Run.

The hurt he felt from losing his brothers, and of facing his failure, had caused Jimin to completely lose control. His emotion is now all over the place and so is the force within him.

With his body still fighting against the remaining effects of the poison, added with the new power that had just been handed to him by the Council of Nobles, Jimin is unable to stop the course of energy that is flowing out of his body. 

He can feel both forces fighting against each other inside him; one side is trying to battle against the antidote and take him back to his defenceless state, while on the other, his body is using every power he has to recover in speed.

And he has no will to stop them or hold them back, choosing instead to let these forces keep going off, causing his powers to take control over his own body that he is moving against his will. He is now running with unimaginable force and speed, moving so fast that he is nearly invisible to the eyes of those he passes. His surroundings blur in his eyes when he moves faster than light, faster than the time needed for his mind and his senses to process through, as he becomes one with the wind.

Nothing else around him matters anyway, when aside from the pain, his mind could only think of one thing.

Run.

And that is the only thing he can do for now. He has no idea why he is running or where he is running towards. He only knows that he needs to stay away from the castle and his homeland, away from the human town before the sun reveals his true identity to their eyes. And he needs to be somewhere far, far away, where he would not be able to sense his brothers' demise or the threats coming from his enemies. Somewhere far so they would never be able to sense his strong presence as he takes his time to recover and prepare for the next battle.

Or perhaps, the moment he thought of Celeste, he became petrified with the thought of having more humans become fallen victims because he was there.

Because he was incompetent.

Voices keep echoing in his head, colliding into one another, leaving him no chance to try and decipher or recognise them as his own, or to whom they all belong. His memories come flashing by to remind him of every passing moment he has gone through. Every scene, every encounter, every conversation he had or heard.

Too many things have happened in one single night. Jimin certainly was not prepared to have his fate, his life, and his future change so suddenly and drastically, to have him heading on a new path that he is unfamiliar with.

No matter how powerful Park Jimin is as a Vampire, no matter how many centuries of his life have passed, he is certainly not ready to deal with all of them on his own and certainly not when everything just happens in such a short amount of time. Just having the thought of it alone, along with the disappointment that comes with it, only angers him even further.

Run.

Perhaps all he wants to do is to run away from reality. From the reminder of what he had lost, of what he had failed to do. Perhaps he had only felt too angry at himself to just stay in one place, wanting this power to take over his sanity or even banish him with dishonour.

What use does this power have for me if I can't protect those who matter to me? He wonders, suddenly blaming himself for the downfall of his close tight family and comrades and the human family that had become a part of his life for years. It's all my fault. I sent them all there. I sent them into a trap.

With the sadness and the blame, comes a loud scream. Then another wave of force pushes him forth. His speed accelerates to another level beyond what he had ever encountered before, sending him faster and further away. He has no idea how long he has been running and how far he has gone. The sun was rising up when he bolted from the scene, leaving the burning tavern behind. And the sky was already so bright with the sun hanging at its peak when he reached the second neighbouring town.

He had crossed the rocky roads and passed the grasslands. From flat grounds to slopes and hills, from one town to another until there is nothing left but trees welcoming him as he enters foreign grounds. And it is only after the warm wind of sunset turns into gushes of cold winds of nightfall, only after Jimin's broken heart slowly becomes steady that he finally manages to regain control of his emotions, then later, his powers, then Jimin's speed finally reduces to a much slower pace.

The first thing he notices when he regains a more regular speed, however, is how his steps are getting more wobbly, that he is losing power in his lower body and how he is starting to stagger instead of walking steadily.

His energy has depleted rapidly since the first time he fled, he realises. Not only for the long run but also due to how much the poison had drained them while it was still reigning in his blood. The area where he finds himself after he is done running seems to be at a much higher altitude that his head instantly spins, while the tall trees around him seem like they are the ones moving in, caging him in what seems like a growing maze.

Jimin plants his palms on the nearest tree when he finally halts, pressing his weight on it to stop the spinning while steadying himself. Taking deep breaths of the fresh air, he hopes for his senses to come clear. Yet when he looks around, his eyesight is still terribly blurry that he barely recognises the new, foreign place as something he had known before.

He lifts his face and looks upward, studying the tall trees around him that look as if they are reaching far up to the sky. The greeneries around him are so high that they are reaching to his hips, covering the tracks on the ground for him to see. He searches for noises, any kind of noise that might give him a clue of where he is, but the only thing he can hear is the sound of his deep breaths and the loud thumps coming from his painful headache. 

