Spirit woke up in a clearing in the middle of a forest, rays of sunlight twisting in the leaves above him as a gentle summer breeze blew. He wiggled his bare toes and smiled happily, eyes half open and mind half awake. The grass felt soft and comfortable as he lay in a state of warm euphoria. He sighed contentedly and leaned his head back, feeling the cling of cloth on his sweaty neck. He snapped upright, weirded out by the sensation of having something touching his neck coupled with not entirely comprehending where he was once he actually thought about it. A blaring red glared in his peripheral vision as he fully awoke. It wasn't his hair this time. His hand shot up to the sides of his head and instinctively messed with the strings tying the cloak to his body. Since when had he been wearing a hood?

He turned and looked around him, at the trees, the grass, the cloudless sky. A little wicker basket sat innocently near where he had been sleeping. Despite the warmth of the summer beaming on his skin, he shivered. He dragged it over to his lap and opened it tentatively, as if he expected birds to fly out or a small furry thing to bite his hand. His fingers trembled finely as he pulled back the lid. The only items in the gingham-lined basket were a fat hunk of creamy cheese and a rather expensive-looking bottle of brandy. He sighed in relief, although he wasn't quite able to place why he was afraid in the first place. He took everything out of the basket, eyeing the cheese with hunger. On the bottom, he noticed a piece of paper folded into careful, crisp quarters. His name was in clear, direct print on the side. He opened it impatiently, the crinkling of paper disturbing the silence of the strangely quiet forest.

"Spirit,

Bring this brandy and cheese to your ill grandmother's house. She is very sick and needs the sustenance. Her cabin is on the left of the fork on down the main road."

Spirit glared at the note with suspicion and then sighed and shrugged helplessly. What else could he do beyond going on the main road? The forest was dense with wiry underbrush all around the clearing, except for the road that inexplicably originated in the middle of the woods. The trees also blocked out all of the light, ignoring the sunshine to be instead dark and gloomy. So he walked forward, his bare feet relishing the cool, soft loam of the path. A smile stretched across his face, and his shoulders relaxed. He didn't know what the hell was going on, but it wasn't so bad. It was such a beautiful day. He tore a piece of cheese off the hunk in the basket and munched happily. His lanky legs lead him steadily onward.

Where had the note come from, he wondered. He had no idea. He thought serious contemplation would take him out of his good mood, so he meandered on in ignorant bliss.

What looked almost like twin polished jade stones caught his eye in as he glanced into the dark, dense woods around him. The glow of eyes made him shudder involuntarily. Several metal scythes jutted out of his skin involuntarily in reaction.

"I see you there, green eyes. At least come out on the road so we can walk together. So I know you won't pounce on me from the shadows." He retracted all of his blades but one, an inconspicuous one on the inside of his wrist. He didn't know exactly what to do, but he attempted to be cautious.

Beneath the jade-green eyes appeared a white row of sneering teeth. "Okay, Red Riding Hood, if you so wish for me to come out." A furry forepaw extended from the forest onto the path. A lumbering, scraggly wolf emerged lazily onto the dirt road, his eyes glaring strangely and his teeth set in a permanent scowl. A scar ran from the base of one eye all the way down his jaw, almost onto his neck. It looked precise, as if it were self-inflicted. His onyx claws were filed to a deadly sharpness, the tips as thin as a scalpel's edge. As he came fully into the light, Spirit noticed there were scars all over his body, not just on his face. The wolf turned his head, eyeing the gangly man standing in the middle of the road with a flat, disinterested expression. A glint of light reflected from a place near his ear when he turned. Spirit noticed a large screw protruding from his thick gray fur. For whatever reason, though, he wasn't the least bit afraid. He seemed like he belonged here, much more than Spirit belonged here.

"Wolf, I'm going to my grandmother's house. This note tells me she is very sick and needs food and drink or she'll die."

The wolf thought this very convenient, as he hadn't eaten in days. He would have eaten this boy on the road, but he had seen the glint of metal of the scythe on his wrist and figured that it wasn't worth his time to fight. A grandmother, though, was easy prey.

"Does the note say where she lives?" the wolf asked innocently, as if making polite conversation.

"Yes, on the left of the fork down this road."

"Oh but, Red Riding Hood, your feet are bare. The left fork is thick with briar and thorns." He hid a sly smile.

"Then how will I get to my grandmother's cabin?"

"The right fork makes a loop back onto the left path and back onto the main road. Also, the right road is covered with blackberry bushes so you can bring her some with her cheese."

Spirit thought this made sense, and noticed just how much of the cheese he had eaten. At least half of it was gone. He felt guilty, and decided to take the right path and pick blackberries for her to make up for his error. The wolf was right; the left fork was covered in briar and thorns. He decided it would take him just as long either way, anyway, so why not be more comfortable on the cool dirt path?

The wolf's paws had thick soles, and he easily tore down the path to Red Riding Hood's grandmother's house for his meal. She was sleeping innocently when he arrived and quietly pushed the door open. He quickly slit her throat so she wouldn't make noise and gobbled her up, carefully setting aside her glasses and bonnet and dress. Blackberries, cheese, and brandy sounded like a very nice after dinner snack, so he fell asleep in Spirit's grandmother's clothes, waiting for Spirit to come.

