I still can’t believe it.

It all feels like a dream.

But it isn’t a dream, I tell myself. It’s a nightmare.

A cruel, living nightmare—one that has descended upon my life with dark wings.

Unfortunately for me, sleep does not come easily, nor does it linger when I begin to slip into semi-consciousness. Even with all the drugs in my system—even with the IV in my arm—I keep thinking back to the horrible thing I had witnessed.

Her torn neck—

Her bloodied corpse—

The monster, prone over her body—

The selfless act of brutality had been monstrous beyond compare. No one, or no thing, should ever have to experience that.

But my mother, I think and close my eyes.

The sound of the heart monitor beeping at my side indicates that I am still alive, even though I feel dead inside.

My only solace is that no one can see me cry.

The room is dark, the monitors dimmed, the LED lights from them the only thing offering light in this cold and forsaken room. A passing shadow dances in the hallway, and for a moment, I feel someone will stop to come check on me.

But no one comes.

No one at all.

I am completely, and undeniably, alone. Even the social worker I’d spoken with before they’d given me the calming agents is nowhere to be seen.

Tears stream down my face. The heartbeat monitor quickens as newfound panic assaults me. It rises and falls with each dreadful thought, each pained emotion, and leaves me with feelings I cannot even being to describe.

Where will I go, I wonder, now that my mother is gone?

My father is long dead—killed in a car accident when I was just three years old—and my extended family might not have the means to take me in. My aunt Susannah on the other side would take me in in an instant, but even then, I didn’t particularly get along with my cousins. And my uncle Matthew—he and his wife lived all the way in California. Would they, a newly married couple, be willing to take me in?

She’s almost eighteen, I know they might say. Let her get a job. Go to college. Live off student loans.

But the truth of the matter is that, even if am capable of doing those things, I need someone to do something. Anything.

I need someone to help me.

I want to scream. To cry. To rage against everything life has just thrown at me. But deep down, I know nothing will bring my mother back.

Mama, I think as the monitor goes blip, blip, blip.

I lift my hand to try and brush away my tears but find that the IV is still jabbed into my wrist.

Is the drip still pumping drugs into me? I wonder. A quick glance to my left doesn’t reveal anything, as it is too dark to determine. But even so: that would explain my dizziness. Why my head feels swimmy. Why I am calmer than I might otherwise be.

Did I tell them? I think a short moment later. Did I tell them what I saw?

But what had I seen, though? A monster? A murderer? A—

Vampire?

No. That isn’t possible. Vampires aren’t real. They are products of fantasy, and nothing more. But if it wasn’t a vampire who had brutalized my mother’s body, that had drank her blood right in front of me, what had it been? An escaped felon? A psychotic murderer?

Prone, over her body, with teeth bared and fangs extended—

This time, I cry out—a long, hard sob that causes my heart-rate monitor to spike.

Though I expect someone—anyone—to come rushing to my aid, no one does. Instead, a two-way radio at my side clicks, and a voice says, “Miss Brown? Are you all right?”

“I—” I start to say. “I don’t—”

The door opens.

I look up.

A dark figure in a black coat and hat stands in the doorway, blocking out all light from the hallway.

“Miss… Brown?” the nurse asks, her voice clouded with static. “Miss Brown… are you… all… do you need… someone… to—”

The remote device crackles with static before going dead.

The figure in black steps forward. “You have borne witness,” he says, his voice deep and pleasant even despite his intruding presence.

“Who are you?” I ask, drawing the blankets around me as he advances into the space. “And what are you doing in my room?”

“You are to forget. Now. What you saw. What you believe.”

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His voice washes over me like waves from the ocean—dulling my emotions, causing my panic to fade. My heart-rate monitor slows as the initial dread leaves my body, and my breathing, once erratic, softens. “What… what did I see?” I ask. “A… a vampire?”

The man pauses. “Did you say… vampire?”

“Is that what it was?” I somehow manage to ask. “Is that what killed my mother? A vampire?”

“Who have you spoken these words to?” the man asks. “The police? The social workers? Your doctors?” He steps forward and extends a hand over my face, as if ready to bear down to smother me with his smooth palm. “It does not matter. You are to forget what you saw, now and forever.”

“No!” I cry. “I don’t want to forget! I want that thing dead!”

The man hesitates. Though I cannot see his features beneath his hat, I can determine the frown on his face as he reaches out to wrap his hands around the guards surrounding the bed. His motions are slow, deliberate; and when he lifts his head, I can see he is east Asian, with thick eyebrows, a slim nose, a jawline that appears to be cut from marble. He leans forward, then, to study me with eyes black as night, before saying, “You are… agreeing to witness?”

“I want that thing dead,” I reply, “and I’ll do anything—anything—to stop it.”

Instead of responding, the stranger straightens his posture and tilts his head back to consider me. “You understand,” he says, “that once you have witnessed, you can never go back.”

“There’s no going back anyway,” I say. “My mother is dead.”

To this, he has no reply.

