Shea O’Halloran lay curled up on her bed, the lamp providing her just enough light to read her medical journal. She covered page after page in mere seconds, committing the material to memory as she had done since she was a child. Now she was completing her residency, the youngest resident on record, and it was an exhausting ordeal. She hurried to finish the text, wanting to get some rest while she could. The pain hit her unexpectedly, slamming into her with such virulence that she was thrown off the bed, her body contorting with the force. She tried to cry out, to crawl blindly toward the phone, but she could only writhe on the floor helplessly. Sweat beaded on her skin; smears of crimson blood seeped through her pores. The pain was like nothing she had ever experienced, as if someone were cutting her flesh with a knife, burning her, torturing her endlessly. It went on and on—hours, days, she didn’t know. No one came to help her, and they wouldn’t; she was alone, so private that she had no real friends. At the end, when the pain ripped through her as if a hole the size of her fist had opened in her chest, she lost consciousness.
When he thought his tormentors were through with him, would end his suffering, give him death, he discovered what true hell really was. Gut-wrenching agony. Evil faces above him. A sharpened stake poised over his heart. A beat of time, a second. It would end now. It had to end. He felt the thick wooden point drive into his flesh, tearing a huge hole through muscle and sinew. The hammer fell hard on the end of the stake, driving it ever deeper. The pain was beyond anything he had ever imagined. The female sharing his mind lost consciousness, a mercy for both of them. He continued to feel every blow, the huge peg separating his flesh, penetrating his insides while blood spurted like a geyser, further weakening him. He felt his life force fading away, his strength so drained now that he was certain he would die. He reached for death. Embraced death. But it wasn’t to be. He was a Carpathian male, an immortal, one not so easily disposed of. One whose will was strong and determined. A will that fought death even when his body begged for an end to his suffering and existence.
His eyes found them, the two humans. They were covered in his blood, red sprays across their clothes. He gathered his strength, the last of it, and captured their gazes with his mesmerizing stare. If he could just hold them long enough to turn their own evil back on them. One cursed suddenly and jerked his companion away. Quickly, they covered his eyes with cloth, no longer able to stand the dark promise in the deep pits of suffering, afraid of his power, although he was so helpless before them. They laughed as they chained him into the coffin and lifted it upright. He heard himself scream with the pain, but the sound was only in his mind, echoing sharply, locked away, mocking him. He forced himself to stop. They couldn’t hear him, but it didn’t matter to him. He had a shred of dignity left. Self-respect. They would not defeat him. He was Carpathian. He heard the dirt hitting the wood as they buried him in the wall of the cellar. Each shovelful. The darkness was complete. The silence took him like a blow.
He was a creature of the night. The dark was his home. Yet now, in his agony, it was his enemy. There was only pain and silence. Always before, he was the one who chose whether to stay in the darkness, in the healing soil. Now he was a prisoner, locked away, with the soil just out of reach. Comfort should have been his, was near, yet always the wood of the coffin prevented his body from touching what would eventually have healed his wounds.
Hunger began to invade his world of agony. Time passed, meant nothing. Only the terrible, relentless hunger that grew until it became his entire world. Agony. Hunger. Nothing else existed for him anymore.