Chapter 1
The young girl lay perfectly still on the crisp, starched bed linen, her long raven tresses fanned evenly on the smooth pillow, either side of her pretty, pale face. The corrugated plastic tube taped to her lips, and inserted into her throat, pumped oxygen into her lungs with a hiss every couple of seconds.
She was calmly aware of the probes and sensors taped to her head and body, and the constant ticking and beeping of the machines that kept her life supported. Veronica Hale was dying, of that she was sure.
Her life was wasting; her body losing strength...fading away...
She was also aware of her Mother, constantly at the bedside, weeping intermittently between several, long and rambling, one-sided conversations.
Strangely, she could see with her eyes closed, though try as she might, she could not will her physical eyelids to open.
Why can't you hear me, mum? Veronica thought in her mind. I know you are here!
Veronica's Mother reached out and placed a warm hand on the girl's cool brow, whispering a prayer and motioning a cross above the bed.
"Mighty Lord, please be merciful and if it is your will, send your Angel to take my dear Veronica."
The exhausted woman leant down and kissed Veronica's closed eyes, before turning to leave, shuffling to the door.
Please, don't leave me, mum... Veronica cried, unheard.
A familiar voice entered the room; a man... a doctor. "Mrs Hale, I wonder if I might discuss something with you?"
Mrs Hale stopped in her tracks, shooting the man a withering look, with her dark ringed eyes. "No! I will not give her to you! How many times must I bloody tell you!"
The man held up his hands in submission, speaking slowly in a warm and disarming tone. "Mrs Hale...Mrs Hale, please calm down. I know your beliefs, and I assure you that your daughter is dead; brain activity is minimal...we are merely prolonging... the inevitable..."
"No...no, she is still here! I...I know she is..."
"Do you know that her teenage organs could help save several people and bring them a better standard of life..."
The voices faded out of the room and into the general hubbub of the hospital, leaving Veronica alone within her frail prison"
Chapter 2
That night, when all was silent, except for the whirs and beeps of her machinery, Veronica saw him.
He crept from the darkness and floated eerily through the electronics lit night, a jerky and shuddering creature of twisted limbs and bulging eyes. Hovering over her immobile body he plucked and pulled, nipped and nibbled, tearing away small pieces of her soul: feeding.
Small sparks of pain ran up and down her spine and firefly flashes filled her perception as the complex machine at her bedside began to beep noisily. Her heart rate and blood pressure increased dramatically.
That was when she began to cry into the night, screaming a silent prayer into the echoic depths of her mind. Terror and fear poured from the girl, and the dark man stopped his torment, bathing in the luxurious, pulsing, red aura swirling above her frail body.
Suddenly the monitor at her side fell silent and the being floating above her body froze.
His misshapen head whipped around, spraying flecks of light from the ragged hole in his face. A low moan escaped the terrible mouth as a beam of pure, white light flooded from the dark corner of the room.
