Naminé groaned when she heard the knock on her window. So she peeked open one eye and peered towards the shutters, finding with great distress that Jane had climbed into the tree at the side of her room and was waving to her, a picnic bag wrapped around her stomach. Sitting up in bed, Naminé scowled, trudged over, and opened the window, rubbing the grit out of her eyes. "Why the tree?" asked Naminé with a sigh, but Jane shrugged, climbing into her bedroom window and setting the picnic basket on the floor. Then she sucked in a breath of fresh air and grinned. "It's gorgeous today. My curl isn't giving me trouble, either!" she added, pointing to her forehead. Naminé pursed her lips before leaning out the window to feel the breeze. As it wafted past her she glanced at the sky. There wasn't a cloud in sight for miles, not even wisps of one. "You're right," muttered Naminé, "there won't be rain today." Jane beamed and shrugged as Naminé racked her mind for one more deterrent, turning on the radio she kept at the side of her bed.

The machine sputtered music and syllables as Naminé searched for the morning news channel. When she found it, she stepped back from the device and folded her arms in front of her, eyeing Jane's every reaction. "As we herald in April next week, right in the middle of the season of love, a shadow covers our springtime pleasure with the discovery of mutilated animals across the city," explained the announcer in a grave tone. "In the past month, pets from all over the metroplex have been coming to the veterinarian clinic on Main Street with gaping wounds in their necks. The main demographic are cats, especially feral and roaming ones, but dogs, bobcats, and birds are all in trouble too. It is believed this is due to pumas traveling past the confines of the mountains they usually inhabit, and we urge all citizens to be careful of their pets. As for weather this weekend, it's going to be blue skies throughout, a lovely time to go to the beach," Naminé charged for the radio and snapped it off just as this weather announcement was made, but she was too late to ebb Jane's interest. The girl clapped her hands in excitement, balling them into fists and jumping up and down.

"How exciting!" breathed Jane, holding her cheeks. "A real live puma." Then she charged for the picnic basket and ripped her notebook from within, skimming through it with narrowed eyes. "I've read that when confronted by a wild cat, the best thing to do is watch it, make yourself appear larger, and slowly back away. If it turns aggressive, you shout and bang rocks together, and if attacked you fight back." As Jane explained, Naminé stared at her in horror, gripping her bed covers in her hand. "How would we make ourselves appear larger?" asked Naminé, "Jump on each other's shoulders?"

"No," Jane scowled in return, closing the book and casting it on the bed. "It'll be fine, we aren't moving at dawn or dusk, and there are two of us," she added. "The puma won't attack a group."

"But what if there is more than one puma!" shouted Naminé. Jane opened her mouth, but then closed it, thwarted. She tapped her notebook's cover before folding her arms over her front and sighing. "I really wanted to inspect some dead cats," she murmured, pouting. "Why don't you go to the clinic?" mollified Naminé in reply. Jane scowled. "I guess we could do that instead," she acquiesced, and Naminé beamed, jumping up and running to her self-painted wardrobe at the left side of the room. She picked out her cotton white shorts and a white t-shirt and threw them on before helping Jane hustle their picnic together.

While Jane climbed out from the window and descended Naminé's tree, Naminé descended the stairs to see if her father was still home. He wasn't, so she shrugged and charged outside, running down the front lawn towards Jane with a big smile. The two girls hurried to the train station and caught the 9 o'clock ride to the city center just in time, getting off at thirty minutes past. Then they ran towards the clinic, pushing the front door open and peeking in before they entered, to see how busy it was. It was a tad busy, but not terribly so, and Jane glanced at Naminé in satisfaction as they walked towards the front desk. The receptionist grinned at the girls, leaning in towards Jane with a smile. "How's your father?"

"He's in India," sighed Jane in response, a hint of envy coloring her voice, "doing an expedition on the elusive kallana pygmy elephants of the Sahyādri Mountains." Naminé glanced at her in surprise as she spoke. Jane had not told Naminé her father was on an expedition, meaning that she had very much wanted to go. The aspiring scientist seemed close to tears as the receptionist gushed about what a fantastic explorer her father was, and Naminé's heart fell as she shuffled her feet in thought. "I was wondering if I could see some of the cats," asked Jane in a syrupy tone of voice when she could get a word in edgeways, but the receptionist wrinkled her nose in discomfort and shook her head, tilting it to the side with affection. "I don't think the vet wants to be distracted right now."

"I wouldn't distract her," Jane assured, putting her hand to her heart, but the receptionist continued to shake her head. Jane eventually relented, pursing her lips and nodding in return. She left the vet's with a short goodbye as Naminé tagged along behind her, but once outside, Jane fell to the curb with despondence. Naminé squatted beside her, careful not to get her white cotton shorts on the pavement, as Jane watched the careful kneeling motion with a scowl. "Why must you always wear white?" she muttered, looking across the road. There was a melancholy silence, until Naminé tried, "Do you want to explore the forest near the school?" making Jane brighten a tad. "I'm sure there would be no pumas there." To this Jane nodded and smiled, thinking of the possibilities as she swept her hair from in front of her face.

