Step, after step, after step. Each one flowing into the next, each one a part of a simple cycle, my hands moving to strike, block and strike again at unseen opponents, each movement pre-ordained, one within a cycle. A block to the left, another block and then step inwards, letting the left hand slide downwards to the mid-rift as the right blocks another attack, twisting to let the leg come up to strike against the attacker before dropping back down, the body flowing onwards. Each movement, each form executed so slowly, so smoothly that it joins into an endless cycle, seeming to take forever and yet not even begin. To an external viewer I must be moving in a blur, each attack followed by another, each movement leading into another that it's sometimes difficult to tell where a block stops and becomes an attack or the other way round. To me, inside my head I barely notice it anymore, I'm not even thinking of it.

I've never been trained before in the martial arts, the closest to formal training I've ever received was in boxing and what I do now has little in relation to that training. I'm not moving to any pre-set cycle, nothing trained and indoctrinated again and again, I'm just letting my body flow as it will, letting whatever it would come out do so. I don't think about it, I just feel.

I'm not doing this to train, I don't expect anything really constructive to come about. I use it as another would use it for meditation, to focus myself and to wait for what next comes. As I know it will.

A face floats into my minds eye, one that I know too well. Blond hair, blue eyes and even a dimple on the left. Beautiful, a sparkle in the eyes and a smile that would take a man's breath away. A childs face, one that has yet to mature fully but already promises to break many a heart in the future. A face from the past. I let it float there, smiling and laughing at me, let myself feel the pain and the shame that always comes with it. And when I can no longer stand it, I let it go, waiting for the next.

I don't know why I do this to myself, why I let myself walk down past paths and past actions, why I torture myself over this. Perhaps to remind myself of the things that I did and didn't do, to remind myself of my humanity. Or perhaps I am what they call a masochist. One that enjoys the pain. I don't know, I just know that I do it.

The next memory to float is a surprising one, one that I haven't visited for a while. A memory that I've forgotten in some ways. I'm stumbling through the woods, my side bleeding, a hand clutched over the wound as I keep on going. I can hear the sounds of pursuit behind me, voices shouting and calling to one another as I push onwards, falling to the ground. It hurts, more than I could have believed, it hurts to get up and push myself to my feet, each step nearly taking my breath away as I continue to bleed, slowly dying with each step. I can hear them coming for me, nearly there and I keep on going even though it's a fools errand, I can remember knowing that I'd never make it, that they'll catch me.

Before the memory finishes another replaces it, another face this time, one from the past. One clutching at my hand as I walk pass, a woman's face. She looks into my eyes with hers, seeming to gaze into my soul. No words are exchanged, nothing at all but as she turns away to leave I open my hand, looking down at what she pressed into it. It's a picture, one that shows something that I had hoped stopped happening many years ago. I remember the events, the scene and the road it led me down. I shiver slightly, my form breaking for a second, a moment before I regain control and balance.

A man strides towards me, in one hand holding a burning torch and the other a gun, rage and hatred and disgust in his eyes. His hand shakes, with suppressed rage or fear I know not, thrusting the torch at me as he comes. I feel the near overwhelming panic that flames, that fire of any sort always brings to mind, the desperate need, the desire for self-preservation stronger than any thoughts or feelings I might have had. The fear at what the flames could do, would do to me. The pain and the scarring and the end that it might bring. I remember standing unable to move, battling this need to flee before anything else with my own instincts to fight.

The next memory to replace that is a scene from another city, one cloaked in darkness that has little to do with the lack of lighting. I remember a voice speaking to me, a voice that I know so well and yet do not. The voice of my Sire, feral, guttural, powerful and commanding all in one "The road back is long and hard Johnathan. I can't walk it for you. I can only hope to show you the way. We all have to walk it alone in the end". You know the weird thing? I don't remember the events sorrounding this, I don't remember meeting him this time nor do I remember the city. Yet, I know deep down inside that this scene happened, that we talked. There are too many gaps in my mind.

