She lives quietly
With no attachments, like a foetus in a bottle,
The obsolete house, the sea, flattened to a picture
She has one too many dimensions to enter.

- from "A Life" by Sylvia Plath

Prologue

I was born on June 18th, 1993.

I died on December 26th, 2013.

I was born again on October 12th, 1995.

Very few people can claim to have been born again after they died—in fact, I may be the only one. Unfortunately, though, I was born into a different world than the one I initially lived in; even more unfortunately, this world was a hundred times more dangerous than the one I died in.

The memories of my old life were new and raw when I had my first thought in what I had supposed was the afterlife. Now, though, at age 16, those memories are little more than snippets of recollection and dreamscapes in which I rarely run off to. However, when I was still a fetus, when my body ached and my heartbeats were frail, when I had no idea what was going on except that I was hungry and it hurts so much, the memories were what I clung to. Of course, I didn't realize I was a fetus at the time, and I didn't even realize that what I was feeling, what was causing me so much pain, was hunger.

I clung to memories of snowy days drinking hot chocolate out on the porch with my two best friends. I hung tightly onto visions of sitting with them in my bedroom, watching our favorite TV shows and anime and debating plotlines and characters and plot holes. I desperately quoted stories by great writers like Alfred Hitchcock and Ernest Hemingway, distracted myself with verses by my favorite poets: Sylvia Plath, Edgar Allen Poe, and Robert Frost. I focused on anything but the pain.

I was born so weak that I barely coughed out a breath. I panicked when I opened my eyes and could see something other than darkness—I was so sure that I had died. And when I felt hands gently pick me up, I was terrified enough that I let out a shrill cry. I think, in retrospect, it must have relieved the doctor and nurses who had delivered me.

Many details of those early days of my life have been filled in by my father. My mother did not survive the birthing process, and I found out that she had been greatly weakened by my presence in her— but not because of the pregnancy itself. Because of me. Because of what she had to do to ensure that the product of her deep love for another species survived, even if she did not.

And the only reason that I survived was because my mother had become a cannibal to make sure her baby was strong enough to live.

She loved me, and my father, that much.

While I never knew either of my mothers—my birth was the cause of my mothers' deaths in both lives, albeit for very different reasons—I knew that both of them loved me very, very much. Though I hate to admit it, I am forced to believe that no matter how much my first mother loved me, my second mother loved me more. The lengths to which she had gone to ensure that I lived were incredible, and they had eventually driven her half-mad. The human body is designed for the procreation of the species and against its death, and one of those instincts is that a human who eats their own kind will be made sick by it, sick in many different ways.

But my second mother—Kagura—was willing to make that sacrifice. I don't think that she meant to die in the process, but she was okay with that outcome if it meant I was going to survive.

It shouldn't be surprising that my name is Aiko—translated into English, it means 'love child.'

I found out from my father inadvertently that the doctor who had delivered me was a middle-aged man named Kanou-sensei, and that should have been my first clue as to what was going on other than that I had been reincarnated with my memories intact. However, my understanding of Japanese at that point was vague and when I heard 'sensei,' I was confused that a teacher would be delivering a baby.

I now know that 'sensei' can also refer to doctors, but by the time I learned that, I already knew that I was living in the world of Tokyo Ghoul, although how that had happened I didn't know.

As is probably obvious by now, my father was a ghoul, and I say 'was' because he, too, is dead, at the hands of CCG's investigators. It was thanks to Kanou-sensei that I was transferred into a foster home and later adopted, a scarce few months before my adopted mother died of overworking herself.

The first clue I got was when my vision cleared up enough that I noticed that the 'milk' I was being bottle-fed by my father was actually red. However, I thought that maybe I was colorblind and therefore was not seeing things correctly. My taste buds were not developed enough to really discern a flavor and so I merely shrugged it off as odd, but not necessarily alarming.

