Evil Is a Man

AUTHOR'S NOTE:

Evil Is A Man is intended to be a series. Blood In, Blood Out is the first story in the series.

If you like what you're reading, let me know: SellarDhor@gmail.com And let me know which direction you would like to see this story go.

Thanks,

Sellar

OCTOBER 30th

Gift. I'm still trying to decipher exactly why they always refer to my abilities as a gift instead of a burden. If it was indeed a gift, is it too late to politely return it, letting the gifter know that it just wasn't the right fit, much obliged in any case? Was it too late to give the gift to someone else, perhaps one of those people who always insisted to me just how lucky I was to possess it? It was those people, in the name of my gift, who took four and a half centuries from me. Because of my gift, they took every person I was supposed to love, every mouth I was supposed to kiss, every child I was supposed to raise. They took every book I was supposed to read, every show I was supposed to watch, every symphony I was supposed to hear. They stole from me every tranquil moment in the sun, every stimulating destination. They seized from me every commonplace, banal part of your life that you probably take for granted. Gift.

Regret. I had existed for four and half centuries, but in all that time, I had never begun to live. Until tonight. Tonight, if I went through with it, would be the first real night of my life, even if it meant betraying them, even if it assured I could never go back. Because for once in my life, I had let myself fall in love with a man, and I knew that it was a love that I could risk everything for. I stood there in the darkness, looking at the precipice in front of me, knowing that I had to choose whether to cross this line that I could never return from.

In appearance, I was an Asian man in my early twenties, Korean specifically. Agelessness: that's one of the benefits of my condition. And I could never fall ill.

Gift. They had stolen me away from my mother, my village, as a young man. And ever since, even though I had been born with a full heart, with an excess of love to give, they had never let me pursue a relationship or even develop an outside friendship. Much too perilous, they'd say.

Gift. I'd never had children of my own. As much as I may have wanted to raise a family, I was utterly barren, a side-effect of my unique condition. And it was just as well, perhaps. If I had been fertile, surely they would have made me breed incessantly throughout the years (an act I would have not enjoyed), producing not sons, but insurance policies, back-ups for them to use in case I met an untimely end. Instead, the only price I had to pay was their continuous reminder to me that I could be the last of my line; that even if I wasn't, they had no means to locate anyone else who shared my gene. They used this fact to submit me to reclusion for the entirety of my years; better to keep me safe. That is, when they weren't sending me off into life threatening situations. But those could all be legitimized as a necessary means of accomplishing the greater good.

Back. Let me go back to the beginning, to my own birth, in the year 1561, the Joseon Dynasty of Korea, in a small, nothing farming village. My father, a soldier, was dead by the time of my birth. When I came into this world, I was a completely normal baby boy, save for the fact that I had an identical twin brother our mom named Seong.

Twin. Though Seong and I seemed the same person on the outside, in the interior, we couldn't have been more unlike. Seong was the first my mother gave birth to, and he must have taken that fact to heart, treating me as his subordinate even though he was only an hour older than I was. Where he was bold and commanding, I was cautious and demure. As children, Seong led me everywhere, and though I believed him at the time that it was me that needed him, I realize now that he was just as dependent on me. He needed someone to blindly follow him. Without me there as his devotee, his life would have been purposeless.

Them. We were still young boys when they first came into our lives. I don't know how they knew what power lied dormant inside us, but they did. They came and they asked my mother which of the two of us was older. Once they knew, they told my mother that Seong had a gift and they whisked him away with them. My mother, just a poor widow of no status or power, had no way to fight them off. Seong was gone from us forever.

Gone. My mother barely survived her guilt and depression over losing her son, but she made it through by concentrating on my wellbeing. Seong's loss affected me more severely. I felt as if half of myself, the dominant half, had been cut away from me. I barely was able to go on with the efforts of basic survival without my brother to lead me through it. I was damaged and empty and soulless for years.

As I grew into a man, these feelings abated some, but they never left me entirely. I thought about Seong persistently. My unhappiness was multiplied by the fact that I was realizing that I had no attraction to women, that instead I was interested in men. This was completely unacceptable to the people of my village, who expected me to take a wife and raise a family. Instead, I suffered in celibacy, spending all my time working as a lowly fisherman.

Gift. I was just into my twenties when the changes kicked in. I remember it started with an odd nightmare, one of such potency it scared me to my core, one that left me with complete foreboding. Almost immediately, odd physical differences occurred in my body that were completely unexplainable. Odder still, I seemed to have some ability to control the very fabric of reality to a slight degree. Before this, I had an odd habit of speaking prayers and wishes I had out loud, hoping beyond hope that some higher power would intervene in my life in a positive way. Of course, those prayers never amounted to anything. Suddenly, fate reversed, and matters started going my way. Not always were my prayers answered, but when they were, the miracle was accompanied by sudden and extreme exhaustion.

During an annual day of festivities in my village that I always enjoyed, a violent thunderstorm had forced everyone to get under our shelters. When I repeatedly wished for the storms to go away in front of the villagers, they were amazed to see the clouds clear and sunshine break free. Even though such a large feat made me collapse to the ground with weakness, I was still delighted, even if this power seemed to be only intermittent for me and I couldn't seem to make any permanent changes that really mattered.

My fellow villagers were less thrilled, however. One of them, sure that I was some sort of witch who had made an evil deal for these powers, came at me in public and stabbed me in the stomach. The wound was so bad, said our village doctor, that there was no way I'd survive. But once again, I prayed and prayed that the wound would heal. Miraculously, the wound healed in a few days, leaving me at full strength. The village was further baffled and amazed.

Gift. Word must have gotten out about me, because soon, they came back. They found me, shackled me, and took me away by force via horseback. Our journey seemingly lasted forever.

They took me to one of their strongholds, a fortress far out of reach of any other human settlement. It was there that they brought me face to face with myself, a man who was the spitting image of me, only more wiry with muscle than I was, more hardened and intimidating.

Twin. I knew immediately that this was my long lost brother, and I was overjoyed to see him, tears coming to my eyes as I embraced him. Seong showed no reaction, but I could feel the emotion he was trying to keep bottled so tightly up inside him. My brother had forgotten Korean, so they worked hard on teaching me English. Although I didn't understand all of them, somehow I understood my brother perfectly, and learned the language in due time.

Seong brought me up to speed. They were an international guild known as The Bridge, and they had immense political power throughout the entire world. They were ethical, clandestine people who were fighting for all of humanity. Traditionally, they were the stewards of someone called the One, a man with special abilities and powers, a man who would never age. The Bridge was responsible for finding the Ones, for training them for battle, for guiding their efforts, and for keeping them safe and secret.

He explained that there had never been more than one gifted man at a time, that this ability was passed down through paternal lines; that multiple men might simultaneously possess the dormant special qualities, but those qualities would only manifest in one man at a time, and that was always the oldest living man with those inherited traits. The One would never age and could never reproduce, and then when he died, the next oldest living man with those dormant traits would become the next One, and so on.

Not long ago, the last One had been working for The Bridge, as did the One before him, and the One before him, all the way back to the creation of this group centuries past. But The Bridge knew that this latest One was reckless in battle, they knew they had to hedge their bets and locate the one they believed would inherit the legacy next.

The Bridge had somehow come to the attention that our father had carried those dormant traits, and they came to our village looking for any boys that our father had left behind. They'd never known of a case where there had been twin brothers who inherited the gene, but learning that Seong had been born first, they assumed he would be the next in line, so they took him by force.

Gift. Even though he was just a boy, they immediately started training him for battle, cutting off any chance he'd have at a normal life. He was allowed no free time; every second of his existence was devoted to severe, rigorous training. They turned him into a weapon physically and emotionally, knowing that even if the current One never was to die, Seong would still make an excellent human agent for their group, of which there were a great many.

Then, the inevitable happened, the old One perished in combat, the result of some reckless decision he'd made. They knew Seong inherited the power because he had a dream vision of the old One's last moments of life, which always foretold the powers awakening in the new man.

Gift. Seong had been skilled with all One powers and abilities long before he actually received them. He only had to make minor adjustments before they deemed him suitably ready to head out into the field and start launching assaults on the enemy. He called himself the Red, testament to how much blood he would spill, and that's what his enemies would learn to know him as.

They never even had a second thought about my existence until they heard reports coming from Korea that a young man was displaying some oddly familiar powers. That's when they went to retrieve me as well.

Their experts were dumbfounded by my existence. Never in their extensively recorded history had two Ones existed simultaneously, and they surmised that this was an anomalous outcome of Seong and I being identical twins. In fact, both of us were conceived at the exact same instance in time, and that's why it didn't matter which one of us left the birth canal first. In any case, they were ecstatic to get their hands on a second One.

Gift. There were a lot of theories flying around concerning what would happen if Seong or I died, mostly regarding when the next person in line, if such a person existed, would get our powers. Some claimed that I was a random aberration, that Seong was really the person who held the "soul" of the One, and only when he died would the gift be passed on, and I would consequently be left powerless. But most people believed that this "soul" had been split in half between the two of us, and it would take both of our deaths to release this to the next man.

When I arrived, Seong and I looked as different from each other as identical twins could, and that difference was carried over into our personalities as well. Seong was a cold, disturbed killer, expertly trained and incredibly gifted, his body filled with hard muscle, while I was an absolute zero in comparison. Over the next decade, Seong would be deployed on many missions, while I was kept locked up inside, as they desperately tried to mold me into something valuable. Though at first I thought myself a lost cause, having never possessed great athletic prowess, they eventually convinced me otherwise, and I'll be damned if they didn't shape me into the person they needed me to be, until I too was all wiry muscle, and I too was so expertly trained that most couldn't tell my brother and me apart. I, too, became known as the Red.

Twin. Regardless, Seong would always remind me that he was stronger, better equipped with his powers, than I would ever be. Sadly, he had the truth in it. He had more than a decade of warfare experience on me, as well as the benefit of getting involved at a younger age, when your mind and body are more malleable, not to mention the fact that he had always been naturally more gifted than I was. I felt absolutely no jealousy for my brother, as I considered him a part of me. How ridiculous would it be for the left half of your body to be envious of the right half? But the more years that passed, the more he and I became closer to equal in our skill levels.

Of course, they weren't going to risk both of their assets simultaneously; they never sent Seong and I out on the same mission. Eventually, they came up with a plan to keep an important secret from most people within their organization. After a few decades, only a select few in The Bridge knew that there were, in fact, two of us. What they told the others was that we were one and the same person, that there was only one One. To support this, we shared the same quarters in which we were provided plenty of training space. If either one of us left our quarters to go on a mission, the other one of us would always stay behind in secret. Whenever our quarters would be moved to another location, the transporting of the two of us was done with the utmost secrecy and care, so as not to blow our cover.

As the years of extreme isolation went by, my brother slipped more and more into psychological instability. This is not surprising, considering the kind of life we were asked to lead, considering the kind of childhood that was forced upon poor Seong. His eccentricities slipped further and further into madness. He became a reclusive paranoid half the time, and though I never saw him go through a mission, from watching him in training, I could imagine he was a brutal killer.

Twin. And of course, where Seong went, I would follow. Though I never became a heated executioner like he was, I certainly felt my grip on reality slipping farther and farther away from me. What didn't help was the fact that Seong and I were as conjoined as if we were Siamese twins. When I was on a mission by myself, it felt odd to be on my own, though that wrongness was overcome by my desire to perform my mission responsibilities well. When I was home, and Seong was on a mission alone, that's when the separation anxiety became most intense, with only my training to distract me. But most of the time, we were together. We trained together, ate together, slept together, bathed together. I don't want to imply that there was some incestuous relationship between us, because there wasn't. I was about as attracted to Seong as I was to the image I saw in the mirror, which is to say, not at all.

Celibacy. Though my attraction to guys became more and more of an issue for me as years went by. I told Seong about my unusual desires, and he told me they were backwards and wicked. He admitted to similar desires of his own, but told me we had to be completely in control of those deviant inklings. Although I never believed myself that my desires were wrong, I went along with my older brother and joined him in his celibate life. But it was these desires, the desire for physical and emotional affection from a man, that drove me more and more into discontent.

Twin. I wonder if I would have ever acted on my feelings; if I would have ever learned to stick up to my brother. I would never know. He died just a couple years ago on one of our missions. My powers didn't leave me, as some had assumed, and it looked like no one new had received the gift, and likely no one would unless I met my end. In a few decades, no one would be alive except for me that would even know that I had a brother. As far as everyone was concerned, I was the one and only Red.

Enormous grief and loss and hopelessness saturated my mind for a long time after his death. When the blackness passed, there was something completely new. For the first time, I felt unencumbered and free. It made me feel alive, something I hadn't experienced since I was a boy.

Without this newfound sense of freedom, I'm not sure if I would have made the choice that I did that crucial night, not even a year ago. They had sent me out on a mission in Ghana, where our intelligence had discovered a minor vampire enclave. I was sent in to clean them out. It was all rather routine.

Gift. I had killed hundreds of enemies in my time as the Red. Thousands, perhaps. I was very, very good at it. This evening was all the same. The vampires were caught off guard, and I easily dispatched all of them as I went from room to room of their large abode. When all of the vampires had been dealt with in the main house, I went down into the basement to see if there was any trying to hide.

I found something that was not unusual in the basements of these vampire sanctuaries: a dungeon. Behind its locked bars were a number of filthy prisoners. I unlocked the door and went into their cramped cell.

Right in front of me, there was a man who could barely stand up. His muscled bare torso glistened red with his own blood; clearly this man had been recently beaten or tortured. Behind him stood six young children, both girls and boys, all dressed in rags.

The man forced himself to stand, in spite of his battered state, when he saw me come, opening his arms wide, positioning himself between me and the children. "Please, don't hurt them, they're only children," he said. "Please just kill me. Please just kill me."

I guessed that the vampires had locked these people down here to serve as their soon-to-be-meals. "I'm not going to hurt you," I said to them all. "I don't kill innocent humans."

But I had one thing I had to check first. I took out my dagger and cut into my left hand, letting the blood drip down my fingers. I motioned my hand around the three little boys in front of me.

No response. Good. You could expose a vampire by putting human blood (or in my case, the One blood) in front of their faces. Normally, vampires' fangs stay retracted, unless they are feeding or fighting you. But by putting blood in their faces, they get so excited that almost always the vampire will not be able to keep their fangs hidden. I had just proven that these little boys were, in fact, human.

Yes, even boys can be vampires, even infants. Unlike me, vampires are not barren. They are able to procreate. If the vampire male sires a boy, then that boy is a vampire from conception on. They grow just like a normal child until they reach adulthood, at which point they stop aging.

Seong told me early on that all male vampires have no souls. That's why they are so evil, and all of them must be killed. That goes for the male vampire children as well, which I always hated to kill because they looked so innocent. Now, I was relieved to know I would not have to kill any tonight.

Just when I was about ready to heal my wound and leave, I inadvertently passed my hand over the man, and his reaction was unmistakable. He shuddered, trying to control himself for a moment. Then, he could control himself no longer, and his sharp, white fangs were revealed.

Doubt. I sighed with disappointment, scrutinizing the man. Yes, I should have known this fellow was a vampire. In spite of him being so grimy, he was extremely good looking, a trait that most vampires seemed to share. Now, I had no other option but to kill him.

Vampires will always fight back, even if they know they are outmatched, but when I raised my knife, he inexplicably shut his eyes, ready for death. But before I could lower the weapon, one of the young girls, who couldn't have been more than 4, rushed in between the vampire and me, protecting him with her short, stubby arms.

"Don't kill my papa, please!" she yelled.

I realized that she was a female vampire. Females born to male vampire fathers are also special in their own way. Like their brothers, they too age until adulthood, then no more. But the females had none of the other strengths of the vampires, none of the skills. They didn't have fangs or need to drink blood like the males did. Best of all for them, the females were born with souls, just like normal humans. Like humans, they sometimes chose to do good in their lives, or sometimes chose not to. But regardless, I never killed any of the innocent female vampires, especially since the females were unable to create new vampires; their offspring would be human, unless they were to mate with a male vampire.

Now, this little female had the guts to beg me for her father's life.

"I have to kill him," I told the child. "He is an evil, soulless thing that has killed many people and will kill many more if he is allowed to live. I'm sorry."

She shook her head, her long hair bouncing, tears on her chubby cheeks. "No, you're wrong! You are wrong! He is a good guy! He is special, he is the only male vampire born with a soul!"

I wasn't sure what she was trying to tell me.

"She speaks the truth," the vampire man said, reaching forward and embracing the girl from behind. "I am special. Why do you think they locked me down here? They were trying to teach me some sense. I've never killed anyone."

I was duly suspicious. "A vampire needs blood. How do you stay alive without killing victims?"

"I raid blood blanks," he said. "It's despicable in its own way, but at least I am not directly hurting anyone."

"Please don't hurt my daddy," the girl pleaded again, looking me straight in the eye. "He is the best father a child could ever have."

I knew Seong would never have listened to these two, that Seong would have killed the vampire man right in front of the girl. It was the safe, sensible decision.

But Seong be damned. I was my own person now, and I would follow my heart for once. He wasn't around to judge me anymore.

And so, amazingly, for the first time in three centuries, I bended.

"I believe you," I said to them. "I won't kill him. I promise."

The girl's anxious tears turned into tears of relief as she hugged and hugged her father. He held her right back.

"Can you take us with you?" asked the man. "Please, the vampires, my family, will know we abandoned them, and they will use all their resources to hunt us down and kill us. With you with us, I'd feel an awful lot safer."

I shook my head. "I would take you with me, but the people in my organization would surely kill you if I did. And they are a lot more dangerous to you than the vampires."

"Then I am forced to return to my family for now," he said. "As much as I detest them."

"Here, take the south exit from the house," I told them. "My handlers are posting guard on the north side."

He nodded as he lifted his child into his arms.

"I pledge to keep these other children safe," I said.

"Listen, is there anyway I can see you again," the vampire man asked me. "To pay you back for what you've done for us."

"There's no need," I said.

"Perhaps not," he said, his tone turning suggestive. "But I want to see you again. It would please me greatly if you agreed."

My heart, my romantic core that had been frozen for so long, twitched to life suddenly. Here was this beautiful, kind man, making such a gallant gesture towards me. I was besotted.

"I'll give you a phone number to a secure line for me," I said. "That will have to do for now."

"Yes, that would be great," he said.

I gave him the number, he and the girl thanked me again, and then they started to run off.

"Wait," he said, turning around one last time. "You didn't tell me your name. Mine is Cayden."

"Jeong," I said, realizing that I hadn't told anyone my real name for hundreds of years, and feeling so right about breaking that tradition.

He smiled, an utterly sweet, charming smile. Then, he carried the girl off up the stairs and was gone.

I never told my handlers about the vampire with a soul and his sweet daughter. The very next night, I received my first call from Cayden. He was profusely appreciative for my help, telling me that he and his daughter had gone back to his family, telling them that they had escaped the attack of the vampire fort, and the family was not suspicious. He discussed how torturous it was to be forced to live with those people, how all the males were evil, soulless beings who had no qualms about committing the worst, most offensive acts. How it terrified him, raising a daughter around such depraved debauchery, that the vampires had already killed the girl's mother, deeming her too virtuous, and he feared they would do the same to his daughter, Abby.

I mostly listened thoughtfully at first, feeling shy and uncertain about talking to him. The only person I had engaged in any sort of non-tactical conversation in decades was my brother, and those conversations had been anything but normal. I wasn't sure if I still had the ability to converse, to discuss my feelings. Of course, once I started easing into it with Cayden, it became easier and easier.

Feelings. One phone conversation turned into two, then three, and soon Cayden was openly flirting with me on the telephone, though in an old fashioned, gentlemanly way. After several weeks of phone calls, I really did feel like I knew him well, and I was extremely smitten. Our calls became the highlight of my days, hearing his deep, gentle voice through the phone still gave me goosebumps.

He asked if we could meet in person, something that would be difficult for both of us to arrange. I was able to get away on one of my missions in Western Europe under the subterfuge of gathering intelligence. He was able to get away from his family, and we met up in Paris one night. He was forced to bring his daughter along, not having anyone he trusted to look after her in his absence, and that was just fine with me.

Abby was a darling little girl, one who looked and dressed extremely girly, all in pink, with bows in her hair, yet whose attitude was distinctly at odds with her proper appearance. She was a tomboy at heart, fearless and bold, constantly getting into trouble, whether it meant climbing trees too high for any close by adults' nerves to handle, or picking up insects and spiders and depositing them where they were least expected. Of course, every time her father gently scolded her, she gave the sweetest smile, making you forget any of her misdeeds instantly.

Beauty. The three of us strolled through the romantic streets of the Marais district, an area with architecture almost as old as I, almost as beautiful as Cayden's sweet face. The streets teemed with youth and with vibrant life, sweeping all visitors into its fragrant romance.

That was just the first of many visits Cayden and I had in Europe. Though our meetings were completely chaste, Cayden's smile gave me chills, as did when he would touch my arm gently, or even hold my hand. Something developed between us, something more than just romantic admiration, and although we never told each other how we felt, it was clear after almost a year that we were completely in love.

Finally, Cayden told me he wanted us to be together, permanently, and he didn't care that our species had been ingrained enemies since the beginning of humanity. It was like Romeo and Juliet... well, Romeo and Romeo, in this case. He wanted us to run away together, telling me he couldn't think of a better parent for Abby than I would be, and that she absolutely loved me.

