San stood in the deep shadows, her cloaked form almost invisible against the crumbling brick wall. From this dark corner, she had a clear, unobstructed view of the convenience store across the street. Around her, the city of Media stretched out, a sprawling wound of decaying buildings and flickering, desperate lights. For the second consecutive day, her ancient eyes were fixed on the small convenience store, and more specifically, on the human named Matt. It was like watching the same boring episode of an animated series, she mused, a faint, dry amusement stirring within her. Gathering the same repetitive information about the characters, their mundane routines, their predictable patterns. The story, from her perspective, simply refused to progress.
The truth was, she shouldn't be here. Her long slumber, a self-imposed exile from a world that had no future, should have lasted forever. She owed no one, living or dead, anything anymore. That fleeting encounter with Matt a few days ago, that startling rush of pure energy, should have been a forgotten anomaly. And yet, the moment it happened, a part of her had stirred. She found herself unable to walk away, drawn by an invisible thread, a silent, undeniable command that resonated deeper than any conscious will. It was a pull she hadn't felt since before the meteor, a resonance with something truly pure.
She had already purchased several items from the convenience store, mundane things like stale crackers and a bottle of murky water. She simply put them away, tucked into the folds of her cloak where no one could see them. In her long slumber, she had forgotten the sheer, brutal value of such simple sustenance. Now, watching the humans struggle for every scrap, their gaunt faces and desperate eyes, she understood. Food, in this broken world, was a currency more precious than gold.
Her gaze sharpened as Matt, still inside the store, reached for his phone. There was a sudden, almost imperceptible shift in his aura, a ripple of urgency that even her senses, dulled by centuries of sleep could detect. It was a faint tremor in the air, a quickening of the mundane hum around him. "What could be the emergency?" she wondered, a flicker of genuine curiosity igniting within her. This was new. This was a deviation from the pattern.
Moments later, Matt burst from the convenience store, his movements a blur of frantic energy. He brushed past the very spot where San was standing, and a sudden, powerful rush of pure energy surged through San's core. It was a sensation unlike any other, a jolt of raw power that resonated deep within her, shaking loose ancient dust from her very soul. This was what it felt like to have a close encounter with someone like Matt, a being of pure blood. Well, you had to be tuned to the right senses, to the ancient frequencies of her kind, to truly understand it. For San, it was an all too familiar sensation, a memory of a world long lost.
Matt was moving fast. Unnaturally fast. His legs were carrying him at twice the speed of regular humans, his strides long and powerful, fueled by an adrenaline that hummed beneath his skin. But nobody noticed. The few early morning stragglers on the street were too engrossed in their own struggles, their own hurried paths, to register the anomaly.
San, however, saw it all. Her ancient eyes, accustomed to speeds beyond human comprehension, registered every elongated stride, every powerful push of muscle. He moved with a grace that belied his human form, a raw energy thrumming just beneath his skin, visible only to her. The people around them, lost in their own weary routines, saw nothing but another hurrying figure. San kept pace effortlessly, a silent shadow gliding along the opposite side of the street, her movements fluid and undetectable. She knew he was gunning for the train station; his trajectory was clear, a desperate arrow aimed at his destination. She maintained her distance, a careful observer, but she clearly saw the subtle changes in his expression – the tightening of his jaw, the frantic dart of his eyes, the deep furrow in his brow. San couldn't help but be curious. "What could he be thinking?" she mused, a rare emotion stirring within her.
The train arrived, a screeching metal beast pulling into the station, its grimy windows reflecting the city's muted lights. San slipped aboard, a phantom among the weary commuters, her movements so precise, so practiced, that she drew no attention. She found a seat a few rows behind Matt, careful to position herself out of his direct line of sight, yet close enough to continue her silent observation.