I did know that when my teeth came in and I started to eat solid food that I always ate meat. It was strange to me, as I was not so unfamiliar with child-rearing that it made sense to make purees out of meat. But that's what I ate, and I was too young to otherwise protest. Not that I would have—as long as I wasn't left hungry, I didn't really care. I was too busy trying to learn the language and trying to understand what was going on around me, as things were starting to not make as much sense.

By the time I was five—and had learned about Kanou-sensei—I was starting to make observations that were truly frightening. My father fed me raw meat and I enjoyed it immensely, although I still hadn't connected the dots that it was human flesh and not just steak or chicken. My father never let me eat anything else, though, even when I asked for favorite foods from my old life—hot chocolate, for example. Instead, my father gave me coffee. I was stunned. Coffee? For a five-year-old? He was intelligent enough to make it decaffeinated, but nonetheless, I could recognize the flavor and was appalled by his decision-making capabilities as a parent.

Another thing that severely stumped me as a child before I connected the necessary dots was that my father and I rarely ever left the house. We stayed cooped up all day, my father teaching me things like reading and writing. It was only to the best of his ability, which wasn't much, but I relished it all the same. When I turned six, however, and I was not immediately enrolled into a school, I was forced to write it off as a difference in culture between Japan and America—maybe children started school later in their lives? It didn't make much sense, as I had an incurred from the anime I watched in my old life that schooling was incredibly important to the Japanese, but anime was certainly entertainment media and perhaps that was portrayed incorrectly.

Then seven came, and eight. I asked my father, as innocuously as possible—since the topic of school should be unknown to me and was certainly never discussed—where I could go to learn to read and write more extensively.

The word 'school' never so much as made it out of his mouth. He took me to the bookstore, a rare occasion, and bought me a few books that were for young children to learn to read and write with. I was eight and they said they were for ages three to five. I was furious, but looking back, it was the push I needed to make the realization.

I decided I was going to run away. This man obviously didn't know how to take care of me. When I died I had been twenty-two years old and school was very important to me. High school English class had been my favorite subject and I was never one to protest the book reading requirements, and yet in this life, I was still reading the Japanese equivalent of 'See Spot Run.' I was well-spoken for an eight-year-old, but couldn't read or write for the life of me. For years I had excused that as my mind being more inclined towards English, but this was ridiculous. I wanted to go to school. I wanted to be like the other kids, make friends, explore my new world and new life. Instead, I was stuck sitting inside all day, eating meat and watching kid's programs on the television.

That night, I had my first encounter with a ghoul outside my family.

That night, having skipped dinner, I knowingly ate human flesh, if not voluntarily.

That night I almost died at the hands of someone I shouldn't have recognized but certainly did—Mado Kureo. He had the familiar silver box case, pulled out a device that was exactly like the quinques from Tokyo Ghoul, and made a very ardent attempt to kill me.

It is a miracle I am still alive—and it is not so much of a surprise that my father sacrificed his life to save mine.

I knew at that moment, with more clarity than I had ever experienced in either of my lives, that my second parents had loved me so much that it transcended their own survival instinct.

I promised myself, from that day forward, that I would not let their sacrifice be in vain.

I was placed with a ghoul foster family for the next year of my life, but they were nothing to me. They had their own children, and even if they hadn't, no one could ever love me the way that my biological parents had. They taught me how to survive in the human world; faking eating human food, forcing oneself to throw it up afterwards, the dos and don'ts of living as a ghoul who was in a human world. They were careful with me, so careful, and exercised strict guidelines on me. They taught me how to use my kagune offensively as well as defensively and drilled it into me hard, fast, and unforgivingly. The standards they had for their own children were nowhere near as high as they were for me, and while I didn't begrudge them that, I always wondered why.

It had never occurred to me that I was different from the average ghoul—for some reason, the fact that I had a human mother was inconsequential, even though with my knowledge of this universe, it should have been glaringly obvious that I was a legend. It wasn't until the day that I activated my kagune and kakugan in the mirror—I so wanted to see what my kagune looked like to other people—that I saw it.

Only my left eye had a kakugan.

And I realized why I was being taught to fight and defend myself so rigorously—because to a ghoul, my existence was the stuff of legends. I was coveted. I was special.

