🩸 Chapter 1: The World of AwakenedYear 2137
The world didn't end in fire or ice. It changed.
No one knew how or why the Awakening began. Some said it was divine intervention. Others blamed a cosmic event—a solar flare, a dimensional rift, or even alien interference. But the truth was lost in the chaos of the early days. What mattered was this: on the dawn of their eighteenth birthday, every human on Earth awakened a power.
Not just any power—an elemental force tied to their soul.
Fire. Ice. Lightning. Wind. Earth. Water. These were the common ones. But there were rarer, more dangerous awakenings too: Gravity, Time, Shadow, Light, even Void. Each person's power was unique, shaped by their personality, emotions, and latent potential.
The Awakening was painful. It felt like your body was being torn apart and rebuilt from the inside. But when it was over, you were something more. Something powerful.
And the world had to adapt.
The Awakening began subtly—sporadic reports of people exhibiting impossible abilities. At first, governments dismissed them as hoaxes or isolated mutations. But within a decade, the phenomenon became global. Millions Awakened. Some could manipulate fire, others bend metal, read minds, or even warp time in short bursts.
The old world couldn't cope.
Governments crumbled under the weight of chaos. Infrastructure failed. Militaries fractured. Cities burned—some by accident, others by design. Riots erupted as fear and envy spread. Economies collapsed, replaced by barter systems and power-based hierarchies.
But humanity, ever resilient, adapted.
By 2100, a new order emerged. The strongest nations and factions united under the Global Awakened Council (GAC), a governing body designed to:
Regulate the use of powers across the globe Train and license Awakened individuals Prevent large-scale disasters and power abuse Mediate conflicts between federations
The GAC's headquarters, Citadel Prime, floats above the Atlantic—a marvel of telekinetic engineering and quantum tech.
Education was overhauled. Traditional schools gave way to Awakened Academies, where children were:
Tested early for latent potential using neural resonance scans Trained in ethics, control, and combat from age 10 Prepared for the Awakening Ceremony at 18—a rite of passage where their true abilities would manifest in a controlled, high-security environment
The Ceremony was both sacred and televised—part ritual, part spectacle.
In this new world, power wasn't just strength—it was status.
Those with rare or potent abilities were immediately recruited into elite organizations: The Elemental Corps: global peacekeepers and disaster responders The Veil Division: covert operatives handling rogue Awakened The Arcanet: a digital influencer network where powered individuals monetized their fame Others became mercenaries, corporate enforcers, or private tutors for the ultra-wealthy
The most powerful were worshipped like demigods. Their names were etched into history. Their faces adorned skyscrapers.
But not everyone Awakened something… normal.
Some developed unstable or dangerous abilities—like entropy fields, memory leeching, or dimensional bleeding Others manifested non-combat powers—like emotion projection, plant empathy, or dreamwalking—deemed "low-tier" by society A rare few didn't awaken at all, becoming known as Nulls. They were often marginalized, pitied, or feared
Yet from the fringes of society, a new movement began to stir…
To bring order to the chaos of a powered world, the Global Awakened Council (GAC) established a universal framework to evaluate and manage the abilities of the Awakened. This framework became known as the Tiered Classification System—a scale that measured not just raw power, but also control, versatility, and potential for disruption.
The system is divided into six primary tiers:
Tier E – Ember: These are the weakest and most unstable powers. Often involuntary, they manifest in erratic bursts and are difficult to control. Embers are rarely combat-capable and are usually placed under observation or assigned to low-risk civilian roles.
Tier D – Spark: Representing basic elemental or kinetic control, Sparks can manipulate small amounts of energy or matter within a limited range. While not particularly powerful, they are reliable and often serve in support or utility roles.
Tier C – Adept: The most common tier. Adepts possess moderate control and utility, with abilities that are useful in both civilian and combat settings. They form the backbone of the Awakened workforce and are often employed in law enforcement, logistics, or infrastructure.
Tier B – Elite: These individuals exhibit high combat potential and refined control. Elites are frequently recruited into specialized units like the Elemental Corps or the Veil Division. Their abilities can shift the tide of battle and are considered strategic assets.
