I pumped my legs faster and faster as the hungry shrieks of the Ghouls rang out a few paces behind us. We were out in the open and I knew that we'd attract the whole lot of them, but we had no other choice than to run. In order to defeat the Ghoul, I had to use my blood, now cursed by Xias Redblaed, to bind the spirit to the home so that it couldn't escape when I set fire to it. But although we had defeated the spirit, we were in no better a situation. All our supplies and provisions were in the house when I set it ablaze. The only things we managed to save was Mikoto's Bestiary. By the way she held it tightly to her chest, I could see that she treasured it dearly.

The moon was absent from the sky tonight, giving us little to no light. I was beginning to succumb to my injuries, and could just barely see Mikoto a couple paces ahead. By now the cries of the Ghouls were faint, then stopped altogether. Why hadn't they continued to pursue us? Don't get me wrong, I was more than happy to have evaded those monsters, but at the same time it was unsettling.

Moments later we reached a large dark barrier. I couldn't tell what exactly I was looking at in the dark, but from here it seemed to be a huge black wall, stretching from as far as I could manage to see. Mikoto halted, slowly pacing closer to the obstruction. I stayed close on her heels. Now I knew what we were looking at, and my heart filled with dread. It was that dreaded forest, large ashes standing sentinel at its border. They could've extended for miles and miles and by the time you realize you can't make it, you're too far in to turn back. That was the fear I felt about this patch of woods, placed in a totally unusual spot. I couldn't explain it, but I could sense the vast expanse of the wood , and somewhere in heart, although almost undetectable, was a sinister malice. If I could sense it, I'd no doubt Mikoto could as well. We were both reluctant to enter, our instincts screaming at us to avoid it, but when the depraved cry of Ghouls split the night air only a couple feet behind us, we made up our minds.

The decision we made then would indirectly change the course of our lives.

Wasting no time, I followed Mikoto into the woods. I momentarily got snagged on some branches, but fought my way through the thick barrier. That's when shit got strange.

We emerged into a gloomy expanse of trees. It was nearly impossible to see; dead trees bent and contorted up high above our heads, forming a grotesque canopy that blocked out any starlight. Before us was a black River that flowed quickly across our path. It looked more like thick tar than actual water. Mikoto nimbly leapt over it's small width and I followed, nearly busting my ass on the slippery rocks. We moved forward and reached a dirt trail that went straight onward into the bowels of the forest. As soon as we set foot on the path my body shuddered with warning that something evil was somewhere deep within. Every step my heart dropped more and more. I knew something was off. I was sure of it.

Forcing myself to press on, we continued deeper and deeper, using only the trail between the trees to guide us through the claustrophobic darkness. After what seemed like an hours, we stopped and took refuge under an old ash. This situation felt the same as when we were fleeing from the vampires less than a week ago. Only this time, the woods weren't fantasy-esque. It looked like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe novel. Everything was dead and gloomy. The forest was masked in an unsettling silence and not even a cricket made a sound.

Once we rested and my adrenaline rush wore off, the pain of my injuries kept my body clenched in shock. I took the time to assess my wounds. The muscle I my left bicep had been pierced almost all the way through, blood oozing from the jagged, circular hole. Every time I moved my arm it felt like someone was twisting a screwdriver into the gash. I cried out and froze so that I wouldn't do further harm. With my uninjured right hand, I rolled up my pant leg and examine where the Ghoul had bit me. It wasn't bleeding like my arm, but the area around the bite was black and blue. When I touched the contusion, it sent a jolt of pain up my shin and I cursed. I needed to stop the bleeding and treat the wound for infections, and ice my bruised leg. If I let it swell it'd become hard to walk or run. I shouldn't even have to explain why I needed to dress my other injury.

Without asking, Mikoto tore the fabric from my pant leg and instructed me to put it on my wound. It hurt like a bitch, but the bleeding lessened. I'd have to worry about the bruise later. Right now I wanted to talk.

"Hey, what was that back there? Why'd you let the Ghoul in?" I asked, probing for answers. Mikoto kept silent, as if she refused to answer. When I was about to continue, she parted her lips to speak, but what she had to say filled my chest with hurt.

