The Golden Ring | Teen Ink

The Golden Ring

January 3, 2018
By Saoirse_Fae BRONZE, San Diego, California
Saoirse_Fae BRONZE, San Diego, California
2 articles 0 photos 1 comment

One night long ago a crooked witch with a twisted mind cursed a ring. She painted a brass ring gold with a liquid spell, a spell that would never fade away. The curse was wicked.  It was her way of escaping guilt for the biggest crime ever to go down in history: completely erasing humanity, year by year.
  The curse: vampirism. It didn't exist before the witch created the curse, but it spread fast. Out of the world's population, 95% were human. When my parents were growing up only 20% were human, 75% were vampires, only 5% of the population were animals, and now humankind is coming back. Some vampires used to be human,  some used to be animal. They were turned into monsters. The ones who only touched the ring, but didn't carry it, got a contagious disease: cat flu.
She snuck it around the world as she traveled. She first spread it while in the Bahamas. She would transform into what the men desired and marry them, giving them the ring for marriage. Once they were wed for a few months she would take the ring and flee.  
The witch soon grew tired of this routine and thought of a different plan. Humans have always been greedy, so why shouldn't she take advantage of that? What is one thing every human desires to keep forever? Just think about it. Life. She searched through all of her spells and found a few to combine: a life-giving spell, a spell to keep you looking young, and a spell that will prevent you from ever aging in years. She fused these spells into one to make an everlasting life potion and sloshed the ring in a cauldron. 
After she finished the concoction she traveled to France. In France, she met a young man named Nicholas Flamel. Flamel assumed her to be a middle-aged sorceress. He had been looking for a sorceress for a long time, longing for a potion that would let him live just long enough to see his youngest child get married. She thought him as the perfect candidate to spread the ring.
Nicholas started calling it the Sorcerer's Treasure. After his last child's wedding, he gave the ring to a young doctor who had been his loyal mentee. The only thing about this is that he and many close to him had become vampires from holding the ring over all the years. He died in a fight he had with his son after his daughter's wedding. Flamel's son was made a vampire when he was 14 because he used his father's ring for a costume in a school production. After Flamel died there continued to be blood relatives of his that were vampires. This is because vampirism can also transfer through blood-lines.
Flamel's mentee turned into the first bad vampire. Once he figured out what he turned into and how he did he started conspiring. No one quite knows how the ring got around after that, but I do know that I am a very far descendant of Flamel. About 250 years ago the mentee, now 1004-year-old, showed up at my great-grandfather's doorstep and gave him the ring. He wanted to retire. He was done spreading around an old witch's curse.
By then, most of the world was living in fear. Humankind had houses with no windows, titanium door-frames that are two feet wide, and locks with several levels of security. There were very few people who didn't stay at home, yet the vampire population rate kept going up.
Who is able to know this you ask? Me. I am half human and half vampire. My parents are both vampires, but my mother and father have a one of a kind story.
My father has been a vampire since he was bitten by a group of animals that carried cat flu. He was only three. Because of his age, every clan rejected him; all but one. There is one clan of vampires that are outcasts, they don't want to be monsters, they want to help people. We are called "The Clement". We are called this because of the vampire that first started our clan: Malicious Clement. She is my idol; well was. She was surrounded by three other clans of vampires and they all attacked her.
My mother and father are infamous with the other clans but famous with humans. Humans look up to them for protecting and standing up for them, but all the other vampire clans, the evil clans, they look down on them and don't understand why they would stand up for a species that couldn't stand up for themselves. When my mother was in eighth grade her and my father were both 13. (Vampires that are turned at a young age don't stop aging until they are 22) My parents instantly fell in love. Their first date was at a lemonade shop. They got into many arguments and my father tried to scare her away because he didn't want her to be sucked into the vampire world, that she hadn't yet found out about. My mother was unaware that he was a vampire until they were Juniors in high school. She found out at the high school's homecoming.