Tier A – Apex: Rare and immensely powerful, Apex-level Awakened can cause large-scale destruction or manipulate complex systems like weather, gravity, or time. They are heavily monitored and often serve as regional guardians or high-level operatives.
Tier S – Sovereign: The stuff of legend. Sovereigns possess reality-warping capabilities that defy conventional understanding. Only a handful exist, and their allegiance—or lack thereof—can determine the fate of entire nations. Most live in isolation or under constant surveillance by the GAC.
In addition to tiers, each power is categorized by its function:
Offensive abilities focus on damage and disruption—think fire manipulation, shockwaves, or energy blasts. Defensive powers are centered on protection, such as force fields, regeneration, or invulnerability. Support abilities enhance others or manipulate environments—like healing, time-slowing, or tech interfacing. Hybrid types blend two or more categories, often making them unpredictable and highly adaptable.
Yet, even this intricate system had its flaws.
Some individuals Awakened with abilities that didn't fit any known mold. Their powers were abstract, evolving, or simply beyond comprehension—manipulating probability, rewriting memories, or bending the laws of physics. These individuals were labeled Anomalies.
Anomalies were rare, feared, and often misunderstood. Some were quietly recruited into secret research programs. Others vanished, choosing exile over control. A few became myths—whispers of beings who could unmake reality with a thought.
The GAC, for all its power, could only watch… and hope the balance held.
In the heart of the Indian Federation, where ancient stone temples whispered stories of gods and warriors, and sleek monorails hummed above neon-lit streets, lay Sector 9 of Patna. It was a district caught between timelines—where incense smoke curled through alleyways beside holographic billboards, and where the sacred met the synthetic in quiet harmony.
Sector 9 wasn't known for powerhouses or prodigies. It wasn't the birthplace of Sovereigns or the training ground of Elites. It was known for its libraries, its modest academies, and its quiet rhythm. The kind of place where people lived simple lives, where the Awakening Ceremony was more of a formality than a spectacle.
And it was here that Ankur Virel lived.
Eighteen years old. A final-year student at Nalanda Academy. His academic record was unremarkable—passing grades, no awards. He wasn't an athlete, nor a tech prodigy, nor a social butterfly. He was the kind of student who sat in the third row, never first, never last. The kind of name that teachers paused over during roll call, trying to remember if he'd spoken in class that week.
But Ankur didn't mind.
He liked being invisible.
He liked the quiet. The way people's eyes slid past him in crowded corridors. The way he could sit under the banyan tree near the academy gates and read without interruption. He liked watching the world from the edges—observing, absorbing, unnoticed.
In a society obsessed with power, with spectacle, with being seen, Ankur had mastered the art of being overlooked. While his classmates boasted about their projected Tiers or speculated about their future abilities, Ankur kept his thoughts to himself. He didn't dream of joining the Elemental Corps or becoming a viral sensation on the Arcanet. He didn't even know if he would Awaken at all.
And yet, deep down—buried beneath the stillness and the silence—there was something else.
A flicker.
A pressure.
A presence.
Something waiting.
Something watching.
The Awakening Ceremony was only days away. And while the world saw Ankur Virel as forgettable, fate had not.
Ankur's life was quiet, almost monastic in its simplicity. He lived with his grandmother, Ammaji, in a modest second-floor apartment above a weathered tea shop in Sector 9. The building was old, its walls stained with time and monsoon rains, but it held warmth. The scent of cardamom and ginger wafted up every morning as Ammaji brewed her first pot of chai for the shop below. Locals came not just for the tea, but for her stories—tales of gods, rebels, and the early days of the Awakening.
Ankur listened to those stories, but never truly believed in them. Not in the way others did.
His parents had died when he was ten. A train derailment on the Patna-Kolkata line. The official report blamed a mechanical failure, but the truth leaked out days later: an Awakened passenger had lost control of a gravitational field. The train had twisted like paper. Hundreds died. His parents among them.
Since then, Ankur had grown up with a quiet resentment—not loud enough to be called hatred, but sharp enough to leave scars. He didn't idolize the Awakened like his classmates did. He didn't follow Sovereign influencers or memorize the names of Apex-tier heroes. He didn't dream of power.
