The desolate zone of the city was bathed in blood. Wherever one looked, the red spread like a dark river. Amidst that chaos lay a man, slumped on the ground, with a hole piercing his abdomen and missing his right arm. Yet, his green eyes remained open, conscious. His chestnut hair fell to his shoulders, his muscular body hinted at a hard life of twenty-eight to thirty years. A mask covered from his nose to his mouth, and his black clothes—a long thick coat, military pants, combat boots, and gloves—were barely a shadow against the belt loaded with bladed weapons and grenades.
"Emi... ly... no... die," he slurred, his voice weak, gathering his last ounces of strength to hand her a syringe filled with a bluish substance that seemed incredibly important.
The figure before him was barely visible, blurred. Tears fell from her eyes as she took the syringe, her hands trembling.
"Ru... n," he whispered, choking on his own blood, closing his eyes to surrender to the peace that death brought.
The man lying on the ground in a large pool of blood began to remember how all this chaos had started.
The world had succumbed to chaos for over thirty years. A pandemic of a virus from an unknown origin had erupted, turning people and living beings into creatures without any control, driven solely by the instinct to kill and drink blood. The world had entered an apocalypse. They were creatures with enhanced physical capabilities, with pale skin from which black veins sprouted and ran all over their bodies. They were called the 'Blooders'.
Some of these creatures, though very few, could undergo an 'evolution,' classifying them from the weakest: 'Young Blood'—Blooders without consciousness, guided only by their instincts; followed by 'Mature Blood'—upon evolving, they gained greater intelligence, superhuman abilities, and the capacity to control some elements; and then there was 'Demon Blood'—the probability of an evolution of this caliber was almost impossible, as it would endow the Blooder with near-divine powers, intelligence superior to humans, and extraordinary abilities. Each rank had sequence numbers from five to one; the lower the number, the stronger they were.
However, there were people who were infected by the virus but did not turn into Blooders. These people were known as 'Carriers'. They were granted superhuman abilities comparable to those of the Blooders. They were divided into ranks, from the lowest 'Warrior,' followed by 'Elite,' 'Master,' 'King,' and finally 'Emperors.' These also contained sequence numbers from five to one. Yet, even those of Emperor rank struggled against Blooders of 'Mature Blood, sequence two' rank.
Among them was an individual who pretended to be a Carrier of King rank to go on a mission alongside other high-ranking Carriers—a mission that would change the course of the virus and the pandemic...
Currently, this man was slumped on the ground amidst a vast trail of blood everywhere. The man, with critical injuries, felt a girl's tears falling on his face.
"Ru... n, plea...se," the man slurred, his lungs aching and filled with blood, feeling as if they were being crushed by a wrecking ball. He felt her hand taking the syringe, and for an instant, relief washed over his body. He closed his eyes, exhausted, listening as she sped away.
---
Silence invaded his perception. In the profound silence, he saw only darkness. 'Has it been more than fifty minutes?' he guessed. 'Is this what death feels like?' he thought. The sensation was desolate and cold.
Suddenly, he noticed he could move his limbs. 'What's happening? Am I still alive?' he wondered. Although he could move his arms and legs, his entire body felt crushed, unable to move a single finger.
Click…
'I moved a finger, but… in my right arm!' he thought in disbelief. It made no sense: his right arm had been destroyed and severed.
He tried to move it again, to make sure he wasn't dreaming.
Click…
He managed to articulate the hand completely. It felt heavy. 'Why? How?' With great effort, he tried to move his left hand, and it responded too. How is it possible that he's still alive… and with a right arm? He forced himself to stop asking questions: he needed to get up.
Crick… Crick…
After several attempts, he managed to move his back. The earth around him felt cold and sandy. He concentrated on lifting his arm.
Plack… Plack…
The arm rose, but the upper half was warm while the lower part remained cold. He lifted the left one, and just like the right, the hand felt warm from above. Using both arms for leverage, he managed to haul himself out of the ground.
Clack! …
At last! He stood up completely, feeling the warmth on the upper part of his torso. He opened his eyes and noticed the right one didn't move as before, while a ray of sunlight reached his left.
'This… where am I?' He realized he had emerged from underground. Around him, the ground was covered in grass and trees. Was he in the botany lab?
After the "Disaster of 2055," plants and trees became essential for humanity. Not for their direct utility, but for the oxygen they produced. The infected, called "The Black Bloods" or, more simply, "the Blooders," exhaled a toxic breath that damaged the environment, plants… and people. As their numbers increased, wooded zones were protected and labs were installed to create ways to breathe outside without getting poisoned, developing anti-breath masks.
He didn't recognize the area. 'Where did they bury me?'
He heard the sound of water nearby. A river! More determined than ever, he emerged from the earth to get a drink; his throat burned with thirst.
Plack… Plack… Plack…
Once out, he headed towards the river. Something felt strange: he felt smaller. Was it his imagination? He didn't stop to think; he just wanted to drink.
Seeing the crystal-clear water flowing like a current, he rushed over and cupped his hands. He closed his eyes and took a sip.
