Rain pattered gently on the cobblestone paths of Blackridge University, the sky bruised with the dusky hues of a dying evening. Students hurried across the quad, their backpacks weighed with books, their minds preoccupied with midterms, dates, and deadlines. Among them walked Adrian Wells—unremarkable, unnoticed, and perfectly ordinary.
Adrian was a second-year literature major, the kind of guy whose name professors forgot and who always sat in the back row. He lived in a cramped dorm, worked part-time at the library, and rarely raised his voice above a whisper. He liked old novels, black coffee, and rainy nights. And though he never spoke of it, he often dreamed of being more—of doing something that mattered.
That night, as he shelved a tattered volume of Carmilla in the library's gothic fiction section, he felt a sudden chill. The lights above flickered once. Then again. He turned—and froze.
A man stood at the end of the aisle.
Tall. Impossibly pale. Dressed in an elegant black coat that looked centuries out of date. His eyes, a deep crimson, shimmered like blood in moonlight.
"You are Adrian Wells," the man said. It wasn't a question.
Adrian stepped back. "Who... who are you?"
"I am Lord Vaelen Drakaris. And you, Adrian, have been chosen."
Adrian stared. Was this a prank? Some strange theater group? But something about the man—his presence, the way shadows seemed to bend around him—felt undeniably real. Dangerously real.
"Chosen for what?" Adrian asked, his voice barely audible.
Vaelen smiled, revealing fangs like polished ivory. "To inherit my throne. To rule the Crimson Empire. You are the last of the bloodline."
Adrian's breath caught. "I'm not... I'm just a student. I'm nobody."
"You were," Vaelen said, stepping closer. "But destiny does not choose kings from the mighty. It chooses those it can transform."
In the dim library light, reality bent—and Adrian's world, until now mundane and predictable, cracked open like a coffin lid.
The night had chosen him.
And nothing would ever be the same.