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Nate — POV
The pain didn't come like a blow; it came like an implosion. As if something inside his chest had suddenly collapsed, tearing away his flesh, his soul, his nerves from within. It wasn't fire. It wasn't burning. It was a conscious decomposition. A fracture of everything he was.
Nate screamed. He knew he was screaming. He could feel his throat tearing with each howl… but he couldn't hear himself. He heard nothing. Only a deep, dense hum—like the muffled roar of the universe devouring itself. The world became distant, a formless echo, as if he'd been submerged in dirty, thick water, where only the echo of his breaking mind remained.
He didn't know how much time had passed.
Seconds, hours, centuries. The notion of time had become absurd. As if each millisecond stretched into eternity. As if the pain had no beginning or end—only an eternal present. At times, he thought he was dead. That this wasn't a transformation, but hell. A meticulous punishment for every mistake, every broken promise, every shadow he'd left behind.
The pain was too vast to fit inside his body. He felt his skin dissolving, his bones shattering one by one with unbearable cracks, his blood boiling with acid. Everything contracted and expanded at once, as if something were molding him from within, as if his flesh were rebelling.
And then, in the middle of the darkness, a spasm shook him. His back arched uncontrollably, fingers curled at impossible angles. In those moments, he could barely open his eyes—not by will, but by reflex. And what he saw made no sense.
Sometimes the sky loomed above him, stained a sickly blue, without warmth, without life. Sometimes it was all night. A thick, humid darkness with no stars, only the echo of whispering voices speaking things he couldn't understand. And other times… he saw them. The Romanians. Stefan. Vladimir. Motionless, their sharp faces and calm smiles frozen in place. As if they were watching a ceremony. As if what he endured was a work of art, and they were the only spectators.
And he... screamed.
He screamed from a throat that no longer felt like his. His body convulsed uncontrollably, as if every cell was rebelling, as if he was being torn apart to build something new in his place. He couldn't breathe. Couldn't move. Couldn't die. Only exist within that cycle of destruction.
Time unraveled. There was no up or down, no ground, no sky. No body. No air. Only pain remained.
Until, at some moment, he couldn't place, something changed.
The pain didn't vanish. But it became… different. No longer a constant bonfire, but burning embers beneath his skin. A strange stillness arrived, as if he'd been plunged into snow after burning alive. As if the most fragile part of him—the human part, the weak part—had been extinguished. And what remained... was something new.
He couldn't move. His body felt like someone else's shell. Each muscle felt lightyears away, his consciousness trapped inside something that didn't respond. Like sleep paralysis, but deeper. More absolute.
And then… he heard.
Voices.
At first distant, then too clear. Voices from everywhere at once. Conversations of people crossing a street. The crunch of a rat in the trash. The scrape of a leaf dragged by the wind. Stefan and Vladimir are murmuring, laughing. Everything entered his mind as if there were no filters. As if the entire world were speaking directly into his skull.
And in that frozen stillness, his mind ignited. But no longer from pain. From memory.
He thought of his grandmother. Her tired voice. The texture of her old hands stroking his hair. She always seemed to have a sarcastic comment at the tip of her tongue. He thought of his parents. Of what they never said. Of the void they left behind. Of the words he had never heard, and that still haunted him.
And he thought of Alice.
Her face emerged in the chaos. Like a beacon. Like an apparition. Her smile. Her worried gaze. The way she walked was like she floated. Her sadness. Her fear. Her strength.
And the thought was clear. A whisper amid the wreckage:
All of this pain will be worth it… If it gives me the power to protect her.
If I never have to see her afraid again. If I can be something more than a victim of fate.
And then, he felt something.
A tremor.
A quake beneath the skin, like his body reigniting from within. A first shiver. His fingers twitched, clumsy, like waking after centuries of sleep. He began to feel everything around him with more clarity. And in a slow, heavy, definitive gesture...
He opened his eyes.
