[ SYSTEM BOOTING… ]
[ HOST VITALS: CRITICAL ]
[ SEARCHING FOR COMPATIBLE BODY… ]
[ MATCH FOUND: HUMAN MALE – AGE: 21 – STATUS: DYING ]
[ INSTALLING VAMPIRE CORE… ]
Cold words burned in the dark.
They did not float in the air. They were inside his head, carved into his skull like nails.
Kairn tried to open his eyes.
He could not.
There was stone on his face. Stone on his chest. Stone in his mouth. Dust filled his throat like sand. His ribs felt like broken glass. His left leg did not feel like it was there at all.
He could not move his arms.
He could not breathe.
Something heavy pinned him down from all sides. It was like the whole mountain sat on him.
He heard screams. Far away. Muffled. Like they came through water.
Then he remembered the last thing he saw.
Fire.
The sky cracking open.
The dragon.
A roar had split the night, louder than the mine siren, louder than thunder. The slaves had dropped their tools and stared up as a shape tore through the black clouds, a beast of wings and flame. Then the world had turned red. The roof of the tunnel had come down like a hammer.
Kairn had tried to run.
He was not fast enough.
Now there was only this dark, this weight, this taste of blood and dust.
And the cold words in his head.
[ LIFE SIGN: FADING ]
[ INITIALIZING BLOODBOND PROTOCOL… ]
A sharp pain stabbed his heart. Not dull, not slow. It was like a spike of ice driven straight through his chest. He would have screamed if he could breathe.
His heart, which had been weak and slow, now stopped.
For one long, endless moment, there was nothing.
No beat.
No air.
No sound.
Then another pulse moved through him. Not warm like life. Cold. Deep. It spread from his heart through his veins like a river of night.
[ VAMPIRE CORE INSTALLED – BASE RANK: FERAL SPAWN ]
[ HOST: ACCEPT OR REJECT INTEGRATION? ]
The voice in his head was flat. It did not sound kind or cruel. It was just there, like a knife laid on a table.
Accept?
Reject?
He wanted to laugh, but his jaw would not move.
He was dying. Or already dead.
His mother's face flickered in his mind. Thin. Sick. Coughing red into a rag in a tiny city room years ago. Sold to the mine to pay debt. Gone.
The overseer's whip. The cold gruel. The way other boys did not wake up in the morning.
The dragon's fire.
He did not want to die here. Not under rock. Not without a name. Not as "Boy Three," "Rat," "You." Not as nothing.
He did not know what "vampire core" meant. He did not care.
In his mind, without words, he pushed one feeling.
Yes.
[ INTEGRATION: ACCEPTED ]
The cold rushed back, stronger.
It hurt.
His muscles seized. His back arched against the rock that held him. Bones cracked, shifted. He felt each rib move like fingers. He could not scream. The scream tore his throat open inside instead.
His skin burned like it lay in a furnace. Then it froze, like he had been thrown naked into a river of ice. His teeth ached. His gums split. Points pushed down from above, up from below.
Fangs.
He knew that word. Old fear-tales in the slaves' sleeping hall. Night monsters in the hills. Blood drinkers.
He had never believed them. There were worse things in the world than tales.
Now he was one of them.
[ ERROR: HOST BODY TOO WEAK ]
[ STABILIZATION REQUIRES BLOOD ]
[ QUEST GENERATED: DRINK OR DIE ]
[ OBJECTIVE: CONSUME FRESH BLOOD WITHIN 10 MINUTES ]
[ REWARD: SURVIVAL ]
[ FAILURE: TRUE DEATH ]
Words flashed in the dark behind his eyes, sharp and hard.
Ten minutes.
He still could not move his arms.
He pushed.
Stone pressed into his skin, unkind and unmovable.
He pushed harder. His fingers brushed rough rock inches from his face. His nails, always cracked and dull, now dug in like hooks. Stone flaked under his grip.
He felt something else too.
Strength.
Not much. Not like the big pit guards. But more than he should have, broken like this.
He clawed.