Pressing her hands on her knees, Naminé hoisted herself up, holding out her hand for Jane to take. Jane took on a forlorn expression, holding her hand out to Naminé with affected reluctance. But she soon lumbered up and walked back to the train with slow steps, trudging behind Naminé, who was now the leader. The two girls rode towards the school in silence, but once they got off the bus and passed by a heap of road kill, Jane began to talk with excitement. The green roof of the school separated from the trees ahead and its white brick walls shone forth as the girls drew nearer. When they were a short distance away they became aware of the sound of wheels and bashing wood resounding west of them. Naminé and Jane glanced at each other in discomfort. An accompanying mixture of cheering and shouting blared ahead, but the girls mustered up some courage and walked forward.

The source of the noise lay at the entrance of the building, on the stair ramps parallel to the front doors. Four boys were rolling across the concrete on skateboards, doing a variety of tricks as Jane and Naminé tried to make out who they were as they passed. They recognized Jim from yesterday. He was talented at skateboarding, perhaps the best of the group. Circling around him were two other boys, seniors, but another, mysterious man stood at the center of the posse, holding his skateboard under his arms. "Jack, do your caballerial," the unfamiliar one announced. One of the seniors glanced towards him from two deep lashed dark rimmed eyes and grinned. His black irises burned like coals from his ghost white skin as he whizzed past the metal railing at the sides of the stairs and jumped up, turning in midair and landing on the iron surface. He grinded down the railing and kicked off it, flipping the board under his feet before landing on the ground and veering around the potted plants that lined the stairs. As his friends cheered for him the tall boy beamed, catching sight of Jane and Naminé as they walked past. He stopped riding and waved to them, forcing them to wave back out of politeness, before he returned to his friends, who had traveled to the curb and were now seated.

The unfamiliar man beckoned to the girls, shouting, "Come join us ladies," so that the seated senior ribbed him in the stomach. It was apparent Jim was not established enough to have this privilege, so instead he laughed sheepishly at the spectacle before him. The oldest member of the group of boys rummaged around in his pocket, shooting a sly glance at the boys around him, and the senior who had elbowed him scowled. "Phoebus, you can't break out the pot already!" he snickered, but Phoebus ignored him, arranging his supplies in front of him as he lit up. Jim shuffled close to him with eagerness during, watching with scrutiny as Phoebus took a long drag from his pipe while Jack and the other senior hoisted themselves up and returned to the top of the stairs, flying out over them and whizzing up the wheelchair ramp to do it again.

Jane watched Phoebus with a wrinkled nose as he puffed little ringlets, his eyes glazed over as he watched the smoke trails ascend to the sky above his scalp. Naminé glanced around her in discomfort as her friend shook her head in disgust. "Maybe this was a bad idea," muttered Naminé, making Jane nod. "Between four potheads and a puma, which would you take?" asked Jane, to which Naminé replied, "the puma."

"Are you fancy females taking a walk on the wild side?" Phoebus drawled, swaying as he pointed towards the trees ahead. Naminé and Jane narrowed their eyes at each other, picking and choosing what they would say. For the first time, Jim tore his gaze away from his stoned companion to examine who exactly he was speaking to. Jim recognized the girls immediately and scowled, standing up and pushing off on his skateboard, riding off to meet the two other boys on the stairs. "We're meeting friends," Naminé blurted out, but her poorly drawn up strategy backfired when Phoebus jumped up and held his arms out to them. "Hey, let's all trip together!" he beamed, turning and getting his pipe together. "You ladies puff the dragon?" he asked, making Jane wrinkle her nose as he attempted to hand the freshly stuffed pipe to her. "My father tried it once in the sixties," responded Jane, stepping away from the glass that was being thrust between her eyes. "He vomited and passed out." To this Phoebus tutted, shaking his head and sighing. "Mighty shame," he muttered, taking another drag as he scratched his brown goatee, which contrasted interestingly with his beach blond hair, cut in a neat bowl shape around the nape of his neck. "Stop bothering them, man!" called Jack ahead, cupping his skinny hands around his mouth for projection, but Phoebus waved him off and began humming nirvana, drumming his thighs with his hands. "Jane, you were in my science class last year," he announced, making Jane furrow her brows in confusion. Then, the man pursed his lips, correcting himself. "Wait, that was Lorina," he snorted and began picking invisible bubbles from the air. Jane gave him a good moment's stare before wrenching her attention away from him and continuing into the forest with Naminé trailing behind. "Hey!" protested Phoebus, leaning back as the girls left. "What about us meeting your friends?"

