Not long after the creature left, Kei crumpled to the ground, shaking. Madness. This was pure madness. They created a demon… a monster in human skin… He had to get out of here. The lingering feeling of his mind being seized drove him to the edge of insanity.

Blindly scurrying around his surroundings, he found a tunnel. Was there only one? He frantically rushed along all the walls, but found no other way. It was just a tiny room, and the single tunnel he had crawled through… he wasn’t sure how long ago. Maybe a whole day had passed by now.

He dropped to the ground, and scrambled into the tunnel without any hope. He had to try. Maybe, just maybe there was a way out. Somehow. He had to hurry, escape before that creature returned. He crawled faster, quivering in cold sweat, not caring about the scratches and scrapes on his skin. Down and down he crawled in a spiral.

He let out a yelp of pain as his head collided into hard rock. His hopes were dashed, the tunnel abruptly ended.

No, there had to be something. He desperately felt around, trying to find a way out. He realized a big rock—the size of the tunnel—was blocking the way, but no matter how madly he tried to push or pull, how much he sweat, struggled, he couldn’t move the rock.

Eventually, he lay there limply, panting, soaked in his own sweat, his scrapes and scratches burning. He was going to die here, in the dark. There was no escape.

As he was lying there hopelessly, he noticed that there seemed to be tiny gaps where moonlight filtered through. Or maybe his mind was just imagining it…

He started shivering. It was cold. He didn’t want to go back to the tiny room. The perpetual darkness was too oppressing.

But that creature could be back anytime soon. He shuddered thinking of facing it in this cramped tunnel. He couldn’t even sit up, he couldn’t even turn around. Hating not having any space to move, and not having any way out, he tiredly started crawling back into the tiny room. It wasn’t easy crawling up and up, it was slow going. But eventually, he arrived back into the room. Now that he knew how small it really was, it felt even more suffocating.

Being trapped and helpless in complete darkness, not knowing when the monster would return was pure torture. He blindly paced around. He was losing his mind. Despite everything, he had been able to remain calm and collected before, but after having his mind toyed with, he didn’t feel like himself anymore. Something important was lost. Even his thoughts weren’t safe.

Why had the creature seemingly believed him first, then later demanded he stopped lying? He had kept denying as it asked over and over. Kei had felt something slowly, insidiously encroaching on his mind. He decided he’d rather die, than to lose the only thing that was truly his, but it was too late. He had been stopped, and even with his eyes closed, those burning red eyes seared into his mind.

Maybe he wasn’t even himself anymore, maybe Kei was dead.

He lifelessly slumped to the ground. There was nothing else to do, but to accept his fate.

Fate, huh… was it fate? He had felt the urge to go out that night, a feeling that something he had been looking for all his life was in his reach. He could find it. So he left, following this baseless belief, it was like a conviction he had to follow. That was when the monster grabbed him, and no matter how much he struggled, he was held in an iron grip. Then nothing, but darkness.

Since then there was only darkness… and that monster… A tremor ran through him. That creature was all wrong, unnatural. What scared him the most was how it made him feel…

He didn’t want to think about it, but thinking was all he could do. That sigh of the creature’s that seemed to carry disappointment, and the question if he was scared... He wasn’t really, he didn’t really care what happened. But that was before… before that monster messed with his mind.

Maybe it wanted him to be scared. He won’t give it the satisfaction next time either. He forced himself to take slow, deep breaths.

He sighed, remembering when the creature roughly grabbed his arm. A shiver had run down his spine as he felt its breath on his wrist. Then it bit down.

Kei had expected pain, but it wasn’t pain what came. As if lightening was coursing through his veins, he felt strange. His calm slipped, his heartbeat quickened. He was bitten, he was bleeding, he should have been in pain. But he wasn’t. He wasn’t sure how he was feeling, it was strange, and he didn’t want to admit it, but he didn’t hate it…

Then the creature bit down deeper, and what he had felt before was just a light breeze compared to the storm that engulfed him. His heart raced, he was gasping for air. He knew he was dying, yet he felt safer and warmer than ever, it was pure bliss.

