Seeing the lifeless body of the healthy man before me, reality hit like a blade. The awareness of the irreversible filled me with a cold, suffocating dread, reaching beyond my mind to gnaw at my heart. For the first time in what felt like an eternity, I glimpsed the value of another life—not as prey, not as sustenance, but as a human being. My humanity stirred weakly within me, fragile yet undeniable. If not for the desperate thread of thought holding onto my son, that fleeting spark might have been snuffed out entirely. Something inside me had shifted, though the change was short-lived.
Barely conscious of my actions, I bit into my own wrist and pressed it against the dead man's lips. Warm drops slid over my skin but refused to penetrate, as if the lesson of fate required suffering first. I did not relent. An ancient, instinctive voice urged me to take his flesh, and I obeyed. Leaning over his neck, I sank my fangs in slowly, resisting the urge to drink. A sudden, searing pain shot through my jaws as if my fangs had become exposed nerve endings. I wanted to recoil, terrified, though I had faced death unflinchingly before. A stern inner voice commanded me to endure. The agony crescendoed, then broke.
A thin, silvery thread of liquid stretched from the wound to my face. It glimmered like moonlight, cold and scentless, before pooling and disappearing into my skin. The sensation was subtle but undeniable—inside, a second heart began to beat, faint yet real. And so, Gleb entered my life. A kind, diligent man who traveled the country delivering goods, still whole and rational even after transformation. He cared for me despite everything, naïvely believing we could control fate through sheer will—and for a time, I believed it too.
Together, we tried to live normally. The changing landscapes were intoxicating; I had never left Ksertoni before. Cities unfolded around us in streams of lights, promising the illusion of opportunity, of life unbound. We nourished each other carefully, seeking balance. Yet it soon became clear that our thirsts were mirrored in opposite directions. Gleb's blood brought forth light and warmth, while my own consumption opened thresholds of madness within me. Each day, the hunger clawed deeper, chasing the faint pulse behind my teeth. I restrained it, training the beast, until one trip changed everything.
In Omsk, I lost control. A girl became my prey, and only afterward did clarity return. Asya, I never wanted to become a killer. I pictured her life stolen, the potential she would never reach, and felt the weight of every lost opportunity, dissolving into the void. A foolish thought whispered that perhaps I could give life as well as take it. I tried. I fed with hope, believing I could mend what I had broken—but the result was a nightmare. The girl screamed, her body blistered and writhed in agony. Bones snapped, limbs twisted into grotesque angles, as if she were a toy of some cruel hand. Desperation left me with one option: her heart. I tore it free, and only then did her gaze dim, her suffering finally silenced.
I could not risk my son facing the same horrors. Independent research was too costly, too dangerous, and too incomplete. I returned to the city, moving under the cover of night. In Dr. Smirnov's office, I scoured records for anything that could guide me, but all I found were Vladimir's sparse notes on my transformation. Nothing more. My instincts whispered that answers might lie elsewhere—perhaps at Smirnov's home, among the creatures born of his own blood, the dark progeny of his experiments.