Rich black earth filled my mouth as I opened it to cry out. I thrashed, my limbs gaining little space to move in the cloying darkness of my prison. My senses were limited as the dense earth presented only darkness to my eyes.

I could taste the dirt, smell the damp earthy aroma of fresh-turned soil, but I could feel little. My skin felt numb, with only the vaguest sense of feeling coming from the pressure of the dirt that held me down.

Sound was muffled, indistinct. Everything distant as though it were far, far, away, though, in likelihood, it was just muffled by the dirt.

I should have been panicking, gasping for breath but my chest didn’t strain against the earth, it didn’t rise or fall in time with my breath.

There was no breath.

No rushing in my ears or thundering of my heart as it beat in my chest.

All was still.

Was I dead?

Was this my eternal rest? Lying beneath the earth, unable to move, to see, to speak?

No.

I moved my arms, fingers clawing at the dirt, digging and pulling at the soil as I sought to move. Bit by bit, inch by inch, progress was made.

There was no weariness, though my throat burned with a need to drink, the urge to assuage my thirst almost all that I could think about.

I kept digging. Moving through the earth like some worm, my body shifting from side to side, loose dirt moving around me as I dug.

Light! Small at first, faint, but growing stronger. I moved faster, an urgent need overtaking me as I sought to move towards the light, to find a way out of the darkness.

Perhaps I was dead. Perhaps, this was the light that people spoke of when they were brought back from the brink.

No.

This was no afterlife.

The dirt fell away as I pushed up and out of the shallow grave on the side of a hill beneath an old willow tree.

The only light came from the stars in the clear night sky above and reflected from the moon, silvery and beautiful in its way.

I pulled myself fully free of the earth. My fingers were torn, the nails broken or missing, though no blood fell from the wounds. I was naked, my bare skin grey and numb to the night air, darkened by the rich black earth that had covered my body.

The sounds that had been so muffled before were alive in my ears now. Cars, moving fast somewhere in the distance. The flap of an owl’s wings as it swooped down from its perch in the trees to grasp a small rodent in its claws.

That rodent’s squeal of fear and pain as the claws dug deep and then, a rich and alluring scent, filled my nostrils as the small mammal's skin was pierced, its blood flowing over the hard talons of the owl.

My throat burned. A shiver ran through me, though not from the cold, for I could not feel that.

I reached up a hand, running my fingers through the hanging branches of the willow. I plucked a leaf from a low branch and rubbed it beneath my fingers. There was a subtle fragrance somewhat similar to green grass as its oils stained my fingers.

But I did not feel it. Any of it. I was entirely numb of body and my mind seemed much the same.

My thoughts were bright and crisp and clear, but there was no feeling to them. No emotion.

I was not embarrassed at the thought of standing naked amongst the willows, nor was I at all concerned by what was happening to me. I was merely curious. An emotionless observer intrigued by the oddity of my current circumstances.

My memories were hazy, the merest outlines of thought much like objects observed through a heavy fog. I was sure that should I pull them closer, they would become clearer but that was beyond me right then, for there was something much more pressing.

A deep thirst.

There was a stream somewhere down the hill. I could hear the burbling of it as it flowed over stone. I set off walking in that direction, my movements stiff and strange. I could not feel where I placed my feet so I had to watch and direct each movement I made as I sought to remain balanced.

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It was, fortunately, not far and I soon fell to my knees on the banks of a narrow brook. I cupped my hands beneath the water and brought them to my mouth, water slipping from between my fingers as I drank as much as I could.

Again and again, I drank, but the thirst did not abate. I supped until my belly began to swell and there came the sound of sloshing from within me as I moved, but still, that thirst clawed at my throat, urging me to move on, to find something else to quench it.

Another car passed on the road and I set off towards it, instinct driving me. The going was rough, my feet and ankles were soon covered in deep cuts as I scraped them against rocks and sharp branches that covered the forest floor.

Still no blood.

No pain.

No feeling at all.

I stumbled, my ankle turning awkwardly and I landed heavily on my left knee. I pushed myself back to my feet carefully, wondering if the leg would hold. It did. There should have been pain and somewhere, deep inside myself, there was a niggling voice of panic gibbering away in the darkness of my mind, babbling at the wrongness of it all.

I pushed it deeper into the darkness and pressed on.

The road was bordered by a hedge and I had to force myself through it, the branches ripping at my flesh, skin tearing and splitting beneath the assault. Then I was through and I staggered out onto the narrow road.