…I was terrified.

The only other one-eyed ghoul I was aware of in Tokyo Ghoul was Kaneki Ken, but he wasn't born like that. I wondered then where in the timeline I was. Had Kaneki joined Aogiri Tree yet? Or was he still with Anteiku? Or was he still human?

In the end, though, I didn't think it mattered. As the only one-eyed ghoul I knew, I was damned. At least I hadn't been told I smelled any different—if I ever met a gourmet, I didn't think I had to be worried about smelling extra-delicious. It was the one blessed thing about my existence, that I was not appetizing enough to incite cannibalism.

Now, I had to live even more than before, because everything that my second mother had gone through must have been hell—and that was probably just to get through the first trimester. As I grew in her belly, I would have required more and more sustenance to continue staying alive.

The sacrifices she made to get me here were not going to go unappreciated.

After my year with the unnamed ghoul family, the strangest thing happened.

I was adopted by a human family—why would Kanou-sensei even allow that?—and after being given instructions on how to survive without revealing to my new family what I truly was—I moved into a two-bedroom apartment with my new adopted mother and brother.

His name was Kaneki Ken, and I was suddenly a part of the main character of Tokyo Ghoul's immediate family.

He was two years older than me and very sweet, very willing to teach me how to read and write just like he would be with Hinami. I quickly grew to love him, although my adopted mother, not so much. I didn't dislike her, as her self-sacrificing ways resonated well with me after what my parents had done to ensure my survival, but the fact that she would give money to her sister, my aunt, and leave less for her son was infuriating to me. If my parents had put any less effort into keeping me safe, I would not be alive. The fact that this woman did not put her son before everything else did not sit well with me.

I was silent at the funeral after she died, and then Ken and I disappeared off the map.

We moved to the 20th Ward into a one-bedroom apartment. I think that the only way we made it financially was because Kanou-sensei was supplying us with money. Why he didn't remove me and put me with another family remained a mystery to me until I realized that I was safest here—with a nondescript human brother who knew nothing special about ghouls. We drew little attention to ourselves, as I was now allowed to go to school. I had had to be privately tutored during the first few years to catch up—luckily, my knowledge from my previous life ensured that I had never actually been too far behind in much except for the language itself—but otherwise, I fit in seamlessly. I was sent 'care-packages' from Kanou-sensei to stop me from revealing myself as a ghoul, and Ken and I became invisible to anyone who might have wanted to hurt me.

The only thing was that I had to dye my hair so that Kureo Mado would not recognize me. I bleached it white, a nod to my brother's transformation in the original timeline.

I hoped to spare him that, however. I would keep him from Rize, even if it meant I had to kill her myself. It would save him so much pain and suffering, and it would simultaneously keep me safer.

But as it turned out, there would be little I could do to change the events in the beginning of Tokyo Ghoul.

Chapter One

When Ken went off to college, I lost much of my ability to keep him safe, as we no longer attended the same school. We still lived together, of course, and since Kanou-sensei was still secretly sending us money, we could afford a two-bedroom apartment. Nonetheless, I worried about him when we weren't together.

One day, on a day like any other, Ken announced to me that he was going to the coffee shop, Anteiku. I knew that he was safe there, even if it was where he would eventually meet Rize, but I wasn't worried yet. Ken had never mentioned an attractive book-reading young woman around his age, so even though there were news reports about a binge-eater in the 20th Ward, I was certain that she hadn't shown up yet. Ken surely would have told me about his crush.

"Promise you'll stay with Hide at all times!" I told him. "And don't stay out after dark! You know it's dangerous!"

"You're such a nag," he whined, but this was par for the course for us. I acted older than him, mostly because mentally I was, but he took it as his little sister being bossy. He never heard the very real undercurrent of worry in my voice.

"Promise?" I demanded, mock-glaring at him from over my algebra textbook.

He sighed and rolled his eyes. "I promise, Aiko-chan."

