The moon is over my head, fat and perfectly round. It's glinting off the wisps of hair that have fallen smooth on my shoulders. The air is visually clear but thick, heavy fear hangs in the dewy air like curtains of fog and I can't see past my feet shuffling along the dusty path. The rustic countryside is haunting and I know my fate already.

Brendan has always been my protector. Knowing he may never be by my side is like waiting for a knife to plunge into my heart. I don't know what he is or how he became it but he is what he is and it was comforting. I wish he had told me. Knowledge of any kind would fight off the horrible chills I had residing in my spine.

My arms are folded over my chest and I can feel my ragged breathing. I should have brought along a jacket. All I have to take the edge off the cold is my plaid shirt, buttoned to my neck. My boots are crunching on dead weeds and loose pebbles. The moon is lighting my way but I cannot be thankful for it.

In less than a month, my life has turned on its back. Brendan and I have been dating for that long. I thought I knew him but I was mistaken. I knew nothing and nothing could prepare me for his world.

Brendan's world was full of monsters, illusions, and confusion. All fantasy stuff, right? That's what I thought until the night we were chased. We had just gotten out of the movie theatre when he went all tense. He grabbed my hand and ran. I couldn't keep up so he sort of grabbed me while running and picked me up. He never struck me as the strong type. His eyes went all fiery and when we stopped to rest in an alley at least a mile away, I saw fangs beneath his lips. When I insisted on an explanation, he told me only that something was after us and it wasn't human or an animal. Similar scares have continued all month.

I don't understand this rustic countryside. I must be twenty miles from any city and I'm having troubles remembering how I got here. One thing I am certain of is why I'm here.

I'm here to die.

Brendan went missing four days ago. I went to his family first. They explained that Brendan wasn't 'one of us' and that they were fostering him until he had to leave. I asked him if he had left and they said he wouldn't go without telling them. They think he's been captured.

Fenrir sent me a letter this morning. I don't know who or what he is but I think he has Brendan. His note said if I ever wanted to see Brendan again, I would travel way out here at midnight and meet him in a meadow. I could have stayed home, safe in my bed. I could have taken the note to the police. I could have done anything else in the world and kept myself in the normal, human world.

But no, I am doing just as this Fenrir character was telling me to. And I know I am going to die.

I continue along the dirt path that winds in an out of groves and meadows before I come to the meadow. I know it's the right one but I don't know how I know.

Fenrir is there. I know it's him. He is more human than anything, naked, tall, and crouched on large, wolf-like hind legs. His eyes are yellow and are glowing in the moonlight. His arms are crossed over his chest and large claws are protruding from each of his fingers. He smiles when he sees me and his teeth are just like Brendan's when he's angered.

A faint, indignant laugh comes from behind him. Two more creatures just like Fenrir step out from behind him. Between them is a cage, tall and narrow with spearheads fixed inward. Brendan is inside and snarling at Fenrir.

"Brendan!" I cry and I realize my bones are rattling in my legs. I cannot fall though, I cannot faint. I am not afraid to die anymore. He's there.

His fangs are longer and sharper than I've ever seen them. His eyes are the color of a birch tree and they are tortured. He turned my way when I call his name and a spearhead juts into his exposed shoulder. He cries out and pulls himself away, letting the spearhead slide out of his muscle. Blood leaks from the wound and I realize he has many more, similar holes, dripping with blood up and down his body.

Tears leap to my eyes and I want to help him. Fenrir knows this.

"Please let him go," I beg, letting the tears go. It's too much. My knees collapse and I'm at Fenrir's elongated, clawed feet. "I'll do anything."

I say it faster than I can think it. But I know it's true. I will do anything if only they set him free.

"You'll have to kill us," Fenrir says. His voice is dark and smooth as ice.

I can feel my hot tears sinking through the knees of my jeans.

There's this battle within me. I know that if I try to save Brendan, I'll die. My other option would be to turn and run. Would Fenrir and his cronies track me down? Would they kill me in front of Brendan? Would Brendan be next?

