The shuffling of footsteps made me tremble and draw my body further into the safety of my catacomb. The bones of the skeleton beneath me creaked under my weight and I held my breath until whatever monster haunting this hall had passed by.

When the king had said that there are those who beg to be released from purgatory I had thought it to be nothing more than a meaningless threat to scare me, but he had been telling the truth. Purgatory was the Hell that time forgot. Creatures I had only read about in stories hid in the shadows here, waiting for unsuspecting victims to fall into their path of devastation. I had been unlucky enough to come across many of them before I found my current refuge hiding next to a pile of bones in a wall of catacombs.

The first day I spent in this place was worse than my darkest nightmares. Clawed hands and sharp teeth tore at me until blood soaked my body. In the end that was the only reason I escaped. The blood had made my skin slippery enough that I was able to slide free and make a run for it.

The king also seemed to be telling the truth about me being undead. Once I had gotten away from the claws and teeth my wounds had healed in a matter of hours. And I had yet to feel hungry. But I did feel thirsty....just not for water.

It amazed even me how many asthma and panic attacks I could have in such a sort amount of time here. Without fail, every time I thought I was getting a grip on my situation something else would happen to send me into spiraling hysteria.

Dust from the disintegrating bones tickled my nose and I tried holding my breath to keep from sneezing. A relieved breath escaped my lungs when it worked, but I winced as I inhaled again and the dust went down into my windpipe.

'Oh God, there is bone dust in my throat!' I screamed internally.

My hands flailed at my sides in panic and I retched repeatedly. Somewhere in the back of my mind I knew the sound was going to attract monsters, but I couldn't stop. There was part of a dead person's remains inside my lungs!

I was so far past lost control it was no more than a speck on the horizon. Bye, bye composure! Disgusting amounts of sweat, tears, and snot ran down my face as I sobbed like a baby.

As I was in the middle of my nervous breakdown a huge hand latched down firmly onto one of my flailing arms and pulled. I fell from the crypt and my head smashed painfully against the stone floor. Figuring I was about to be attacked again, I let out a bloodcurdling shriek and lashed out at the creature with all my might.

"Will you cut that shit out?" a man's voice snarled from above me. "If you keep wailing like that every beast in purgatory is going to be down here within minutes."

Blinking up at him in surprise I immediately stopped screaming and shut my mouth with a snap. He grunted and lifted me up from the floor by my arms. I was so surprised to find a seemingly normal human being that my brain couldn't form words. I say "seemingly" because despite having two arms and two legs and normal human features, he was far too tall and his irises were a flaming red.

He stared at me for a long moment before saying, "You had a good idea hiding here, so why did you screw it up?"

"I—bone dust."

Despite knowing this made no sense whatsoever, my brain made no attempts to form any kind of smarter response. I mentally face-palmed and cringed as one of his eyebrows rose in obvious confusion.

"What's your name?" he asked, instead of commenting on my stupidity.

"Alethea. But my parents call me Thea, y'know for short. No one really knows how to say Alethea and usually they call me Althea instead. But whichever you want to use is fine," I rambled.

Before I couldn't form words at all and now I couldn't stop. Story of my life.

He held out his hand for me to shake and said, "I'm Roran."

I stared at his hand, wanting to shake it but also mentally calculating how many germs could be on it. Eventually I caved and brushed his palm for about half a second before retracting it.

"Come with me if you want to live," he said, motioning for me to follow him.

I breathed out a semi-hysterical laugh, not being able to hold it in. He even looked like a bit like the Terminator with all of his leather and muscles.

"What's funny?" he asked, completely serious.

"You just quoted Terminator," I replied. "You know, the part where Sarah Connor is escaping the hospital?"

Once again his eyebrow rose, indicating he had no idea what I was talking about.

"Terminator?"

I stared at him. Everyone knew Terminator. It was a classic. "You know, the movie? With Arnold Schwarzenegger?"

He shook his head and continued walking. I followed behind him, despite every fiber of my being wanting to return to my hidey-hole in the wall. Being around people had never been easy for me. I was suspicious of everyone and had agoraphobia coupled with panic disorders – or at least that is what my therapist claimed.

"S-so what are you?" I stuttered. "The king – Moroi, I think - said I'm a vampire."

Roran stopped, turning so that his fiery eyes regarded me curiously.

"You met with Moroi? And you're still here?"

I shrugged. "Yes?"

He stared at me for a few moments longer before silently turning and walking away. It didn't escape my notice that he didn't answer my question.

We passed through a room that looked older than earth itself. It was nothing more than a dignified dirt hole carved to look like a room. Roran had to partially turn sideways to pass through the doorway, and even then his broad shoulders scraped the sides causing dirt to rain down around him. I fit through it with no problem, but noticed that if it had been about three inches narrower my hips wouldn't have fit. It was an embarrassing realization to say the least. I made a mental note that if I ever made it home to throw out all of those bags of Doritos.