I huffed and nodded. "What time do you think you'll be back?" I asked. The fact that he was halfway out the door didn't faze me. Even though I had been raised in Japanese culture this time around, I still felt very much American, and Americans really don't have the same standard for manners that the Japanese do.

"Eight!" he called back. "Stop worrying so much!"

I frowned and stood up to follow him and possibly nag some more, which he would take good-naturedly as always, but by the time I reached the doorway he was already halfway down the street. Frowning even more deeply, I went back into the kitchen and began to review the most recent chapter assigned to my math class again.

Time passed quickly while I immersed myself in the new developments in the mathematical realm. Math was never my best subject and probably never would be, but I had to be prepared to be accepted into Kamii University. I had to protect Ken, and the best way to do that was to go to the same school as him. Of course, I was a year away from taking the entrance exams, but one could never be too prepared.

When I realized that it was eight-thirty at night and my brother still had not returned, I began to grow worried. I wasn't going to go jumping to conclusions that it was Rize because I was still certain that Ken would have told me about her. However, prudence made me pick up my cellphone and call Hide.

I was fond of Hide, even though he didn't play as much of a part in preventing my brother's loneliness as he had in the anime, simply because Ken wasn't alone as he would have been if I had not been thrust into this world. I was always there, hovering like a mother hen, even if Ken didn't see it for what it was. There was no way he could know who and what I truly was. I was hoping to keep the fact that I was hybrid from him for as long as possible—possibly forever. He didn't need to become involved in the world of ghouls. If the secret came out that a naturally born hybrid existed, that would be a futile effort. I would be hunted.

Which is why I didn't protest when Ken wanted to spend one-on-one time with Hide. If I failed with Rize—and I wouldn't, I promised myself—at least Hide would prevent my brother from accepting his fate for much longer. And I would never let that Jason so much as lay a hand on him or blood would spill in rivers. The thought of Ken being tortured like that…well, it had horrified me in the anime, and now that I knew him, now that he was my beloved brother…Yamori would rue the day he had hunted the artificial hybrid.

But that wasn't going to happen. I would scramble Rize's intestines just so that Ken couldn't have them implanted into him.

"Moshi-moshi," answered Hide after two rings. I sighed in relief.

"Hey, Ken hasn't come home yet. Is he with you?" I asked as politely as possible. When Hide grunted in annoyance, I immediately began to scowl.

"Nah, he met this one chick he's been pining after and asked her out on a date. Dunno when they'll be back, but he texted me a little while ago saying that it was going great."

I froze. "Wh-what did she look like?" I demanded furiously, already knowing the answer.

"Whoa, chill, Jealous-san! She was really hot—kinda had the nerdy thing going on with the glasses, but nice tits and a rockin' bod. She's perfect for Kaneki-kun, she reads all the same stuff he does. Tatsuki Sen or something."

"Takatsuki Sen," I corrected automatically, as Ken had done for me so many times. Then I quickly freaked the fuck out. "Ah, SHIT!"

Hide protested, "Don't going ruining his date, you-"

I hung up abruptly.

I was panicking, but I was also furious. Why hadn't Ken told me? Didn't he trust me? It was unfathomable that he wouldn't tell his sister, even if I was a nag and even if I would strongly discourage it. However, the latter was something that he couldn't possibly know, so why wouldn't he tell me?

How was I supposed to keep him safe if he kept such important secrets from me?

Then again, the still slightly rational voice in my head told me that Ken couldn't possibly know how big of a secret this was. Perhaps he was embarrassed to be so head-over-heels for a stranger. That would be very much in-character for him, but nonetheless, I wish he trusted me more.

I knew a fight was coming. I made sure to take a bite of the care-package that Kanou-sensei had sent three days ago, hidden in the depths of the refrigerator—thankfully, Ken never questioned them and I wasn't about to tell him. I wanted to be in perfect form, even if I was a little rusty since I hadn't been able to practice much while supervising Ken and without anywhere safe to release my kagune. Still, my incredible regenerative abilities would give me stamina that Rize couldn't keep up with, and fighting came naturally to me. It was strange, since I hadn't so much as been in a fistfight in my old life—I was actually a born pacifist, but I guess the ghoul in me had taken that characteristic away.

