The world changed around her. Riptear was in a deep, lush forest. Only she was younger, only about 16 or 17 years old. She was lying there in the dirt road, drenched in blood and near death. The whole world changed around her. The only thing she could feel was the impending pain and death. The pain throbbed in the wounds that where ripped into her battered and bruised body, and she could feel the deadly venom of the Hellcat tearing through her dying flesh. She lay there, watching the world warp in her transition from the land of the living to the land of the dead.
It was then that her dying eyes saw him, walking down the road. There was a strong supernatural air about him as he walked. He seemed not of this world or plane. She could not see much with her dying vision, the only thing she remembered about him was that his hair was purple. He knelt down beside her while removing his cape and wrapped it about her, lifting her into his arms. "Be still, you cannot die, not yet. That would ruin some very important plans for you," he said softly. He then ran. He was fast, faster than anything she had ever seen. He ran like the wind, as if he was the wind itself. He swept up to the very doorstep to her house and deposited her there, swiftly knocking on the door. When the doorknob turned he had disappeared like leaves scattering in the wind.
This wasn't the first time he had entered her life. Riptear realized that he had been there from the very beginning. Her vision through Time grew farther still, and she remembered the very day she was born. Lying there amongst the gore, tiny, frail and naked near the twisted form of her dead father. The phantom being came to her and stood over her, mischievous eyes dancing with joy and wonder. Again he lifted her into his arms, and swept her away to the same destination, the doorstep of a small cottage in the hills that would become her home.
In the end it all boiled down to him. She felt him always watching and ever-present in the shadows. He was as supernatural and as mysterious as an angel. But he was a dark angel. There seemed to be neither anything good about him nor anything evil, keeping many secrets and exacting many schemes. He was, in essence, the phantom shadow of her very fate.
Slowly she felt her dreams fade and scatter like a school of tiny silver fish, and felt herself slowly drift back to the waking world.
Chapter 4 | Fanfiction