STILL no comments? C'mon people, everyone *else* got a comment for their chapter, within a few hours too! This was a brilliant piece of writing, don't tell me the story is *that* ignored!

Eh, may as well post my chapter then, whoever's next, may you have more interest than poor ol' No.



* * *

Estella skipped through the night, and it was a skip, the merry kind of half hop, half jump that a child might do down the street with a big lollipop. She was in a very good mood; she had fed earlier that night and relished the sheer terror you could cause before putting someone out of their misery. And now she had a new toy to play with, how fun! Behind her she heard the crashing as something slow and ungainly pushed through the bush. She jumped into a tree, landing on the branch as lightly as a feather amid a small flurry of snow. And there it was; the zombie struggled past beneath her, turning slowly as she grabbed its arm, before it was flung away into a snowdrift.

"Oh dear, oh dear. What shall we do with you? Do you need a hand?"

It was a puerile and childish thing to say when you were holding someone's arm, but Estella didn't really care, she enjoyed the irony, and anyone who thought otherwise could take up the issue with her. She smiled, or at least the corners of her mouth turned up, and approached the indentation the creature had made. A few brief kicks told her that it had gone, which was odd, surely she hadn't seen it move?

"Come now zombie, it's no fun of you to be hiding like this! Come out and play!"

The clearing was quiet, everything muffled by the fresh snow. The moon was up, bathing the whole scene in an alien light, as if the world had been turned to ice. Estella looked about, but there was no sign of her quarry, it had disappeared, which was impossible. It had to be around here somewhere... There was a sharp crack above her and she looked up.

They weren't supposed to move that fast.

"My name's Tier, you bloddsucking b*!"


* * *

Where had he been at the time? It was difficult to remember. Everything was difficult to remember now. It had been near some small town, there were so many. It was picturesque, you could say that much; nestled between two towering mountains, bisected by a fresh mountain stream, the houses were perched on what had once been sheer rock cliffs but had, due to a rockslide who knew how long ago, formed a plateau, a rock ledge surrounded by scrubby mountainside.

The town had been almost unreachable in winter, the roads becoming blocked with drifts of snow or small rock and mudslides. Every spring the villagers cleared the main paths and sent off to the cities for supplies, and in bad winters, coffins. After really bad winters they didn't leave at all, some things were kept quiet.

It had been winter when Tier had arrived, if that was the word, he set out in no particular direction and kept to no timetable, either way he found himself in the vicinity just as the snows were closing in. The villagers had been smart enough to carve markers on the trees, a great aid to anyone who became lost in the freezing nights, but Tier avoided them. Somehow, he couldn't remember when, he'd figured out how to read them, the more stripes the further you were away, and they were always on the village side of the trees.

Tier hadn't noticed anything of course, he'd wandered through cities without batting an eye. Food was scare here, but he always avoided the village. Always. Nothing good ever came of approaching civilization because he was a shadow, something from a story book, a tale to frighten small children away from the darkness outside the window. He'd looked in once, spied on those living normal lives, but that was long ago and he hadn't benefited from it.

And then it was spring, the snows were melting and he could move on. That's when he met her, or she met him, just like Michelle. He'd been hungrier and she was a lizard though and it had been almost the pitch of night. The fact she'd been there at all was amazing enough given the war the rabbits were undertaking over Deserto, but small towns couldn't afford to be prejudiced when there weren't enough people to go around. He'd simply been making his way out of the area when he spotted her behind him, holding a lantern and a carving knife. The markers needed recarving every spring. Interestingly enough she hadn't fled, despite his appearance, she'd just been curious, and restrained.

"You're the creature everyone's been talking about right? You're the one who got rid of all the wolves and that vampire this year?"

She spent the rest of the night talking to him, it was the longest conversation he'd had in decades and with good reason. He remembered the vampire; he'd left what remained of it lying in the snow somewhere. The wolves had been easier, they got desperate with the cold, especially the lone males; all that mattered was eating. For both of them. Apparently the village was exceedingly grateful, they'd probably have given them one of their first born. As it was he sat and listened, unable to answer back in his condition. He was endlessly grateful for someone to talk to, he knew she was almost gagging at the smell and probably shocked at his appearance. Did she know how hard it was to stand still? To not simply reach over and tear out her throat?

A voice interrupted Tier's thoughts.

"Hey. Hey dude, are you awake? You've been sitting there for hours."


[i]And now the world was big and complicated again. It couldn't just be about the Hunger anymore, there were people and lives and... life. He had to watch out for others again and think and strategize, and all the other things that came with living that he had forgotten over the years. The Vampire was out there somewhere, with her smug little smile and stupid voice. Tier would hunt her down and tear her to pieces again. And this time he'd leave nothing.

He'd make sure she suffered as much as he did.