"Maybe we should take him along incase we do come across a puma," Jane muttered under her breath, and Naminé tried not to laugh. As they passed by their usual lunch tree and entered into the deeper confines of the forest, the two girls began talking. Dead cats had become a scarcer occurrence in the past few days, Jane explained as they trudged on. Before Namine was aware of it, Jane had lead her deeper into the forest and away from the path, keeping up a steady stream of conversation as they went along. With difficulty Naminé stepped over little huddles of dogwood and stretches of poison ivy, their tendrils reaching up like sly fingers, grasping at her socks. Water flowed somewhere to their right, and as they came upon the river that ran through the forest from the mountain, Jane spotted a dirt caked clump of fur on the bank opposite to them. In a fit of excitement she slid down the decline beside the river and hopped across the rocks that ran to the other bank. When both girls reached the other side of the river, Jane slipped her scalpel and gloves from the back of the picnic basket and bent over the mysterious creature hidden beneath the sand. After slipping her gloves on, she prodded at what appeared to be the body of a half buried cat with her blade and surveyed it, tutting. "This is a fresh one," she murmured in wonder. Then, her brows furrowed as she examined the carcass further. She dug its hind legs out from the ground, and Naminé gasped when its abdomen was revealed. The bare ribs of the animal hung limply between its arms, the muscle lining them purple with decay. Within their confines was the cavern of the animal's abdomen, empty except for maggots and strings of tendons. Naminé covered her eyes, squeaking in shock as Jane pierced the scalpel to the side of the animal's neck and made a quick incision across its jugular. Then Jane picked up the cat with care and held it upside down. Two drops of black blood fell from the its exposed abdominal cavity and mouth, but other than that the creature was dry.

"I've never seen such a feeding pattern," murmured Jane, shaking her head. "Is it a bobcat?" asked Naminé, peering at the animal in fear, and Jane nodded. "But pumas don't drain their victim's blood," she explained as an afterthought, biting her lip in concentration. As she examined the gashes that had opened the animal's neck and torso, Jane noticed that its right leg hung abnormally. Upon closer inspection, two holes could be seen quite clearly, etched into the femoral artery of the creature as if punctured with two needle-like claws about a half an inch in diameter. A gasp escaped Jane's throat as she began forming a hypothesis in her mind, and her palms sweated with nervousness. Looking around, she noticed faded paw prints leading away from the dead cat. Drops of blood were still indented in the forest floor at their side, along with mangled dirt. "It looks like the bobcat stopped moving right here," Jane murmured, pointing to the spot. She slipped her magnifying glass out of her picnic basket and squatted at the side of the prints, leaning over them and setting the glass to her eye. Naminé stood at her side, glancing around every so often with impatience, but Jane stayed rooted in position, muttering to herself. "These are the cat's back paws. It must have tried to run away. The killer caught it by the legs just as it tried to jump and jabbed some sort of thick circular blade right into its femoral artery. Maybe that's how its blood was drained," added Jane. As she spoke a shiver ran up her spine and she leered away from the cat, following the prints laid into the ground behind it with quick steps. "The thing landed on its stomach and pulled the cat back. There are footprints before hand, though they're very faint. The beast was light and two legged, barefoot. Human..." Jane's voice trailed off and her fingers trembled as they set the magnifying glass back in the basket. As she peered into the spaces between the tree boughs above, their brown, characteristically protective arms turned into long gnarled fingers, hanging in silent watch. "Perhaps the beach isn't such a wonderful plan after all," added Jane, wiping sweat from her forehead.

Usually Naminé would have added a smart remark at this point. But when she did not even respond, Jane's discomfort grew, and she glanced to where her companion had been standing in curiosity, her eyes widening when she realized that the girl was gone. "Naminé!" Jane barked, stepping to and fro with indecision. But as she heard the girl's faint voice in the distance Jane ran towards it, breathing a sigh of relief when the familiar pale silhouette of Naminé bobbed ahead, following the cat's paw prints along the dirt path that sloped deeper into the trees. She would lose them every so often in the brush the cat had traveled through, and had to pick through the foliage with care, each time giving Jane a chance to catch up. The human footprints were very light and hard to see, but they pursued the now dead cat, keeping a distance of about fifteen feet from its prey until it made its attack. The dead wind around grew to a slight breeze, billowing past the girls as the sun rose higher in the sky. Then, as the cat prints began veering a sharp right, the girls stumbled upon a forest clearing strange to them. The blue sky gleamed down from overhead, undeterred by any tree encroaching on the circular opening of grass, its borders lined by an edge of fern. The midday sun's rays fell upon the girl's faces and their stomachs grumbled as they peered across the clearing. "We're lost," Jane whispered as she clung to her scalpel in fear. "I hate being lost."

"We can just follow the footprints back," Naminé whispered with atypical bravery. She stepped past the fern border of the clearing and peered out from the trees, onto the space ahead. At the other side, where the trees reconvened, their canopies enveloping the sun, there was a faint glint of glass. It shone from the attic of an old, red stone building, forming before the girls' very eyes through a haze of green. Its brown top loomed from the distance, inlaid with broken windows and rotten shutters. As Naminé stared at its contours she remembered her dream, and the drawing of the house in darkness. The brick house ahead sat silent behind the trees, shrouded in shadow. "Oh gosh," whispered Naminé, "My greatest fear. It was real all along."

