Morning came with the faint, ominous buzz of the electric collar around Igor's neck, a warning and cold promise of the pain he knew was coming. Thirty seconds was all he had to prove he was still under their control before the agony hit.
His hand snapped up instinctively, fingers brushing the smooth button at his throat before thought could catch up, a habit as natural as breathing, and only then did he dare open his eyes.
Six a.m. Again. Bound to the House of Lennox, a bitter knot tightening in his chest, sour and metallic, crawling like poison on his tongue.
The collar vibrated cold against his flesh, a relentless pulse, like the heartbeat of the machine that owned him, always watching, always ready to tighten its grip.
The collar was permanent, fused into his neck, a ring of obedience locked to bone. Metal plates pinned his shoulders and threaded through his wings, forcing them shut. He was kept rigid, arms bound, wings folded like a bird nailed into a box.
He'd stopped fighting long ago; resistance was for people who still believed it mattered. As a child, he learned fast: silence meant pain was coming. He obeyed before the reminder ever came.
Even in the quiet, fear stayed with him, not in thought, but in his body, trained deep into reflex.
At night, before sleep, he heard the older Alucards whisper, stories of screams cut short and the stench of burned skin.
But Igor had seen worse.
He'd seen what came after: not just torn skin, but something deeper, an emptiness behind their eyes, as if their minds had quietly stepped out and never returned. They moved like echoes.
Afterward, they moved like machines: jerky, afraid, always waiting for the next shock. They weren't people anymore. Just empty shells, haunted by a burn that wasn't there.
Igor pushed himself up from the narrow bed, the thin mattress doing nothing for his aching bones.
His folded wings, tied tight against his back, hung like dead weight, a constant reminder of what he was and what he'd lost.
He ran a calloused hand over the coarse bindings, feeling the stretch of leathery membranes aching for the night air.
He hadn't tried to fly in years, not since the mines, not since the cave-in. He was fifteen (or at least he thought he was) when the ceiling collapsed, burying everything in darkness and dust, leaving more than broken stone and shattered bodies.
It had left a silence inside him. His wing was damaged, membrane overstretched, bone bent, and an ache always underneath.
The ache was constant, but it no longer read as pain. It was like a song he couldn't unhear, the collar's whisper, the weight of his body barely felt real anymore.
The wing wasn't the real reason he stayed grounded. Even if his left wing still worked, if it could stretch out like it used to, strong and full of promise, it wouldn't change a thing.
He didn't dream of flying anymore. He barely remembered what it felt like. It had become a word, like freedom. Or escape.
Flight was a ghost. And he no longer cared. He had become apathetic toward them.
Soft, muted light filled his quarters, small but larger than a closet, furnished with only the essentials. His crimson eyes adjusted quickly.
Night vision was one of the many 'gifts' that made Alucards useful. Along with it came the sense to detect even faint toxic gas, a skill that once made him essential in the mines.
No matter what he endured now, he would face it all before returning to that nightmare.
Even now, he sometimes coughed for no reason, the memory stuck in his lungs.
A memory sent a chill through him: damp darkness, constant cave-ins, the acrid smell of firedamp, a quiet warning of invisible death.
There was no sky in the mines, only cold stone pressing down as it had for centuries. Moisture clung to every surface, mixed with the sharp, sour smell of sweat. The air was thick, carrying the iron bite of blood, some fresh, some long absorbed into the walls.
The tunnels twisted until he had to crawl, wings flat against his back, useless. He taught himself not to look back, not to imagine air catching under them.
The mine shafts were narrow, barely tall enough for a boy to crawl, let alone a winged teen with long bones and broad shoulders.
The foreman didn't care about biology. Wings were just another tool, like a pickaxe or a gas mask.
When the firedamp thickened, Igor went first. His crimson eyes scanned for unseen threats as his knees scraped raw on jagged stone.
He learned early that the gas had a smell: sour and metallic, like old pennies in the rain. Some Alucards didn't notice in time, and their screams lingered.
There were others, boys younger than him, girls with shredded hands and bloody, flaking wings. They whispered stories during shift changes when the foremen weren't watching.
One girl claimed she'd seen sunlight once, saying it made the veins in her wings glow gold. She carved lines into the rock, counting the days she'd survived. Igor never asked how many she left unfinished.
When the collapse came, silence came first, then the tremor through his fingertips, the pressure in the air, and finally, the ceiling tore down like paper. That day, he carried two children on his back, his right wing torn and useless.
No medal of honor. Just more shifts. More gas. More death. Some nights, he woke to the smell of blood and coal, fists curled tight.
There was no word for the silence after punishment shifts. Only the steady drip of water and quiet sobs someone tried to hide.
When Igor spoke once, just once, after a younger Alucard collapsed from heatstroke, they tied him to a hot pipe for twelve hours. The heat didn't burn his skin, but it felt like it baked him from the inside out.
His wings swelled at the joints, skin tight as a suit he'd outgrown but couldn't escape. He didn't scream. The heat didn't touch him, but the punishment hollowed him, leaving only emptiness
The worst nights were when they dragged them above ground for inspections, lined them up under harsh floodlights, wings pried open, and measured.
Too stiff? Too torn? Sent back for reassignment, or quietly erased.
Igor learned to pass. He kept his body working, his posture obedient, his voice neutral. The overseers didn't want thoughts; they wanted production. He kept his torn right wing hidden, but the thoughts never stopped.
He'd carved a crooked star into the wall of his bunk with a rusted nail, a shaky, imperfect shooting star. Most of his other marks had faded or been buried under years of soot and pain. But that one remained, a quiet reminder clinging to the cold stone.
In his quietest moments, Igor still mouthed the words, reminding himself he hadn't always been a machine.
He hadn't meant to slow down. Halfway through the haul, his knee seized, a sharp, burning pain that buckled his leg. The cart still needed moving: twelve tons of compressed ore, and only four Alucards on the job. When Igor stumbled, the overseer didn't yell. He pulled a lever.
The collar buzzed, shocking him into movement. He didn't realize he was falling until it was too late. His wings, bound and broken, hung useless as he plunged through darkness, crashing into jagged rock below.
Sensation returned in jagged fragments: copper on his tongue, dull pressure behind his eyes, the acrid scent of scorched fabric. The pain had dulled, distant, like a fading echo.
Behind him, a distant shout, Number 8, echoed, but the words felt buried in the chaos.
Through the haze, one thought came clear: if he died here, no one would notice. He had never known otherwise, just another broken tool, discarded.
Later, in the infirmary, his wing hung in uneven knots, and his arm and leg were broken. A stranger appeared, pale suit, gloved hands clean and deliberate.
The supervisor muttered beside him, "High-yield. Good bones, sharp mind."
A buyer crouched, lifting Igor's chin as if he were an object. "We'll take him," he said flatly. "House of Lennox could use another servant."
He didn't leave the mines free. One collar was swapped for another. Cleaner walls, softer commands. The chain stayed. Just shinier.