• Prologue

    The coldest night of my life, it was in the middle of winter. A blizzard attacking and chilling us to the bone from the inside out, until there would be nothing left but ice.
    Of course, it was a full moon. Death always occurs on full moons. I would never have believed that, until now.
    Tonight was the brightest moon I had ever seen, as it shinned its chilling light through the small slit in the rock that separated us from freezing to death. Its rays shinned straight down on the dead corpse lying near the fire.
    Two shape shifters and three humans are locked inside a cave.
    To die.

    I could hear crying in the background and pleading sobs in between. Two other people were crying, one a baby, and the other a faint sound that only my ears could pick up, but I could barely notice. My mind was numb and I couldn’t move. It was almost as if I had turned to ice. And right now, at the scene that was playing in front of me, I wished I could. Just to get away, far away.
    Suddenly, the rock that was in front of the door slipped open and I was frozen in shock. I then shook it off and was near the back of the cave in the flash of an eye, kneeling next to my friend. My whole body was frozen from sitting for so long, and it hurt to move. But my heart hurt more.
    An old woman was lying on the ground. Dead. Her eyes were staring upward, eyes that would never see light again. A small girl, only seven, was next to the old woman. She had white hair and her eyes were shut closed, shaking the woman on the arm.
    “Wake up, mama! Wake up!” The girl kept repeating, but her voice was running out from screaming the whole time. Her voice was like someone's nails scraping against a black board. It took all of my will power not to tell her to shut up. She needed time to cry, we all did.
    I wrapped my hands around her from the side and rested my head on her shoulder. “I’m sorry," I whispered, although I had not used my voice for more than a whole day and I could barely hear myself.
    The girl then turned to me and I froze. Her eyes were cold, and her gaze was threatening. If looks could kill, I would have already been dead. “You could have done something!" Her voice hissed and I winced. She was just a little kid, but I was still scared of her more than anything else in the world. "You should have saved her!”
    I bit my lip and said as calmly as I could without bursting into tears, “I couldn’t, Larissa.” Larissa’s dark hazel eyes hardened and bore into my body as I flinched away from her gaze. Why hadn’t I helped the poor girl save her mother?
    Larissa was suddenly sobbing and I touched my finger to her arm. She flinched away and was suddenly on her feet. Tears blurred my vision. “Larissa-" before I could finish, she was out of the cave and into the blizzard, soon whipped away in the cold winter night until there was nothing left but white. White darkness.
    My eyes widened so much they hurt, but it didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore. “Larissa!” I screamed after her. I ran to the cave entrance but someone grabbed me from behind. A tight and warm embrace that I knew I could never leave.
    “Stop, she’s made her choice, and I won’t let you die too!” A boy’s voice pleaded behind me, his voice a whimper. My best friend, the only one I knew who shared this horrible curse.
    “But I’ve got to save her!” I cried my voice cracking.
    “No, let her go… Take care of Claire!” He ordered and I stopped trying to get out of his steel grip and found something pressed into my arms. The warmth was almost gone in the bundle in my hands.
    A thin baby, small and weak, was crying in my arms, wailing. I felt her forehead. Burning. If only the rest of her small, tiny body could warm up and fight off the white shadows that tried to penetrate her body.
    “I don’t know what to do!” I cried.
    “Heal, I know you can do it,” the voice behind me seemed to drift away through the winter breeze that was coming through the entrance. “Heal…” A blast of cold air hit my body and I staggered to the ground. I didn’t let go of Claire though. I never would. I felt my fingers going numb as my energy poured into the girl in my arms. My head suddenly felt almost like a feather and blackness was edging its way onto the edge of my vision.
    “She will live… I swear that Claire will live.”
    I felt my legs go numb and that’s when I felt soft earth under my freezing body. I heard someone gasp behind me, but I didn’t care. The ground… It felt so warm. A patch of sunlight was seemingly carrying me as darkness invaded my vision. I blacked out.
    The last thing I remember were two eyes glaring down at me from above, than I slipped into the black water where I disappeared. Forever.