Daniel stared in shock at the note in his hand. He went through a cycle of staring at the note, then staring inside the contents of the box that his dad had left him. What did this all mean? Vampires? Dracula? These were works of fiction he'd thought. Scary monsters that were made to scare people or make fun Halloween costumes, not true historical figures that actually existed. This is nuts, he thought. To be fair, these thoughts were completely reasonable, especially for a boy who just found out he had superpowers. Then the events from earlier that night suddenly started to make all the more sense. His ability to hang with and defeat a vampire made sense. Also, the fact that he'd always been in shape but never once worked out started to click as well. He had superpowers, presumably to defeat vampires. This also brought up the question of what happened to his parents. It brought a new light to what he had figured must have happened. His parents, or at least his dad, are vampire hunters. They fought against Dracula, and seemingly were killed by either him or another vampire who was allied with Dracula. Are all vampires allies of Dracula? Are they all evil? I mean, Chad seemed crazy. But maybe that's because he hadn't fed. Were there good vampires out there in the world? All these questions and more swirled through Daniel's mind, so much so that he couldn't imagine himself falling asleep anytime soon. He lay in bed and tried to sleep anyway, but even now the thoughts still swirled in his head. Eventually, he drifted off to sleep.
He woke up the next morning and decided that he would not bring anything like this up to his aunt. He didn't want to get her involved to protect her more than anything else. Then he decided that he would go outside for a walk. When he went on his walk, he couldn't help but feel nervous around anyone who came by him. I mean, anyone could be a daywalker going by their normal daily routine. Then he saw, walking on the same sidewalk about 500 feet away, the black-haired boy he had punched in the 7/11 the night before. He had a massive black eye where Daniel had punched him, and he was walking around with a large, dark-skinned guy about their age. Daniel's immediate thought was, "Oh shit." You see, while Daniel was not particularly worried anymore about getting beaten up because of his superhuman powers, he was worried about getting reported to the police for assault. He attempted to turn around and walk away, but then the boy pointed at him and yelled, "You," he paused, "yeah, you, stop!" He then turned to the large dark-skinned man and said, "This guy attacked and knocked me out." His face was clearly angry. The dark-skinned man turned his head to the boy and asked, "Do you think he's who Jessica sent us to get?" The boy then turned his head towards Daniel, then back at the dark-skinned man, "No way, he just sucker punched me last time, he's a total chump." The boy began marching over as if he was ready to fight Daniel before the dark-skinned man spoke up and said, "Hey, real quick, what's your name just to double check?" The boy paused his march for a moment to let Daniel answer, "Daniel Dire." Daniel said, "And I'd also like to say that I feel bad about punching you, and I hope it's water under the bridge, and you know no cops really need to be involved." The boy stood and pointed his head to the sky and flailed his hands, whining, "god damnit!" The large dark-skinned man chuckled, then wiped his face for a second before saying, Itt looks like you're the one Jessica sent us to get. Were lucky we found you so quickly. We planned to just circle the area until we found someone with your name. This is way easier!" Daniel was puzzled for a moment, asking, "What's going on with her? What do you want with me? Am I in some sort of trouble?" the dark skinned man shook his head, "I don't know why she needs you if I'm being honest. Something about you beating a day walker untrained with your bare hands, but i dont know why she wants you. I'm not a good listener sometimes. I should work on that in the future dont you think noah?" he turned to the boy, who was apparently named Noah, "Why would you give him my name? That kind of stuff is supposed to be a secret." Noah was annoyed, but the dark-skinned man didn't seem to particularly care whatsoever, "oh don't be such a whiny little bastard, he's coming to the hideout anyway. I'm Malcolm." Noah then started up again, "What could Jessica possibly want with this chump. He's such a loser. This shit pisses me off." "Hey, just cause your trying to nip at Jessica doesn't mean literally everyone else is," Malcolm responded, "and I bet if she wanted him like that, she wouldn't have sent us, she would've gone down and grabbed him herself," Noah grumbled to himself. Daniel concluded that the one who had sent for him was Jessica, as she was the only person who would be looking for him, and she was insanely hot. "So will you come with us?" Malcolm said, turning his head back to meet eyes with Daniel, "I mean, sure, I guess I don't see why not," while he walked behind Noah and Malcolm. One thing puzzled Daniel's mind: who bit Chad? I mean, that's how vampires work, right? A vampire bites someone then they become a vampire. If that is how that works, then there must be more vampires in the town of Jefferson. And how will he find Michael, or Dracula, for that matter? How will he find Dracula's body, too? He had so many questions left to be answered.