I see myself spin around, feel my weight shift in my mind as I come out from behind the crate, extending my hands to open fire on the poor Sabbat. A more recent memory. I see the scene again, this time in slow motion. But I don't really see what I'm doing, instead I see the man's face. The vampires face. My enemies face. I see the surprise in it as I come out of hiding, the shock as the first bullet hits him, the pain that is causes. I see his face and hair, dyed a stupid purple and punctured with rings all along his ears and nose and eyebrows, I see the realization and I see his youth. He couldn't have been any older than 30 at most if that much. Maybe not even 20. A child caught in a world that he doesn't understand, quite likely taken whilst out partying and embraced by the Sabbat as just more cannon fodder. I see his face and I let myself regret it. My actions, my choices. He never had a choice, not really. I let myself feel the pain and the sadness of having to take away his life.

A man steps out from the fog that hangs heavy over th city, the lamps casting a baleful light over him as he stands there. He has only one eye, the other is hidden, covered by what would be his skull; where it has overgrown its normal limits. His limbs are twisted, his body slightly hunched over and there's something wrong with the way his chest is, slightly too thin on one side and too large on the other. He looks up at me and smiles, showing off his fangs. What's left of his hair lies limply down the left side of his face, pushed there as if he cares not for it. When he speaks however, it's in a cultured French accent. "Mr."Riley". A pleasure to meet you. Certainly before others might. I believe we might have a small matter of business that might be benificial to us both."

Janus. Our first meeting in Stockholm. A small matter of business indeed, enough to tie us together till this day. It's been years since I used the name Riley, a name taken from the phonebook and added to my array of passports. It's sometimes to be better off not known to those in charge, to be a non-entity. I turn, letting my right hand lead as I swing in a punch, letting my entire body follow as I bend inwards, the elbow coming in to contact with my imaginary opponents head. I let my momentum build, let it continue as I turn on my the ball of my foot, the left leg coming up to hip level and then sliding outwards, smoothly into what would be a mans gut. I let the foot drop, my left hand twirling to block a blow from an imaginary opponent, the body never stopping as my mind continues to conjure up images for me. I'm seated in a bar in the Barrens, chatting quietly over a pint of untouched beer with the Brujah Cage, explaining how thing are going to be in this city from now on. I'm warning him to behave himself, that whilst the Prince might be a bit more relaxed then most others are on the Anarchs, I couldn't really give a damn about policy if he causes me too many problems. I'm explaining that I couldn't care less about his politics, that I have a job to do and most importantly that I have a Sabbat siege to worry about. He's smart enough to listen to me, most likely having heard about my little exploits from his other Brujah buddies. He knows I'm harder than he is, he knows I took down Stone by myself and that entire Sabbat pack in a fortified haven. He knows all this, and he knows I claim to be of Clan Gangrel. So he listens and nods at the right places. He hasn't caused me any real problems, nothing that would get him staked anyhow or even a visit. I guess the little talk worked.

Desert sand whips around me, caught up in a wind that swirls it around, turning it over and over again in front of my eyes. I can't see anything and if I still had to breathe I would be dead by now, there's that much sand in the air. I'm stumbling, walking, pushing along in the middle of the night, caught up in a sandstorm that seems to have no end and no beginning, not daring to stop and hoping to find shelter of some sort before the sun rises. I can't do anything else, I can't stop or else the sand might just cover me completely and never let me out. All I can do is walk, placing foot in front of foot as I stumble along, shielding my eyes from the sand.

Glass shatters, a bullet hole next to my head appears even as I duck, reaching for a gun that isn't there. More bullets fire, my companion for the evening too shocked and slow to realize something is happening before he is hit. I reach out, yanking his foot from under him, using the momentum granted him by the bullets to do what he was too slow to do - get out of the line of fire. More bullet holes appear, each slamming into the plastered walls opposite us, the French doors leading out onto the balcony from the library we stood in nothing more than shattered glass and wood now, the bark of automatic fire continuing as I watch my head turn, looking for an exit.

The memories and thoughts come thick and fast now, each one replaced by another, flitting in front of my minds eye too quickly for me to register them all, sometimes stopping to hold over a particular scene, a particular thought.

Standing in the middle of a valley, not a single human soul in sight, not even the barest touch of human existence seeming to have invaded this valley in it's life. I look up, my eyes going to the full moon that shines upon me, seeming larger, brighter and somehow cleaner than anything I've ever seen, marveling at the pure fact of existence. I can still feel it, the simple incredible overwhelming sense of awe. I'm in a room with another Kindred, a Malkavian that just walked up and stabbed me for no reason. I remember picking him up and throwing him into the wall with enough force to have broken a few ribs. Of standing there in front of him, my entire body trembling with the need to jump upon him, to tear at his body, to sink my fangs into his throat and draw the life force from him. I remember the screaming desire deep within me, a part of me that wants, desires, that reveled in the pure rage that ran through me, that screamed for release and sustenance, so real that I could nearly taste it.

