Dear God, please let fate find me. I need some reasons, some closure, something. I beg you.

The bright light shown across the open field like a beacon of reprieve. In the nighttime fog, I tried to reach the light, beads of perspiration and mist settling on my face. I stumbled onwards, realizing the bright light wasn't attainable—it was the full moon. The pain started on it's ravenous course, spreading through my nerves all the way to a final burst of agony in my brain. Don't succumb, don't succumb. I fell to my knees just as a monstrous roar of thunder growled above me. The light was gone.

Angrily, a rubbed the tears out of my eyes until the delicate skin around them was irritated and painful. When the mist started to sting the area I realized I'd rubbed it raw. The salt from my tears made it worse. No more worse than the spear which ran through my stomach.

It was a wooden spear, about five feet in length, lodged above my left hip; the pointed tip stuck out of the front of my body. Coughing and gagging, I dragged myself to my feet as fresh blood oozed past the wound. My hands started to jitter and I grew cold. This is it.

The sound of wood smacking wood at high velocity, a metal pin loosening it's grip, the metal coil groaning as it released it's tensioned weapon. A high speed object whistling through the air. A second spear, this one shot through my right breast from behind. I was on the ground, blood gushing from my mouth like water from a spigot. I don't even remember when I fell to the ground.

"You thought," a male's voice began, "that we'd let you slip through our nets that easily?" His heavy boots hit the ground with a thud upon each step, chains jingled and wooden stakes clunked. Lightning flashed the sight from my eyes.

"I didn't slip through them," blood gargled in my throat as I spoke, "I tore through 'em. Y-you're just too stupid to admit that." My shaking grew to a fever pitch, the last words of my sentence lost in shivers and stutters.

"You're the one who's bleeding to death in a field. Still think I'm the stupid one, leech?" I felt the vibration of his hand grasping the flat end of the spear and he pushed it in further, giving it a twist at the end. I screamed. "So, you can feel pain. How does it feel, you pathetic little bug?" He kept pushing and twisting, I kept screaming and vomiting blood. "What, not enough? I'll keep running you through until the blood is drained from your body like it was for all your victims. All you have to do is keep screaming in agony, vampire."

Lightning flashed in the sky behind him, the thunder yelled along with him. The fresh rain that started to fall cried along with me. This was my redemption for the sins I did not commit. I only did what I had to to survive. Such a pity the bible states it's a sin to take a human life. What about vampires?

"You can twist that stick all you want," I cringed against the ground—at this point it hurt even to think. "I don't know what satisfaction you'll get, other than the confirmation of your sadistic and psychological instabilities. You think murdering one vampire is enough?"

He stopped twisting the spear and seemed to pause for thought. In the silence, I relaxed and nestled my aching head into the sparkling grass as the rain started to fall harder.

The hunter scoffed louder than necessary. "Nice try, heathen. But this world isn't ready for your kind; you must die. The word 'coexist' is obsolete." I heard a gun cock and a girlish giggle escaped the hunter's mouth.

"Your precious metals aren't enough to kill me."

"No, that's why this gun is equipped with special wooden rounds baptized in holy water purified by the Pope himself. I suppose not even the Devil would survive. Instead of using the gun, I could push the rounds in manually? You'd get to live longer." I could feel his warped smile burning a hole in my back.

"And give the sadist a pleasure trip? Spare me the misfortune." By now, all I wanted was the release. Just relieve me of this world and all would be fine. The village I descended upon and destroyed could go back to living as normal a life as could be, they could learn to live again. Send that exquisite timber pellet straight through my heart and let the circles of Hell serve as my prison. Anything but this torture of living. The air that burns my lungs and the life that burns my heart, I want transcendence. Let me find peace.

"Well, if you insist." The muzzle of the gun pushed into my left shoulder blade. That's it, aim for the heart. Aim for the heart.

~x~