He dreamed of peace.
Of a life untouched by chaos. Of mornings spent reading in silence. Of evenings helping Ammaji grind spices or fold laundry. Of a world where no one could tear reality apart with a thought.
He was content being invisible.
At school, he kept his head down. He wasn't bullied—he simply wasn't noticed. He wasn't mocked—he was forgotten. And that suited him just fine. While others competed for attention, for projections of their Awakening potential, Ankur remained a blank slate. No readings. No signs. No flickers of power.
But fate, as it often does, had other plans.
In the days leading up to the Ceremony, strange things began to happen. Lights flickered when he entered a room. Shadows lingered a little too long. He began waking up with memories that weren't his—fragments of places he'd never been, people he'd never met. And sometimes, just for a second, he'd catch his reflection in the mirror… looking back at him with eyes that weren't quite his own.
He told no one.
Not Ammaji. Not the school counselors. Not even himself, not really.
Because deep down, Ankur Virel—the boy who had spent his life trying not to be seen—was beginning to suspect that something inside him had always been watching.
Waiting.
And when the Ceremony came, the world would finally see what had been hiding in plain sight all along.
It was the night before his Awakening.
Ankur stood alone on the rooftop of his apartment building, the warm breeze tugging at his shirt as he stared up at the stars. The sky above Patna was unusually clear, the constellations sharp against the velvet dark. Somewhere far off, a satellite blinked like a slow-moving star, and closer still, a hovercar zipped past in a blur of blue light.
Below him, the city pulsed with life. Neon signs bathed the streets in shifting hues—magenta, cyan, gold. Music drifted from a rooftop party two buildings over, where students from Nalanda Academy were celebrating their new powers. Laughter echoed, loud and bright. Someone launched a flare of fire into the sky, and it burst like a miniature sun before fading into sparks.
Most of his classmates had already Awakened. The Ceremony was staggered over several days, and Ankur's turn was among the last.
Riya had gone two days ago. His best friend since childhood. She'd always been bold, always believed in the magic of the world. When she Awakened, it was with Wind Manipulation—graceful, powerful, and free. She could fly now. She'd been recruited by the Patna Skyguard within hours. Her name was already trending on the local Arcanet feeds.
Ankur hadn't heard from her since.
He didn't blame her. Not really.
He leaned against the glass panel that lined the rooftop edge and looked at his reflection. Brown eyes, a little too tired. Messy black hair that refused to stay combed. A faint scar on his chin from when he'd tripped chasing a paper kite as a kid. He looked… ordinary. Painfully so.
"Maybe I'll awaken something useless," he muttered to himself. "Like… the ability to make tea hotter."
He chuckled, but it was hollow. The kind of laugh you make when you're trying to fill silence that's grown too heavy.
He didn't feel excitement. Or fear. Or even hope.
Just a strange, gnawing emptiness. Like standing at the edge of a cliff and not knowing whether you'll fall—or fly.
The wind picked up, brushing past him like a whisper. He closed his eyes and let it pass through him. For a moment, he imagined what it would be like to soar above the city like Riya. To be seen. To matter.
But that wasn't his story.
He turned to go back inside.
And then the clock struck midnight.
The rooftop lights flickered. The air grew still—unnaturally still. The distant music cut out, replaced by a low hum that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere at once. Ankur froze.
Behind him, his reflection in the glass didn't move.
He turned slowly, heart thudding.
His reflection was still staring at him—but the eyes were glowing faintly. Not brown. Not human.
And then it smiled.
Ankur stumbled back, breath caught in his throat.
The reflection raised a hand and placed it against the glass.
And on the other side, Ankur did the same.
Except… he hadn't moved.
Pain.
It didn't creep in—it detonated.
It hit Ankur like a freight train, slamming into his chest with the force of a collapsing star. He couldn't scream. Couldn't breathe. His lungs seized. His vision fractured into shards of light and shadow. His knees gave out, and he crumpled onto the rooftop tiles, fingers clawing at the ground as if it could anchor him to reality.
