My chest heaved as I stared at Jaden. For a second, the line between him and the nightmare blurred.

  In that moment, he was no different the monster who had hurt Viera

  “You’re one of them,” I whispered. The words felt heavy, like an accusation I didn’t want to believe as yet.

  A memory flickered, him and the girl in the hallway, she had covered her neck the same way Viera did.

  My stomach tightened.

  Jaden didn’t flinch. His gaze remained steady, unnervingly precise. “I don’t know what you think you saw,” he said, his voice dropping an octave. “But I do know that you saw a vulcura gone feral”

  “What do you mean?” My voice shook, the uncertainty gnawing at me. "like an insane vampire?"

  “If you give me a moment,” he replied, coming a step closer, “I can maybe show you.”

  Fear spiked, a cold reminder of the previous night’s events. Jaden was not particularly my friend, could I trust him not to hurt me?

  But then I remembered his hands pulling me from the dark, the way he’d stood between me and the Santiago in the trees.

  If he had wanted me dead, I’d have been dead already. I glanced back at the path towards home once, then followed him.

  We waded through the thicket in a silence so heavy it felt like moving under deep water.

  When we reached a gnarled oak, I dug my heels in, staring at the route ahead. I didn’t like the direction we were headed..., not one bit.

  ?“Just tell me already,” I snapped, my curiosity finally breaking under the weight of the tension.

  ?“Be patient, just this once,” he replied. His voice held a sharp edge of mockery, but before I could retort, he seized my hand.

  ?Jaden’s grip was a vice, his skin unnaturally cool against mine. Every time I tried to recoil or demand a halt, the air seemed to thicken in my lungs, collapsing my protests into shallow, jagged breaths.

  “Jaden.” I whispered, my voice sounding thin and brittle. “I don’t want to be here.”

  He didn’t look back. “A few more steps.”

  The trees began to thin, revealing the slope I had seen the day before.

  “I…I don’t think I want to-” as I moved to wrench my hand away, something in the world snapped.

  My mouth wouldn’t open, letting the remaining words lodge in my throat.

  The morning light vanished swiftly, swallowed by a bruised, and suffocating twilight.

  I reached up to touch my face and my lips but my hand felt… wrong. It didn’t move up, it didn’t move by my command.

  Then I heard voices, more like whispers. Almost from right behind me or the back of my head.

  At first, I thought it was Jaden, except the voice sounded nothing like his. And when I tried to glance back, my head didn’t move to my command.

  Jaden wasn’t anywhere to be seen either. Was he playing some sort of prank on me? How had he managed to vanish that fast?

  I tried to call out his name but no sound came out. I couldn’t get my mouth to open.

  Sarah... Lily... so much blood...and yet it’s still not enough for them.

  A man’s voice, raspy and exhausted, echoed in the cavern of my skull, a bit more clear this time.

  I couldn’t grasp the full meaning— but he kept on murmuring.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Grief hit me like a physical weight, and suddenly I recalled the marriage certificate.

  The lovely lady with deep chestnut hair and beautiful black eyes, making breakfast every morning. She always added eggs to our breakfast knowing how much I loved them...

  How she smiled shyly when her dad approved of our love.

  And the day we found out she was pregnant with Ria. My little girl, barely eight when the hunger struck.

  His thoughts were, crushing the air out of my chest.

  I can’t do this anymore, the voice groaned, and I almost agreed with it. I couldn’t it on any longer either.

  For some reason I knew he wasn’t talking to me. Or even realise that I was there.

  But I could see how his life had been without them.Each day was a mirror of the one before. Cold bed, empty house.

  It was so agonising, ripping my heart apart.

  Better to end it. Better to let the damn witch win one last time.

  Whatever he meant by the witch wining didn’t matter as long as it could bring an end to this darkness of having to live in the shadows day by day.

  Holding their family pictures to bed each night and making my own heart break from living his past in a second.

  My legs began to move with a terrifying, rhythmic grace, pumping with a strength I’d never possessed. I wasn’t walking but prowling.

  I looked around for Jaden, but the forest was a desolate, monochromatic blur.