Recalling the sensations he shivered. What an insidious creature.

After it was done, he had limply hung there, feeling an immense sense of loss and disappointment.

What an abomination… shivers ran through his spine just remembering, and found himself craving it. It was addictive.

He shook himself, trying to focus. He had thought he was going to die. He was barely conscious. He seemed to remember intense pain and screaming as if he was burning from the inside. Maybe that didn’t happen, he wasn’t sure.

The next thing he could recall was a dreamy sight of dark red lines glowing faintly with life and the faint outline of the creature with those eyes… It was beautiful.

Maybe that was just a dream, but he was inclined to believe it was how he was healed. When he had woken up confused, feeling weak, but alive, he didn’t know what to do, but kneel and wait. He could hear faint breathing as he had listened in the dark, he knew the creature was still there. He didn’t know if it was watching him from the dark or not, but he braced himself, expecting to be bitten again. He grimaced. Somewhere deep down, even hoping for it.

But nothing had happened as time passed, and he remained frozen.

Suddenly, the creature had nudged him and instructed him to sit. He had reckoned he was about to be bitten, but strangely, he was asked his name instead.

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He had answered, but that made him think. No Bloodborn would ask for a slave’s name. Kei was even convinced they didn’t think they even had names, they were seen as nothing more than tools and a source of blood.

The creature’s following questions made it clear it knew little about anything. For some reason, it had kept asking about Paradise and Kei spewed out the lies they were fed trying his best not to give himself away. It seemed to work at first…

Kei didn’t know why, but the creature had sounded increasingly disturbed. It was clearly in distress as it asked how many 1-year-olds were sent away. Why? Why would an abomination like it care? Kei had the impression the creature had known Paradise was a lie, but what did it matter to something that preyed upon humans?

Then it was quiet for a long time. It was strange, despite everything, the creature almost felt… human-like.

As time had passed he couldn’t help but start fidgeting. He had no idea where to relieve himself and didn’t dare to ask.

Then something suddenly had changed. He couldn’t say what, but something felt different. Ever thinking that the creature was almost human-like was ridiculous. It felt like a predator was stalking him in the dark, about to snap his neck. He could feel it watching him. He was already prepared for death, when the creature started asking strange questions.

Didn’t it know about bloodstones? Why did it seem reluctant to demand them in the Inner City? Now that he thought about it, what was the creature even doing in the Outer City? It could have taken slaves to feed on from the Inner City. It was also ignorant about everything…

Kei’s eyes widened in surprise as realization dawned on him. He should have realized it earlier, but the idea was ludicrous. Had the creature escaped from the Bloodborn? But wasn’t the Patriarch all-powerful? No, it didn’t escape. If it did, it would have escaped from the whole city.

But why was it so ignorant and seemingly wanting to avoid the Bloodborn? Wasn’t it part of the Family? It was claimed to be second only to the Patriarch.

It asked who the Bloodborn was… did it truly not consider itself part of the Family?

It had sounded increasingly frustrated as it kept asking questions. Kei did not understand, but he needed to. The creature was unknown and cruel, but not impossible to communicate with.

He started recounting what he knew. It fed on blood, either solely or not, but clearly needed blood. And Kei would bet it wanted its food to be scared.

The creature also seemed to have gone rouge, he had no better word for it, but maybe it was just a vain hope. But if it was true…

He sighed. He had been avoiding thinking about it, but there was something more. Something that was more important than anything, yet he couldn’t remember. Only a single word. Doakr’hal. He didn’t know what it meant, but the word filled him with gut-wrenching pain and grief. No, it wasn’t just a word. He was a Doakr’hal… before… before…? Before what…?

No.

He did not want to remember.

*

Ray returned late into the Night. He had gone back to the area where he took the human from last Night. He forgot to ask the human if they noticed missing people… He also should have asked where to get food from. Instead of asking these actually useful questions, he had asked things that did not help him at all.

