Chapter One

Today is the first time that I would get to meet a real soul, as in one from the outside. I'd heard of them all of my life, but I was careful not to associate with them. It was extremely dangerous. The stories that I'd heard about the souls were scary, and I often worried about what would happen if someday we did get discovered. I had so much to lose. I feared the souls, and rightfully so. They had within them the power to destroy a whole species.

I chuckled quietly to myself. They were on the brink of that already.

The stories were what kept me going, as well as my family. They were similar to something that a parent would tell a child just to make them behave. The only difference was that the stories about the souls were real: three women were found dead after jumping from a building in order to avoid capture. It was a fate deemed worse than death. The stories of the souls were horrific.

But, there was nothing quite as terrifying as seeing one face-to-face.

My whole life had consisted mainly upon survival. In the fifteen years I've lived, I had been forced to learn one rule very quickly: eat or be eaten. One wrong step and a human would be killed. Well, technically not killed. He would just get his mind erased and his body stolen. He's as good as dead, though. However, there are always exceptions to the rules. Wanderer had been placed within Melanie's body and wasn't able to take her over completely. But that happened a long time ago.

This morning, Jared and his group returned from their raid early, and with a soul. Nobody seemed to be very pleased about this. I hadn't been able to see the soul because I had been at the back of the crowd when Jared returned. It didn't really help that almost everybody else was taller than me, either.

Of course the soul had been immediately confined into an empty room. I wasn't allowed to see the soul at first, but the day passed and no one had been able to make the soul utter a single word. I begged Wanda, also known as Wanderer, to let me see the soul for the remainder of the night.

"Please!" I begged, grabbing her arm as she tried to get to her room.

"No! It's not safe for you," she replied, obviously fed up with me. I pulled on her arm even harder, but I wasn't strong enough to stop her. So I was being dragged through the hallway.

"But I could help! I want to help!"

She stopped and turned to face me. "Would you please just stop it?" she finally asked. I had her exactly where I wanted her now.

I went into stubborn-teenage mode. I crossed my arms after she stopped pulling away from me and demanded, "Only if you let me see the soul. I could help everyone, and what's the worst that could happen? I'm not able to help? It's still a win-win situation."

She threw her head back and groaned. "Fine! Alright? I'll give you an hour. And that's it. Understand?"

I was already jumping around in the hallway with joy. No person could resist that logic, and Wanda was just a person. Who could blame her for that?

She led me back the way we had come. "I have to find Ian first."

"Why?" I complained.

She gave me a look that immediately shut me up. "Because he would probably like to know what's going on. Plus, you'll need to be able to protect yourself."

"What do you mean?"

"Ian's not going to let you into that room without a gun."