Or perhaps it was from the way I had died.

Pushing the thoughts from my head, I bolted out of the house, barely having the wherewithal to lock the door behind me. Being robbed was the least of my worries and at this point, every second counted.

Vaguely, I recalled the memories from Ken's date with Rize. They went to a bookstore—no, that would be over already. They went to dinner after the sun had set, but the name of the restaurant hadn't been stated in the anime—or if it had, it wasn't coming to mind. After all, for the first nine years of my life, I never really gave credence to the happenings of Tokyo Ghoul because I hadn't thought it would affect me. I cursed myself as I ran.

In the end, I determined that I would find the construction site—there were only a few in the 20th Ward, so it shouldn't be hard to narrow it down—and wait for them there, which would prevent Rize from ever attacking him. That would work even better, even if it meant I had to fight to the death. Even if I didn't smell good, I was pretty sure that that wouldn't affect my taste if someone ever was able to take a bite of me.

The first construction site was not familiar to me and it was the closest. I swore loudly and then darted towards the other one, which was on the other side of the ward.

"Fuck fuck, fuck fuck fuck!" I cursed continually as I ran. Would I get there in time? It was nearing nine o'clock, if not afterwards. I hadn't thought to bring my phone and I cursed louder. In my panic, it hadn't even occurred to me that I could call Ken and find out exactly where he was—if he would have answered at all. His manners would probably prevent him from checking his phone while he was on a date, even if it was an urgent call from his sister. Still, though, he wouldn't answer anyway if he had already been attacked.

The very thought of the pain that he could be in right now spurred me into an even more dogged run.

When I finally reached the alley, I could smell Ken acutely. However, I didn't smell blood, so there was still time. Panting, I slowed to a walk so that once the fight commenced—because I doubted Rize would give up her prey just like that, she was vicious—I would not be out of breath. I still might be slightly worn out, but that wasn't important. I could do this.

I would give my life to save my brother, my only remaining family. I believed that sacrifice would make my parents proud, all four of them.

I walked towards the alleyway that branched from the construction site and immediately saw them. Rize was leaning into Ken flirtatiously and the blush that I could see from this angle told me that my time was almost up. Once Rize got a bite of him, she would be much more powerful than she would be if she hadn't fed yet.

"Get away from him, you bitch!" I bellowed, charging forward. I didn't activate anything yet—if I could prevent Ken from finding out that I was part ghoul, I would.

Rize paused what she was doing and looked up at me. "Oh, is he yours, little girl?" she asked with a giggle. "Looks like you have an admirer, Kaneki-kun."

Ken ignored her, whirling around when he recognized my voice.

"Aiko-chan, what are you-?"

"Ken, run!" I screeched. "She's a ghou-"

Rize didn't give my brother any time to react. She bit down viciously into his shoulder and the terrified scream of pain that choked forth from his throat enraged me to the point where I couldn't resist my bloodlust. My kakugan activated and my kagune shot forth from my back, ripping the back of my school uniform.

My kagune was unique and rather powerful, and the only reason I could attribute to that was the fact that I was a hybrid. Ken would become insanely powerful as well, maybe even more powerful than me, if I failed my mission to save him. However, I was rusty in fighting, not nearly as practiced as I had been when I was with my foster family, and Rize had been using her kagune constantly during her binges. As her kagune activated in response to mine, I suddenly had the fleeting thought that I actually might die.

"Ken, run!" I screamed again, but Rize rushed me with her red kagune darting forth to impale me. I dodged by a few feet, but not nearly enough to prevent the second from wrapping around my ankle and landing me on my back. I roared in fury and the top two snapped down on the offending tendril and sawed into her kagune, the multiple rows of saw-like razors cutting and drawing blood.

My kagune were silver-white and looked like opaque, multi-faceted diamonds in the shape of lily petals, able to freeze into a shield just as hard as the jewels they looked like. However, they were could also be good at offense as well, as I could make them become jagged like rows of shark teeth and just as painful.

