I’d died. I think. I remembered drifting into darkness, the soft, comforting nothingness that had wrapped around me like a weighted blanket, promising me peace, rest, and maybe even a bit of sweet, eternal oblivion. And yet... there I was.

My breaths came in slow, deliberate pulls as I took in my surroundings, letting the strange, electrifying sensations anchor me in what could only be called… life? Resurrection, maybe? The idea hovered, insistent yet absurd. I’d felt death like a cold, final embrace, a whispered farewell from shadows that didn’t seem to leave any room for comebacks.

I breathed in again, feeling alive in a way that almost didn’t feel real. My skin tingled, like I’d borrowed someone else’s and hadn’t quite broken it in yet. Carefully, I flexed my fingers, then my hands, toes, feet - everything felt... intact. More than that. It felt good. Better than I had in longer than I could remember.

Sometimes you don’t know you have aches and pains until they’re gone. And then you wonder, is this what normal feels like? I wondered if anyone actually felt normal.

I patted myself down, more out of disbelief than curiosity. Limbs: still there. Ribcage: bullet-hole free. And my heart… still beating. Each pulse sent a surge through my veins, potent and coiled like a spring waiting to snap. This wasn’t just survival - it was some heady new power I couldn’t quite name.

“Great. Because what I really needed was a terrifying vampiric upgrade,” I muttered, flexing my hands experimentally, feeling an intense strength flow through my arms, into my fingers. Death had been the ultimate nap, but this? This was something else - a waking dream that tingled down to my marrow.

The air was heavy, brimming with ozone, and I could tell, somehow, that rain was on its way. A storm was building, but this time, I was the calm at the center. Even the thick, metallic scent of blood hanging over the pit couldn’t shake me. The hunger that had once clawed at my mind was gone, replaced by a steady, unyielding presence.

The pit reeked of iron and decay - the metallic bite of blood and death unmistakable, even to my still-refocusing mind - like an expensive camera that someone was trying a little too hard to get that macro bokeh effect just right.

My fingers brushed over the rough earth, and I could almost taste the bitter, chalky dirt mingled with the coppery tang of blood. Real House of Horrors vibe they’d got going here, I thought, letting the horror of it settle around me like a cloak. Lovely decor.

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My eyes... well, they were still a lost cause, sealed shut with caked blood from that last brawl I’d endured. I reached up, tried to clear it away with my fingers, but it was going to take more than a quick rubdown. Water, maybe? Or, better yet, a convenient vampire healing system.

“System,” I muttered with all the space aged British authority I could muster. “Visuals, please.”

A chime echoed in my head, crisp, and impinging as though the “System” had an attitude, and it was annoyed that I had bothered it.

SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: Vision Module Offline - you’re blind.

“Oh, charming,” I muttered. “Blind as a bat in a dead-body pit. Terrific start.”

While my eyes were busy being useless, my other senses seemed to pick up the slack.

Even blind, I sensed the world around me with a clarity I didn’t quite understand. I could feel the rough earth beneath me, the sloping walls, the stacks of cold bodies filling the floor - a layer of death two bodies deep, at least.

I rose, testing the limits of my newfound strength, and began to climb. My fingers dug into the hard-packed dirt like it was soft clay, and I hoisted myself up, inch by inch, gripping into the wall as easily as if I’d been on a playground climb, not clawing my way out of a pit of death.

Reaching the surface, I pulled myself over the edge, and for the first time in what felt like forever, I stood tall. The air was cool, crisp, the night humming with quiet anticipation. I took a moment to savor it, the eerie silence of the desert night around me, like the world was holding its breath.

The pit I’d just clawed my way out of was no shallow grave. It stretched wide, a good fifteen feet across, walls rough and uneven, the bottom damp soaked earth. The ground itself was warm, an unsettling warmth, as though life force had leeched from the horrors buried here, seeping into the dirt. Layers of bodies lay beneath, cold and tragic bundles that sprawled across the pit in a sad, macabre tapestry.

Climbing out hadn’t been hard - my body, suddenly strong and fierce, had taken to the walls like they were playground equipment. But now that I was topside, a better question nagged at me - where exactly was I?

The wind swept across the sand and dirt in shivering breaths, like it held secrets just out of reach. I turned my head, piecing together the vast space around me through sound and touch alone. The silence hummed with a strange tension, not quite empty - something was lurking, just beyond perception, watching and waiting. Whatever it was, it didn’t feel exactly friendly.

I sighed, fingers lingering over the faint scar on my wrist where the Darkblade had sliced through, supposedly sealing my fate. Darkblade, I thought, with a dry smile. Talk about false advertising. I was still alive, or undead, or whatever technicality this existence now fell under.

An odd laugh escaped me, echoing into the vast quiet. Here I was, laughing at death itself. “Alright, universe. You got me. I’m up. I’m breathing. Now what?”

I was blind, I had no clue where I was, and for all I knew, the nearest McDonald’s was a few hundred miles away. Not exactly the ideal setup for a guy freshly back from the grave.

So I stood, waiting, letting the night settle around me, hoping something -anything- would make itself known.

Enlightenment didn’t take long to find me.