Everything else is muddled that he feels like he is somewhere deep in water instead of an old, dark forest. The latter has come to his recognition merely for the scent that he breathes in; a mixed scent of pine trees, fresh leaves and wet earth after the rain.

As he tries to walk ahead and find shelter, he feels like the ground is moving around like a spiral. But he knows better. He knows that it is he who is still losing balance. His foot keeps stumbling upon rocks and protruding roots that are covering the ground.

Enough, he commands himself with a grunt, clutching his head with his palms as he trudges forward. Yet his inability to control his balance keeps making him collide with the trees he passes by and a few rocks on his way. With his eyes and his senses still foggy, they keep blocking him from looking ahead, from paying attention to the direction he is heading towards or what obstacles are waiting for him in his way.

And that is when he fails to notice how the dense shrubbery is thinning into an open field with rocky slopes. And he certainly fails to notice that right in the middle of the open field, right between the rocks, there is an open gap in the ground that is waiting for him. And there is nothing stopping his fall when he misses a footing, when his legs slip into the wide opening, sending him into a dark place right beneath the ground.

Everything has stopped moving and spinning when Jimin opens his eyes. His eyesight is cleared that he can see everything much better now, enough to allow him to understand his current predicament.

Well, sort of.

He looks up, staring straight at the opening right above him. He knows that his fall was deep, but he doesn't realise how far he has fallen until he sees the distance between the trench that he has gotten stuck in to the opening above.

What is this place, he wonders as he takes in the sight around him. He has been lying still on the ground ever since he woke from his previous collapse, one that he got from losing his energy and the shock he got from the fall. The position allows him to get a good look at everything, to see every visible corner without having to move around.

A cavern. He recognises the place where he is stuck in, noticing the stone walls and the dense air that surrounds him. An underground cavern with a small ravine beneath, which is where the open gap above had sent him falling into.

Such an odd setting of a place, he wonders as his eyes scan through the precipice of the ravine, indicating that he is for certain lying on the deepest part of this hidden cavern.

The cavern and this deep ravine are certainly created by nature, despite the fact that it seems like there are parts from the mouth of the ravine and the landing above him that appear to have been altered, specifically to accommodate the opening above. And speaking of the gap opening, it looks clearly to be a man-made hole on the ground above, built specifically to lure non-suspecting prey for their fall.

Such as he is.

A trap, huh? Jimin scoffs at the realisation. It serves me right to fall in one, I guess.

He grimaces at the thought, that perhaps karma is paying him for what he had caused others to fall on him as well. No, not karma, he corrects himself as he closes his eyes. A deep, bitter chuckle rumbles from his chest. No, the whole thing is a curse. A curse with a stream of bad luck that undoubtedly will not end by tonight.

The pain from both the poison and his fall had ebbed away from his body, replacing everything else with an intense level of exhaustion. That too is also wiped away as soon as a surge of energy courses through his body, much to his dismay, right before he is starting to doze off.

I need to find a way out of this place, he sighs, wondering what to do and where to go next, wishing that he could stay here and have a long nap instead. He is already starting to question himself on whether or not he will be able to fulfil the promises he made to The Lords.

The promises.

Will he make it at all? Will he even make it alive to allow things to succeed? The conversation between him and The Lords returns to his memory, soon followed by the conversation which he spied upon from the Traitors. It feels like an eternity has passed since everything unfolded, yet it had only been so little time since he witnessed them all happening. And there is so little time he has left before the next moon.

Closing his eyes, Jimin releases a long sigh. He simply cannot remember when everything changed. His life used to be simple, spent by going from one place to another to find new pieces of knowledge. He used to spend his time studying, communicating with locals, and finding new things to retrieve back into the clan, instead of running, fighting, and living in danger.

Oh, how simple life used to be, he wonders as he is slowly drifting to sleep. And oh, how I wish this was all only a long, terrible dream.

"Argh, fuck!" a strained cry comes out of Jimin the minute he makes another try to pull himself out of the trap.

Jimin had managed to stop himself from falling back to sleep, and he had been trying to get out of this deep ravine ever since. He might have underestimated the height and the structure of the walls surrounding him that he keeps on failing, all after thinking that this was all a simple cavern, a simple cliff that he would be able to simply climb onto.

He had never been so wrong.