The first thing Nate saw was an unfamiliar ceiling. Cracked, dusty, covered in trembling shadows and tiny insects moving with almost unreal slowness, as if time itself had slowed down. He blinked once, not quite understanding what he was seeing. Everything moved in slow motion. The world, suddenly, was something else.
The sound had changed, too. No longer noise—it was texture. He could hear the wind slipping between dry leaves outside, every friction, every creak, every brush of the branches. He could hear the rhythmic tapping of a single fingernail against a wooden table, like a metronome marking his return to life.
He inhaled. Not because he needed to—but out of instinct... out of curiosity. And the air offered him an entire universe.
He smelled the aged trash in the area—dense and sour. Other aromas too, sweeter yet strangely fermented, like forgotten fruit in a basement. He noticed animals: rodents, raccoons perhaps, small living bodies that smelled of dirt, rotten leaves, wet roots. His nose—once only capable of the basics—now dissected the environment as if the air were made of layers he could peel away one by one.
He tried to sit up slowly... or so he thought. But when he noticed, he was already standing. He didn't know how. There had been no effort. No transition. Just a thought—and the result.
He looked down at his body. He wore the same clothes he'd fallen into that hell with: torn, dirty, slashed in several places. Through the rips, he saw his skin: pale. Paler than ever.
He turned his head toward a broken window on the other side of the room. A direct sunbeam cut through the dimness with almost theatrical intensity. He wanted to move slowly, to test his new body… but his legs had already taken him there. Just two steps. Or less.
Each movement was a leap. From zero to a hundred in the blink of an eye.
And then, the sunlight touched him.
Nate closed his eyes.
The sunlight caressed his face like a warm breeze. It didn't burn. It didn't scorch. It didn't repel him. It was… different. As if the sun now recognized him, as if his new condition wasn't a curse, but an ascension. He felt the light wrap around his skin with unexpected reverence, sparking a glow—almost mineral-like—like he was made of quartz or polished marble. Every pore radiated a glow, luminous and undeniably unnatural.
But the physical was only the surface.
The truly overwhelming part came from within.
His mind—already sharp, analytical, structured—was now flooded with clarity. Thinking required no effort. Ideas connected with surgical precision, memories emerged with details once irrelevant and now full of hidden patterns. He could break down complex thoughts in fractions of a second, anticipate outcomes, and simulate scenarios. His awareness moved in multiple layers at once—no noise, no fatigue.
And yet, the most astonishing part was the contrast.
He remembered what it felt like to be human. He remembered how slow thought was—how dull. The numbed senses, the body limited by exhaustion, hunger, and fear. He remembered struggling through the fog of fatigue to finish a thought, a conversation, a simple decision. Now, in contrast, every thought was crystalline. As if his brain—his essence—had been refined, tempered, perfected.
Nate didn't need to open his eyes to know what surrounded him or how many seconds had passed since the light had entered through the window.
He felt… elated.
He had crossed a threshold. And everything he was—the good, the dark, the terrible, and the brilliant—was now at full capacity, pulsing beneath his new skin.
He smiled.
The silence was interrupted by soft movements on the other side of the wall. Nate didn't need to open his eyes to know that Vladimir and Stefan were in the next room. Since waking, he had been aware of them—of every tiny movement—though they emitted no human sounds, no breathing, no heartbeat.
They entered with slow, measured steps. To Nate, it was like hearing water fall in slow motion. Every step on the old wood creaked just barely, but his mind registered it like a scream. He felt them open the door, felt their figures pause for a moment in the doorway, watching him.
Vladimir spoke first.
"How does immortality feel, Nathaniel?"
Nate opened his eyes slowly. He observed them carefully.
Since he'd met the Romanians, he had noticed something in them. They always looked at him with a confidence that bordered on arrogance, as if they existed on a higher plane. But now… now their postures were cautious. Their bodies stayed near the door, hands relaxed but ready, as if they expected something in Nate to explode. As if they were no longer so sure what he was.
