She tries to scream as she runs, but her lungs are on fire and working like bellows. Only pathetic yipping sounds issue from her throat, and they are a waste of precious energy. Tears blur her vision, and she tries to blink them back, to swipe them back with her hand, to swallow the knot of them clogging her throat as she runs on through the dense growth.
Moonlight barely filters down through the canopy of trees. The light is surreal, nightmarish. Branches lash at her, cutting her face, her arms. Her toes stub and catch on the roots of the oak and huckleberry trees that grow along the soft, damp earth, and she stumbles headlong, twisting her head around to see how near death is behind her.
Too near. Too calm. Too deliberate. Her heart pounds hard enough to burst.
Need drives the predator. Not the need for food, but for a substance of another kind. A need for blood, a taste for death. A need to punish a desire to inflict pain. To watch pain grow like a cancer, from a simple response into something all-consuming. A need to control and a need to play God.
To play. A Game. The thought brings a smile. The smile brings a chill to the prey. For every game there is a loser. The one bound and held captive knows the outcome before the game begins. For the victim there is no game, only anticipation, pain, terror, and, death.
No one hears her screams. No one comes to her aid. There are no saviors in the forest of the black. Cruelty here is a way of life, Death as commonplace as snakes. Danger hidden in beauty. No salvation. No justice. just life, death, the hunter, and the hunted.
Later that night, a killer stepped from the forest, yet beauty shown threw in his youth his hands were tainted with blood. His eyes were blood shot and his sneer was malice. Slowly he made his way towards the buildings, a calm look that was once again deliberate. Once he entered the building his face started to change, started to soften under the dim light that the poorly lit room gave off.
A girl stood from a table, walking to him.
"S-Samantha?" he murmured, his eyes shifting back to their original blue."I'm losing my control on Creante tonight." His side was drenched in a dark red liquidfrom a wound that caused him to cringe. His arm coiled around his side and he dropped to one of his knees in apin. His mind was off... he was thinking about his mother again. He was beating himself up for it once more... and that girl... why did it all happen? Why did he have to have this... this... thing in him?
"Sabin...!?!" Samantha dropped down and curled her arms under his. "Stand up Sabin... Don't let him take over you. I won't allow it again." She looked down, lifting her left hand to see the blood covering it, some Sabins, but the rest.. it couldn't have been his own. There was too much blood for it to be his own. "Oh god, Sabin..." She looked up at him as they crouched on the floor by the door of the Inn. She was concerned, worried for him... his safety... and even hers... but, she was too bull headed to care about herself at the moment.
His eyes were slowly flickering back to a blood shot red.. a dark crimson color overtook his entire eye. Soon a deep throaty laugh escaped his lips that dripped with venom more deadly than a snake bites. Fangs slid down over his bottom lip and he chuckled. "Oh my dear... dear.. Samantha. How foolish you are..." sabin cooed, though it wasn't him... it was Creante once again. He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her back to the floor, biting his nails deep into her flesh. He leaned over her, too close for any comfort.
Samantha yelped in pain and she tried to move under his weight but it was no help. It only made it harder for her when she noticed the more she kicked the more his claws hooded deeper into her shoulders. She was now shaken, her eyes wide and fear struck. She looked like a dear in the headlights of a massive Simi-truck? and Creante loved every moment.
"Hello love, whats wrong...?" His eyes caught the beads of blood gathering by his finger tips. At the sight of the first one falling he leaned down to her and licked the small blood flow from the base of her neck, where he was now holding her, to her left ear and whispered. "I should have done this far... far... before he got a chance to get attached. But now I get to cause him true pain." He chuckled, his lips slowly parting as he leaned forward, biting down on her neck. Her flesh made a sickening popping sound as his fangs entered the first layer of skin; a rich flow of warm life running over his tongue.
Samanthas nose creased gently, biting down hard as a sharp pain pierced her throat. She let out a faint whimper... wishing for Sabin to return. "Sabin... pleas! Come back to me... Pleas!?" She cried, but only the Creante would respond by releasing his deadly bite and laughing aloud.
"Oh dear girl... he's lost... he's never coming bac-..." His eyes widened, biting down unbearably hard into her shoulders with his nails as he cringed. Creantes eyes flickered back and forth between a bright blue and red? but then Sabin finally prevailed.
"Sam-..." He sat up and leaned his back to the closed door, shaken and more than mad at himself for letting the Anju win... even for just a moment. "I'm sorry..."
"No Sabin..." She murmured and pushed up, cringing as the blood running down her arms and neck slowed its flow. "In fine... I'm just glad you're with me once again." She cooed, her lips bowing into a faint smile as she knelt in front of him. She slid her hands around the sides of his neck and kissed him, holding onto him for dear life.
Sabins eyes closed and he held close to her... Never wanting to loose something so dear to him ever again.

(C) RAVEWOLF '05