Plan. His plan involved him getting a clean car in Barcelona, where his vampire family was staying, and have me meet him and Abby there. Then, the three of us would begin a journey by car all the way to Malaysia, the one place we were both sure none of our enemies would be. We would find some charming small town, maybe on the beach, and buy a house there. Start a life together, a real life.

But we both knew that the journey would be fraught with hazards. Once his family came to discover that he had forsaken them, the entire vampire organization would be out to hound us down and slaughter us. Not to mention the fact that once The Bridge knew I was absent, they would send out their full resources to unearth me, and if they did locate me, they would surely kill Cayden. The vampires controlled the largest criminal empire in the world. Their fingers of corruption reached through almost every nation. The Bridge was the one counterpoint to their group, the largest covert international law enforcement agency in the world, whose power was as broad as it was deep. There was no telling at any given time if The Bridge or the vampire underground was more extensive. Having one of those groups hunting you down would be extremely perilous. Having them both after you probably would be deadly.

We mutually agreed that traveling by plane or by ship was wholly unacceptable; there were too many agents in both of our groups who could be monitoring those means of transport. That required us to go by car, the secure but sluggish alternative. And we would have to be cautious to circumvent the major cities as much as possible.

But that was all dependent on me deciding to commit myself to his plan, something that I had not yet agreed to. He told me he would wait for me in the car with Abby at a park in Barcelona. If I showed up, we would leave together, and if not, Abby and him would retreat back to their home.

Choice. And that's where I was, perched upon the hill, looking down at the innocuously unflashy car that I was sure was his, trying to make my mind up about what to do. If I left now, there would be no going back to The Bridge, not ever. It would mean turning my back on the cause I had exchanged my life to fight for; an end to battling evil and saving lives. The Bridge would surely survive without me, but they would lack that blunt weapon that I represented as well as the psychological intimidation my existence unleashed on our enemies. To The Bridge, my absence would be more damaging than my death, because my death at least brought with it the possibility that the next One would be able to take up my mantle. Yes, going with Cayden brought with it a terrible, terrible price.

Well, to hell with the price. I had done so much good over the years, hadn't I earned this one moment that was just about my own well being? I walked down towards the parked car, making my decision. I knew in my heart that this was the right choice, and that's all that mattered.

Cayden was delighted when I greeted them in their sedan, getting out and hugging me tenderly. He was so moved with me appearing that he almost broke into tears, his eyes twinkling happily as he looked at me. Abby was decidedly less sentimental, saying "It's about time you got here," but she too was ecstatic to see me.

Cayden drove us northeast, Abby falling asleep in her back car seat, while Cayden reached over and grabbed my hand, stroking it lovingly as we moved along. I sighed contentedly, knowing I had made the right decision.

It wasn't too long before we reached the French border. I took an anxious intake of breath as Cayden slowed the car to stop at French customs, even though I knew that this was just the first of many borders we'd be crossing.

The customs officers asked for our identifications. I had brought a fake passport that they had given me in The Bridge, and Cayden had similar documents for himself and Abby, we had made sure of that before we had left. We gave the officers those.

The officers seemed slightly suspicious of my passport. They repeatedly looked at my picture, and then shined their flashlights in my face. It crossed my mind that these officers could be under the auspices of The Bridge, ready to waylay us. No, that was impossible. The Bridge didn't even know I had abandoned them yet.

After an incessant amount of time, the officers finally gave my passport back and waved us through the border.

Abby, who had woken up during the ordeal, somehow had in her mind that I was always leaving, never sticking around like she so desired. She asked me if I was staying for good this time.

"That's the plan, sweetie," I said to her.

"If you're staying forever, does that mean that I get to call you Uncle?" she asked.

I looked over at Cayden, who was snickering to himself.

"If you want to call me that, I don't see why that would hurt," I told the girl.

"Well then, Uncle, I will."

BANG!

The car shook suddenly as if Cayden had just run over something,

"What did we just hit?" I asked.

"I didn't see anything," Cayden said. "It must have just been a pothole."

There was a loud pop, and then I felt my side of the car drop suddenly.

"It's a flat!" I said.

"Damn, this is the worst timing," Cayden said.

"It will be fine," I said, not wanting to upset Abby. "Pull over here."

Cayden pulled us off the road on the right side. There was literally nothing but darkness around us, no sign of civilization, not even a streetlamp.

"This car has a spare I hope."

"Yes, it should, in the back," he said.

"Let me see how bad the flat is."

I opened my passenger door and stepped out onto the pavement of the road. Kneeling down, I could see the tire was indeed flat, but the rest of the car looked undamaged. "I wonder what we hit."

Cayden pulled a flashlight out of the glove box and tossed it to me as I sprawled out on the ground.

"Thanks," I said, flipping the switch on and looking at the tire again.

I expected to see a nail or something in the tire, but instead, I saw a large gash, a cut with a gaping hole.

"That's odd," I said. I set the flashlight on the ground and rubbed my finger against the cut. It looked like it was sliced open.

I bumped the flashlight accidentally, illuminating what should have just been black space under the car.

Instead, lit up right beside me, was a dreadfully frightening face, all black with blood-red lines all over it.

I screamed, spooked to the core by this creature under the car, not being able to call up any logical explanation for what I was seeing.

Before I could react, a black arm had reached out from under the car and was clawing into my face with its black fingers.

I yelled again, leaping up off the ground this time and away from the black nightmare.

"What is it?" yelled Cayden, anxious.

"Stay in the car!" I told him.

I took a few steps back, my heart pounding with fear, a fear at an unknown enemy, a fear I hadn't known for hundreds of years. I watched carefully, trying to catch my breath. Slowly, the black and read head moved out from under the car, followed by a body. The creature lithely jumped to its feet without using its hands, and stood now between me and the car.

I saw now that it was a man; or, at least, it had a man's shape. He was wearing black from head to foot, even wearing black gloves. On his head, he wore a mask. This is what I had flashed my light on before under the car, what frightened me so. The mask was black, with streaked red lines that created a hideous face, almost like an evil kabuki mask.

The way this creature was moving, catlike, it was clear that it was supernatural in nature; no ordinary man could have survived holding onto the underside of a car for so long, in any case.

"Is he one of yours?" asked Cayden, spotting the man for the first time from inside the car and wondering if he was a Bridge agent.

I saw the man draw a katana from a sheathe on his side. It was only some of the vampires who favored the Asian blades. "No, he's one of yours," I said.

"Damn," Cayden said. "How could they have found us so quickly? Here, let me come out and help."

"No, stay in the car," I insisted, not wanting him to get hurt.

"You know, I'm actually very strong," he assured me. "I can take care of myself."

"I know you are, Cayden," I said. "That's why I want you to stay in the car and protect Abby. A single vampire will not best me."

The masked vampire emitted a hard to distinguish sound. Laughter, perhaps? Was it because he stood before me with his katana in hand, facing an unarmed adversary? Did he not understand that I was the One, that I was always armed regardless of if I was naked and weaponless?

Gift. In quick succession, my lips moving rapidly, I threw all of my biggest spells at the foe, knowing that they were more than enough to knock any vampire unconscious. The impacts threw the vampire back. But that was all they could muster. The vampire looked shaken, but not deterred.

Well, this was new.

The masked vampire raised his sword. "Be careful, Uncle!" Abby screamed from the car.

Even if my spells had failed me, I was still the One, I had trained so hard for so long that my physical strength should be greater than most any single vampire. All I had to do was to disarm this one in combat and I should be able to knock him unconscious.

The vampire came at me, and though I knew his moves well, though I knew how to defend myself, his limbs moved so quickly against me and with such acrobatic grace that I was soon outmaneuvered and outmatched. How could he have been that powerful?

On the ground, I desperately tried to roll out from under him, but the butt of his katana handle slammed into my head, over and over, until I was knocked out cold.

Back. In the blackness of my mind, a memory took form, and began replaying like a video in my head. Only I knew that `replay' wasn't the correct wording, as it was the first time I could ever remember experiencing it. Something about the beating in the head I had sustained must have aroused this previously suppressed memory to life.

When I was a young man, before I had come into my powers, the spring of my twentieth year I found myself with an overabundance of fishing nets that I had handcrafted, with no buyers in the village that year. So, upon my mother's suggestion, I traveled to Seoul, the capitol of the then Joseon Dynasty. As I arrived, the city terrified and thrilled me in equal measure, such an astonishing degree of bustle and activity that it made my knees weak.

I was able to sell my fishing nets for more than anticipated, so decided to treat myself with a trip to a local bathhouse, something my little village certainly never would have. The urban bathhouse was gender segregated, so I went into the men's wing of the building, and was surprised to see the other men stripping nude completely, something I had never seen before. Too nervous to question, I took off my clothes and put them in the disrobing room, and then took a quick, mandatory wash before they allowed me into the baths proper.

Given that it was the first time I had seen any grown men's penises (beside my own), I was using every opportunity to check out the men around me, even if none of the men were remotely attractive to me. They were all much older than myself, and spent most of their time complaining to each other about their wives, children, or grandchildren. I had had zero experience sexually or romantically with anyone. I knew that I liked men, but I figured I was the only person that ever walked the earth who was backwards enough to favor their own sex. I never fathomed that men could have sex with each other.

I went into one of the smaller rooms of the bathhouse, and almost jumped out of my skin when my eyes met the three occupants of the room. I knew either they must be foreigners, or they must come from some part of Korea that held very different sorts of people. Up to that point, I had never met any man who I could muster more of a passing attraction to. The faces on these three seemed godly perfect and took my breath away, all of them looking the same age, a bit older than myself. Though the three men didn't look related, I realized they all had the same eye color. What I had at fist taken for dark brown eyes were upon further inspection, midnight blue in color. I had never seen anything like it.

I had not truly known just how attracted to the male body I had been until I spied these men. I had seen some of the older farming men in my village look bulky with muscle, but I hadn't even conceived that the layers of lean muscles that adorned these three strangers could be humanly possible, and they all made me feel malnourished and scrawny.

I was so intimidated by their musculature that I was about to turn around to go, when one of them said, "We're not as mean as we look, boy, have a seat." It was the one with long hair and a beard that had spoken, and his Korean was a bit accented.

"Speak for yourself, Bang," said the one with shortish hair and very particular facial hair consisting of a hanging moustache, a spot under his lower lip, and a longer beard in his lower chin.

"You're scaring the locals again, Wan," said the third man, who was clean shaven on his cheeks as well as his head, but unlike his two friends, his body had a large amount of black body hair. "Stop being afraid, get in here, and shut the door before you let out all the hot air, boy."

What could I do but do as I was told? I was too fearful of the men to quarrel with them, so I walked into the room and shut the door behind me, even though when I got there, the door had been widely ajar. There were two pools in the room, but the three men were sitting submerged in the nearest one, while the far pool of water went unused. I wasn't sure if it was the extraordinary foreigners that were keeping the Koreans out of this room, or the fact that instead of water, the largest pool here was filled with a thick, white liquid that smelled like some sort of clay. The three men were sitting so that milky liquid covered everything from the waist down; keeping their lower halves a mystery to me.

"So, where are you three from?" I asked.

"We're Chinese," said Bang.

"Oh. Do all Chinese men have blue eyes like you? Are they all as strapping?"

The hairy one laughed. "You don't get out much, do you?"

"You could say that. This is the first time I've ever left my tiny village, where nothing ever happens."

"Are you alone?" asked Wan.

"Well, it's just me and my mother at home. I don't have any other family, no girlfriend or anything."

"No you fool, I meant, did you come to the baths alone?"

"Oh, yes, I don't even know anyone in this city."

Wan said something in a language I didn't understand, and the other two men laughed appreciatively. Just as I was about to stick a foot into the milky tub, he yelled at me. "Only totally clean bodies are allowed to enter this pool with us."

"I already bathed," I said.

"Well, do it again," Wan ordered. "That's our cleaning pool over there."

I walked over to the second pool and washed myself off in the warm water, and then I tried again to set my foot into the milky pool.

"Hold on a second," said Wan. "Men, does this boy look clean enough to join us?"

I could feel their three pairs of eyes looking me up and down. "He does in the front, but what about the back?" asked the hairy man.

"Jizi is right, boy," said Wan. "Turn around and let us make sure your other side is good and clean."

I turned to face the wall as Wan instructed.

"You're the closest, Bang," Wan said. "How about it, does he look clean?"

"The only way I'll know for sure is to use my hands," Bang said, turning to face me. I could feel his hands searching over the back of my legs, and even this simple touch of his strong hands excited me. And then they were on my lower back, and that was even more intimate. "So far, so good."

"But if there's one place that's going to still be too dirty for him to get in this tub, it's his backside. Get a good feel just to make sure."

I felt Bang's hands rub down my cheeks, a place no one that I could remember had ever touched me, and it felt good. "Feels clean," Bang said.

"You'd better feel his hole, just to be safe," said Wan.

Next thing I knew, I felt Bang's hand on my hole, a place I had never been touched before and certainly never expected would ever be touched. Oddly enough, his hands felt enticing to me.

"I give my approval," said Bang.

"Well, Bang's just not as thorough as he should be," said Wan. "Get over here, boy, and let me really make sure you're behind is clean." I walked over to Wan and he spun me around. "Now, bend over, boy." I did as he asked, and felt Wan's hands rubbing on my hole as well. "Sure, the surface looks clean enough, but let's make sure he's clean enough on the inside to get in the pool with us. First, suck on my finger and get it good and wet." Wan stuck his thick index finger against my mouth, and I licked it until it was coated with spit. "If you're clean enough, boy, then I should be able to stick this inside you without dirtying my finger."

He started to push his wet finger inside my hole, and all sorts of strange feelings took place inside me. Mainly, mortification that he would do that to me. I had absolutely no idea that anyone would ever find such an act pleasurable or erotic, and that's why I was shocked when instead of pain, I felt a strange pleasure, and my soft dick even pulsed with blood a few times.

Wan pulled his finger back out and looked at his finger. "Looks good, but let me try two fingers." And then he was jamming his index and middle fingers into me, this time not just inserting them, but really rubbing them all around, stretching me out.

I was lucky that I had starved myself as much as I did on the trip to Seoul and once I was there for fear I wouldn't be able to sell my fishing nets, as it was just when I sold them recently that I had bought myself a proper meal, and I hadn't had a movement of bowels in days.

When he pulled those fingers out, he said, "Better try three fingers to be safe." And then I had three of his rough fingers inside me, causing a bit of pain that time because there was so much girth there. He pulled his digits out. "Okay, I give it my approval. He's clean."

"Come over here and let me make sure too," said Jizi, and soon I was bent over with my butt in front of his face. "Now, if he's as clean as you say he is, Wan, then I shouldn't be able to taste anything filthy with my tongue. Do you dare me?"

"I sure do."

"Here it goes, then." Jizi's large tongue started to lick my hole, and I let out a sharp breath of shock. And even more shock hit me as I felt him lick inside my hole as well.

It felt wonderful, but I had no idea that what he was doing was considered a sexual act. To me, I couldn't fathom that these men could ever be sexual attracted to my body, so the lengths he was going to to make sure I was clean seemed embarrassing and disgusting, but I guessed that they just were doing what they felt had to be done to meet their standards of cleanliness.

"Tastes clean. I approve. Boy, feel free to enter our pool."

I stuck a foot into the thick, milky liquid of the pool, surprised by its warmth. I sat down into the liquid, covering myself finally up to my waist like they were.

Jizi gave me a look. "I have a wager for you, boy. A guessing game. I'm going to ask you a question about the three of us. For instance, which one of us has the smallest feet. And you have to guess which of the three of us is correct. Do you want to agree to make the wager?"

"With just one out of three odds? I may be from a small village, but I'm not that stupid."

"Well, I'll sweeten the deal," Jizi said. "Whatever question I ask you, you can name two of us. So, if either one of the two you picked had the smallest feet, then you'd win."

"So, two out of three odds," I said. "But what are we wagering?"

"If you win, me and my two friends will pay for your food and lodging for the entire time you are here in the city."

"Wow, can you really afford that?"

"Go check the bag I brought with me in the corner there," he said.

One quick look at the silk bag revealed that these men were indeed overloaded with so much money that they could easily buy my whole village. "Alright, I believe you can afford it. What about my wager? I don't have much money to bet."

"You don't have to," said Jizi. "All you have to do if you make the wrong selection is just to clean us off."

"Our upper bodies have gotten all sweaty from the heat, and that sweat needs to be cleaned off," said Bang. "But we're too lazy to leave this here pool and clean ourselves off, so we want someone to do it for us."

"You only want me to wash off your bodies?"

"And I know what you're thinking," said Jizi, "You really don't want to be grossed out washing our lower bodies, and I understand. So, the deal is, you only have to wash off any part of us that's above the milk-mud line here, while we are seated like this."

So, that meant only from the waist up. Truthfully, I wouldn't have argued against washing them from the waist down, but was worried me admitting that would reveal my bizarre inclinations towards men, so I didn't say anything about that. "Alright, it's a bet."

"Wait, he agreed to that too quickly," said Wan. "And his hands are filthy. I say to make it a fair bet, if the boy loses, he has to do this cleaning hands-free."

"What does that mean?" I asked.

"It means you clean us with your mouth, which is much cleaner than your hands," said Wan.

"Yes, that's the bet then, can you handle it?" asked Jizi.

"Fine," I said, not really having a problem with licking these men's clean upper bodies.

"So, the deal's on the table then?" asked Jizi "No backing out?"

"Nope, it's a deal."

Jizi smiled, pleased with himself. "Alright, the question for you is: which one of us has the longest penis?" Both Bang and Wan chuckled.

I looked between the three of them as I tried to decide. All three of their phalluses had stayed submerged this entire time, so I had no knowledge about this at all, and would just have to guess.

"Who are your two picks?" asked Jizi.

"You," I said, because I figured he wouldn't have asked the question if he was the smallest. "And Bang," I said, hoping that Wan's sour disposition might be because he was smaller in that department.

"Ha ha, hear that, Wan?" asked Jizi as Wan rolled his eyes. "Now kid, I know that you running blind here, so I'll give you a deal. You can chose one of us, and you have ten seconds where you can feel with your hands on the guy's penis. Sound okay?"

I nodded, not only thinking the idea sounded sexy, but also knowing it would improve my odds. "I pick Wan," I said, getting a bad feeling that I had selected him as the least likely to be the most hung incorrectly.

"Smart pick, boy," said Wan as he pulled me towards where he was sitting. "Go ahead and get to feeling."

I stuck my right hand down into the thick white liquid and my hands touched flesh. "Sorry, that must be your leg."

"Nope, that's my penis," said Wan, and I emitted a sharp breath of shock.

Jizi started to count out loud as I moved my hands around the thick, extremely long penis hanging soft between Wan's thighs. Really, it only took a couple seconds to establish that it was big beyond belief, but I played dumb and used all my ten seconds to rub it up and down, my own getting thicker in the process, absolutely delighted that I was touching a man's penis for the first time.

"Ten, hands up!" I stuck my hands back out of the liquid. "Do you want to change your answer?"

"Yes," I said to Jizi. "I'll pick you and Wan."

"So, therefore, if in order for you to win the bet, Bang can't have a penis that is longer than both of ours."

"Yes."

"Alright, men, let's show the boy what we got," said Jizi. "Boy, you sit in the middle."

I moved to the center of the pool, with the three men equal distance away from me. They all started to slowly ascend simultaneously, first their white-mud covered pubes came into view, then the mud- covered penis stalks, so thick and promising. I kept spinning around, making myself dizzy as I tried to see all of them at once. Soon, several inches of their soft appendages were on display, and there was still no sign of the ends.

Finally, their large, foreskin covered heads appeared only as the men stood up so that they were only in the mud pool from the knees down. "Alright, which one of us is the longest?" asked Jizi.

I looked around, again and again, absolutely amazed at my eyes. "They are all so similar."

"Why don't you measure us up, boy?" asked Bang.

"You mean, touch you?"

"Sure."

To my delight, I started to use my hand against Bang's soft stalk, using the distance from the end of my middle finger to the end of my wrist as a rough measure. Even that was almost inadequate to take in these proportions. Once I had no excuse to linger there anymore, I moved to Wan, measuring the penis I had gotten a short handful of before. And then finally I did the same measuring to Jizi.

"You had enough time, boy," said Wan. "Time to tell us who has the longest swinging dick here."

"It looks like you do, Jizi."

"I knew it!"

"Wait, that can't be right," complained Wan. "You're lying to us, boy."

"No, I'm not," I said. "Put them together and see for yourselves."

The three men moved from surrounding me to pushing themselves together. They pushed their three soft penises together, and I measured them together like that with my hands. My my, was it ever impressive to see so much wonderful penis flesh all together like that.

"See? Jizi is longer. Just barely longer, but he is."

"That's right, men!" said Jizi.

"I win the bet then," I said excitedly, as the three men took their seats again in the tub and that part of their anatomies disappeared again.

"Now, hold it right there," said Wan. "The question up for bet was, which one of us has the longest penis? And I don't know about these two men, but mine gets a lot longer than this when provoked."

"Same with mine, come to think of it," said Bang.

"The only fair thing to do would be for all three of us to get as hard as we can, and then re- measure," said Wan.

"Fine," said Jizi. "But you better get over here and help me out, because my dick isn't going to get hard by itself."

I moved over to him. "What do you need me to do?"

"Have you ever jerked a guy off before?"

"Uh, no."

"Well, it's the same as jerking off your own dick. I assume you've done that before?"

"Yes, I have."

"Just grab on and start to stroke, boy."

I reached under the white mud, found Jizi's wonderful, soft dick with my hands, and started to rub him up and down.