For some reason, pushing himself up takes a massive effort. And it seems that he had lost the ability to use his powers aside from his healing abilities. He had tried to use them to push himself up, then bolted himself to run up the walls, and then to levitate slightly off the ground so he could reach the edge of the landing above. He had done all, only to fail.

At first, he had thought that perhaps the poison had drained his energy too much that his powers were refusing to emerge. Or that he may have injuries he had not yet found in him that might be obstructing his effort of calling to his powers and to use them.

That is, until he makes another try, and another, and finally notices that it is not that his body would not allow him to move or that his powers had been shielded by the poison. The poison was already long gone by the time he made the first try to climb up, and he could no longer feel it in his bloodstream. Which leads him to wonder if there is something else that is keeping his powers from emerging. Something else is obviously there to bind him down and keep him from using any of his ability to escape.

Sometimes he feels as if there is an invisible rope tying him down or a shield blanketing around him. The whole ravine is a trap, he soon comes to realise, as he returns to the ground and takes a quick break.

He looks around to see if he can find anything to help him out, something that can break the bind that has him pinned down and for him to lose his power. The thought of calling out for help is starting to emerge in his mind, wondering if there is anyone close by who might be able to help pull him out. Yet right when he is preparing himself to do it, a faint sound of a long howl suddenly resonates between the gushing wind, stopping him immediately.

Werewolves.

Curses reverberate in his mind, while a bitter laugh threatens to rumble as he silently takes in the ironic state he had let himself fall into. He had escaped one danger only to fall for another.

Letting himself fall back to the dirt below him, his mind trails back to the events he had been running away from. Only a night had passed when he was so desperate to stay away from the reality of his fate which had sent him running so far and too fast until he came lost in these woods. And now he is so desperate to run back into the safety of his coven, no matter what danger may be waiting for his return.

As he lowers himself back to the ground, he immediately feels heavy with sleep and another set of dizziness comes flooding to him. He soon comes to realise that another problem has slipped from his mind while he is still beating himself over his foundering. It has been a long time since the last time he fed. And judging from the situation he has found himself in, by being stuck inside this ditch and unable to escape, it will be a long time before he will be able to.

A deep, pathetic laugh comes out of him. I am definitely cursed, he silently thinks to himself as he keeps laughing. Perhaps fate hates me so much. And if this is all have been a test, then I am definitely failing. A complete, utter failure of a Vampire.

Tonight is filled with an absolute fuckery.

A major cluster fuck, is what it is, you think to yourself, cursing under your breath as you make haste between the trees.

You had made sure to check everything when you left to hunt. The weather was nice, the sky was clear of clouds and the wind had been heading to the opposite side of the hills that you were sure you would be able to hide your scent from your prey. The forest was silent, except for the rushing noises between the bushes as your prey moved from one spot to another to feed their dinner. And you had set your mind that they were going to be yours.

Tonight is the usual night of the season when the horde of forest reindeers come passing by on their journey.

After a few nights in a row of eating roasted rabbits, you craved for their meat, for a full dinner that you need to be able to gather your strength back. But your plan was ruined before it was set to commence.

Everything started out fine. You had stalked a doe and its fawn that had steered away from their herd. If only you had not taken too much time to contemplate earlier, perhaps you would have caught the fawn and you would be heading back with dinner by now with a few extras to keep for tomorrow night's stock. But no, your indecisiveness had to win. You just had to feel hesitant in choosing between the mother doe or the small fawn before it happened.

You were so close. You could feel it, taste it even, and smell its wonderful scent when you were stalking closer. With careful movements, you had extended your claws and canines and were ready to pounce, only seconds away from getting a full-course meal. Until a gush of wind, faster and stronger than the one you usually encounter since your first arrival in this forest, suddenly passed you by. Sending not only your scent their way but also spreading apart the bushes that had camouflaged your figure in the dark.

The doe's eyes were wide as she turned to find you, before recognition stroke her to then quickly turned to fear. And that was when you lost your prey.

The anger that comes to you from the memory has you releasing a growl. You are so deep in your exasperation that you fail to realise how your body has partly shifted, until you swing a hand to hit the nearest tree and find three deep claw marks wounding the tree bark before you.

Another growl escapes through you, far deeper and louder than the one you released before that you can feel the earth rumbles beneath your feet. Judging from the rustling sounds of leaves happening up above you, it is clear that your rage has disrupted the peace in the forest, sending the remaining birds and fowls to move away from where you are.

