A red glow emanates from a single bulb set in the ceiling of the workroom. A slight woman sits on a tall metal stool, her bare feet perched on a rung high enough to bring her knees up to her chest. She stares listlessly at the hanging photographs, her eyes are vacant and unfocused. Without warning, a connection is ripped loose in her mind. She is vaguely aware of the sound of metal clanging against concrete, and the cold stone that scrapes her arms and knees. A high, keening noise fills the room and time again warps itself for this woman. Her life has meant nothing and she has become nothing as once more she suffers the loss of the Bond to her Sire. This time there would be no rescuer.

You're free, came a voice in her mind.

Free? I hurt too much to be free.

You can leave, go find the one who really matters.

Na.. the thought ended as abruptly as it began. She couldn't face that memory right now.

Miranda pushed herself to her feet and stumbled out of the darkroom and up the stairs into the main foyer. A rage she couldn't quite name came over her as she looked around, the place for all it's beauty had a been a cage. A cage for a little bird. She didn't bother putting shoes on as she fled the front door out into the streets.

This isn't Lamar. She panicked for a moment; she had no phone, no car, no means of finding her way back to familiar territory. She almost turned around and went back inside but a wave of revulsion for the place hit her so strongly that she angrily began walking down the street. She hadn't gotten far when she noticed she was being followed; they weren't trying to make themselves known and were staying well hidden in the shadows. Miranda tried to blend with the darkness herself and move faster than they could follow but soon she realized that whatever was there was toying with her, herding her where it wanted her to go.

Anger flared again and she stopped to take the measure of what hounded her, piercing the darkness ahead with her senses. Anger melted to fear as she felt the wave of monstrous creatures closing in arch around her. One by one they melted into vision; a feral woman and a multi-armed aberration at the forefront. "Looky, looky, it's the pretty plaything! Come out to play with us?" crooned the woman in a falsely high sing-song voice as it crouched and prepared to spring at Miranda. When it lept, Miranda evaded it easily and bared her own fangs and hissed. The feral woman rolled from her failed jump and came to her knees, spitting and furious. The rest of the figures moved in closer, claws and appendages extended; voices taunting and mocking.

A fierce hatred welled up and burst forth from Miranda and she refused to acknowledge the inevitability of her fate. She let her presence rush outwards in a wave of force, pushing back the foulness around her and tried one last time to mentally reach out for help but before she could she felt a heavy blow land on the back of her head. Senseless she crumpled to the ground.