Breathe, I tell myself. Breathe and you will live. I run a little faster. I duck under a branch. My shirt tears a little as it gets caught on a twig. But I do not care. I do not care about anything. Except for Dimitri's soul.

I do not love him any more, I tell myself. He is no longer the man I loved. He is gone. What is left of him is his body. Anyone can find his body. But only I can find his soul.

When I find his soul, I will keep it safe. I will keep it and hug it and kiss it and never let it go again. It seems immoral to keep a soul from its resting place. But I will eat it, swallow it, capture it in a jar if I have to. I will never lose it ever again. Dimitri's soul. Soul.

I can feel the dark of the night coming. I don't have to look up at the sky, if there is one. The canopy of trees is too thick. The air is getting thicker and denser as I enter deep into the forest. The grove. The woods. It is now so dark that I can feel the shadows creeping on me. I almost collide with a tree.

Suddenly, I feel a hand grabbing behind me. Panicking, I only scramble faster - away from something, or to something? I do not know. Nor do I care. I do not care about anything anymore. Not my family, not my friends, not my life, not my soul. Only Dimitri's soul. The hand releases me. Only then do I realize it was a branch. The branches and poison ivy, grasping hold of me, tearing my shirt.

By now my shirt is almost nothing. I do not care. I have another one underneathe. I do not need to care. I don't have a need. I have a way. Hathaway. Hath is has, in Old English. But what do I have a way for or to?

I stop. I feel dizzy to stop so suddenly after running for three and a half days. I drop to the ground. Not in exhaustion. But in relief. I have found a cabin. I do not know if it has Strigoi in it. Or humans. Or dhampirs or whatever. I do not care. If there are Strigoi, they will die. If there are humans, I will find refuge amongst them. If there are Moroi or people of my kind, I will run. Away. Keep running.

One could only hope they were humans. I start walking. I come to the door and it opens before I can do anything. There is a Strigoi holding a young female human by the neck. Her neck is severely damaged. By damaged, I mean ripped out. The Strigoi does not seem to notice me, which I thought was rather strange. I step up to him and notice he was blind. I kill him with my half broken stake.

The girl screams when she sees me. I must have looked a sight. I look at her and open my mouth to speak. Only to be interrupted by another scream. I roll my eyes and let out a sigh. I then realize she was not screaming from fright. It was from pain. She is almost tearing her hair out. I feel I have to kill her. To save her. So I do.

I say sorry to her.

I venture to the cabin, closing the door behind me. I do not know why. I hear a noise. I look around and see a cat. I nick a piece of bread from the dining table. I hear another noise. Muffled, scared. From inside the cupboard. I step slowly to the cupboard. The floorboard creaks. The moans get louder.

What could I say to calm the person (s) down? "I come in peace"?

I open the door to find a twenty or so year old man, gagged, tied wrists and ankles to a broomstick and practically catches him as he falls toward me, like in a comedy. I pocket the remaining pieces of stake and use a pocket knife to cut the ropes. As I bring out the blade, the man panics and edges away from me.

I squat down, almost eye level to him. "So what do you want me to do, then?" I pocket my blade. The man stops attempting to run away.

"Hi, I'm Rose," I say conversationally, extending my hand. He flinches. "Oh, sorry. I forgot. You can't shake my hand. Because they're tied to a broomstick!"

He flinches at every emphasis I made on the syllables of "tied to a broomstick."

He is slowly realizing I am here to help. When I get up behind him, he no longer tries to escape. I slide my knife between his hands and almost cut him. I slice the ropes. As soon as his hands are free, they go up to his face, palms facing me, defence-like. As I turn away to find more food, he lowers his defence and takes off his gag. After that, he does not talk. He claws off the ropes tying his feet to the broom.

He stands up, wobbles and steadies himself on the wall. He turns to me.

All that while, I have my back turned to him. But I have been trained to notice every detail happening everywhere.

He growls.

Like a wolf.

And slowly morphs into one.

A big and hairy one.