I held her hand as we walked in the swamp. I felt at the time that she would leave me to fend for myself. But she did not. She explained it all to me the perfect teacher still. She taught me how to think without thinking, to veil my thoughts while others where around. She taught me not to drink to the last drop no matter how hard the pull was. All of this she said with her voice not her thoughts, like that connection, that bond she talked about, it was gone.

It rained the closer we got to the city. The rain felt good. I could hear every drop it seemed. The sound of the rain and nothing else. I stood still; she walked ahead her white dress dragging mud at her feet. It hit me that she wore no shoes at all. In fact she never wore shoes at any of our meetings. I laughed finding it so funny, so wild. The puddle, the insects drinking from them, collecting droplets on leaves, I could see these things, hear their little insect feet padding on the ground.

“I was the same way…..every sound was like I was hearing it for the first time, I had eyes to see, ears to hear, I was a newborn again…..”

“Carmen…….I …”

“No my love…don’t say the word. We are demons don’t ever forget that. Don’t ever loose site of the big picture…we are not attached to this world. We don’t live by it’s rules, we don’t love, we don’t hate, we don’t. Eternity will go by a lot faster for you.”

Was I going to say it? Was I going to say that I loved her? Probably? Did I know what love was? I knew obsession, I knew misery, I knew lost…..

“Alright…what now?”

“Well now we hunt…..come on take my hand….”

So up we went…the cold stinging me. The rush, it was not as bad as the first time. Knowing if I fell and broke every bone in my body…well it didn’t affect me the way it did when I was alive.

We landed some ten minutes later on the roof of a house. I could hear the occupants as they slept, knew their dreams, their nightmares. Our clothes where wet, then I caught the unexplainable scent from them…their blood….I could feel myself change…I could feel the beast waiting to strike. I was outside myself…the thirst…the calling, the drums of their hearts….if I had breath, I would have taken a deep breath.