Prologue

Dexter was so tired, his eyes felt like covered by sand. The trip to Beacon Hills was a lot more exhausting than expected and the idea of driving there was getting stupider at the minute. Not that he could do much about it. He had nothing to go back to.

His stomach was yelling at this point, graving for food. He needed to find a place to eat, but apparently there were only trees around him. Trees and the moon, that illuminated the road in front of him. He traveled a lot with his father, but never saw the moon as bright and big as it was in Beacon Hills.

Dexter shook his head when he thought about his father. He was so angry with him. So disappointed, so frustrated. And the worst part was, he shouldn't be. The man was always like that, why would he change now?

He kept driving, losing hope of finding a place to eat on the side of the road. Maybe once he got to town, he would find a place that opened early. He thought about all the things he would order. Bacon, pancakes, eggs. He was so distracted that almost didn't see the girl running into the woods. It took only a second, but he was sure he saw her.

He couldn't focus on driving after that, the scene locked in his mind. What would make a girl run into the woods like that? Did she need help? Did something happen to her? He thought it was none of this business, but something made him come back. Like a magnetic force pushing him towards her.

He drove back and looked at the forest, not welcoming at all. He took a deep breath, taking a minute to decide what to do. His options weren't the best: he could go into the forest and get lost, which would add to the hunger and exhaustion and make everything a lot more dangerous; or he could keep driving, try to find a diner before he passed out, and never stop wondering what happened to her. Curiosity or hunger, which one would win?

Dexter got a flashlight and got into the woods. He remembered when he was a kid and ran through it with his friends, his mother and godfather. He always felt weird about the place, a mix of familiarity and fear. He tried to recognize something, unsuccessfully.

He thought about yelling for the girl, but didn't know her name. He didn't know anything about her, how she looked, what she was doing there. At some point, Dexter even considered the possibility of her not being real, just an hallucination of a tired mind.

He heard a sound and turned around quickly. He pointed the flashlight to the tree he thought originated the sound, but there was nothing there.

"Hey," he asked. He got no answer. The more he walked, the closer the trees became. As if he wasn't worried enough the flashlight died and everything went dark around him, he could barely see the road anymore. He started to feel dizzy and looked for something to lean on. Then he felt a hard stroke in the back of his head and he lost conscience.

A/N: Hey there. Dexter is a character that got stuck in my mind while watching season 3 and it felt so good to finally write about him. I have a lot of material about the character in portuguese, posted in a forum that i'm part of. So, i can totally translate it all if there is interest xD Also, thanks for reading and I hope you like the story.

A/N2: This story is posted in AO3 too. But i'm rewriting this while posting here because I was not as happy with that version as I would like to.