Heaving a deep breath, you try to calm yourself and find your peace of mind. You are suddenly left wondering about the sudden change of direction from the wind that happened before. After staying in this forest for so long, you cannot remember if anything as odd as it was has ever happened before.

"What was it?" you mutter openly to the air, as if the silent trees and grass could answer for you what the voice in your head cannot. There was no heat or any specific scent that came with the wind, aside from the scent of your prey. But it was still unnatural to happen. "Something caused it. Something that is not from around here, obviously."

You keep on grumbling to yourself, cursing the ominous night while promising yourself that you will find answers before the night ends, all while trudging between the dense grass and heading straight towards your shelter. A low growl comes from the far East side of you, stopping you from moving ahead. You turn your head, waiting for another sound until the warning growl returns. A sigh of relief comes out when you recognise the voice as the one which belongs to the mother bear who is sheltering close by with her newborn cubs.

She probably sensed me coming too close, you wonder silently, before turning away to take a different route. I'm certainly not in the mood to fight off a bear right now. Much less one with cubs.

And much to your relief, the voice inside your head agrees with you.

As you are heading near the path to your refuge, you hear your stomach grumbling, reminding you of the lost dinner and the need for a meal. Just as another irritation comes to you, you notice the dense bushes nearby are moving and rustling, letting you know that a nightcrawler is somewhere close to your reach.

Roast rabbit for dinner it is then, you think to yourself with a sigh, before you lower yourself to the ground and stealthily stalk your new prey.

Running in a human form is a pain in the butt.

With a scoff, you trudge forth into the cavern right when you are close to running out of breath. The minute you are surrounded by the rocky walls, you instantly feel safe and secure, and terribly relieved, that you immediately start walking much slower. The place is certainly not a mansion, or a comfortable house with comfortable beds. But it is still the place where you have been living in for the past few weeks. Hence you have regarded it as your home.

For now, you remind yourself, before the voice in your head returns only to sneer as it usually does. A bed and a cosy, warm house is a luxury we cannot afford at the moment. At least we have a place to rest and to stay safe.

But still no dinner, the voice in your head speaks, thick with sarcasm and exasperation that coax you to roll your eyes. Dinner would have made things slightly better.

"Yeah, well—can't argue with you on that one," you respond out loud while continuing to walk deeper into the cavern, letting the darkness inside help you to wallow in your already gloomy mood.

You have officially deemed this whole night as a dead loss ever since the failure of the first hunt. After that initial failure and coming near to running into a bear's territory, you had initially thought that you may still be able to attain a replacement dinner before you had to return to your refuge.

However, the small critter you preyed on had a mind of its own, as it turned out to be much slicker than you had thought when it slipped so easily from your experienced hands. Yet it does not mean that you gave up right away. With the hunger you felt still growing inside your belly, you kept on trying to find other prey. Which, again, led to another failure. It was as if all the small nightcrawlers, rabbits and other critters alike, had known that danger was lurking, that you find their presence unusually scarce.

In the end, you made another attempt to stalk down another herd of reindeer, trying to find any clueless fawn that you could lure away in desperate need of food. Yet even the second and third attempts you have made towards the deers had all ended in failure. Having a close encounter with an angry Papa Reindeer at the end was the one that got you admitting final defeat and retreating with an empty stomach and your head hanging low.

As if bad fortune continued to follow wherever you had gone, just when you were finally close to getting a sweet, nourishing rabbit to feed on, another disruption came your way. This time, it came with a scent.

Or perhaps, should you say—'they'?

You recall how your body reacted when the wind came carrying the first scent. It was a foul scent containing mixes of dirt, blood, and death. The scent also carried menace and a sense of threat. Everything that the foul smell of rogues would usually carry along with them.

Yes, rogues. Those damn wild, feral, packless werewolves.

The unpleasant scent came first before the series of growls started rumbling through the ground. They were far away from where you were, which only meant that there were many of them lingering around if the noises could travel so far your way.

You stayed still at first, waiting for a sign, any sign of them entering the woods or getting anywhere nearer. The first move you made only happened after you managed to track their whereabouts, after finding out on which side of the woods' entrance the group of rogues were gathering, and only after you found out which direction the wind was moving in. Once you made sure you knew which direction to take to prevent your scent from being sent their way, you started to slowly retreat towards the much safer ground. Away from their threats.

