"Mom!?" I screamed out, my heart about to beat out of my chest. "Lily!?" "Oliver!?"

I screeched out my family members names, scrambling through the pitch black forest. There were no answers from either of them. My legs were struggling to push myself forward as I tripped through the path over fallen tree branches, scraping my knees. I felt like I was going to hyperventilate, I had no idea what was going on and that made me more spastic every second.

Suddenly, I heard a terrified scream from further into the forest. It was Lily, my baby sister. I began trembling, holding onto anything I could to keep myself from falling over. I tried to scream out Lily's name, but all that came out was a quiet, strangled version of what I had intended to screech at the top of my lungs. Then there was another short ear piercing scream that quickly broke off into dead silence. Something was happening; my sister was in trouble. My whole family was in trouble. I couldn't bring myself to think of what that last scream could have meant.

This was surely becoming the worst family camping trip in existence.

Then I ran, without even thinking, toward the sound. I had to be there, for my family. I had to know what was going on. When I finally reached where the sounds were coming from, I was frozen in place. My sister's dead body lay on the ground in the middle of a small clearing; bleeding and broken. My hand shot up to my mouth in an effort to stop the loud cry of pain that was about to escape. I collapsed to the ground in anguish, a stream beginning to run down from my eyes.

I heard a familiar voice shout. "No! Oliver run!" the voice demanded. It was my mother. I blinked furiously to clear my eyes so I could see, attempting to stand back up. She was talking to my older brother by two years, Oliver. They exchanged horrified glances, and he looked reluctant to leave her. She motioned for him to run away, pleading with her eyes for him to leave. "Please", she whisper cried desperately, fear in her eyes. Pained, he began to turn, and dashed off into the trees, disappearing into the darkness.

A few seconds later, I saw what my mother was directing my brother away from; what had killed my sister. I was hiding behind a tree, where I couldn't be seen, but I had a clear view. A tall man, from what it looked like, came out into my view, but he was no ordinary man. He was very pale, with dark brown hair contrasting his pale face. He looked like he could have been from Italy or Spain, and his eyes were a deep, frightening pitch black color.

Following above him in the sky, a front of dark clouds rolled quickly over us. Lightning lit up the sky and thunder roared and echoed through the clearing, while rain began to pour with a violent gust of wind. The mysterious man laughed, and looked from my mother up to the clouds and back. She pursed her lips and groaned, understanding what he was telling her with his actions. I didn't understand, and I had a vague feeling that I was missing something here, that there was a story behind all this. The storm began to calm a bit, and was just background noise around the scene. His dark brown hair flowed into his face, as he threatened to my mother with a heavy Spanish accent, "They won't be able to run away, I'll find them. And I can't simply ignore their presence here, they've seen too much...."

His eyes quickly flickered toward me, and my heart beat accelerated, as I ducked down afraid I'd been spotted. Does he know I'm here? I thought, feeling the anxiety starting to kick in. I looked back to my mother, who stiffened and was glaring at him. She didn't let any of her fear show through, despite this terrible situation we were in. She was a strong person. "I'm willing to bet you're wrong about them" she told him confidently. "Well..." he looked up, and chuckled; "I guess we'll just have to see, I wouldn't put any bets on them though, if I were you." She grimaced at him, "You disgust me", she spit out at him. "You're a monster, and that's all that you'll ever be. You will exist and die as a monster, and nothing more."

"That's interesting, funny I already knew that, and I am quite content with it actually, and quite frankly, it's actually enjoyable being a monster. I have more power this way." he told her, happy with himself, with a matter of fact expression. "You know, your plans will never work. Trust me on that. I think you know very well how accurate I am on these things." he looked very annoyed by how sure she was. I was definitely missing something here.

Finally, he looked angered by her words, and my mother showed a wide, smug smile, clearly happy for her victory. He stared at her with his eyes burning with such deep hatred that it, if it were me under his gaze, could have burned a hole straight through me. Then in only seconds, my mother screamed and was thrown into a tree with a loud crash. There was a loud snap from her neck, and then her body was limp and lifeless as it fell to the ground. The man leaned over her, parting his lips, as if to kiss her. He rested his mouth over her neck, parted his teeth, and sunk them into her.

I could hear sickening sucking noises that made me feel like I was going to vomit. The color left my face, leaving me as pale as the man sucking the life from mother right in front of me. I was frozen in the cold night, and felt numb. Another stream flowed down my face. My mother was being killed, and all I could do is stand and watch from the sidelines of this painful and utterly disturbing scene. My life with my loving, strong, and caring mother flashed before my eyes, as I realized this was the last time I'd ever see her again.

Words couldn't even describe the anguish I was feeling. I felt like I should have run out between my mom and the man in a desperate attempt to save her, but my legs were frozen to the ground whenever I even slightly leaned in their direction. I knew I couldn't do anything, I was weak. I wanted to wake up. This all had to have been a terrible bad dream that I was going to wake up from. There was no way this could be happening. I couldn't watch this anymore. Tears still flooding my eyes, I quietly walked away. I had to try and find my brother, who was still out there.