Dust fell into his eyes. A thin line of cold air slid across his cheek. Not clean air. It smelled of smoke and blood and hot metal. But it was air.
He dug toward it.
His left shoulder screamed. Something in it was wrong, twisted. He used the right, pulling, ripping at the rock. Fingers bled. The blood felt strange. Thicker. Almost hot and cold at the same time.
He did not stop.
His lungs dragged in a breath. It felt like breathing mid-sand. But it was enough to make a noise.
A low, harsh sound broke from his throat. Not a word. Just anger and need.
The rock shifted.
A small gap opened in front of his face. Red light seeped through, like the glow of a forge behind a door.
He shoved his head forward. The stone scraped skin from his forehead. He did not care. He needed out.
One more push.
The slab above his shoulder slipped off with a crack and thud. Air hit him full, hot and thick. He gasped, coughing dust and dark spit.
He dragged his right arm free.
It looked wrong. Too thin, covered in gray dust and smeared blood. But his hand clenched into a fist like it held iron.
He dug the rest of himself out, inch by inch, like a worm climbing out of its grave.
When he finally pulled his chest and head clear, he lay on a slope of broken rock and just breathed. Every breath hurt. His ribs ground. His left leg throbbed in a way that meant it was crushed, if it was still there at all.
The mine tunnel was gone.
The wooden beams, the chains, the lines of lamps, the carts, the shouting overseers – all gone.
In their place was a long, broken wound in the earth. The roof had fallen. The walls had split. Fire burned in pockets where oil lamps had burst. Smoke crawled along the ceiling. Bodies lay half-buried or twisted on the stones.
Some moved.
Most did not.
Far above, through a jagged crack where the roof had been, he saw the sky.
It was not black anymore.
A long red line tore across it, like someone had cut the night with a knife of light. The comet. It glowed like a bleeding wound. Ash fell from the clouds like gray snow.
He did not have time to stare.
[ TIME REMAINING: 07:12 ]
[ OBJECTIVE: DRINK OR DIE ]
His stomach clenched. Not like hunger from missing meals. He knew that kind of pain well. This was different. Deeper. Raw.
He smelled something.
Rich.
Hot.
Sweet and metallic.
Blood.
His eyes turned on their own, pulled by the scent. Ten steps down the broken slope, a man lay on his back, pinned at the waist by a heavy stone. He wore the black iron plate of a pit guard. His helmet was gone. His head was split on one side, red slick on his shaved skull.
He was still breathing. Barely. Each breath gurgled.
Kairn's mouth filled with saliva. He tasted copper and ash.
He crawled.
His left leg dragged, useless. His right knee screamed every time it hit stone. But his hands pulled him along, faster than he thought he could move.
No.
This was wrong.
This was the man who had beaten him for dropping a pick. Who had laughed when another boy was taken to the cold pit and never returned. Who had whipped a girl until she did not move because she had cried during roll call.
Kairn hated him.
But he had never thought of eating him.
[ WARNING: VITALS CRASHING ]
[ TIME REMAINING: 05:39 ]
[ NOTE: LIVING BLOOD PROVIDES MAXIMUM STABILIZATION ]
The voice in his head stayed calm.
Kairn's fingers curled in the guard's torn shirt.
"G–" His voice broke. His throat was raw from dust and the changes inside it.
He tried again, but there were no words. Only a low growl.
The guard's eyes fluttered open. Brown, fading.
He stared at Kairn's face, at the dust, the blood, the wild eyes.
"Rat," the man whispered. His voice was thick with blood. "Thought… you… dead."
Kairn saw his own hands, shaking, gripping the man's chest. His nails were longer now. Sharper. There was a dark line of veins crawling up his wrists, like ink under the skin.
His tongue ran over his teeth.
The points there.
Fangs.
"Help… me," the guard coughed. Blood bubbled at his lips. "Push… stone…"
Kairn hesitated.
A part of him wanted to. Not to save the man. Just to feel the power to move a rock that big. To see shock and fear in those cruel eyes.