"Don't bullshit me. You think I don't know that you made a deal with Xias Redblaed!?" Her face was livid and she looked ready to snap my neck. "I knew I smelled her scent on you, but I thought it was just from your first encounter, but no! You had her blood flowing through your veins! You gave it away when you bound the Ghoul with your blood. Redblaed's blood!" I stared with my mouth agape. How had she come to that conclusion? Although she was right, she had the totally wrong idea. I'd never planned on betraying her, but before I could tell her that, she continued on with her rant. "I know what you're going to say, that you weren't ever going to go through with the deal, but you're ignorant and you have no idea what you got yourself into. By transferring blood with the Alpha Vampire, you essentially sold yourself to her. Whether you realize it or not, she's free to control you whenever and however she likes. You didn't bind the deal  in cursed blood. You bound your will  to her with cursed blood.

  "I also realized another thing. When the Ghoul spoke, it spoke to me, too. At first I believed it only spoke lies, but when it spoke to you in the voice of Xias, you had admitted yourself that you made the deal. The Ghoul had told me earlier that you had dealings with Redblaed, then afterwards after you admitted it, it told me that you had conspired with her and was under her control." At that moment her eyes transfixed on me and glittered fiercely. What she said next filled my entire being with a cancerous misery that ate away at my very spirit.

"The Ghoul told me if I allowed it to enter, it would dispatch Redblaed's servant. I trusted my Anima in my decision and my instincts told me that this was the right action. Until you killed the Ghoul."

I felt an intense anger rising up into my throat. It wasn't me who betrayed her, it was her who betrayed me. "What the hell! Do you know how insane that is?! I could've died!" I exploded, "I saved us both! How could you think I'd actually try to betray you? I fought that monster for you! Do you seriously think that the Ghoul would keep it's word? If I didn't have Xias's blood in me, that Ghoul would of killed me and went straight on to you!"

"My Anima is the only guiding light I have. It's never wrong." she said, her voice seeped with venom, "Whether or not you killed the Ghoul, that doesn't change the fact that your pledged allegiance with Redblaed, my enemy."

"Maybe you should stop relying on your Anima all the damn time and start thinking for yourself. Maybe you're the one who's being controlled!"

Before I could tell what had happened, I was being pinned the tree I was leaning against, Mikoto's forearm pressed hard against my throat and her tail reared back; primed like a scorpion about to strike. "I'll kill you myself." She said in a cold voice. In that instant, what the Ghoul had said to me before I left it to die now made sense. I stared blankly, my mind trying to wrap itself around the current situation.

  "I'm. . .sorry. . ." My voice cracked and went an octave higher. She hesitated, her fangs clenched tight and her brows bunched together in frustration. I wasn't afraid of her, just hurt really deep down. Because when I was inches away from death, pinned to the ground by the boney swords of the Ghoul, I had truly felt alone. Mikoto had abandoned me to my fate and I resented her for it. Everything she was saying was nothing more than a mountain of bullshit. How could she assume I'd join forces with Xias Redblaed.

After an intense moment, she released me and strode off. I clenched my fist, no longer aware of the pain in my limbs and spilled everything that I had been storing inside In an enraged torrent.

"How do you think Xias felt when she watched you murder her people right in front of her? You even told me yourself that if someone killed someone close to you, you kill them without hesitation. So how could you live with yourself, knowing what you did and keep running from it? How do you think she feels!?"

She turned around, her eyes glistening with. . .tears. It wasn't fair! I should be the one that was crying. She wasn't the one that had risked there life. Time and time again I had held my tongue when she pissed me off, but now I couldn't contain it.

"She and her kind are monsters!" cried Mikoto.

"She's no different than you! You're the—" I stopped before I said something I would regret forever. "You say she's a monster, and want me killed because I made a deal with her, yet you trusted a damn Ghoul more than you trusted me! The hell is that shit?"

She wiped her eyes and glared at me, "I trust my instincts and nothing more. My decision was mine alone and—"

"I considered you a friend," I interrupted, "when I had a choice to either let the imposter in and give you over or refuse and die, my Anima told me to turn you over. But I didn't, because I'd rather die than betray you." I dropped my gaze, "I knew you wouldn't kill me because you feel the same way too, don't you?"