"How is he doing?" asked Wan.

"His hands are damn clumsy, but he'll get the job done," said Jizi.

Soon enough, I could feel blood start to enter Jizi's meat. After about a minute of working, it got fully erect, looking so impressive as it amazingly popped up well above the white mud line, looking like a huge, ivory tower from between his legs. It looked impossible to beat, and I too had a wild erection which was thankfully concealed under the mud.

When I scooted over to Bang and started to rub his soft dick with my hands, he said, "I hate to admit it, but Jizi is a lot more virile than I."

"What he means is, just like with all the whores he sleeps with, he needs to see his dick surrounded by tits," said Jizi. "Boy, go ahead and help him out."

I wasn't sure what he meant, but Bang surprised me by placing his penis against the center of my chest, as he grabbed my nipples almost painfully hard, and rubbed himself against me. This worked much more effectively that my hand did, getting him totally hard in no time, and I realized when he pulled himself off of me, I was sad to separate from him.

"Still got me to get hard, boy," said Wan, smiling at me. I moved over to him and started to rub his soft penis in the mud. "Nope, those paws are useless over here. I'm a real man with a real man's needs. I need my dick to be totally encased by slippery, smooth flesh to get going, you understand?"

"No."

"Well then, shut up boy, and let me do as I please."

Wan manhandled me, forcing me to sit on his lap. The next thing I knew, he had his soft dick against my buttcrack.

"Yeah, that feels good, boy. Just squeeze those cheeks around my monster." I tried to do as he asked. "Oh yeah."

While his arms caressed my body (which felt so right), he started to buck his hips back and forth, thrusting in my crack. I was surprised how well this odd position worked to get him hard, and even more so that my hole seemed to tingle at his touch.

"Alright, now all of you have to push yourselves together again," I said.

They stood up out of the liquid again and placed their hard weapons together, with me losing my breath in amazement at just how large they were.

"Alright then, who wins?" asked Wan.

I used my hands to line up and measure. "I cannot believe this."

"What?"

"You three all are exactly the same length. What are those chances?"

"We already knew that," Bang said. "How could we three really be such good friends if we weren't?"

"But it means you lose, boy," said Jizi. "The deal was, if Bang was the shortest or second shortest, you'd win. Since he's just as big as the rest of us, you lose."

"Fine, I'm not arguing."

The three men sat down again in the white mud.

"And I'm collecting my reward right now," said Wan. "Get over here and start to lick me clean."

Wan wouldn't let me touch his upper body with my hands, instead, he was only allowed to use my tongue. I was thankful that Wan was naturally hairless on his body muscles except for armpits, because it made my work easier. And Wan didn't lift his arms up, he kept them folded at his sides, so I never really had to lick his armpits except for a small bunch of black hair that had appeared, but those didn't taste so bad. The rest of Wan tasted delicious, and I loved running my tongue over each of his gorgeous muscle lines. I had to keep myself lowered in the mud at all times so that he didn't see my hard dick, and I thought to myself that this "payment" was almost as rewarding to me as their money would have been.

"Who is next?" I asked when I was done.

"Wait, there's still an important part of me that's still dirty."

"But I got your whole upper body."

"The agreement was that you had to lick clean any part of our bodies that is above the mud line while we are seated like this."

"Yes, I just licked you from the waist up."

"Look again, boy. There's one more body part now that's above the mud line."

I looked at the three of them sitting in the mud, and I realized he was right. Three huge erections pushed up out of the mud and stuck into the air.

"I'm not licking your penis, it's covered in mud!"

"That's exactly why it needs to be cleaned off by your tongue. And I don't think you'd like to see me react to someone who refuses an owed debt, boy."

With that threat over my head, what else could I do? I leaned down and started to lick his penis from the top down. Luckily, the white mud wasn't as bad tasting as I expected. I licked clean his entire dickhead, then worked my way down the couple more inches of his stalk that was visible.

"There, now you're done," said Wan.

Bang was next, and after licking his muscles clean, he too wanted me to lick the top part of his penis, which I did with less hesitation than I had with Wan.

When I moved over to Jizi, he said, "You can start with my dick."

So, I licked away at the foreskin of his uncut dick until that was clean. And then I started in on the muscles of his upper body. Because Jizi's arms, chest, and stomach were covered with black hair, it was slower, rougher work than it had been with the past two men.

Jizi moved suddenly, and his hip hit my erection for the first time. "Whoa, what is that?" asked Jizi, grabbing onto me there. "Check out happy boy over here." He pushed my hard dick above the mud, showing it to the other two. Bang whistled happily, and I turned red.

"You have some explaining to do," Wan said to me.

"What do you mean?" I asked. "All three of you are just as firm as I am."

"Yes, but in order to get that way you had to go to all sorts of work," said Wan. "How is it that you have a stiff penis when none of us have touched you there, ever?"

I stared at him, hot with anger, but could think of no excuse to defend myself.

"The truth is, you're attracted to us, aren't you?" asked Wan.

"Go ahead and come clean, boy," said Bang. "We don't care."

"Alright, I admit it," I said. "I've never been the least bit attracted to females."

"See, you two?" asked Wan of his friends. "I knew that was true from the first moment I looked at him. Alright, tell us, boy. How many men have you messed around with before?"

"None," I said, hoping they wouldn't think of me as some pervert. "I've never seen a man's penis until now, and your bodies re the first ones I've ever touched."

"Listen, there's no need to worry," said Bang. "All of us are just as attracted to you as you are to us."

"You, you are?"

"Listen boy, how would you like to come home with us?" asked Bang. "To a place where men love men and no one judges them for it?"

"I'd love to. But my mother at home would worry."

"We can send for her later," said Bang.

"Then yes, please take me with you," I said.

"Oh, come on, Bang," said Wan. "We can't just take him home with us. The boy hasn't the slightest bit of experience."

"He's willing to learn, aren't you, boy?" asked Jizi.

"Yes, of course I am."

"Listen, I'll only agree to this if you can prove you know how to please a man right now. Otherwise, you're not coming."

"I can do it."

"There's three ways for you to please a man that you must master," said Jizi.

"You already started to dabble in the first way to please a man when you rubbed us before, but your technique needs work," said Wan, approaching me and presenting his creamy dick in front of me. "Let me take your hand and retrain you on how to properly jack off a man's dick."

He forced my right hand onto his unit and showed me how to jerk slowly, firmly, and consistently. "Do I have it now?"

"Pretty much, just keep at it for practice, boy."

"Another technique must be to learn how to kiss men, right?" When I had seen men and women kiss each other passionately, I had always yearned deeply for someone to share that with.

"Bang, show this boy how he should kiss a man where we come from," said Wan as I continued to stroke him with my right hand.

"Yes, of course," Bang said. He stood up in the mud pit and walked towards me.

"Should I stand up?"

"No, stay on your knees," said Bang. "Boy, lesson number one. You need to learn that when you kiss a man, you don't kiss the lips on his mouth. You kiss the tiny lips here." I saw him wipe away the remaining white mud from his dick and place the head near my face, showing me the little eye of the thing.

"Kiss here? Like this?" I moved in and kissed his penis head.

"That's a good start. Now I want you to make that kiss wet. Open your mouth and give the thing a few licks."

"Like this?"

"Yes, good. Now open your jaw real wide and let me get all the way inside you."

Pretty soon, Bang had half of his thing inside my mouth, and I could no longer talk as he instructed me to keep my lips sealed around him at all times.

"Now, you just concentrate on your candy treat to suck on and your toy to hold onto," said Jizi. "I'm going to teach you how to do the third and final method you need in order to please a man, but this time, you don't have to do anything but sit there."

"How come you always get to be the one to do that?" asked Wan.

"Because Bang actually prefers getting sucked off, for some reason. And because you are wholly incapable of not ripping someone to shreds, as we've seen many times."

While my hands and mouth continued their work, Jizi came up behind me. He stuck his hand into the pool of white mud and next thing I knew, I felt pressure against my butthole. And just as when they had tested me for cleanliness, I felt a finger enter me, though this time it was lubed by the mud our lower bodies were submerged in. And then there were two fingers, and then three, and I couldn't for the life of me fathom how that was supposed to be pleasurable for him.

It was only when I felt the shocking pain of something unspeakably large enter me there that the grim reality that the fingering was only a preliminary was seared into my brain, and I cried out in panic.

"Ah, hell," said Jizi. "Are you in pain, boy?"

"Yes, yes, so much pain!" I said, tears coming to my eyes, wanting him to pull out, my dick softening.

"Damn, I forgot this one is a virgin," said Jizi.

"Who cares how much pain he's in?" asked Wan. "Just force him to take it. We can hold his mouth shut."

"No, this won't work if he doesn't enjoy this, you know that. Boy, stop pleasuring the other two and just concentrate on me." Jizi actually spun me around until I was on my back looking into his face. "Listen to my voice. I'm inside you, but I'm not going to move until you're ready for me. I want you to focus on nothing but accepting my flesh into your body, into the pain turning into sexual pleasure for yourself. You understand?"

"Yes," I said, though I couldn't possibly believe a pain that intense could ever pass.

But after a couple minutes, what did you know? The pain slowly faded away. "Is the pain gone?" Jizi asked.

"Mostly."

"Good, now I'm going to twist myself around inside you. Not pushing further in, just creating a slow sense of friction between us until I've convinced you that this is the beginning of what's going to be the most pleasurable event you've ever experienced, bar none."

He did as he said, and as he rotated inside me, I concentrated on the unexpectedly pleasurable sensations on my hole.

"Now, do I have you begging for more of my dick yet?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Well, to prove you're not lying to me, I'm going to hold onto your dick with my hand. It's gotten hard again, but if I see it start to soften while I give your butt the screwing it deserves, I'm going to know you've failed to prove to us that you can please a man, and we won't take you with us."

I felt him slide himself more into me, and while the pain returned, it was brief, and he was gentle enough to keep myself focused on the pleasure I was feeling.

"Alright, all the way in, and your dick is still hard," he said to me. "Now comes the real test: can you still feel this same level of pleasure when I start to screw you?" He pulled back until he was nearly out of me, and then pushed in again. The pain hit me, but when he did it a second time, it was much less.

"Yes, I can," I said. "See?"

"That's what I like to see, boy. Now, I want you to just look here into my face as I really start to build up steam and pleasure myself with your sweet chute."

His thrusts were never as forceful as he threatened, and I didn't have to fake the pleasure at all. I loved what he was doing, and he was right when he said that it was the by far the best sexual experience I ever had. In fact, even though the had he had on my dick wasn't doing anything but holding me, my dick amazingly felt like it had been manually stimulated for hours, and I actually worried about orgasming too soon.

And then everything changed when the handsome face I was staring into turned surreal as his tw fangs started to grow. I thought at first they were just my imagination, but they kept on growing and growing until they became terrifying to behold. My body went numb and my eyes became transfixed on those deadly weapons.

"Jizi, your fangs!" said Wan.

"Hmm? Oh, hell! Well, I guess I can't hold those back any longer."

Nothing in my limited education or upbringing prepared me for what I was seeing, yet my clear naiveté about the world outside my village at least brought with it acknowledgement that something I had never anticipated could very well be real, and it made it easier to accept the reality of the situation. I couldn't grasp how those deadly fangs Jizi had sprouted could be anything but bad for me, so I started to fight back against him, only I was totally incapacitated under his weighty muscles.

I felt those sharp fangs pierce the flesh in my throat, and at first, that sensation was just as expected: sharp and sudden pain that made me cringe.

And then that initial sensation left and something else completely took over, something impossible to describe but impossibly profound. I couldn't figure out if what I was feeling was a physical sensation brought upon Jizi's mouth on my neck or an emotional response, and somehow knew it was a mixture of the two. The feeling was decidedly sexual in nature, with waves of passion running from the bite on my neck to the rest of my body. But there was something else there too, a disarming quality. The fight I had been trying to muster against Jizi was instantly forgotten as the pleasurable tingle made me totally complacent. I went from fighting for my life, fighting to get Jizi out of me, to being swept away utterly in a manner of seconds.

The pleasure was so strong, I felt myself give in entirely to Jizi. Suddenly, I wanted him to keep having sex with me, I wanted his strong body so badly it made me insane. I wanted him to use my body. And I wanted him never to stop biting me either.

Shockingly, I would go so far as to say I was willing to die for him, just as long as he brought me to sexual climax. I was willing to let him bleed me dry.

This sexual fire turned me into a new partner, and as Jizi slurped down my blood, I grabbed his bare buttocks in my hands and pushed him farther and farther into me with every stroke. The passion reached him as well as he started to flex every muscle and throw all attempt at gentleness to the wind, slamming me so hard my whole body shook with every thrust.

Before long, I felt him explode inside me, and I too started to climax. A orgasm knocked through me that was more powerful than I ever even previously conceive.

After it was over, as our bodies calmed down and our muscles relaxed, Jizi finally licked at my neck wound, healing it instantly somehow, and then his lips left my throat. Almost as soon as the magic was gone from my body, the gravity of the situation became clear to me, and relaxation quickly flipped into anxiety.

"You, you bit me!" I said, pushing Jizi's face above me, trying to get him out of me. "Why would you do that?" I punched him in the nose.

"Ow!" he said. "You stop that right now!"

I didn't care how deep his voice was or how intimidating his muscles were, I wasn't going to stop fighting. But then, as soon as this assured truth went through me, I felt myself willed to his vocal command, and I stopped hitting him as my muscles went limp.

Even though I stopped fighting against him, my panic only rose, and my heart raced like mad with my lungs keeping up with every step.

"Listen to me," commanded Jizi. "You'll stop your anxiety right now. I want you to relax, is that understood?"

"Yes," I said, though I couldn't remember my brain ever giving my mouth the command to say it. Next thing I knew, my heart slowed along with my breathing as I became deeply relaxed.

"Yes, that's it, boy," Jizi said. "You'll do exactly what I tell you." He pulled himself out of me. "And job number one is to please my friends over here with the same energy that you just pleased me. Understood?"

"Yes," I said, and suddenly all I could think about was wanting to please Bang and Wan over there on the sidelines.

"Come here," said Bang, but for some reason his commands had no affect on me.

"Go suck off Bang, nothing he likes more," commanded Jizi.

"Yes," I said, and sloshed through the white mud towards him, diving down and taking his dick in my mouth again.

"Put your hands on his butt, that's right, and hold on for dear life as he screws your throat," said Jizi. "Show him how much you want to swallow his seed."

And after he commanded me to do it, I was totally dead-set on the task, while Bang's groans of pleasure let me know how pleased he was.

"This one has a special something that we haven't encountered in a long time," said Bang. "Maybe we should, you know, make true on our promise for once."

"What are you saying?" asked Wan.

"He means, take the boy with us," said Jizi. "Alive, even."

"No, absolutely not. Neither of you have the first clue how to take care of a human, do you? No, he stays right here, thank you very much. All you did is manage to raise my blood pressure, and I'm just going to be forced to take out my frustration on his butt."

"Boy, you'll do anything and everything Wan wants as well to get him off," said Jizi as Wan moved behind me, and as soon as he said it, I was again determined to follow orders.

When Wan shoved himself all the way inside me, I felt so much pain, and the pain only intensified as he mercilessly attacked my hole. But even though there was nothing but pain and absolutely no pleasure as there had been with Jizi's softer touch, my mind was still totally focused on pleasing him, so I never cried out in paid or tried to get away from his huge, aggressive dick.

Suddenly, I was getting plowed from both ends, and my focus was entirely on doing everything I could to please both of my partners.

That is, until the wooden door of the room opened and a naked, elderly Korean man stepped inside. His eyes went wide with shock as he saw the activities taking place inside.

Jizi moved with such speed, it was almost too fast for my eyes to process. First, he had slammed the door shut as he pulled the man inside. Next, Jizi's hands turned broke the man's neck, and then ripped open his throat with his fangs.

Suddenly, all I could think about was the horror of the situation and the poor fate of the helpless old man, as I stared in shock at the gore.

"Hasn't this backwoods country ever heard of door locks?" asked Jizi.

"Or knocking, even?"

"I had no choice but to kill him."

"Of course you didn't," said Wan. "It's not like you could have seduced him like you did this stupid boy."

Disturbed, I started to pull away from Wan and even bit Bang's penis.

"Ow!" Bang yelped. "Jizi, you need to talk to the boy again!"

Jizi looked at me. "Boy, you're going to totally ignore the kill I just had to make," said Jizi. "And keep your mind where it should be, on giving these two men the best fucks they ever had."

I nodded in agreement, and my horror faded away quickly, my mind returning to the task at hand. I didn't even flinch as Jizi carried the body over me and poured the dead man's blood all over my body, the dark red splashing on top of the white mud but not mixing in.

Clearly the blood set off the other two vampires, as both of their fangs popped out. While keeping himself inside my mouth, Bang leaned forward and bit into the side of my left buttcheek, just inches from where Wan was doing his business. As Bang started to feed from me, I instantly entered that same sexual euphoria as I did before, surrendering not because Jizi had told me to but because it felt so good.

By the time Wan leaned forward, held me from behind, and bit into my throat, the euphoria was that much more, and amazingly, my dick was so hard you would have never believed I had climaxed just minutes previous. The pain I had previously felt in my backside because of Wan's rough thrusts completely dissipated, leaving just the pleasure.

As the two of them fed, Bang and Wan's thrusts intensified, and they seemed to build up a rhythm, matching each other stroke for stroke. It wasn't long before they both climaxed simultaneously, flooding me from both ends.

It was only after both of them closed my wounds that the bloodloss hit me, and I passed out.

I came to as someone splashed water on my face. I was sitting in the water pool in the room, with all the mud, blood, and semen having been cleaned from my body. There was no sign of the body or any blood in the room, and I might have thought the whole episode was some grisly wet dream if Jizi's face wasn't looking down at me.

"I'm going to let you go back to sleep, and when you wake up, I want you to forget about what happened here with the three of us. You'll remember coming into this room, finding it empty, feeling tired, and falling asleep here. That's all you'll remember, is that clear?"

"Yes."

"Sleep now."

Now. I wasn't sure what had finally made this blocked out memory surface, but I thought, no wonder I hadn't needed much convincing by The Bridge that male vampires were bad news when I first joined them, as I had highly negative repressed memories about them.

I woke up with a mighty pain in my head, but pain meant I wasn't dead, and I welcomed it.

My bleary eyes tried to focus as I took in my surroundings. I was chained to a chair. It looked like I was in some dimly-lit bedroom of a penthouse suite somewhere, judging from the distance of the below streetlights visible through the huge windows in the room. From the buildings on the street, I guessed I was back in Barcelona.

I soon realized I wasn't alone. I turned to see the masked vampire, the one who had defeated me so adeptly, slip a piece of duct tape over Abby's mouth, who had been hogtied in rope. Good, she was alive still. I noticed that there was also tape over my mouth, which disappointed me. Across the room, I saw Cayden, and I knew it was a blessing that he was still alive as well. He too was chained to a chair and had tape over his mouth.

Mask. The masked vampire left the room without a word and shut the door, leaving us alone. We were alive, but with Cayden and myself tied up, along with me having my mouth taped, would there be any chance for us to escape this situation? Cayden's eyes met mine, and they were wet with sentiment, knowing perhaps just as I did how little hope we had.

But fortune smiled upon us: I realized that the tape around my mouth was placed carelessly loose. I wiggled my lips and pushed the tape with my tongue, working the tape enough to speak through. Yes, so fortunate.

Within seconds, the power of my words had my chains knocked loose. I wiggled out of them and pulled the tape all the way off my mouth. Both Abby and Cayden's eyes were lit up with pure, happy excitement.

I had to be totally quiet; I didn't want anyone hearing me and returning. I went to unbound Cayden first. I couldn't find the key to his locks, so I used my words to break him free, and then I pulled his tape off.

"Thank you, thank you, my love," Cayden said joyfully. "Without you, we would have been surely perished."

"We're by no means secure yet," I said. "It will be challenging to sneak out of here with Abby. I fear we will be forced into a confrontation."

Cayden stepped forward, his smoldering eyes locked onto mine. "That can wait for a few moments. I've wanted to kiss you so badly from the first instant I laid eyes on you. Just a minute ago, I was cursing myself that I was going to die without taking what I so desperately wanted. Now, before we do anything, you'd better prepare to be kissed."

Emotions. He moved in before I had a chance to brace myself, held me in his arms, and put his warm, eager lips to mine. Any resistance I might have put up melted away at his loving touch. He worked his magic, enthralling me under his spell. It was so shockingly perfect as the love literally poured through every inch of my body, that at first I was unable to react in any way; I had to summon all of my resolve before I was able to respond in kind.

Finally, I did kiss back, my passion breaking free, my lips pushing back against his, my hands encircling his body just as his encircled mine. Reassured by my response, he pushed us further and further into the kiss, now slipping his tongue into my mouth for the first time, as if he couldn't hold this back for another second.

Bliss. True, I'd never kissed anyone before. But even if I had kissed a million men, none of those kisses would ever compare to the power and passion of this perfect kiss. I wanted it to go on indefinitely. As he cupped the back of my head, I moved my tongue around his, our two tongues dancing playfully. Soon, I too had my tongue in his mouth, searching out his teeth and gums, desperate to get more of the heavenly taste of him.

I could feel his fangs had extended, which I hadn't expected, but with this level of excitement, didn't surprise me at all. I continued to kiss him, telling him with my tongue that I wasn't the least bit distressed or disturbed by his fangs.

