Prologue:

There was soft music playing in the background as I sat at a small round table in the back of the coffee shop, a steaming hot chocolate nursed in my hands. It was the middle of winter, and the coolness of the north had reached even Dallas, Texas. Those around me on this January evening were bustling about, grabbing their warm Styrofoam cups of coffee and darting back out into the snowy night to hurry home. Some lounged around, enjoying the warmth the coffee shop brought. I was doing neither. I wasn't there for enjoyment, but neither did I want to quickly leave this coffee shop I had only stepped foot in today. I was only here, waiting for a sign that I wasn't entirely crazy. But as I sat there, the hours dwindling on, I began to believe that my family and friends had been right all along.

I came here, to Dallas all the way from a rural Ohio town, on a whim. There was no hard evidence, there was no solid proof. I was simply here because of my dreams. They led me here, to this coffee shop, waiting for a certain individual to step into the heated building. But to me, they weren't just dreams. They had felt too real to be simple dreams. I had pictured this very coffee shop without ever having been here, ever having seen a picture of it before. I had seen these exact people, from the teenager at the cash register, to the family of three at the table beside mine. It couldn't have just been a coincidence. These sorts of things didn't normally happen. These dreams weren't just normal dreams. They meant something. So I was here to understand what they may mean, why I was having them.

And to save a life.

My parents had told me I wasn't thinking straight, that I was simply stressed by school. My friends, what little friends I had left, had only told me the same thing. They were just dreams, they had all said. I was looking too much into them. But they weren't right. I knew it my heart that they weren't right. These were more than just dreams. They had to be.

So here I was, sitting in this coffee shop, waiting for the life I was determined to save. But as time wore on, I began wondering if they had all been right, if these dreams weren't much more than the simple stress of school getting to me. I was about to leave, about to pack up and just find my way back home. I would have to suffer through the chorus of 'I told you so' I would get from my loved ones, but at least I would know the truth. However, just as I was about to pull my jacket on, I caught sight of the front door to the coffee shop opening and my jaw dropped open. There he was, looking exactly like he had in my dreams. I watched as he glided across the floor to the counter, ordering what appeared to be a True Blood, taking in every detail of him. He wasn't tall, possibly only a few inches taller than I was, but his build appeared to be fit. He wore only a thin linen long sleeved shirt and cotton pants, and odd combination in the dead of winter. But I suppose he wouldn't even acknowledge the cold weather, being cold blooded. His hair was a chestnut brown and was cut short, framing his pale face. His eyes though, his eyes were just perfect. I would be able to recognize those eyes anywhere. I felt as if I had seen those round blue eyes my entire life. They captivated me in every single one of my dreams. And there they were, only feet away from me, real and not just a figment of my imagination.

The dreams began when I was only a little girl. I never thought much of them back then. I was so innocent, so open minded to the wonders of the world that the oddities between my dreams and reality never seemed to matter to me. It was in junior high and high school that things began to become more serious. I started to notice that what I dreamt began to happen. I would fall asleep in class, only to awake to the entire class staring at me, laughing at the fact that I had been talking in my sleep. When I would warn my friends of things to come, they would only roll their eyes and go on their way. But when the dreams began to come true, that was when they started calling me a freak. By the time I was a senior in high school, I was labelled as the freak and no longer had any friends. I thought it would change once I began Ohio State, but the dreams only got worse.

But these dreams, they only had one subject. And that was the vampire that was now taking a seat near the window of the coffee shop, a true blood nestled in one hand as he gazed out into the snowy night.

"That's him, that's the vamp."

"What's that fanger doing here? We don't want his scum in this place."

"We should do something about it man."

My face paled as I peeked around my long blonde hair, eavesdropping on the group of college kids in the back corner of the coffee shop. They were shooting glares at the vampire from my dreams, their whispers growing softer as they began to come up with a devious plan to get rid of the vampire. This was exactly how the dream had gone, word for word. Except in that dream, the vampire had been tortured, blood drained into vials, and left for dead out in the back alley. This was exactly why I was here. I couldn't let this happen. He may be a vampire, and he may have done horrible things in the past to stay alive, but I had watched his life for the past few months and I knew he was not someone who deserved death. At least not in that manner. He wasn't like all the other vampires you heard about on TV or through gossip. He was kind, caring, and held onto humanity with a death grip. He was the last person in the world to be treated like how those three men were planning.

Without evening giving it another thought, I quickly pulled on my jacket and stood up. I manoeuvred my way across the coffee shop until I was by the door. I contemplated for a brief moment what I was going to do, then put my plan into action. I shot towards the vampire's table and slid into the seat across from him, actually startling the still vampire. His blue eyes pierced mine, an eyebrow raised in confusion.

"You need to leave." I urged him in a hushed tone, leaning forward over the table. My eyes were wide and I knew I sounded like a complete crazy person. But I knew that if this vampire didn't leave now, then he may not make it to morning. "You need to leave right now. You're in danger."

The vampire opened his mouth to speak, but I only shook my head and eyed the group of college students out the corner of my eye. They hadn't noticed that I was now sitting across from the vampire, too entranced by their conversation.

"Those three back there, in the corner," I nodded in their direction. "They're planning on using silver chains they have in their bags to attack you one you leave."

He tilted his head to the side, his eyes narrowing as he glanced ever so slightly at the men in the back.

"If you don't leave now, you're going to die." I bit down on my bottom lip, nearly breaking through the skin. "You really need to leave. Please, before they can do anything to you."

My eyes pleaded with him, begging for him to believe me. He must have as he stared me straight in the eye and nodded. Before I could even blink, I felt a gust of wind blow my hair into my face, and suddenly, the vampire had disappeared. I looked all around but couldn't find a hint to where he had gone, and sighed in relief. I had done it. I had prevented the horrible dream from occurring. I never expected it to be this easy, or for it to be real at all. It still felt like some sort dream itself. But as I left the coffee shop myself, I felt a sense of pride surge through me. I had managed to save a life tonight. He may have been a vampire, but he was a life worth saving. He wasn't a monster. Or maybe he was and I only had dreams that showed me one side of him. But it was a side of him that gave me faith that not all vampires were evil. Even tonight, there was a spark inside those blue eyes. He had acted like any other human inside that coffee shop. He only wanted peace, only wanted to interact like anyone else. And if it hadn't of been for me, he would have found himself near dead by the time the sun rose. And for that, I felt proud.

Whatever these dreams were, whatever they meant, I just knew that my parents, my so called friends, they weren't right. These weren't nothing. They weren't meaningless and just a figment of my imagination. They were real, completely real, and I was being given them for a reason. What that reason was, I had absolutely no idea. But after tonight, I felt like I was one step closer to figuring that out, one way or another.