Vlad hastily pressed his back against the wall, staying as still as possible while peering his head over the corner of the corridor he found himself in. As he did, he instantly saw the Lizardman on the other side. It stomped around while frantically whipping its head around, trying to locate him. While letting out a menacing hiss, it started sniffing the air. When Vlad saw this, he instantly activated [Stealth] to conceal his presence.
The lizardman continued to sniff around, struggling to pinpoint his location. Vlad’s mind raced and sweat profusely beaded down his face. If his heart could still beat, it would be pounding like crazy, though that could also alert the lizard monster, so he was thankful for his dead, still heart. It was thanks to it that he wasn’t at risk of getting exposed. Once it realized it couldn’t catch a scent, a loud screech escaped its reptilian lips as its tongue flicked from its mouth. Vlad remained frozen, practically like a statue. A few moments went by until the lizardman got frustrated and stormed off into another corridor, away from Vlad’s location.
The moment the monster left; Vlad deactivated [Stealth] before sliding on the floor in relief. This moment didn’t last long, however, when the vampire’s stomach rumbled aggressively, churning his insides like butter and causing him to reel in pain. He gritted his teeth while instantly checking his current BP amount, only for him to turn paler than a ghost when he saw the number.
[BP: 19/325]
“Crap…” He grimaced at the low amount of BP he possessed while clutching his stomach as it continued to cause havoc inside.
This was bad. It was one thing if he had thirty or forty BP, but less than twenty was extremely dangerous. Though…that wasn’t the worst of it.
[BP: 19/325]
[BP: 17/325]
“Oh, come on…!”
His BP was drastically depleting by the minute. If he didn’t come up with a solution and fast, he was going to suffer immensely from this.
That was when he remembered where he was. This place was a hospital where his sister used to work. And hospitals had places where they stored blood for transfusion, testing, etc. So, all Vlad needed to do was find the blood as stored and he’d solve his blood crisis.
With a new goal set, the vampire shot up from the ground and tried to locate the blood storage area. If his memory served him, the lab was located on the floor below him. Although he was currently on the ground floor, there was a floor under this one where the Lab was built. All he needed to do was find some stairs or an elevator and use it to go down to the floor. He thought about going to the second floor and just checking every patient room he came across to grab some blood vials or bags, but instead of doing that, he figured going to the lab was better since he knew there was blood being stored there.
Of course, he also had to do this while keeping his distance from the Lizardman. In his current state, fighting would only deplete his BP more risk it hitting zero. He needed to get to the blood storage before continuing his fight with the monster. It was his only way of surviving this.
Vlad cautiously strolled through a corridor, trying to find a sign that pointed him toward the lab. He passed by multiple doors, most of them open and bore bloody hand prints like from a horror movie. The smell of stale iron overwhelmed the vampire’s nostrils and caused his stomach to rumble more violently. The act alone caused him to wince in pain, though he pushed through with gritted teeth, determined to find the directions to the lab.
It didn’t take long before he found them on the wall. There was a board attached to the wall that showed directions to different parts of the hospital with the help of arrows. One arrow pointed up that said, “Second Floor”, another arrow pointed behind Vlad and said “Main Lobby”, and the final Arrow showed the vampire’s desired destination; pointing ahead of him while saying “Laboratory”.
That meant that the stairs leading down to the lab were ahead of him. Knowing where he was going, the vampire sprinted across the corridor, making his way to the stairs. He soon arrived at the entrance to the stairway before gently opening it, doing his best to keep the door was making a creaking sound that would most definitely reverberate throughout the hall, thus alerting the lizardman of Vlad’s presence.
There was a slight creak, but not enough to catch anyone’s eye. Vlad quickly entered before racing down the steps like a madman, while every now and then occasionally peering at his status window to check his BP count.
[BP: 14/325]
The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.
“I’m running out of time…” The vampire muttered in a panic, his feet stomping on the steps as he hastily climbed down them.
His steps echoed across the stairwell as he finally made it to the floor with the lab. Not wanting to waste time, he aggressively pulled the door open and rushed through, stepping foot onto the floor. He was once again faced with a two-side corridor, forced to pick which direction he should take to get to the lab. However, Vlad knew where to go since he had been down here before, and quickly shifted to the left and bolted ahead.
While running, Vlad noticed that he felt weaker than before. His muscles ached as if he had run a marathon, forcing him to slow down in the process. He had no idea what was wrong or why his legs felt like this until he realized that it must’ve been because of his BP. Since it was low on blood, his entire body, not just his stomach, had a negative reaction to it. With this knowledge in hand, the vampire feared the worst, believing that his condition would deteriorate more if this continued.
