In a small, white room, a girl sits cowered in the corner of the room, her fading black hair curling over her eyes down past her shoulders, white hands clenched around her knees, face turned red by the torrent of tears. She has been imprisoned here for three days now, allowed nothing to feed upon, nothing to do but wait. Her eyes are dilated and her skin stretched tight from hunger, lips drawn back over sharpened teeth. Her breath comes in short, shallow gasps; her heart beating slower and her body near comatose. For three days they have kept her here.

She has yet to learn their names, she knows them only by observation of their appearance, and their particular scents. During the early morning, which she can barely recall, the first of many comes to watch her. She calls him the ‘Ordinary Man’ for there is nothing exceptional about him. He comes and sits and watches her as she struggles against the ancient magic bonds that tie her, and the heavy metal chains which are bond around her fragile wrists. She is too weak to do anything but watch him watching her. He never speaks, though to begin with, she would question him. Why are you so interested in me? What is so special about me? Why me?

He never answered, she doubts he ever will. She stopped asking after the second day. She thinks, perhaps, if she were to try, he may help her escape. She feels he’ll be the one to either free her or destroy her.

She remembers very little of the day light, despite the heavy stimulant drugs they regularly injected into her bloodstream. Like most of her kind, her metabolism was faster than that of a human, and as a result, broke down these drugs too quickly for effect. She instead experienced a kind of interactive nightmare, with all the ‘doctors’ playing cameos roles at regular intervals.

She knows that they have experimented on her whilst she was in this state. She remembers, minutely, the pain of their knives and the stitches afterwards, though she knows little of what they actually do. She hears them discussing tissue samples, blood test results and DNA, and wishes she knew more about science.

They call her Megan, but she knows that’s not her name. She knows she had a name, before she was captured, but she cannot remember what it was.

During the evening, the haze of drugs and sleep deprivation fades, such is the nature of her disease. She is wide-awake, healed and reborn, though weaker than before. She can feel her energy sapping, energy that could be rebuilt, if only she were allowed to feed.

But, of course, they would not let her.

The nights are the worst. Instincts, thousands of years old, run through her veins, calling to her to break free. She has tried calling to others of her kind during these hours, to rescue her, but they shy away from her thoughts, aware of her, but unable to help.

It is during the night, also, that the man she calls ‘Death’ comes to her.

As though polar opposites on the same spectrum, Death and the Ordinary Man are completely different. Whilst the Ordinary Man never attempts to make her do anything, never asks anything of her, Death questions her. Death hurts her. Death would kill her, she sees this in his eyes, if he were not under orders not to do so.

He is a tall man, in his early forties, she supposes, with greasy black hair gelled back against a greasy forehead. His eyes are sharp, dark brown, almost black, and his mouth unanimated, fixed permanently in a smirk. He has no time for pleasantries.

She remembers one night when he took a scalpel to her cheek to see if she bled, which of course she did. She remembers his words. Harsh words. Shouting. Screaming. She remembers his hand around her neck. She remembers the chains snapping. Magic ceasing. Freedom. Remembers twisting upon him, knocking him to the floor, baring teeth to his neck. Nothing.

Pure white.

When she awoke from that episode, the chains were stronger, the magic more powerful, and Death detested her more than ever.

She calls them the blackouts, when he enters her cell now. She remembers nothing from his hand on the door handle entering to his leaving. She knows he does bad things, she doesn’t care to know, or know to care.

To kill him, would be so sweet.

*

Tonight, she knows, is different. She knows this because her blood calls to her. It is the third night, but they do not realise that tonight is her night. Or she hopes they don’t.

The transformation is always painful. Even without magical wards and curses binding her, the pain is immense. She falls wordlessly to the ground as bones twist and meld, shatter and tear. She vows not to scream, not to alert anybody. Her hands grab for something, anything, pain, pain, pain, anything. She reaches for the leg of the bed, but her grasp shatters the strong metal effortlessly. Blood tears leak in streams from her eyes. Her lip is bloody from her biting upon it. She always assures herself that this cannot last forever, but it feels so, tonight, as it does every time.

She whimpers as her jaw cracks to accommodate more teeth, feeling razor sharp bone growing in her mouth. She shudders against the wall in a sitting position, fingernails now strong enough to embed into the concrete holding her.

Her nose is bleeding. She doesn’t know what she looks like now. She couldn’t imagine it. She lies, panting, half transformed, waiting to heal, to be reborn. The bones of her spine vibrate, she can feel the stretching.

Ah! Sweet release. Wings of pure white bone burst from her sides, blood gently spattering on the walls around her. She screams then, but the sound is muffled through her quickly gritted teeth.

She stands, the transformation complete, flexes her wings. They creak slowly at first, tiny bones clicking together. She shakes herself, before stepping towards the door.

Focussing with her mind, she opens the door, stronger now than before. Immediately, the air is filled with the sounds of sirens and the glitter of ancient magic wards. She steps though them easily, as though they weren’t even there. A guard rushes for her, she stops him, grabs his neck, and her teeth bite down. Sweet, sweet blood enters her mouth. She swallows eagerly. Blood is running down her chin, hitting the floor in thick globs. She drops the guard, his veins empty. She looks up, finding herself surrounded.

Smiles.

Falls backwards wearily into a world of make belief.

*

Wrapped in blankets and warmed by thigh-high socks that have crumpled to below her knees, Rayne jerks awake. Her head is throbbing. She reaches up to rub her eyes, gasping in pain from her bruised sides. She remembers the dream, the nightmare; it seems so familiar now, as though she’s been dreaming about this girl all her life. Yet, she cannot place the movie or book she got these ideas from. And then she wonders, was she dreaming about a fairytale?