"He's dead? I told you not to kill him!"

"We are sorry, mistress. He ripped himself from our claws as we were flying."

"Did you check his pulse? He could have been faking!"

"We cannot touch the dead."

"HOW DO YOU KNOW HE WAS DEAD IF YOU NEVER EVEN CHECKED PROPERLY?!? YOU FOOLS! HE HAS THE BLADE!"

"But mistress..."

"FIND HIM!"

"Yes mistress."

"Having some trouble? He too much for you? A little boy to much for the great Anima Comedenti?"

"Shut it! I could kill you this very moment!"

"But you won't."

"No, I might need you as leverage to lure the boy."

"He doesn't know me."

"He doesn't have to know you. He doesn't have to care about you. If he thinks you have the answers he seeks, he will come to you."

"And if I don't have the answers?"

"He doesn't need to know that. But until such time comes that you are necessary, I will repeatedly torture you within an inch of your life."

"How kind."

"I'm soulless, not heartless!"

"No, your both."

"Really? Well then, that changes things. I will torture you within an inch of your life until the boy comes to save you, I will tell him who you are, then I will kill you right before his eyes so that he knows the price that is paid when one does not do as I say. Then I will take the blade from him and use it to tear out his soul. Then I will eat his soul and keep it for myself. That way, I will no longer be soulless."

"You'll still be heartless."

"Well, I could always steal yours."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I woke up in a strange place. I think it was a cottage, but I couldn't be sure. I made myself sit up on the little bed I was lying on. There was a girl around my age watching me from a corner.

"Papa! He's awake!" She shouted. My head was swimming and I felt as if I were wrapped in iron clothes, unable to move very fast. Quieter, the girl asked, "What's your name?"

"Uh, Daniel. Daniel Wolfe." I replied. I let out a shudder as I remembered telling that to the government agent, remembered him lying in a pool of his own blood, that creature above him. The girls father walked in the room. He sat down across from me.

"So kid. You gonna tell me why you are out here?" He asked. Always with the questions. I wonder why most of human conversations consists of questions. If you think about it, it should be half and half. Half questions, half answers. But I guess not. I began recounting what had happened, starting from running around outside the White House. When I got to part about the demons, the father's face went hard and he got to his feet. He began muttering something under his breath in a different language.

"Out." He said. I blinked my eyes a few times, my head pounding from watching him run around the room. He turned to me. "Get out! Out of my house!" He shouted.

"Papa!" The girl cried in disbelief. Her father pointed at me.

"Whatever this boy did," He snarled, grabbing me and dragging me to my feet, "the Promerentur didn't like it. I don't need the Soulless after us because we helped this boy. So apologies, but get your cursed a** out of my house!" I ran. I ran and ran. I didn't turn back until I was at the edge of the forest. I turned back and could just see the face of the girl, watching me from the window. With a huff of annoyance, I turned around and walked into the forest. I was used to getting kicked out of places. Nobody wants some nameless homeless kid on their doorstep. So, everywhere I went, I got kicked out. But as I wandered through the forest, I couldn't help but wonder what I had done. Obviously, that man knew about the demons that had attacked me, but he was undoubtedly not going to help. And what had he said? Promerentur? Anima Comedenti? Those words were strange to me. But I needed to get answers from someone who was likely not to strangle me. Like, the girl. I shook my head. No. I wasn't going to get her caught up in all this. I liked being alone. I forced a smile. I heard a river not far ahead. The air was hot and sticky, the trees bringing bugs that buzzed and bit me. I still felt dizzy from my first encounter with the demons. My throat ached. My head pounded. I was panting for breath, waving bugs away from my face. I needed water. I carefully made my way down to the river. A deer was drinking on the other side. It looked up at me and ran away. I sighed and pulled off the shoes the government agents had given me before taking me into custody. Mud squelched in between my toes. I quickly stepped into the water. It was cool, refreshing. I gulped down some water and began wading deeper. Something caught my eye down further the river. I couldn't see it very well, but it looked like a girl. I moved forward, my movements sluggish in the water. I grabbed onto a rock, the cold water up to my bellybutton. The water surged around me as I craned to get a better look. Suddenly, I lost my footing. My hand slipped on the wet rock. With a cry of pain, the sharp edge of the rock sliced open my palm. My cry became bubbles as I slipped under the water. The rushing current carried me swiftly downstream. I gasped for air whenever my head broke the surface. I was thrown about as I tumbled underwater. I was thrashed and bashed against rocks and the bottom of the river. All the while, I tried to hug my bleeding hand to my soaking wet shirt, trying to keep it from bleeding. I didn't need rabid animals tracking me down because of the blood. My body hurt. My head hurt. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. Finally, a couple of miles from where I had seen the girl, I was tossed onto the shore. I lay in the mud, unable to move. It's times like these that I wonder why the human body has to be so fragile. Cause to be honest, lately, I've spent most of my time unable to move.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

