“There is no way out of here….time is wide open….you’re gonna find that you lost all you thought you had…..going nowhere fast…………”

“Carmen….”

“Don’t talk….just listen……….’

So I listened. I could hear for miles…the sounds and the sounds behind the sounds…..it was almost as if I could hear the earth it’s self….

When she touched my face, I felt it in a way I never had before….I didn’t feel it in the usual places, I didn’t flicker, I didn’t burn….I just wanted to drink….kiss her and drink…somehow the want to feel those lips didn’t die. I tried to read her….tried to see what was in her head….nothing.

“You are beautiful….perfect…..no lines, no flaws…you are my triumph….Shane….if I had breath it would be gone……”

“Carmen…..why?”

“Well it was either kill you or save you…..I  moved I reacted…I couldn’t be apart from you…couldn’t watch you loose your mind and die….so many mortals…..then…you…..’

“Can we….?”

“Feed…?”

“Yeah I feel so…cold…..so empty….”

‘That’s the hunger….you have to feed to feel warm even on the warmest nights……”

“Seriously?”

“Oh yeah…..come here….closer….”

I moved closer to her. No scent, that silkiness that was her magnified. I moved her hair to the side saw that vein, my teeth, I could feel them with my tongue….I break the surface and it was like biting thru a glacier, and then this hot liquid, that unreal feel of her doing the same, lovers at last….I could see her life, her memories, her visions of us making love…fevered…I could feel the sweat of her dripping on me…in my mind….we drank and drank and I felt stronger and stronger…..I pushed her finally against the bark of the tree…felt her lips on mine. Complete. Perfect. Dead.

Time just slipped away. We walked in the darkness… things… no longer people. I didn’t care. I was gonna see the end of the world. Who could say that? She laughed when she told me nothing short of dismemberment or flames piled sky would kill me. No sickness, no mortal conventions nothing could stop me but time…..