"What lineage could he come from?" she asked herself, her thoughts a silent hum in the wild noise of the train. She soaked in Matt's features, analyzing them with the precision of an ancient scholar studying a rare text. Dark hair, silver-blue eyes that seemed to hold a flicker of the old world, a yellowed, almost unnatural skin tone that spoke of the pervasive malnutrition of this era. His jawline was prominent, sharp, and he was definitely on the tall side, though too lean, too gaunt for his frame. "Tall and slender, they always were," she whispered, a long-dormant memory escaping from within her. Her mind, an ancient library of images, sifted through countless profiles, one by one, trying to match Matt's unique features to a known lineage. But none fit. A flicker of frustration, sharp and unexpected, crossed her features. Matt's was not a familiar profile to her. This was unprecedented.
She watched him, lost in his own thoughts, his gaze fixed on some unseen point outside the window. Then, suddenly, Matt's head snapped up, and he glanced around the train car, his eyes sweeping over the somber faces of the other passengers.
"That was close," San thought, a faint smile playing on her lips. His instincts were awakening. But he quickly dismissed it, his attention already pulled back to his own urgent concerns.
San tailed Matt through the winding, crowded streets. When he finally arrived at the hospital, understanding dawned on her. He had a family. A weak female, slumped in a seat, whom he clearly saw as his mother, and a younger female, filled with despair, whom he treated as his sister. They looked alike in most aspects, sharing the same hollowed cheeks and weary eyes that spoke of hunger. But with her eyes, she could discern the truth: they had no blood relations with him.
San conveniently eavesdropped on the conversation, even from afar. Her hearing, easily pierced the commotion of the hospital. She heard the words: "maxed out our yearly hospital privilege," "tampered with our records," "fifteen thousand pesos." A cold, detached pity settled over her. "So, that's what's happened. Poor thing," San murmured, her gaze lingering on the frail, unconscious woman. She turned on a dialed down intensity of her quiet power, a faint, golden glow momentarily outlining her irises, and confirmed what Matt's mother was inflicted with. Malnutrition, yes, but also a deeper systemic weakness. "Should be an easy fix. If only—" San's thought trailed off, the implications too vast, too dangerous to consider openly.
Matt was on the move again, a renewed urgency in his stride, but San didn't like the direction he was heading towards. Not at all. In the short time that she'd been awake, she'd been observing what her kind had been doing to survive. The red-light district in Media was known for its quick pleasures and its desperate gambling dens. But if there was one thing that her kind liked in these parts, it was the easy access to fresh food: human blood. It was sold openly, brazenly, to whoever needed it, a commodity like any other. And because it had gone on for so long, it had become so ingrained in the fabric of this broken society, even humans thought it was the norm. Humans freely supplied their blood to several joints, posing as legitimate blood banks in the area, in exchange for easy money. And no one, absolutely no one, thought to ask why there was so much demand for it. Why so many needed it, or where it truly went.
Matt was now standing in front of a building, its neon sign a garish, flickering red against the deepening twilight: "Kind Street Blood Bank." He was getting ready to enter, to trade his blood for money.
"And, there lies the problem," San cursed under her breath, her voice a low, guttural growl. Alarm bells were ringing in her head, a cacophony of dire warnings. She ran several scenarios in her mind, each one more horrifying than the last, on what could happen when one of her kind, consumed even a single drop of his blood. They were not pretty. They were visions of unimaginable power, of uncontrollable frenzy, of an avalanche that would make the recent wars seem like a mere skirmish.
A tremor ran through San. She wrestled with the maelstrom of ancient memories and burgeoning terror, forcing down the overwhelming realization of the cataclysm that could ignite in this fragile world. Centuries of slumber had promised peace, an escape from the endless cycle of conflict. To be thrust back to witness the return of the very catalyst of the world's ultimate destruction, felt like a cruel cosmic joke. She shook her head, a silent, furious denial. Not again. But the weight of her ages-old responsibility, a burden woven into the very fabric of her being, returned tenfold.
"No one," she hissed, her resolve hardening, "absolutely, no one must get hold of pure blood." Her mission, now terrifyingly clear.