I woke up in a cave. I coughed as I sat up. I let out a yelp and scrambled backwards. I let out another cry when my wounded hand hit the stone. I backed up against the wall as the black wolf slowly approached me. I stayed perfectly still as she sniffed me. She licked my wounded hand. I cautiously raised it and she inspected it. She then began licking up the wound. It was then I noticed that I was clean. I was still sore, but I wasn't bleeding anymore. Then I noticed something else. I didn't have a shirt on, and my shorts were ripped, but still there. I felt strangely naked without a shirt. The black wolf, satisfied with her work, barked at me, then headed out of the cave. I followed her out of the cave, my joints freezing up and painful to move in certain ways. I was covered in bruises. There were other wolves. A pack of around ten, I'd say. We were in a little cove. Lots of grass, trees, a pond. From what I could see, there were three entrances in and out of their little camp. The black wolf led me to a bigger wolf. This one was a timber wolf. It's facial features made me certain it was a girl. She was also obviously the Alpha of the pack. She narrowed her bright blue eyes at me before cautiously lying down. The black wolf scurried away as I slowly sat in front of the wolf.

"Can you understand me?" I jumped. Did the wolf just talk? I slowly nodded. It looked like she smiled.

"Then it's true. You are the Animam Viventem. I've only ever heard legends about it..." The Alpha said. I gulped.

"Um, excuse me, Miss Alpha? Uh, can I just say that I have no idea what's going on or where I am or why I am here?" I said blatantly. The wolf seemed to laugh in her own wolfy way.

"Call me SkyDancer. Animam Viventem means Living Soul. Most creatures have what we call a still soul. It is a soul, but it doesn't thrive, flourish, control like yours does." She said. I still felt a little weird, talking to a wolf, but if she had the answers I wanted, then I could handle a little weird.

"So, my soul is like another living being inside me?" I questioned.

"Not exactly." She said. She truly was beautiful. Her grey fur was mixed in with white and black, brown brushing in in all the right places. Her muzzle was white. The white stretched up her face and curved sharp like her eyes, then dipped down to her chest. The white on her chest looked like the wind. Her eyes were sky blue, dappled with flecks of dark blue and gold. I had never seen a wolf before now, but I was pretty sure they didn't all look like this. "Your soul is special in that it will fight for you, I guess you could say. Have you ever been so close to death that you couldn't move? That your body would freeze and you would wake up with a headache, or your throat and chest would hurt? Do you ever feel strain in your arms? Your knees? Ever find it hard to see?" She asked. I had never thought about it, but yes. Right now, my head, chest, and throat hurt. It sort of stung in a way whenever I moved my arms. Same with my knees. I was also finding it pretty hard to keep my eyes focused on something. They would always blur, making it hard to see. I nodded. "Well that's because your soul takes over and fights for you. Have you ever heard of spirit animals?" SkyDancer asked. I nodded. "Well, they come from Living Souls. There used to be tons of them. But then the Anima Comedenti was created."

"Hang on. Animam Viventem is Living Soul, but what is Anima Comedenti? And that other one, what was it, Promornter? No, Promerentur. What do all these things mean?" I asked. SkyDancer got to her paws.

"Walk with me." She said. I obediently followed beside her as we walked out of the cove and into the trees. She led me through the forest. We pushed our way through some vines and came upon a lake. The lake was quiet. No bugs were buzzing. The water reflected the sky like glass. A single willow tree grew out of the middle of the lake, it's branches stretching far and wide. It was so calm. So peaceful. The grass was cool and soft. SkyDancer laid down in the grass. I sat criss-cross beside her.

