Note:

Click >here< to read the second part.

It was dark. Too dark for Marina to see anything, even her vampiric senses couldn't help her to define the place she was in further than as a huge hallway filled with darkness. Straying aimlessly through the halls that either were made out of wet stone or a corrupted kind of flesh she quickly became uncomfortable. As a twisted scream seemed to appear out of nowhere the vampiress instinctively reached for the crossbow on her back; but it wasn't there. With rising fear she then grabbed her sword and wanted to draw it, but the sheath seemed to be stuck together with it. Not even with her full strength was she able to prepare it for combat. The twisted scream echoed through the unreal place, but then it seemed to come closer towards her, as if it would be a hunter rushing towards his prey to strike it down. Now it seemed to be directly behind her, so Marina quickly turned around to face the source; nothing was there but silent darkness.

Marina closed her eyes and tried to control her thoughts which wildly destroyed any attempt of her to think straight again, leaving her desperate and alone in this situation. A strong flash made her look up. Toki stood in the center of the light in the middle of the darkness, looking at her as if he'd see her regardless of the light consuming surroundings. She immediately felt better, so she meow'd for Toki as a sign of her approaching and walked towards him. The distance between them seemed to be big though, so she started to run instead and felt how slowly her desperation came back that only would fade away once she was in Toki's arms.

He was so far away though; and regardless of her speed the distance didn't seemed to get shorter, the flash with Toki in it remained away from her. As she realized this fear arose in her again, she sprinted as fast as she could, exhausting every little rest of her energy.

But she wasn't able to come closer.

Due to the exhaustion she dropped to the ground, she felt too weak to carry on. As she looked up Toki suddenly stood in front of her, reaching with his hand for her hair to pet. Immediately Marina tried to stand up again, trying to feel the warm touch of the man who protects and loves her. In a short moment his voice echoed in her head, telling her that everything will be ok.

As she almost could feel his hand he suddenly was blown away in countless pieces like sand is blown away by the wind, causing Marina to trip over and fall towards the ground again.

This time though the fall felt like eons; it was as if there was no ground anymore, nothing to hold her, nothing to catch her. She closed her eyes and felt the desperate solitude that slowly crawled back into her mind. This must had been how her "father" felt as she emerged from his blood and watched him tearing off his own flesh. Just as she called the image of the dying beast of ancient times into her mind again she laughed; strangely though her pitch black markings started to feel ichy, as if they'd be set on fire, burning her flesh with penetrating pain, so she quickly silenced and tried to endure the pain as long as she could. It was too much for her though, the lack of blood combined with exhaustion made her vulnerable and not last any longer; with blurring eyes she slowly fainted.