A heavy, suffocating silence filled the study of Vane Manor. Jake's eyes snapped open, his vision swimming in the dim morning light filtering through the grime-covered windows. His body felt like lead, every muscle screaming with a hollow, gnawing ache. It wasn't just hunger; it felt as though his very cells were being hollowed out from the inside.
He tried to sit up, and the old leather sofa groaned under him. His throat was a desert, parched and raw. He needed fuel.
Stumbling out of the study, he navigated the maze of the house. He reached the kitchen, his heart hammering against his ribs, and tore open the cupboards. Empty. He checked the pantry, finding nothing but rusted cans and a layer of thick, grey dust.
"Dammit," Jake rasped, his voice cracking.
His stomach twisted in a sharp, agonizing cramp. If he couldn't eat, he would drink. He remembered his father mentioning a cellar—a place where the old man kept his finest vintages. In his current state, wine was the only source of calories left.
He found the cellar door behind a heavy velvet curtain. As he pulled it open, a series of high-pitched squeaks erupted from the darkness. A dozen rats scurried across the threshold, their tiny claws clicking against the stone floor as they vanished into the shadows of the kitchen.
Jake stared down into the black maw of the stairs. "Great," he muttered, a bitter smirk tugging at his lips. "It seems I have a pest infestation to deal with as well."
He descended the stone steps, using the wall for support. The air was thick with the scent of wet earth and fermented grapes. By the light of his phone's dying battery, he scanned the racks. Near the center, he found a lone, dust-covered bottle that had remained upright.
He smashed the neck of the bottle against a stone pillar and tilted it back. The wine was old, thick, and tasted of dark berries and iron. He slumped against the pillar, taking several long gulps, letting the alcohol numb the sharpest edges of his desperation.
As he leaned his weight against the pillar, the ancient structure of the manor groaned. The foundation, weakened by decades of neglect and the dampness of the earth, finally gave way. With a sudden, deafening crack, a section of the masonry at the back of the cellar buckled.
Jake scrambled back as a cloud of dust and mortar filled the air. A large portion of the wall crumbled away, stones tumbling to the floor in a heap of debris.
As the dust settled, Jake saw it. Behind the fallen stones was a narrow, pitch-black opening—a chamber that had been sealed away within the very foundations of the house. He stepped over the rubble, his curiosity momentarily overriding his hunger.
Inside the small stone chamber, resting on a pedestal of black basalt, was a book. It was massive, bound in leather that looked uncomfortably like cured skin. He walked toward the pedestal, his eyes fixed on the silver clasps shaped like skeletal feathers. He reached out, his hand hovering over the ancient texture of the cover.
The moment his fingers made contact with the silver, the cellar vanished.
A searing heat erupted from the book, surging into his arms and lashing through his veins like liquid fire. Jake screamed, but no sound came out. He felt a violent, crushing pressure on his entire frame. His bones groaned and shifted. His clothes began to feel unnaturally heavy and loose, swallowing his narrowing frame as his body was forcibly refined.
He didn't know what the book was taking from him, but he could feel a staggering toll being extracted from his very soul. His muscles tightened and his senses sharpened as he was dragged through the agony of a total biological reconstruction.
The pain was too much. As the book fell open, the last thing Jake felt was the cold stone of the floor against his cheek before his consciousness slipped away into a void.