But another part of him, deeper, darker, only cared about one thing.
The smell.
He leaned down without meaning to. The guard's neck was right there. The skin thin. A pulse beat under it, weak but still there.
His new hunger roared.
He tried to pull back.
His body did not listen.
His jaw opened. His lips brushed the man's skin.
"W–what are you—"
Kairn bit.
His fangs slid in like knives into warm meat.
Blood hit his tongue.
It was not like the thin, watery soup the cook called "blood porridge" once a year. It was not like biting his own lip and tasting red on accident.
This was thick and hot and alive.
It rushed into his mouth in a warm stream. His whole body shuddered. His fingers dug into the guard's armor hard enough to dent the metal.
The guard screamed.
The sound echoed off the broken stone. It cut through the other noise of crackling fire and distant shouts. His hands beat weakly at Kairn's shoulders.
Kairn did not stop.
He could not.
Every swallow was like fire turning to strength. He felt his ribs knit, bone scraping then sliding back into place. His left leg tingled, then burned, then began to feel like a leg again, not a piece of dead meat. His vision, which had been dull and gray, sharpened. The red light of the comet grew clearer. The tiny flakes of ash in the air stood out one by one.
[ BLOOD CONSUMED: 0.7 L ]
[ STABILIZATION: 43% ]
[ TIME REMAINING: 03:02 ]
The guard's blows grew weaker.
"Stop… stop…" he gurgled.
Kairn heard him.
He did not stop.
Something inside him enjoyed the way the voice broke, the way the body under his hands twitched and then started to go limp. A hot, ugly joy curled in his chest.
He drank until the pulse faded under his teeth.
Until the hands fell away.
Until the body was a heavy, empty thing.
Only then did he pull back. Blood ran down his chin, sticky and hot. He licked it without thinking.
The face under him was gray now. The eyes stared up, empty.
He had killed the guard.
No.
He had eaten him.
Kairn fell back onto the rock, breathing hard.
His chest did not hurt anymore. His arms felt strong. His left leg still ached, but it moved when he told it to. His skin, still pale under the dust, no longer felt like old cloth. It felt tight, new.
[ BLOOD CONSERVED: 0.1 L – STORED AS ESSENCE ]
[ STABILIZATION: 100% ]
[ QUEST COMPLETE: DRINK OR DIE ]
[ REWARD: SURVIVAL – BASIC VITALS LOCKED ]
Warmth, cold, something in between, spread out from his center.
He was not dying anymore.
He was something else.
[ NEW VAMPIRE IDENTIFIED – INITIALIZING STATUS INTERFACE ]
A new block of text slid into his mind. Not just words now. Shapes. Lines. It felt like a picture drawn inside his skull.
He "looked" at it.
It looked back.
[ STATUS ]
Name: Kairn
Race: Lesser Vampire (Feral Spawn)
Level: 1
Titles: None
Health: 32 / 32
Blood Gauge: 13 / 20
Stamina: 18 / 18
Attributes:
Strength: 6
Agility: 7
Endurance: 5
Perception: 9
Will: 8
Charisma: 3
Unspent Points: 0
Traits:
– Darkvision (Minor)
– Night Regeneration (Weak)
– Predator's Instinct (Dormant)
Skills:
– Blood Drink I
– Claw I
– Low-Light Sense I
Bloodlines:
– Human (Faded)
– Draconic Bloodbound (Locked – Requirements Not Met)
Kairn stared at the list in his mind.
He did not know half the words before this day. "Attribute." "Trait." "Gauge." But now, somehow, he understood what they meant, like the knowledge had been pushed into his brain with the screen itself.
He knew that if his Blood Gauge dropped to zero, bad things would happen. He knew that his "Strength 6" meant he was stronger than most slave boys but weaker than a trained guard. He knew that "Draconic Bloodbound" sat there like a closed door with teeth.
He touched it, in his mind.
A sharp pain lanced through his head. The word flashed brighter, then went dim again.
[ BLOODLINE PATH LOCKED ]
[ REQUIREMENTS: DRAGON BLOOD – 0 / 1 ]
Dragon blood.
