I'm me again. Or at least...I know I'm me, but I don't remember being me, I don't know what 'me' means.

I realize I'm laying down on cold concrete, so I sit up. I'm in an old warehouse; the building is dilapidated and abandoned, random broken machinery is strewn about. To my immediate right is Sam, kneeling down next to me. I don't remember how I got here or why we're here.

"Mel?" Sam asks tentatively. There are tear tracks on his face, and his eyes are red, but both those traits don't match his facial expression. He looks scared, staring at me as if I'm a ticking time bomb.

"What's with the look?" I mumble grumpily, frowning. There's a strong feeling in my gut, a feeling of wanting to get away. Is that the human fight or flight response, or is that some of my old personality? I don't know why that thought floats through my consciousness, but thinking about that brings with it the feeling of a headache coming on, so I push it aside. I need to focus on the present; how did I get here, and what the hell happened to me?

The last thing I remember was...driving. I was driving? Yeah, something important, maybe, I had to be someplace. It was...important.

"How do you feel?"

I shush him, squeezing my eyes shut and putting my head in my hands. I can't focus, can't think. Everything's too jumbled. Up is the ceiling, down is the floor, Sam is to my right.

My name is Elijah. No, Melissa?

Yes, I go by Melissa now. Do I?

"Is my name Melissa?" I ask; I need confirmation that I'm not just going crazy. There's so much confusion, so much chaos in my head. Am I human? No, that can't be right. I was human. I was, I know it. I ate and slept and bled. I broke an ankle three years ago, I almost died when the semi hit the car. But now...I feel different. My body doesn't feel like a real body, and I still feel emotion but it's...distant. Like I have to focus and put effort into it. I open my eyes and look up at Sam, because he hasn't answered my question. "Sam, please. I feel like I'm losing my mind. Is my name Melissa?"

He nods his head once. "Yes, it is."

I breathe a sigh of relief, because I'm not crazy. At least...not about that part. But Sam doesn't know about the other name bouncing around in my skull.

"What..." My mouth is suddenly dry. I swallow, as if that would help make the dryness go away. "What happened to me?"

"You, uh..." Sam looks hesitant, scared.

"Sam," I say, frustrated. "What. Happened?"

"You died." I jump, and twist around to the source of the voice. It takes me a moment to recognize Ruby; she's wearing a different meatsuit, the brunette one, and I'm still getting used to it.

But wait a second and hold the phone.

"Ruby!" Sam manages to scold her with that one word.

Ruby looks completely shameless. "What? Someone had to tell her without tip-toeing around it!"

"And you couldn't have been gentler about it?"

"She's not even human anymore, Sam!"

"Guys!" I interrupt, desperately ignoring that last comment from the demon, because holy shit did I actually die?

A light above us flickers slightly; did I do that? Ruby said I wasn't human anymore. I shudder, hating to think of what I am now.

"You're okay now," Sam says, rubbing my back, but he's wrong. I'm not okay.

"No, Sam. If...if Ruby's right, if I'm not - " I can feel tears about to well in my eyes, and I suppress them. I don't need to cry right now. "I need to be put down."

That's how hunters work. If they become one of the things they hunt, being dead will save a whole lot of lives.

I don't even know why this had happened, or how. I just know the outcome.

"What? No!" Sam's having none of it. Okay, then.

I push him away and move to stand up. He tries to stop me, but I feel fine. There's a huge blood stain down the front of my shirt, and a gaping hole to go with it, but the skin underneath is unblemished. I certainly don't feel like I just died five minutes ago, and I'm able to stand on my own two feet without a problem.

"Ruby," I address the demon, looking her in the eyes. I don't even have to say it out loud; she knows what I want her to do.

But she shakes her head. "No. I can't," she says, and it's not because she doesn't want to, but I realize she means she literally can't kill me. Is it out of fear? Or is it something else? "I don't know what you are, but, whatever it is, it's not good."

That's how this is gonna be, huh?

"So, what, you both are just a bunch of pussys now?" I challenge, because really? This just needs to be done and over with. I don't want to live like a monster; I don't want to be a monster.

Ruby's eyes darken, not to their demon black but in a much more figurative sense. Without saying a word, she draws her knife, swiftly approaches me ("Ruby, no, don't!" says Sam, tries to hold her back, to stop her, but he's too late), and stabs me in the heart.

It doesn't hurt.