Rize deftly retracted her kagune from my ankle, whipping it so that the blood went flying off as it healed, and attempted to spear me again. I dodged once more and somersaulted out of the way before jerkily forcing myself on my feet again.

"Aiko…chan?" Ken wheezed, kneeling on the ground not far from the spot where Rize had bitten him and clutching his profusely bleeding shoulder.

"Why are you still here, you baka!" I roared at him. He just stared at me with wide eyes, and then I had to tear my eyes away to focus on the fight again.

Rize was laughing maniacally. "Ooooh, a one-eyed ghoul! You'll be a nice dessert after I'm done with your boyfriend!"

"He's my brother, you frigid cunt!" I hissed, blocking her attack at my thighs with my lower kagune, freezing them to be defensive while I lashed out with the top two, which were still formed for offense.

Rize blocked easily, whipping all four tendrils around me like an intricate and deadly dance. I was forced onto the defensive, retracting the razor edges and hardening my kagune into shields instead. I was able to block most of the blows, but she was knocking me around pretty good. Suddenly, two of them came at me from the side and before I could try to parry, she knocked me into the nearest wall hard enough to make a crater in the brick.

Dazed, I recovered as quickly as I could, surging forward and whipping her desperately with my kagune, morphing all of them into shark teeth. A glancing blow tore into her abdomen. I saw her eyes harden and she retreated, jumping back about ten feet.

"You're getting annoying, little girl," she spat. "I'm done playing."

I was panting and adrenaline coursed through my veins strongly enough to almost make me dizzy. She had just been playing? I had exerted all my effort into dodging and it had been an effort just to graze her like I had.

Suddenly, she was attacking with real fervor and I found myself being knocked about like a soccer ball. A blow to my head blacked out my vision for five seconds, a tendril wrapped around my shin and shattered the bone. I screamed in pain even as the bone immediately began to knit itself back together. Another tendril had plunged into my stomach and exited through the back before I regained my vision, so fast were her attacks, and as I screamed I choked on blood.

Rize must have had some idea of a hybrid's healing abilities, because she didn't retract the kagune from my abdomen, which stopped my body from being able to heal itself though it still tried. I struggled feebly, so sick with pain that I would have vomited if my organs weren't skewered like shish kabobs. Her kagune wrapped around my throat and tightened.

"I like my meals fresh, so you'll be first to go," Rize gloated. "I changed my mind. Kaneki-kun can be dessert. You're much too delicious."

Somewhere from within my daze of pain, I noticed her licking my blood off one of her kagune, and then I realized that my organs and abdomen were healing. So she'd gotten the good blood, the fresh blood. But then the tendril around my throat tightened and I choked, no longer able to breathe. If it tightened anymore, it would snap my neck.

"No!"

Suddenly, I was released from the kagune. I couldn't understand it, but while I desperately tried to catch my breath, I noticed that Ken had tackled Rize with everything he was. Rize was rather petite and I knew that Ken probably weighed more than her, but it still didn't account for the difference in their species' strength. The only way Ken could have managed that was if he'd genuinely caught her by surprise.

I gasped painfully through a nearly-crushed windpipe, but I was regenerating quickly. Still, my abdomen wasn't finished healing yet and my shin was still tender, so it was all I could do to stumble towards them.

"You two are quite annoying," Rize snarled. She picked up Ken and hurled him into the center of the construction yard.

I frantically tried to catch up, to protect Ken from the scene that I had seen once before in another life, but I couldn't gain enough speed. One bite obviously wasn't enough to make me a match for Rize; I was simply too out of practice to keep up with her. I would be dead if not for Ken's valiant, self-sacrificing actions.

I had just reached the edge of the yard when I saw what I had never wanted to see.

"…scramble your organs like eggs!" And her kagune began to do just that.

I heard the snapping of cords, but Ken's screams were drowning out the sound for Rize. There was the groaning of metal and I knew exactly what was happening.

"NO!"

