It was late morning, and a girl was running through the forests of Sephira.
The girl looked around 17 years of age, and had typical Northern features; light blond hair, big blue eyes, and skin as pale as snow.
She was running for her life.
The girl could hear the faint rustling of leaves behind her, and she knew with dead certainty that the Hunters were still hot on her trail. These people never gave up.
Her green evening dress was in tatters, and splinters stuck to her hands and feet, but she kept on running, ignoring her groaning stomach, the pounding of her heart and the pain in her lungs. She kept her mind on shoving branches out of her way, and putting one foot in front of the other.
Suddenly, she noticed light shining from behind the branches ahead. She pushed those branches aside, and bright sunlight enveloped her as she stumbled out of the forests and into a clearing.
Safety was near; she could see a group of houses in the distance. Civilisation. Now, all she had to do was to outrun them. Pulling all the zona in her immediate surroundings into her, she desensitised her eyes as much as she could and cupped a hand over her eyebrows to prevent herself from getting blinded by the light. And then she made her final dash.
And then she was safe. Safe in the backyard of one of the houses, on the outer fringes of a town. The Hunters were not following her anymore. They would not stop their chasing, but they could not pursue her in another country in broad daylight without getting clearance. She was safe...for now, at least.
The girl felt her strength drain from her legs. Crumpling onto the grass on her back, she gulped deep breaths of air and closed her eyes to the sun, as she felt the pain in her lungs ebb away.
But as the pain in her lungs and legs faded, she began to feel the Hunger. She had been running for weeks, and it had been days since she last fed. She could feel the symptoms of Hunger emerging now; her canines were aching, growing, and all around her a red mist was descending, filling her eyes.
Most of all, the urge to feed was overpowering her. She channeled zona into her ears. Amidst the sound of birds and leaves, someone in the house next door was breathing deeply. Sleeping.
The girl started to crawl towards that house, the Hunger starting to take over her.
I'm sorry, she thought. But she had no choice; she could not fight the Hunger. Some of her friends had died, trying to fight it.
She started running towards the backdoor of the house, and tears rolled down her face as she cried, silently.
I'm sorry....
At the edge of the forest, the Hunters watched as the girl scampered through the open field into the group of houses. One of them was a blond-haired young man; handsome, and of medium height, with a sharp chin, sharp nose, and even sharper blue eyes. He stared at the young girl escaping, even as he fiddled with the katana tied to his belt.
The other man towered over the blond-haired man; a red-haired giant of unknown age with a large jaw and even larger muscles. He had a sword on his back that was even more gigantic than he was; the hilt of the sword extended a foot above his head.
The giant waited for the girl to disappear into one of the houses' backyards, and then turned to the blond-haired man with his hand on his sword hilt. "That girl is mighty quick...she's a vamp, and she had her zona control down better than the rest of them. Do we chase her, Captain Hawking?"
Hawking shook his head. "No, Jonas. If anyone in that town finds out and reports us to the authorities in Sephira, questions will be asked as to why we're here without a proper pass, hunting vampires in another country."
"Worse still," he added, "the Association here could trace this to the missing border guard we killed back in the forest."
"We could make things quiet, Captain." Jonas boomed.
Hawking laughed. "Jonas, that girl's so quick, I think keeping things quiet would be nigh impossible. And even if she wasn't that quick, i don't think i'd be able to control myself."
Jonas looked on, expressionless, as Hawking suddenly gripped a bared section of his belted blade tightly with his left hand. Blood from Hawking's hand trickled into his sword sheath, and all that he had to show for the pain was a slight look of irritation.
And just as suddenly, he let go of his blade and licked his hand. "Well, that's that. A fine amount of ruckus that bitch will cause, and we can't do a thing about it. Let's go back to the rest. They've probably finished creating the 'aftermath'."
"And burning the excess." added Jonas.
The two men turned away from the open field. One moment, they were standing there, their backs turned, facing the depths of the forest.
The next moment, they were gone.
