The door opened before we got close to it, and a man and woman walked out. Their eyes were near-pinpricks of light, to the point where I wondered if they even had pupils. The countenance of the man was that of a king, chin held high, and calmly certain. Whilst the woman beside him appeared calm, as if there had never before been a ripple of emotion upon her face. Silence, like the moments after an eagle’s call, was what awaited us from them. Then, as if noticing us for the first time, the man held out a single finger.

“One shall enter this domain, none other,” I felt something then, a stir of deep dread, a feeling alien slithering into the back of my mind.

Neither of the two beside me objected, but I almost wished they would. My feet moved of their own accord at the beckoning of the emotionless statues before us. I glanced back towards the two of them as we entered the threshold of this arcane and giant building. Sarah’s face held a note of worry, and yellow eyes seemed to be burning from Sam.

The building itself was ornate; a beautiful rug of red, black, and silver underneath our feet. I studied the strange scribblings on the wall, trying to push back the dread that seeped forwards into my thoughts. It wasn’t my own, the feeling, it was something dredged up from a half-forgotten dream, burned into my psyche by the two in-front of me.

“I see you took the time to become acquainted with our abode down here below,” The man that I walked within the shadow of said.

“We’re quite glad you did,” Her voice and tone were pleasant, but not a speck of it showed upon her face, “We understand that the changes undergone can be… difficult. Have you had your first feeding?”

Seconds passed before I understood that I was meant to answer, “Y-yes. A few days ago,”

A frown flickered upon the man’s face, “Usually any that make it here feed first within our halls,”

Which meant they’d be starving by the time I made it, if I understood him correctly. They would be given the gift of life through the hands of these two, and then forever be indebted to their ‘saviors’.

“I… I apologize,” I forced the words out of my mouth, a deep shiver running down my spine.

The woman’s face offered a smile; a mask perfectly worn, “It’s perfectly alright. You’re home now, and we’ll be taking you to the Lords and Ladies shortly,”

“Lords and ladies?” The question slipped before I could bite down on my tongue.

“They typically take care of the assessing, you understand. It will be explained to you in due time,”

They led me down most of a long corridor, before coming up to an elevator. From there, we stepped inside, and I was trapped within the gut of this underground complex. Unlike the elevator we used to get down, this one did not groan or creak, and instead seemed to glide smoothly upwards.

The room I was led into used the circular arrangement of this building to the fullest. The entire room was laid bare, with twenty seats arranged in a large circle around a centerpiece of empty stone. Hesitantly, I walked forwards. The woman of the two ushered me into the direct middle, upon which stood a basin.

There was quiet, for a long moment, as I stared towards the twenty faces around me, then a woman, almost directly in the center-left spoke, “Place your hand above the basin,” Slowly, I obeyed, and she turned to her right, “Knight, reveal yourself,”

Stone was ground in what sounded like a monument of impossible strength. Finally, a slab was lifted from the ground, and a man arose from it. He stood at six feet, with what felt like a borderline reaching towards seven feet. His eyes locked onto mine, but I could see nothing from within them. It was as if the man had been stripped of his humanity entirely. The armor upon his skin amplified this, almost chitin-like, a dark carapace draped and stabbed into his very being.

My heart quietly jackhammered as the woman said, “Produce the knife,”

Two men, each seemingly younger than me, ran out with a ‘knife’ that was almost as long as half of my arm. They bowed down before the knight, baring the knife.

“Produce the blade, Knight,” It gleaned as the smallest amount of skin upon the Knight was revealed to me; just barely revealing the inside of his elbow, “Place the blade upon the source of life, the source of flow,” He reached down, grabbing my wrist like it was the hand of a puppet, “Let us see what his blood shall show,”

I suppressed a wince as the Knight drew the blade away from my skin in the blink of an eye. Blood spilled into the basin, and the answering call was… Nothing. I waited for something to happen, when an older man, vague hints of wrinkles upon his skin and a small bit of ash within his hair, walked forwards. He stared into the blood for a moment, before his eyes widened.

“Lord!” He proclaimed.

