The human body contains approximately thirty seven trillion cells.
Thirty seven trillion microscopic units working in perfect synchronization, each one a universe of chemical reactions, protein synthesis, energy conversion, and waste disposal. Every second, millions of cells die and are replaced. Every breath you take requires the coordinated effort of billions of cells in your lungs, your heart, your nervous system. Every thought, every movement, every heartbeat is a cellular orchestra performing a symphony so complex that even after centuries of research, humanity has only begun to understand its depth.
I used to find that beautiful.
Now, standing in a world where cells forget their purpose and twist into something monstrous, I find it terrifying.
My name is Seraphina Valecrest, and I died at the age of forty three with a bullet in my brain.
The memory is clear, preserved in perfect detail within the archive of my consciousness. I remember the laboratory, sterile white walls and the hum of equipment running analysis on my final creation. I remember Marcus walking through the door, his expression carefully neutral in that way powerful men practice when they've already made an unpleasant decision. I remember thinking it was strange that he came alone, without his usual entourage of corporate security and sycophantic assistants.
I remember the weight of his hand on my shoulder, gentle and familiar. We had been lovers for twelve years. I had trusted him completely.
I remember the cold press of metal against the back of my skull.
I remember wondering, in that final microsecond, if the bullet would destroy enough of my hippocampus to erase the memory of what I had created for him. A weapon capable of disintegrating human cells completely, leaving nothing behind but a faint residue and the ghost of a scream. Ten years of my life poured into that research. Ten years of failure and breakthrough, of ethical boundaries crossed and recrossed until they no longer existed.
He pulled the trigger because I knew too much. Because a weapon that powerful needed to be a secret, and secrets cannot be kept by the living.
The bullet did its job efficiently. My occipital lobe ruptured, my brain stem severed, and thirty seven trillion cells began their final shutdown sequence. Death came quickly, which I suppose was a mercy.
Then came the goddess.
She called herself the goddess of love, which struck me as ironic given the circumstances of my death. She appeared as a figure of radiant light, her features shifting and undefined, her voice filled with what I can only describe as genuine guilt. She told me she pitied me. She told me I deserved a second chance. She offered me reincarnation without explaining the terms, and I accepted without hesitation because the alternative was oblivion and I was not ready for that.
Only after I agreed did she reveal the full truth.
The god above, the one who apparently outranks even goddesses of love, had personally selected my destination. A world already dying, already broken, already past the point of salvation. The goddess seemed genuinely sorry about that, but divine hierarchies are apparently non negotiable. Her pity gave me powers. His judgment gave me a prison.
I opened my eyes in Erythraea six months ago.
The first thing I noticed was my body. Young again, exactly as I had been at twenty one before years of laboratory work and poor sleep habits had taken their toll. My crimson hair fell past my waist in waves I remembered spending hours maintaining in my youth. My lab coat, somehow present and pristine, hung loose on my shoulders. Beneath it, I wore the simple practical clothes I had favored even in my previous life. A fitted white top, a short dark skirt, black stockings, and sturdy shoes. I looked like I had just stepped out of a university research facility.
The second thing I noticed was the screaming.
Not human screaming. Something worse. A chorus of wet, gurgling sounds mixed with the slap of bare feet on broken pavement. I turned my head and saw them in the distance, perhaps two hundred meters away. Humanoid figures, their flesh bloated and discolored, their movements jerky and purposeless. They shambled through the ruins of what had once been a city, dozens of them, hunting for sound and movement and anything that still resembled life.
Sanguivores. The name came to me from the Noetic Archive, the inner library that now existed within my consciousness. Former humans exposed too long to the Crimson Descent, the monthly phenomenon where the sun turns blood red and transforms the living into the hungry dead. The knowledge flooded my awareness without effort. Symptoms, progression rates, behavioral patterns, estimated strength based on exposure duration. All of it catalogued and available, as if I had spent years studying this world instead of arriving moments ago.
The third thing I noticed was the silence in my own mind.
No panic. No fear. No existential crisis about being thrown into an apocalyptic nightmare world. Just calm observation and the immediate formation of a plan. I suppose ten years creating a weapon designed to liquefy human tissue had desensitized me to horror. Or perhaps the goddess had granted me emotional stability along with my other gifts. Either way, I was grateful.
I needed shelter. I needed a laboratory. I needed a controlled environment where I could work without interruption.
I reached for Ananke's Forge and felt the power respond immediately.
Creating matter from nothing is not magic. It is energy conversion taken to its logical extreme, the manifestation of Einstein's mass energy equivalence made tangible. Every atom I summon drains my physical reserves proportionally. Simple materials cost less. Complex structures cost more. Living tissue is impossible because life requires something beyond mere atomic arrangement.
I started with the foundation.
