Hello again! Thanks for reading so far, R R and have a good day! (Btw I know I suck but don't worry, shinobi will definitely be introduced into the next chapter.)

•Baa, Baa, Black Sheep...•

I'm gasping, grasping the covers of my bed as I struggle to reach my phone. The blades enter my abdomen again- stabbing and twisting, seven invisible knives plunging into my gut again. I choke past a sob as I force my face to remain calm. I am an ugly crier. The blades drag into the skin of my back, pushing through my bones and piercing my lungs and stomach.

Help, help, help helphelpME-

My mother rushes into the room, her face white as a ghost as she screams for my father. His thundering steps echo through the hallway, and his frozen face (he's just annoyed. I always cause them problems...) never changes as he scoops me up. My sisters stare in varying levels of shock and worry. Mom tells them to stay here and lock the door.

We're on our way.

The car jumps and jerks as we speed to get to the hospital, and I pant and plead to the Lord to end this pain, each movement the vehicle makes digging even more blades into my torso. My mother holds my head in her hands, soothingly rubbing my forehead as hot tears stream down my cold face.

It was far worse than the first time this happened.

I'm rushed to the ER on the stretcher as soon as we arrive, tossing my head over to the side as I feel them jab the IV into my veins, vomiting whatever was in my stomach. I shiver and refuse to look at anything resembling a needle as the morphine drip enters my body, though it does nothing to end the pain. I wonder why I'm here, wasting so much of my parents' small amount of money when my being here wouldn't change anything. I should have prepared for this.

They can't heal me. They have tried and they have failed.

I am unsalvageable.

I had so many things laid before me in the future. I wanted just one friend (just one that truly knew me) and to go to college, become a biologist, make my parents proud. I wanted to have a kid, even if by adoption. I wanted to understand what it was to love. I wanted to change the world, even if that world was only my own.

But I know now that it will never happen.

I cry on the unfamiliar bed sheets, smiling as best I can for my sobbing mother and my weeping father (he never cries. This is my fault) as they try to tell me that it's all going to be okay. That I'll be okay.

"I'm sorry."

I tell her, looking at my parents (really looking at them) for the first time. I'm sorry for lying. I'm sorry for not saying 'I love you' enough. I'm sorry that I'll never be able to take that trip with you on my sixteenth birthday like you wanted, mom. I'm sorry that I never talked with you, dad. I forgive you both for everything. Just... please. Please don't cry.

The heart monitor cuts flat.

"I'm so sorry."

I awake to white. My tears have frozen with the grit, pinching my eyes as I slowly blink awake. Two years. Two years since I dreamed of my death. Two years no longer. Five days. Five days since I escaped and began counting again.

I lift my head from under the blanket of snow, the white frost tumbling down. Hunger gnaws at my stomach and aches in the back of my mind. So far, I have survived on small mice and ermines, but they are not enough to fill me. My large build was a blessing in the ring, but here, it is a curse. The woods have thinned and the trees are all the same, black skeletons peeking through the white famine, and I am the only thing alive. A voice in the back of my mind sings a tune I have forgotten. One that means nothing to me. Still, it sings amidst the white, falling sky. I attempt to sing, but it only comes out in lonely, inhuman warbles.

"I walk a lonely road,

The only one that I have ever known.

Don't know where it goes, but it's only me

And I walk alone."

I tip my nose to the sky as a blizzard whips my fur, howling with the wind in a plea for anyone. Anything. Anything in this desolate world. My soul aches for people I no longer know. Strangers with memories in this place where there is no time to remember. The voice slowly dies, giving way to me alone. I am no one. I merely am. I do not feel sadness, nor can I feel the pain of my wounds which have long frozen over.

"My shadow's the only one that walks beside me.

My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating.

Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me.

'Til then I walk alone..."

There is only death.

