The world smelled of rot.

It was not the kind of stench that made humans recoil, that sent them gagging and stumbling away in horror. No, this was a scent that drew him in, that filled his lungs with something primal, something necessary. The thick aroma of blood, the damp heat of flesh, the bitter tang of decay-it called to him, feeding something deep inside that had no name.

His fingers dug into warm, wet flesh, tearing with ease. He did not question why his nails cut so deep, why his muscles felt so strong. He only knew that beneath his grip, something fragile pulsed with life. A beating heart, still desperate to keep its owner alive.

The struggle was weak now. The body beneath him twitched, a pitiful attempt at escape, but it was already too late. His teeth ached, his throat burned. He leaned in, mouth parting.

And then, for the first time, he hesitated.*

It was a strange thing.

Hunger had no patience. Hunger did not stop to think.

Yet something flickered inside his skull, like a candle flame barely resisting the wind. A whisper of a thought, fragile and distant.

Who am I?

His grip on the dying body faltered, fingers twitching as if unsure whether to release or to tighten. A tremor ran through his limbs, something wrong, something foreign. His head jerked, and his breath-did he still breathe?-came sharp and ragged.

The hunger fought back.

His jaw snapped shut around the struggling heart before he could stop himself. The organ burst between his teeth, thick and iron-rich, spilling power down his throat. Magic. He could taste it. It burned like fire, sent his body into a violent tremor, each fiber of his being soaking in the energy as if starved for centuries.

Then the body went still.

And he finally lifted his head.

The world around him swayed, like a dream still slipping into place. He blinked. Once. Twice. His vision sharpened. The details of the village became clear-charred wooden beams, shattered doors, pools of blood seeping into cracked stone.

Corpses littered the ground.

Some were still fresh, their faces twisted in terror, their wounds gaping and raw. Others were already claimed by decay, their bones jutting through ragged flesh. And moving between them, like specters in the night, were the others.

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Zombies.

His kind.

They shuffled mindlessly, groaning and twitching. Some knelt over corpses, feasting with mechanical repetition. Others wandered, aimless, as if waiting for something to stir them into action.

And he?

He was like them.

Yet he was not.

The realization hit like a knife to the gut. His fingers clenched into fists, his breath-did he breathe? Quivering with something close to panic. He touched his own chest, where a human heart should have been pounding.

Nothing.

Only cold.

Only stillness.

But he thought. He knew. The others-they were empty, bodies ruled by nothing but hunger. But inside his mind, something still flickered, something too sharp, too real to ignore.

Memories? No. Nothing that strong. Nothing he could hold onto.

Only a name.

*Gufran.*

His name.

His only truth.

It was like a thin thread in the dark, the only thing keeping him from unraveling completely. He held onto it, gritting his teeth against the pull of mindlessness, of instinct, of hunger.

Because something told him that if he let go-he would become just like them.

And he could not allow that.

---

The night stretched on, cold and endless.

Gufran moved through the remains of the village, his steps unsteady. His body was adjusting, he realized. Every movement felt wrong yet eerily natural, like learning to walk again in a body that was no longer his.

He reached a broken well at the village center, its stones slick with blood. His reflection shimmered in the water below, murky and twisted by the ripples.

A face stared back.

Pale. Hollow-eyed. Skin mottled with the first signs of decay. His lips were dark with blood, dried in cracks along his chin. His teeth-too sharp. His eyes-wrong.

They should have been human. They should have been brown, or green, or blue. Instead, they glowed with an eerie, unnatural light, something caught between silver and void.

I am dead.

The thought settled into his bones, heavier than the hunger.

But if he was dead-then why did he feel so alive?

The wind carried a sound-a distant rustling, the unmistakable crunch of footsteps on dirt. His head snapped toward the source, instincts surging to the surface like a flood.

Survivors.

Their scent reached him a second later, rich and tempting. Warm blood, human flesh. His stomach twisted, his fingers flexing. The hunger reared its head, its whispers curling around his thoughts.

He could see them now. A small group, no more than four or five. Huddled together, creeping through the ruins with torches held high.

They reeked of fear.

His body tensed.

The others-mindless, starving-began to stir. One by one, the zombies turned toward the survivors, drawn by scent and sound. Their groans grew louder, their movements jerky, uncoordinated.

And then, all at once, they charged.

A frenzy of decay and death, clawing toward the warmth of life.

The survivors screamed. The torches swung wildly. A blade flashed, a gun fired. The first wave of zombies fell, heads caved in, bodies collapsing into the dirt.

But there were too many.

The humans could not fight forever.

And Gufran-he should have moved with the horde.

He should have lunged, his teeth finding flesh, his hands tearing into throats.

But instead, he stood still.

Watching.

Listening.

Feeling.

His mind, his thoughts, his very existence fought against the instinct to kill. The hunger told him to attack. But something deeper, something older, held him back.

Something dangerous.

Why?

Why did he hesitate?

Why did he care?

The answer did not come.

But he knew, in that moment, that he was no ordinary monster.

He was something worse.

Because a mindless beast could be hunted.

A thinking one-could conquer.

And tonight, Gufran was the only one who thought.