Her gums sting, her throat aches -- her mouth is so dry that her tongue feels like sandpaper, sticking tight to the roof of her mouth.

She can't remember how she got here, she can't remember where 'here' is... she can't even remember who 'she' is -- though she knows instinctively that's the word that best applies to her.

The air is thick with the sickening stench of sweat, vomit, blood and rot. She gags on it, her stomach rolling and roiling in her belly. She feels empty inside, the scent of blood waking a gnawing hunger that quickly fills that emptiness -- a despersate need that claws at the back of her aching throat.

But... The blood she smells is wrong: sour, dead and rotten.

No, that wouldn't soothe this pain, it wouldn't quiet the ache in her empty belly. The blood needs to be fresh and flowing -- it needs to be alive...