His eyes lifted, slow, to the broken roof, to the sky, to the red comet.
There, near the far end of the shattered tunnel, something huge lay across the ruins. He had not noticed it at first because it was part of the mess. A long, dark shape, like a hill of scales and broken wing.
Smoke rose from it. One wing was torn. Claws like curved swords dug into the stone. Its head lay turned on its side, horns broken, jaws half-open.
A dragon.
Even dead – if it was dead – it was more massive than any beast he had seen. Its scales were not bright gold or silver like in old tales. They were dark, like burnt iron, with lines of red glow between them, fading slowly.
The blood that pooled under its neck was not red.
It was black, with a deep, slow glow, like the heart of a coal.
His new hunger stirred again.
Not wild this time.
Slow.
Deep.
Different from when he smelled the guard's blood.
This was something else.
Power.
Kairn shuddered.
He dragged the back of his hand across his mouth. It came away red. The dead guard lay at his feet, throat torn open, eyes staring.
He should feel sick.
He did, a little.
His stomach twisted at the sight, at the memory of the man's scream in his mouth.
But under that, there was a thin, hard line of something else.
Satisfaction.
He hated that.
Footsteps sounded to his left.
Kairn snapped his head toward the noise.
A shape moved between the broken rocks. Small. Thin. Covered in dust like him. It was another slave, crawling out of a pocket under fallen beams. A girl with short hair, maybe twelve, eyes wide and wild.
She saw him.
She saw his bloody mouth, his sharp teeth, the corpse at his feet.
She froze.
"Kairn?" she whispered. Her voice shook. "Is that… you?"
He knew her.
Lysa.
She had shared stale bread with him once, when the overseer looked away. She had laughed at his bad joke about rats running the mine better than the masters.
He opened his mouth to answer.
Her eyes flinched at the sight of his teeth.
Behind her, deeper in the tunnel, voices shouted. Hard, sharp voices. Not slaves. Guards. Masters. Someone had survived in the other shafts. They were coming.
He smelled more blood.
He tasted fear in the air like a spice.
His new hunger stirred again, hot and eager.
No.
Not her.
Not Lysa.
His fingers dug into the stone to keep from reaching for her.
"Stay back," he rasped. His voice sounded rough, deeper than before. "Lysa. Stay back."
Her eyes filled with tears, but she did not run. She crawled closer, one hand over her ribs. "You're alive. I thought… we all… the dragon…"
"Stay back," he said again, sharper.
The scent of her blood was weak. She was hurt, but not like the guard had been. A cut on her arm. A bruise on her head. Still, his tongue moved in his mouth.
"Monsters!" a man's voice shouted from the broken passage. "Watch for monsters! The beast came down. The slaves will be running like rats. If any of them stole from the corpse, cut their hands off!"
Kairn heard boots on stone.
More than one.
Pit guards. Maybe a black-cloaked steward from above.
He could not fight them. Not yet. His Strength was 6. Their armor was thick. Their blades were sharp.
But he was not the same broken boy they had whipped.
A new line appeared at the edge of his mind.
[ NEW QUEST: CHOOSE YOUR PREY ]
[ OBJECTIVE: ESCAPE OR FEED ]
Options flickered. They were not words, not really, but he felt them.
Run. Hide. Stay low, drag Lysa with him into the shadows, away from the dragon, away from the guards. Live like a rat a little longer.
Or.
Wait in the broken stones, above the path. Step when they pass. Tear out a throat from above. Drink again. Grow.
He looked at Lysa.
Her eyes begged him.
"Please," she whispered. "Don't leave me here."
He did not have time to think long.
Boots drew closer. Metal clinked. Someone cursed at the sight of a dead man. "Who did this? Who killed Brenn?"
Kairn's new heart – if he still had one – beat cold in his chest.
He had drank once.
He could drink again.
He did not know yet what kind of monster he would become.
But he knew one thing.
He would not die as nothing.
He shifted his weight, silent on the rock, and chose.