But it was too late. Even if I had wanted to kill Rize the way she was killing my brother, I couldn't change things now. Ken would die without an organ donor and Rize was obviously the only one who could supply that.

I fell to my knees, an agonized scream tearing from my throat as the construction site collapsed in on itself. I vaguely heard Rize mumble her last words, but it was mostly drowned out by my horrified sobs.

Eventually I stumbled through the wreckage to Ken's side. His eyes were glazed, but he was still conscious.

"Ken-kun, Ken, Ken…" I whispered urgently, kneeling on the steel beam caging him in. My vision was blurry from tears, but my sense of smell told me that he was losing a lot of blood very quickly.

"Aiko…chan?" he mumbled. "Please…it…h-hurts-"

"Shh, don't talk," I said, trying to soothe him as best I could through my panic. "Hey, hey, where's your phone? I'm going to call an ambulance, okay? Shh, shh, don't worry, everything's going to be okay."

Ken was nearly unconscious, and I wasn't sure if I was comforting him or myself at that point.

"Love…you, 'ko-chan," he wheeze, and then his eyes closed.

"No, Ken, Ken, stay awake!" I pleaded. "No, Ken! Open your eyes! Open your eyes, damnit!" But he was too far gone and I knew time was running out.

However, before I reached the phone there was already a siren in the distance and nearing quickly. Someone must have seen the wreckage and heard the screams. I quickly made sure all signs of being a ghoul were gone and then stumbled towards the noise. I was fully healed at this point, but there was still residual pain.

"Help! HELP!" I screamed, my voice raw from its abuse, but I couldn't so much as give one fuck at that point. I waved my arms and then the ambulance screeched to a halt at the sidewalk. Mere seconds later, paramedics rushed out the back. "Over here! Over here! My brother, he's-"

What I didn't expect was to be seized and dragged away by one of the paramedics.

"No, stop! My brother! He's alive! You can't-no, not me-my brother! Stop! Let me go!"

In my panic for Ken's safety, I hadn't realized what I looked like. Blood soaked through my shirt front to back, a black and blue ring of bruising around my throat, and ragged, torn clothing.

"No, you stupid fucking idiot!" I gathered myself enough to elbow the paramedic and send him crashing to the ground.

I ran towards Ken but found him already on a stretcher being rushed towards the ambulance, a stretcher with Rize on it not far behind. Either she wasn't dead yet—good, let her feel pain—or they just didn't realize it.

I ran towards Ken, even as the paramedic I'd knocked down pursued me.

"Miss, you're injured! Please come with us, you need medical atten-"

Ken's cellphone had clattered to the ground as they wheel him there and I said, "Stop it! It's his blood!" Somewhere along the way I realized that I couldn't let them inspect me—it would reveal me to be a ghoul. "Just please, take him! There's no time to waste!"

"Miss, you need to-"

I picked up Ken's cellphone and then ran back to the paramedic. "Fine, take me! But get him help!" My tears were falling again and I was desperate, my heart pounding so hard and so fast it felt like I really would vomit, and this time, my organs weren't so torn that I wouldn't be able to.

They shuffled us all into the back of the van. Ken was the most important, apparently, and they hooked him up to every machine in the van.

I vaguely heard them calling out orders, such as 'blood transfusion' and 'surgery, stat!' I ignored them in favor of holding Ken's hand where an IV hadn't been put in.

I sat in complete, numb silence until we reached the hospital, and then I grew manic at the thought of them separating me from my brother. "No! No!" I screamed, desperately attempting to follow Ken and Rize into the operating room, but I was restrained by two burly policemen. I knew they were going to try to sedate me forcefully and I was in a lot of trouble because hypodermic needles couldn't penetrate my skin.

So, I disabled the two guards and I was forced to run. I didn't want to leave Ken, but if I didn't, I would be found out as a ghoul and sentenced to death. I wouldn't be able to protect Ken from beyond the grave.

I ran, crying the whole time, and they eventually lost the trail. At some point I got home and collapsed into bed, but the next morning I wouldn't remember it.