He stood on the path with his feet apart and his hands in fists at his side, and I couldn’t stop the shaking that started in my legs and traveled up my body. He didn’t say anything as we stared at one another, but he didn’t have to—I knew what he wanted, and my blood was at the top of his list.

Turning on my heel, I bolted along the path away from him, fear and adrenaline pumping through my system. The hard dirt shifted and became sand, and my feet started to slip. The sand quickly got deeper, and the forest moved further away from the trail. Even though I tried to reach for the edge and the firmer ground, the shifting sand kept pulling me further away. Every stride hurt as my lungs and legs worked harder than they’d ever had before.

A scream ripped from my throat as the man casually strolled beside me until he stood in my way. In every direction I turned to run, he was there. It was like he’d divided himself into hundreds of versions of his image, and they had surrounded me.

“No, please don’t hurt me. I don’t want to die.”

The man reached out and grabbed my face in his hand. He got up close, and I hated the fact that even with the wild fear racing through my screaming body, I couldn’t help being attracted to him. There was something hypnotic about his presence. He was like a snake tamer, and I was caught in his flute’s call.

“Hello, Sunshine.”

Music was blaring so loud that I could feel the vibration in my cheek as it lay on something soft…my eyes fluttered open, unable to remember where I was or what had happened. I couldn’t wait to tell Jorge about my strange dream. He was the type to appreciate my crazy, wild adventure. We’d laugh over his special coffee that I couldn’t get enough of as I stuffed my face with a raspberry yogurt muffin.

“Good, you’re finally starting to come around. I’ll have to let my brother know that he needs to tone down the sleeping agent he’s using.”

That voice…

The fog slowly cleared with each passing second, and as it did, I wished to go back to sleep and try to wake up again in a different reality. My eyes cleared a little more and what started out as a fuzzy blur began to take shape, and there he was…Cain.