Before gods claimed temples, before kings carved thrones, before men gave names to the stars—there was thirst.
It began with a body. Some say it was a brother, murdered for envy, his blood spilling into the soil. The oldest remains tell the tale. Others whisper of a woman who slit her newborn's throat to bargain with the night, drinking the child's warmth as a covenant with whatever answered.
They did not die. They lingered. The curse was not flesh, not bone—it was hunger itself, gnawing and endless. What they could not eat they bled, and what they bled they drank, until the red was more sacred than fire, more powerful than breath. These were not customs—they were defenses.
The first of their kind has no name—only a legacy etched in blood and rot.
Warnings. The living feared something had already fed on them and would rise again unless mutilated beyond repair.
The world tried to bury them. The world failed.
Blood carried the seed forward, like a sickness that could not be cured. A bite, a sip, a forced mingling of veins—and the curse endured. They hid well. Some hunted alone, some in clans, their trails marked only by cattle slaughtered to the bone, infants drained in their cradles, women left bloodless in the arms of grieving men.
Sometimes whole villages vanished overnight. Nothing left but blood in the dirt, smears on doorframes, and the silence of a feast already devoured.
By 30,000 BCE, whispers bled into record. From the Iron tribes of distant land to the cradle of the old world, the same shadows appeared: pale figures gliding between trees, eyes gleaming red in torchlight. Their hunger was a ritual. Their feeding, worship. Each kills a sacrament to the thirst that bound them.
But the thirst was patient. It withdrew when threatened, waiting, hiding in children whose veins ran hotter than others, in families whose night terrors passed down like heirlooms.
It waited. Until the 13th century.
At the foot of Mount Matutum, where the tribe of Oryang lived untouched by kings or priests, laughter filled the nights. Hunters returned with game, children played by firelight, women sang praises to their deity; Lakapati, goddess of the fields. Their festival lasted two weeks—two weeks of joy of fertility and abundance, with deep connections to the natural world. They believed themselves safe, watched only by their goddess, far from the world's wars.
But shadows need no armies. Shadows need no gods.
The first came as a man. Beautiful, inhumanly so—his face carved sharp, his lips red as though painted with crushed fruit. When he smiled, the crowd did not see fangs. When he walked, they did not hear death.
But death was with him.
When he opened his mouth against the throat of the first child, it was not hunger alone—it was memory, ritual, inheritance. Warm blood gushed, and he drank until her body stiffened, her small limbs twitching as though in fever. He tossed her aside like a husk and moved on.
And more came behind him. Men with crimson eyes and pale jaws, silent as carrion birds, patient as wolves. They descended upon Oryang's joy with quiet efficiency, plucking children from shadows, draining mothers where they stood, forcing the earth itself to drink as blood spilled into the dirt.
The festival turned to slaughter in the space of heartbeats.
Those who screamed were silenced. Those who ran were dragged back by their hair. The firelit songs twisted into wails, and the goddess Lakapati's shrine drowned in crimson offerings that were never meant for her.
That night, the people of Oryang learned what their ancestors had only whispered:
Blood is never safe.
Blood is claimed.
And what is claimed is never given back.
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To be continue...