•Have you any soul?•

I cannot feel. My limbs move mechanically, (one, two, one, two, repeat...) and my bones scrape against the dry skin that no longer bulges from muscle. Hunger and need devours my mind and body, rage from leftover narcotics and remaining bumps of steroid-induced growth are all that keep me moving, the oil to the machine. Two years, one month and five days. Counting is the only thing that keeps the voice alive (it's pointless. I am all that matters, not what I once was). White surrounds me, the sky a muted grey and wind a vengeful ghost that pushes and tries to topple me, make me submit to the world, but I refuse. I refuse to die here. My instinct screams for me to run, find shelter from the harsh cold that had become my home, but the voice reminds me. It reminds me of a man long ago, surrounded by green, as he says "A lazy man is more likely to survive than a zealous one." with a grin on his face...

Green? What is green? Is it the same as white? Perhaps black, maybe grey?

White is all my vision sees. Yet, I remember the grey and black of the sky and skeleton trees. Does white mean something? Is it a color? Does snow have color? I've forgotten what color it is. Suddenly, there is a disturbance on the horizon on the plane of white. I see gnarled fences, dark, dark smoke rising from grey and onyx stones, a cabin of logs. Two figures move in the fences. What..?

"Brown!" The voice cries, "That color is brown!"

The new colors break apart the white silence, and I freeze. It is a cow and her calf, her soft, weak, delicious calf. A need and desperation I have never known fuels me and controls my body like a second mind, crouching me low as we dart towards the back of the house. It belongs to a very poor family, I realize. These two animals are all they own. The voice seems sad, but says nothing as I creep closer.

I am sorry that I must steal from the owners, who have only these cows to their name.

I charge at the much smaller calf, ramming into its side with the bridge of my nose, ignoring the sting of my newly healed muzzle wounds as it moos and topples over. The enraged mother roars and stamps towards me, spiked horns swaying as she tries to deter me, but I lunge past her and snap the neck of the calf, bones crunching and blood vessels spurting beneath my jaws, bringing death to the half-grown calf.

But I am not sorry for doing this.

I drag the corpse backwards, calling on all of my energy to lift it and dodge just in time for the cow to nick me in my haunches. I disappear into the blank expanse, the new life limp in my jaws. The truth is as set as the frozen earth I walk upon, and I come to my understanding.

There is only death.

Because life must be sustained.

•"No, sir, by the way..."•

I'm still following the lone path through the woods. Two years, one month, a week and six days. I often find shelter in abandoned shacks nowadays, and the voice tells me that civilization must be close. The voice is excited, and I can feel us slowly merge as the days progress, the hope for humanity driving us closer.

Walking in the white snow and seeing the black, thorn-like trees now brings me a sense of satisfaction ever since the voice and I began to merge. I enjoy seeing the skies of my birth season and am able to look past the pangs of hunger. Though I have very little sense of color, the world of scent is brought before me like a revelation. I can smell the fire and grease of human works up ahead, distant, but like a candle in the darkness. I can smell the mice and the ermine underneath my paws, no longer having to rely on hearing alone. I am following a trail, a lone one, recently branched off from others similar to it. It smells of grass and hide, stale bread and urine. An old buck, probably chased or separated from its herd due to old age in this harsh winter that is my home. The scent grows stronger as I jog on, lean and still bony but with muscles that have been brought on by the harvest of my newfound skill. I can soon hear it, the sound of cracked hooves crunching through the icy top layer of the snow, tired huffs and grunts. I can hear my blood pumping in my veins as I spur myself forwards, trekking off to the right as I see it in the distance. I creep closer and closer, lithe form and newfound strength in my bones and muscles as I stalk past the trees, rounding to the northeast of the deer. Deer here are rather small, but a buck of this size easily towers me by a good two feet, standing at five feet at shoulder height, even taller if you count the head. I don't stay in my spot long before I attack.

I rush into the small clearing, claws tearing into the powdery snow as the buck brays and turns. However, the same energy that possessed me at the moment of my escape aids me once more. The new blood runs in me like opium, addicting and empowering as I outrun the buck, roaring out a thundering bark that belonged to my mother's side of the family as I sink my dewclaws and press my feet on his back, pinning him down as I bite his jugular, ripping out the vein with bloodthirsty ease. The life drains from his eyes and pools down in red that stains the spotless blanket of snow. I pant twice and step my back paws off before rearing and falling back down onto the area behind his shoulder, pressing out as much blood as I could. To never eat blood is something of a rule I have obtained ever since the voice became part of my concious.