The kiss continued with my eyes clamped shut, and I sadly knew that this couldn't last forever, that soon we would have to stop.

That line of thought never went anywhere, as it was shockingly interrupted by a disturbingly bad pain in my tongue.

Stunned, I whipped open my eyes. My tongue was still in Cayden's mouth, and I tried to pull it out, but I couldn't. It was stuck.

I yanked my whole head back away from him, but my tongue remained painfully inside his mouth. I realized, with a sense of horror, that his fangs had pierced my tongue, causing it to be skewered.

I figured he had gotten so excited that he couldn't help but bite me. Well, that was forgivable; I could heal my tongue. It would just teach us to be more careful with our passion in the future.

I saw Cayden's eyes looking at me, a look that was neither guilt nor remorse. It was a twisted look of glee.

And then it wasn't just his two fangs that were holding onto my tongue. All of the rest of his teeth cruelly tore into me as well.

Panic swept me. I frantically pushed at him, pushed his face away from me, but the harder I pushed, the harder he bit into my tongue.

I screamed in pure, tortured agony as the worst pain imaginable poured through my mouth as finally our heads yanked away from each other.

Blood was gushing down, pouring out of my mouth and covering my chin.

Shock. Horror and disbelief swelled inside me as I realized that there was a painful, sickening absence in my mouth. Cayden confirmed this suspicion when he opened his bloody mouth and proudly showed me the bleeding stump of my ripped off tongue between his teeth.

"Damn you to hell!" I tried to yell, but all that came out was an incomprehensible mess.

He spit out my tongue, knowing full well that none of my powers would ever be able to reattach the thing, and laughed evilly. "Pardon, Jeong? Can you speak up please? It's gotten so hard to hear you." He licked my blood off his lips. "Mmm, I've never tasted the One's blood before. It is different than human blood. Different from everything. So much tastier." He sickeningly licked his lips dry. "I would love to enjoy it in much greater quantity in the future."

Realization hit me as I calculated in my mind just how far back this deception went. From the very first moment I saw him, when I stupidly trusted a vampire telling me that he was somehow the one moral being of his entire species. I should have killed him right there. Instead, he went on to cleverly deceive me for months, inventing feelings for me until I finally agreed to leave The Bridge, the only people who would have protected me from his games, and run off with him into danger. Cayden must have planned out with the masked vampire exactly where we would cross the border, he must have known precisely when he needed to slip under the car and hold on. Hell, those border patrol guards were probably paid off by vampire blood money as well.

Brilliant. All of it just to reach this point, his sweet reward.

In fury, I launched myself at him. I didn't know now without my tongue if I would be strong enough to beat him, but I sure as hell was going to give it all that I had.

"Uh, uh, not so fast," he said, lifting up poor Abby off the ground, holding onto her while he pulled out a very large knife and put it to her throat. She struggled, still tied up tight. Her eyes were wide in terror as he grabbed her hair painfully with his left hand while he pushed the knife against her soft throat.

"Make one move, and she dies," he said, smiling at me giddily, knowing he had won.

Horror. My first thought was that he couldn't possibly kill his own daughter, but, I remembered, male vampires had no souls, no principals, he would do it and he would do it gleefully.

He pulled the tape off her mouth.

"No, don't kill me, please, I don't want to die, please, Uncle!" she screamed.

Fine, let them kill me, it was worth it to save the life of this poor girl.

"Yes, disobey me at any point and I will kill her," Cayden yelled at me. "Oh yes, I have a long future planned for you, Jeong. An eternity, in fact."

Forever. These words scratched annoyingly at my mind, forcing me into analysis. I had expected all of this was about killing me, but I realized now there was so much more at stake here. He cut out my tongue, making me effectively impotent from here on out. He was planning on keeping me around for an eternity. Locking me up in a cell somewhere where I would spend centuries without ever seeing another living soul. By doing so, he guaranteed that there would never be another One, because if I didn't ever die, my powers wouldn't pass onto the next one in line. This would be of immeasurable importance to the vampire species. They would develop a decent shot at taking over and ruling over mankind, which had always been their aim.

Abby cried, looking at me in the eyes. "Please, Uncle Jeong, please don't let him kill me, I promise I'll be a good girl forever and ever, please don't let me die."

"I kill her on the count of three if you don't submit to me," Cayden said angrily. "One."

I loved that little girl, and I wanted so badly to save her. Every fiber in my being urged me to help her, to save her from this terrible death.

"Two!"

"Uncle, please!"

I almost bowed down and submitted to Cayden, but something made me keep my ground.

"Three!"

I watched as Cayden, his face twisted in pure hatred at my resistance, cut deep through the girl's throat, a cut that was purposely not deep enough to kill her quickly with pity, a cut that would surely kill her but make her suffer as she watched herself bleed to death. Her face was one of tragic horror as she choked and gasped, dying terribly.

Sorry. I was so, so sorry.

I turned in the direction of the huge window of the penthouse and ran towards it with all my speed. Soon, I had crashed through the glass, and I was flying horizontally away from the building outside as the cold air hit me, hearing Cayden's tortured curses coming behind me as he realized he had lost me.

I had saved so many lives in my existence, perhaps, if there was a God, he would forgive me this one that I could not save, that poor little child. I was choosing the greater good.

Gravity started to pull me down, and I saw the street dozens of stories beneath me come rushing forwards.

Right before I hit the pavement, I prayed that the next One would not be as foolish as me, that the next One would not be betrayed by their own imprudent heart, that the next One would make the world safe, once and for all.

I didn't even feel pain as I hit the ground and met my end.

Gift.

OCTOBER 31st

I opened my eyes, screaming, terrified, desperately grabbing out, trying to seize onto something, anything that would keep me from falling to my death!

I did grab onto something; I looked at my hands to see... blankets. Sheets. My bed!

It had been the scariest dream of my life. Never had a dream felt this twistedly real. I had felt my stomach being pulled out of my mouth as I fell down the many stories towards that dark street!

In the dream I hadn't been myself, I hadn't been Vadim Ivanov at all. I had been someone else. A Korean man.

Was this the dream that my family had warned me about? A vision of someone else's death, an omen that destiny had chosen me to wield the unspoken powers?

I didn't know what to make of it. Honestly, I thought most of the stories my grandparents had told me over the years were nothing but fairy tales. Sure, I believed them as a child, and even as a teenager, I had been gullible enough to heed them. But now that I was 23, the myths had become harder and harder to accept as true, and the real world instead occupied all of my time.

But now, this dream, unlike any single dream I have ever had. I couldn't be sure what it all meant; I just had to ask my grandparents their thoughts!

Normally, I would have just left my cozy house and walked over to their place not even 6 blocks through the quiet streets of Anzhero-Sudzhensk, Russia. But right at this moment, they weren't in the town at all, but southwest, lodging in the nearby forest. They had a tiny, zero frills, but very romantically rustic cabin in the woods, and that's where's they'd been for the past couple of days. The cabin didn't even have a phone line, and my grandparents never adapted to the whole cell phone phenomenon. The place wasn't even accessible by car; it was only reachable by foot or by horse. Backwoods for sure!

But that couldn't deter me! I couldn't let this wait a week until their return. I had to go now; I had to get my questions answered. I had to leave tonight!

I jumped out of bed, my heart racing. My feet landed on something a lot softer, lumpier, and furrier than the bare hardwood floor that I had been expecting.

It was my dog, Pavlov, I had underfoot. I heard a surprised yelp as the poor dog shook awake from her sleep. Truly I was the worst master of all time.

Pavlov spun her bushy head around to look at my feet, starting to sniff my legs. It certainly wasn't the first time I had accidentally caused her pain, and wouldn't be the last. I was a bit clumsy and careless, which often resulted in Pavlov getting accidentally kicked, hit, or spilled upon. Luckily, she was a trooper, a large dog besides, a mix between a black lab and some sheppard, I wasn't sure, but she always took my accidental assaults in stride, never reacting angrily. She brought me such joy!

So, it was beyond shocking when my girl responded to me this time by baring her teeth, growling and snarling, clearly intending to maul me! Sure, Pavlov had always had a wild streak. I had found her outdoors as a puppy, a stray in the woods, abandoned, the poor thing, and took her in. She was the cutest bundle of fur I had ever seen! That had been when I was a teenager, and I raised her myself. She had always been one of those dogs who mistrusted strangers, though she was extremely loyal to me, my family, and any close friends. Most of all loyal to me, I discovered when she ran off after I had gone to University and left her in the care of my grandparents. Pavlov chose to live in the wild, back to the forests that I had found her in, and I worried constantly for her survival. I'd heard incidents of people spotting her, some of them even trying to capture her, but those attempts had always ended up badly for the people. Years later, when I moved back into town and got my own place, I was walking through the woods, and suddenly, she came out of nowhere, running towards me, her tongue hanging out excitedly, pure love on her visage! I started to cry, I was so happy! I rolled around with her in my arms as she licked my face. After that, she had stayed with me just as before as if that interlude in the wild had never happened.

All of which is to say that Pavlov was extremely loyal to me. So, hearing her snarl at me in defensive warning was extremely off-putting.

"Pavlov, have you lost your mind? It's me, girl!"

She cocked her head curiously at my voice, then looked up at my face, her growl softening. I reached out my hand to her, which she looked at questionably.

Finally, she gave me a reassuring lick, and let all the mistrust fade into nothingness, seemingly accepting me again.

"You must be getting old and senile, poor girl," I said to her, even though she didn't seem the least bit old to me in any other respect.

I combed through my house, packing a hiking backpack that could last me a couple of weeks, making sure I had food, water, and all the camping essentials. I was no backpacking rookie, I had gone countless times with my dad or my grandparents, later with friends, and even a few times just with Pavlov.

As I packed my things, I took in the coziness of my house. Outside the weather was chilly, but in here, this two-bedroom was always warm and inviting. I loved my house, felt like it was a part of my soul. Others had scoffed when I chose to keep this place instead of selling it, expecting that there was too much sorrow in the history of this house for me to want to come back to it. And there was a grain of truth to that. When I was fifteen, my father had been diagnosed with lung cancer, and we were too poor with my parents' meager teachers' salaries to get him the proper treatment. He died in the house after a long battle with the disease. My mother, already extremely depressed during his illness, often leaving me to take care of my father on my own, went a little mad after he died. She left me, left her entire life, and ran off to who knows where. I still hadn't heard from her.

Honestly, those memories saddened me at times, but didn't gnaw at me the way they might have done to others. My dad had raised me to be an optimist, to enjoy and appreciate life and friends and family and good wine every second of every day, to always count one's blessings! It would be a dishonor to my father's memories to do anything differently.

As I walked through the walls of this house, I was reminded of countless happy memories with the best father that I could have ever dreamed of! And even plenty of happy memories of my mom, back when she too was under the happy enchantment that my father's love brought into all of our lives.

As I turned off the lights in my house and carried my pack outside, Pavlov coming with me, I knew my mother, if she was still around, would frown deeply upon her son's actions. She had never believed her parents' stories, and regularly referred to them as lunatics, often not permitting them to see me. But she knew that she had one thing to thank them for; her husband. When she was a rebellious teenager in our town, her parents had somehow, through much genealogy studying, traced a line from the Great Hero of the nearby old towns' myths from centuries ago to a family that existed in our town still, the Ivanovs. The Great Hero had vanished himself long ago and later pronounced dead, but he had left behind a son and a daughter, with my family apparently being descendents of the son's line.

My dad's father had been long dead by then, so they approached my father instead, then only a teenager, and told them all of their myths. It was prophesized long ago that another Great Hero would rise in my town, a man who descended from the last Great Hero of old. He would rise to a lofty stature never achieved by any living being before, and would either save the world from vicious vampires, or die trying to do so.

My father found my grandparents to be wonderful people and very warm, though he never himself bought into any of their theories. He certainly wasn't a superstitious man or one prone to fantasy, though he never showed condescension to people like my grandparents for their different, eccentric notions.

Still, them reaching out to him was enough for him to become dear friends with them, and as he spent time at their home, he came to know their daughter, and she him. The two hit it off, and I was born right after they graduated high school.

Because my parents had me so young, and my grandparents had my mother so young, they were just now turning sixty. And they were damn spry for that age! They had always been ridiculously fit, trained to fight in the old ways that had been handed down to them from generations past. They sparred with each other constantly, keeping their muscles toned. Heck, I was in my prime, yet either one of them could probably still wipe the floor with me in a fight!

They had boasted about using their battle prowess to kill vampires themselves, telling me they knew all of a vampire's weaknesses. While the main floor of their cabin was innocuously ordinary, anyone going into the locked basement would be astounded to see weapon after weapon, both new and ancient, hanging on the walls. Body armor, old texts and scrolls, relics and treasure, it was all down there. Seeing all that as a boy, it had been easy to believe what they told me, that either my father or I was destined to save the world. When my father had died, they had told me that fate had decided it would be me, and that my body would change into a hero's body. This transformation would be marked by a vivid vision of death in my sleep.

The dream had been terrible, but did I feel any different? No; as I walked through the town's streets, I felt exactly the same as I did every previous day. There was no notable difference that I could discern. I certainly hadn't turned into Superman overnight.

I could remember my grandmother telling me, if for whatever reason the two of them weren't around, or if something happened to the two of them, if there was any problem, there were two other people to call on, the only other two people in my town that had believed in my grandparents' stories. One of those would protect me physically. The other would impart the town's many histories to me.

The second of those people lived just a quarter mile from my house. I stood outside her cottage and rang the doorbell. A moment later, Madina Volkov appeared in the doorway, dressed in cotton pajamas and faux-fur slippers. Madina was approaching 50, her frizzy, chestnut hair starting to grey. She was naturally as thin as a marathon runner, though far less fit. She was a librarian by profession, and her sharp face, always forming a scowl, seemed to fit the librarian stereotype. She fit other librarian stereotypes too: she had been single her whole life, and she had an ever increasing number of cats, two of which ran out among her feet as she opened her door, already starting to hiss at poor Pavlov.

"Oh joy, Vadim, I knew you would come to my D & D group one day. We're right in the middle of it, but we can find a way to bring you in the game. All these losers ever want to be are elfish wizards. We desperately need some new blood."

I looked past her in the doorway to see a few other oddball types sitting around her table, obviously engaged in their game. Madina's loopy obsession with all things fantasy, including her Dungeons & Dragons group, as well as her interest in the old town tales my grandparents believed in, those were all traits that made her much too weird for most of the townsfolk, and especially for her fellow librarians, who were much more conservative. In fact, Madina had an unfair reputation for being a bit insane, and little children often whispered ugly rumors that she was secretly a nasty witch.

"I'm not here to play, Madina," I said in a lowered voice.

Her smile faded back into her traditional scowl, looking highly disappointed. "Why, praytell, are you visiting my abode this evening then, young sir?" Yes, sometimes she spoke in this period talk for no discernable reason; it was part of her charm.

I lowered my voice. "I had a dream. The dream. A vision of death. And now I'm leaving for my grandparents' cabin, going to hike through the night, put up camp, then continue tomorrow. I wanted to know if you wanted to come with me."

She suddenly adopted my hushed, urgent tone, carefully speaking so as not to be overheard by her visitors. "THE dream? You had THE dream? And you're leaving right now?"

I lifted up my pack to show her. "I'm all ready."

"But I'm in the middle of D & D here."

"Can't they play without you?"

"No, I'm the dungeon master!" I had no idea what that meant.

"Okay, that's fine, you don't have to come, but I'm leaving now, without you. Take care." I turned to leave.

"No, wait, I'll come, just give me five minutes to change and pack." She turned back to her friends. "Sorry guys, adventure is over. Which one of you pointy-eared wizards wants to take care of my cats while I'm gone?"

It was fifteen minutes before Madina was actually ready to go. She locked her door and joined me and Pavlov in the street, wearing a pack of her own, though hers was decorated with white stars, looking like it was crafted from a magician's cape.

"I've called Olik but there was no answer. Though, at this time of night, I know exactly where he is. Just follow me." She led me through the streets of the town. "Tell me precisely what you dreamed."

"I dreamed I was someone else. A Korean man. And it was so real, it wasn't like any dream I've ever had."

"And you died in this dream?"

I nodded. "I don't remember all the details now, but yes, I fell to my death, then I woke up."

"Think hard, Vadim. Were there vampires in this dream?"

I thought about it. "Yes, there were," I said. "Yes, it was the vampires who killed me, I'm sure of it."

She nodded. "Not surprising. The vampires are humanity's one true enemy. They are heartless menaces who kill ruthlessly and must be stopped." Her eyes went wide. "You know what that means, Vadim?" she said quickly and breathlessly. "It is the sign we've been waiting for. It means you are the new Great Hero destined to rise from the humble roots of our town to save the world. Do you understand how thrilling this is?"

I didn't know if thrilled was how I would have described my disposition. "Doesn't the prophesy say that I might die trying to save the world, just like the last Great Hero?" I asked.

She looked away from me, uncomfortable with my question. "Technically, yes. But only after you have risen to such greatness that your deeds will affect every living person on earth. That won't be for a very long time."

It was an exciting proposition, but I needed more evidence than a vivid dream to really believe in any of this stuff. I wanted to talk to my grandparents themselves before making up my mind.

Madina stopped us at the door to a rundown neighborhood bar on the street corner. "I bet my favorite four cats that we'll find Olik here," she said. I left Pavlov outside and followed her in.

The dimly lit, grungy bar was well populated by unseemly looking fellows, and sadly, Olik Zavtsev blended in perfectly, sitting at the end of the bar, downing what surely couldn't have been his first vodka. He was no older than Madina, but much, much fatter, ruddier, and furrier. I could remember Olik from my young boy's perspective as being fit as an ox and swift as a lion. It was my attraction for Olik that first led me to realize I was gay. That attraction was long gone. It wasn't that he had gotten older so much as he seemed to grow complacent. While once physical combat training filled his daily life, he hadn't trained in years, letting his old skills decay. While once he drank in moderation, never letting it affect his performance, recently his drinking had become the sad focus of his life.

Olik had always been just as much of a social outcast in this town as Madina, not just because most people resented him for choosing to never find work after his father left him just enough inheritance for him to live meagerly for the rest of his life, but because he too was open about his beliefs in the town myths, and instead of just writing him off as being harmlessly batty like they did Madina, Olik had devoted his life to preparing himself for a combat with a foe that most everyone considered a delusional invention. In most other's minds, he had been a powerful man mixed with crazy, and that made him extremely hazardous.

Though nowadays, people only regarded him with a sad sort of pity.

His face, already rosy from intoxication and laughing with his drunk friends, turned even more red and merry when he saw Madina and I entering the bar.

"Ah, my friends! Come, come, the drinks are on me tonight!"

I followed Madina towards the stool Olik's wide rump was occupying. That stern librarian look was all over Madina's face.

"What can I get you to drink, Madina?" Olik asked her, oblivious to her disapproving demeanor.

"Nothing," she said.

"She'll have a shot of vodka," Olik said. "Maybe it will manage to warm her frigid heart. And, you, boy? Maybe a soda for him? He's not old enough to drink yet."

"I'm twenty-three, Olik!" I protested.

"He's lying to us. He can't be that old already," Olik whispered to the bartender, plenty loud enough for everyone to hear. "Get him a club soda with a lime in it and tell him it's a vodka tonic. He'll never know the difference."

"There will be no drinks for either of us!" Madina cut in sharply. The bartender nodded. She lowered her voice. "Olik, we come with urgent news."

"Well, spit it out then," Olik mumbled.

I looked around the bar, and it was clear many of the rowdy men in the room were focused on our party. I had to be subtle. "I just woke up from a dream."

"Yeah, so?" Olik replied. "What's so special about that?"

Madina rolled her eyes. "It wasn't just any dream, Olik. It was THE dream. The one important dream."

It took a moment for Olik's glazed eyes to process what she was saying. Then, realization came upon his face as his eyes opened wide.

"The dream!" he said, excitedly. "Everyone, listen up! Little Vadim here just had his first wet dream, and has come to celebrate! Let's give him a round of applause!" Other drunken men clapped and hollered as my face went redder than Olik's. He knocked me on my shoulder excitedly. "You're finally becoming a man, boy! Pretty soon, your balls will drop, you'll start growing chin hair, and you'll start noticing the ladies in a whole new way!"

"Olik, just to review, I'm twenty-three! I went through puberty ten years ago, and I'm gay!"

At that proclamation, some of the other men gave me mean looks. Russia wasn't the most progressive country in regards to homosexuality. And though my University had its fair share of gays, sometimes I felt like the only out homosexual in my town. Some, like my grandparents and their friends, embraced it. But most just seemed barely to tolerate it. My mother had been the first person I tried to come out to, but every time as a teenager I told her I had something very important about myself I had to tell her, she refused to stay and listen to me, telling me she had enough heartache in her life without hearing my confessions, and I should learn to keep whatever it was to myself.

"Enough of this ridiculousness," Madina said. "He's done for the night." She pushed him off his barstool, almost making him lose his balance. Then she grabbed his rotund arm and pulled him out of the bar. I was surprised she didn't pull him out by his ear!

When the three of us were back outside, Olik stuck out his hand to pet Pavlov, and she backed away. She tended to be mistrustful of intoxicated individuals. Madina looked around the street to make sure no one was around before speaking frankly. "Olik, you absolute fool! The boy just had THE dream. His one true vision. He has become the next Great Hero, Olik."

"Oh!" he said. "Why didn't you just say that from the beginning?"

"In front of everyone in the bar? Don't you have a subtle bone in your body?"