"No," she declared, finding her composure once more. " I don't consider you a 'friend'. There are no room for friends in this world. Only people who you can trust and can't trust." she narrowed her eyes at me, "And how can I trust somebody who sold themselves to the enemy? I can already see that, whether you're in control or not, you're sympathizing with her. Who knows how far it'll go and how much influence she has on you."

"She has no influence on me," I cried, "I just look at both sides of—"

"If you care about her so much, go to her. Your naivety will be what kills you." She turned to me. Her eyes weren't the eyes I was used too. It wasn't hers. It was another beings, something depraved and dark. Eyes that didn't look at me like another person, but prey. "But if I ever see you again, I'll assume you came as Redblaed's agent and I will waste you without hesitation." I felt my entire body tremble. My blood ran ice cold, like the waters of the arctic. My legs turned to jelly and I collapse down onto my ass. All anger and resentment transmuted into sadness and despair. I had lost the one person I could call a friend. The one person I felt comfortable around now considered me an enemy, and would attack me the same as if she were a hostile monster. She turned her back to me and disappeared in the gloom of the gothic topiary and for the first time, I felt truly and utterly alone. Mikoto was gone, and now I had to fend for myself. Regretted everything I had said to her, but I had to get it all out. After risking everything and fighting tooth and nail for her sake, just to be shot down and ridiculed really pissed me the hell off. And the worst part was that it had been planned. Mikoto wanted  the monster to kill me. That's the part that hurt the most. One second she was holding my hand and talking about tomorrow, the next she was content in snatching that away from me. What would I do now? The only thing motivating me to go on was the hope that I recover my memories when we found this mystical BloodBlade, but now that endeavor was out the door.

I still had the gun tucked away in my belt. . .

Maybe I should just end it all before something even worse gets ahold of me. . .

At that moment, in the instant the thought flitted through my mind, a girls scream pierce through the night air like glass shattering. It was at that moment that my Anima screamed at me, but I didn't need it to tell me what it was that I needed to do. Without wasting a second, I broke into a mad dash in the direction of the scream, barreling through sharp branches that bit and scratched at my face. My senses sharpened and I could now sense Mikoto's electrifying aura. The thought of her being in mortal danger was insane, her being so powerful and everything, but then I remembered the way she held my hand back at the house. How she pressed her body against mine, and the warning the man on the radio sent out before he was seemingly killed. She was afraid of the dark. The fear of not knowing what may be skulking in your blind spot. It made sense too. She relied on her knowledge and experience to take down monsters, but not knowing what you're fighting was a huge weakness. Whether I was making a terrible mistake or not, I'd try my hardest to protect her. Even if it cost me my—

Mikoto's Bestiary lay face down on the ground a few meters from me. But I wasn't looking at that. I had my gaze trained upon something else. It turned it's head around to me and stared me dead in the eyes, a cold, familiar smile spreading the length of it's face.

And that's when everything clicked.

 E-Class Orcneas

"Goblin." I said aloud. My Anima had recorded what I had read days earlier. What I now looked at seemed to be a mirror image of what I had seen in the Bestiary. It was short and fat; not much higher than my kneecap. Compared to the Ghoul, it was a pussy of a monster. I began to step forward confidently until it cackled and unsheathed something from a pouch slung across its stout body. What it now held looked to be a rusty dagger. Another laugh burst forth from it's throat that sounded like a bunch of party poppers going off. It advanced towards me. I wasn't feeling so tough anymore. I was unarmed and injured and would probably get sliced the hell up if I didn't act smartly and quickly.

"Screw this," I shouted, pulling the revolver from my belt. I didn't think I'd ever actually use it, but against this low level creature, I had no doubt it'd do some damage. I aimed the gun at the Goblin, aiming for it's bulbous head, but as my finger rested on the trigger, I hesitated. Despite how ugly and dangerous this creature might be, I didn't have it in me to pull the trigger. The Ghoul was different. It had no resemblance to humanity. The Ghoul wanted nothing more to eat me and be done with it; s pure being of evil.  And on top of that, it was already a dead, so it didn't effect me in the slightest to have blown off the bastards head.