Jane furrowed her brows in puzzlement, trying to step forward into the clearing, but Naminé barred her path, indicating the border. Just in case someone was inside the house, the girls decided it would be best to keep to the shadow around the clearing. They trudged parallel to the border of fern, and when they were about twenty feet from the house, they crouched low to the ground and stared at its broken windows, watching for movement. When they found none, they glanced to one another for a final decision. "It's dangerous," Jane muttered. "It could be the serial killer's lair," added Naminé. "Should we do it?" asked Jane. "Might as well," Naminé replied. They nodded at each other one last time to be sure, before standing and walking towards the building. "Do you have a flashlight with you?" Naminé whispered, but Jane furrowed her brows, responding, "I don't want the thing to notice us."

Naminé's eyes went big as saucers as Jane said this, but she nodded and glanced forward with determination. After a few more moments of walking, though, Naminé made Jane halt, and told her as nicely as she could that she sounded like an elephant tramping through the brush. Jane was offended, but she relented and let Naminé go forward on her own, keeping a close eye on her. The blond girl moved like a ghost, reaching the entrance of the house in a matter of seconds. As she passed by its windows she ducked to the ground, hoping that if anything was in there, that it had not seen her. With as silent a trod as possible she crawled around the building, peeking in each window at the empty rooms inside. Jane sat on the forest floor hidden behind a pine trunk twenty feet away, wringing the hem of her khaki shorts in her fingers. When Naminé disappeared around the backside of the house Jane's breath caught in her throat, but she continued staring until Naminé crawled around the other side.

The fourth ground floor room Naminé came across appeared to be a living room, with a fireplace and an ancient rocking chair inside of it. Whitish brown wisps of wood littered the floor like wings, shifting in the wind that blew through the windows. The wings seemed to convene in front of the fireplace, settling themselves neatly atop one another, fluttering. But as Naminé stood up and leaned inside the left window of the room the smell of rotting flesh hit her and she covered her mouth in nausea. In the time her eyes adjusted to the lack of light in the room, the bits of wood cascaded across the ground took horrible form, filled with pores and with cakes of green flesh clinging to their sides. A terrible curiosity stirred within Naminé, and like a moth to light she leaned further, sliding over the window and into the room, stifling her breath as she moved forward with silent steps. When she reached the front of the fireplace she shuddered. The feathers of bones shifted around her feet as she stepped forward. Piles of animal carcasses were stacked delicately beneath the hearth, their empty stomachs and hollow, bloodless eyes staring forward, reflecting the flies that infested them.

Naminé felt herself going faint as she stepped away from the fireplace, but with the last of her strength she lurched for the window and tumbled out from it, charging back to Jane with silent footfalls. Once she had returned, Jane opened her arms out and Naminé ran into them, stifling a sob, and when Jane tried to ask questions Naminé clamped her hand over the girl's mouth and pushed her back the way they had come, following the cat prints. Yet midway in return, Naminé could keep silent no longer.

"I found the missing cats from town," whispered the girl, her hands trembling. "They're all lying in the fireplace of that house." As she said this, she covered her face with her hands and blinked back tears. Naminé hated looking at dead anything, especially cat corpses. But this was beyond anything she'd ever seen in the biology lab. Jane wrinkled her nose as Naminé explained what she'd seen, pursing her lips with thought. After Naminé had finished blubbering, Jane asked if the corpses' blood had been drained, but the girl stared at her, aghast. "What?" asked Jane defensively in return, folding her arms in front of her. "This information is important!"

"Their stomachs didn't have any organs in them!" Naminé nearly screeched, clamping her hand over her mouth and repeating the statement in a whisper. Jane rubbed her forehead with the palm of her hand and sighed in exasperation, trying to get Naminé to calm down. "A true predator would eat the muscle of the animal, not just its organs. And it would not drink its blood because it would give itself iron poisoning if it did." She tapped her chin as she explained, narrowing her eyes as she spoke. "The gashes on the neck and torso make it appear as if a wild animal were enacting the killings. But the efficient blood draining and organ removal tells another story."

Suddenly, the girls heard the sound of whistling and froze, holding each other for support. As they stared around the forest, they saw a dark figure walking towards them, crushing twigs beneath his feet as he moved. "Oh the farmer and the cowman must be friends," he sang in a tenor voice, kicking a scuttling animal out of his way. "Territory folks should stick together, territory folks should all be pals. Cowboys dance with the farmer's daughters, farmers dance with the rancher's gals." Something inside the boy whispered to him, and he fell silent, hunching down and peering around the forest floor in curiosity. When his eyes fell upon the backs of Jane and Naminé, hiding behind the tree ahead of him, he snickered, darting over and grabbing Naminé by the hair. "What are you doing on my land?" Vanitas drawled as Naminé fought under his grip, screeching with fright. Jane stared at the proceedings in shock, thinking for a split second that she'd left her scalpel in the picnic basket near the river. When she realized it was in her hands she tightened her grip on it and raised it behind her head, slamming it forward. Its surface, slimy from the bobcat it had punctured before, dug into Vanitas' arm, leaving a thick trail of blood as Jane slipped the scalpel from it. In turn, Vanitas lost his grip on Namine's hair and held his oozing arm in disbelief as the two girls made a run for it. The dead bobcat's footprints acted as their reference, while Vanitas tried to stop the bleeding of his forearm, cursing and spitting insults in deliberation.

