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'Raven' had not quite drained her victim; a low muffled thudding of the heart was still audible to her bat like ears. Collecting the youngsters remaining blood she began her 'work of art'; One hand painting the pristine white wall with the fresh, warm liquid while the other delicately wiped the remaining minute droplets of blood from her plum painted lips. Her long green velvet gown swayed softly in the midnight wind and appeared luminous against the pale moonlight as she stood back and studied her 'art'. There painted on the wall in now dried blood was an obvious painting of a raven, with the sentence 'confidence bleeds, facing the sun' scribbled below. This phrase was Rosa's way of describing vampirism; in a very vague manner'she loathed what she was. Others loathed her for hating what she was, what they were. She lowered herself beside the cooling body and with her index and middle fingers respectively shut his eyelids, banishing the glazed over look of fear and terror from his aqua blue eyes. 'I'm sorry' she whispered in her soft husky voice. Revived, Rosa made her way through the rather secluded town's park and exited through the tall, rusting gates which scraped the cold, hard pavement as she pushed them forcefully. Her senses ran amuck, like those of a newborn child.

As her bare feet touched the wet stone of the pavement, she scanned the few faces that passed her intensively although they hardly seemed to notice her. On a nearby bench a still, lifeless looking young man sat slouched over resting his full head of curly brown hair on both hands, his breath created a misty cloud as he breathed out heavily giving a sigh of hopelessness. Every vein and artery present on his wrists and throat were visible to this inhuman young woman. Every pulse forced his vein to swell then decrease in size, every pulse sent a shudder through her needy, desperate, hurting body and as she neared, the pulsating thudding of his blood flow sounded like a small timpani quartet playing with an aggression unexplainable. Suddenly she remembered how she had been thrown upon the grassy embankment. The whiteness of his cuffs, the clear blue pigmentation of his eyes as he stared ahead as if in a dazed confusion, the way his shinny brown curls fell around his face, the ring, the necklace, his square jaw and his prominent cheek bones. They all seemed so familiar. She remembered!

Everything that happened earlier felt like she had experienced it in slow motion. She replayed each still frame in her mind, magnifying each and every fine detail. Everything around her stopped. Everything around her was of no significance at that moment. Her toes curled, scraping the icy, rough concrete as she searched her mind. All Rosa could picture -all Rosa had focused on during the incident- was the young man's eyes full of pain and fear, his hands gripping the wheel with a grip like no other, the single droplets of sweat forming on his smooth forehead. The single droplets of sweat trickling down his golden, well defined cheeks. She remembered the veins on his neck which seemed to stick out prominently. Quickly Rosa looked down at her trembling right hand'he, this man, was the owner of a ring exactly identical to her own. Within seconds she felt the sharp pang of human pain that had surged through her body awakening every nerve abruptly, but this was not nearly as painful to her. Not to a being such as herself who is incapable of feeling anything except the horrendous pain of a smooth, wooden stake puncturing her heart.

Rosa cautiously neared the shaken, handsome young man who at this point was still sighing and had begun to mutter restlessly to himself. What would Rosa do if he raised his head and laid eyes on her? He thought her to be dead! She didn't care; all she wanted was to see the face of her 'killer'. One step at a time, pace by pace, she grew nearer and nearer to this mortal. Her senses were heightened incredibly, like those of a prowling lion whilst following, crouching and almost tasting its prey. Just at that very moment, their eyes met' aqua blue against emerald green. The warm, fleshy colour drained from his face. He thought he had killed this beautiful young woman but there she was as 'alive' as she could be standing in front of him. Her hair was now messy and the damp had caused it to curl and encircle more violently. Her velvet gown had a few rips and tears amongst the darkened muddy material yet her intense ora remained. Elegantly, without thought she turned and carried on walking. Confused the man just remained on the bench and watched in disbelief as she faded and merged with the few other people. Rosa 'Raven' had disappeared.