A new life

Pebbles spurt, dust swirls, twigs scratch her legs to pieces, but she even doesn`t notice. She hastens the path along and breaks through the thicket like an injured deer, seeking a place to die. She has been injured, oh yes, but her time to die hasn`t come yet. But maybe she already has been dead. After all he had taken everything that was hers, her money, her friends, and now her dignity. When she first met him, she was enchanted. Tall, blonde, with twinkling grey eyes he looked like a nordic god, the invincible Balder. How he carried her away! How he made her laugh! And she noticed his talent, she supported him, introduced him to her best friend, an editor. Oh, and how enthusiastic her friend was! With her help he made a big career. The whole world was at his feet, literally, as she had to realize, when she had enered her sleepingroom today.

Breathlessly she stops and perceives her environment for the first time since her tearful flight. The sinking sun covers the world with red glowing gleam. The breaking twilight makes the shadows bigger, deeper, sharper.

Suddenly she notices that she left the right way far behind a while ago, but she won`t return to the city, oh no, there`s nothing that could keep her there. This life is over now. She`ll choolse another direction, to begin a new life at another place.

The dying sun rears in desperate agony against the inavoidable; then the blackness breaks over her.

She keeps moving, more slowly this time, till she reaches the edge of a clearing, a semicirckle circled by huge gnarled trees. She senses the hollow pound of a sluggish heartbeat; the pulse of a creature of ancient times. But at the same time it is concerning silent. No breath of wind whispers in the trees, no maggot cracks in the brittle wood, no mouse rustles in the undergrowth, no insect buzzes around her, greedy for her sweet blood. It´s deathly silent and her senses are sharpened, when she suddenly perceives a slight movement.

The shadows retreat and the slim figure of a man removes from the dark. Short brown hair frames refined feature, cool and pale like ivory. His dark eyes bore with burning intensity inside her head. Slowly, springy he approaches and stops before her. Attentively he watches her, seems to search for something in her eyes.

"You called me." His voice is dark velvet, inscrutable, warm, enticing.

"I didn`t."

He looks at her amused letting his eyes travel across her face, the forehead with the unruly hair, the cheek, the chin, the throat where his look lingers.

"No, I really didn`t call you." She repeats with flat voice.

Slowly he leans over, stroking her hair, touching her throat apparently casually with his cold hand and whispers into her ear: "Oh yes, you did. You just don`t know."

Her heart beats in her throat, and unable to breathe his nearness anylonger, she retreats, till she leans with her back at a tree, trying desperately to avoic his look.

Suddenly she feels him lifting up her chin and forcing her to look into his eyes again.

"Was he worth it?"

Carefully he takes her face in both hands, almost tenderly he runs his fingers over her face, her neck.

"You left him behind. Can`t you feel it?"

His eyes are a dark abyss she can`t escape.

"If you want, your life will start again."

His lips curl into a smile and in the pale moonlight sharp canine teeth flash.

"Come!"

Like in trance, half hesitating, half decided, nearly imperceptible she leans towards him.

Gently, but yet firmly, he pulls her towards him, sealing the promise with a kiss, so deep that she`ll never surface again. While holding her in his arms, his lips roam along her cheek, her neck. A quiet scream escapes her, when she feels his sharp teeth carving the tender skin of her throat. Blood shoots through her veins and a dragging pain floods over her. Nearly unconscious with yearning and desire she gets lost in his embrace, giving herself up to his sweet poison, till her life gets drowned in a whirl of blackness.

A new life has begun!