While her other classmates might have already gotten up, gone to brush their teeth, wash their faces, and headed to the kitchen for breakfast, Serenade Soriano was still curled up under her blankets into a ball, or really, all one could see if they burst into her room, was a lump covered by the sheets that was shaking. Normally, she took things rather readily, but the nightmare she had was too realistic, too creepily surreal for her not to dismiss it. She was terrified, she was scared, and she was reduced into a shaking traumatized young teen who had just watched a gory scene play out before her very eyes. That was partly true, however much she didn’t want it to be. She remembered the dream; she remembered every last detail, for some reason, it seemed to be burned into her mind, unlike her usual dreams, where she would forget its occurrences in a matter of minutes because they were so terribly vague. She remembered.

She remembered that hunger, that animalistic lust to satisfy her empty stomach, her heightened senses as a human’s flesh smelled like raw meat, meat that appealed to her tastes. She remembered the back of the boy’s head, the blue hair and her lunging towards him, grabbing him with her teeth. Grabbing Jude and tearing him apart. Every bite drew more blood, and drew forward the want for more. She had smiled and continued, ripping that piercing he had out, watching him scream. The screams still echoed in her head even now, and he had asked her with his dying breaths. “Why, Serenade, why?”

She remembered tearing him apart, the blood spurting out everywhere, and taking rough, frantic bites out of the flesh. It was a terribly graphic scene, and Serenade wondered whatever could have put that into her subconscious, for she had never watched horror movies before; she abstained from them. Now she had an even better reason to avoid them completely. She did not want to remember. She did not want to remember that savage pleasure, that unnatural emotions that had surged in her during the dream. She did not want to wake up and find herself drooling and starving for food. As hungry as her stomach said it was, she was afraid to go out, afraid to meet anyone, afraid to see Jude. She was so afraid of what she might do; she didn’t want to hurt anyone.

It was just a dream; she tried to convince herself even as a tear ran down her cheek. Just a dream that will soon be forgotten. Why, Serenade? Why? Why had she dreamt about such a thing?

She closed her eyes and let herself sob, shoulders shaking. It wasn’t fair, why did she have to be plagued with such a horrific dream? Why did it have to be Jude? Why did it have to be a human? Why did she have to be a predator?

It made no sense and it scared her.