It took Jane and Naminé half the time to return as it had coming, and when they saw their picnic basket laying untouched on the ground ahead they cried out in pleasure, grabbing it up as they ran past. "Should we have covered our footprints?" shouted Naminé as they continued running, but Jane shook her head. "It wouldn't matter," she muttered, "we've found the culprit." Naminé's eyes grew wide as she glanced behind them to see if Vanitas was following them. It didn't look like he was, but when Naminé noticed a tall shadow bobbing a ways behind, picking up speed, she screeched and pushed Jane forward. The girls ran as fast as they could, and when they got to the river, without a single thought they jumped over it, barely landing on the other side, their shadows hovering across the water as if weighing them towards it. Once on the other shore, though, they scrambled forward on their hands and knees and ascended the edge of the overhang that peered over the running water, and turned around. Vanitas lunged towards the river with incredible speed, his eyes smoldering with rage, but once he heard the gushing water he halted in indecision, scowling as he slid down the bank. He sloshed through the rapids and scrambled up the opposite bank, watching with a forlorn gaze as Jane and Naminé's figures faded in the distance, shadowed by the boughs of the trees overhead. As the girls glanced back one last time, Vanitas shook his head and gave up, sloshing back across the river and disappearing in the opposite direction.

"I think he's given up!" squeaked Naminé, as Jane panted with big puffs of breath in front of her. This news was good enough for both of them to stop running, so they slowed down to a light jog and tried to catch their breath at the side of a large pine. To Naminé's relief, the top of the school jutted up beyond the trees like a great green beacon, and Jane nudged her on the shoulder. "What were the boy's names?" she asked, but Naminé shrugged. "All I can remember is Phoebus," muttered Naminé. Jane nodded and howled his name into the wind several times. Then, she and Naminé ran until they were at the edge of the trees looking out onto the school.

Phoebus was at the base of the school entrance steps, singing in whispers whilst his friends filmed each other's tricks, but when the wind carried his name from inside the forest, he closed his mouth and held his hand up. "I totally heard voices, man," Phoebus assured his friends as they quit talking, "the wind was calling my name."

"It was the pot, man," a senior called as he grinded down the rail, but Phoebus shook his head. "It was us," puffed Jane in return, dragging herself and Naminé out to meet them. The girls were both sweating profusely and must have had rather unfortunate expressions on their faces, because Phoebus, the unnamed senior, and Jack all rode towards them. The boys sat beside them as they collapsed onto the curb, staring at them in concern. Jim eventually rode to their side, trying not to roll his eyes. "You okay?" asked the freshman in a half ass way, but his senior counterparts shushed him and returned to the girls. "Why did you call me?" Phoebus asked, his eyes brightening. "Did you meet your friends?"

Jane and Naminé stared at each other with meaningful glances before returning their gaze to the boys in front of them. "We were examining dead cats in the forest and came across a rather nasty specimen," explained Jane, and the unnamed senior wrinkled his nose. "Why were you looking at dead cats?" he muttered, but Jack nudged him and whispered, "she's Taxo, remember?" The senior's eyes widened and he nodded his head, laughing at Jane's expense, but Jane rubbed her face in her hands and sighed. "I abhor that nickname," muttered Jane. "I do not stuff the animals I find. I examine them and then I provide them adequate burial," she explained in a growl. "Autopsies of animals can give us so much information about the state of our ecosystem."

Jack looked remorseful for his slip, and he shrugged, muttering an apology. Jane forgave him quickly and stood up, gripping her picnic basket in her hand, but the skinny boy stopped her and grinned. "I have no manners, I haven't introduced my friends," he murmured, opening his arms to the three boys in front of him. "I didn't ask for an introduction," responded Jane flatly, and Jack's eyes went big with anxiety. One of his friends stood up and patted him on the shoulder before holding his own hand out for Naminé to shake. "I'm Demyx, these are my boys Jack, Phoebus, and the new kid, Hawkins." Jim saluted the girls and beamed, gripping his skateboard under his arm. Demyx grinned and pointed to himself, asking if Jane would like to know their nicknames. Jane shrugged and nodded, folding her arms in front of her in slight satisfaction. "I'm Dum-Dum," Demyx started, and then he pointed to Jack, "he's Skelly, Phoebus is Faux-Pas, and Jim is Fish until he becomes a sophomore."