Sound erupted around me; people rose from their seat. A jet of something whizzed over my head, and I dropped to the ground. Someone rushed forwards, and a hand was placed gently upon them. I looked towards the Knight, who held a crowd of chaos at bay with only his arms and strength.

“Calm,” Everything went silent, and the woman from earlier stepped forwards.

The people in the crowd stared down at me, outraged and angry. I tried to ask something, but my throat refused to make noise.

Two dead and emotionless eyes walked forwards, and a hand was placed upon my shoulder. I almost flew back onto my feet, as those horrifying eyes locked onto mine.

“You will tell nothing but the truth. If you lie, I will know, and that will be your death. Do you understand?”

I would’ve relaxed, if there’d been a flex of emotion, a singular hint of anger; instead, there was a cold, empty, nothingness, “I-I understand,”

His eyes looked back to the people within the crowd, whose expressions were now those of fear and loathing, “You will ask your questions, and then give your verdict. First, so that he may understand and explain to the best of his ability, you will explain to him what you are, and what it means,” His eyes swept the room, and when no one answered his decree, he pointed towards a random man, “You, step forwards,”

The man bowed his head, and seemed to reclaim his dignity before stepping up, “We are Lords and Ladies, we stand below the King or Queen, if there is to be any, and the Prince and Princess, who stand beside you. Lords as we are, are born with specific powers. We gain a special ability, as all Vampires of a Psychic nature do. Unlike a Peasant, who stands below Nobles, who stand below us, we can shapeshift into a specific animal,” He paused, “Yet… You are born anew as a Lord, but do not belong to a family. This is blasphemy,”

The Prince glared, “A baseless assumption. We do not know when he was turned,”

Which meant that there was some sort of hope. Would I still be considered a part of a family, if the person that turned me died? Maybe, but considering their behavior, they might just end up killing me anyways. Either way, I needed to start looking for escape routes. If push came to shove, I could probably use the window to my left; there was a chance that I could even save myself from the fall.

There was a bit more bickering, before the first question was asked to me, “When were you turned?”

“I think, two or three weeks ago,”

“Who were you turned by?”

I considered that for a moment, “I don’t know. The only time I saw his face was right before I passed out,”

Some more murmuring before, “Was it during the day, or night?”

I couldn’t see how that would be useful, but, “During the day. I’d just gotten home from work,”

One of the people within the group spoke after that answer, “Neither a Lord or Lady would stoop so low as to feed during the day,” There was an explosion of conversations then, all seemingly in agreement.

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“Have we reached a verdict?” My stomach dropped, and I felt my blood begin to pulse.

The words began to leave their lips, but I barely heard them, “Yes. For his transgressions against our kind, he will be executed by one of the Knights,” I glanced towards the man in that armor who’d helped me not moments before, but saw no guilt, no remorse; my legs started to tense.

“Stop,” They rang from the lips of the Princess, barely above a whisper; her eyes were locked onto mine.

In an instant, I found myself unable to move, almost unable to think, as the Knight got closer. My heart started to pound in my drums as he produced a sword from some unknown depth. The Lords and Ladies jeered at me as he made another step, and I felt something within me shatter. I needed to get out of here now.

My legs unlocked, and just like that the command fizzled from my mind. I didn’t need to think to know what I had to do. Immediately, I ran towards the window, flinging myself desperately into the glass.

The rush of wind hit my face like a horrifying wave. There wasn’t any time to panic as I saw the ground fast-approaching; breakneck speeds were bound to land me with a broken neck, if not my entire back. Thoughts rushed by like splinters of glass, zooming out of sight, and as I got closer I knew needed to time what I was about to do right. The entry to that ability took less than a millisecond, but the length it lasted was unknown. Meaning I needed to turn into that mist-like state just before I hit the ground, and not a second too early.