The rain soaked me from head to toe, and I'm sure I looked like a wet muddy dog. Once I got far enough away I broke into a sprint, searching. I heard branches snapping to my right and looked toward the sounds, still sprinting. Suddenly, I crashed into something, or someone. I fell back with a bang, my head hurting from the collision. "Ow" I heard someone mutter. I looked up, to find my brother sitting up on the ground rubbing his head. He looked like a mess; he clearly was taking this just as badly as I was.

"Oli!" I screamed, reaching over to pull him into an obnoxious hug. He hugged back, quietly whimpering in agony, and relieved at the same time. "Adalia, thank god. I thought I'd lose you too" he said sadly, choking on the last words. He pulled away, holding my shoulders and looked into my eyes. "We're going to get through this" he said, convinced this was definitely the case. "We're going to get out of this..." he repeated, but this time not as sure, and was attempting to convince himself as well.

I blurted out all of the questions I have been fabricating in my head, "What was that? Did you see anything back there? That thing that..." I cringed thinking of what had happened. I couldn't finish the sentence. He quickly answered, "I don't know, and yes, I seen it. Whatever it is, it's coming back, for us this time. We need to ---" Abruptly, someone launched in front of us and grabbed Oliver right off the ground, pinning him to the ground a few feet away.

There were stones and large twigs all over the ground next to me. I knew I had to do something... anything. I acted quickly, without even thinking, and picked up the largest stone. I stood up, while the man that had killed my mom and sister was still pinning my brother to the tree, muttering something I could not hear into his ear.

I lifted the largest stone I had, and threw it as hard as I could at the back of the man's head. It didn't do any damage, as I had expected, but it did get his attention. He paused, startled by my action, and slowly turned his head around to glare at me.

I froze, and I couldn't breathe. His gaze was so hateful, it made my heart beat stutter and I got the chills. "Excuse me?" He asked in a threatening and agitated, but polite tone, a crack of lightning streaking dangerously close to us in the sky above us. I was speechless; I didn't know what to say. I hadn't planned this part. I just stood there motionless, thinking something up. "Uh… uhhh" I stuttered.

He looked at me with the same threatening expression, but cocked his head to the side, curiously. "Yes?" He asked me, letting go of his grasp on Oliver, standing up and turning his whole body to face me. He walked toward me a few steps. "I'm very... curious as to what you were hoping to accomplish with your little stunt there" He stared at me. "uh..uhhh" I repeated. "Spit it out, now" he snapped, frustrated and impatient now, but it almost sounding like a threat.

I glanced over to Oliver, who stared back and forth between me and the man, with a terrified, nervous expression. "Why?" I asked. He was about to ask me to clarify, but I continued. "I mean, why are you doing this? I'm sure you've already gotten enough of whatever you were hoping to get from destroying our family here tonight, why can't you just let us go?" I said, glancing at Oliver, begging him with my eyes to do something to help us.

"Don't you have even the slightest bit of mercy in you at all? You could just let us leave, right now, and we'd never tell a soul.... please." I begged pleadingly. I was desperate. The man chortled, and chuckled in amusement, but something underneath his amusement made chills once again run down my spine. "Oh, but that's where you're wrong. I haven't gotten everything I want yet." He smiled brilliantly, showing his blood stained teeth as I grimaced. "Also, how could I possibly believe two children that they'd 'never tell a soul'? That seems awfully unrealistic to me."

Oliver bent down and slowly picked up a large branch. He continued, "oh, and no, I have no mercy" he said devilishly. He turned back towards Oliver, who was now raising the branch like a baseball bat about to strike. The man chuckled again, but this time even more intimidating, and my brother's eyes widened in horror. "You two were trying to kill me?" he asked. We both just stared with our eyes wide.

"That's very brave, I must say... but also very, very foolish of you both. I'm much better at killing than you, and I'm a hunter by nature. Neither of you will escape me, in the end, I can promise you that." He looked back at Oliver and looked like he was concentrating on something. With no physical force visibly doing so, the branch flew out of Oliver's hands, crashing into a nearby tree.

Did the man just do that? How was that possible? Suddenly, before I could see it happening, he was holding me up in the air, his large hands tightly and firmly grasping my throat. I reached my own hands to his, attempting to rip them off my throat, choking and searching for some way to breathe. His hands were cold as ice, and hard as rock. He lifted me so high by only my neck with no effort, as if I weighed nothing. He was also very tall. "What are you?" I demanded, choking out the words when I was able to get some air.

"Something that you only thought was in your nightmares" he answered, another flash of lightning lighting up the sky, and I could see his devilish grin. I glared into his eyes, and then my eyes widened in a mixture of fear and shock at the bizarre red color of his eyes. I hadn't noticed it before now. He leaned in towards me a little, and I cringed expecting to share the same fate as my mother had. Instead, he sniffed my hair and tilted his head, his facial expression growing confused. A little bit away, I saw the silhouette of a couple other people, one small (my size) and one taller figure moving towards us growling fiercely.

The man released me from his hold, as he held his hands out in the same position it was in when I was in his grasp, staring at them in terror. His body glazed over in ice, and he resembled an ice carving. When I landed on the cold hard ground from the height, I hit my head on something hard, and then everything faded to black.