  Just when I thought I had experienced enough, when I tried to shut out the memories. Something even worse happened.

  It was an execution. It felt as though someone had forced a funnel into my throat and poured in molten lead.

  Every vein in my body became a fuse, burning from the inside out. My stomach was a nest of starving rats, chewing through my own muscle and bone.

  I yielded myself to take a seat by a palm tree, to get down on my knees, to clamp a hand over my burning stomach but alas

  I was a passenger in a vessel of agony, screaming internally while the body I inhabited kept its eyes fixed on the path.

  Continuing to move like he felt nothing at all.

  Up ahead, a figure emerged. Viera.

  She was wearing her favorite cream-colored wool shawl over a floral dress that looked silver in the dusk light. She looked so delicate, so fragile. My mind consciousness shrieked for her to run, to hide, to save herself.

  But the man’s mind was a closed door. We saw her and felt a sickening, final resolve like a decision forced onto me.

  For some time I was a contrasting mind, half happy for the end she would bring and half pleading for her to sprint off.

  I realised whoever it was, he was projecting his thoughts onto me to an extent that it was nearly impossible to tell what was mine.

  One taste, he whispered. And we get to be together again honey.

  “Stay where you are,” I felt the words escape my lips, almost like a mistake. In a voice far too deep and far too commanding than I could ever pull off.

  The terror on Viera’s face was a masterpiece of horror. When she turned to run, my body…this man’s body…didn’t hesitate.

  I felt the explosive power in his thighs as he sprinted. The world became a smear of dark green and evening grey light.

  We reached the great oak. I felt my arms…thick, hairy, and adorned with a heavy silver band on the ring finger and another on the thumb. It slammed her back into the rough bark.

  Viera’s shawl caught on a splintered branch, tearing with a soft sound that felt like a scream.

  No, stop! Please, don’t do this! I tried to talk him out of it, to see if he could hear me.

  When I realised that maybe he couldn’t, I threw every ounce of my will against his muscles, trying to make my hands let go.

  But I was a ghost in a machine.

  I watched, horrified, as the thick fingers moved to her throat.

  I had realised that it wasn’t my body but it hit different when I saw the dirt under the nails and the scars on the knuckles.

  My jaw unhinged. I felt the slow, sickening slide of teeth elongating, sharpening into needles that throbbed with a life of their own.

  Don’t bite her! I screamed in the silence of my mind.

  We sank teeth into the soft, pulsing heat of her neck.

  The first rush of blood was a revelation. It was a cool, sweet rain on the forest fire in my veins.

  When it touched my tongue, it left a rich sweet unyielding flavour, sending waves of delight coursing through every cell in me.

  As it trickled down my throat, it ignited a warm, tingling sensation that spread throughout my chest and stomach. It left a trail of blissful relaxation in its wave, creating a sense of deep satisfaction and euphoria.

  I felt my muscles…his muscles…finally relax, the tension melting away in a wave of pure, dark ecstasy.

  It was better than any drug, a feeling of being reborn, of being brand new. The agony was gone, replaced by a terrifying, electric energy that hummed through every fibre of my being.

  I was enjoying it. I felt the rhythmic gulping in my throat, the warmth spreading through my stomach, and for a heartbeat, I didn’t want it to stop.

  Out of the blue, a hand gripped my collar and spun me around.

  I gasped, looking directly into my own eyes.

  There I was…Hana, dressed in my black pants and green sweater from last night, standing by the trees. Her face a mask of pure, unadulterated terror and shock.

  I waited for Santiago to step out from behind her, to play his part in the memory.

  But the space beside her was a void. Santiago wasn’t there. She was completely alone.

  The realisation hit me like a blow, but before I could process it, the sharp heat in the man’s belly returned.

  It was ten times worse than before, a vengeful fire that began to dissolve my very intestines.

  My body felt like it was crumbling into ash and about to blow up in flames.

  I reached out a hand towards the girl who was me, a desperate plea for help, when something massive and invisible slammed into my side, and sent the world spiralling into blackness.