"We're leaving tonight," I said to him, showing him our backpacks. "Hiking to my grandparents' cabin! We wanted to see if you wanted to come on our adventure."

"Of course I am coming!" he said. "I've been waiting my whole life for this! Duty calls!"

"He's not coming," Madina said. "He is obviously too drunk."

"I am not drunk! I swear on Russia herself!"

Madina shoved him ever so slightly, but it was more than enough to make him lose his balance and fall over. "Russia should be ashamed of you, Olik!"

"I don't care if I'm a little wobbly. I'm coming with you!"

"Fine, you can come," I said, helping him back to his feet. "Madina, maybe you can help him home so he can pack for the trip. I'm going to see if we can't get horses for our journey."

"This man is way too drunk to ride a horse without falling off," Madina said as she put her arm around him. "Maybe we can tie him down to the beast. That will keep him out of trouble."

"Take me home, woman, my weapons await!"

"Great use those will do us when you're this intoxicated!" she fired back.

"Meet me at the forest entrance!" I said, taking Pavlov in the opposite direction.

We approached a pleasantly familiar farmhouse on the edge of town, right up against the woods. It was one of those places where the stable and barn were much larger than the actual human abode. At first I wondered where he would be, often I would find him in the stables, attending his family's horses. But this evening, I noticed black smoke pouring out of the kitchen window, and I knew exactly where he was and what he was doing!

The kitchen door was propped open, so I just let myself in. There was Petro Lebedev in front of his ajar oven. He was trying to put out some dish in there that was on fire by beating it with a blanket, coughing smoke in the process!

"Oh Petro, not again!" I yelled, stepping towards the oven to help, my eyes starting to sting.

"Vadim! I thought you were going to bed early tonight?"

"I thought you promised not to do anymore baking!"

"Change of plans," he said sheepishly. "I can't just give up on my dream! I told you, it's my godforsaken oven! It always starts fires."

It was true that the oven had seen so many fires, the previously white interior had long been encrusted with black soot! But I doubted whether his oven really was to blame at all.

Pavlov, just then seeing Petro struggling with the fire, came swooping in anxiously. She got in between him and the oven, trying to push him out of the way. She was almost as protective of him as she was of me!

"Pavlov, stay back!" I ordered, and only then would she back away.

I grabbed the fire extinguisher I had bought him a few months ago when the fires had first started occurring, and aimed it at the oven.

"No, no, no!" Petro yelled, pushing the extinguished away. "The chemicals will ruin the chocolate soufflé!"

I laughed. "Petro, I think it's beyond ruined!"

"No, it's perfectly salvageable!"

He used the blanket to knock away most of the flames, then grabbed the whole soufflé dish and put it in the sink, turning on the water to extinguish the last of the flames.

"See? It's still fine. And you're just in time to be my first taster."

"Oh, great," I said. I had been his taster dozens of times, and the first time had been one too many. Though I was too sensitive to tell him just how bad his desserts really were!

He pulled out a plate and used a butter knife to try to cut me a piece. When that proved ineffective, he pulled a heavy duty, huge serrated knife to finally cut through it. He put my serving on the plate, and then pulled out some powdered sugar, sprinkling it on top, and garnished it with a few raspberries before handing it to me.

"Like usual, it looks beautiful," I said, not lying in the least. Petro had a good eye for presentation with his food!

He stared at me while I stuck my fork into the rock-hard dessert, trying to pry a piece free. He had such a hopeful, optimistic look on his face, that it made it impossible to kill his enthusiasm. Even covered with black soot, he was still damn adorable! His beautiful blonde locks, just starting to get long again after he shaved it all off in the military, fell around a classically handsome face, with plump, red, kissable lips! His smooth upper body could be seen through his thin white tank. He had always been skinny in his youth, though his body was sinewy with muscle from all the sports he played in high school, but the military had given him tight, ripped muscles, not too bulky, but cut and clean! His sparkling eyes, icy blue, were wide with anticipated excitement as he looked at me.

Just the smell of the bite as I put it close to my face was almost enough to make me gag, as traumatic memories of all the burnt desserts I had been forced to try came rushing back! His non-baked desserts were more palatable, sure, but even those had been horrendously awful in their own way. The poor guy just had no palate for sweets!

Under his watchful gaze, I could not delay the inevitable any longer, so I forced myself to put the soufflé morsel into my mouth. Burnt carbon filled my senses, with just the tiniest bit of chocolate flavor and much, much too much salt in the background. I concentrated on not gagging, but more importantly, to keep my absolute distress to myself as I started to chew!

The soufflé, if it really could be called that, was so hard and thick and chewy that it felt like it would take an eternity to gnaw through it all. Once I had chewed it down to bits just small enough to swallow, I forced it down, trying not to choke on it as it went!

"Well?" Petro asked, smiling, sure that I would be delivering good news.

"Well, it's an improvement over the last one," I said honestly. The last dessert had been so acidic, it gave me minor chemical burns on my gums. I hadn't been able to brush my teeth for days.

"Ugh." His happy look faded into disappointment. "I guess I'll just give it the rest to Pavlov again."

He set the rest of the dessert down in front of the dog, who sniffed it a few times, then wisely avoided it. Even she had enough sense to know that was NOT food!

"Why don't you just buy a cookbook and use recipes like a normal person?" I begged him.

"Because true chefs never steal other chefs' recipes, they make up their own."

"Well, everything you cook besides desserts turns out incredible," I said. His dinners and hors d'oeuvres were truly stupendous!

"That would be fine if we were in Moscow, where the nice restaurants all have their own pastry or dessert chefs. But this is little Anzhero-Sudzhensk. Chefs here are expected to handle every part of the meal, and it's just this one last piece that isn't working for me. And it's the one thing I need to master before I can start the career I always dreamed about, and I can finally stop working in my parent's farm."

I reached over and put my arm on his shoulder. "Don't worry, you'll get it eventually. I know it. You always do."

"Yeah, you're right. I just need to keep at it." He pushed the disappointment away and looked at me with fresh eyes. "So, what brings you over here so late, Vadim? Why do you have your stuff?" he pointed to my backpack.

"Look, I had a weird dream, a dream unlike one I've ever had, one about the death of someone else at the hands of, well, vampires! And now it's got me shaken."

Petro shook his head. "This has to do with all the crazy stories your grandparents used to tell us when we were kids, doesn't it? About you being some destined hero?"

"Yes, it does," I said.

"I thought you had stopped believing those myths when you were in high school?" he asked me.

"Well, I thought so, but this dream, it's really gotten to me."

"It's just a nightmare, Vadim. We all have them."

"But about vampires?!"

"Of course you would dream about vampires when your grandparents were always scaring you as a little boy with those stories. It doesn't mean all the sudden all of it is real. That's ridiculous."

"I know it's probably nothing, but just in case, I decided I have to go see my grandparents. Tonight."

He looked very disapproving. "So, you're going to go backpacking to your grandparents' cabin, and you're leaving tonight? So late, all alone?"

"Not all alone!" I said. "I've got Pavlov, and Madina and Olik are going too."

"Oh, those two are great company," he said sarcastically. "Well, if you insist on going, at least take the horses, you'll get there faster."

"Thanks, Petro! That means so much."

As I looked at him smiling back at me, I suddenly had this odd worry that if my grandparents had been right, who would know how long it would be before I would see him again? It felt truly awful having to leave him. There were so many unanswered questions and feelings I had for him!

We had met in grade school, and became fast best friends. Soon, we were doing everything together, sleeping over at each other's houses whenever possible, and that bond only deepened as we became teenagers. We had become as close as brothers, and at least for me, something more than just brotherly love developed, though I never admitted my feelings all through high school.

The end of high school brought with it a tragic end to our closeness, one which we both were dreading during most of our senior year. I was heading to University, and he had joined the military, two completely different paths in life!

After graduation, on the day that he was leaving, I said my final goodbyes to him in his bedroom as his parents warmed up the truck they were driving him in. I had been an absolute mess for weeks, but this day had been almost unbearably hard! He stood there in front of me, his eyes locked on mine, and he started to tell me how much I meant to him, how there was no one else he would miss like me, how he was so sad to leave me.

I had managed to hold back my emotions all day, but upon hearing those words, my defenses broke. No matter how much I willed my tears not come, they did anyway, and I started to cry! Petro, saddened and moved by the tears, wanted to comfort me like he did so many times before during my dad's death. He reached in and hugged me, telling me once again that everything would be fine, though at that point I didn't believe him!

He had hugged me like that so many times before, but this time something different happened, something I will never, ever forget.

Still holding me, he pulled his head back and looked me deep in the eyes, so deep that he penetrated all my defenses and seemed to see through to my bare soul.

Then, incredibly, he shut those blue eyes, moved his head forward, and kissed me on the mouth!

My sadness turned instantly to shocked excitement as soon as his magical lips touched mine, though I knew it must have only been a quick, friendly peck.

Though when his lips lingered on mine, the romantic in me started to burst through! Yet still, I was afraid to reciprocate, sure that he would respond in disgust.

Then, he opened his mouth slightly, and I felt his tongue tip stick tentatively past his lips, landing onto my own, sending sexual excitement and absolute love-struck passion through me in equal measures as I realized, this was no brotherly kiss! No, this was a romantic kiss, and I was free to finally let loose with all my pent up feelings for this boy!

But just when I started to kiss him back, the truck's horn blared, and his dad yelled that they were waiting, and he'd better hurry himself.

Petro pulled away, leaving me absolutely dazed, completely senseless. "I'm, I'm sorry," he said, and I wasn't sure if he was apologizing for kissing me or because he had to end the kiss.

He ran out of the room, leaving me all alone. The truck drove off with him in it, and all my dreams went with him!

It took me at least half a year to shake off the depression our separation caused us, though he e- mailed me frequently at school and he called occasionally. While that kiss in his bedroom seemed to change my life, he never brought it up after that, or ever mentioned again anything that would lead me to believe he wanted me to be anything more than friends.

When I e-mailed him freshman year that I wanted to know that I was gay, he responded that he already knew, that my dad had told him I was gay before he died, and that he was always fine with that. He never mentioned anything about him being gay or even bisexual, which left me absolutely determined to know which way he leaned. When I started to tell him of the guys I was dating at school, he always congratulated me or gave me advice, though he never once mentioned any girl or guy he was seeing. It was completely confounding!

When we both found ourselves back in our hometowns more recently, we resumed our close, brotherly friendship, though nothing more ever happened. Even though the women considered him one of the most eligible bachelors in the city, I never saw him go on any dates with any of them. In recent months, my old feelings for him had started to resurface, which I considered to be dangerous! Ever since he came back into my life, I hadn't wanted to date any new guys, being too hung up on Petro.

So hung up that now, standing here before him, having to leave him for an indefinite amount of time, it was making me feel similar kinds of feelings to that day he left for the military.

I put my hand on his shoulder and looked him straight in the eyes. "I know this whole dream thing is probably a joke. But just in case all of my grandparents' imaginative stories turn out to be fact, just in case something happens to me and I never see you again, I'd never forgive myself for not doing this one more time before I left."

"Doing what?"

"This!"

I reached my face in suddenly, closed my eyes, and kissed him right on his lips, just like he had done to me all those years ago!

He didn't pull back from shock; in fact, he opened his mouth, just slightly! I used that sign to gather my courage, and let my tongue graze over his beautiful lips, feeling so lost and deliriously in love with him all over again!

It was absolutely perfect, until he finally pulled away from me. I opened my eyes, and instead of love and passion, there was confusion and ambiguity on his face.

"I'm, I'm sorry," he said one more time, his face turning red. He turned away from me and left the room, leaving me alone in his kitchen, feeling absolutely wrecked! I had just gambled everything on a stupidly rash move, and had probably just lost the greatest friend I had ever had!

Well, there was nothing to be done about it now except leave in shame. I grabbed my backpack and took Pavlov out of the door, back into the black night.

Damn, the horses, I had almost forgotten.

I walked over to the stables, where I knew those four horses would be. It would be easiest for us if we took all four, one for each rider and one for our gear. Pavlov was well used to keeping up with the horses on her own, she would be fine.

Petro's little sister Tanja was tending the horses when I entered the stable.

"Hi Tanja," I said.

"Hi yourself," she said rudely. She was going through her rough teenage years, unfortunately for all of us who were forced to spend time around her!

"I'm just going to borrow the horses for a few days," I said.

She looked upset. "No you are not. I absolutely won't permit that. I ride them every day."

"Petro said I could take them."

"I don't believe you," she challenged.

"Ask him yourself!" I said to her.

"You bring him here and have him tell me, or else you're taking the horses over my dead body."

While the over her dead body option didn't sound so bad, the idea of fetching Petro was stomach turning. I was much too shamed to face him again, especially so soon!

"Fine, keep your horses," I told her, and left the stable.

I walked off the property, having failed my every reason for going. Ah well, I tried to focus on the fascinating adventure ahead. My father always told me not to dwell on the sad stuff, after all.

"Where are our noble steeds?" Madina asked as I caught up with her and Olik on the forest border.

"No horses," I said quickly, not wanting to relive my recent heartache in any way, shape or form.

"Hmmph. Well, perhaps we should leave Olik behind?" she asked.

"No, you absolutely will not," Olik said defiantly. He had a very large pack on his back, and it was some wonder he was able to carry such a load at all. I couldn't imagine why he had thought it necessary to pack so much.

"We'll let him come," I said as I pulled my lantern out. "Let's set off."

Pavlov and I took point, striding into the forest and taking our first real steps in this adventure. I had been through this terrain countless times before, but somehow, this night felt completely different. So utterly full of new possibilities! Though dark, the trees were beautiful when lit by my lantern and the forest green and lush. All around us, nocturnal animals made their songs, from night dwelling birds, to chirpy frogs and insects. It was all pleasantly surreal!

My reveries were interrupted not long into the hike by arguing behind me.

"What on earth are you holding?" Madina asked, her voice as unpleased as ever.

"Just my favorite crossbow," said Olik innocently, as if he had told her it was something as innocuous as his favorite kitten.

"Please tell me it's not loaded," she said.

"It's loaded, cocked, and ready to fire into the hearts of the enemy!" he shouted.

"Olik, you are WAY too drunk to be holding such a dangerous contraption. I wouldn't even trust you with it if you were as sober as a nun. Look at you, lurching around like Frankenstein. You cannot pretend it's safe for you to have a weapon like that."

"Hush, woman, and leave me be."

"If you're not going to put that away, you should be leading the party, not bringing up the rear where any rock that you stumble over could result in one of us with an arrow in our backs!"

"I would never, ever lose control." His voice was interrupted by a whiff sound behind me.

"What was that?!" Madina snapped.

"Okay, maybe I'll put this one away for now." Olik stuffed his crossbow back into his pack and pulled a sword out instead. I was starting to understand why his pack was so large. "Better, woman?"

"Marginally," she said. "Only because with that weapon, you are only likely to maim yourself. Just keep a safe distance from me, thank you."

I had my map and compass out as I led them forward. Now, normally the direct path to my grandparents involved climbing and descending a large hill in the middle of the journey. I had just purchased a detailed topographical map of the area, and was using that to come up with a new route that seemed longer as a crow flies, but really would be much faster as it bypassed the large hill. It was a lot of fun to try out a new course, to see undiscovered sights!

Madina came towards me, an excited smile on her face. "I just found the Five Prophecies the town's one true seer, Prophet Valery, made about the final Great Hero. Let me read them to you." She was looking at a bunch of handwritten papers. "The first prophecy is that the final Great Hero will know he is what he is by a vision of death. See? That's you, precisely."

"It does sound like me, I'll give you that much. What about the other four prophecies?"

She kept on reading. "You'll fall in love with a friend whose loyalty to you is unquestionable, but this friend will have to make a choice whether or not to return that love. If not returned, this could have bad consequences on your future."

"Does it really say that?"

"Yes!"

"What else?"

"It says that your own flesh will unwittingly betray you to the vampires."

"Well I don't like that one at all. What are the rest?"

"The fourth is that you will have a vampire mole among your followers who will betray you and cause you unspeakable pain. And the last one is that you are bound to the fate of the king of all vampires, his death is the only way to save humanity from these demons. It is fated that after growing very strong, you will either succeed in killing this king or die in the process."

"Just because one or two of those seem to have happened to me already, doesn't mean all of the bad ones are going to. I believe, now that I know these prophecies, I can avoid them."

"You cannot avoid fate, my child. I'm going to tell you a story about Marta.." Madina suddenly adopted the countenance of an expert ghost story teller, every word totally dramatic. "She found the Prophet Valery in Moscow when she was just a teenager looking for entertainment at a fortune-teller's booth. He gave her three very specific prophecies about her future, the last of which was that she would die on June 21st when she was just twenty two. She begged him to take it back, but he said he cannot take back fate, that it would happen. She laughed and said the only way she was going to die on that day was if he or one of his friends killed her. He told her that he would not kill her himself, she would die on her own."

"What happened to her?"

"She went back to her life just taking all of it as utter nonsense. But when the first two of her prophecies happened PRECISELY as Valery had said, she accepted the truth in her heart. She went through great depression knowing that she was fated to die so young. She sought out Valery but he had already moved back to Anzhero-Sudzhensk, so she followed him there. When she arrived, she demanded that she change the prophecy to let her survive, but he told her that he cannot change fate, and neither can she. She should just accept the truth."

"Did she?"

"Yes! She finally accepted she was going to die young. She stayed in Anzhero-Sudzhensk, working, sold all of her fortunes, and lived as extravagantly as she could, burring through all of her assets. When finally the June 21st of her twenty-second year came, she was ready to die. She wasn't sure how death would find her, but she welcomed it. But when midnight came and went and she was still alive, she went mad with anger. She picked up a pistol and went and sought out Prophet Valery. She threatened to kill him, demanding to know why she was still alive."

Madina had gotten me enrapt in her story. "What did he say?" I asked nervously.

"He said, maybe it was because he had gotten the prophecy wrong, and if so, he was sorry. She implored him that this was unacceptable, that she had given up everything because she knew she would die that day. That she had nothing left to live for. She realized that instead of killing the prophet, she had only one choice. She turned the gun on herself and pulled the trigger, ending her life. And do you know what the prophet told her?"

"What? Tell me!"

"He told her, or maybe he had the prophecy right the whole time. And when he foretold it, they were both in Moscow, which meant it was still June 21st in Moscow time. He told her there is no outrunning one's fate. Not ever. You remember that lesson." Her face, by then gone ashen, pulled back behind me and left me to my thoughts as we continued.

After a couple hours, the initial excitement of the adventure became increasingly wearisome. The forest, once inviting, was seemingly getting more dark and gloomy the further we went into it. The land was becoming less verdant and more dry and brown, as if we were walking into autumn. Perhaps it was only that my lantern was dimming. But oddly, I stopped hearing the comforting forest sounds as well, and we started to be surrounded by an eerie silence.

It had gotten beyond late, and all of us were looking forward to getting some rest that night. I started looking for a good place to set up camp, somewhere where the trees were less dense so we could start a fire, and where the ground was free of rocks and fit for us to sleep on.

Before I found anything worthwhile, Pavlov started to bark. My first thought was that she must have spotted something in the forest. It wasn't unusual that she would see a bird or a small rodent running around out there, and she would get excited and make a chase. I didn't want her killing any poor animal, or worse, get into a confrontation with something that might hurt her. So, I'd always call her firmly back to my side. She was able to dampen her chase instinct in that case in order to obey.

When I first heard her bark, I stopped walking, tensed up, turned to face her, expecting to need to reel her back in from whatever conquest she was after. But this time, she hadn't left my side. She didn't even seem focused on anything specific out in the forest. She just looked alert, her ears up, peering into the darkness in front of us. The trees out there seemed grotesquely shaped, gnarled and dark and dead-like.

"What's wrong, Pavlov?" I asked her, weirded out!

I figured it was nothing, and kept moving forward. She kept to my side, walking normally even though she seemed at a heightened state of alert.

Then, she barked again, just a single, unsettling bark.

I stopped again and looked around, but there was nothing to see. Even Pavlov didn't seem to be focused on anything in particular. Just those haunting, black trees! So, I kept on moving.

She started to bark more as we walked, almost uncertainly.

"That dog of yours sure has a loud mouth!" said Olik from behind us.

"She doesn't usually bark like that," I said. "I wonder if she senses something."

"Dogs get scared of the littlest things," Madina said. "Cats have a much better sense for actual danger." Madina had never really been a dog person.

Pavlov seemed only to get more riled up the further into the dead-looking trees we embarked. She even walked in front of me, and then stopped herself, forcing me to a halt and almost tripping me!

"Pavlov, come!" I said to her. "You know, she's been acting weird all night. Almost bit me this evening like she didn't even recognize me."

"Maybe she's sensed you've changed somehow," Madina offered. "It could be a sign. If so, it would explain her odd anxiety tonight."

"Maybe so," I said, though I got the odd feeling that there was something more here than that.

I kept moving us forward, and Pavlov obeyed and stayed at my heel, though she continued to bark anxiously as she peered through the dark branches that surrounded us everywhere now!

Ahead, I could see just what I had been looking for, the perfect place to camp for the night. A small clearing in the woods, with soft, leaf covered ground underneath.

"Here's where we'll stop," I told them, and Medina and Olik moved forward into the clearing, taking off their packs.

I looked behind me and to my surprise, Pavlov was about ten feet back. She hadn't come forward towards the clearing, and instead had her paws planted firmly into the ground as she growled. At first, I thought she was growling at me again. Astounded, I walked up to her. "Pavlov, it's me, girl!"