I remember an ocean voyage where I stand upon the decks of a ship, wondering if I would ever see the green grass of home once more. I remember turning to look upon my friends that sit and stand beside me, all with a look of fear and courage in their faces. I remember the feeling of loneliness and despair, of fear that ran through me as I watched the seemingly endless waves before me.

Muscles which would tire, which would break in a mortal continue to move fluidly, without a single wasted motion - or so I'd like to think. The undead don't tire, they don't sweat or breathe or have their muscles give way on them because they're not strong enough or fit enough. I continue to flow onwards, moving from stance to stance, from form to form as ceaselessly as the memories that come to my mind. I stand to the side of a hall, watching the entrance of more Kindred as the Prince holds court. I watch as Toreador, Brujah, Malkavian, Ventrue and Tremere mingle with even a few Gangrel scattered here and there. I watch as the Prince sits upon his throne, speaking with his advisers, his Primogen council as the rank and file speak with one another, perhaps sometimes one would approach the Prince or his Primogen to request or speak with them upon a matter of import to themselves. I watch the same scene unfold again and again, over and over again, the faces different, the places different but the conversations, the words and the politics the same. Never ending, never changing, stagnant in its own way.

I watch a man walk out of his house, looking around him for a moment with a sense of unease. I watch him reach forwards to touch his tie, to pull it up and adjust it as he looks around him, trying to find what causes the feeling that shakes him. I watch him at last shrug it off, to walk forward to the car that awaits him. And I feel my finger slowly squeeze the trigger, I feel the rifle jerk and shift, my view through the scope disrupted as the flash from the barrel bursts forwards. I watch as if in slow motion - though I know that I could never have actually seen it except perhaps subconsciously, the bullet cut through the air to strike true. I watch it enter the mans head, to push forwards and flatten even as its momentum continues to break out the other side. I watch him drop silently, without a word and the driver jerk as the noise of the rifle shot at last registers, at last reaches him, too slow, always too slow.

The smell of a dozen fires rages through the air, the half animal, half human faces of other Gangrel spinning across my vision, caught up in dances, Ordeals, stories and the pure enjoyment of the night. I feel the impact of stamped feet, the beat of a dozen drums and other musical instruments waging through the nights air, as they celebrate perhaps the only thing that there is ever to celebrate. Being alive. The next night might bring the deaths of all here, of all that we care for and for all that might come but tonight, this night we are alive. A celebration that we have survived another year, another lifetime in a world made hostile to us all.

I stand before the Prince of Gotham, looking upon him from across the desk that he sits behind. He radiates an aura of power, of command that is not al due to his supernatural command of the Discipline of Presence. I've just heard the offer he's made to me, of his revelation of what he thinks he knows of me and what he thinks I can do. He's spoken of the Sabbat and the battle to come, of what might be and his vision for this city. He's made his offer, to be his Sheriff now and with it the perks that come with the job. I stand there, looking upon him and breathing in the smell of his expensive upholstery and cologne, listening to the sounds of the night muted by distance and glass and I'm so tempted to tell him where to place his offer.

Something in the warehouse changes, something that impinges on my mind and I react without thinking, dropping to the left and coming up in moments, a gun in each hand as I turn to what caused my alarm. Its only when I see him with my own eyes do I relax, sliding the guns back into worn holsters.

"Pierre." I would tell him off if I really thought it'd do any good. I know it won't so I don't bother. He stands there, half a dozen feet from me, his wings folded behind his back, his face as much a piece of granite as it always is, never giving a thing away, looking much like a gray demon from Hell might. "We might have a problem." A slight tilt of his head upwards to the office to indicate where he wants me to go and that is all.

I nod to him, walking back to my trenchcoat to pick it up, knowing he would not have bothered me for no reason. I slide it back on, shrugging my shoulder a few times to get the weight to settle properly before I nod to him, moving to the office room he indicated. He takes off behind me, the silent unfurling of his wings the only indication that he has moved.

I remember the pain and the lost, the sadness and the joy, the battles and the times of peace. I remember death and life and the intricate dance of death and nature and luck through my existence. But most of all I remember duty and honour.