To my ghosts,

With love.

Chapter One

Snake Pit

Hissing fields of wheat surrounded her. The same pale golden shade stretched as far as she could see. There, in the distance, was a man she didn't recognise. A tourist, she supposed, passing through.

Lena squinted against the sun, and squeezed her eyes shut when the bright rays reflected directly into her face. Beams caught the glass face of a watch, or the scrap of metal jewellery sticking out from his coat sleeve. Odd, though, that he wore it - the coat. The weather was the best it had been in weeks.

Far stranger was how he picked his way towards her, shins brushing away the tender stems of her family's crop. Lost, then. She turned back around, and let him approach her, trying to appear busy.

"Hello."

He spoke only a little too soon, she thought. His voice was velvety enough for her to disregard it.

She straightened up, and turned to face him. Tried not to let her surprise show. He was far more handsome than she had anticipated, far more handsome than any man she'd ever met, in a strange way she couldn't quite put her finger on.

He was lean, and only a little taller than Lena. Black hair peeked out from beneath a brimmed hat, a harsh contrast to his shockingly pale skin. His features were delicate - his eyes were large, and his nose button-like - so that he as a whole gave the impression of a little white mouse. Harmless. Curious. Nothing more.

A tiny smile graced his lips, oddly perfect. Symmetrical, though pale, like the rest of him.

Heat rushed to her face. He was laughing at her. She had been staring.

"Hello," she squeaked back.

"I've been told you're quite the mirage," he said. His Greek was good for a tourist, but a little bit off. His words pulled in strange ways. She couldn't quite place his accent.

She didn't have time to think too deeply about it.

He tugged off a black glove, and held out his hand to her. "A pleasure."

Lena smiled. Without reason, the hairs on the back of her neck stood as she took his hand.

His grip was cold, but Lena wasn't rude enough to flinch. She kept her smile pasted on her lips, let the icy feeling seep deep into her skin, as if something was trespassing into her body and burrowing deep into her muscle and bone.

"I'm Lena," she said. "Are you lost?"

His chin dipped, an acknowledgement of her question, but he gave no verbal response.

Lena moved to draw away from him, but his grip tightened.

She frowned. Something was wrong.

Something was very, very wrong.

Quickly, she glanced around her, hoping - praying - she would spot someone in the fields. Of course, there was nobody.

Her house was over in the distance, an ugly stone building she shared with her mother and younger brothers. She willed someone to come out, to spot her from one of the windows. Her mother, flour smeared over the front of her trousers as she raced down the steps, black curly hair a mess atop her head. Her brother - either of them, though she hoped it would be Nik, the older one. He would race out of the house, trample over crops to get to her in a matter of seconds.

She could hear it, if she tried enough. Over the whistling of the wheat, it was there - the slamming of the screen door as it flew open and someone barrelled outside, her mother shrieking at this man to let her go-

Only, it wasn't real.

She blinked, and the sounds dissipated into nothing. There was only the steady hissing floating in the air. She was in a pit, she realised. A pit of snakes, and there was no way out.

She was alone, and nobody was going to help her.

Her gaze returned to the man in front of her. Some primal instinct demanded she looked away, submitted, but she refused. Told herself that if she could see him, she could see exactly what he was going to do to her.

His face was slack. Void of any type of emotion. No rage, no excitement, no hesitation. Just blank, like he was sleeping with his eyes open. Then, as if her staring forced him to resurface from a deep lake, he blinked twice and released her hand.

"Sorry," he said. "I wanted to see for myself."

She shook her head, frowned.

Again, he smiled that stupid little smile, like he knew a million things Lena could never comprehend. Patronising. He took half a step close, and laid an icy pale hand on her cheek.

Lena flinched, but couldn't move away. Fear tethered her to the earth beneath her feet. She knew, somehow, that running away wasn't a good idea. In fact, something in his attentive gaze told her he just might enjoy it.

"This must all be very confusing for you," he crooned. "I promise everything will make so much more sense afterwards."

She bit her lip and willed herself not to cry.

"Please," she said around the lump in her throat. "Please, just let me go. I won't-"

"Now, why would I do that? Trust me. Everything will be better if I do this."

A single hot tear rolled down her cheek and to the top of her lip. She told herself she wouldn't cry, but she couldn't help it. She was about to die. She knew it, just as she knew her favourite colour, her favourite song.

There was no question about whether or not he would, only the details. How would he do it? Would he leave her body here for her mother to find? Her little brothers?

How cruel could he be?

She didn't know. He was a stranger, an outsider. She was wrong to trust him at all.

He watched her cry for a moment. He didn't say anything, just tilted his head to the side and traced the path her tears followed with his eyes, as if the whole thing fascinated him. Sick.