But I realized she wasn't growling at me, she was growling at something passed me. She was growling at that clearing ahead!

I looked back at the clearing. Everything seemed fine.

"Nothing to worry about, girl," I said to her.

But she kept on growling. I stood beside her, grabbed her collar, and pulled her forward. She dug her paws into the dirt, not wanting to go, but she finally did.

She was still growling when I pulled her into the clearing. "Pavlov, calm down, girl."

"You keep that mutt away from me!" Olik said. "I never had my rabies shot."

"Humans don't get rabies vaccinations Olik, those are for pets," Madina said. "If a human gets rabies, then they have to take a series of extremely painful shots."

"That's an even better reason to keep her away!"

"She is not rabid!" I said. "She's just a little on edge. She'll be fine."

"Hmm, this is odd," Madina said. I looked towards her, and she was standing right next to a nice, state of the art tent, already assembled. "Someone's been camping here," she said. "There's a fire pit right here too." She opened the tent. "Nothing inside."

"Why would someone leave such a nice tent like that?" I asked, having a bad feeling about this place now!

"They obviously just forgot it," Olik said, inspecting the tent himself. "This thing has been out here for a couple months at least. If the campers' haven't come back to reclaim it by now, I'm going to make use of it." He started to put his things inside the tent.

"You can have the tent," I said, not getting a good feeling about it. "I want to camp outside."

In no time, we had the fire going and our sleeping bags out. I turned off my lantern, letting the firelight illuminate the clearing for us. Its flames were soft and pretty, but on the skeletal trees around us, the firelight danced around, creating shadows of branches that seemed to move around in the darkness! It was all creepily bizarre, and Pavlov kept her eyes glued to those trees at all times.

Just as I shut my eyes for the first time, Pavlov barked again. I ignored her, hoping she would stop.

Then, another bark. Then another.

"Please tell me you brought a muzzle in that bag of yours," Olik said. "I'm already starting to feel hungover, and she's giving me a headache."

"Pavlov, quiet girl!"

She stopped barking, but got up and started to actually circle the three of us in our little camp.

"Oh, that's seriously worse than the barking. She's circling us like a vulture! I swear if she bites me, I'm going to grab my crossbow!"

"Olik, just shut it!" Madina snapped.

"Pavlov, come here!" I said, and she listened to me, coming to my side, though she looked highly frustrated.

We all shut our eyes again. But then, she started snarling. I opened my eyes. This time, she seemed to be growling at one of the creepy, skeletal trees! My spine started to chill and my hairs stood on end. Something about this place just felt... well... evil.

"That's it," Olik said, getting up and out of his tent. "I can't sleep through that, plus I need to take a leak."

He pulled his sheathed sword out of his pack and tied it to his side. Then he grabbed his crossbow and held it in his hand.

"You're taking your weapons?" Madina asked. "To urinate?"

"I don't want that crazy dog attacking me while I let my guard down!"

"You should take a lantern!" Madina snapped.

"How far do you think I need to journey to take a leak, woman?" he asked. "I'll be fine without one."

So, he trudged off into the gloomy woods, exactly where Pavlov seemed to be growling towards, and he disappeared. My heart quickened; somehow I felt like he was unknowingly stepping into the entrance to hell! I could hear him pushing branches around as he went until Pavlov's snarls drowned out the noise he was making.

After a few moments, Madina shut her eyes again and went back to sleep, in spite of the Pavlov's barks.

I tried to shut my eyes as well, but it was no use. After a few minutes of Pavlov getting increasingly irritated, I sat up, looking out into trees that she was so scared of. Something seemed seriously wrong here. Pavlov just wouldn't behave like this without good reason, I knew it! My gut told me that there was something terribly evil out there, I just didn't know what.

"Madina," I said. Madina!"

"Hmm... what is it?" asked the woman, finally rousing from her sleep.

"It's been a long time and he hasn't come back yet," I said.

She sat up and looked into the trees, her eyes sleepy. "Olik, are you still out there?!" she yelled with a voice that was surprisingly loud for a librarian.

We listened, staring into the dark abyss of the trees. Nothing but silence returned, as well as Pavlov whose growls had turned into odd whimpers.

"Olik, respond!" I yelled.

Again, nothing but cold, eerie silence. The woods had had a dark aura that was deeply terrifying! I could sense it almost as much as Pavlov now. It was knotting my stomach!

"We should probably go retrieve him, I suppose," Madina said with a huff, rousing herself from her sleeping bag. "Knowing him, he's probably passed out from the drunkenness somewhere. Hopefully he passed out after he was done doing his business, not during, Russia help us if we find him with his pants down."

The last thing I wanted to do was to go into those woods! "Hmm. He didn't seem so drunk as he was a couple of hours ago."

"Well, one way to find out. Let's go." She put her glasses and her shoes back on, and she lit up our lantern.

A cold fear of those woods had taken root deep in my heart! It was against my instinct to follow that woman into the trees, but it had to be done. I told myself, best case scenario, he is passed out and all of this fear is just irrational. Worst case scenario, something IS out there, and he needs our help. Either option required me going in the woods to look for him.

I sighed, and then had an idea. "I bet he has some other weapon stowed away in his pack. That's why it's so much bigger than ours, right? Because he brought all his toys?"

I walked over to his bag on the ground and started looking through it, while Madina seemed a bit miffed that I was even bothering to do so. She did extinguish our fire while I searched

But after rifling through it: "Damn! It's filled to the brim with junk food and alcohol! No other weapon at all!"

"Come on, let's get this over with so we can get back to sleep," she said, motioning towards the trees.

Pavlov clearly did not like the idea of going that direction into the dead still forest. "Come girl," I said, and only then would she move to my side. The three of us started to walk into the eerie trees, my lantern illuminating the space around us as we went.

As we walked, Pavlov only got more and more agitated, growling again into the dark at what was seemingly nothing. We walked a long ways, calling out to Olik every few steps. After a while, I realized I was twisted around, not sure which way led back to our camp! I started to panic, feeling like we would never find our way back, but tried to keep a brave face for Madina's sake.

Then, instead of Pavlov having to be dragged forward, she suddenly sniffed the air in front of us. She moved forward and to the left, seeming to have some kind of scent, so Madina and I followed her.

Pavlov led us to a large, dead tree. At first when the light of my lantern lit up the area, I thought I saw Olik ahead. Then I realized all I had seen was Olik's red shirt, hanging from a branch in the tree! Pavlov immediately began to sniff it, very concerned.

"That's odd," Madina said, picking up the shirt in her hands. "It's completely shredded."

I had a horrible, sickening feeling about Olik, and looking at her face, I thought Madina had come to similar conclusions. "Is there any blood?" I asked.

"Let me look." She started to look over the garment.

I thought I smelled an odd odor. A musty smell. "Do you smell that?" I asked her.

She sniffed the air. "Yes. It smells like the dirtiest locker room of all time. And surprisingly, it's not coming from Olik's shirt."

Then Pavlov resumed her snarling all of the sudden, and she spun around and around, trying to look at all those trees out there at once, it seemed! Somewhere out there, I thought I heard a tree branch break.

"Did you hear that?" I asked.

"All I can hear is the dog," Madina said.

"Pavlov, quiet!" I ordered, and the dog reluctantly zipped it. This allowed us to really listen for the first time. Now, I had noticed when we were coming into this creepy region of the woods that there were absolutely none of the regular forest noises here. That made it easier to listen attentively.

Another tree branch broke! This time, Madina had heard it too. "Olik, is that you?"

No response came from the darkness.

I heard a thud, like a heavy footstep, in the trees. "Olik?"

No response. Every hair on my body was standing tall, my heart racing! I wanted us to just run, but I wasn't sure which direction the danger was coming from.

Then, a loud huff came from the trees, like the sound of someone or something exhaling quickly.

Madina grabbed my arm, as scared as I was then. "What is out there?"

Somewhere in the trees, there was the snap of a branch breaking!

"Where is it coming from?" Madina whispered to me.

I raised my lantern and we spun around. Our eyes searched and searched all around us, but all we saw were dozens and dozens of dark trees. I started to wonder if the trees themselves were out to get us! They seemed to be moving in for the kill, but that must have been my imagination, my fear running away with itself!

More heavy thuds. They sounded like elephant footsteps! I realized I could actually feel the footsteps, not just hear them.

Madina clutched my hand hard. "Do you hear the breathing?"

I listened hard, and I could hear heavy breathing, not at all human, but animalistic. I nodded.

"It sounds like it's coming from right next to us—AHH!!" her sentence was interrupted by a scream as she seemed to trip and fall to the ground suddenly!

Shocked, I tried to help her to her feet, but looking down at her, her feet were being pulled out of my view, into the trees, and her body soon followed!

Her shrill scream was piercing as she was being dragged feet first into the dark forest. "Let go of me!"

No, no, no, I would not let them take her! I started to run after Madina's disappearing body, Pavlov at my side. I could see something large holding onto her left foot, using that handhold to drag her along the ground. She was struggling to get loose!

"Help me!" she yelled to me.

Diving to the ground, I grabbed her hands, holding onto her. Whatever was dragging her didn't even falter for a moment! It just kept right on dragging, pulling me along with them!

"Let go, you're going to rip me in half," she said to me, and I did as she asked. I started to cry as I saw her being dragged through the trees, fading into the darkness, and I knew I had lost her!

Looking through the branches ahead, I jumped when I saw a figure running in from the dark, right for me.

And then sweet relief when my lantern lit up Madina's anxious face and dirty body! "How?" I asked simply.

"I had the brilliant idea finally of untying my shoe," she said, and I noticed she was missing one of her hiking boots. "Come on, let's run!"

Even shoeless, she was running with a speed I never knew she possessed, running through those trees with Pavlov and I at her tail, not knowing where we were going, but just trying to get away!

The first thing that went through my mind was: my grandparents were right! Here was the first evidence that there WERE supernatural, evil forces in the world!

"Was that a vampire?" I asked, hoping she had seen more of the thing than I had.

"No, I saw it, but it doesn't fit the vampire description at all," Madina said. "I have no idea what it is. It was impossibly large, some sort of animalistic monster or demon. And it had the most devious horns, like the devil himself. Must be something new. Vampires we could protect ourselves from. But this creature, Vadim, I saw its face. So much more evil than a vampire. So much hungrier. These things are made for one thing only. For killing. Vadim, it must be stopped, or else every living person in this region could be in danger."

Behind us, somewhere in the distance, we heard a blood curdling roar, such a loud noise that not even a grizzly bear could hope to match it!

"It's after us!" Madina said, true fear in her voice. "I'm not letting that thing get close to me again! Fast, fast now!"

She ran at full speed, weaving through the trees at a dizzying pace, and I somehow kept up. My adrenaline was on fire!

Behind us in the distance, I could hear branches breaking! Huge thuds accompanied by rumbles on the ground signaled the thing's approaching footsteps, and the footsteps were moving fast too, directly towards us.

"Your lantern!" she said, and at first I thought she was asking me to light the trees ahead of us better, so I moved it up. "No, turn it off! That thing can see us!"

I flipped off the lantern, leaving us in darkness that my eyes had to adjust to. Moving as fast as we were, I actually ran into a tree that I had not seen until too late! Madina stopped and helped me. Already my vision was adjusting.

Very close behind, we heard huge, heavy breaths and snorts as the thing made its way right for us!

She shook her head. "We can't outrun it, it's hopeless." She looked around. "Trees. It looks much too stout to climb trees," Madina said. "Can you climb, Vadim?"

I picked out the most climbable looking tree nearby, with plenty of low branches. I was a good climber, but the hard part was carrying Pavlov into the tree with me! With both of us high in the tree, there wasn't much room for Medina to get in, so I was trying to climb onto an outer branch, making room for her.

We heard another roar of the approaching monster!

"I'll find another tree," Madina said not wanting to wait, running off into the woods, and I instantly felt guilty!

I could hear telltale signs that the beast was coming up fast; heavy thudded footsteps plus branches and shrubs being thrown around. Pavlov was starting to growl in my arms. I held her muzzle shut, trying to let her know that we were hiding. Then suddenly, right beneath me, tree branches were pushed aside, and I saw a monstrous figure come through, chilling my spine instantly!

Now, it was very dark, and I still had not adjusted to the darkness totally, making it hard to see any details. I could clearly see the creature outlined in the moonlight, massive in size, large as an elephant, but shaped more like a bear. Its body was covered with grey fur, but the fur was very short, like that of a horse or a bovine. Actually, it looked much more bovine than horse, as if this was the lovechild between Satan and the fiercest bull that ever lived!

At least for the moment, it stood on two very powerful legs on a pair of hooved feet. Its upper body was just as broad with muscle. It had two very powerful arms, with hands that looked like hooves when their fist was closed, but with fingers that could open into claws. Mostly though, it was its head that I couldn't turn my eyes from! It had two very animalistic floppy ears sticking out of the side of its bull- shaped head. Its horrifying horns, very demonic and deathly sharp, were above the ears. Its angry, squinted eyes glowed in the moonlight. And its mouth, a broad, stout muzzle was open, almost in a smile, huge sharp teeth many inches in length fully displayed! My god, one look at those glistening teeth and it was like looking into the face of a great white: you knew that this thing was made for ripping flesh to shreds!

This grey creature from the night appeared through the trees and was moving fast on two legs, pushing obstacles out of its way as it went. I was absolutely terrified when it approached our tree! I was worried Pavlov would make a sound, but she stayed perfectly still. It moved right under us, then, thank god, headed past our tree. I noticed that from behind, I could see a thin, bull-like (or was it Satanic?) tail.

Then, when it got about ten feet past our position, it stopped suddenly and started to sniff the air. My heart sank when it turned around, facing the tree we were in! I wondered if it had smelled me or Pavlov. Probably both.

It took a couple strides towards our tree, sniffing the area. I froze, staying still, not letting myself breathe. It didn't matter, the beast-thing sniffed up the tree until it saw us.

It let out a huge, sickening roar, so loud I had to cover my ears! Now we would see if Madina's hunch was correct. Our lives depended on it being so.

The beast looked at the tree trunk and pawed the thing. I thought for sure it would just climb right up like a bear would. But then it roared again, frustrated. No, it could not climb up after us.

Snarling angry, the creature stood directly beneath us and leapt upwards, swatting with its front claws. Whoa, it had jumped way higher than I thought it would, and ended up scratching my pants leg, but not grabbing hold of me! I carefully climbed up with Pavlov to the next highest branch, which would be totally out of reach.

The thing roared again, louder and fiercer than any previous sound it had made!

"Serves you right, you stupid animal," I said to it.

Frustrated, the beast paced around the tree for a couple minutes, and then roared again. I wondered how long it would do that before getting bored and leaving us alone.

I heard a branch break out in the woods from the direction Madina had gone, and I turned to look, afraid that Madina had come down from her hiding place too soon!

Bushes were pushed apart, and a figure came into view, though it certainly was not Madina. It was another one of those beasts, though the second one looked almost an entirely different breed, more doglike in appearance, without the horns, but covered with fur. It was by no means small, yet significantly smaller than the horned creature. It was dark, but I thought this beast's teeth, muzzle, and chest fur were covered in red. Madina!

The first one continued to wail while the second one joined it under the tree. In a few seconds, I heard more footsteps approaching, and two more creatures emerged from the dark shadowy trees, one of them more catlike, the other harder to place, and none as large as the first horned beast. My God, how many of these things were there?! The four of them clearly were in league, some sort of pack, as strange as it sounded given that they looked so dissimilar, and the large horned one seemed to give off the cocky swagger of an alpha animal that was leading the others. I took comfort in that none of these new beasts seemed to have any more chance at climbing the tree than the first one.

The beasts surrounded the tree, all of them snarling and growling at me. I saw them all lean against the trunk, wrapping their arms around it.

Then I felt the tree start to shake. I held on for dear life, not letting them shake me out. "I'm not going anywhere!" I yelled.

But the shaking stopped and turned more into leaning to my left. I heard branches breaking and roots being up heaved, and it sunk into my head that they were actually managing to push this tree over with their bare hands!

I barely had enough time for that fact to register before Pavlov and I were falling towards the ground! The treetop landed against hard earth, luckily most of the impact crushing the branches beneath me. When I hit the ground, thankfully it was not enough force to seriously hurt or kill me, but it did knock me cold for a bit.

I saw the other three creatures disperse again while the first beast approached me on the ground, standing over me. Looking up at such a creature was much worse than looking down, and my heart froze with terror. I knew I was done for!

Pavlov leapt to my rescue, attacking the demon with her teeth bared! The creature knocked Pavlov away like a giant swatting a fly, causing the poor dog to fly through the air, landing with a thud. Then, it used one of its massive back hooves to pin down both of my ankles. Try as I might, I could not even budge my legs under the weight of this thing. Making matters worse, the beast used its other hind leg to pin down my right hand, until that arm too was helpless.

Looking up at him, from beneath, I could clearly see the thing was male. Actually, that had been true of the other beasts as well. He bent over, moving his massive head towards my body on the ground, those evil eyes looking me over, studying me. His bull-like mouth was shut, but he pressed his nose to my neck, wetting me with his huge nostrils.

He inhaled deeply, shutting his eyes. After his first sniff, he moved his nose up to my face and started to sniff me there. He lowered his nose, sniffing my shirt, my armpit. Meanwhile, I didn't need to stick my nose in his armpit to know what this thing did not small pleasant. He totally reeked of body odor. I punched the thing in the face with my left fist. He merely grunted, totally unfazed, and then reached down with his massive right front paw/hoof to punch me hard in the face!

I almost blackened out, but I forced myself to stay conscious, feeling blood pouring out of my nose. My free hand automatically went to my face.

He continued where he left off, sniffing my clothes. He seemed to like what he smelled as he kept inhaling deeper and deeper. I'm sure I smelled like something very tasty!

He opened his chops then for the first time, showing me all those sickeningly threatening teeth in that massive mouth of his! Leaning down, clearly he meant to rip my stomach out, and I had no way to stop him!

I braced myself and shut my eyes as his jaws clamped shut onto my belly. I felt his sharp teeth press into my skin! But then they pulled back unexpectedly. I opened my eyes to see his monster teeth ripping through my shirt, leaving me bare-chested but so far, unharmed, except for some minor cuts where his teeth had gotten too close.

Once he spit my ruined shirt out, he lowered his muzzle until it was right over my crotch, and then opened his jaw wide once more. I flinched again, expecting him to bite into me, and even feeling his sharp teeth painfully pressing into my crotch. But once again, the teeth were pulled back. I opened my eyes, and to my surprise he was ripping my pants clean off my body, spitting them out as well and leaving me just in my shoes! Separating the edible parts from the inedible, surely.

Only he didn't bite into me then either; in fact, he had his muzzle shut. Once again, he leaned down, put his cold nose against me (my chest this time) and sniffed hard, seemingly thankful that his smelling assaults were no longer impeded by my clothing. As he did this, he started to make an odd sort of beastly noise, almost a sound of pleasure!

He lowered his nose to my upper thighs and crotch area, still sniffing, and it became apparent that he was enjoying this. He opened his mouth, and slobber started to ooze off his huge teeth, way more slobber than had been there before. It landed all over my legs!

He repositioned the paw holding my two ankles to the ground, pushing them up and to the right, making it so my knees were tucked and pushed to the right. This pushed my butt into the air, and he lowered his muzzle there, sniffing at my flesh. I even felt his wet nose pressed against my asshole. He seemed transfixed by whatever scent he detected there, clearly enjoying himself, as I felt the drool falling from his open mouth cover my crack and asshole.

While he smelled me there, I got a good view of his maleness, dangling soft between his legs. It was shockingly big. Even when I took into consideration the huge size of the beast's body, it was still enormous, as large as any horse phallus I'd seen. If the females of these monsters were the same size, I could not wrap my head around how those two would manage to mate, not unless the female also possessed genitals that were equally huge. The monster's penis looked somewhere between a man's and an animal's in shape, color, and consistency of flesh. His dangling ballsack, which was proportional to his penis (meaning huge), was covered in short fur that matched his body.

I felt absolutely shocked as I felt his huge, canine tongue start to lick my asshole. What on earth was he doing? His initial mild licks turned more and more fervent as he seemed to taste something unexpected that thrilled him, warm saliva covering my crack.

Looking down his body, I felt new sort of sick anxiety as I came to realize that his penis, once benignly flaccid, had turned dangerously hard. Instead of hanging straight down to the ground as it was before, it was sticking straight up against his body, so long it touched the monster's taut chest muscles. Looking at its huge length and girth, seeing all the veins pop out of the steel-rod hard shaft, it scared me just as much as seeing the beast's killer teeth had!

I felt the very tip of the animal's tongue enter my asshole, and I anxiously clamped my sphincter shut. His tongue proved too strong, however, as it forced its way through the barrier until it was totally inside me. Just his tongue was larger than most men's penises, and it hurt to have it jammed inside me. If it hadn't been so thoroughly doused in slobber, I would have been in real trouble. As the tongue stopped licking around and actually began pumping me, I could feel the beast's evil sharp teeth press against the flesh of my butt, clearly wanting to bite in.

Meanwhile, this beast's hard phallus starting oozing the first liquid that came from the monster that wasn't slobber, though it was equally sticky and slimy. So much of it poured out, that I at first thought the beast's licking activities had somehow gotten the creature off, and it made me relieved. To my sad astonishment, however, I realized as the shaft continued to be hard that what I had witnessed had just been the creature's pre-ejaculate, clearly intended to prepare the monster for mating.

