~Beaufort, South Carolina. Earth. The Past~

The sky was a canopy of darkness, the stars glittering fireflies as she lounged in the heat of the summer night wearing a light cotton dress of gray even as she watched the rest of the young girls cavort and flirt in the water in bras and panties like they were sirens tempting their next victim.

Shawna was a bit more modest, she knew the whispers and giggles were about her, the strange little girl that rarely spoke and remained with her manners and proper ways like it wasn't the date and time of the present but so many years past. The days of debutantes and soldiers, civil war and distinguished classic ladies.

Her grandmother blamed it on Shawna being an old soul, but she knew what her grandmother really meant was that Shawna was touched, was already carrying the mark of a memory of times long since past.

The water looked so refreshing and cool, an alluring temptation and she sighed as she rose to her feet. She looked at the group of girls as they giggled and splashed each other, casting coy smiles to the boys roughhousing a bit down the way.

Shawna stared vacantly out at the gathered even as she felt somewhere else in that dark hour.

'Is it them you worry about, those that do not see you?'

A side glance of those velvet black eyes flickered to the Shadow Man as a weary smile crossed her lips as her quiet answer.

'Come child, let me show you the way.'

The words were dark allure, powerfully pulling and hard to resist. He had claimed her spirit as likely as he had claimed the spirit of her mother and her grandmother.

'We will make you something more... something for them to adore and fear... something that they will never be able to take their eyes from. Something they will never be.'

A mute nod and she followed after him as he took her hand, the influence bewitching as the stars seemed frantic in the sky, warning her and yet she did not understand their silent screams.

Would it matter? Was this not what she was born to do.

Standing on a cliff edge then, staring down at the deep waters where the girls and boys played and splashed around.

She felt no emotion towards them. A sweet indifferent apathy stirring in her spirit as she took a step back from the cliff edge, then another....before a rush forward and in that cotton dress she dove from the cliff edge into the water below.

Glimpses of images flashed before her eyes as she hit the water and was pulled deep into its pure blue chasm, the liquid possession of the lake.

She didn't understand the images in her mind of the blond and the one with the sideways tilted hat, or the image of the other man that had no name but felt like he belonged to her.

So many images until the dark claimed her, giving in to the darkness of unconsciousness as the deep blue water became black as it took her down into its depths and claimed her.

Distantly she heard the screams of horror and surprise, never aware that their screams were for the limp figure of Shawna that had surfaced on the water.