His heart stuttered once.
Then stopped.
For a moment, the world held its breath.
Silence.
And then—everything changed.
Above him, the moon bled red. Not a soft hue, but a deep, arterial crimson that painted the sky in dread. The stars pulsed like warning beacons, flickering in patterns that felt… intentional. Ancient. A wind rose—not the kind that stirred leaves or whispered through alleys, but a howling, spectral gale that tore through the city like a scream from another world.
Yet no alarms blared. No one screamed. The party music continued in the distance, oblivious. Hovercars flew by, undisturbed. The world moved on, blind to the rupture unfolding on the rooftop of a forgotten boy.
Ankur's body convulsed violently.
His veins darkened, turning black as ink, spiderwebbing across his skin like cracks in porcelain. His teeth elongated into sharp, unnatural points. His skin lost its warmth, paling to a ghostly hue. His eyes rolled back, and for a moment, he looked less like a boy and more like a vessel—something hollow being filled.
And then… he died.
His body went still. No breath. No pulse. No movement.
Just silence.
But death, it seemed, was only the beginning.
The air around him shimmered, warping like heat haze. The rooftop tiles beneath his body began to frost over, then burn, then fracture—cycling through elements as if reality itself couldn't decide what rules to follow. A low hum filled the air, vibrating through the bones of the building.
And then, with a sound like tearing fabric, his eyes snapped open.
They were no longer brown.
They were void.
Not black—but absence. A darkness that pulled light inward. A darkness that remembered.
Ankur Virel had died.
But something else had awakened in his place.
When Ankur awoke, the world was no longer the same.
The rooftop was silent, but his senses were not. They were alive—overwhelmingly, terrifyingly alive. He could hear everything: the flutter of a moth's wings brushing against a distant streetlamp, the soft rustle of Ammaji turning in her sleep two floors below, the rhythmic heartbeat of a stray cat curled beneath a parked hovercar. Even the city's electric grid hummed like a symphony in his ears, each current a note in a song only he could hear.
And the scent—gods, the scent.
He could smell blood.
Not just in the air, but in the people. In the veins of the partygoers still laughing across the street. In the delivery driver passing by on a hoverbike. In the pigeons roosting on the temple spire. It was everywhere. Sweet, metallic, intoxicating.
He staggered to his feet, disoriented. His body felt… wrong. Not in pain, but in power. His limbs were lighter, faster. His skin was pale, almost translucent under the moonlight. His fingers twitched with unnatural strength. He clenched his fists and felt the rooftop tiles crack beneath his grip.
Panic rising, he ran to the glass panel.
And froze.
There was no reflection.
The glass showed only the city behind him—no boy, no shadow, no trace.
His breath caught. He leaned closer, searching for any sign of himself. Nothing.
Then, as if summoned by his fear, his eyes flared—twin embers of crimson light. Not glowing from the outside, but burning from within. They pulsed with a rhythm that wasn't his heartbeat. Because he no longer had one.
He wasn't human anymore.
He hadn't awakened an element. Not fire, not wind, not light or shadow.
He had become something else.
Something ancient.
Something forbidden.
A vampire.
The word echoed in his mind like a curse and a revelation. Not the romanticized myths from old films, but the truth buried in the classified archives of the GAC. Vampirism wasn't a power—it was a condition. A mutation. A corruption of the Awakening process. It was supposed to be extinct, purged during the early years of chaos.
But here he was.
Alive. Undead. Reborn.
And somewhere deep inside, something stirred. A hunger. A memory not his own. A voice, ancient and cold, whispering in a language he didn't understand.
He clutched his head, falling to his knees.
He didn't want this.
He didn't ask for this.
But fate had chosen him—not to wield power, but to become it.
And the world would never be the same again.
A sharp chime echoed inside his skull—clear, synthetic, and impossible to ignore.
Then, without warning, a glowing red screen materialized in front of his eyes. Not projected. Not holographic. It was simply… there. Burned into his vision like a second layer of reality.
The letters were etched in crimson, pulsing faintly like a heartbeat.