Finally, it came as a great relief when I the beast removed its tongue from my hurting behind and began to lick up the front of my body. His pink tongue lapped at my stomach, my chest, and then started lick around my neck.

But terror hit me all over again when I felt the giant head of the creature's enormous phallus press against my asshole, the penis's slimy slobber sticking between the urethra and my hole.

I shook my head violently. If this monster intended to rape me, it would split me apart with that phallus. There was no way I'd survive such an act. But the evil look on the creature's face told me that me surviving was never part of the plan. I felt his head push brazenly forward against my hole.

I remembered I still had a free hand, and I reached over and punched hard at the thing's huge hanging testicles, doing the only damage I could think of. He growled angrily in response, and at least it momentarily got him to pull his penis back away from me.

He grabbed my hand with his right front paw, making me unable to use it any longer. He held onto it, his colossal mitt completely encasing the thing. I clearly got a good look at this paw. His back paws were hooves. They were for moving, and could either support the beast either standing up on all fours, or standing in a bipedal mode. His front paws were unlike front bull hooves; instead, the hoof had been carved up into five fingers with an opposable thumb. That's how he could actually grab onto my hand, crushing it between his massive fingers! But when clenched into a fist, the hoof fingers came together to form a functional hoof, clearly for running on all fours. Even as I struggled, I knew there was no way I was going to free myself from the three paws which were making me immobile.

He opened his mouth pressing his sharp teeth right to my throat. This time, I knew it was to make the final kill. It was done playing with its food, and it was looking forward to a tasty meal!

Right then, a skinny figure rushed in, attacking the beast's face. I couldn't believe my eyes, Madina was coming to the rescue! Her body slaming the beast did absolutely nothing, but she then smartly shifted her strategy, using her long nails to claw both of his evil glowing bull eyes!

The tactic worked, if only for a moment. The beast roared and took a step back, shaking its head in pain, while I got to my feet and backed away. Madina turned to face me, turned to run away, but she should have never turned her back to the beast.!

"Madina, no!" I yelled, but it was too late. The creature's open, wet mouth was positioned right behind her, and I saw those huge jaws snap closed.

SNAP!

A deafeningly loud pop was heard, and at first I thought it was the sickening sound of Madina's bones cracking, but reason told me the sound was much too loud.

The beast hissed in absolute ear-splitting agony, probably the most retched sound I had ever heard in my life. It pulled its head back away from Madina, and retreated, shaking its head in pain!

I expected Madina to be dead, but she amazingly was intact! She reached her hands up to the undamaged skin on her neck, as stupefied as I was that the beast let go before it could finish her off.

A huge figure appeared between the trees, so large it could only have been another one of those monsters. Instead, I saw hooves on the ground, and realized I was looking at a rider on a horse. My eyes moved up to see my favorite person in the world, riding towards us!

"Petro, you came!"

His face looked urgent, clearly he had met the same creatures we did! In his hands was a smoking rifle, the clear source of the loud noise and the reason why that thing had been stopped short of killing Madina.

"Madina, are you okay?" I asked.

She was huffing, out of breath, half probably from shock, judging by the size of her eyes. "I think so, thanks to you, lad," she said to Petro.

"How did you know we were about to be attacked?" I asked him.

He shook his head. "I didn't. I just decided to join you, and showed up in the nick of time. I brought the horses."

He motioned behind us, and I realized that connected to his own horse was a rope that pulled along a second, unmanned horse. And behind that horse, two others were tied and being towed. He had noticed I hadn't taken the horses after all, so he brought them to us. He was such a sweetheart!

"How did you find us?" I asked him.

"Your fire," he said. "Anyone could have tracked you down that way."

Somewhere in the woods, we heard a fierce, guttural roar. Then, a second responding roar!

"We can catch up later," he said. "Right now, we have to ride like hell! All aboard!"

Madina jumped onto the horse behind Petro's with surprising agility. I looked around for Pavlov, finding her dazed but seemingly intact on the ground. I lifted her in my arms and ran over to the nearest horse, the last one in line. I had a hard time getting on. The horse was, not surprisingly, extremely agitated. The moment I approached it, it reared up and whinnied at me. "Calm down," I said, trying to be soothing.

"You'll do better with the other horse, an older female," Petro said.

I abandoned the last horse and tried the mare behind Madina's horse. She seemed just fine with me. I even scooped up Pavlov into my arms and rode with the dog in front of me. Though I can't say getting on the saddle naked was much fun, I was too scared to care.

"Anzhero-Sudzhensk is too dangerous to return to," Madina declared. "We're not far from Vadim's grandparents. Let's ride there as quickly as we can. They'll be able to keep us safe."

Petro led us forward into the woods in the direction of my grandparents' cabin. He took off fast, but it soon became apparent that moving at that pace was not an option; we were all roped together, and it was too challenging needling between trees to move very quickly at all!

I heard an evil snarl behind me, and turned around to look. One of the creatures was running on all fours, following us closely and catching up to us with every passing second!

"We need to go faster!" I yelled.

My comment came too late: the beast quickly caught up to the horse behind me, leaning its head in to make a vicious bite. Luckily, the horse kicked back, hitting the monster in the face dead on. Amazingly, the kick barely fazed beast, but it did knock the beast into a tree. The large tree stopped the creature cold.

"It won't be long before that one comes back," I said. "We need to go faster!"

"I can't go any faster without getting caught in the trees!" Petro said. "We'll have to untie the horses!"

While we continued to ride forward, I saw Petro in the front quickly untie the knot that held the rope to his horse. Once he did, he moved free of the rest of us.

Hearing another snarl, I looked back. One of those things was behind us again, a ways back through the trees, but gaining!

The leader of the caravan was then Madina; she too found the knot that tied our two horses together. She had a tough time undoing it, but she finally did, and her horse two sprang free!

Then I was steering my horse through the trees, picking up the pace, but still not able to go nearly as fast as Petro or Madina because I was still towing the fourth horse. Meanwhile, that monster was coming in fast!

Just when I managed to go the fastest I had ever gone, my horse suddenly stopped short, almost sending Pavlov and myself flying off. Terrified, I looked back, finding the problem. My horse and the empty horse had clotheslined a large tree with the rope that held them together, forcing us to come to a sudden stop!

Behind me, I could see the beast gaining on us fast! We didn't have time for this!

I tried to pull the other horse around to my side, but the stubborn animal kept pulling and pulling.

"Just let it go," Petro said. Both he and Madina had stopped their horses and were looking back at me anxiously.

"I can't let your horse go!" I said, thinking of the expense of the animal.

"It's not worth dying over, Vadim. Do it!"

I moved my hand towards the knot that held the last horse to us. Man, it was on really tight, this was not going to be easy!

Behind me, the fourth horse was bucking crazily, sensing the fast approaching beast.

"Hurry, boy!" Madina shouted.

"I'm trying!" I yelled back, just not able to get the knot free. Then I remembered I had a pocketknife in my pants! I pulled it out and started to saw through the thick rope.

I looked back, and all I could see was that demon's wide open mouth, full of dozens of pointy teeth and slobber, about to make its kill!

The knife finally cut through!

Suddenly freed, my horse took off automatically forward, while the empty horse ran off to the right! The beast stopped, seemingly uncertain as to which way to follow.

"Run home, Ivan!" Petro yelled at the empty, angry horse.

Ivan ran off towards the other beasts, and I feared for its life: clearly those things would consider it easy prey and kill it. Oddly, the beasts seemed to ignore it completely. Why they didn't seem interested in horses, I had no idea.

Almost immediately, the demon started chase again! Only this time, we ran so much faster, using our significant riding experience to quickly weave through trees, galloping as hard as we could. Looking back, even at a full on run, those beasts could not keep up with the horses, they were too slow. Yes, we had found their weakness!

I felt sick when I saw beasts seemingly appear out of nowhere, coming through the trees to the sides and moving it for the attack. Petro narrowly missed getting swiped by one of their paws. Even as we left more beasts behind in the dust, it didn't seem to matter, more would always appear. Either there were countless numbers of these creatures out there, or those beasts were finding a way to move faster than us somehow, which didn't seem to make sense.

One of the beasts appeared right out of the forest, clearly gunning for me! Just as the creature started to swipe at my horse's legs behind me, I made a sharp and sudden ninety degree turn to the left, holding onto Pavlov and managing to keep us both on the horse. The beast kept on running towards Madina and Petro, while I switched my course and ran off on my own.

Just when I was wondering how I would find them again, another demon-beast jumped right in front of me out of nowhere from the cover of trees! I tried to rear up and avoid it, but failed. We slammed head on into the beast, and suddenly I was flying through the air, Pavlov still in my arms!

I landed hard on the ground, totally shocked and stunned. I was in pain, and I figured I must have broken something! My chest hurt like mad.

I got to my feet. Pavlov was still beside me, and next to us, the beast was tangled up with our horse, clearly set on killing the poor thing. Another one of Petro's horses lost because of me.

There was a loud bang that made me jump. I turned my head to see Petro on horseback coming though the trees, his rifle again in hand!

He hit the demon beast square in the head again, but amazingly, the creature seemed to survive. Though, the blast clearly annoyed the thing; it backed off, shrieking evily!

Petro was just in time again, the horse luckily seemed undamaged. But, as soon as she was free of the beast, the horse ran off through the woods. Petro tried to call her back, but she was just gone.

"Damn!" Petro said.

Madina rode in with her horse as I gladly realized I was free of injury! The pain had just been the wind knocked out of me.

In the forest, we could already hear the beasts shouting to each other, signaling. Another attack was eminent.

"We'll never last on foot," Petro stated. "Quick, get on my horse."

"You mean, double up?" I asked him.

"Yeah," he said. "My horse is the biggest. Madina, you take the dog."

I handed Madina Pavlov. I couldn't tell which of them looked more uncomfortable. Pavlov clearly wanted to stay with me, and Madina clearly hated being forced to hold onto a dog.

I jumped up behind Petro on his horse. There really wasn't enough room for two, and me being naked against him would have normally caused some discomfort, but I guess in life or death situations you manage to make it work.

Petro urged his horse back into the trees, and took off at a fast pace.

We rode for a long time. For the first twenty minutes, we heard distant sounds of the beasts. Then for the last twenty, we heard nothing. Though we certainly didn't slow down!

Running so fast with such a load was taking its toll on our horse, unfortunately. Soon it was hot and foamy.

There was a rock in the road that the horse just didn't see. If we hadn't pushed the animal so hard, it would have been fine. But in its condition, the creature stumbled, and then stopped completely.

"Let's go, Nikolai," Petro urged, but the animal would not move.

Petro jumped off and inspected the horse. "An ankle sprain," he said. "He won't be able to carry anyone like that."

I got off the horse myself.

"What can we do?" I asked.

"Let him go, and hope the best for him," Petro said, and that's exactly what he did.

Medina, who had been ahead of us, came riding back. "Here, take my horse," she said, dismantling. "You two should leave me here and continue on to the cabin. Vadim's grandparents will know how to keep you safe from these creatures."

Petro shook his head. "That horse can't take two," he said. "Better you take it and go on your own, Vadim."

"No, absolutely not," I said. "You should take it and save yourself, Petro. You're not even supposed to be here!"

"There's no way in hell," he said. "You have to take it."

"He's right," Madina said. "You're the Great Hero, Vadim."

I grabbed the horse reins from Madina, and they both nodded, thinking I was following their demands. Instead, I let it go, and slapped it on the butt. "Go home! You're no use to us anymore. I've already lost one friend tonight. I'm not going to lose anymore!"

The horse ran off, joining the other injured horse in the trees.

"You should have done as we asked you to!" yelled Petro. "If anything ended up happening to you tonight, I will blame myself."

"I'm not going to die tonight, Petro. Because I am destined to grow in strength and then have a huge fight with king of the vampires. That means I'm the only one who is safe tonight."

"He's right, Petro. You and I aren't in the prophecies."

"But just because Vadim is the only one guaranteed to live tonight doesn't mean he isn't going to suffer some horrible assault from these things that will scar him for life."

"I saw a house not far ahead of us," Madina said. "Perhaps someone there can aid us."

"Or, we haven't seen the--ah—things for a long time," Petro offered. "Maybe we've outrun them. Your grandparents place isn't far now, not even by foot."

I heard the telltale sound of branches breaking and large paws hitting the ground with massive amounts of weight, and I forced myself to look behind us, a sour feeling in my stomach. Maybe thirty yards back, there was that same monster with the bullhorns, coming right for us!

"Ah, hell," Petro said. We all knew that we had no prayer of outrunning that thing on foot. We had barely been able to get away on horseback.

And worse, behind the first creature, there were at least seven more of those things.

"We have to run!" Madina said. "Go, now!"

I turned forwards, and we all started to run as fast as we could through the trees, though we knew how futile this was.

Then I realized I couldn't se Madina anymore, I could only see Petro and Pavlov. I looked around, then looked behind us.

There was Madina, running just as fast as we were, only back, towards the beasts!

"Madina, no!" I yelled back.

"Just keep running!" she yelled back, just as she reached the beasts.

"Come on!" Petro said, grabbing my arm and pulling me away.

We ran and we ran until I was so out of breath I thought I would faint. Then, I stopped to catch my breath, and Petro stopped too, looking back at me.

I wiped away tears from my eyes, suddenly so overcome with emotion that I found it hard to keep moving. "Oh my god, she's dead. Dead! Probably Olik as well. I just, I can't believe this." Images of growing up around those two people ran through my mind, married with flashes of their horrible deaths. Thoughts and feelings were coming so fast, I couldn't process them, I couldn't do anything!

"A lot of people go into shock when they experience something like that, and rightly they should," Petro said. "The human ego has no preparation for such trauma. But you can't let yourself fall apart now, Vadim. We can mourn their deaths later. Right now, all we need to do is survive. After all, they died so we could live."

I nodded my head, looking into his eyes. He obviously had some experience with turning it off from when he was in the military. Yes, I would do that too. I would shut those emotions out for now. We were going to survive this!

We kept running until we came to the house Madina had seen before. The small, two-story house, set up on a short hill, looked deeply foreboding from the outside. It was taller than it was wide, with a steeply gabbled roof that looked ready to cave in. The whole place seemed long decayed and rotted, parts of the walls chipped away. Other parts of the walls were charred black, as if the place had survived a fire at one point. All of it was covered with a large amount of grime. There was absolutely no way to tell what color the place might once have been painted. All that was left was dark grey, dark brown, and black. But it looked like someone had once built the place with care; a nice family home that had some terrible fate to make it what it had become.

The windows were boarded up, but in spots where those boards were missing, the glass beyond was broken and jagged. Even from this far way, there was a bad odor to the place. Everything around the house was dead and brown. Not even grass grew within ten feet of the property.

Pavlov was on edge again, only instead of facing the forest, this time she was looking straight at up that house on the hill as she growled. She clearly did not want to take another step towards it!

"I wonder if people live there," Petro asked.

"People don't live in houses like that, Petro," I said. "Ghosts do."

"Well, we can't just wait out here until those things kill us, can we? We need help."

Petro started up the hill towards the house, and I reluctantly followed. Once again, Pavlov did not want to move forward, so I had to grab her by the collar and pull her. "I'm just as afraid as you are, girl," I told her.

As we neared the house, my nose wrinkled even more from the odor. There were numerous overpowering bad smells coming from the house, but the only one I recognized was urine. It was sickeningly potent. "Either that urine is coming from one really territorial animal..."

"Or a whole lot of people? I know," he wrinkled his nose. "Maybe their septic tank is full."

But it didn't smell like sewage to me, just urine.

I followed Petro to the front door and watched him give a good knock.

"There are no lights on, Petro," I said.

"But if anyone's in there, they'd probably be sleeping at this time." He knocked again, harder. Somehow I wouldn't have been surprised if Satan himself had answered the door!

But nobody came.

"It's empty," he said. Then he moved his hand towards the blackened, dirty doorknob, and I actually held my breath, almost concerned that just grabbing a hold of the house could be lethal!

"Locked. Damn," he said. "Well, we'll just have to break in."

"Are you serious?"

"Vadim, we are being stalked my monsters. Breaking into someone's old house seems like a reasonable plan of action considering the situation."

I looked again at Pavlov, who was eyeing the entryway with severe mistrust. "But we don't even know who lives there," I said.

"Whoever it is, it can't be any worse than those man-eating beasts out here, can it? Plus, there's a line going into the house, see?" He pointed to a wire going from up in the trees and disappearing into the roof somewhere. "My cell doesn't get any reception here, but if there was a phone line in there, we'd be able to call for help."

That hope was enough to convince me. We found a first story window whose wooden boards were the most decayed. Working together, we were able to pry the boards off, leaving just the broken glass of a very old window left. Through the fragmented pane, the inside was impossible to see, beyond pitch black.

Petro kicked the glass in with his foot, and then jumped through feet first. I almost wanted to stop him; seeing his lower body disappear into the inky black nothingness of the house was highly disturbing to watch, but I knew I was being irrational. Then, his feet hit ground, and he stood up on the other side of the wall.

I reached down and grabbed Pavlov, handing her to Petro through the window. Boy, was she squirmy. Then I started to climb through myself. "Be careful you don't cut yourself on the glass," he warned wisely, considering my lack of clothing.

My heart raced as I climbed through the window and stepped into the house, feeling deep inside that this was the wrong course of action!

The first thing that hit me was the smell. The urine smell had subsided, apparently it was just the outside of the house that was affected. Inside, it smelled like rank BO, and something else just as bad, so bad that I had to breathe through my mouth!

Petro lit up his flashlight and shone his beam of light around the room. A rocking chair in front of us, an old, creepy settee.

"Hey, a switch!" Petro said, finding a switch on the wall across from us. He moved to walk across the room.

He flipped the switch, and a dirty lamp next to me turned on. It actually made me jump.

"Electricity!" Petro said. "Praise the lord!"

Once we had the lights on, we realized just how bizarre the room we were in was. Part of this room seemed like a living room populated with antique, old furniture. But around that more normal stuff, in every open spot on the floor, there were piles and piles of junk. Torn clothes, utensils, papers, dolls and other toys, filthy sleeping bags – it was a hoarders dream!

"Let's see if we can find a phone somewhere," Petro said, obviously intending for us to explore the house. He shone his flashlight into the next room, the large kitchen, and started to walk into it.

"If we're exploring this place, I'm not going to leave your side," I said, running to follow him, and pushing my shoulder against his.

We found the light switch for the kitchen and turned that one on too.

"My lord," Petro said. "Just as dirty as the living room."

It was filled with kitchen supplies and equipment that was at least a few decades old. But once again, random junk was piled into this room, filling up every floor and counter space.

"You know, there's no sign of food in here," he said. Or any sign that anyone had cooked anything here for decades.

"Seems like this place has long been abandoned," I said.

"If that's true, then why would the electricity be on?"

We looked, but didn't see any phones.

"Where did Pavlov go?" I asked, realizing she had run off when we were back in the living room.

"I'm sure she's fine," Petro said.

Moving on, we found a formal dining room that we didn't even at first realize contained a large table due to the amount of junk on it! We also found a wooden staircase going up.

The stairs were so creaky I was worried we would fall through, but they held as we went upstairs!

There, we found three bedrooms with antique beds, though the upstairs had considerably less clutter than the lower parts of the house. Infuriatingly, we found no sign of a phone or any phone jack anywhere. We went back downstairs feeling defeated.

"What now?" I asked him once we were back in the living room. "They obviously don't have a phone. Just like my grandparents' cabin." Boy, did I wish they were with us right then. They would know exactly what to do!

"We either go back out there and try to make a run for it," Petro said. That option didn't sound so great, since we already lost one of our group the last time we had tried to run. "Or we try to hide out here for a while until it's safer. It would help if we knew our enemy a bit better. Did your grandparents ever say anything about these things?"

I shook my head. "No. According to them, there were only two supernatural beings in the history of man. The vampires, and the Great Heroes, they called them the spellcasters."

"That's you, you mean," he said. "You're supposed to save the world."

"I thought you didn't believe in their prophecies!"

"It's becoming a lot easier to believe in them after tonight's events."

"Anyway, those monsters must be something totally new," I said.

"They seem to have some sort of connection to the forest," Petro said. "I wonder if they can't leave the trees."

"So far, I've seen no sign that they would be intelligent enough to track us here, but it's certainly possible that they might. What then?"

He walked over to the couch and started pushing it towards the front door. "We barricade every possible first story entrance. That includes windows."

"Let's do that," I said.

Both of us worked hard at quickly getting the main door blocked off, as well as the kitchen door, then we blocked off the window we had broken through. All the while, Petro was holding his rifle at his side.

We had started barricading the remaining couple of windows in the living room when I felt something furry jump out of nowhere and push against my leg!

I screamed, completely startled and thinking I was being attacked by those things. Instead, it was only Pavlov at my leg.

"Pavlov, there you are, girl!"

"See?" Petro said. "I knew she was alright." He was pushing a bookshelf in front of a window.

Even though she seemed physically fine, her demeanor was definitely on edge, even more severely than before. I worried that this might be a sign that the creatures were on their way here! She seemed to have an uncanny sense when they were nearby. I told Petro my fear, and he made sure his gun was ready for them.

But I soon realized that Pavlov's behavior was different this time. She wasn't warning me of impending attack, she was trying to tell me something else! She kept pacing between us and the kitchen.

"I think she wants me to follow her. Maybe she's found something." I grabbed the flashlight. "Part of me doesn't want to know, but if I've learned anything tonight it's to trust her instinct."

