Most stories always start the same way.
You either get the slum rat who claws his way out of the mud, dripping blood and sweat until he becomes a god… or you get the golden child, heir to some great clan — fallen or thriving, doesn't matter. Either way, they're destined for greatness.
Me? I was neither.
My life was painfully dull.
I wasn't poor. My parents were comfortably upper-middle class, the kind of people who drove sensible cars, lived in a tidy house, and believed in things like "stability" and "responsibility." Respectable. Boring.
And me? I was sixteen. Which meant I was old enough to see how hollow it all was, but not old enough to do anything about it. Just stuck in between.
"Alucard!"
The screech of my teacher shattered my thoughts, and I winced as if claws had raked down my ears.
That's me — Alucard. Black hair, red eyes, pale skin that made me look like a corpse most days. People didn't know what to make of me, and honestly, half the time I didn't know what to make of myself.
My appearance was the reason for one of my greatest humiliations. When I was nine, I somehow ended up sneaking into one of Clan Valor's legendary balls. Don't ask how. I barely remember. One second I was wandering, the next I was standing under chandeliers brighter than the sun.
The maids saw me and froze. Then they smiled. Not because they thought I was special — no, worse. They thought I was Morgan Valor himself. Their precious heir.
I'll let you imagine their faces when they started dressing me up. In a gown. Their horror matched mine when they realized I wasn't Morgan but some random kid who had stumbled into the wrong place. If humiliation was a kind of scar, that night had burned itself deep into me.
Now here I was again, slumped in my seat, half-dead from a thirty-minute scolding. The teacher's voice was like nails on glass, dragging on and on, and all I could think about was how nice it would feel to drain her dry just to shut her up.
"Hey, Alucard."
I didn't need to look to know who it was. Alexander. My self-appointed "friend".
"It's about that time, isn't it? You know, when we're supposed to get infected by the Spell."
I sighed, pressing my forehead against the desk.
The Spell. That damn thing was all anyone ever talked about lately. Kids around my age either feared it or dreamed about it. Me? I wasn't against becoming Awakened. Who would be? But I couldn't stop thinking about what came after. No more normal sleep. No more dull comfort. Everything would change.
And not for me. Not really. Bastion, the great city in the sky, wasn't going to open its gates for someone like me. My luck would drop me onto some half-broken floating rock in the middle of nowhere. Forgotten. Irrelevant.
"Alucard, you're daydreaming again—LOOK OUT!"
Too late.
Pain exploded across my face as I slammed headfirst into the glass door. The crack rang through the hallway, followed by my muffled groan. Warm blood trickled down my nose, and I staggered back, clutching my face.
Alexander was already there, staring at me with his usual mix of worry and smugness. The kind of look that said, I'll never let you live this down.
He'd probably end up rich someday. Inheriting his father's company, dressing in fine suits, and sipping wine in skyscrapers while the rest of us fought monsters.
"No, Alexander," I muttered, blood dripping off my fingers as I pinched my nose. "I don't give a damn about the Spell. It's not like I'd get infected anyway."
He tilted his head, smirk tugging at his lips.
I ignored him, resigned to the fact that I'd be making yet another trip to the nurse's office. My third this month.
Just another day in my dull, boring life.