"Donny, do you want me to come over or just drop you off tonight?" My father said.
"Pinny, you know I would like you to stay, but if you have to go home I understand." My parents were sitting in the back of the multipurpose room cuddling. Pinny stiffened up, which always means that there is someone coming that he doesn't like. He seems to have a skill of sensing when people are approaching.
"Hey Sucker!" Samy Derolds was part of an evil clan. Of course, he knew Pinny was a vampire. In fact, he was the one who gave the animals who attacked my father the golden ring.
"Shove off Samy, why are you even here?" Earlier that week, at the treaty meeting, Samy had said he wasn't going to go, "I wouldn't have come if I knew you were." Samy cackled and looked at Pinny like he was a fool.
"That's why I said I wasn't going." He smirked. Samy is the biggest jerk that went to that school, but he didn't know that what he was doing was going to change many lives.
"Samy, go away. You are ruining our night." My mom was tired of dealing with Samy and just wanted him to go away.
"Hah! The bloodsucker needs his mortal Donny to defend him! How…." He was pondering. Neither my mom or my dad were amused by his relentless crude attitude. ".....Cute." Samy kept snickering, but my father's face was reddening by the second.
My father cracked, "SAMY IF YOU DO NOT BACK OFF THERE IS GOING TO BE A PROBLEM THAT YOUR SMART ASS WON'T BE ABLE TO GET YOU OUT OF." He knew it was a mistake. Donny had just thought Samy liked comparing Pinny to a vampire, but now she had started to put the pieces together.
"Pinny, can we just go." My mother had had enough. She was going to get to the bottom of this.
He nodded and they started walking to the parking lot, but Samy stopped them.
"I told my dad you'd drive me home." Samy, for once in his life, was starting to regret a selfish, crude decision.
"I would, but the stench will make Donny pass out." (This is code that someone didn't know we are vampires.)
"Hah. It's okay. Just take me to your place and I'll walk from there." Samy could be a real jerk sometimes, but it was mostly because he was being raised by one of the bad clans.
It was a silent ride to the Clement Clan's acres, but it was a pretty view all the way there, so there weren't any tense feelings in the atmosphere.
They made it to the acres and Donny was the first one out of the car. She practically slammed the door.
"You sure you don't want me to drive you all the way home?" The drive had given my father time to cool off.
"Yeah, no, I'm good," they both got out and Samy turned to my mother, "I am so sorry for ruining your night."
"Hey. it's okay Sam. Just next time, maybe take out your anger on Mr.Wilson?" She was only half joking. Mr. Wilson was the history teacher, he always gave kids unfair grades. They all laughed. Samy waved good-bye and walked off.
"Are you okay, Donny?" My mother scowled at him and pulled him by the ear.
"Ow, ow, ow! Okay, I get it! You don't need to hurt me." Saying that was a bad move, and my mother's face showed it. But, obeying his wishes, she grabbed him by the collar and pulled him into the main clan house.
"I know." She looked at him with her green, heart-wrenching daggers of eyes.
"You know what?"
"I know you are a vampire and I don't understand why you won't just TELL ME!!" She was practically on fire, and somehow, even though my father was the deadly one in this situation, my mother seemed scarier.
My father collapsed onto the beige sofa behind him and fainted. How did Donny know? What will happen to us if she tells anybody? This was right when his "dad" walked in.
"What happened?" Carl sat down.
"I told him I knew he was a vampire, I'm guessing the rest of you are too. I don't understand what the big deal is." She was frank, fearless, and ignorant and all at the same time. Even though she was fine, she could see the panic in Carl's eyes.
"Please excuse me for my rudeness, but can you please go upstairs and send everyone down here." He was trying his hardest to stay calm. As my mother walked out Carl started shaking Pinny awake.

That was part of mother and father's story. The rest of the story if more straightforward, and not as interesting, well at least to me. My mother and father ended up getting married a year after high school graduation, and they went on summer vacation. During the vacation, my mother ended up getting pregnant with me.
When I was two, I started asking why only my father went hunting with the rest of the family, and that was a big trigger in the decision to transform her.
Two weeks later, my mother switched her wedding ring for the golden ring, which slowly turned her into a vampire.
She is and will be, the last one to hold onto the ring. This means that the human race will be able to repopulate the earth, and the crooked witch will get what she deserves, karma.


The author's comments:

My piece was inspired by a prompt about finding a golden ring on the ground that would change your life forever. I tweaked it a little bit so it was also inspired by my obsession with vampires a few years ago, but it definitely changed something forever. 


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