I cursed myself at my weakness, and ran at full pelt, clear of the goblin, but I had underestimated it's speed drastically and would pay for it. The little wretch scrambled in front of me just as I was reaching down to scoop up the Bestiary. It thrusted the stubby dagger at my throat; five inches of glinting steel heading straight for my jugular. At the last possible moment, I jerked sideways, the blade missing my throat by a hairs breadth, but biting deeply into my shoulder. The pain didn't register right away, so without stopping, I swept my good leg in an arc and sent the goblin flying like a soccer ball. A painful shriek escaped its mouth, but by the time it gathered itself and had it's blade ready I had already picked up the bestiary and was hot on Mikoto's trail. I had no positive way in knowing if I was actually following her, but I prayed that this static energy I was feeling was being given off by her.

Sadly, I was still more human than anything else, so my stamina didn't match that of Mikoto's, and my bruised leg didn't do anything to help. Each time my feet pounded against the earth, a bolt of pain forked up my shin like lightning. I was breathing so hard that my throat and lungs felt like they had been saturated in battery acid. Mikotos's presence began to fade and tears of anguish stung my eyes at the thought of losing my friend. Why did I care about her so much? One minute ago I hated her guts, but now the thought of her in trouble was almost too much to bear. But she may not be in trouble. She could have sensed the danger and despite her fear was running on foot. This gave me some form of console, but my heart faltered at her absence. I'd have to accept she was gone and wanted nothing more to do with me. She'd even threatened me. But I had her bestiary. Even though she claimed to have memorized its contents, the book was tied to her past and still meant something to her. The hope that I might see her again was enough for me to keep surviving, but until that time, I had no one to protect me. I was all jacked up and soon my bodied give out on me. It couldn't get any worse off than it already was.

I spoke to soon.

Something moved in the bushes ahead, forcing me to stop. I stared hard into the darkness at the black blob; darker than the surrounding environment. To my horror, the shadow shuddered, then moved forward. Now that it was out of the cover of the foliage, I could make out what I had been looking at. It was a humanoid figure, tall and slim by the look of it. I couldn't see its face or any features in the poor lighting, but I wouldn't take any chances. I fell back and with incredible speed, pulled the revolver from my belt and took aim, my finger trembling on the trigger. At the same moment, the figure withdrew something from it's back and aimed it at me too.

"Speak creature! What art thou?" said a males voice. I was caught off guard and stumbled back, all my weight falling on my bad leg. I let out a raspy yelp and crumpled onto one knee. My heart raced. My stomach twisted and bile arose in my throat. If I fainted here, who knows what could happen to me. The figure standing over me could very well be a vampire, but I'll be damned if I was letting it kill me without a fight.

"Back the hell up!" I shouted, "I swear to god I'll shoot!" My head throbbed, sending jolts of pain behind my eyes that felt like someone was jamming nails into them.

"A very unwise choice, that'd be, for you are outnumbered and outmanned. Now, lower your weapon; else our arrows will fly." On cue, a dozen more figures emerged from the bushes, surrounding me on all sides. I was screwed alright. But the threat of these guys was pointless. I'd probably be dead soon anyways. I was feeling sicker by the second, and I had no doubt Xias's nasty blood was to blame. I had no reason to believe a word the Ghoul had said to me, but if it had been right about the twenty-four hour time limit I had, I was already doomed from the beginning. I opened my mouth to retort, but as soon as I did, my head swam and I vomited all over the dirt. My breaths were ragged and my entire body was on fire. Clammy sweat coated my skin and it didn't take a genius to know that my health was in the pits. The gun in my hand seemed to grow immensely heavy and slipped right through my fingers. I attempted getting up, but my knees buckled and I fell face first to the earth, defeated. I was at this things mercy now. He put away his weapon and waved for his comrades to come forth. I was grateful that I lost consciousness then and there. When these things reached me, I didn't want to be awake to feel what happens. I heard that when you're about to die, your entire life plays out in front of you in a flash. Maybe I'd get to witness all my memories before my demise.

But before I slipped into darkness I caught a clear glimpse of the things face.