My existance had seemed to splinter more and more everyday. I wept often, shriveling into this tiny creature that was nothing but skin and bones. Food was like ash in my mouth and I hunted only when I grew so hungry that I couldn't ignore the drive. Nike was gone - I had searched high and low. Then I had come across that white male in the tundra and when I found out he wasn't Zeus I had cracked. I only remember coming to a few days later, as if I had been dream walking, and I was covered in burrs and patches of fur missing as if I had stumbled into the wrong area. The life was slowly draining from me.

What purpose did I have in this life? My family had hated me upon birth, I hated myself mostly, and then so much torture and loss. But Nike, he was the straw that broke the camels back so to speak. He was my most precious, my most beloved child, and I wasn't even sure if he was truly real. That I hadn't dreamed him up just to keep my loneliness at bay. So I began a slow and jagged walk in the direction of Diveen, unable to travel far at all due to the weakness besetting me. Even the night creatures turned from me - I was easy prey but there was more bone then meat. What was the purpose when I wasn't good enough?

I think... I think I will ask Meryl to not heal my mind. He had helped me before. I think, this time, I think I will ask him to give me something to make me sleep. Sleep and not wake. That seems almost preferable to this tortured existence. My head ached constantly, partly due to malnourishment, but I think it is the evil, malignant madness that consumes me. I move as if a zombie, shuffling, not caring to look at the world, my steel gray eyes seemingly huge in my sunken face.

I don't look, I don't pay attention, which is probably why as I walked I didn't notice the hulking monster before me. Not until I ran smack dab into his side, legs giving out beneath me so that I simply lay down there, blinking hard, dazed.