Determined to get to the lab as fast as he could, he pushed through the pain and exhaustion and kept sprinting toward the laboratory. Once he got there, the vampire was confronted with an entire big white room. Whether it was the floor, the walls, or even the ceiling, everything was white. Even the rows of desks lined up on the walls or in the middle of the room. All of them having some kind of lab equipment placed on them.
However, despite the white color that flooded Vlad’s vision, there was another that took just as much space as the bleached color. That being the crimson-red shade of blood that was splattered all over the place. The red substance gave off a rather eerie appearance that counter-acted with the whiteness of everything else. Vlad was once again shown a scene that you would see in some kind of horror movie.
A laboratory covered in blood and destruction, most of the lab equipment either on the floor or destroyed on their respective counters they were on. Vlad didn’t see any bodies, so either no one died here and they were just injured, or…something devoured them.
The fluorescent ceiling lights buzzed in a rhythmic tone, filling Vlad’s ears with its constant noise. He did his best to ignore the sound and focus on the task at hand. He frantically scanned the lab, trying to locate the fridge where they stored the blood. The vampire was so preoccupied doing this, that he barely caught the sound of something clanging near him, causing him to whip his head over in the direction of the noise.
He stood there while staring at the source of the noise, not seeing anything at the moment. His muscles tensed and his fingers twitched, displaying how anxious and on edge he was. His eyes didn’t leave the spot until he saw whatever made that noise. Just then, something leaped from behind the counter and lunged at him.
It was a familiar monster that made Vlad cringe with anger. It was the short green menace that was an absolute threat if there was a horde of them; a goblin. The monster made a loud screech as it dove at Vlad. However, before the bastard could even lay a finger on the vampire, he moved to the side and blurred his hand forward, grabbing the goblin by the wrist. It dangled by its arm for a few moments while trying to break free from his grasp, scratching and biting his hand like it was a chew toy.
Vlad didn’t pay much attention to its struggle before he brought the creature closer to him and savagely bit into its neck, drinking its blood. He grunted and growled like some animal while continuing to consume the goblin’s blood. The monster could only screech in terror as its life force was being drained till there was nothing left.
A little bit of time passed before the monster finally goes limp, its arms and legs dangling while being held by Vlad. It was only until Vlad received the kill message that he stopped drinking.
[Goblin has been defeated! 90 XP has been obtained!]
[Blood has been consumed! 15 Blood Points has been obtained!]
“Not…enough…” Vlad huffed, his hunger for blood growing more and more by the second. The pain to feed gnawing at his psyche, compelling him to submit to its gluttonous desire and think only of feeding. To satiate his hunger.
Vlad did his best to resist the compulsion, to maintain his sanity, so he wasn’t forced into a blood frenzy like when he first became a vampire. He didn’t know what would happen if he let his vampiric instincts control him like before. In the best-case scenario, he would kill the lizardman, getting rid of the threat. Worse case…he wouldn’t stop devouring until he was completely satisfied…which meant Flint would be in danger.
So, the Blood Hunter used all his willpower to resist. As he did, he continued to search the lab, trying to find the blood fridge and finally satiate his hunger once and for all. It was his only chance of staying sane and not turning into a blood-craving monster.
All of a sudden, the vampire froze in place, his muscles tensing while his instincts started blaring throughout his body, warning him of danger once more. It was a familiar danger as well. The kind that warned Vlad about the level fifteen lizardman. For a brief moment, he tried to locate the source of the danger, only to look up in response.
Suddenly, he turned pale, watching as the ceiling above started expanding, pieces of tiles cracking under the pressure before the entire area of the ceiling collapsed, sending dust and debris everywhere. Vlad managed to jump away in time to avoid getting caught up in it. However, that was the least of his troubles as he glared at the source of the ceiling breaking down.
It stood well over six to seven feet tall and had the appearance of a reptilian monster, and in its hand was the same menacing scimitar as before. It was the level fifteen lizardman…
It found him.
The lizardman screeched at Vlad, its roar reverberating throughout the entire lab. All Vlad could do was wince in pain as his crimson eyes glared at the monster. Between his anger at the monster, and his insatiable hunger slowly consuming his sanity, Vlad could only think of one thing to solve both problems.
“I’m going to drink you dry until there’s nothing left! You hear me, you bastard?!”
He was just going to let his instincts run wild. At least enough to deal with the walking blood bag before him.