"But you guys will be gone by then!" Jim whined and Demyx snorted. "Not if my science prof has anything to say about it!" he shouted, howling with laughter. Phoebus fist pumped him and grinned. "Held back two years myself man, barely managed to make it out of the twelfth grade alive."

As the boys whooped and hollered at what Jane perceived to be their own stupidity, she beckoned for Naminé to get up, and they began to walk off, Naminé waving back at the boys in apology and Jane ignoring them. "Wait, you never told us about what you found in the forest," Jack enticed, making Jane stop in deliberation. She turned around again, itching to tell them of their discoveries. "Someone we know has been killing cats and draining their blood," she blurted out, and Naminé added, "He might go onto humans next."

"A vampire?" Phoebus roared in excitement, but the boys shushed him and listened to Jane in rapt attention. Jane shrugged. "He may imagine himself as a vampire. He takes out his victims' insides. Be careful," she added. The boys gasped as they looked at each other. Then they glanced back at the girls. "Do you know who it is?" they asked in curiosity. Naminé pursed her lips, wondering if it was wise to spread rumors before they were one hundred percent sure of the culprit. But Naminé knew Jane would tell them because she was one hundred percent sure. "Just keep an eye on Vanitas," hissed Jane, and the boys laughed in nervousness, whispering to one another.

As Jane and Naminé trudged back to the train station and paid for tickets they were silent. They shared their picnic food on the way home as they pondered, Naminé staring out the window at the mountains behind them. "Should we have told them?" she whispered in discomfort, but Jane shrugged, her eyebrows furrowed. "Perhaps not," muttered Jane finally. "But it's best to stay safe." Naminé bit her lip and stared out the window, thinking about her dream again. She asked Jane if she could borrow her notebook, and Jane nodded yes, handing it to her. Naminé took it in her hands and extracted Jane's pencil from the picnic basket, feeling nauseous as her hand glanced off the dull end of the scalpel. Then she began to draw.

...

Vanitas lay in his bedroom launching a tennis ball at his ceiling when his grandfather called him down to his study. The boy scowled and heaved himself off of the mattress before grabbing a jacket from his closet and trudging downstairs. His grandfather sat with his legs crossed in front of his ancient zitan wood desk, leaned back in his chair as he skimmed through the pages of the bible. When Vanitas noticed what he was reading his rolled his eyes, but he took a seat in front of the old man and said "hello". His grandfather ignored him, and instead continued to pour over the Old Testament. Then he sighed and cascaded the book to the side, letting it fall on the center of his desk before he turned and faced his grandson. He was smoldering, and without thinking, Vanitas' shoulders shrank back and tensed, but he kept his frown.

"Your principal has been speaking with me," growled the old man, cracking his knuckles and gritting his teeth. "He said that he will be forced to suspend you if matters continue to get worse."

"Maybe I want to get suspended," muttered Vanitas in reply, making his grandfather stand up and lean before him. "I think you need to reexamine your predicament in life," his pursed lips intoned as he gripped the sides of Vanitas' seat. He possessed Vanitas' same yellow eyes, but their rims were blacker, and his pupils were two little pins, long like a snake's. "I took you in because I saw an intelligence in you that no one else noticed. Because I refused to see you ruled by addiction and abuse. But if you continue to let your grades drop and continue to act out of turn I will send you back where you came from!" roared the old man in conclusion as Vanitas tried with all his might to sit up tall in front of him. His grandfather stared at Vanitas for a few long moments as Vanitas tried to hold his gaze, but then, he sighed and stood, rubbing his eyes as Vanitas watched him. "Take me to your room," the old man growled. Vanitas lowered his head before nodding and standing, returning upstairs. The old man stood in the bedroom doorway with his cane and gripped it in his hands. Vanitas met his eyes, shrugged, and began.

He lifted all of the covers off his bed, emptying them out. Then he hoisted up the mattress and had his grandfather feel the inside of it. Vanitas swept everything out from under the bed; bits of fluff, dead spiders and their egg sacks, books, and shoes. He opened all the drawers in his desk and vacated them. Then he had his grandfather look in his closet. When everything was finished, he returned everything to their rightful space and folded his hands in front of him in victory. His grandfather narrowed his eyes and pursed his lips further, beckoning for Vanitas to hand him the jacket he had around his shoulders. The boy's face went pale, but he nodded and slipped his jacket off. His grandfather took it from him and extracted the lighter and cigarettes from its pockets, narrowing his eyes. Then he shoved the supplies in his pocket, making Vanitas gape. "That stuff's not illegal!" whined Vanitas, making the old man chuckle. "It will be illegal until you are eighteen."

"I can smoke if I want!" Vanitas hissed in return, snapping, and his grandfather's eyebrows rose in surprise. "And I don't care if my grades and shit go down because I don't want to be anything!"

There was silence as the old man read his grandson's eyes. Then the old man chuckled, returning, "you will do your hour's study tonight, and then you will read bible verses in apology for your insolence."