Turns out they had communal kitchens as well, not just bathrooms. Vorm had laughed its ass off when Ray first couldn’t find any food outside of that fridge-looking ritual box thingy, and when he had finally dared to open it, he couldn’t make sense of the supposed foods he was seeing.

He had settled on some bread-looking things, except they were red striped and circular. And hard. But it was crunchy when squeezed. He threw two of them in a sack he found, they were pretty big. And while he easily found water, it took him some time to find the waterskins…

Then he had kept sneaking around for quite a while longer to find a suitable human he could easily take without having to dig it out under a human pile…

All in all, he should have interrogated the human more thoroughly before setting out.

He threw the unconscious human next to the old one. He was really displeased with that one. It wasted its blood. He had to cleanse the whole tunnel coming in because it was filled with spots of blood and it made it almost impossible to keep a clear head, then had to bother with healing the human again. As if he wasn’t already hungry enough. But he guessed the compulsion must have remained since the human wasn’t dead.

Humans were truly troublesome. He looked at them thoughtfully. If he was still going to keep them though, he needed to meet their basic needs to keep them alive. Water seemed the easiest, he felt like he should be able to create it, or pull it from the air or something. Food… The best would be to find mushrooms. He hated mushrooms with a passion, but it would do for the humans. And they also needed a place to relieve themselves.

No matter how he looked at it, he needed to dig another room for them. Just for the toilet itself that would be a hole in the ground with a lid he’d have to clear from time to time. But that made him think. How would they clean themselves without toilet paper?

Scratching his head, he decided to think about that later, and started digging a short tunnel—this one tall enough to walk upright—that ended in another small room. He could make it bigger as he brought more humans back. He also carefully carved out a stone lid to cover the hole with.

Making a human-farm sure wasn’t as simple as he first had thought…

Going back to the first room, he saw both humans quietly sitting there. The second one was a male too. He had realized males were preferable, they tended to have more blood to begin with, and didn’t waste some each month. But it sure was harder to snatch one, they were rarer.

He had heard them quietly whispering while he was busy making another room, but didn’t pay attention to what they were saying. Maybe they would feel less lonely and live longer with fellow humans around.

“There is a new room to your left. There is a lid with a hole under, you can relieve yourself in that. There is also food and water, find it.”

The humans stood up, feeling along the wall, but Ray grabbed the second one. He was hungry after all.

He decided to go with the wrist again, just to be safe. It was a good choice. He felt his restraint slipping as soon as he tasted the human’s blood, and heard its speeding heart. To distract himself, he briefly pulled away to turn the wrist around, so he could observe the human. Maybe he could learn something about his powers.

Latching back onto its wrist, he looked at the human. It was out of it, limply being held up by the other one. The other one… seemed almost… envious? It was pitch-black, the human couldn’t see him, yet it looked straight into his Eyes.

Dissatisfied with the trickle, Ray instinctively sank his Fangs deeply into the wrist. He realized too late he had fucked up as blood pulsed, and he drank deep, consumed by thirst and hunger.

He came to himself when the heart stopped. Cursing to himself, he ripped the human out of the other’s hands and throwing it on the ground started pumping his chest while he summoned his Blood to create a healing ritual. Not that there was much in the human anymore, but he hoped with actively healing it, it would be enough to keep it alive.

While the wound healed right away, replenishing blood was another thing. He had to keep the ritual going longer than he would have liked, and even with that, the human barely managed to survive. It would live, but Ray wasn’t sure how much damage its brain suffered. In any case, its body was alive, and would be able to produce blood. That was what mattered.

What a fucking waste. It felt like he barely ate, hunger creeping back upon him. Frustrated, he spat at his first human, “Take him to the other room and take care of him.”

The human jerked as if woken up from its daze, then bowed deeply, and after a “Yes, my Lord,” it dragged the unconscious human away.

It was harder to overcome his instincts than he had thought. He was not a beast to be ruled by his needs, he refused to keep acting like one. He couldn’t go on like this, and also, almost killing the humans made them recover much slower. It was inefficient, and a waste.