"Sixteen years ago, there was a battle. It was a viscous battle between the Animam Viventem and the Anima Comedenti. Anima Comedenti means soul eater. When you are the Anima Comedenti, you are cursed. You cannot eat, drink, you cannot go out into the sun, nothing. You are in solitude. Unless, you devour thirteen souls. Then you can pass in the curse. Each Anima Comedenti has the Promerentur, or the fetchers. They are supposed to fetch the sacrifices. But the Anima Comedenti at the time of the battle was power hungry. She had eaten her thirteen souls, but instead of passing on the Anima Comedenti, she kept devouring. When she learned of all the Animam Viventem, she gathered up her Promerentur's and sieged an attack. The living souls fought hard, but all but one was destroyed. The last living soul, seeing other living souls slaughtered upon the ground for what they possessed, their souls ripped from them, ran and hid from the the Anima Comedenti. They, that is to say the host and the soul, did so successfully for a year, until the soul eater tracked them down. They fought viscously, but the host was beaten. The last living soul managed to unleash their own soul before dying. The soul came to life and killed the Anima Comedenti. The Promerentur were cursed by the Animam Viventem so as they could never touch the dead, for the Promerentur feast on the bodies of their master's victims. But now, the Promerentur can never touch the dead, or they themselves will take the dead one's place. The Living Soul was fading without a host. It needed to find one fast. It's own host was dead, so it searched for another. A soul can live for a week or two on it's own, but this soul had already suffered a lot and wasted energy cursing the Promerentur, so it's time was ticking. Living Souls are always animals. This one happened to be a wolf. But something happened before the soul could find another host. The Anima Comedenti, who was slowly dying, used up the last of her strength to throw her cursed ice blade at the wolf that was walking away. Instead of killing the soul, the blade hit just the right spot to split the soul in half. Half of it came to me as a pup, half of it came to you as a babe. The blade went to the caretaker of one of us. My caretaker is dead, so yours must have it. Unless they passed it on to you. That is sure to get you on the Soul Eater's radar. Without the blade she is useless. The battle was fought here. Our soul's family's blood was spilt here. Part of them lives on in us. Despite how weird it sounds, it's true. We are linked. We have the wolf soul. The last one of our kind. And if the Anima Comedenti is after you, then I will do everything in my power to keep you safe. You are the last Living Soul. My soul became a normal soul because I am a wolf. You are still a Living Soul. The soul that resides within you is irreplaceable. It is your soul, now. It doesn't matter who's it was or who it was shared with. It is now whole again, and it will defend you. You are safe while you have that soul and the blade is missing." SkyDancer said. Even though this was all very weird, it all felt natural. Like I had already known that. I also think I know where the blade is. I had always wondered why it was so cold. Now I might know why. I reached into my belt and pulled out the knife I had had with me since I could remember. It was as cold as ice. Just a simple silver knife. A smooth handle and wicked sharp blade. I had never used it. I had only brought it out once other than this, and lets just say the man on the receiving end might still be frozen under the bridge. I placed the blade on the ground and the grass around it froze with frost.

"This blade?" I asked. SkyDancer opened her jaws to say something just as everything went dark. There was hissing and chattering, the sound of wings. I felt SkyDancer's sharp teeth grab my shorts and pulled me out of the cove. We ran as the Promerentur circled the cove, calling to each other in their strange language. As we ran away, I looked over my shoulder in time to see one of the Promerentur fly away, the silver blade clutched tightly in it's taloned hands. We reached the cove and SkyDancer ushered me into her cave, insisting on constant eyes on the sky. She dutifully sat next to me and let me pet her as my nerves peaked and fear began to settle in. The Anima Comedenti had the Cursed Ice Blade, next on the list was my soul. And if our souls really are linked, and the Soul Eater ate my soul, would SkyDancer's soul die too? Looking at the proud and caring Alpha, her beautiful fur and eyes, her loving expression as she watched her pack, her worried expression as she looked back at me, I hoped beyond everything that her fate wasn't resting on my shoulders. She may be a pack leader, but I was a lone wolf. I had no experience protecting others, and didn't want to be the reason her soul gets eaten. If I had learned one thing from our conversation, it's that my soul won't go down without a fight, even if I have given up. Even if I die, my soul will live. SkyDancer would be safe if I died. No one would get hurt if I died. And that's all the comfort I need.

A/N: I would like to dedicate the character SkyDancer to, well, SkyDancer14! @SkyDancer14 you always leave comments on my stories that put a smile on my face! You've given me confidence in what I write! Confidence that I never had before! Even if you don't read this story, I hope you know that the little things you do don't go unoticed! So, thanks so much for the support and keep being awesome! :)