Welcome to the sequel of "Stolen Fangs," "Stolen Existence: The Awakening.' I cannot wait to take you guys through this next part of the story with Mariella and Dimitri. Without further ado, the prologue and a glance into the first chapter.

***Ace***

Prologue

"Is that really the life that you want?" He asked me; his warm breath stirred against the skin on my neck.

My mind immediately flashed back to William's aether, to the repeated hells I'd sat through, unable to rescue myself. For the first time, I wondered what it had been like for Dimitri to sit there helplessly and watch me drown in nightmares time and time again. Who had had it worse? I didn't know.

My heart ached for him, unlike any ache I'd ever felt before. I wanted to take away all of his pain. At the same time, I longed for the life I had had, for the one I had an opportunity of leading now.

"If you leave again, there will not be another chance. Giuseppe will not allow it." He breathed, nuzzling my jaw. I couldn't focus, so I pushed his willing mouth away.

"That life is the one I wanted for three months of my life. I sat there, waiting and hoping and wishing, that somehow, someday, I'd be able to return." I looked him in the eyes. "It was all I wanted."

Sorrow filled those deep onyx eyes. He looked at me with a deep, brilliantly vivid emotion that I hadn't, before that moment, known existed.

I'd tried so hard to reconnect with my old life. I'd tried every trick in the book to reconcile the new me with the old me. Fate wasn't taking my efforts into consideration. So what was I left with?

Those onyx eyes filled with a sudden, inexplicable hope. He took my soft hand in his large one. "What is it you want now?"

Was there even an answer?

Chapter One

~Mariella~

I'm walking. I'm walking and walking and walking and I don't see any end in sight to this road that I'm walking on.

And then there is one. It's just blank. I sit down, lay down. Only to wake up in a field of spring flowers. They're not too big, not too flashy; just light and springy, little pieces of life surrounding me in every direction. I walk and crush them as I go by. It's unavoidable.

I'm in Katy's hospital room. I look around. I can't seem to find her bed…or her.

I'm in her bed. The tubes, the wires, the electrodes, they're all hooked up to me. The thud-thud in my chest matches the beep-beep that's calling from the heart monitor. I feel awful. My eyelids grow unbearably heavy, and one blink, two blinks, they shut to the sound of the beep (thud)-beep (thud).

Dimitri's room. He's undressing me. I've been here before, I think happily. What a nice place to be. I wrap my legs around his waist, but he plunges his fangs into my neck and I'm pulled away from the scene.

I'm back in the field of flowers. A man is walking towards me. A long, tall figure with bone white hair and bottomless black eyes. William. He's grabbing my cheeks again, trying to chant, but the pain from before won't return. He gets frustrated. His eyes bulge, veins that I didn't know were there appearing. He screams in my face. I can taste his rancid breath in my mouth.

He grabs me. He'll find a way to make this work, he says. He pats my hand like I'm a pet. Don't worry, he says. It will be alright, he says.

I want to be home. Where am I? I ask him.

In your mind, he replies. You are trapped in your mind.

It's my turn to scream.

Please follow this story if you want more updates! Stolen Fangs will not be updated anymore, seeing as how it's completed (jee-whiz, it took long enough). I can't believe I'm finally moving on to the sequel! This is so exciting!

***Ace***