Sold to the Night Lord

Elara

Before turning eighteen, you’re meant to plan your life.—not end it.

Tonight will be the longest night of the year and will also mark my birthday. I had never feared the arrival of a day the way I fear this one. Since I can remember, I’ve been warned about my terrible fate—the one that awaits all firstborns in this new society.

“Elara!” My mother’s voice pulls me from my daydreams. “Dinner is ready!”

I look at my reflection one last time before rising from the vanity and descending the rickety stairs to the living room where my family awaits. The stairway is lit by a half-consumed candle resting in a wall sconce. Since their arrival, progress has stopped. We’ve been condemned to live their way. Damned nostalgics with an aversion to technology. Everything I know about the “advanced world” is what I’ve been able to read in old books or seen in photographs that are already beginning to fade and crack. We've spent over a century going backward in time, adapting to their way of life: we travel by carriage, wear pompous and uncomfortable clothes, and communicate by letter. I was born when computers, cell phones, and gasoline-powered cars were already just a memory in the minds of the oldest people.

I step on the last stair, which creaks under my weight, and find my entire family gathered around the table. My mother serves soup with a ladle, filling the bowls with a smile, because being able to offer us this meal tonight is not something common. We are not a wealthy family, not even middle class.

“Sweetheart, sit down, it’s getting cold.”

I take my place next to my seven-year-old sister, Angela, a little girl with copper-toned curls and honey-colored eyes. She smiles at me with her gap-toothed grin.

“Don’t be nervous, maybe they won’t choose you.”

My father’s voice is sweet, just like he is. Sometimes I think he’s like that with me because I’ve been marked since birth. Being the firstborn had branded me and condemned me to a miserable fate. A fate where I’m seen as a mere source of food for those cold, sadistic, soulless beings.

“I’m not nervous,” I lie. “I’ve spent eighteen years preparing for this.”

I know the smile doesn’t reach my eyes, though I try to convey as much calm as possible. This isn’t easy for them—how could it be for any parents? In a few hours, it will be my eighteenth birthday, and in just a few days, there will be a full moon, which means entering the Blood Auction. If you’re lucky, maybe no one will buy you, but clinging to that hope is foolish. We’re products, we’re just blood. They’ll end up buying us, whether you're attractive, bony, or sickly. Sooner or later, someone will be willing to feed on you.

“To be exact, it’s been seventeen years and three hundred and sixty-four days,” says my brother, trying to lighten the mood. “Don’t ask me to be