"I don't care about your stupid bible!" Vanitas howled in reply, stopping himself from raising his arms. His grandfather stood in front of him and narrowed his eyes, turning around and moving towards the stairs. "I know you will try and escape tonight. If you return home drunk, you will stay outside till you are sober." Then, he was gone. The study door clicked downstairs, and Vanitas jumped on his bed and screamed into his pillow, before grabbing his empty jacket and charging down the stairs. Once outside he launched himself over the wrought iron fence surrounding the spacious home he inhabited and hunted around the small stone wall that the bars jutted out from. Removing a small piece of cinder block from the surrounding stone, Vanitas extracted his alcohol from within the wall and shoved it in his pocket, trudging down the sidewalk, humming. This graduated to whistling, and once he bounded past the mansion and into the woods he threw up his middle finger to the house behind and slid his liquor from his pocket. "Fuck you," he muttered, eyeing the house behind with a sly glance. The windows reflected the trees ahead and the curtains of the upstairs rustled, but no face peered out of them. Vanitas grinned and turned around, singing full voice as he kicked a rock in front of him.

On nights like this, Vanitas would ride the train into town and see what parties he could crash, but he didn't feel like seeing anyone tonight. Instead, he figured he could sit on top of the mountain and look out on his city. The pines above spiraled into the sky, peering down at him in silence. But the wind whispered past their boughs as if they attempted communication. Its breath moved past in hurried gusts, and the trees shivered. Vanitas took his first swig of liquor, letting it burn his throat as it rippled down into his stomach. Then he howled in pleasure and charged forward, jumping over fallen trunks and bushes, grinning wildly and staring from side to side. There were pumas prowling the forest these days, but a large part of Vanitas wanted to run into one, just to see if he could kill it.

The gash that Jane had etched into his arm stung as he flexed the muscles lining his wrist. Vanitas scowled as he stared down at it, taking another long chug of alcohol and pursing his lips. A flash had passed Jane's eyes as she stared at him that morning. It was one of deep fear, and then blazing anger. The whole ordeal had taken Vanitas aback. He had never expected a person of Jane's disposition to be capable of such violence. Only the strong were blessed with that kind of rage, or so he thought. As he trudged towards the base of the mountain ahead of the pines, he twirled the brown bottle in his hands, staring at the ground. Then he reached in his back pocket and glanced at his phone, deciding to call Meg. The dial tone rang until her voice came over the line, asking the caller to leave a message. Vanitas scowled as he listened and clicked to end the call, shoving the phone back in his pocket. She had been avoiding him for some reason.

Vanitas' voice rose above the trees as he warbled another show tune, downing another glug of alcohol as he trudged forward. The first stage of intoxication for Vanitas was thoughfulness, which bled into pleasant warmth, which buzzed through him, rolling into the third state. His extremities would tingle, and he was taken over by an ecstatic, paranoid energy that made him feel a step further with time than the people around him. His senses heightened as Vanitas slipped into the third stage, and his ears pricked up as he saw a hint of red brick in the distance. "The old cabin," he thought to himself, trudging towards it in curiosity.

The sound of a shovel making contact with dirt resounded far ahead of Vanitas, and he stopped walking, gritting his teeth and listening with all his might. A labored breathing and grunting followed the sound of dirt being heaved from the earth it had been born to. Wails pierced the air as the earth was dumped nearby. Without thought Vanitas bounded towards the sound and crouched down, peering into the darkness ahead of him with trembling fingers. A shadow pushed a mound of some strange, red darkness into the hole it had dug in the ground, and began shoveling dirt back over it, whispering in a language strange. As it flung the dirt over the mound of seething rubbish, it shivered. Then it wailed and leaned over, clutching its stomach. After a moments rest, the creature returned to its shoveling, whisper upon whisper, its voice high and reedy in tone. Vanitas' breathing grew heavier as thrills of fear coursed deep in his gut, and his heart gave a flicker as the shoveling stopped. The figure ahead straightened. Then, it stepped forward and sniffed.

Its feet padded like a child's as it shuffled forward. In the soft moonlight that shone through the clouds above it, the creature glowed white. Gaunt shadows played under its brows, and its mouth formed into a strange long line, glistened with red. With every fiber of his being, Vanitas commanded himself not to shake as he stepped backwards, shifting close to the ground. The creature chattered its teeth, before returning to its work, whispering strange again as it patted the dust over its pile. It laid grass over its work and sewed it into the ground with its fingers long and white, black tipped and clicking. Then, the sound of tapping on soft skin resounded in Vanitas' ears like a great fear from the back of his memory that stranded itself through the nerves of his spine, handed down to him generations ago. Each tap made his shoulders rise higher, but he kept his retreat slow, pounding out the rhythm of his heart by matching it to the wind that aided him. The white thing ahead was thirty feet away now, ten feet more and it was forty feet away. But it was listening. Though the hollow mounds of skin that acted as its ears were wretched, the careful padding of feet glanced off their eardrums and it craned its neck, tutting.