In the ensuing silence, I listen to the sound of the diminishing heartbeat monitor and the slow, steady sound of my breathing. The whole while I try not to tremble, for in the presence of this strange man, I feel small, insignificant, and worst of all, strange.

But why? I ask myself. Why do I feel this way? Is… is he making me feel like this?

The stranger continues to watch me with his dark, unmoving, unblinking eyes.

Why is he just staring? I think. And why isn’t he blinking?

A thought occurs to me not long after.

You are to forget, he’d said. Forget.

“Forget,” I whisper and watch as he offers a slow, knowing nod.

Is this man—this man in black—unlike anyone I have met before? Is it possible that he is a thief of thoughts, of memories, of moments in time during which horrible things have happened? Is he—

Not human? I question.

Knowing that I will never get a clear answer unless I ask, I clear my throat and say, “Are you…”

“Am I… what?” the man asks.

“Different?”

“I am part of a world you could have never possibly imagine,” he replies. “I am a shadow in the night—always lingering, forever persisting. I can make your nightmares disappear, your darkest thoughts expire. But here you are… wishing to face them… as if you wish to fight back. Tell me”—he leans forward to consider me once more—” is this the path you wish to take?”

“I’d do anything to avenge my mother,” Scarlet says. “Anything.”

“Then come. Let us go.”

The man steps around the hospital bed, reaches down and, with a simple press and tug, frees the IV from my wrist.

I grimace as the pain flares along my hand—as fire seems to shoot up the vein—but nod as I slide out of bed. I look up at the strange Asian man before me and frown as he stares at me unblinkingly. “Do you… have a name?” I ask. “I assume you already know mine.”

“I do,” the man says. “You may call me Shadow.”

“All right, Shadow. What do we do now?”

“You come with me. We must leave. Now.”

“I can’t just walk out of here,” I say. “They’ll stop me.”

“No, they won’t,” the strange man says.

Again: I frown, but only because he seems so confident, so determined that nothing will go wrong.

“Are you ready?” the stranger asks.

“I—” I start to say, then swallow and say, “Yes. I—I’m ready.”

“Good.” The man turns and enters the hall. “Please, follow me.”

I step forward, wait until the man named Shadow turns to face me, and begin to follow.

An approaching nurse is upon me immediately. “Miss… Brown,” she says, raising her hands to stop me. “You can’t leave yet. You need to get back in—”

I know she wants to say the room.

But she stops, suddenly, as is struck by something impossible, something that makes her forget everything. Her expression softens. Her eyes glaze over. Her mouth purses into a silent frown. She stares at Shadow for one more moment, then turns and walks away.

“Did you do that?” I ask, grimacing as what sounds like static begins to sound from a nearby radio, as the lights above flicker as if caught in an electrical malfunction.

The man nods and waves me forward.

And so we continue through the hospital at a leisurely pace, not stopping when anyone approaches and ignoring everyone who seems to ignore us. Security cameras embedded into ceilings spark with light, and the florescent lighting flickers whenever we pass under it—shielding, it seems, our trek through the hospital.

I expect to face some kind of resistance when we enter the lobby. But, unsurprisingly, we stroll through without issue. Even as we walk out the front double doors.

“What are you?” I ask as we step into the humid night air.

“I am what you would call a Wiper,” the strange man replies. “I can make people forget memories, cause electronics to malfunction.”

“What does that mean for me?” I ask. “It’s not like you can just erase my presence from their records.” I pause. “Can you?”

“They will never know you were here.”

A screeching noise enters my ears.

I turn just in time to find the entire lobby darken, then watch as what must be a backup generator comes to life, illuminating the inside in red light.

“Go,” the man named Shadow says, signaling me forward. “My car is that way.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“The United States Agency for Supernatural Affiliations, where the process of assimilation will begin.”

Assimilation? I think. What does that—

Then it hits me.

Am I joining something?

I glance over at the Wiper—and for a moment debate whether or not I should run.

“Do not run,” he says, as if reading my thoughts. “You will simply forget.”

“Forget… you?” I ask.

“Everything,” he replies. “Your mother’s death. Her attack. The thing that killed her. Most of all: you’ll forget your life.”

But what does that mean? That he will wipe my memories? Make me a husk of a person? Allow me to forget every memory that had occurred from the time that I was born?

With the knowledge that I cannot escape more than clear in my mind, I nod and continue to follow the man across the parking lot. When we come to stand beside a black Camaro, he unlocks it with a key fob, then rounds the vehicle and opens the passenger side door.

“You will want to rest now,” he says. “This will be a long and arduous journey.”

“Can you…” I swallow. “Make me sleep?”

“I can only make you forget. Now please, rest, Scarlet. We are in for a very long drive.”

Rather than question him further, I reach up, pull the seatbelt across my chest, and buckle myself into place.

He pulls out of the parking lot. Aligns himself onto the road. Starts toward the red traffic light.

“Aren’t you going to—” I start to say.

But before I can finish, the traffic lights blink, the other cars come to a halt, and a passing policeman’s lights flicker off.

In moments, we are making our way toward the west side of Shreveport, Louisiana.

All I can tell, as we continue to make our way through the city, is that something is wrong.