"Vadim, we need to finish barricading the last two windows," Petro said.

"Alright, alright."

When we had finished, Pavlov became impatient, came over to me, grabbed my leg in her mouth, and pulled me towards the kitchen.

"Let's go see what she wants," Petro said. "Maybe she's smart enough to have found a phone line we missed."

Flashlight in hand, we let her lead us back into the disgusting kitchen. She was digging at something in the corner, under a pile of old children's books. She seemed confident that she knew what she was doing. Then, under the mess, she disappeared entirely!

"Where did she go?" Petro asked.

Fearing for her safety, I went over to the pile and pushed the junk aside. Underneath there was a passageway that Petro and I had missed before. Stone stairs led down, into the ground.

"She found a basement!" I said to Petro.

"Good dog! Anything of use down there?"

He grabbed my arm and we went down the dark, dirty staircase together.

I saw Pavlov running down the stairs ahead of us, then disappearing in a curve to the right. "She has obviously been down here already."

We followed her down, looking for light switches on the walls but not finding any. We came to the right bend in the passageway, and then shined the light down the few remaining stairs in front of me.

"Huh," Petro said.

The stairs seemed to just end, and led to an open space. There were walls here, but they seemed more like the inner part of the house's foundation that actual basement walls. And the ground was all made up of hard dirt and stone.

"This is not really a basement," I said.

"More like someone's plans for a basement that never got completed," Petro responded.

There was just this empty, dirty space under the house!

I wrinkled my nose. That smell was far worse here than anywhere else in the house, I realized. They must have thrown their trash here. It was just putrid, stinging my eyes even!

Pavlov had run off onto the dirt floor ahead of us. I was feeling disappointed; obviously this place wasn't going to hold a phone or anything else that we needed. But the dog sure seemed convinced this was where we should be!

We walked down the remaining stone stairs, and then put our feet down into the dirt. Just like the rest of this house, there was a bunch of random, decaying junk just tossed about here.

"Doesn't look like there is anything important down here," Petro said. "I think she's just found the best place to hide. Good girl! Did you see how narrow those stairs are? Those monsters will never be able to fit down here."

"I want to look around a bit, just to be sure we're not missing anything," I said.

"Sounds good," he said. "I'm going to go upstairs, make sure all the barricades are up to snuff. Then I'll turn off the lights and come down here. I'll cover the basement entrance back up when I come down. It will make the perfect hiding spot."

He left me the flashlight, and then went back upstairs, holding the gun in his hands.

I turned around, searching for Pavlov with the flashlight. With Petro gone, this place's creepiness factor went up by a hundred, and I wasn't about to be left alone by my dog as well! I started to get that sick, funny feeling in my gut stomach again. There was something about this basement that was just sopping with evil, I knew it. But if that was the case, why was Pavlov so eager to be down here?

It was so dark, and my flashlight was so narrow, that for a second I thought I would never find Pavlov. Then, I heard her, turned the flashlight to my left, and found her close by, sniffing and barking and looking extremely worked up. She was digging through the garbage there, looking agitated, seemingly wanting my help! I obliged, coming to her side, propping the flashlight up facing us, bending down on my knees, and starting to dig with my hands.

I cleared the junk from around us until we were just digging through the hard, black dirt. She kept digging frantically, so I did as well. My hands pulled large chunks of earth free, until I had dug a few inches!

My hands touched something hard and sharp in the dirt. A weapon? I dug quickly until I uncovered part of the object. I grabbed the flashlight and shined it down into the dirt, using my free hand to clear the dirt off the object. What was it?

A row of decayed, yellow teeth. Human teeth!

I shrieked, pulled my hand back away from the teeth in terror, and backed off. But Pavlov was still digging, and I watched her uncover more dirty white bone beneath the teeth. A jawbone!

These were human remains.

Pavlov soon had a skull uncovered, and I could see the spine continue into the dirt. Damn, since we came into this house I had smelled two bad stenches, urine and something else. This was the source of that something else, I realized. Human remains!

I felt wrenchingly ill all of the sudden and keeled over, vomiting into the dirt. I had never seen anything like this before. My nerves were a wreck!

Pavlov left the skeleton and went to another nearby spot on the ground, where she started digging again. I so did not want to help her this time, but I felt there was something else she was trying to tell me. My heart pounding, I followed her with my flashlight and bent down beside her to dig once more!

This time, my hand touched hard bone first, causing me to jump. I cleared away the dirt and uncovered a hip bone. Pavlov dug the rest of the leg out.

Another dead body!

She moved again, sniffing and moving to another spot in the dirt. I helped her dig again, this time uncovering a rib cage that was clearly connected to more bones further down. It was a third body! I tried to convince myself that the people who built this home unwittingly put it on a burial site for some reason. Maybe that discovery was why they abandoned the place.

Pavlov moved to another area, still whimpering, still eager, and dug frantically into the dirt. I helped her uncover a fourth body, only this one disturbed me even further because it was clearly the skeleton of a small child!

Pavlov didn't even need me to dig up the next body, she did it on her own. It was another adult skeleton, with a decayed metal ring on its finger.

Deeply disturbed, I wondered just how many bodies were buried beneath our feet. Dozens? Hundreds?!

Pavlov went to the very back of the basement, getting out of sight of my flashlight. I turned to find her, heading towards the back end of the cavernous room, where we had yet to explore. I felt like every step towards that wall was a step closer to my doom! I got a very, very evil feeling about that spot in particular, compounded by the fact that the stench was just getting worse in that direction.

I found Pavlov digging in the dirt there again. Behind her, the back wall was completely covered with a dark stain. Five minutes before, I would have just thought it was dirt. But now, it looked like it could have possibly been large amounts of dried blood.

The dirt around this area was looser than the rest, and was easily dug up. I had such a strongly bad feeling about the spot, that I expected something there to be worse than the other spots. But really, what can be worse than human remains?!

Just like before, it wasn't long before we found traces of another skeleton. Pavlov and I uncovered another skull, but something was oddly different about the bones here. They were whiter than the other bones we found, moister, less decayed. Pavlov kept digging, uncovering more and more of the skeleton. Then she actually uncovered another skeleton right next to the first, a pair buried together!

Unlike before, Pavlov didn't move on when we had evidence of the newest bodies to another spot. She just kept frantically digging and digging in this spot, sniffing the ground and clearing more and more dirt from the bodies. I couldn't make any sense of her behavior!

Looking more closely at the skeletons, I noticed they both had rings on their fingers, something some of the other bodies had, so I didn't think anything about it at first. People get buried with their wedding rings all the time.

I cleaned off one of the rings with my hand, uncovering a sapphire.

My heart stopped.

A sapphire ring with silver setting. And over on the other body, a solid silver band. And on the other hand of the first body, a silver bracelet with an engraving on it.

I stood up in fright, my hand covering my mouth, absolute shock passing over me!

These were my grandparents' jewelry, I was sure of it! These were my grandparents' bodies!

I shook my head, tears coming to my eyes. No, no, no, it couldn't be! They had just been gone a couple days. They couldn't possibly have turned to bones, could they?

But Pavlov knew. She led me to them, knew their smell! These ARE them. Oh no, my poor grandparents, what terrible fate did you meet? What could they have done to you to strip every ounce of flesh off your bodies?

I didn't want to think of it. I leaned over and retched again, but this time there was nothing else left to vomit.

No. All four adults who could help me. Dead, all of them! Petro and I would have to make it on our own now.

"We have to get out of here, now," I said to Pavlov, knowing I wanted to leave before whatever did that to my grandparents came back. I had to find Petro.

I turned towards the entrance of the basement, shining my light in that direction. There, at the bottom of the stairs, was Petro! He must have just finished his barricades. I needed to tell him what was down here.

I walked towards him "Boy, am I glad to see you," I said, and I meant to lead him out of the basement as quickly as possible! Pavlov was at my feet, just as eager to go as I was.

But I focused my light on him, getting a good look for the first time. His expression was oddly unreadable. And his clothes were bizarrely stripped off, down to just his shoes, as naked as I was. My god, he was so beautiful, standing there in all his glory like that, his perfect phallus hanging soft, his cut muscles making him look the statue David. He was the one ray of light in this dark, dismal place!

"Vadim," he said, stumbling towards me suddenly. I wasn't expecting him to get so close. When he pushed himself into me, I wasn't prepared for his weight. I tried to take a step back, but tripped and fell onto the floor on my back. And he fell right along with me, landing with his front against mine, our dicks pressing into each other, our faces touching!

I know it was the worst time in the world to feel romantic, but something about the combination of being seriously scared for our lives, as well as the shocking trauma of losing my grandparents, it all just unhinged me somehow, and all I could think about was how much I knew I totally loved this boy! I couldn't deal with thinking of the two of us as destined to be just friends. If fate had chosen me to be this Great Hero, then fate also made my one true love be Petro Lebedev, and fate could not curse me by having the one I loved be totally uninterested in me!

So, I did the only course of action fate would allow: I kissed him!

I pressed my lips to his, trying desperately to show him much I cared for him, trying to melt his will, his resistance, to prove to him that we were meant for one another!

Then suddenly, he pulled his head back, taking his lips off mine forcefully. Tears were in his eyes and his face looked disgusted.

"I'm sorry," he said for a third time, and it took three times for those words to really, totally break my heart! Tears were in my eyes, tears that I was failing to hold back.

That was it. I was destined to live my life without love!

"I'm so sorry," he said again.

"Yes, I know," I said.

"So sorry that it took me so long to do THIS!"

Then, he leaned back down, and placed his perfect lips to mine. For the first time, he opened his mouth and kissed me with every fiber of his soul, not holding any of his love back! He kissed me with a more potent love than I ever thought was possible, and as his tongue entered my mouth, I knocked myself out of the shock of it all. I recovered quickly, and started to give it just as good as I got!

He finally pulled away from me. "Sorry for taking so long to tell you how much I've always loved you. Not as a friend or a brother, but as a lover."

He kissed me again, just as enchantingly, and I our mutual true love flowed together endlessly!

Then, I started to taste something warm and metallic in his mouth. It was very strange, but it wasn't enough to make me stop kissing him.

He pulled up again, looking me deep in the eyes. "So sorry I can't spend a life with you. The sweet, perfect life we were supposed to have."

"What do you mean, my love?" I asked him.

"So sorry that I have to leave you," he said, his voice sounding strained. Tears were just pouring out of his eyes, falling all over me. That's when I noticed his teeth were stained with blood, while just a moment ago they had been clean!

That whole time, my hands had been on his face and neck. Now, fearfully, I moved my hands lower until they touched his back. I felt that his clothes hadn't been removed, they'd been torn off. I felt warm wetness there, and worse, I felt holes where flesh should have been, and even some bone!

"No!" I yelled, terrified. "No, no, no!"

"Yes, I'm sorry I couldn't hold them back longer," he told me. "But my last gift to you is the one that will save your life."

He touched his lips to mine so sweetly, so sadly.

"Love you forever, Vadim," he coughed, then kissed me hard, pouring all of his love into that one magical touch!

I kissed him back, never wanting this moment to end! It almost seemed to last forever.

But then more of his blood poured into my mouth, and his body went limp, and I knew he was gone! His eyes dilated and lost their focus. I couldn't handle it, tears were pouring down my face!

I heard loud whisks around me. Then I heard the oddest sounds, like flesh and bone being forcefully rearranged!

In my peripheral vision, I saw the huge paw of a massive monster beast step close to my head. Then another paw on the other side.

And then I heard them. Evil snorts and growls coming from at least a dozen of those monsters, gathered all around me in this basement of Hell! How they got in through a staircase they couldn't have possibly squeezed through I didn't have a clue.

They gathered around Petro's body, and I realized I was skillfully hidden out of sight. Petro's last act while we were kissing had been to bury me in the dirt and trash underneath him. I was hidden from their eyes.

I could hear them sniffing around Petro's body. Cleary they had a keen animal's sense of smell. They would surely smell me soon, and I'd be dead as soon as they found me!

But even though they sniffed around, they never seemed to detect anything besides Petro's body. They normally would have been able to smell me, but Petro had deftly placed his body in such a way over mine that the only thing I smelled like was him!

All I had to do was keep hidden from their ears by not moving, and Petro's plan would have worked. Then, when they had left the house again, I would be able to sneak out and make my escape.

That meant having to do the unthinkable: hold back my emotions and stay completely, deadly still until they left!

I immediately choked back my tears and shut my mouth, breathing as silently as possible through my nostrils. I shut down my fear, slowing my heart rate and calming myself.

Then the one thing I had never prepared for happened. The creatures grunted, growled, lowered their heads, and started to eat Petro.

Even so, as long as I didn't move, they shouldn't notice me. But that meant I was forced to sit there quietly while the demon beasts defiled and devoured my sweet, beautiful Petro.

I heard the growls and snarls not of one of the demon-beasts, but of a familiar dog. Pavlov, coming to my defense. No, I just wanted her to run out and escape, but I had no way of telling her so without blowing my cover!

Out of the corner of my eye, I could see her as she bit into the huge clawed back paw of the nearest beast. Although she was ferocious for a canine, she had no prayer of stopping this demon!

As if to prove my point, the beast kicked back its paw hard, knocking Pavlov across the room! She hit the stone wall with a sad yelp, then fell to the ground, still!

I almost cried out and blew my cover right then. But I realized she wasn't dead, I could see her breathing still, though she clearly was unconscious! I thought the beasts would surely go over to her and finish her off, then eat her. But they took no interest in her. All that interested them was the human body in front of them, Petro's.

I remained perfectly still as they started to bite into him. I could hear their slobber dripping and drooling all over the ground. I could hear one or two of them snarling and biting each other, fighting over which one got which part of my sweet, sweet boy.

I tried to shut my eyes and just let them do their thing. But it was like he was calling to me, calling out in pain! Every time I opened my eyes, I looked at his dilated pupils, the sadness on his lips.

I heard them ripping and tearing off his skin, then pulling out organs and bones, and it was more than I could take!

"Oh!" I cried out accidentally when they ripped his spine out.

There were a few evil hisses, and then all of the creatures froze around me. I prayed they would ignore the sound!

Instead, they slowly pushed Petro's body off me. All of them looked down at me and growled in unison, staring at me with those evil, squinted eyes, those pointy devils' teeth. My cover was blown!

Knowing I had to act fast while they were still surprised, I jumped to my feet, pushed through two of their filthy bodies, and ran towards the exit.

I knew I had them all in the basement, and I knew they couldn't fit through the tight stairway. It might buy me enough time to make my escape!

Close to the exit, I had to jump over two fresh bodies that had just been brought in, both stripped of their clothes and partially eaten, but still recognizable as belonging to a heavyset man and a skinny woman. No time to think about that now!

Just as I was about to reach the stairwell, reach safety, one of those giants moved in from the left of the exit, the pack leader with the bullhorns, blocking me!

It was just one of the evil monsters between me and my probable safety, but I had nothing to fight with but my bare hands.

I shut my eyes, and prayed to whatever force was out there, whatever it was that controlled my fate, I prayed for them to unlock my latent powers to save myself when death was at my door! I knew it was inside me, I just had to access it!

I swore I felt an answer, felt some sort of special force surge through my body! With a newfound confidence, I moved forward, pulled my hand back into a first, and gave the beast's slobbering maw every ounce of force that was buried in my soul.

The beast didn't even budge!

Instead, it opened its mouth wide, showing me every needle-sharp devil's tooth, its hot, rancid breath hitting my face and smelling of dead flesh, its burning saliva splashing my skin. It held its gaping mouth in front of me for a moment, my whole face easily fitting inside that wicked jaw.

I had failed to access the powers inside of me.

Then, quicker than I could register, it snapped the trap shut, spikey teeth piercing every part of my throat at once!

As the jaws clamped down harder, and my blood spilled with red hot pain, I knew that prophecies were always a fallacy! I had counted on them being real, thinking there was no way I could be killed here! If I had truly feared death, I never would have moved from under Petro.

No one can predict the future. Otherwise this was not how I would have died. There was no such thing as fate. Everyone had to make their own destinies!

I hoped the next Great Hero, if there was one, would learn that lesson better than I did!

NOVEMBER 1st

I screamed, clutching my bleeding throat, totally terrified of my impending death.

"Jacob! Jacob, wake up!"

I opened my eyes, tearing at my skin, screaming in pain.

"Shhh, shhh, shh, it's okay." I felt a strong hand cover my mouth, muffling my scream. "You're going to wake up the whole dorm."

Darn it, where was I? Who was I? I wasn't some guy being killed in the woods. I was Jacob Groves. It was night, and I was in my dorm room, exactly where I had gone to sleep.

I realized I was choking myself with the chain and cross my mother had given to me when I was a child, telling me as long as I kept it, Jesus would keep me safe. I let go of it, and the pain around my throat began to subside.

One thing was very different here, and that was for the first time since the start of my freshman year, there was someone in my bed with me. Someone on top of me.

I looked up. It was Ahmad Achar, my roommate, a foreign student from Abu Dhabi. The one guy that I had let myself develop a crush on, the one guy that I had ever lusted over like crazy, the one guy who was totally straight and completely unavailable, was on top of me in my twin bed, the warm weight of his powerful body pressing down on me, one hand holding my mouth shut and the other holding my arm down.

"If I let go, will you stop hitting me?" he asked, his silky, masculine voice as soothing as honey.

"Yes," I said, mortified that I had ever been hurting him, and he pulled his upper body up into the air, hovering a couple feet over my own body.

Ahmad was a beautiful man, inside and out. He was only eighteen, like I was, but some combination of his genetics and his high school athleticism made him look at least in his mid-twenties. And he had a kind, wise countenance that matched his look, an inner wisdom. He had a way of making you love him and love yourself at the same time. He had everything going for him, yet the attention he paid those around him eliminated any envy they might have had.

I looked at him from top to bottom, familiarizing myself once more with his features, something I could never get fatigued of. His skin was milk chocolate and smooth, much darker than most Middle Easterners, making him look almost Indian in appearance. Capping his head were beautiful black curls of hair, cut short, always making me want to run my fingers through them. Under thick black eyebrows, his penetrating light brown eyes truly were the window to his sweet soul. I could get lost in those eyes. His nose was flat, and his dark pink lips almost always were upturned into a disarming smile. He wore what I thought was called a "chin curtain," a strip of facial hair that looked like a goatee with the moustache and lower lip portion shaved off, leaving a short cropped strip that accentuated his masculine jaw-line. He had slight dimples in his cheeks.

Going lower, his upper body, now naked, was a sight to behold. Smooth, brown skin covered the lean muscled body of a serious athlete. He was about 6' and just under 200 pounds of muscle, giving him a ripped upper body, where every muscle showed a prominent vein or two. He wasn't as big as a bodybuilder would be, more like a fit wide receiver. His nipples were small, tight, and brown, and his abs currently glistened with sweat.

I realized that the sweat was not his, it was my own. My bare upper body was covered with it.

A sudden rush of the memory of that dream came through me, and I trembled in pain again. I had been sure that I was dead.

The emotion was so bizarrely strong that I even began to cry a little. Just a little sobbing. Seeing this, Ahmad closed the gap between our bodies, his bare torso pressing against my own, and he wrapped his strong arms around me, comforting me. Ahmad was never squeamish about showing affection, not even to his male friends, and that kind of culture was something I had never experienced before.

"Hey, it's okay," he said.

"I don't know what's wrong with me," I said finally. "I never cry." I forced myself to stop my silliness.

I became acutely aware of the feeling of his hard chest muscles rubbing against the sweaty skin of my own chest. His left nipple rubbing against my right one, causing it to harden excitedly.

"It must have been some nightmare," he said. "The oddest thing was, it sounded like you were speaking Russian in your sleep. What was it about?"

"It was so weird," I said. "I dreamt I was a short, skinny white guy, getting killed in the woods. I could have sworn it was real, that that was really me."

Ahmad looked down at my body. "Don't worry, you're still about 5'11", 160 pounds. An athletic build, not skinny, good looking black dude. All seems to be right with the world."

I chuckled. "I also dreamt I was a Korean guy, I think... weird!"

"I told you not to taste any of those strange substances they offer you in Haight-Ashbury," he joked.

"Funny thing is, I never dream," I said. "Let alone have nightmares."

"Nightmares are your subconscious trying to tell you that you're stressed out," Ahmad said, rubbing my shoulder. "Maybe it's just your newfound university life getting to you."

"But I'm not stressed. I love it here. I love my classes."

He laughed. "Maybe you're stressed out about having such a loser foreign exchange student for a roommate."

I nodded. "Yeah, that must be it. Because we get along so poorly."

"Aren't you meeting your shrink tomorrow?"

"How many times have I told you he's not a shrink?! He's a counselor."

"You can get him to go all Freud on your dream. That will make you feel better."

The fear gone now, I once again became aware of Ahmad on top of me. He always wore just pajama bottoms to bed, and although I normally slept nude, since I began college I started wearing shorts to bed, really just for his sake. Having our naked upper bodies so close to each other, exchanging our heat, was having an effect on me. And even though our crotches were covered by two thick layers of cloth, I could feel the weight of his junk against my own. Not hard, just there.

I felt my dick starting to get hard, and I knew I would have to get Ahmad off me or suffer embarrassing consequences.

"You can go back to bed now, thanks."

"Do you promise not to wake me up again tonight shrieking like a banshee?" he asked as he got off of my bed and went back to his own across the room.

"I make no promises," I joked.

As I fell back asleep, the dream that had seemed so important disappeared from my mind, turning into just a hazy recollection of something bizarrely wrong.