God, Lena felt so sick.

Then, as if he was tired of studying her tears, his hand migrated from her cheek to the back of her head. He grabbed at the roots of her dark hair and pulled. Lena was forced to tip her head back and look up at him.

Again, he said nothing. Just stared at her, mouth firm, eyes firm, everything about him completely closed off. This was her last chance to plead with him, and yet she couldn't find the words, couldn't work out what to say to convince him she wasn't worth the effort.

Something passed over his face, something like disappointment, but it was replaced quickly with a tenderness that didn't suit the current situation at all.

"Sleep well, Lena."

"No," she gasped. "No, no, no, no-"

He yanked on her hair, harder this time, pulling her head to the side. Lena yelped in pain, and instinctively tried to back out of his hold, but the man was stronger than her, despite their similarities in size.

In one swift movement, he buried his face in the flesh of her neck. His cold, cold nose pressed against the dip where her shoulder met her neck, just above her collarbone.

He stood still for a moment, and Lena wondered if this was part of some sick game he wanted to play with her. Trying to make her think she had a chance to escape, and that he didn't already have it set in his mind that he was going to kill her.

She wasn't going to play along. She knew there was no hope in trying, not anymore. She couldn't fight him off, and even if she managed to escape his stone grip, there was no way she would make it back to the house before he caught her.

If she was going to die, she was going to die with dignity.

A tiny breath of cold air brushed over her skin. A short sigh from her murderer. It was his only warning.

He bit down on her neck, hard, with so much force she thought she felt something deep inside her give way to his teeth.

Lena screamed, but the noise died in her throat, agony silencing her as a searing pain spread through her neck and radiated up into her skull. Never had she experienced pain quite like this.

Her knees buckled, and she sagged against her assailant like a ragdoll. She wanted desperately to lurch away from him, to not feel the contours of his body pressed against her, and yet couldn't. The pain paralysed her. Intense and sharp and hot all at once, and it was spreading.

Spreading through her head and down her neck, to her shoulders and back and arms and hands and fingertips. Down her torso too, and her legs, and her feet, all the way down to the tips of her toes. And it didn't get better. It hurt the same everywhere, just as badly, worse even over time.

A darkness loomed over her, crept into the edges of her vision and vanished when she dared to glance at it.

It was the only way she could keep it at bay, and even that was some impossible feat, like she was grappling with a shadow. The shadow didn't quite want to beat her just yet, that was all. It wasn't like she was winning. She would lose, ultimately. She knew that.

The man appeared in her field of vision, and she blinked rapidly to keep him there - to keep the shadows from devouring him. His mouth and chin were smeared with blood - her blood, she thought in horror. He smiled, again. Smiled like the sight of her unable to move, moaning in complete agony as fire consumed her from the inside-out, pleased him greatly.

"It won't be long. Three days at most." He swept her up into his arms.

Lena didn't register his touch. All she could focus on was the heat, the intense heat coursing through her and burning her alive. She noticed she was moving, though. Blinked hastily through the haze trying to claim her consciousness to see that he was taking her further and further away from her house, and deeper and deeper into the wheat fields.

"There's too much land to cover on foot. They won't find you out here. Not before it's too late, at least."

He set her down on the soil, amongst the wheat, and went to the effort of arranging her limbs, as if he could offer her any kind of physical comfort right now.

She was dying. She was on fire, in the worst pain of her life, and he was stuffing his rolled up coat under her head and straightening out her legs, like it would make any of this go away.

Once he was done, he stared at her.

Perhaps he could sense her confusion, glimpse it in her eyes between bouts of agony Lena gritted her teeth and grunted through.

He sighed, glanced away, as if it was too much only then to look her in the eyes. "I had hoped to see it." He sighed, and shook his head. "Nevermind. It's your last chance to sleep. Try to rest."

He turned and walked away, every movement so calm, so measured, like he wasn't leaving her there to die, like he had no qualms about it even if he were.

Lena laid there, muscles taut as warm liquid rushed down her neck and some sort of fire ravaged her insides. She was unable to even raise her hand to press against her wound, and instead spent her time blinking up at the cloudless sky, willing the shadows creeping into her vision to leave her.

She grunted, her body lifting up off the dirt for only a moment as she convulsed. Her body dropped back to the ground, hard, though the pain was incomparable. Muted, even. She blinked once more, or tried to, but this time her eyes wouldn't open again.

She laid there, moaning in pain until even her voice betrayed her and she could cry no more. She laid there, listening to the wheat fields rattle in the wind like a pit of snakes as she waited to die.

basically this story is an attempt to get over whatever weird fear i have of posting the entirety of a story for other people to read. i'll update every couple of days so i dont have the chance to overthink it and freak myself out.

thanks so much for reading i love u