Yet even they did not detect the predator approaching downwind from beyond the tree-line, her stealthy steps avoiding every twig and dry leaf. She crept ever forward, crouched Low, making barely a sound.

She could only get so close though, once she got to the clearing she would be out of adequate cover. It would come down to a chase. With that in mind, she leaped into a sprint.

The deer took notice at once, stampeding away from the flash of green that sped into the clearing. As the herd ran, in the confusion and panic, a buck found himself separated and thus singled out by the predator. The chase began.

The buck ran with all he had, his excellent peripheral vision keeping tabs on the predator as it pursued him, matching his every movement, ever turn and Leap, and gaining, only to vanish as it leaped into the canopy above. The buck panicked further and skidded to change direction.

Then, suddenly, the streak of green landed beside him, and the buck knew no more. In a near instant his neck had been sliced cleanly through, his body crashing to the forest floor, blood flowing freely from the neck and severed head that had moments before been a single live animal.

The creature who inflicted the fatal blow, its form clearly humanoid and feminine, stood up from where she had Landed in a crouch and turned to her slain prey. Its meat would provide her with food to last her a good week at least. She extended the blades attached to her hands, and prepared to carve up the carcass. A successful hunt gave her a sense of purpose and fulfillment, although not quite the same as the emotions others experienced.

Food meant survival, and obtaining food meant this was as good a day as any she had experienced before. Day in and day out, survival was what mattered most, and yet she knew there was more to life that she had yet to experience or comprehend. The proof was in the longing she at times felt inside, an ache of an emptiness that called to her to be filled.

It was an ache that she could not truly comprehend as she was, but one she had been assured since childhood would one day turn into something wonderful.

Emotions, both pleasurable and painful, and once she had them she would not know how she did without them. Yet until then, she could only follow her instincts.

Run.

Run and don't stop.

Run or you will be caught.

Those thoughts had been his constant companion for days now. Running, getting as far away from his former home as he could, was all he had.

It was his only chance, even if it meant going into the unknown depths of the forest.

ALL things considered he had done surprisingly well so far. Stopping only long enough to eat and sleep, he had managed to escape oppressors and avoid the many monsters that inhabited the vast woods he had entered.

But it could not last. He was out of food, starving and utterly exhausted. He only just managed to stumble to the edge of a river, collapsing there. Throwing his face in the water he refreshed himself with what Little energy he had left, then rolled over and Lay upon the shore. His empty stomach cried out for sustenance he had no strength to provide.

A tree full of fruit on the other side of the river seemed to mock him, but he would never be able to swim there in his current state, even after resting. All he could do was close his eyes, reflect on the events that led to this and, hope for a miracle.

He sighed to himself. "You should have expected this Carter..."

Carter. No last name. He'd never been given one, and the name he had was simply a mock title for his job, carting goods, illegal and otherwise, from one place to another.

That life of servitude was all he'd ever known. He'd been born into it, his mother (he'd never even been told her name) a prostitute working in a brothel run by the city's organized crime boss, an imposing and charismatic man named Jiro Alva. Or at least that was what he had been told, he truly didn't remember his mother. Addicted to drugs Jiro provided her, she spent all her time working in the brothel to pay him back. Carter had barely been weaned when she died of an overdose, having never even bothered to name him. According to Jiro he was only even kept alive to pay for his mother's debt, a debt that seemed to never go down.