A country road. Almost familiar. I was in England, of that I was sure. Somewhere I had been before. Likely travelled along. Yorkshire then. My home county.

That memory burned bright for a moment before a flurry of images flashed by my mind's eye. People I should know, places and times that should have meaning. I thought, that perhaps if I could grab one and hold it still, more detail would come, but they spun away from my grasp like silvery fish in clear water.

A horn sounded and I turned into the bright lights of an approaching car. Pain flashed and I raised a hand over my eyes to block out that light as I marvelled at the feeling of something new in this numb world.

The screech of tires as the car came to a sudden stop and then a moment's silence as the driver stared out at me, naked with dirty grey skin crisscrossed with wounds that did not bleed. I tilted my head as the door clicked and a figure stepped out, new aromas reaching me, saliva filling my mouth.

“Hello!” Hesitancy filled the voice. Not nervousness, just caution. Someone who was unsure what to make of me. “Are you okay, mate?”

I opened my mouth to speak but no words came, the burning ache in my throat robbing my voice of all but the most base of grunts. I licked dry lips with a drier tongue and tried again.

“H-help… me.”

Help me how? I did not know but the words seemed right. I dropped to my knees, head bowed as though weary beyond words, moving once again on instinct I had not known I had.

Footsteps approached, heavy and dull. A larger male, thighs as thick around as my arms with his belly hanging over his belt, the buttons of a white shirt straining against the fabric. He reached out a hand, cautious but compassionate, a kindly gesture. One of support, of care.

“What’s your name, mate?”

“E-Ethan.”

Was it? It must be.

“Okay, lad. You know where you are? What happened to you?”

Lad? He was older than me, with a brown beard turning grey and thinning hair over a bulbous nose covered with red lines. His eyes were a watery brown, concern writ large upon his face as he patted my shoulder with a pudgy hand.

My throat ached. Like I had swallowed fire and it was eating away at the flesh there. I needed to drink, to quench my thirst. My eyes flicked towards the neck, there, hidden beneath the beard there was a rapid pulse.

The rhythmic expansion and contraction of the arteries as the blood was pumped through them by the heart's contractions. It was strong, and regular, if a little fast. Nervousness and the exertion of moving his large body would be the cause of that.

I couldn’t stop salivating and I had to swallow despite the pain from my throat.

The man’s eyebrows drew down, his brow furrowing as he waited for a response and I realised I had been staring at the pulse in his neck, counting the beats of his heart.

He needed a response, his patience wearing thin. His free hand moved to his pocket and the mobile phone it held. He would call for help.

I opened my mouth, barely a sound coming out and he leaned closer, straining to hear. His heart beat louder in my ears, filling my senses and my world. It was all I could hear. All I could focus on. It drew me like an arrow to a target and I leapt.

His screams went unheard as the sweet, hot, nectar filled my mouth, spilling out down my chin and across my chest. I wrapped my arms around him, pulling him close and I bit and tore at his flesh, seeking that crimson fluid that so salved my throat.

The man struggled against me but I held him tight, his lifeblood filling me with something close to rapture. Bone snapped as I gripped him tighter, squeezing him as though trying to force every drop of sweet blood from his body.

His struggles slowed, his strength failing as mine only grew. The source of his life flowing from him into me. An exchange of all that he was, all of his vitality and life, as I gave him that death that so cloaked me.

I dropped his empty husk, staggering back, giddy with joy, almost dizzy with the euphoria that filled me. For the first time since awakening in the ground, I felt heat, a warmth in my belly that was flowing out into my limbs.

A gasp escaped me as the dull, dead, flesh of my heart burst into violent life, its beat echoing in my ears as I sucked in the frigid night air. Colour returned to my grey skin, like sunlight through the clouds. It was pink and warm to the touch.

The road surface was rough beneath my feet and I gasped again as the thousand small cuts on my skin closed, knitting neatly together without so much as a scar.

I blinked down at the man. His life I had taken and made my own. I was reborn in his blood and I felt a strength and a clarity of thought that had been missing since my awakening.

With that came the memories.

Flashing through my mind, the dark places in my head opening up and spilling all their secrets at once. It was overwhelming, a torrent of thought and emotion that I had not realised could even exist mere moments before.

I was on the ground once again, the fog in my mind clearing as tears filled my eyes.

I remembered!

Who I was.

My name was Ethan Rayne. I clung to that like I would a life raft if I were drowning, holding it close as the flood of memories rose around me.

My name was Ethan Rayne, and two days ago, I had died.