speak more, for it was the only night she could leave the village with enough light to see. With sunrise fast approaching, she bid goodbye to her new friend and returned to her own village.
    The next month was spent filled with anticipation, the girl ever so eager to see her new friend. Finally, the night arrived and she left again. This time, she met Naa's family and had a meal with them, sharing stories of the lands of humans and vampires. The girl saw how similar the vampires were to humans and wished her mothers would build the bridge so the two races could meet and live together in harmony.
    Over the next few years, the girl and Naa became great friends and decided to meet on the nights of the half-moon as well as the full moon. These times, however, the girl saw her friend was a bit restless, but brushed it off as excitement and continued as she always did.
    Finally, the day arrived when she told her mother and the other women of the village about the vampires. Upon hearing of the visits, her mother forbid her of ever returning to the land of vampires. Infuriated, the girl set to work on building a bridge with the few scraps of lumber that the women had left over and saved for firewood during the winter months. She sold clothing she learned from Naa to make in the other villages in order to buy rope and tools. The villagers were enamored with the clothing, as they had never seen such beautiful and intriguing patterns.
    With the wood, rope, and tools she constructed a bridge over the rocks and invited her friends from the other side of the Vein to her village. However, that night, as the first of the vampires took step upon the bridge, the girl was greeted with the most terrifying grin she'd ever seen. And over that bridge, maybe the slaughter that followed could have been prevented if the girl chose the night of the full moon instead of the new.

    Naa, a friend whom the girl loved very much, bared her fangs and killed the girl, painting the bridge red with blood. The vampires went into every village and feasted upon the humans, the women of the poor, naive girl's village taking shelter in an abandoned church. The vampires were at fault and had every reason to be exiled to the other side of the river. Vampires, unlike humans, were immortal. The demons that attacked the villages many years before were the same who attacked the villages then. The mother thanked God that her daughter chose the full moon to visit Naa, for if she had chosen the night of the new moon or any night that showed less than half of the light, she would have been devoured by the beasts who that girl came to love like family. But perhaps, it would have been better, so she would have been killed by a stranger instead of a beloved friend.
    The next morning, the women emerged from the church to find the vampires were so focused on killing and eating their prey, they had not noticed the rising sun, and burned to death under its light. Gathering the ashes so that the vampires would never rise again, they crossed the bridge to scatter them over the village and then, once safely on the other side of the bridge, in the land of the humans, they burned the bridge and watched as it fell into the Vein. For the first time in years, the river lived up to its namesake, for like a human vein, it carried the same thing it carried: blood.