He emerged slowly, cautiously from the shadows, almost as if he were expecting his fate. My gaze fixed on him, a slow ache churning within my gut at the thought of what I was going to do to this boy. Bright crimson eyes flickered frantically about the barn in which we stood before settling upon me. Dark hair framed those eyes, tangled and dirty after our last battle. The boy was young, only about 15 when he turned, which made this all the worse.

A shock of panic went through me at that moment, though not of my own. He was going to run, I knew it. Quickly I interceded, though my body hadn't moved an inch yet. Induced with a cloud of peaceful calm, the boy relaxed, his eyes losing that sense of fear and his body becoming less tense. Granted, he still knew what was going to happen but while at the mercy of my gift, he was powerless.

Slowly, I took a step forward, toward the boy. He looked into my coal colored eyes and in the next instant I was behind him, one arm around his torso, pinning his arms to his sides while the other went for his chin, the perfect hand hold. It was hard work, keeping the calm serenity that I placed in him steady, but I managed. Hay floated back down toward the ground in the place I once stood, the only evidence of my presence there.

When he began to struggle I knew I couldn't keep up the thin layer of calm any longer. I let it go, concentrating on the task before me instead. Though his panic was renewed, he still was no match for me. He wrenched away from me, struggling to free himself from my grip but it was too late. With a quick pull of my arm, I performed my task, a snapping sound ripped through the air followed by a hollow thud. A limp corpse now lay at my feet, its head a few feet away. The sight sickened me to my very core, the sound of his death ringing in my ears long after it was gone; I had ended another innocent life.

For a few minutes I just stood there, letting the height of what I had done sink into me, letting my self wallow in self pity, but my time was cut short. I had a job to finish. Grabbing the ruins off the ground, I carried them outside into hot, dry air of the South. A fire was blazing just outside, purple smoke rising from it in columns, swirling into the night sky, obscuring the stars where it was thick with the fog. The others that were of no use any longer were being burned here, the final stage of their life and of their death. I tossed the deadened weight into the scalding flames with ease, watching silently as glowing ashes erupted from it, floating up into the air where they burned out. Soon the smoke thickened further, the sickly sweet scent of death filling the air and burning my nose, another reminder of what I'd done.

I stood there for a long time, simply watching the flames, arms folded tightly over my chest. Images flowed endlessly through my mind of each person I killed over the decades, both mortal and immortal, each face passing through my mind so quickly until they're nothing but a blur. I can feel their last seconds of emotion as clearly as my own: fear, pain, panic, horror. All of the emotions of looking upon a monster. This was my life; this was all I knew, all I had known for decades. In order to live, you had to fight, you had to kill. There just was no other way to do it.