DISCLAIMER! I DO NOT OWN TRUE BLOOD OR ANY OTHER COPYRIGHTED WORKS MENTIONED HEREIN. THIS IS A WORK OF FICTION, ANY ACTIONS TAKEN BY CHARACTERS OR REFERENCES MADE ARE BY MY DESIGN.

Prologue It All Falls Away

Eric

I could barely comprehend the words penetrating my skull like silver.

Sookie was gone. Vanished without a trace. Missing.

Pam kept talking but I could no longer hear what she was saying.

*Forgetting*

Neither Bill nor I had heard from her in days, we felt something happen but we didn't know what. Bill and I hate each other but in a rare moment of cooperation we decided to work together to find her.

She was one thing we both cared about, pooling our resources to find her and secure her safety only made sense. We may not like each other but when it comes to Sookie we would always protect her even if that meant putting up with each other.

But none of that mattered now, we could only save her if she was here; if she was alive. She was missing and we could no longer feel her. That meant she was dead. That's what everyone else thought.

Me, I wasn't so sure. Sookie, she was something else something special. If she had been anyone else, if she had been human I would have readily agreed with them. Thing is she isn't, she's special. Things happened around her, because of her, impossible things.

It was impossible but I had no doubt that she is alive and that one day she would return. I would go on, I would wait and when she comes back I WILL make her mine.

So I began biding my time, preparing for her return.

*Forgetting*

As weeks turned into months I found it harder and harder to go on. On the outside I went through the nights as I always had cold and ruthless but on the inside it felt like I was dying.

There were few people I cared about. What I felt for Sookie was beyond anything I had felt for any creature or person that I had ever known. I loved her in a way I had not known I was capable of.

Losing her shook me to my core. I was broken and would continue to be until she came back.

As time passed the hope she was still alive was the only thing that kept me going. I existed but I was not alive, in those dark months I found no joy.

After six months of searching the Bon Temps Sheriffs office closed the investigation, declaring her dead. What were they supposed to do? She was gone and there was not a single clue to where she was, how she got there, if she was even alive.

Then in September, almost eleven months since she went missing, her brother put her house up for sale. I used one of several dummy corporations to purchase it.

I began immediately to make improvements and fix the place up. Day and night I had crews working on the house fixing it. The one thing I did for my own comfort was build a sleeping chamber. It made me happy to do this for her in a way I had not felt in months. Maybe it was that I was doing something that mattered, something important.

Just like that I was my old self again, a happy ruthless vampire.