He couldn't see. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't do anything but run, and keep running, and running, and running.

Because there was a monster behind him.

The shadows closed in around him as he ran deeper and deeper, straight into the heart of the woods. He didn't have a plan. He didn't know what he was going to do. All he knew was that he had to keep running.

Tears streamed down his cheeks, forcibly whipped from his eyes by the wind. He squeezed his eyes shut.

And disappeared.

But the creature was still behind him as he ran, this time on a beach that he didn't recognize. Nor did he try and recognize it.

He closed his eyes again, but it was still coming, chasing him once more over mountains and cliffs.

And Hiro Nakamura dropped to the floor, tripping on something and stumbling, unable to carry on.

He closed his eyes again, one final, desperate time. But the monster was still there. It was still crashing towards him, now on the roof of this random building…

But no claws sliced into him. No horrible teeth came to end his life.

Hiro cracked one eye open, then sat up, hoping the monster was no longer there…

But it was no monster.

"Help me…" the man whispered through blood-soaked lips. He fell to his knees, a knife in his chest. "Please…"

And he fell to the ground.

Hiro chewed his lip nervously as he looked at the man. "He's going to be ok, right?"

Mohinder Suresh sighed deeply. "I really don't think I'm the man to ask that question, Hiro. You should have taken him to a hospital-"

But Hiro cut him off. "No! He's a hero! He followed me when I teleported!"

Mohinder sighed again. "Hiro, I'm just not capable of this sort of thing…"

"Please!" Hiro begged. "He's hurt! You have to do something!"

Mohinder looked at Hiro for a long time. He looked like someone had just kicked his puppy. Finally, he nodded. "Very well. I'll do what I can."

Hiro's face lit up in a smile, and he hugged Mohinder, much to his protests. "Thank you! Thank you!"

"No promises, though!" Mohinder tried to say. But Hiro was already gone, presumably to tell Ando, or bring him here, or whatever.

Mohinder sighed once more as he turned to look at the man, who was still breathing despite the wound in his chest. "All right. Let's see if we can fix this…"

Hiro was back an hour later, though to him it had only been a few seconds. Mohinder's face was ashen, and he had a large glass of some kind of alcoholic drink next to him.

Hiro's eyes widened in shock. "No! Mohinder, you have to be sober!" he started to shake Mohinder violently. "You have to help the Stabbed Man! You have to see if you can fix him!"

Mohinder looked at Hiro with a kind of shock in his eyes, as though he hadn't seen the teleporter arrive. He swallowed. "That?" His voice cracked as he talked, and he pointed one shaking finger at the man on the table. "That is no man, Hiro." He tilted the drink back down into his mouth. "I don't know what that is." He continued, his words slurring together slightly.

Hiro's face was so distressed that Ando (with a heavy sigh) took Mohinder's bottle and smashed it against the floor. Mohinder just looked at the glass shards with an apathetic expression on his face.

Hiro shook Mohinder again. "You have to help him!"

"I tried, Hiro!" Mohinder snapped. "But that… that is beyond my help."

"Why?" Hiro whimpered. "What's wrong with him?"

Mohinder laughed, a strange, gurgling laugh. "Everything!" He leaned forward and whispered, like he was telling a huge secret. "He's got two hearts, Hiro. Two hearts." He leaned back into his seat.

"No! You are just drunk!" Hiro shook Mohinder again, and Mohinder went with it this time, falling onto the floor with the remains of his drink. He looked at it blankly, as though he couldn't process the idea that he had fallen.

Hiro turned to Ando. He looked absolutely pathetic. "He's just drunk." He repeated mournfully.

Ando rolled his eyes. "Outta my way…" he said with a resigned look on his face.

His hands crackled with red lightning for a moment. The lightning flew from his fingers and into Mohinder, who jumped up instantly, looking startled but somehow better.

"Yay!" Hiro cried, leaping to his feet.

Mohinder looked around him, as though he couldn't remember where he was. Then he looked at the man on the table. His face fell, and he started to look sick.

"Ah, yes. You're impossible case." He held his stomach for a moment, and Hiro and Ando hurriedly backed away.

But, after a second, he was fine. "Yes. Well. Hiro, I don't know how to say this, but you're man's got two hearts."

Hiro's eyes popped. "You weren't drunk when you said that?" He gasped.

Mohinder shook his head gravely. "I tried to take a pulse. Then I listened in to his chest and…" Again, he clutched his stomach.

"But can you fix him?" Hiro demanded.

Mohinder looked at him, his eyes questioning Hiro's sanity. "Why would we want to? This man is a monster!"

"Wrong." A voice behind them suddenly said. "I believe that description belongs to me."

They all whirled around to see Sylar standing behind them. "Boo." The serial killer said.

