Hats off to Charlaine Harris for these glorious characters that I'm taking out to play...

Waking up from a blackout is always disorienting. It's not possible to discern how much time has passed or where you are. I came to slowly and was relieved that I wasn't in pain. However, when I opened my eyes there was nothing but darkness.

I expected panic but it didn't come. Instead I flexed my hands and feet and was grateful they weren't bound. The nerves in my wrists and ankles were not yet healed from my latest abduction. I tentatively reached out into the darkness. I was lying on my back on a soft satiny blanket of some sort. I tried to remember where I'd been and what I'd been doing when I blacked out and suddenly it all came back. Almost everyone I had ever cared about was dead and it was my fault. My futile attempt to protect them had sealed their doom. Tears flowed into my hair. I tried to sit up but didn't get far before I skelped my head on something hard.

Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea, that bastard has put me in a coffin! Oddly enough, still no panic. Instead I felt for the dimensions of my confines. Was I being shipped somewhere? Perhaps I was just locked up while Victor slept for the day? The construction must have been kind of flimsy though because where I banged the roof with my head the wood was cracked. I banged some more with my fist and the wood came apart like rice paper beneath my knuckles. There was a short gap and another layer of wood. I tried my luck and again the material gave way but this time I got a mouth full of dirt in the process.

So I was buried. Why would Victor go to all the trouble of taking me just to bury me in the ground? I held my breath and kicked and kneed and battered the roof of the coffin in sheer temper. Splinters of wood and earth collapsed on me and I pushed my way upward with all my might. First I fought my way to a sitting position, then I knelt with the weight of what felt like a hundred tons of soil on my head. I thrust my arms upward and pushed with my feet to a standing position. At five foot odds tall I wondered if it was possible to swim upward through earth. I wondered at what point I would run out of air. I used the fragments of the coffin for leverage and finally my hand met a cool breeze.

It must have taken me a good fifteen minutes to fight my way to the surface yet it was only when I finally sat face to face with my own headstone that I realised I had yet to let go of the breath I'd been holding.

There, next to that of Adele Stackhouse, sat a polished granite stone that read, 'Here lies Sookie Stackhouse, beloved sister and friend.' The ground was freshly dug and I'd destroyed a wreath or two as I fought my way out into the night air.

I coughed and wretched some dirt from my throat. By God did my throat hurt. From somewhere to the east of the cemetery I heard footsteps and quickly tidied the grave as best I could with my hands. I hid behind a headstone further down and waited.

Sam appeared carrying a bouquet of daisies. He wasn't dead! I took off from my hiding place toward him at lightning speed. All I could think was to hug my friend to me. I had my fangs out and in the artery in his neck before I could blink.

Sam had smelled me before he saw me and what he saw was enough to set him to screaming before I started draining him. Seconds later he was on the ground bleeding and I was being restrained from behind.

Sam looked up at me from my feet as I hissed and snarled against the stone arms that were holding me back from the blood, foul though it tasted. "Sookie?" he panted, before promptly passing out.

Bill's cool voice was suddenly at my ear. "Sookie, it's me, Bill. We have to get you blood immediately. Sam's your friend. Stop fighting me, you don't want to hurt him."

Twenty minutes later I was sitting on Bill's couch with a blanket wrapped around me and several types of True Blood in front of me. Bill had waited until I was halfway through my second bottle before going to retrieve Sam from the graveyard. Thanks to his supe genes, the gash on his neck was already healing though he looked a little pale as he staggered in, supported by Bill.

"Sam," I started sheepishly, getting to my feet at an exaggeratedly slow human speed so as not to scare him again, "I'm so sorry."

"S'alright, Sook," he said waving off any further attempt at an apology as Bill deposited him in a chair. "Not your fault. In spite of everything, I'm glad to see you. Though I got to admin, hon, you look like shit," he added, chuckling lightly.

I looked down at myself. I was filthy. Dirt clogged my ears and my bloody tears had matted in my hair in several places. I thought I discerned the white sundress I'd worn on my first visit to Fangtasia, but it was hard to be sure under several layers of filth. Several urges fought for dominance. I wanted a shower, I wanted answers and I wanted more blood. All that would have to wait though as Bill's door flew open bringing Eric in at lightning speed. After the slightest pause Pam followed. Eric stopped a few feet from me and then he was on his knees shedding bloody tears on Bill's Persian rug.