Spirit, by the time he arrived, had filled up on blackberries and had gotten thirsty, so he had drunk a considerable amount of the brandy as well. He stumbled into the house loudly, his eyes dilating irregularly. His breath reeked of alcohol. The noise woke the wolf up, and he prepared to speak to Spirit calmly and normally, with a tinge of weakness, as his grandmother would have done.

Spirit set the basket on the wolf's lap and sat at the edge of her bed, smiling widely and stupidly. They shared the blackberries and brandy and cheese, laughing and joking with one another as if it were the most natural thing in the world. However, Spirit's eyes were beginning to focus a bit better as he sobered up.

"My, what big eyes you have, Grandmother!"

"All the better to admire you with, dear."

"My, what hairy arms you have!"

"All the better to keep me warm, dear."

"My, what white teeth you have!"

"All the better to smile for you, dear."

"My, what huge claws you have!"

"All the better to cut you up!"

The wolf struck out at Spirit like a flash of lightning, slicing shoulder to shoulder before Spirit could react. Spirit looked down at his darkening cloak, and his mouth opened in shock without a sound, his aqua eyes as big as saucers. When the sound came back to his throat, he screamed and wailed, forgetting his other defenses in the terror of the moment. The wolf grinned, and sliced Spirit lightly from the tip of his chin to his navel in one quick burst. A cross of red was now blooming on Spirit's chest. His screams became higher and higher in pitch, until he could no longer feel his vocal chords from the force of his screams. As he bled out, his world turned white and blurred. He watched as his own blood pooled up on the bed, his senseless fear expressed in a constant, ear-splitting, primal scream for help.

The wolf just leaned back on the headboard of the bed and smirked, admiring his handiwork. Spirit's muscles were relaxing, and he noticed that Spirit looked dangerously close to falling unconscious. The wolf leaned forward and flashed his brilliant white teeth, snarling with seemingly insatiable hunger. He bit Spirit's arms, and Spirit's screeches of pain mixed with the wolf's gentle grunts of satisfaction in this delicious, fresh meal. Spirit's eyes grew wide, and then his body fell limp. His last vision was the wolf licking the blood off his chest, his grandmother's glasses glinting in the wolf's jade green eyes, and then… bright, bright white…

Spirit shot up, chest heaving and his pupils thoroughly dilated. A bare, burning bulb hung low over his head. He squinted in the harshness of the light. As his eyes came into focus, he saw a screen with a heart rate monitor and some other vital signs. His vital signs, he realized slowly. He turned his head, and then noticed the chords and wires and plastic attached to various places on his scalp pulling as he turned. An IV drip was expertly configured on his hand, and Spirit flinched at the sight of the needle. He blinked rapidly, forcing his eyes to adjust to both being awake and the strange light.

Stein sat in his usual stitched rolly chair backwards, his eyes watching the frightened redhead curiously.

"Good morning, senpai." Stein looked entirely pleased with himself. "Did you have… sweet dreams?" Stein allowed a sneer to curl across his face, his eyes smiling deviously.

Spirit shrunk back as much as he could. He shivered and stared wide-eyed at the shaggy-haired doctor before him. He didn't trust his voice to make words. The only noises he seemed capable of making were whimpers. Cutting into him was one thing. He could forgive that. This… was something beyond that. Something as common as a body did not equal something as personal as a dream. He calmed himself as much as he could and asked, "Did you plan this?"

"The setting. The characters. But not your decisions. That was all you, senpai. And look where it got you."

Spirit shivered involuntarily. He looked as though he were on the verge of tears. He had no idea if Stein had seen what he had dreamed, but he was fairly confident his face gave away at least the ending. He looked down at the sheet he had been kneading with his hands. "Am I really… that selfish?" Would he really eat his grandmother's food, would he really be too drunk to notice she had been replaced?

Stein laughed with his entire body, not stopping for a good minute or so. "Spirit-senpai, look who you're asking! I subjected you to this torture without really any scientific purpose. I just wanted you to feel something. And I succeeded. I get my satisfaction out of that. Are you selfish? Pah. That's irrelevant."

"Why did you wake me up if you were having so much fun watching me squirm?"

"Well one, you had stopped squirming, which is just absolutely no good. And two, your vital signs were dangerously similar to those of a person undergoing a heart attack." He grinned and shrugged, as if saying Spirit shouldn't expect less.

Spirit slunk back down on his pillow and shut his eyes, knowing he wasn't going to sleep but wanting to at least pretend he was escaping Stein. He didn't want to admit how mind-numbingly terrified he had been, even though he supposed Stein already knew. But being faced with that and not even fighting back… what was wrong with him? Had he given in so completely? Spirit watched his own vital signs flash and flicker complacently, his face drawn and sad. He felt more exhausted than he had before he tried to go to sleep.

Stein stood up and walked silently across the floor. Leaning over gently he grabbed Spirit's shoulders roughly, whispering in his low husky voice, "Who's afraid of the big bad wolf?"