The world swayed in gentle rhythm, a rocking motion that should have been soothing. Marc's awareness drifted in the space between sleep and waking, his infant body cradled in warm arms.
Then liquid touched his lips.
His mouth had already latched onto something soft—instinct operating where conscious thought couldn't reach. The liquid flowed across his tongue and down his throat in a steady stream, and Marc's body recoiled with visceral disgust.
The taste was wrong, unlike the smell. Not simply unpleasant, but fundamentally corrupt—like drinking decay itself, spoiled matter liquefied and forced past his lips. It couldn't be milk. Milk was supposed to be sweet, nourishing. This was putrid, a substance his body recognized as poison even as it continued swallowing.
His stomach contracted violently.
The liquid reversed course, forcing itself back up his throat in a hot, repulsive wave. Marc vomited across soft flesh, his mother's chest, the milk he'd unconsciously consumed while sleeping now pouring down her bosom in rivulets.
His mother jerked backward with a sharp intake of breath.
Silence followed—several heartbeats of stillness while she processed what had happened. Then movement. She stood, her footsteps quiet against wooden floorboards, and placed him on something soft. A bed, perhaps, or a cushioned surface. Fabric rustled as she retrieved something, then gentle pressure at his mouth as she wiped away the residue. His upper body grew cooler as she removed his soiled clothing, then warmth returned as she cleaned his chest with careful, methodical strokes.
The strangeness of it settled over Marc like a weight.
He'd rejected his mother's milk. Found it disgusting, repulsive, when every instinct should have made him crave it. He would have questioned why—demanded answers from his own mind—but thoughts still wouldn't form properly. His consciousness could observe but not analyze, aware but not comprehending.
Instead, a different sensation rose from his core.
Emptiness. A gnawing void in his stomach that sharpened with each passing second. Hunger, primitive and demanding, spreading through his small body with increasing intensity.
And with the hunger came clarity.
His senses sharpened, perception crystallizing into something far beyond normal human capability. His nose and ears weren't just working—they were awakening, growing more acute moment by moment as the hunger coiled tighter in his gut.
Three sources called to him.
Not consciously—he still couldn't form coherent thoughts—but with instinctive certainty. Three distinct presences in his awareness, each carrying something aromatic and fragrant that appealed to his heightened senses more than anything else in this strange new world.
The nearest was his mother. Cloth rustled as she changed her clothing, removing the garment Marc had ruined. He could smell the pile of discarded fabric in a wooden container beside the wall—could distinguish the wall itself by size and scent, massive and solid. Could track his mother's movements as she disposed of the soiled cloth.
But beneath her human scent—redolent and sweat and evocative—something else flowed.
Before, the three women had simply smelled human, their individual scents indistinguishable. Now, with his senses sharpening, Marc detected something additional. Something that called to the emptiness in his stomach with magnetic pull. He could hear it moving through his mother's body, a rhythmic pulse that matched her heartbeat.
Blood.
The understanding arrived without conscious thought, carved directly into his awareness.
He was craving blood. His enhanced senses sought it above all else, drawn to the liquid life flowing through living veins. And there was only one explanation for superhuman senses paired with blood hunger.
He couldn't form the thought—his infant brain still couldn't support actual thinking—but the knowledge settled into him anyway, certain and absolute.
Vampire.
He was a vampire.
The door opened. His mother's footsteps moved away, crossing the threshold and leaving Marc alone. The door closed with a soft click.
But his senses tracked her anyway.
Through the wall—wood and covered with something—he could hear her footsteps, smell her presence as she entered the adjacent room. The wall muffled sound slightly, a negligible interference that would have blocked normal hearing entirely. Inside the other room, the two remaining sources of blood waited.
His mother spoke in the alien language, her voice carrying clearly through the barrier. The young, enthusiastic one replied, then moved quickly—footsteps rapid and light, carrying her away from Marc's room until distance finally pulled her beyond his sensing range.
His mother returned.
The door opened and closed. Footsteps approached. Then warm hands lifted him gently, pressing him against his mother's chest, skin soft against his face. Her hand moved to his head, fingers stroking with impossible tenderness.
The hunger vanished.
