Several months later, I was walking in the back acres of a farm, through a field of what I now know as wheat, when it happened. I was trailing my hands through the sea of gold, wondering at the way it moved in the wind, the way the sunlight made it shine. It fascinated me. I felt completely relaxed, completely at peace. I was in this state when suddenly I didn't see the shimmering waves anymore.
I saw a face. A beautiful, peaceful face; pale as snow and topped with smooth, yellow hair. He was tall, dignified and well dressed. I felt serene. He smiled and I suddenly saw the group ranged around him, looking at me.
Standing with her arm in his was a small woman with warm, caramel coloured shoulder-length hair. The expression on her sweet face was so kind it made me ache. Smiling, she held the hand of a young man with hair that was a strange coppery colour I had never seen before. He was tall, thin, and immensely handsome. The intelligence in his eyes was impossible to overlook, and I knew at once this boy would be important to me. My brother. On the other side of the tall blonde man was a striking young woman. No, striking was the wrong word. She was devastating. With long, golden blonde hair that reminded me of the field I should have been seeing. She had a look about her that said she was used to getting what she wanted and wouldn't take kindly to being denied. But there was goodness in her kind smile. Slightly behind her was an immense man. He had dark brown hair and was well muscled. He would have been intimidating if it wasn't for the incredibly engaging grin on his face. I knew he would be someone I cared for deeply.
I felt a hand squeeze mine, and turned to look into the angelic face of a young man framed by golden curls. He was tall, well built and stood erect, with proud bearing, like a soldier. His eyes were a sinister shade of flat black, but filled with intelligence and affection. He smiled. At that simple expression of his joy and peace I felt an enormous surge of love. In that instant I knew I would never be complete until we were together. I smiled back.
The wheat suddenly reappeared before my eyes and I was stunned. I felt shaken, but I knew with a certainty I didn't have in any other aspect of my life that what I had seen was going to happen. I didn't know when, I didn't know where, but I knew that, more than anything, I wanted to be part of that shining family. I wanted to be surrounded by people who loved me. I wanted to share the rest of my existence with them and the man I loved. I didn't find it unusual that I was in love with someone I hadn't met. I just knew that I was, and that was enough of an explanation for me.
I had experienced fleeting flashes of precognition before, but usually only in relation to the hunt. I knew where my prey would be, where it would move, which way it would try to run. I had taken it for granted, didn't think much about it, I simply took advantage of its usefulness. I suppose in a way this new goal was now a hunt as well, but I hadn't previously seen anything so detailed.
When I regained my composure the magic of the field was lost to me. I began walking again, but this time faster and purposefully, I had somewhere to go now. I was looking inward, and my feet had a path to follow. I wasn't sure yet where that path would lead, other than eventually to the future I had glimpsed. I found even that small amount of certainty comforting.
I felt that my destiny was entwined with the fate of those shining people. I knew, though they hadn't been standing in sunlight, that they were like me, and would be welcoming and happy to accept my mysterious love and myself into their home. From that day on I never took the life of another human. I had killed over since waking up on that bright, clear day, but I felt that to be part of my new family (as I now thought of them) was to show compassion for people. To help.
I started hunting fast, antlered animals instead. I didn't know what they were called, but their elegance as they tried to escape their inevitable fate was fluid, almost a dance. I found that admirable and discovered myself beginning to imitate their movement. I was naturally light on my feet, and I found the darting, leaping ballet easy to follow. Just like the humans, they never escaped. I was simply too fast, even if I hadn't already known where they would be before they leapt. I felt compassion for these creatures that exuded such an effortless beauty, but I couldn't resist the challenge of chasing them, catching them, watching them gracefully dash through the trees. I eventually graduated to stronger and more dangerous animals, bears, wolves, dogs, but I consistently returned to the gentle deer I had first been drawn to for sustenance.
I decided to begin with the search for the mysterious man whose hand had been in mine as we stood in front of our new family. If my vision was accurate, I had already met him when I found them, so it seemed logical that finding him would be a good place to start. I was confident that my ability to see things before they happened would help, but I didn't know how to control it yet, so I couldn't say how long the search would take. The flashes while hunting had been becoming more and more frequent. I wondered how strong this talent for foresight would become.
My feet carried me southeast, out of the cool breeze of autumn in the mountainous area I had been exploring, towards warmer winds. As always when I was unbound by having to keep a low profile in front of humans, I RAN. Running for me was like swimming to a fish; natural, instinctual and uplifting. I made a general practice of avoiding humans, but entering populated areas was inevitable from time to time. I took to holding my breath from the moment I began to smell a human's blood in the air and stayed that way until I was at least ten miles away from the last human I'd seen. It was easier to stick to my new diet that way.
I traveled for many months, and found as I went further south the changing seasons becoming less and less noticeable. From time to time I would get flashes. More clues to the puzzle that was all too slowly being pieced together. I would see places; I'm guessing where my mystery man planned to travel to next. Only a room, or the face of a building he had entered. Every once in a while I came across somewhere I thought looked familiar. I would investigate it, but usually, if it really was somewhere he'd been, I'd arrived long after he'd left again.