[AWAKENING COMPLETE]
Classification: Anomaly
Species: Vampire
Level: 1
Primary Ability: Blood Manipulation
Secondary Ability: Enhanced Senses
Status: Unregistered
Warning: Subject is outside GAC classification.
Immediate reporting required.
Ankur blinked.
The screen didn't vanish.
He took a step back, but the interface followed, hovering in his field of vision like a persistent thought. The words burned with a strange authority, as if they weren't just information—but law.
"What the hell…?" he whispered.
The interface responded.
Voice recognition confirmed. Neural sync established.
Welcome, Ankur Virel. You are now bound to the Crimson System.
His breath caught.
Crimson System?
He'd heard of Awakening interfaces—standardized HUDs that appeared after manifestation. Most were blue or silver, tied to the GAC's registry. They offered diagnostics, training modules, and tier assessments. But this… this was different.
The red glow felt alive. Predatory. It pulsed in time with something inside him—something ancient and hungry.
He tried to swipe it away. Nothing happened.
He tried to speak again. "Exit interface."
Command rejected. Interface is permanent.
You are now under autonomous evolution.
Next milestone: Level 2 — Blood Recall unlocked at 100 XP.
Warning: XP can only be gained through blood absorption.
Ankur's stomach twisted.
Blood absorption?
He stumbled back, heart pounding—except it wasn't. He had no heartbeat. Just the illusion of one, echoing from the interface. He looked down at his hands. Pale. Cold. Strong. And now… marked.
A faint sigil had appeared on the back of his right hand—an intricate crimson glyph, shaped like a drop of blood encased in a circle of thorns. It shimmered faintly, pulsing in sync with the interface.
He wasn't just an Anomaly.
He was something the GAC didn't even have a protocol for.
Unregistered. Unclassified. Uncontrolled.
And somewhere, in the depths of Citadel Prime, alarms were already beginning to sound.
The thirst hit him like a tidal wave crashing through his veins.
One moment, he was staring at the glowing interface, trying to make sense of the impossible. The next, his throat ignited with fire. Not metaphorical—not poetic. Real, searing agony. It felt like he was breathing ash, like his lungs were lined with razors. His body trembled violently, muscles locking and unlocking in spasms.
He doubled over, gasping, clutching his stomach as if he could hold himself together.
He needed blood.
The thought wasn't his. It came unbidden, primal, instinctual. Not a suggestion—an imperative. A command etched into the marrow of his bones.
But he wasn't a monster.
He staggered down the stairs, barely able to keep his balance. The world blurred around him—colors too bright, sounds too sharp. He could hear Ammaji's soft breathing from her room. He could hear the pulse of every living thing in the building. It was maddening.
He burst into the kitchen, flung open the fridge, and grabbed the first thing he saw—a pack of frozen mutton. He tore it open with his teeth, biting into the icy flesh like a starving animal.
It was cold. Tasteless. Dead.
It didn't help.
He gagged, spitting it out, bloodless and useless. His hands shook. His vision darkened at the edges. He collapsed to the floor, clutching his chest as if he could will his heart to beat again.
But it wouldn't.
Because he didn't need a heartbeat anymore.
He needed blood.
Real blood.
Fresh.
His mind recoiled at the thought. He wasn't going to hurt anyone. He wasn't going to become the thing that killed his parents. He wasn't going to be a predator.
But the hunger didn't care.
It whispered to him, seductive and cruel. It showed him images—memories that weren't his. A deer in a forest, its throat torn open. A battlefield soaked in crimson. A man in a cloak, drinking from a silver chalice filled with something warm and red.
He slammed his head against the fridge door, trying to silence the visions.
Then he remembered.
The hospital.
Just a few blocks away. Sector 9 General. It had a blood bank. Refrigerated units. Unused. Unharmed.
He could take what he needed. No one would get hurt.
He didn't want to.
But he didn't have a choice.
He rose slowly, eyes glowing faintly in the dark kitchen. The hunger wasn't gone. It never would be. But for now, he could direct it. Control it.
Maybe.
He stepped into the night, the city lights casting long shadows behind him.
And the predator walked with him.