A heartbeat passed, and the ground was there. I closed my eyes and prayed as I tugged upon that ability. I felt the impact, and felt something about my form stretch before rapidly reforming, and throwing myself forwards. I slammed onto the ground two steps ahead of me in a lurching run. In-front of me, both Sarah and Sam were still waiting. I rushed past them, screaming for them to run as I did. Just as I got to the edge of the strange dirt below our feet, something slammed into the ground behind us. I didn’t look behind me, knowing almost beyond a shadow of a doubt that it was the Knight chasing after us.

Sarah and Sam quickly fell in sync behind me, each of us desperately dashing forwards towards what we could only hope was the direction of the exit. As our feet slammed onto stone, the sound suddenly exploded back into place. Market stalls lined an imperfectly marked street, and we desperately jumped around them. I tried to conserve my ability, knowing I likely only had two more uses before I ended up exhausted.

Of course, the universe couldn’t deign to make things easy, and an eagle divebombed from the sky in-front of us, turning into a man with an almost bone-like blade. Three more birds dove from the sky, transforming into men and women and moving to intercept us.

“Don’t attack unless you have to!” I called out, as we dived over another market stall; I didn’t want to provoke them into using whatever powers they might have.

I should’ve considered that they would use them anyways.

It came in the form of long jagged nails erupting from the ground. They were horribly rusted, and each one rose up in less time than it took to blink. I just barely managed to dodge the first by instinctively dissipating, but the others weren’t so lucky. A cry of pain came from my left as Sarah’s arm was slammed through. Sam, on the other hand, appeared trapped in a ring of them, and was currently embroiled with flames. I was the only one still moving, and quickly ground to a halt when a second one rushed forwards, raising out her palm.

My body felt… Contorted, as if I’d suddenly lost all of the muscles and bones inside of my skin. I coughed, reeling back but unable to control my legs. As my body began to fall, my mind started to fall into a haze, memories leaking from a cracked egg. But one thought remained, a surefire way to escape.

I jettisoned forwards as my body turned into mist, quickly colliding with my attacker. A knife was slammed towards my ribs, but I reacted faster, grabbing onto the knife with a hand half-formed and shoving it upwards. As the knife slammed through their throat, I was quick to rip it out, just barely diving to the ground as a gout of flame and metal erupted from Sam’s enclosure.

We didn’t waste time with explanations, opting to rip Sarah’s arm out of the metal. Sam burned through the injury and I could see the peak of new flesh underneath. Turns out it was more useful than I’d bargained. Just as it looked like they were about to attack again, we barreled through. The sound of a roar echoed behind us; this time I spared the time to glance behind us.

His armor was steaming, and his eyes were now glowing a vibrant, violent, red. He didn’t stop to dodge out of the way of market stalls, nor did he stop as his foot slammed through the head of the man working the stall. Blood splattered against black chitin, but he hardly seemed to notice.

I slammed my eyes back onto where we were running, dodging around another stall, running through a store and throwing a rack to break the window ahead of us. We quickly dodged through a crowd of men and women chanting and drinking at an open bar, and swished around another market district. All the while, the sound of a heavily stomping lunatic got closer, and closer.

It appeared before us, then, a saving grace unlike any other. A door, somehow still half ajar. But the Knight had caught up with us by then.

His meaty claw of a hand slammed into the back of my head. The impact sent stars spiraling into my vision. I tripped, and tried to turn into mist. All that resulted was a twisting pain in the middle of my stomach. Sarah managed to catch me with some sort of spell, but that didn’t save me from the Knight, who quickly slammed his sword towards my chest.

Falling to the side was the only thing that saved me. A gouge appeared in the dirt directly where my chest could’ve been, and I quickly backpedaled, pulling myself backwards as he ripped his stone from the ground, and approached. No words were exchanged, no witty quips flew from my lips. All I managed to do was scream as I catapulted to the right of his strike. I still felt the slash, the sound of skin and shirt ripping, the warmth of blood pouring. There wasn’t any time to think about the injury.

Sam was the one that grabbed my arm, pulling me forwards. Another slash went through my leg, but Sarah was there too. We dragged ourselves desperately towards the door, like it was some sort of safe haven. But it wasn’t. That long corridor would never save us. Still, we pushed forwards, desperately reaching the door and slamming it shut behind us. In one single punch, it cracked.