Somewhere buried beneath black waters is the answer. It lurks, clinging to seaweed and twigs jutting from the ground. To recover it, I must immerse myself in the thought of it, soak and revel in the dark path ahead of me. And then I know.

"Alright," I say calmly, rising slowly to my feet. "Alright, I will. I'll kill you all. I'll save him."

The three creatures laugh in high-pitched hyena cackles. They mock me. I look at Brendan. He's biting his hand, the fatter bit under his thumb. Thin lines of blood trace over his wrist from his mouth. His eyes are a painstaking gold now. More arrowheads have penetrated his skin and he's bleeding out from various wounds.

Fenrir steps back with one of the others. They carry Brendan between them, shaking the cage as they move so that it stabs at him.

"Him first," Fenrir says, gesturing to the remaining creature before me.

He's fatter than the other one and older-looking. I realize Fenrir has set the least-able on me first to give me a false sense of security—as if I can even beat the weakest.

I have no weapon, I have no defense.

The creature growls and sits low on his wolf-like haunches. His eyes glint a milky yellow in the moonlight and it sends a shiver up my spine.

"Cut his jugular!" Brendan screams from his cage and then shrieks in pain when Fenrir cuts a deep gash in his upper arm with a claw.

I look around. It's too dark and I'm too scared to see anything. I take a step back and something glints at my right. Keeping an eye on the creature, I look down to the brush. A rusted, old saw is buried in a small weed growth. It looks like a remnant from a farm.

Quick as a flash and pumped by adrenaline, I snatch it up. The creature lunges at me and I make a quick strike at his neck.

Time seems to have slowed down. I can see the creature in the air and hear my heart beat at a slow tempo. It slows as I listen.

Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu—thump. Thu—thump. Thu…

The sound of bone and sinew ripping apart fills the night. I realize as I open my eyes that I had closed them. The creature lays at my feet, head behind me. The blood is still pumping through his veins and out of the reddish black holes on the cut site. I drop the saw, hold my mouth, and look away. It's too much.

Blood is spattered on my shirt and the creature's veins are emptying on my shoes. I can feel the heat of it oozing between my toes and I have to step back and retch into the tall grasses. I feel weak in the knees again but I know my task is far from over.

"Well done, human," Fenrir says in his deep, mocking voice.

I hear Brendan breathe a deep sigh of relief from his cage. He's stopped biting his hand but the deep marks remain. He offers a small, yearning smile and I can only look at him in return.

The next kill goes just as quickly as the first. The creature attacks just as easily as the other, and time slows the same. The same horrid breaking of his neck rips through the beating of my heart. He lies dead beside the first one.

Fenrir is next. He will be the hardest. I grip the saw tightly in my hand. Brendan is at the bars of his cage, fighting against the spearheads there. I start to cry unexpectedly.

"Little girl," Fenrir laughs. "You think this will be easy. You may have killed my friends so easily but they were thick-minded and had very little common sense. You'll not win against me. If the devil decides to play with fate, however, the key to your monster's cage is just here."

He tugs lightly on a chain at his wrist and displays a small, bronze key. I nod at it slowly and become more afraid than ever.

Before I can think, before I can act, he lunges faster than the other two could ever imagine, and I am beneath his claws. I can feel them ripping into my forearms as I try and block him. The saw has slipped from my hands and I'm crying out in agony. The pain is like nothing I've ever felt. Suddenly, he grabs my wrist and bites down hard. I shriek wildly, trying to free myself. I can hear Brendan in his cage, rattling it and shouting.

A wave crashes in my heart and suddenly, I am up and the saw is in my hand. Fenrir lies dead at my feet, his spine sticking through the jagged line of his neck. I've done it.

I grab the key from his wrist and run to Brendan. Brendan is shouting at me to stop, to lie down and I don't understand why.

I grope for the bolt and jam the key into it, twisting it randomly. It clicks open. Before I can take a breath, Brendan is on top of me, pinning me to the grass with bolts of lighting streaming through his eyes and then everything goes black.

Consciousness slowly rises in me like the sun on a winter morning. I blink my eyes clear and see Brendan smiling down on me. The moon is behind him.

"Wake up," he says softly. "You're not going to die."

How true that statement is.