Nate noticed.
He felt the impulse to approach suddenly—just to see if they'd flinch. But he restrained himself. It wasn't time to play.
"It feels excellent," he finally said, opening his eyes a little wider.
His voice sounded different. Similar, yes, but with a new texture: velvety, smooth, almost seductive without trying. A voice made to be listened to.
The Romanians finally stepped in, slowly, still measuring every movement.
"Where are we?" Nate asked, voice dry.
Vladimir and Stefan exchanged a glance. A brief, silent exchange heavy with a message Nate instantly caught.
"We're just outside Seattle," Stefan replied.
"We brought you here to fulfill your purpose," Vladimir added.
Nate nodded, satisfied.
He had always known the Romanians were trying to manipulate him. They did it elegantly, without direct lies, but with carefully managed truths. Even so, he appreciated that they kept their word. They helped him. They delivered.
For now, that was enough.
He stood still for a few seconds. Completely motionless, like a statue carved from marble, his gaze fixed on a spot on the worn-out floor. Without turning to face them, he asked in a dry voice:
"How long has it been since I was bitten?"
The silence lasted only a moment before Stefan replied, his tone relaxed, almost mocking:
"This is the second day. I must admit, your transformation was faster than we expected."
Nate opened his mouth slightly to respond, but instead, a wave of fire surged up his throat. It was sudden, searing. He brought a hand to his neck, fingers pressing against his skin as if that could ease the internal burn. He closed his eyes for a second. The burn was intense—primitive. It wasn't pain... it was hunger. Thirst.
Stefan let out a short laugh.
"That's normal. Your body is asking for it… You need blood."
Nate frowned and walked toward one of the dirty, half-open windows. His eyes scanned the dense vegetation surrounding the house, his amplified senses detecting subtle signs of life. The scrape of a squirrel on bark, the flap of wings, the distant breathing of a deer. Everything came to him in perfect detail.
"There are animals nearby," he murmured.
The Romanians stepped closer, almost paternally. Stefan reached out as if to touch his shoulder, but Nate turned swiftly, locking eyes with him. His eyes looked like molten glass—dangerous. Stefan's fingers froze midair, then slowly retracted.
"That won't be necessary, Nathaniel," said Vladimir, crossing his arms.
Stefan disappeared through the hallway door. A second later, he returned carrying a white hospital cooler. Nate didn't need it opened to know what was inside. The scent hit him like a wave. Sweet. Metallic. Exquisitely alive. It was intoxicating. His nostrils flared. His whole body reacted.
When they opened the cooler, several medical blood bags lay inside. Nate lunged at them with a hunger he couldn't control. He tore open the first one with his teeth and emptied it into his mouth immediately. The liquid coursed through him like an electric shock, reconnecting every cell, calming the fire in his throat.
The Romanians watched in silence for a few seconds, then chuckled lowly.
"This is the good part, Nathaniel. We'd heard about Carlisle's peculiar diet," Vladimir said with a half-smile. "But we thought it best you try human blood first..."
Nate barely heard them. He already had another bag in his hands, tearing it clumsily and pouring it straight into his mouth.
"Just wait until you try it fresh… straight from a person," Stefan added, amused. "The taste is incomparable."
But Nate didn't answer. He wasn't interested in their morbid commentary—only in the relief. When he finished the last bag, his movements grew slower, more precise. He blinked. He felt sharp again, focused. In those brief moments while feeding, he could feel his mind going dark.
He wiped his mouth with his forearm and looked at them intensely.
The Romanians exchanged a satisfied, conspiratorial glance.
"Now that you're complete… we want to see what you're capable of. We've been doing some research. We think we found your target."
Nate raised his chin. He didn't need to ask who they meant. He knew instantly.
He nodded, gaze fierce—tense, focused like the tip of a spear.
A surge of anticipation ran through his body.
He wanted to know what he was capable of now, too.
And there was no better test than Victoria.