Concrete formed beneath my feet, spreading outward in a perfect circle fifty meters in diameter. The Sanguivores in the distance turned at the sound, their ruined faces lifting toward me, but they were too far away to matter yet. I focused on the structure rising from the concrete, a tower of reinforced steel and ballistic glass. Five floors, each one designed for a specific purpose. Ground floor for storage and power generation. Second floor for equipment and specimen containment. Third floor for active research and analysis. Fourth floor for living quarters and supply storage. Fifth floor for my private room and the one indulgence I allowed myself.
The tower rose with mechanical precision, each section clicking into place like pieces in a three dimensional puzzle. I added an elevator shaft through the center, a simple platform system powered by electric motors I would generate later. Windows were positioned for maximum light and minimal vulnerability. Walls were triple layered, concrete and steel and polymer insulation.
By the time I finished the basic structure, the Sanguivores had closed half the distance.
I added the outer defenses next.
A wall, three meters high and half a meter thick, circled the entire compound at a radius of one hundred meters from the tower. Reinforced concrete embedded with steel rebar, smooth on the outside to prevent climbing, angled inward at the top to funnel anything that tried to scale it back down. I left a single gate on the eastern side, heavy steel on motorized tracks that could seal in seconds.
The Sanguivores were seventy meters away now, moving faster as they detected movement.
I placed the turrets at cardinal points around the wall. Four automated weapon platforms, each mounted with a belt fed machine gun chambered in seven point six two millimeter. Ammunition boxes, ten thousand rounds per turret. Motion sensors linked to targeting computers. Fire control systems set to engage anything that moved within fifty meters of the wall and did not transmit the correct identification signal.
Sixty meters.
I created the identification transmitter and clipped it to my belt. A simple radio frequency beacon that would tell the turrets I was friendly. Without it, I would be shredded the moment I stepped outside.
Fifty meters.
The first Sanguivore reached the perimeter. The northern turret tracked its movement, adjusted for wind and distance, and fired a three round burst. The creature's chest exploded in a spray of discolored blood and corrupted tissue. It fell without sound, already dead before it hit the ground.
The others kept coming.
For the next ten minutes, the turrets worked methodically, cutting down anything that approached. The sound of gunfire echoed across the ruined city, which would unfortunately attract more of them, but that was a problem for later. Right now, I needed to finish the compound before my energy gave out.
I added solar panels to the tower's roof, enough to power the elevator and basic electrical systems. Water filtration equipment connected to underground pipes that I manifested reaching down to the water table. A backup generator for emergencies. Storage tanks for fuel. Air filtration systems in case the red sun's light carried airborne contaminants.
My vision started to blur at the edges.
I was pushing too hard, creating too much too quickly, but I needed to see how far Ananke's Forge could go before exhaustion forced me to stop. I needed to know my limits.
I added reinforcement to the walls. Emergency lighting throughout the compound. A medical bay on the fourth floor with equipment I barely remembered how to use. A small armory with basic weapons and ammunition. More storage, more backup systems, more redundancy.
My hands were shaking now.
One more thing. One final indulgence before I collapsed.
I manifested the pool on the fifth floor, in a room adjacent to my private quarters. Not a small bath, but a proper swimming pool, ten meters long and five meters wide, filled with clean heated water. Tile work in deep blue, lighting recessed into the ceiling, a filtration system that would keep the water pristine indefinitely. It was excessive. It was unnecessary. It was perfect.
The moment I finished, my legs gave out.
I caught myself on the elevator platform, breathing hard, my entire body trembling from exhaustion. The physical cost had been enormous, far more than I had anticipated. Creating an entire fortified compound in less than an hour had drained me to the point of collapse.
Worth it, I thought, as I slumped against the elevator wall and triggered the ascent to the fifth floor.
The platform rose smoothly, carrying me past each level of my new home. I watched them blur past through half closed eyes, cataloguing what I had built. Everything I needed to survive and work in this dying world, all manifested from nothing but will and energy.
The elevator stopped at the top floor. I stumbled out, leaving bloody footprints on the pristine white tiles. When had I injured my feet? I looked down and saw torn skin, blisters from standing too long in one position while creating the compound. Minor damage, easily ignored.
My private quarters were simple. A bed, a desk, a chair, basic furnishings that served their purpose without decoration. I ignored all of it and headed straight for the door to the adjacent room.
The pool room was exactly as I had envisioned it. Steam rose from the heated water, curling in lazy spirals toward the ceiling. The lights cast rippling patterns across the walls. It was beautiful in a utilitarian way, a space designed for physical recovery and mental clarity.
I stripped off my clothes without ceremony, leaving them in a pile by the door. The lab coat, the top, the skirt, the stockings, the shoes, all of it discarded as I walked naked to the pool's edge. My reflection stared back at me from the water's surface. Crimson hair wild and tangled, crimson eyes half lidded with exhaustion, skin pale from energy depletion.
I looked like myself again. Young, focused, alive.
I stepped into the water and sank beneath the surface.
