The red moon hung vast and hungry over the city, its bloodlight seeping into the rooftops, staining stone and slate as if the night itself bled. Velia trembled in the rain, hands slick with warmth that was not her own. In that suspended hush, a thought cut through her: If I wake with thirst, someone I love will die. Her lips parted, fangs glistening, and in their crimson sheen the bodies of her friends sprawled, lifeless, mirrored in the wet cobblestones at her feet.
A bell tolled, its voice wavering between mourning and madness, echoing through the alley and rattling her bones. For a breath, the bell fell silent, and the rain's soft fingers drummed a lullaby against stone. The peace was a lie, a hush before the storm.
She tried to scream, but blood drowned her voice. She lurched forward, reaching for her friends, and as her shadow touched their faces, they withered to ash.
The bells tolled. One. Two. Three. Each note drove hunger deeper, a spike through her chest. She folded in on herself, clutching her ribs, sobbing through teeth that no longer belonged to her.
Thunder tore the sky, shaking the city's spires. Rain hardened into icy knives, scouring her palms but never cleansing them. No matter how she scrubbed, her hands remained red.
The corpses twitched—first one, then another—jerking like marionettes with severed strings. Mouths gaped, eyes hollow, and together they whispered her name. Velia. There was no grief in their voices, only accusation.
Then the dead wore the faces of those she loved. Elias's glassy eyes fixed on hers. Marin's hand reached, trembling, then crumbled to dust. One by one, the friends she had sworn to protect lay among the dead, their bodies rising and falling in a rhythm that mocked her helplessness.
She reeled, choking on the stench of iron and rot. Her fangs split her lip. Hunger and guilt knotted within her, indistinguishable, a single ache.
And then she felt it: his presence, heavy, inescapable.
The rain twisted, running sideways, catching the moon's scarlet gleam. The world rippled, shards scattering like a shattered mirror. Streets warped. Reflections splintered into blood-bright fragments. Shadows stretched, winding around her ankles like chains.
A voice coiled through her mind. Words echoed, rattling her skull. She fell to her knees, gasping, nails carving furrows in the stone. For one terrible heartbeat, she longed to obey—to drink, to bite, to feed on anything living, friend or stranger. The bells tolled again, louder now, closer, as if they rang inside her chest.
Velia jolted awake in the dark, clutching her chest, the taste of blood burning on her tongue. It took a moment to know she was no longer in the rain-soaked alley. The dream's horrors faded, leaving only their echoes in her mouth and the drumbeat of her heart.