I rip the carcass open, stripping the sternum apart as I gobble what I now know as the most nutritious parts; the heart and the liver. Red paints my fur the color of stolen life, but I do not care. There is only death because life must be sustained. The meat is loose and chewy, but beggars cannot be choosers when faced with opportunity, so I waste nothing and eat as much as I can.

My nose is clogged with the scent of food, so when a low growl permeates my haven, my hackles are set on edge and a snarl finds its way to my jaw as I slowly lift my head, eyes blazing menacingly at the one who dares challenge me. A large, boxed face grumbles and stands ten feet in the air, the deafening roar of the bear shaking the snowflakes in the air. I stumble backwards from it, in both fear and awe, as it's descent leaves the earth cracking and groaning in it's wake. My legs lock in place, and everything in me tells me to run, run now-

The voice does not back down. I am born anew, a human rage I had once felt so long ago in that hell's arena, and I see for the first time. The world is no longer so narrow, and the sinful pride within me wells up. I am the voice now.

I am not weak. I am not a mindless animal.

Beast fears man. Not the other way around.

I return the battle cry, rage and fear forcing that strange energy to boil my blood once more. I step over the carcass, raising my face up to its level, staring into the black pits of it's eyes. It snarls and clambers forward with surprising ease at high speeds, but I am faster. Smaller. More lithe. I let out a bizarrely human-like warble, dodging to the side as its paw bats the air where I previously stood as I round behind it, lunging forward and latching onto the side of it's throat, eliciting an enraged roar from the beast. My teeth sink harder and harder into it's thick hide, but it's not enough to break the skin as it lands a solid blow on my stomach. I'm rocketed backwards from shock and hit the tree no farther than two feet away from the bear, feeling small blossoms of pain cracking along my spine despite the numbness, awed by the bear's strength and my durability. I had never been hit this hard by boars nor man nor canine before, and the fact that I am standing back up naturally on almost autopilot leaves me speechless even though my face betrays nothing.

Humans are fragile. A blow to the vital organs or a snap of a major vein and in just a few moments- snap. The human leaves. The person isn't there anymore. Just a corpse.

Am I even human anymore?

The bear charges at me, all intents while lowering it's jaw and teeth bearing wide to finish me off. I duck low and it's teeth graze my shoulder, burning hot blood runs across my shoulder and erupts when it's claws strike the other half of me on the ribs, leaving five long cleaves in it's path. I immediately snap upwards. My jaws clench around it's throat as the bear roars and shakes, trying to fling me off, standing and slamming back down onto the earth. I'm becoming dizzy, but the energy and the numbness dull the effect as best they can as I struggle to keep holding on as my own life drains from me. Am I still weak? Am I still human?

What makes me human?

I have had enough of being tossed like a rag doll and forsake my train of thought as I copy what it does and I shake. The bear roars again, this time in agony as the energy travels through my veins and into my teeth, the bittersweet taste of iron flooding my mouth as I steal it's life. I am blinded by the red liquid, and I shut my eyes tight before it can invade me. The bear groans and staggers suddenly, breath slowly being dragged out of it's mouth as it sways, but I still refuse to let go.

What defines my morals?

I would not know. But now, we do.

The bear collapses with one final great heave, succumbing to cold death as it crushes the snow beneath it's body with a great crunch! I'm buried beneath it, death lingering in my veins as it slowly stains the snow. Yet, I feel... Alive.

The voice, the human side of me and now part of me once again, tells me everything. She tells me the story of the Lord and why we believed in it. When I wonder if I am a sinner for my murders, I am reminded of the great king, David.

It's vague and hardly there, but 'I' now know what it is. It's like a drug, addicting and enticing, breathing old life into my lungs as it whispers to me.

I mean something.

Death exists because life must be sustained. The weak make up the strong. Strength is life...

So what is purpose?

•"...What the Hell are Morals?" •