The second move you made was taken on a more rash decision. Just as the wind returned from another side of the woods, carrying a different set of scents, a different kind of threat. This time, you recognised them as a thick scent of mixed gun powders, silver, and humans.

The Hunters.

Despicable creatures.

Your inner voice growled at the recognition before sending your whole body on alert. That was when you decided to make haste, to run faster and further away into the depths of the woods, far away from the incoming threats. Just in time the first howl came from the leader of the rogues and the sound of the first arrow being launched forth echoed between the thick trees. You could hear the war starting far behind you as you ran to safety, the uproar of their battle disturbing the peacefulness of the Sacred Forest that had been your only company since the day you set foot into these woods.

No need to join in their war, you said to yourself then as you fled through the trees. We already have our own war to deal with.

And for the first time after the last brawl, the voice in your head agreed.

That wind was definitely a bad omen, you silently declare as you are reaching the center of the cavern, when you remember the wind that had caught you off guard earlier in the night as you left the place to hunt. Everything that happened right after had been nothing but a complete mess that you cannot stop wondering what is so wrong about this night. Something big is happening. Maybe it's time to move on to a different place.

Or we can always return. Go back and seize what is rightfully ours.

This time, the growl that comes out from deep inside your chest is caused by your own exasperation in response to the notion given by your inner self. Not yet. The time will come for our return. Soon. Once we are truly ready.

The short outburst turns into silence. You continue to walk until the deep tunnel leads to a more narrow path. Then as you reach for the center of the cave, you are met with a point where the path is branched into two different directions.

Normally, you would immediately take the path to your left, where you have been residing in for nearly two moons. This time, however, something has caught your attention, leaving you hesitant to take the next step forward.

To your right, it is where the trap lies. You know this so well thanks to the uneventful night which had led you to find this cavern in the first place. You had come into these woods, the place which has been known as The Sacred Forest, the neutral territory between werewolf packs and other supernatural beings surrounding the land, in a search for a shelter. Severely injured and terribly disoriented, you ran to the higher ground heading towards the hills to be able to scan your surroundings, only to find yourself falling into the trap hidden between the rocky slopes near the edge of the hills.

You still cannot remember how you managed to recover from the shock so quickly and how you gathered yourself together before anything bad happened. Perhaps your other half had taken over just when you were at the weakest, right in the middle of succumbing to your injuries that you were unable to do anything against the fall. Because you had somehow managed to stop yourself from falling into the deep ravine that was waiting for you right under the open gap, and propelled yourself to land on the higher ground closer to the cavern's walls instead and away from the trap beneath.

It was certainly a hard task to do in such a state, and not to mention, painful.

It took you a whole night of resting and recovering before you left that place, tracking down to the other parts of the cavern before finding the safest areas where you were then able to turn them into your shelter. And you have been avoiding the dangerous part of the cave ever since that night, refusing to relive or to remember what happened to you that night when you fell inside.

Tonight, however, the path to your right is calling for you, luring you to come close as if it has a secret for you to reveal. You let silence come to you as you try to listen to any sound that may appear from the other side.

I could just ignore it and go take some rest. It's been a long night, after all, you tell yourself even when you have your eyes looking out to the dark tunnel beyond.

Or perhaps we can just take a quick peek inside so we can sleep better knowing that nothing is wrong.

You inwardly roll your eyes at how your inner voice keeps wanting to disagree with everything you say. But when a gust of soft breeze passes through you, carrying a weird scent that ignites your curiosity, you finally give your other half a chance to win the argument for the first time tonight. Slowly, you start to move forward, treading silently through the path leading to the trap.

It feels as if your legs are moving on their own when your mind is focused on something else. The scent that the air carries takes away your attention from everything else that it becomes the only thing you care about. Instead of preparing yourself to face danger, you are trying to recognise the scents instead. The beautiful scent somehow pulls you in, making you want to come even closer.

Sandalwood is the first thing you recognise from it. The delightful, calming scent that used to accompany you at night before bed. A scent of herbs is also there, something that you are not quite familiar with but still manage to soothe away your tension. And then comes the last scent that makes your heart start racing inside your chest.

Blood.

You resist the urge to growl when you notice that the scent carries no threat, and that it feels colder rather than the usual hot temperature you mostly encounter. And it makes your curiosity grow even more as you come much closer, as the scent comes to you even stronger. Because the overbearing scent comes from an Old Blood.

