So there I am, Catherine Lara Anderson, tearing down a street like the hounds of hell, themselves, were panting after me.

Except, it was more like a wacko paedophile, and although he was no hound he sure did belong in hell! Where did the lunatic get off? Chasing innocent seventeen year olds down shadowy streets with an arsenal of weapons at his beck and call?

And moi? All I had were some dimes rattling around in my pocket like some rattlesnake. I am not stupid enough to whirl around and start hurling little missiles into the dark when I didn't even know where he is.

Somewhere behind me, I hope. Trying in vain to catch me up, but he can't so he goes home and migrates to Malaysia.

Please don't go thinking these kinda things happen on a daily occurrence. I mean gee- I guess me chomping down on my cereal must be real riveting stuff, huh?

Most girls would be thrilled if some hunky guy followed them and started showering them with little insistent kisses. Me? I don't think so. Na-uh. Who are you again?

And look how I was paying for it by keeping my virtue intact.

I start panicking as I hear shallow little breaths behind me and to my absolute mistake I turn my head around...all that training and I go do THAT? Shame on me. I kind of shriek as I spot the dude gaining on me, his black Levi's stretching quite wide as his size ten feet came slamming down. I squeal and whip my head around trying to outstretch this geezer.

This dude so does not run like a fifty year ol' bloke. He ran more like a twenty year old hurdler, storming his way to victory in the Olympics. My steps are faltering as I urge myself forwards my eyes growing huge as I see a tunnel in the distance and I'm speeding straight towards it!

I can't very well turn back now, could I? I lurch forward desperately as the surroundings fly by, noticing with abject terror the steps behind me getting ever closer.

Then I'm in the tunnel. Graffiti surrounds me both sides and I tune it out, hearing the echoes of my feet washing over me. Making it sound as if a whole procession of marathon runners were chasing me.

No way in heck I'm looking back now, although the first twinges of tiredness is cramping my abdomen. I see the opening and the cool night air along with it as I race towards the end-

A dominating force rushes me from the side, as if the person behind it had been keeping the same pace with me, side-by-side, all along. I slam into the brick wall with a bleak cry and then pain starts blossoming from the brunt of it. My shoulder aches like hell and the huge stitch at my side isn't helping either. I feel like I'm being squashed slowly but ever so painfully to my death.

Then the force vanishes and I quarter-turn until my sore back rests against the painted wall. Tears escape then- I can't help them. I mean, wouldn't you feel incredibly upset if you found out you were being stalked then about to be tortured before you were knifed?

Yea, I agree. No picnic at all. Except if it overhanged with the scent of impending doom.

Then the dude appears and this time, I study his face. I realise with a thrill of terror that he was young. Twenty five at most. Nineteen at least. His face is pale, and deathly calm. As if he just hadn't spent twenty seconds of his life chasing some girl down a road. For some absurd reason my eyes seek out his eyes and instead I find a pair of gray melting lava pools. And his eyelashes...His brown eyelashes framed his eyes with calculating measure and I gulp.

"Don't you remember me Lara?", his voice assaults my ears, and I listen to it, wary of the authoritative ring in it. I shiver, as he whispers my middle name and I almost shudder, relaying my fear, as this guy knew things about me that came more than from watching with a pair of binoculars...It came from researching in birth certificates found at the local library, or trawling through my school records filed somewhere in the Principal's office.

His fingers clench my chin tightly, not allowing my face to turn to the side. I stare into his eyes and almost spit in his face.

But I'm not that stupid, however much my homeroom tutor might say otherwise.

This scavenger seems to find zero assurance in my eyes so he holds me tighter.

"Don't you remember the guy you fucking lost your virginity to?" he hisses.

Oh. Maybe I wasn't as innocent as most people thought- but that was a year ago and the guy I had done such a deed was DEFINITELY not the dude in front of me now. Josh Cusack had been nineteen at the time and he was definitely not a crazed knife waving loony. He had been quite sweet really and I really thought he was something special...

Then one day he just vanished. No phone calls, no letters, not even so much a "Hello, Goodbye, See ya later!"

And he was British.

This time I focus my attentions unwaveringly on the bloke before me, scrutinizing him with something akin to desperation.

Oh god...how could I have not recognized those eyes? That sneer curling on his lips? And even his voice! I've never heard Josh angry but if he ever was, then this may be what it sounded like.

"J...Josh?" I whispered, my eyes seeking his out desperately.

Then I feel a cool blade pressing into my neck and I break off, a cough working up to my lips.

"Fan-fucking-tastic! Bravo! The girl comes to her fucking senses!" he applies more pressure on the blade as I wince, and I feel a trickle of blood filter out of my neck onto the blade. He then wrenches the blade away and I watch him as he watches my blood with fascination dripping into the tarmac below.

"Why are you doing this?" I gargle then clutch at my throat.

He turns those moonlight orbs on me and I cringe, he seems surprised at my audacity to even talk to him.

"You think I'm doing this for my own sick and twisted pleasure?" he laughs out loud, and his maniac guffaws echos around us, as if we were in a lab surrounded by mad scientists.

Yes. I want to respond, but I refrain. Then he is up close to me yet once more, his knife discarded into a nearby drain with a clank.

Now he was weaponless I feel as if I have a better chance of surviving this- to escape.

My gaze on him is still fixed and I watch as wave of remorse goes through him, and his mouth turns down at the corners. He blinks.

"Lara?" he gasps, "Is that you? What are you doing here? Are you bleeding?"

He's more crazy than I thought. His confused eyes search out mine before the slowly forming smile on his face freezes.

"Lara! Go! Now!" he hisses, clutching at his stomach. I don't waste any time seeing if he's alright. For all I knew Josh could have split personalities, one of which happened to be murderer, while the other acted out the part of a concerned and remorseful boyfriend.

Remorseful, my ass.

Then I'm away, running out of the tunnel and biting my lip in relief as the moon greets me. It wasn't hidden in the clouds anymore but instead shone freely and brightly.

Behind me I hear an echoing howl.

It didn't sound at all humane. It sounds wild and beast-like and feral.

I don't look back.