“Sam, heal him!” Sarah shouted as we rushed forwards.

“I’m trying!” Sam shouted back, “I can’t… It’s not as easy as it is with humans,”

I heard the snap of stone, and knew that if I looked back I’d see that blank, doll-like face. The elevator was closer now, at least, and in seconds we’d push into it, and start the climb back up. As we got closer, I heard the door behind us shatter.

It was a last, desperate push. Sam threw me forwards, and shot a bolt of flame in the opposite direction. I collided with the back of the elevator, almost sinking into the metallic skin of the outer frame. Sarah did something too, before grabbing Sam and hauling both of them inside. From within, I saw the horrid frame of a seven foot tall giant leering towards us. The door took its time closing, but slammed shut as I got one last look at two horrid red eyes.

“Why didn’t he try to break the door?” Sam asked as he rushed over to me, fire in his palms.

“I don’t know,” I groaned, as the flame moved into my injuries, “You saw him, he didn’t even look alive. Maybe they’re not allowed to leave or something,”

The elevator cracked, the lights turned off, and everything stopped. Supreme sat the darkness for but one moment. Then, with all the subtlety of a chainsaw, the floor below us began to bend.

“…Or he was just waiting for us to trap ourselves,” I finished, frantically looking around the elevator, “We need to… We need to break the top of the elevator and climb out,” We were going to have to climb who knew how many stories just to get out of this.

“M-maybe we can crush him,” Sarah frantically said, “Cut the chords of the elevator after we find something to stand on,”

“Good idea,” I replied as Sam raised his hands upwards.

There was an explosion, and the three of us quickly rushed to help each other up. I went first, and nearly killed all of us for it when my bad leg nearly gave out. Sarah was next, and we both lifted Sam out.

It was dim, at the top of an elevator, and surprisingly accurate to the movies; which didn’t happen to work in our favor. Sam, quickly earning the title of the hero of the day, had the great idea of burning holes into the metal above us. He climbed first, and made quick work of it, I went next; being the most likely to fall, it made sense.

Once we had a comfortable system in-place, Sarah quickly shot some sort of sickly green bolt towards the rope. It snapped and quickly fell. A loud bang encompassed the end of its descent, but we didn’t waste time studying the aftermath, opting to climb as fast as we could.

It felt like hours passed, and my arms were helplessly shaking, weak as noodles boiled in too much water. By the time we made it to the end of that horrid and grueling challenge, the sun was threatening the horizon. We stumbled forwards and into the burgeoning light, upon which we stumbled upon a familiar man.

His animal skins, stitched together in a horrid pattern, were pasted to his hair, his skin, and almost every inch of his body. His sagging skin and hunched demeanor were now punctuated by a crooked cane clenched within his hand. A skull sat upon the top of that cane, but it wasn’t from any animal I could identify; although it seemed to shake Sam.

“You,” His voice was still soft, frail and almost feeble, but it did not hide the power leaking through every crevice, “Upon this night, you were rejected by your people,”

“Yes…” I said hesitantly, lowering my hand into my pocket where my stolen knife sat, “Yes I was,”

He nodded, “I will give you this, then… an offer,” Two eyes stared into mine, but they were not the eyes of a human, “Join me, and I will give you the vampires, and a land to call your home,”

“W-what do you mean?” I stumbled out, unconsciously taking a step back.

His eyes twisted, something alien and animal lurking deep within them, “I am here to tear this world down, this farce of a society, built upon the slaughter of my people. If you lend your aid, I will give you land to call home,” He smiled then, those yellow teeth now tinged with hints of red.

A crash sounded from somewhere in the distance, and a yell could be heard, and that smile stretched even wider, going beyond the limits of what flesh should allow, “You don’t have long to answer, and I won’t ask again,”

He wanted me to… What? Help him tear down a continent so that he could claim it as his own? The answer was obvious.

“No, I don’t accept,”

The smile flickered, to the point that I almost didn’t notice it, “Farewell then. Your end will be swift, when we next meet,”