Here's my explanatory chapter...hopefully things will make a little more sense. Thank you to everyone who has reviewed this story, added it to their favorites/alerts...It's great to see that people are interested in reading my ideas. I'd appreciate any feedback you have (: - Brittany

Chapter 6

When Eric Northman first introduced me to the possibility that I wasn't human, I laughed at him. Naturally, I didn't believe his preposterous accusation. Although, ever since I was a child, there was something in me that had always made me feel as if I was different in some way. It was because of this feeling that I decided to pursue the notion. I immersed myself in various books and much to my dismay, monster websites. After a week of searching through myths and monster legends, I gave up. Nothing fit nor made sense. Eric's accusation was wrong and I mentally kicked myself for believing that it could be true.

Not long after that, I ran into some trouble on the way home from work. A vampire that had been watching me work all night followed me after closing. He cornered me in an alley wanting to drink from me and my screaming is what caused Eric to come to my rescue. Although the altercation had been brief, the vampire had managed to bite my forearm. Eric had insisted that I take his blood and I did without thinking twice about it.

The next day, I had decided that I would take a break from Fangtasia, Shreveport, and Eric and head home to Los Angeles for a few days. Ultimately, a conversation between Eric and Pam that occurred the previous night is what gave me the answer to what I was. Although their discussion was in Swedish, they used my name along with this word: varulv. Upon running an internet search, I learned that the direct translation of this word was werewolf. More searching led me to the word lycanthrope. Before I could go to Fangtasia to tell Eric about my findings, the fever began to set in. By then, it was already too late.

Specifically, lycanthropy is blood-borne disease. There are various ways to contract it, such as the occasional bite from a werewolf. In my case, it was contracted through Eric's blood. I was adopted by the Gardners as a child, so I never knew my biological parents. One of them passed onto me the recessive trait needed to become a lycanthrope. The trait manifested itself with the cultivation of Eric's blood and became dominant. Because it was vampire blood that nurtured the trait, a form of vampirism/lycanthropy coexisted inside of me. From what I comprehended, this meant that if I were to go through the process to become a vampire, I would retain my lycanthropic abilities, thus making me a vampire/lycanthrope hybrid.

I don't remember that first night entirely. I don't know how long I was in my animal form, but I can vaguely remember turning back into my human form. I was in an area I could only describe as a swamp and when I tried to move, I collapsed. Everything went black after that.

I didn't remember much of the first six months after my transformation. From my research, I learned that this response was normal; most lycanthropes had no recollection of their first months. As the first year passed, I began to have vivid nightmares. In these nightmares, the thing that was always present was blood. Wanting an explanation, I ended up learning that during their first six months, lycanthropes lost all sense of humanity and control. To this day, I still don't remember what I did. I just know it wasn't anything good.

I don't remember the details of my journey, but I remember a strong sense of fear. I remember being hunted. I remember that I never stopped running. I didn't understand how I had made it back to California, but I knew it was my home. I tried to settle and start over. But I could never really go back to how I used to be. I ended up leaving again. And I found myself thinking of Eric. If it wasn't for him, none of this would have happened to me. I absolutely hated that he turned me into a monster. Fueled by anger, I found myself traveling back to Shreveport. I hadn't been entirely sure what I would do when I found him again. For a moment, I contemplated killing him. He had taken everything away from me: my humanity, my life, my sanity. The thought of ending his long life seemed appealing for a while. But I then recognized that it wasn't me that wanted to kill him; it was the monster thriving inside of me. Killing Eric Northman would be me giving into the monster.

Now, the person responsible for changing my life lay asleep just in the other room. If I wanted to, I could kill him. But the monster inside of me remained silent. Perhaps it had been silenced by this new vulnerable Eric. Seeing him like that reminded me of someone I used to know very well…myself.

My mind raced. I thought of everything in the past, the present, and the future. I thought of the Eric with no recollection of who he was. I thought of my long journey back to Shreveport, desperate for some sort of resolution. I thought of this new version of myself that replaced the old me. As I shifted through hundreds of memories, I drifted into sleep.