Not gradually—instantly. One moment his stomach was a coiled void demanding sustenance. The next, complete peace washed through him, erasing every discomfort, every need. His breathing softened. Time seemed to slow, the entire universe contracting to this single moment of warmth and safety.
For the first time in either of his lives, Marc experienced a mother's love.
The emotion hit him with devastating force. Joy flooded his infant heart, sweet and overwhelming, more intense than anything he'd felt as an adult. Happiness so profound it transcended thought, filling every part of his small body until it had nowhere else to go.
A tear slid down his cheek.
His mother wiped it away with her thumb, the gesture so gentle it threatened to break something fundamental in Marc's reconstructed soul.
Then awareness surfaced through the joy: babies were supposed to cry when they shed tears.
Marc drew a deep breath—his lungs expanding fully for the first time—and released it as a wail. The sound came out high and piercing, a tiny cry that rang through the room for several seconds before cutting off abruptly, his vocal control already better than it should be.
His mother lifted him upright, one hand supporting his head while the other patted his bare back in soothing circles. She cooed in her melodic language, incomprehensible but beautiful, each syllable carrying comfort and reassurance.
Then the enthusiastic girl entered his range again.
And with her came a scent that made Marc's hunger return with vicious intensity.
Blood.
Not the fresh, vital blood pumping through living veins, but something slightly older. Duller. Yet still human, sweet, nonetheless intoxicating, calling to the vampire nature that had awakened in his infant form.
The girl moved slower this time—careful steps that suggested she carried something precious. The sweet smell grew stronger as she approached, until finally the door opened and she entered the room.
The hunger that his mother's embrace had suppressed roared back to life, more ferocious than before. His stomach contracted, demanding, while his enhanced nose tracked the blood with predatory focus.
His mother sat in a chair, the wood creaking under her weight. She adjusted him, turning him to face upward on his back, cradled in her arms like an offering.
She spoke to the girl. The girl replied and handed something over—a container, smooth against Marc's mother's fingers. Glass, perhaps, or something similar. The girl's footsteps retreated, leaving the room, the door closing behind her.
His mother shifted him again, tilting his head upward to an almost vertical position. The container approached his lips.
Then blood poured into his mouth.
The difference between this and his mother's milk carved itself into his consciousness with absolute clarity. Where the milk had been decay, the blood was life—rich and copper-sweet, sliding down his throat like liquid satisfaction. It wasn't as potent as the fresh blood calling from his mother's veins, wasn't as vibrant or energizing, but it was infinitely better than the poisonous milk.
As he swallowed, another realization manifested by his tongue struck him.
He had teeth. A full set of them, sharp and complete in his infant mouth, wholly inappropriate for a newborn but perfect for a vampire.
Marc drank with desperate hunger, each swallow sending waves of satisfaction through his small body. The blood disappeared quickly—too quickly—until the container held nothing but empty glass and lingering scent.
The effects manifested immediately.
Energy pulsed outward from his stomach in concentric waves, spreading through his limbs like liquid fire. His muscles grew stronger, his senses sharper, his body more solid and real. It wasn't dramatic—he was still an infant—but the improvement was undeniable. The blood had been absorbed almost instantly, converted directly into enhanced capability.
Marc focused on his eyelids, gathering the new strength there.
And opened his eyes for the first time.
The world revealed itself in sharp detail, colors vivid despite what should have been darkness. His vision, like his other senses, operated beyond human normal—clear and precise, missing nothing.
But his attention fixed on one thing above all else.
His mother's face.
She was beautiful. Not merely attractive by human standards, but transcendent—features too perfect to be natural, proportions that suggested divine artistry rather than biological accident. An angel made flesh, rendered in porcelain skin and sapphire irises that swam in milky whites like precious gems suspended in cream. Her hair was a light shade of blue pairing well with her eyes.
When she saw his eyes open, her own brightened with joy. Her smile, already lovely, transformed into something radiant and heart-stopping, carrying emotions too vast for words in any language.
She looked at him like he was the most precious thing in existence.
And Marc, who had died alone and unloved in his previous life, felt something in his reconstructed heart shift and settle into place.
This was his mother.
This was home.