November 2006

I was chasing a woman through the woods. The high and ripened moon could not hold back the growing dark. The smells of the ground, the trees and the woman all mingled together as I tracked her scent, she had been running for nearly five minutes and I would soon catch up with her as she tired from her sleep-sprung dash. I could nearly taste her fear. It was so intoxicating. A part of me wanted to save her and another part of me wanted to get as close to her scent as possible. To burrow into her flesh until nothing separated us, flesh would not stay between us; her blood carried her, and in delirious pursuit I pined for a true taste of her life. But I could feel someone drowning in my head, someone crying out for mercy. I heard that part of me that loved her, scream for me to stop. But he could not control me now - I was the dark spark that sits in all of us, and repressed fantasies had beckoned my tiny flame into a full, howling fire. I feed on unfed desire.

Directly ahead of me I could smell her, her scent was warm and she was close. I loped silently, sweeping around the sound of her stumbling and crying. I could hear her pray to some unseen saviour, some protector who did not exist. I heard that drowning man imploring me, echoing his loves words. Perhaps I was a God. I was certainly more real than whom ever the woman prayed to, for they would let her life flit away, and I would snatch it in my teeth.

I’d rounded on her. I was facing her and the way we’d come and I could see her quite clearly. She’d fallen, broken her leg badly. Her bone was snapped but her skin was still intact. I wanted to open her first. Let the rest of nature have their way with her when I was well and done. As I neared her, she stifled a scream I wanted to hear – I bore my teeth and she graced me with her song. This woman, this warmth, this aromatic scent of life… She sang so sweetly through her tears.

I was inches from her now and she did not fail my ears again. But I could feel a tugging inside my chest as if someone were pulling a rope connected to my lungs and heart. I paused and growled. Something was pulling me apart inside. The woman edged back from me as I swayed like a rabid dog. I snarled and tried to get closer to her, but every inch snapped muscles inside my torso. My ribcage began to heave inward and I could no longer breathe. I took a final lunge towards the woman and she shrieked sharply as I sank my teeth into her blocking wrist. Blood spouted into my mouth as blood erupted within my chest. My pulse beat frantically as my heart convulsed and choked me. The drowning man had pulled himself free by the rope set in my heart, our heart. He’d ripped it out like a plug and now we both would bleed to death inside his body. The woman held our head back and kissed our lips. I still wanted to taste her but I knew my hunt was lost. I sipped her kiss instead and mourned not seeing this pleasure before as I choked blood into her mouth.

The last thing I felt was a tear land on my cheek.