I never expected anything like this would ever happen. Orlok sending the entire Order after me, the coterie being thrown into what turned out to essentially be a war between covenants... Yet... Somehow... It all started at a block party in the neighborhood I lived in what seems like centuries ago. My fiancé, Alice, was out on a trip and I was enjoying myself talking with my good friend Acecia, one of the only people in that place with the ability to see beyond the veil pulled over our eyes by the vampires. Everyone seemed to be doing there own thing, even the few SWAT officers who lived there were enjoying themselves. Dwarf, the Anarchist who lived down the street from me was being his normal self, sitting in the corner, being as anti-social as the party would allow. After everyone got their share of the food being served, Acecia and I sat down and began talk of recent supernatural activity in the area, though we didn't know much because the forums we used as a source of information were down at the time. Soon, a boy who looked to be in his late teens sat near us and heard our conversation about the supernatural and mentioned how much he knew on the subject. After a few minutes of conversation, Acecia mentioned my hobby of writing books on the supernatural. I suppose I should mention that I wrote quite a few books, all of which published except for the work in progress I was working on, and had made quite a name for myself, or rather, for the alias I wrote under, Emmett Carlisle. the boy introduced himself a Roy Maxwell and we began talk of the forums we all happened to be a part of. At some point, I noticed Dwarf walking away and one of the SWAT officers, Rush was his name, follow him. Then the rain came. I saw the obnoxious neighbor of mine, Sebastian, bothering Roy as they went to his car. I ran to mine as well and the party was then broken up. When I got home I checked the forums to see if they were back online, and they were. The first post I noticed was about a small mansion about 5 miles West of the neighborhood, so I called Acecia to see if she was willing to check it out the next day. I also asked her to talk to Roy about it as well. I went to sleep at around midnight that night, doing research on the mansion until falling asleep on my keyboard. The next morning I called Acecia at the time she said and we met outside of her house. She told me Roy said he'd join and that she talked just about the entire neighborhood into it as well, except for Dwarf. So, for the hell of it, I decided to talk to him as well. I walked over to his house and knocked on the door. The door was green with a little hole near the top so he could see who was on the other side, a small camera was mounted on the top right corner of the frame and was staring down at me, there was a small intercom on the left side of the frame so he could talk to whoever was outside. I pressed the button and asked if I could speak with him for a moment, I was answered by static. Suddenly, from behind me Rush ran next to me and started banging on the door, shouting at Dwarf.
'You need to come out here!" He yelled to the green door.
... No answer.
"If you don't come out I'm going to kick the door down!!" Rush threatened.
... Still no answer.
"One" Rush began counting
"Two"
"Thr-" The door opened.
"Don't be a moron. I'm coming out."
Rush began yelling at him about going into his house for some odd reason, a reason I STILL don't know today.
I caught Dwarf's attention after the whole situation and spoke with him about the mansion. He agreed to come with us and then we met outside of my house about an hour later. Everyone met up at the correct time and we started off towards the mansion. There were about seven of us, so we took three cars. After a little bit of driving we saw the mansion, it was run down, it was missing most of the shutters and the ones that were still intact hung from a single hinge on the window frame. The second floor hung over the first, supported by the porch below. On the second floor border, just above the porch, the address read '1314'. I hesitated to walk inside fearing the floor above may fall down around me as soon as I got under it. The wood looked like it had been eaten away by both age and termites. As we all began walking to the front door I noticed Roy stop and stare at the address, he wouldn't move an inch no matter what was said. Finally, Ghost, one of the SWAT officers who wanted to get this over with, decided to go trigger happy on the address. He blew a hole clean through the second floor where the address used to be. Whatever was keeping Roy from moving was done with, so he shook it off and walked up to the door. I reached for the handle and started to turn it. it felt like it'd disintegrate under my grip it was so old. The door was locked.
“It seems the door is locked guys.” I stated the obvious to the people around me.
“Hmm, let me try.” Dwarf said walking to the handle. I stepped out of his way and knelt down to meet the handle, then pulled something out of his pocket. Behind me I heard Ghost shout, “This is taking too long! Out of the way!” He pushed everyone away from the door and shot the door handle, blowing a hole through the door. The door flew open and I heard it slam against the wall beside it. Everyone glared at Ghost, but walked through the door after him. I looked around the room I stood in intently. it looked like it belonged back in the Civil War, old black and white photos everywhere, to the right was a kitchen and the left was a bedroom. The floor was bare, like the walls of the house aside from the photos. All the photos were of the same family, I assumed they were of the family who originally lived there. in front of us was a stair case, a few of the steps were warped and cracked. We all split up and investigated the house. Me, Roy, Acecia walked up the stairs and checked out the second floor. As we were doing this, we heard a crash from down stairs, I looked down to see Sebastian had fallen down while energetically running up the stairs. I shrugged and went back to my investigation. While looking through one of the bed rooms I found another picture, this time with a name written on the back: William Atherton. I called Roy and Acecia over to look at it. Roy recognized the name as an old Civil War general. As soon as Roy finished telling us about Will, we heard someone call us down from the kitchen, we all hurried down the stairs, and into the kitchen, we saw knifes stuck in the wall near the stove and Dwarf staring very blankly at them, it looked as his eyes had glazed over, as soon as I walked into the room I felt a chill run down my spine. Then I noticed him speak in a voice that wasn't his own.
“I need you're help.” Said the voice.
As soon as he spoke I knew what was going on, and it seemed Roy did too.
“Hello William. What do you need help with?”
“I need you all to find my wife and son. They were not here when I returned from the battle, and I cannot leave this house.” William was now walking into the room we first entered in, we all followed.
“but William, you were alive during the Civil War, that was over a hundred years ago, there is no way anyone from that time is still alive.” I stated. He stopped in his tracks and stared at me.
“I know they are alive, I just know they are, I can feel it.”
“This is bullshit, stop crying and get on with your life! they're both dead, nothing we can do about it!” Ghost shouted.
William turned and glared at us all, I knew this was gonna turn out bad. Dwarf nearly fell to the ground and then stood up quickly looking around him. “What the hell?” Suddenly, a knife flew right by Ghost's head and into the wall in front of us. We all ran through the door closest to us, there was a staircase leading downward, and we all ran down. Around us there was wood, then it broke off into dirt, in the patch of dirt you could see some bones sticking up out of it.
“A civil war cemetery...” I said to myself. The lights flickered off for a second, then back on. On the wall, scratched very deep, were the words 'If you don't help me, you wont get out of here alive!'
Roy shouted quickly “We'll help you William! We'll look for your wife and son!” We all looked at him in disbelief, we wanted to live, but how were we gonna find two people who are over a hundred years old? Especially with a stubborn ghost who believes whole-heartedly that the two are still alive? Suddenly, in front of us, a white fog gathered in the shape of a human, it was Will. He pointed behind us. I turned around to see an old photo album sitting on a desk. I picked it up and opened it, then a small card fell out of it. I picked it up and looked at it. It read 'The Asp nightclub'. It showed a recent picture (well, recent compared to the other pictured up stairs.) of a small nightclub and gave directions. We all ran upstairs, we wanted to get out of there. As soon as we got upstairs we saw the lights turn off, then back on again. on the wall, Will had scratched in two names this time: Lucia and Chad. The names of his wife and son. We all ran out to the cars and drove home.

End Act 1.