You swallow thickly at the revelation, yet you are showing no sign of stopping. Whatever it is that you are going to find once you are there, you already know that it is not human. But they are also not one of your kind.

There is only silence at first as you continue moving on, until you are near the opening where the landing and the mouth of the trap appear to you. Deep breaths are heard from the deepest part of the cave, along with slow, low growls. A few thumps are heard next as you take another step closer, until you hear something that sounds like a rock falling to the ground, before a loud snarl comes. The sound echoes through the walls, vibrating on every surface of the cave that you can hear it passing through the tunnel that you had just left behind. The vibration feels so strong that your body freezes, and a chill runs down your bone to your marrow.

You take another step forward, and the noises halt.

"Who's there?" the one hidden inside the trap snaps, no doubt hearing your movements or perhaps smelling your scent now that you are close.

You can sense his anger, which has you ready to fight, making your body stand still with a stance that will allow you to be ready to face a threat if it need be. But there is also sadness there, along with fear, emerging from the figure that you have not yet seen or identified. And the latter becomes the one that pulls you in to move closer to the edge of the ravine, just to be able to see who it is trapped under.

"Answer me," he speaks once more once you give him only silence. "I know you're there. I can hear your heartbeat."

Now that, is what makes your legs stop moving instantly.

What did he say?

'Afraid?' The voice in your head sneers.

Absolutely not!

'Pfft, then why have you changed your stance from preparing to fight into steadying to run?'

I—I am not!

"I'm waiting," the man, or whatever he may be, who is down there still hidden from your sight speaks again. This time, a low, threatening growl leathers his words.

For some reason, the sounds he is making instil no threat or fear. Instead, you feel his pain through it, something similar to the one you had knowingly kept since the day you were thrown over by fate. More curious than ever now after the feeling he has given, you take a few steps closer to the mouth of the cliff. There is not much light coming from the moon above that slips through the opening, so you manage to find a dark spot where he would not be able to see you.

"For someone who is currently trapped inside a deep hole of a trap, you sure are impatient. And undeniably rude." You have no idea where you gained the confidence to speak these words out loud from, knowing that you did fear for him for a short moment before. But with your body hidden in the shadows and his sight being veiled by the same darkness that you can only see the lower part of his face and his body, you suddenly feel invisible.

You fairly see his jaw clenching as he releases another deep growl. "I don't like to be kept waiting," he snaps, making you slightly annoyed. Gone is the curiosity or concern. All you can care for now is to know who he is, how he came upon this place and why. Then you can crawl away to the other side of the cave, to your uncomfortable makeshift bed and sleep.

Alright, perhaps I am still slightly curious.

"From the way I see it, it seems to me that you currently have no say on that." You try to sound tough, or perhaps menacing enough to make him stop growling and snapping as if you are nothing but a child.

Even if he is an Old Blood, someone who has lived longer than you do, you still cannot appreciate his attitude when you had first come here only to help. Well, not that you can really do anything. But you can deal with it another time.

While you are in the middle of wallowing in your thoughts, the mystery being has started to pace around inside the trap, yet is still blanketed by the shadows around him. You can faintly hear him mumbling under his continuous growls. You can barely hold back from rolling your eyes as your irritation grows more wickedly, that you finally snap, "What the hell are you saying?"

"I said it's not like I did this on purpose!" he snaps yet again, stopping his pacing to face you. Still under the dark, of course. And you hate not being able to see his face as he speaks. But then again, what other choice do you have? You say nothing to him as he continues to rant from below, "It's not like I was strolling around and found that it would be fun if I just jump down here and get stuck."

"Of course not," you say to him with a sigh when you remember how you fell into this place. It was definitely not fun at all. You were just slightly lucky to have avoided the trap below. You cannot even dare to imagine what would have become of you if you had been the one stuck there two moons ago, with nobody to come to find you and no other way to get help.

You are not completely sure why you are staying here longer instead of fleeing far in your usual hiding place or why you are actually trying to know more about him. But your curiosity returns the minute his voice stops sounding so rude. And it certainly has gotten the best of you ever since your eyes have caught his sight down there in the dark. 

For some reason, you can feel his emotions. It comes and goes so strongly like a flood to you that you can feel his rage, turning to sadness, to agitation, and you suddenly feel the need to know what he has been through to feel such a strong wave of emotions.

As he keeps moving in the lower ground, he keeps coming close to the much brighter spot that the moonlight is able to reach. You can see him tightening his jaw and clenching his hands each time he moves. You can see his pale skin and see how it glows under the dim moonlight. You can see his lips as he speaks, how it turns to frown each time he falls silent.

