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He burst into the salty night air and rushed down the street toward the hospital. Even with his vampiric powers, he ran hard enough that his lungs begged for air. He wasted no time running into the emergency room and shouting, “Help! My girlfriend is dying! I need help!”

Nurses scurried into the room, took one look at Isabel, and rushed her away on a stretcher. Sebastian tried to follow, but two of the nurses stood in front of the door. “Please wait here, sir,” one of the nurses said, sending Sebastian to sit down in the waiting area.

Isabel was rushed into an exam room where the nurses removed the blanket and began taking her vitals. Her breathing and body temperature were dramatically low, and the nurses immediately set about warming her. They covered her in a heated blanket and began administering warmed intravenous fluids.

Little by little, her lips and fingers began to lose their blue pallor. The monitoring machines beeped less and less frantically, but her heart rate went from too slow to too fast and she didn’t wake.

The doctor entered the room with a clipboard and a somber expression. “Get two bags of blood and start the transfusion. This girl is so anemic I’m surprised she’s alive at all! Did we get a history on her yet?”

“Not yet, sir. Maria just left to talk to the man who brought her in a moment ago.”

“Okay, good. So hypothermia, anemia, anything else that I should be aware of?” The doctor scanned the chart, then looked back at Isabel. The color had returned to her cheeks and her breathing was growing stronger. Hopefully once she got some blood in her, she’d be able to tell them what happened.

The nurse Maria returned and handed another clipboard to the doctor. “Her name is Isabel, age 29. The man who brought her in is her boyfriend. She has a history of leukemia, anemia, and fainting. He said he found her at the bottom of the cellar stairs, unconscious.”

“I see,” the doctor replied. “Check her for bruising. If she fainted from anemia and fell down the stairs, she quite likely injured herself. Once she wakes up, call me.”

Both attending nurses nodded. Maria set about changing the warmed IV fluid to a blood transfusion, while the other nurse, Lily, scanned Isabel’s body. Her chest and wrists were heavily bruised, and when Lily touched her left arm, Isabel whimpered.

“This doesn’t look like she fell down the stairs,” Lily muttered to her coworker. “Look at these marks on her wrists. You can see the individual finger-shaped bruises. If she ended up at the bottom of a set of stairs, I don’t think it was by accident. Do you think her boyfriend pushed her?”

Maria shrugged. “He seemed genuinely frantic when I spoke with him, but I’m not a detective. It all seems suspicious to me. I want to know how she got so hypothermic on a June night. It’s almost like she was stuffed in a freezer or something.”

“It’s definitely strange. I’ll get a report started for the authorities just in case.”

* * *

Isabel drifted into a world of white-hot pain. Each breath felt like a dozen knives driven into her chest, and her arm pulsed with each heartbeat. Memories of the frozen wasteland drifted in and out, mingled with scenes she didn’t recognize yet felt connected to.

She could hear voices, but they sounded like a speaker at a low volume in the next room over. They formed a soft soundtrack to the ethereal space in which she floated. It was peaceful here, despite the pain which wracked her body.

“You do have to go back.”

The words echoed from everywhere and nowhere, in her own voice. She tried to move her head to search for the source, only to find that she had no control over her body. “But it hurts,” she thought, and was surprised when the words echoed audibly in the space.

“Yes, mortality hurts. But this life is your chance to break the cycle.”

“I’m just so tired.”

Isabel felt a warm hand take hers, and it pulled her up. She opened her eyes and found herself sitting by a brook. The sun shone down on her freckled skin and the water burbled over her bare toes. Everything felt just a little too bright and the edges blurred, but the pain disappeared. “Then take some rest while you can. You have more pain to face before your journey ends, if you and Sebastian are strong enough to accomplish it.”

She glanced to her left and saw a copy of herself, radiant and dressed in a flowing white dress that stood in stark contrast to her black hair and blood-red lips. “I don’t even know what we’re supposed to do. Everything is so confusing.”

The woman took Isabel’s hand and gave it a squeeze. “That’s okay. I will help you as much as I can. There’s so little of me left that I’ve struggled to restore your memories, but I think I can do it now that you’re here.”

“Who are you?”

“I’m you, silly. Your soul, you could say. At least, what’s left of it.” She smiled softly at Isabel and held up her hand. The sun shone through it. “The shadow you’ve been facing is the result of a shattered soul. That portion of you was stronger than this one, but the balance has shifted back. Close your eyes?”

Isabel did as she was bidden and felt the warm hands of the other woman rest atop her head. That warmth spread from the top of her head to her fingers and toes, and images began racing through her head. At first it was overwhelming. But the longer it went on, the more comfortable it became, until the hands lifted.

“Open your eyes.”

Isabel did so, and felt something click into place. Emotion crashed into her like a rogue wave and she fell to her hands and knees in the stream. She breathed heavily, adjusting to the new depth of feeling, then looked up. Standing before her was a younger Sebastian, around fifteen, with a smile on his face. He extended his hand, laughing. “What are you doing in the stream, pretty girl? Let’s get you out of there.”

She looked around for the copy of herself, but she had disappeared. The confusion on her face must have amused Sebastian, because he laughed louder as he stooped down and ran his hand gently down her arm. His strong grip was gentle around her wrist as he lifted her back to her feet. “There, that’s better. I’m Sebastian. What’s your name?”

“I’m Chiara,” she replied, surprised by how naturally the name fell from her lips.