Painful memories twisted through my head, mingling with pain. I didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. I couldn’t tell if the memories were the past, or if they were happening right now and every ounce of pain I felt at the loss of Stephanie tore through me again and again as the memory played on repeat. I must be in Hell I thought. If only it were as simple as hell, for the reality of it all was far worse.
     Then the memories themselves eventually went away. I could see nothing. I heard nothing. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I felt nothing because I was nothing; nothing but pain. I was not alive. I was simply agony. Then the pain too, slowly left, until it was gone completely. My world was black and I still could not see, nor hear, nor feel. I couldn’t breathe and I couldn’t move, but the pain at least, was gone. I'm not sure I could even think. I don’t know if I was even aware that I existed. And then I heard something. It took a minute before I realized I was hearing a voice and then I could understand what it was saying.
     “Tristan. You are at a crossing.”
     I began to see that the world was more than just the blackness. There were shapes in it. As I realized I could see the shapes, I became aware of what they were. I could see my hands. My hands… And then I knew I existed.
     “You have a choice to make now, Tristan.”
     Once again I could move. The voice came from off to my left. I looked to where the voice came from and then could feel that I wasn’t simply floating. I had solid ground beneath me. I could stand, and I saw that there were more shapes in the dark than just me.
     There was a path in the dark. At the end of the path was a fork and in between the two paths was a person. He stood there looking at me. “You have a choice to make Tristan,” he spoke to me.
     I started walking towards him and as I did, I remembered that I could speak too. I tried yet there was nothing. I realized that to speak, I must breathe, and then I became of the need to breathe, so I did.
     “Who are you?” I asked him.
     “You must make your choice, Tristan,” was his helpful response.
     Is this guy a broken record? “Fine,” I replied, regaining a sense of who I was. “What choice must I make?”
     “To live or to fade away, but you will not die. If you let yourself fade, then who you are will be no more. The pain will be gone, forever, but you will become nothing more than an animal. A monster that is only instinct. You will kill just as your beloved was killed by what you will become.
     “Or you can return to the pain, and in time, you will learn to ignore it. The pain will become a thirst that will only get worse less you sate it, but you will be in control of yourself. In control to pick and choose on whom you will sate it and by how much. You can make the choice to kill or to save. And if you live, you will have the chance to take revenge.”
     The pain was unimaginable, but to destroy others… The choice was simple because there was no choice at all.
     “I want to live.”