The heat enveloped me immediately, soaking into muscles I had pushed far beyond their limits. I stayed under as long as my breath held, then surfaced slowly, letting the water stream from my hair and face. For a long moment, I simply floated, letting the exhaustion bleed away into the surrounding warmth.
This was excessive, I thought again, but without any real regret. I had wanted to see how much I could create before the cost became too great, and now I knew. A fortified compound with full facilities and automated defenses was apparently my current limit. Useful information.
I swam lazy circles around the pool, feeling strength gradually return to my limbs. My mind, unburdened by physical activity, began to organize the day's experiences into coherent categories.
Current location: Erythraea, a world suffering from a monthly catastrophe called the Crimson Descent.
Current situation: Barricaded inside a self created research facility, surrounded by hostile former humans transformed into Sanguivores.
Current objective: Survival and research, in that order.
I climbed out of the pool and found towels waiting in a cabinet I did not remember creating. Apparently, my subconscious had been more thorough than I realized. I dried off slowly, taking my time, letting my body finish its recovery. The exhaustion had faded to a manageable level, though I would need sleep soon.
I wrapped the towel around myself and walked back to my quarters, leaving wet footprints on the tiles. The bed looked extraordinarily inviting, but I forced myself to sit at the desk instead. There was one more thing I needed to do before I slept.
I closed my eyes and turned my attention inward.
The Noetic Archive opened to my mental touch like a vast library with infinite shelves. Every piece of knowledge I had ever learned existed here in perfect detail, organized and accessible. My education, my research, my published papers, my failed experiments, even casual observations from daily life. All of it catalogued and waiting.
But that was not all.
New knowledge had appeared since my arrival in this world. Information about the Crimson Descent, about Sanguivores, about the geography and history and biology of Erythraea. It flowed into my awareness as I focused on it, answering questions I had not yet asked.
The Crimson Descent occurred at the end of every month, lasting for exactly one night. The sun would turn blood red, and everything beneath its light would begin to change. Humans with weak resistance transformed into Sanguivores within hours. Those with stronger constitutions lasted longer, but the outcome was always the same. Transformation, degradation, loss of self, and finally, the hunger.
Civilization had collapsed within the first year of the phenomenon's appearance. Cities fell, governments dissolved, and survivors scattered into isolated pockets. Some had developed partial resistance through unknown means. Others had simply learned to hide during the Descent and avoid the transformed.
The world had been dying for approximately thirty years.
I opened my eyes and stared at the ceiling of my quarters.
Thirty years of a monthly apocalypse, and the world was still here. That suggested either remarkable resilience on the part of the survivors or some limiting factor that prevented the Sanguivores from completely overwhelming the remaining humans. Possibly both. I would need to investigate.
I also needed to understand the mechanism behind the transformation. What exactly did the red sun's light do to human cells? Was it radiation? A pathogen? Some form of exotic energy that science had never catalogued? The Noetic Archive contained observational data but no explanations. That meant I would have to discover the truth myself.
I would need specimens. Live Sanguivores for observation and vivisection. Samples of the red light during the next Descent. Blood work from survivors who had developed resistance. Tissue samples from the transformed at various stages of degradation.
I would need equipment. Electron microscopes, gene sequencers, cell culture apparatus, chemical analysis tools, everything necessary for proper research. Some of it I could create with Ananke's Forge if I had enough energy. The rest I would have to salvage from the ruins of this world's abandoned facilities.
I would need time. The Dominion of Stillness gave me control over time within a one kilometer radius, but I had not yet tested its limits. Could I accelerate my own perception to think faster? Could I slow the decay of specimens to preserve them longer? Could I stop time entirely for everything except myself?
So many questions. So many experiments waiting to be designed and executed.
I felt a smile spread across my face, genuine and unbidden.
This world was dying, yes. It was broken and hostile and apparently chosen as my prison by a god with a cruel sense of humor. But it was also a laboratory on a planetary scale, a living experiment in biological catastrophe that I had been given the tools to study.
I stood from the desk and walked to the bed, finally allowing myself to acknowledge the exhaustion pulling at my consciousness. The towel fell away as I slid between clean sheets that I had manifested without thinking. The mattress was perfectly firm, the pillow perfectly soft, and within seconds, I felt sleep reaching for me.
But before I surrendered to it, I allowed myself one final thought.
What should I start with once I am rested enough?
Cellular analysis of Sanguivore tissue to identify the mechanism of transformation? Observation of survivor populations to study resistance patterns? Field testing of the Dominion of Stillness to map its capabilities? Or perhaps something simpler, like establishing a reliable food source so I could eat potatoes whenever I wanted without depleting my energy reserves creating them?
The possibilities stretched out before me like paths in an unexplored forest, each one leading to unknown discoveries.
I closed my eyes, still grinning in the darkness of my quarters.
Tomorrow, I would begin. Tomorrow, I would start unraveling the mysteries of this broken world. Tomorrow, I would do what I had always done best.
Research.