Agung sat on the cold, concrete floor, his knees pulled to his chest, listening. The darkness in the room felt alive, as if it were leaning in to hear too.
Sean, the boy with wild white hair and eyes that never stayed still, was pacing in front of him., was pacing in front of him. "You're a vamp," he said with a grin that made it hard to tell if he was joking or dead serious. "And Kato? He's a ghoul."
Agung narrowed his eyes. "What's the difference?"
Sean shrugged, as if the answer were obvious. "Vamps drink blood. Ghouls eat everything else. Bones, brains, flesh—like walking garbage disposals."
Kato blinked. "Wait. What?"
Sean leaned in, whispering like it was a bedtime secret. "The man who stopped you guys earlier? He's the third strongest in this entire cell. The one you beat up?" His smile widened. "He's powerful. And now? You've made an enemy."
The air hung heavy with silence, broken only by a flickering overhead light. And somewhere, far away, a heartbeat quickened.
The door creaked open.
The door creaked open, and Sean entered, his feet silent on the concrete floor. He carried a tray, balancing two metal cups filled with thick, dark blood and another filled with chunks of raw, red meat—slick with fat and dripping.
The air was thick, heavy with the stench of hunger. Eyes in the room flicked toward the food, each gaze a blend of desperation and quiet envy. Some faces were gaunt, hollow-eyed, their limbs trembling with starvation. They hadn't eaten in hours, some for days. The food was never enough to go around, and the strong always ate first.
Sean's steps were confident as he approached Agung and Kato, a smirk tugging at the corners of his mouth. Without hesitation, he handed Agung the blood and Kato the meat.
Agung recoiled, his stomach lurching at the sight. Kato's face twisted in disgust.
"We're not eating that," Agung said, his voice steady despite the gnawing hunger in his belly.
Kato growled in agreement, his eyes scanning the room at the others who were still too weak to move, their eyes pleading but never daring to reach out. The weak waited. The strong ate.
Sean's grin faltered, but only for a second. "Well, you can't say I didn't offer." His voice was light, as though the suffering around him didn't even touch him. "But the truth is, you can either eat, or you don't. The others? They'll starve, and they know it."
He looked over at the rest of the room, where the shadows of the weak curled into themselves, waiting for the scraps that would never come. Some had already given in to the madness—their minds broken by the hunger.
Agung narrowed his eyes, frustration bubbling up. "Why do you get food so easily? What makes you different?" His words sliced through the air, a demand for an answer.
Sean chuckled, tilting his head to one side. "Me? I'm just lucky," he said, but the glint in his eyes suggested something darker. "You'll figure it out soon enough. Or, maybe you won't."
He stepped back, his gaze shifting to the others, their emaciated bodies slumped against the walls, their hollow eyes locked on the food. Agung felt the weight of their silence—how the room seemed to feed off their desperation.
"The strong eat first. Always. That's how it works here," Sean said, his voice taking on a dangerous edge, his gaze cold. "You'll learn. Or you won't. Either way, you're going to see it."
Agung's fingers clenched around the cup of blood, his own hunger twisting into something darker. The weak waited for the scraps. But here, it was the strong who made the rules. And Agung could feel his resolve wavering.
[System Alert: 00:30:00 – Consume blood or lose control over motor and sensory functions. Host will enter feral state in search of blood until death or consumption.]
Ethan's eyes snapped open.
He was in a hospital bed—stale sheets, the faint hum of machines, the distant echo of laughter from a television in the guard station outside. The lights were off, but he saw everything. The grain in the walls. The speck of dirt on the monitor. The world had never been clearer.
And the pain… it struck like lightning through his gut. A gnawing, ripping ache that made him curl forward, gasping. His head throbbed like a drumbeat against his skull.
He moved.
Quickly. Quietly.
The door creaked under his hand, but he steadied it, slipping into the corridor like a ghost. Footsteps echoed—two guards strolling past, chatting about the match. Something about a last-minute goal. He stayed still, pressed against the shadowed edge of the wall.
Then he moved—fast. A blur in the dark.
He rolled beneath a camera's lazy sweep, barely brushing the floor. One breath. Two. The lens shifted left—he was gone.
He vaulted over a cart without a sound, landing with the grace of something inhuman. His feet kissed the tiles and were gone again. Ahead, two guards rounded a corner, laughter bubbling in their throats. Ethan melted into a blind spot, tucked behind an overhead vent shaft. Their shadows passed just inches from his face.
He didn't blink.
A monitor blinked red to his left—CCTV scanning the hall. Ethan dropped low, crawling behind a stack of linen bins. When the guard glanced in his direction, he froze—completely still. Not even a breath. And when the moment passed, he darted forward in a zigzag sprint, using the lighting's blind zones like stepping stones.
A flash of movement—upward. He climbed the pipe fixtures lining the wall, using their bolts as footholds. His body hugged the surface, just beneath the ceiling. Silent. Predatory.
When he dropped to the floor near the blood bank door, there had been no alarm, no sound, no trace.
Fluid, silent, invisible.
[System Alert: 00:12:00 – Consumption mandatory]
He reached the door.
The blood bank.
But it was locked. Of course it was. And the pain—God, it was getting worse. Like something inside him was tearing its way out.
With a low growl, Ethan kicked—not enough to break the door, but just enough to crack it open with a shudder and a groan.
Inside, red-lit refrigeration units buzzed. A keypad blinked beside the lock mechanism.
His eyes shimmered—just for a second. Crimson. Burning.
He felt himself slipping—like the man inside was being swallowed whole. He was afraid.
He raised his hand—not to listen, not to think. Just… to feel. His fingers hovered over the lock. He didn't need to hear it click. He could sense the tumblers, the rotation of metal inside metal. He twisted his wrist and—
[System Alert: 00:05:00 – Critical threshold approaching]
The lock clicked open.
But so did something else.
CLACK.
The unmistakable sound of a gun cocking.
"Don't move," came a voice behind him. Cold. Commanding.