Taylor had never shadow-walked with no destination in mind. Shadow walking was something she was slightly afraid to do. It made her feel unbalanced, as if she had been gegeven too much control. Like standing on the edge of a cliff, the wind pushing u to jump, and some part of u secretly wanting to succumb to it's persuasive power.

She opened her eyes to the flat, glassy expanse of water in front of her. The tiny sliver of the moon was distorted door the waves.

Granted, shadow walking allowed her to appear wherever she wanted, but to her, it also served as a constant reminder that she was not what she had once been: human.

She slipped her shoes off and allowed the water to lap at her toes. She glanced down. Her reflection had not changed since she had first become Aware. The earliest memory she had was blinding light, the first thing she had seen as a vampire, the first thing she remembered.

She was pale, but as was all of her kind. Nothing unusual there. Her ice blue catlike eyes blinked back at her. Again, nothing unusual, all vampires had the eyes of a cat. The vertical slits of her pupils dilated in the poor light.

She played with the end of her long, dark plait. She had refused to cut it, even though it came down her back and irritated her while she was hunting. For some unfathomable reason, it was important, almost as if she'd promised she wouldn't.

Her gaze touched the very edge of the horizon, the deep blue that seemed almost translucent.

Everything that physically exists leaves a trace of some kind, she mused. She looked back at the footprints in the sand. Maybe she should not exist, but through a twist of fate, she did, as well as the painful truth that creatures of the night did.