Nikolai D’Aragon

The world had grown grim. Bleak skies mirrored the state of things on the ground: torn cities, blood-soaked soil and a population that trudged forward with clenched jaws and tired eyes. Vampires and humans had been locked in war for decades now. A war with no winners. Only the illusion of power shifted hands every few years, as the casualties on both sides piled higher than the crumbling towers that used to be cities.

Even among the humans, peace was a myth. Infighting flourished: over food, over shelter, over status. While the masses scraped by in dim, crowded blocks, a privileged few floated above it all: governing, exploiting, untouched. They were the only ones who seemed to benefit from the chaos, tucked away in walled estates and fed by the labor of the desperate.

Then there were the Hunters. Humans trained to track and capture vampires. Not kill, if possible. That was important. Death was too easy, too final, and far too wasteful for a world desperate to understand its enemy. Science demanded subjects. And so the Hunters brought them in alive whenever possible, dragged and bound, their sharp fangs filed down to useless nubs before they ever woke up.

The defanged vampires couldn’t bite, couldn’t feed. Not properly. It made them safer for study, more manageable. No sedatives. No behavior-altering drugs. Just pain, steel, and silence.

Of course, most people weren’t Hunters. They weren’t elite. They weren’t powerful. They were survivors. Workers. Nameless souls enduring the daily grind of life in a broken world. Their days bled together in grey repetition: gather what little food the vampires hadn’t tainted, repair what the bloodsuckers hadn’t destroyed and try not to die before the next ration drop. Agriculture outside the walls was nearly impossible. Sunlight was a deathtrap and the night belonged to the monsters. So food had become scarce and strange. Lab-grown meat and a few not good lucking vegetables. Eggs, if you were lucky. Nothing really fresh.

And still, there were jobs that had to be done. Jobs no one wanted but everyone relied on. One such task was watching the vampires. Keeping them alive, contained and as harmless as possible. The corridors in the holding facility were long, dimly lit and always cold, smelling of metal and old blood. The sound of chains was constant, like wind chimes in a haunted place. Some guards flinched when a vampire snapped at the bars or whispered threats through the steel but not everyone did. Some had grown numb to it.

The vampires knew it, too. They could sense indifference like a dog sensed fear. In one of the lower cells, tucked near the back of the underground complex, sat a vampire who remembered what power felt like.

His name wasn’t important anymore, not to the humans, anyway. They had stripped him of it, along with his weapons, his dignity and most infuriatingly: his fangs. The jagged white daggers he used to flash when laughing in the face of death were now rounded, worn stubs. Like milk teeth. Like a joke.

He had once loved being a vampire. The thrill of it. The game. Toying with prey. Watching the light drain from their eyes. Mocking their fear. To him, life was a dark carnival and he’d been the jester and king rolled into one. That was before the mistake.

He had toyed too long with a group of humans one night, confident they couldn’t touch him. After all humans had no magic, no sacred blood, no ancient gifts. Just guns and noise. Pathetic. Or so he’d thought. He still didn’t know how they’d done it. One moment he was smirking in the shadows, the next there was a sting, then blackness and when he woke, he was here. In this pitiful, grimy cell with nothing but metal walls and a single dim light humming overhead.

That had been four days ago. He hadn’t seen the sky since.

They fed him. If you could call it that. Blood bags. Cold, thin, processed. Pig, mostly. Sometimes cow. No human blood, of course. That would be immoral. That would make them monsters.

He held the lukewarm bag in his hand now, watching the deep red swirl like ink under plastic. “How ironic,” he thought, smirking to himself. “They don’t want us to drink their blood, but they’ll shove pig blood down our throats like it’s a mercy. Tsk, tsk. Pretending to be better than us.”

He sucked slowly on the bag. It wasn’t enough. Not for someone like him. He could feel himself weakening. Every hour he stayed in this place, his muscles ached more. His senses dulled. But not enough to miss the sound of footsteps echoing down the hallway. He perked up. A guard.

He could tell by the rhythm. Not the same one from yesterday. Lighter steps. Different pattern. Someone new. Excellent.

He placed the now-empty blood bag on the ground beside him and stood slowly, moving toward the front of the cell without making a sound. The heavy door’s tiny window let in a thin line of yellow light and he waited just outside its reach.

The footsteps grew louder. Closer. Almost there. Then he lunged forward, slamming his hands against the bars with a loud clang. The sound ricocheted down the corridor like a gunshot. He bared his filed-down teeth in a wide, feral grin.

“Hey! You there!” he called out, voice rich with amusement. “Why don’t you come a little closer, hmm? What’s the matter? Scared?” He tilted his head, pressing his face against the cold steel, lips curling wider as he opened his mouth and showed the dull stumps where fangs used to be.

“My bite’s gone,” he said, voice dripping with mock sweetness. “I’m harmless now. Just a sad little puppy. Come pet me.” He chuckled low, eyes gleaming in the dark like a wolf waiting in the brush. The game was on again.At least, for a moment, he could pretend.