Slurp, slurp… he thought. 'What…?'
The water wouldn't go down his throat; he even spat it out. He tried again, without success. 'What's happening?'
He opened his left eye to try and understand what was going on.
'Huh…?' His gaze met his own reflection in the river's crystal-clear waters. It couldn't be… was that him?
Upon observing himself, he realized the terrifying truth: he was missing his right eye, leaving only an empty socket. His cheeks were shattered along the jawline. The ring finger on his right hand and the index finger on his left were missing. He barely retained a few tufts of hair on his head. His skin, deathly pale, showed black veins running all over his body. By his appearance, he seemed to be barely twelve or fourteen years old.
As a hunter of these creatures, he knew he couldn't be mistaken: what he saw in the river's mirror was not him. And worst of all...
'I'm a Blooder!' he thought, alarmed. No wonder he couldn't drink water; his body rejected any substance that wasn't blood.
'How… how did this happen?' he wondered.
It wasn't even his original body. Everything around felt strange, a different vibe. He was a Blooder, the creature he hated and loathed the most.
Suicide? No… the only way to kill a Blooder without being a Carrier was with weapons made from a special material discovered after the first Carriers emerged. Many questions flooded his mind. 'Am I a Young Blood? But that doesn't match my intelligence. Maybe I'm a Mature Blood.'
Brrrg...
He heard his gut roar, the sound accompanied by an intense and unbearable pain. He collapsed on the ground.
'Why is God punishing me like this?' he complained.
Brrrg…
His stomach roared, devouring him from the inside. This must be what a Blooder felt after days without eating, firsthand.
Brrrrrg…
The hunger was unbearable. He could devour an entire tree just at the thought of it. Then he saw it: a rabbit, big, juicy, a few meters away. He approached stealthily.
Crack…
A branch snapped under his foot. The rabbit alerted, jumped… but he was faster.
'Haha… no escape for you…' he thought.
But the rabbit deployed wings on its front legs.
What…? It flew to the treetop. Incredible. Nothing made sense. He had reincarnated as a Blooder and now a rabbit could fly.
In the distance, a deer passed by… but its antlers were like a unicorn's.
Confused, he sat under a tree. This isn't real… I'm in a parallel world...
'Have I reincarnated in another world?!'
With eyes wide open, he observed everything: flying rabbits, deer with unicorn horns, a crystal-clear river. The only familiar thing: he was still a Blooder.
It reminded him of his previous life when he was a teenager, a reader of reincarnation or isekai novels, what memories... 'wait...' he said to himself, remembering something 'if I'm in another world it means I can...' he stretched his hand forward and exclaimed with his mind:
'Open status window!... ... ... View status!... ... ...' he thought hard, but it seemed useless to do what he was thinking. 'If this was another world… shouldn't I have a status menu like in those ridiculous novels I read?' He tried again. Nothing happened. He felt like an idiot. After a moment of nothing happening except the sound of the wind in the trees, he felt embarrassed. If there were people around, they'd call him a freak or a weirdo.
"But what!" a female shout echoed from the place where he had emerged.
He walked stealthily. He hid behind a tree. In front of the hole in the earth from which he had emerged, a girl appeared. Maybe 14 or 15 years old, wearing a simple green dress, a small white apron with an elegant mark, fair skin, neatly styled blonde hair, holding a bouquet of flowers. Very familiar…
Brrrg… the hunger attacked him again. Pain in his abdomen. 'I want… to eat… her…' She seemed confused, the perfect opportunity.
Before lunging, the young girl turned slightly towards him.
He quickly hid again, almost discovered. When she turned away again, he took a quick peek, but what he saw left him stunned, his left eye opening wide. He looked at the girl's face.
'E…mily?' he said in his head instantly after seeing the young woman.
The blonde girl bore an incredible resemblance to Emily, the last person he saw in his previous life. But she didn't seem like the Emily he knew; this girl before his eyes was younger, shorter. 'So, it's not her?' he thought.
The girl covered her mouth with her right hand, sweat beaded on her forehead, her expression worried. She barely murmured:
"I have to tell the village…" She took a step back and retreated from the grave he had emerged from, but she was still there.
'Tell the village?' He immediately grew worried about her words. Would she tell them a zombie had awakened from its grave and would attack them? If she did, he'd be in grave danger. Not only because they could kill him, but because his Blooder hunger could unleash chaos upon the entire village.
Blooders were hard to eliminate with basic weapons. Their bodily regeneration was surprisingly fast; even in a state of decay, they could heal enough to not be easily taken down. He could even lose control, give in to the hunger, and cause a massacre, infecting other civilians. Just thinking about it gave him chills, even though he had no nerves.
Suddenly, the girl smiled. A smile so broad and cheerful it would have captivated anyone.
"The ritual works! I revived my little brother! How great!" she exclaimed with enthusiasm. He was perplexed by her words. "I had my doubts, but it seems it works. I'll tell the village I revived my younger brother," she said, jumping for joy.
'I was her younger brother… and she was the one who revived me?!' he thought, completely astounded.