Vanitas counted his footsteps in his head, breathing out too fast when he reached fifty feet distance. The creature stopped moving completely, whipping its head to Vanitas' direction. It stepped forward with curled toes as its body lay in motion. Then, as Vanitas charged out from his hiding place and ran with all his might, the creature lunged forward and bounded after him, sailing across the ground with a loud cry that made the owls leave the trees. Vanitas felt the alcohol bottle knocking against his thigh pocket as he traveled and knew that he had to get home before he reached the forth state of drunkenness. When that stage hit, he would move slowly, he would stumble and become disoriented. He could not have that happen, not at this moment. At this moment, he was moving the fastest he had ever moved in his life. The sound of pained breathing echoed behind him, rising in volume as the creature gained on him, and Vanitas thought of every bible verse he could muster in the few seconds it took him to reclaim some calm. Then, old stories his elders told him smashed into his head and he sprinted faster, his heart burning in his chest.

"The windigo is an evil creature that feeds on flesh," his grandaunt whispered in his ear. "Its heart is made of ice, and with each meal it grows bigger, until it lopes past trees and flings them to the side like sugar cubes. That's how snow storms happen."

Panting resounded behind Vanitas, and he tilted his head forward as the city lights ahead came into view. The trees were thinning and he could make out the outline of his street, but the creature still chased him.

"But if you are foolish, you could become a windigo, too. If you eat your brother's flesh, your heart will become cold and you will forget everything," the old woman whispered in Vanitas' memory. The picture was hazy, and the old woman's cheeks were pink with drink, but she clapped her hands together the way she did when she was serious. "That's why you've got to be generous and caring to all creatures. Even assholes," she'd add in a whisper. That would always incite a giggle from Vanitas, and his mother would look up in indignation and shake her head.

The street lamps that lined the metal wall surrounding Vanitas' grandfather's mansion lit up ahead, like the lamplights that burned in his grandaunt's trailer, and the sigh of the animal behind Vanitas wailed through the air as it fell behind again. Its stomach injury impeded it, and Vanitas cleared the forest line and ran across his lawn, stepping up on the stone border surrounding the mansion and jumping up. He clung to the metal bars that ran across the top of the fence and hoisted himself over it, letting his bottle fall from his pocket onto the ground without care. Then he flung himself at the front door and howled for his grandfather to let him inside, grinning wildly at his swiftness. But the door did not open. The curtains of the upstairs window fluttered inside the glass, but no faces peered out from within. The sound of tapping on flesh entered Vanitas ear, and with horror, he turned around and noted a white shape lurching towards the fence, a white face with blood red eyes peering in at him.

"Let me in!" Vanitas screeched, pounding himself against the front door. Tears streamed from his eyes as he noted the alcohol bottle lying close to the fence, and an idea struck him. He screamed as he charged towards it, picking it up and taking it to the front of the house, where lanterns lit the sides of the great oak doors that barred him from safety. The white creature tailing him slithered up and over the great iron fence as Vanitas poured his whiskey over the grass and wrenched a lantern from the wall. Then, he smashed it against the ground, and the grass in front of him blazed up in flames, making the white creature howl with anger. Vanitas banged his feet against the front door of the mansion and screeched, but he could not take his eyes away from the creature ahead of him.

The fire magnified its features. It had long, pointed teeth, sharp thin canines that jutted from its mouth like straight tusks, its gums protruding from the thin skin that covered its skull, which was absent completely of hair. Its skin was transparent, and black veins pulsed softly beneath, faded but bulbous with age. And its eyes were set within deep, black sockets, beady but red, with little black irises staring forth from within, tracking Vanitas as the boy moved. Long, dark tipped fingers dolled against the skin of its scalp as it thought. Though the flames surrounding it spread, it crouched down, grinning, and Vanitas stared around in terror. Another idea clicked into gear within his muscles, and he took the steaming lantern from the fire and shifted to the windows that lined the front door, beating at them with the lantern as the creature crouched lower. The glass of the windows was strong and would not crack, and Vanitas' voice was growing hoarse from shouting. But the white creature would not be swayed, and in a deft leap it cleared the flames and landed in front of Vanitas.

As its long fingers uncurled, making contact with the sides of Vanitas' face, an alarm sounded overhead and the sprinklers surrounding the house shot up through the ground, bathing the lawn in a soft watery glow. There was a banging within the house, and the white creature grew scared as its fingertips punctured Vanitas' cheeks. But in a split second, it was gone, and Vanitas' grandfather was opening the front door, roaring with rage. Within fifteen minutes, a horde of neighbors had padded forth to see what was going on across the road, and fire engines screeched in front of the house to put out the flames that were engulfing the right patch of the mansion lawn. Attempts were made to reprimand Vanitas, but the boy was unreachable, trapped within the bounds of his mind as he fell in and out of consciousness.