If only I could see his eyes, you wonder involuntarily. Yet as if he could hear you, he takes a step closer to the brighter spot in front of him. The moonlight still fails to illuminate his whole figure, but you can still see them now. The pair of bright ruby eyes that are glowing in the dark as he keeps his gaze on you.

He is definitely not a human, you silently wonder as you are studying the glowing ruby eyes that are glaring at you. But—those eyes. Vampires? Or something else? In this area? How? No wonder he smells funny.

But this ground is much too far from their homelands to reach. And meeting Vampires in this region is such a rare thing to happen.

Once again you find yourself lost in your deep thoughts that you did not even realise that you have been staring at each other silently. Clearing your throat, you look down from his gaze and try to steady your voice as you speak, "How did you get in there then? If you don't mind letting me know, that is."

He looks annoyed for a moment, shaking his head as he mutters inaudible words to himself before answering, "I fell," he says. "To briefly sum it up. And somehow got into this ditch. What is this place anyway? It looks awfully strange as a cave. And to think that that stupid hole above our heads is enough to make me trapped here is just ridiculous and baffling."

"So you're definitely not from around here," you answer him with a voice that comes out somewhat a bit wistful, then lightly shrug as you give him a pursed smile. "Well, just your luck, and probably mine. You are at the Sacred Forest. This ground is supposed to be neutral territory, but it was once seized by Hunters and Warlocks before the Blood War, so there are old parts of this forest that they left behind as they fled. Including this place. This cave, specifically, was built in those ancient times, when they still reigned in the region. People around here said it was meant as a trap for supernaturals."

He stops. You feel him looking at you deeply and you notice through the way his face turns that he has his eyebrows lifted and burrowed. "Ancient Hunters? They built this place?" you feel him getting more angry and agitated by the minute, before he continues to speak. "I'm going to assume that since they have left this place untouched, they did not just simply leave behind a conspicuous cavern with a ditch underneath, but added something else here, did they?"

You nod your head. "Must be," you mutter softly yet still loud enough for him to hear. "Nearly every part of the walls in this cave is covered by wolfsbane and various kinds of poisons, probably some spells as well to drive supernaturals outside from getting in while locking the ones inside from getting out."

Your eyes trail to the ground around his feet as you look away from his deep gaze, too uneasy about the way he is currently studying you from below. That is when you notice the disturbed soil, and the tracks that were left behind by his strong legs, and you start to understand the reason for the noises he was making when you entered the cave. Tilting your head, you contemplate on continuing or even making sure who he is, or what he is, without offending him. 

Unfortunately, your old habit of thinking out loud seems to die hard. "And since you seem to have problems climbing up when you don't seem to be barring any visible injuries, I guess you are not a human."

The man scoffs. "Clever," he clicks his tongue and steps forward, letting himself find a more suitable spot under the moonlight to be able to talk to you, and for you to see his face more clearly. The glowing ruby eyes and the fangs that show up from his bitter smile answer your undying curiosity. And you are suddenly engulfed in a deep dread.

'Oh, shoot,' the voice inside your head finally returns only to fill your mind with anger, allowing your hands to squeeze tightly on your sides.

Oblivious to the change in your demeanour, the Vampire tilts his head and even has the audacity to send you a smirk. "Now if you have figured out what I am, can you please help me out of here? Whatever it is those Hunters have put inside this ditch, it is binding me from moving anywhere but here."

You say nothing at first, only opting to stand close to the edge of the ditch to return his gaze with no words or any reaction to his plea.

"What's the matter? Afraid that I might hurt you?" he teases. "If you help me out and get me to safety, away from the wolves I heard brawling outside and the Hunters guarding the woods, I will reward you. I promise."

"I'm not afraid of you," you tell him bluntly. Raising your eyebrows, you straighten up your back and step closer to the mouth of the ditch that is caging him far below, allowing the moonlight to fall onto your face. "Like I said, there are wolfsbanes covering most of the walls in this cave. And aside from whatever spell that is binding you in there, there are those binding me from going under."

The man beneath you visibly frowns, his eyes turn dark as he lets everything sink in. And just when his eyes fall directly on yours, when he finally notices how your orbs glow bright golden under the moonlight, he finally understands.

"You—" he says with a low voice filled with despise. "You are a werewolf."