A sob lodged itself in the back of my throat when I realized that if I ever did make it home I wouldn't even want to eat Doritos. It was probably a stupid thing to start crying over, but I often cried over things that most people would find foolish.

It took me a long time - too long - to realize that I had stopped in the middle of the room and was making an absolute fool of myself in front of this hot beast of a man who was supposedly leading me to safety. When I finally regained my composure, said hot beast was staring at me with clear and understandable disdain.

"Are you done?" he asked, his voice sarcastic and full of impatience.

I nodded, trying to wipe away my tears.

When he didn't turn around to start walking again I chanced a look up at him. He was frowning at me; probably wishing he had left me to die in the catacombs.

"Life here is hard. Most of the time it's kill or be killed. If you are too busy crying to keep up with me, you are going to die. So make a choice now, do you want to live? Or die?" he asked, watching at me.

"I-I want to live," I managed to whisper.

"Are you sure?" he asked, sneering down at me. "You don't sound very definite in your answer. Maybe I should kill you now; put you out of your misery?"

I shook my head frantically and took several steps away from him.

"No! No! I want to live! I do!"

"Good," he grunted, turning back around and continuing on his way.

I let out a sigh of relief and scurried along behind him. He might have been scary, but I would choose following him over dealing with those clawed things any day.

We walked for hours, but I never felt any sign of fatigue. It was kind of wonderful. Before, when I had been human, I hadn't even been able to walk up two flights of stairs without getting winded.

"Stop," Roran said, pulling a crude looking stone blade from a sheath on his back. "There's something there."

"Where?" I whispered, peering into the darkness but not seeing anything.

"Shhh," he replied, holding his hand out to signal me to be quiet.

A growl echoed out of the darkness, chilling me to the bone. I squinted into the eerie black trying to locate the monster, but there was nothing there that I could see.

"Take this," Roran said, pushing a small knife into my hand. "You are going to need it. Just remember, you said you want to live. Here's your chance to prove it."

I swallowed hard and felt sweat break out along the back of my neck. My whole life I had avoided confrontation. I was about as useful in a fight as a screen door on a submarine. But I did want to live.

A blur of fur and canines came at me out of the darkness and latched onto what was left of my shirt. The material ripped easily and I jerked out of the animal's reach. Looking around for Roran, I realized quickly he wouldn't be able to save me. Three large wolf men had surrounded him and were closing in on him fast.

A snap of teeth near my face ripped a scream from my lungs and over the chorus of growls and snarls I heard Roran yell, "Pay attention, Thea!"

Turning back to the hulking wolf man pursuing me around the room, I was just in time to skid out of the way as it lunged at me. I took a chance and flicked the knife out toward it, missing it by mere inches. A choking type sound echoed from its throat and I realized it was laughing at me.

"You've got a lot of gall laughing at me when you look like a mangy, half-dead coyote," I snapped at it in response.

A viscous howl erupted from its mouth and I paled. Maybe provoking it wasn't the best idea. It lunged again, but this time I was ready. My tiny blade pierced the wolf man through its left lung. Figuring it was a fatal wound; I let go of the knife's handle and let the creature skulk away.

I turned to Roran, realizing his fight must have ended about the same time as mine. He stood over one of the wolf bodies, pulling his blade from one of their necks.

"Where did the other one go?" he asked as he turned to me.

"I stabbed it. It ran," I replied, keeping my words short and trying to breath through my mouth to keep from smelling the blood in the room.

Seeing all of the blood pooling on the floor made me feel sick. Not because I found it gross, although there was a time when that would have been the case. Now I was getting sick because of how much I wanted to lap it up. It was disgusting. And wrong. But I wanted it so badly.

Roran seemed to understand what was bothering me because he took my wrist and pulled me from the room without a word.

"We need to get far away from here. More lycans will show up once the injured one tells them what happened here," he grumbled under his breath.

"Lycans?" I asked, figuring he meant werewolves but needing to talk to keep myself distracted.

"Men who can become wolves. Weres, the creatures who can change their bodies into a wolf form" he replied.

"Are there a lot of those here?'

Roran laughed. Not a humorous laugh, but a cynical one. "You really don't know anything about this place, do you?"

I shook my head and threw my hands into the air. "I just got here yesterday!"

He turned toward me again, his eyes glowing strangely in the dim light. "Yesterday? Really?"

"Yes. And before that I rarely ever left my apartment, so excuse me for being a little uninformed."

"Fair enough," he replied. "There's not enough time right now to list all of the creatures that make up purgatory, so just stay close and keep quiet. I'll tell you everything once we get where we're going."

"Where are we going?" I asked.

"Someplace safe," was all he replied before he turned and began walking away again.

I took a deep breath and obediently followed behind him humming to myself to keep my mind off of everything that just happened.