Hiro placed a hand on Mohinder's and Ando's shoulder, teleporting away instantly.

But he'd left the other man on the table. Sylar smiled.

His plan had worked better than he'd thought it would.

Before Hiro could come back, Sylar took the strange man into his arms and flew away.

"Headache…" Donna muttered as she slowly got to her feet. She shook her head quickly, the winced as that made her head throb. "Ugh. Don't do that again." She told herself.

She looked around. There wasn't really much to say about the place, except that it was totally dark. She stared out into the pitch-black nothingness, trying desperately to see.

She held her hands out and used them to find out more about the room. It wasn't too large and had no furniture.

She felt around on the floor, then recoiled in horror as her hands met something wet and sticky.

Blood.

She kept feeling around, and found something that made her blood run cold.

A human body.

She leapt back, hitting her head against a door. She started banging against it. "Hey! Is anyone out there? There's a body in here! Please, help!" She tried the doorknob, but it was locked. "Please!"

But her screaming did nothing as the serial killer landed inside, coming in through the window, into a room outside of hers. He smiled as he heard her screams, but did nothing else.

Her voice would fade before he would ever care about her cries. Before he would ever care about anyone's cries.

The Doctor blinked slowly, then slightly faster, his eyes opening at last.

The room had dim lighting, and the object he was laying on felt suspiciously like a table. The smell of bleach was heavy in the air.

He looked at his chest, puzzled. "Wasn't there a knife here?" he questioned. "I'm sure there was a knife there."

He bit his lip thoughtfully. His shirt was completely ruined; it had a huge hole in it and was absolutely covered in blood. But there was no wound.

"Hmm…" he held up a hand, looking at it in the dim light. "Those seem familiar…"

He placed his hands on his face, his very familiar-feeling face with familiar eyes, cheeks, nose and lips.

"So. I haven't regenerated…" He looked around again. "So then what happened?"

"Regenerated?" A curious voice asked.

The Doctor jumped; he hadn't realized someone else was there.

The man chuckled. "It's an interesting term, really. A few of us use it, but not quite in the way I think you mean it."

The Doctor sat up, expecting to feel a great amount of pain as he did so. But no, he was fine. "Oh? Who's 'us'?"

The man's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "I don't understand it." he muttered, beginning to pace. "You talk like one of us. You act like one of us. You seem to be one of us." His furious pacing had brought him right next to The Doctor's face. "But you aren't. You're completely ignorant." His eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

The Doctor bristled. There was something about this man that he just didn't like. And he liked everyone. "Ignorant?" He asked indignantly. "I'll have you know, I've lived a lot longer than you have, seen a lot more, done a lot more …"

The man glared at him, and for once, the Doctor found himself shutting up. But it didn't seem by his own will. The Doctor tried, and suddenly found that his lips couldn't move.

"You talk too much." The man said.

The Doctor crossed his arms.

But the man ignored him. "So what are you?"

The Doctor raised an eyebrow, gesturing to his lips, which felt glued together.

The man rolled his eyes, but the pressure was released.

The Doctor glared at him. "Why should I tell you?" He demanded. "And where's Donna?"

He had no idea if this man knew where Donna was, but he asked anyway.

But he ignored the last part of the Doctor's question. "Because if you don't tell me, I'll rip open your head and find out for myself."

The Doctor swallowed, but tried to stay focused on what mattered. He stepped up right in front of the man, his eyes blazing. "Where's Donna?" he asked again.

The man sighed. "I didn't want to have to do this. Oh, wait. That's a lie; I really want to do this."

The Doctor heard someone scream. He knew instantly who it was. "Stop it!" He roared.

The man glared at The Doctor. "If you don't tell me what I want to know, then I'll rip open her head and you'll tell me anyway."

The Doctor's blood ran cold. "If you touch her…"

He laughed. "Who says I have to touch her?"

The Doctor found himself being thrown backwards, skidding across the floor and hitting his head against the wall, before sliding upwards until he was at eye level with the man. He couldn't move away from the wall. Actually, he couldn't move at all.

He struggled and tried his best, but there was nothing he could do.

The man came up to the Doctor. There was no laughter, no smile, nothing. Just a dark and furious killer.

"Now. What are you?"

The Doctor glared at him.

He sighed. "Look, I've been really desperate for an excuse to kill your little friend, slowly and painfully. She's been driving me crazy for hours. So if you don't want to give me that excuse, I suggest you start talking."

The Doctor looked desperately in the direction of where he'd heard Donna scream. He sighed heavily. "What do you want to know?"

The man smiled and pulled up a chair, sitting down while leaving the Doctor suspended in the air. "That's better." His smile widened. "What's your name?"

The Doctor glared at him. "I'm The Doctor."

He smiled. "Nice to meet you, 'Doctor'. I'm Sylar."