I stare down at the hilt, the knife still stuck in my chest. No blood is pooling and welling out. I'm still breathing, still standing.

"I'm not a pussy," Ruby says. "I can't kill you."

I grab the knife and, in a disconnect of reality, yank it out. That doesn't hurt either. "Point taken."

Ruby yanks her knife from my grasp. "Now that that's taken care of, we need to get moving. I don't want to be here when whoever, or whatever, killed you comes back."

She walks in the direction of what I assume to be the exit of this place. I watch her until she turns the corner and I'm unable to see her any longer.

"Mel," Sam says softly.

"What?" I reply, voice flat; it sounds more like a demand than a question.

"You gonna be okay?"

I sigh. Am I? "I dunno. I don't wanna talk about it."

~8~

My car is outside the warehouse, yet I have absolutely no memory of parking it there. The last thing I remember, without having to think too hard, is eating supper at a Subway by myself. I was sitting in the corner by the windows, looking out at the sunset, waiting for a phone call.

Judging by the dawning rays of sunlight, that meal had been at least 12 hours ago. So does that mean I'd been dead for half a day, or had I been up to something not good and the "something" backfired?

Good grief, why does my memory have to be all fucked?

As I approach my car, I reach into my pocket for the keys and come up empty. They're not in my pockets. I sigh, and look in the window to make sure I didn't do what I think I did and, yes, I left them in the car like a dumbass. Helplessly, I yank on the handle and try to open it, knowing I'm going to have to break in. I fall on my ass and it takes me a second to realize that I'd yanked the door open, the momentum sending me to the ground.

I'd left it unlocked. Why would I do that?

I don't want to think about that. I may end up overthinking it or, worse, I may actually come up with a plausible reason. Coming up with a plausible reason for my carelessness is scary.

So I get in my car, start it, and drive away. I should get back home so I can pull my shit together.

I drive towards the closest patch of light pollution and not five minutes later there's a sign reading "Pontiac, Pop. 11,975." Seems like a good enough place to stop, look at a map, eat a little something, fill up the gas tank.

I don't have to go far, because my wish is granted by a tiny little gas station just outside of town. I pull up next to a pump, stop the car, get out. The area around is nothing but grassy fields, and, to be honest, the place looks like it's going out of business. Even the sign on the door says "closed." Oh, well. They're going out of business, might as well get robbed in the process. That's also good, because then I don't have to explain the blood.

I start up the gas pump and let it run; it will stop automatically when the tank's full. There's a magazine rack outside and I walk over to it, really hoping to get lucky and yes I got lucky. "Free maps" is what the sign says. Man, the owner must be losing hope. Rifling through them, I get lucky yet again and manage to find an Illinois-Indiana-Southern Michigan-area one.

It takes awhile to find Pontiac on the map but, once I do, I can see I'm not far from home. Weird. What did I go all the way from Michigan to Illinois to do?

Another thought strikes me, as I'm walking back to the gas pump. How did Sam know where to find me? Did we team up on a hunt gone wrong? Maybe I should call him...

No. No, I won't call Sam. The only reason he was there was because I'd asked him to be, most likely. I haven't talked to either him or Bobby in almost two years, and going back into radio silence is the best thing for everyone.

~8~

When I get home, I'm dead tired. I feel like I could sleep for a week, which is weird considering I was dead barely four hours ago. One would think I'd have boundless energy, or something. But I don't, so I change into sweatpants, grab a bag of chips, and crash on the couch for a few hours.

After the chips are gone and I've had a nap, it's late into the afternoon. It finally hits me that I had been dead. There should have been no coming back from that, yet here I am, and I honestly don't know whether to feel relieved or terrified. And that's without considering my no longer being human.

I'm starting to feel the mounting dread of what I've become. One thing is clear, and it is that I need to find away to kill myself. I grimace at the thought because I've never been suicidal before, and suicide isn't really how I want to die. To be perfectly honest, I've always imagined I'd go down fighting hunting some fugly. However, none of that matters now, because I'll die by my own hand; whether I'm comfortable about it or not is irrelevant.

I'm just hoping that what I've become is actually killable. If it isn't, I'm fucked.

So it's been awhile since I've posted a fic on here. Went through that terrible writer's block phase, and I'm just now breaking out of it. If you followed my other fic Falling (let's be honest, that thing was crap and you didn't), this is a complete clean slate rewrite of it.

Any type of feedback is much appreciated, so leave a review and let me know what you think! *heart*