The smell hit you before the town even came into view—a thick, cloying rot that clung to the back of the throat like oil. In the lesser settlements of the Western Region, air was a luxury no one could afford.
Ezekiel wiped a mixture of sweat and sawdust from his forehead, leaving a dark streak across his sickly, pale skin. He was eighteen, though his hunched shoulders and the tremors in his hands suggested a man three times his age. Beside him, his father, Kennedy, worked with the mechanical rhythm of a man who had long ago traded his soul for a paycheck.
They were vampires, technically. But there was nothing "royal" about the way Kennedy's wrinkled hands fumbled with a blunt chisel. In the slums of Fluxton, immortality wasn't a gift; it was just a longer sentence of hard labor.
"Hold the joint steady, Zeke," Kennedy muttered, his voice like grinding gravel.
Ezekiel gripped the cheap, splintering wood. In the slums, furniture was a booming business, mostly because the locals were constantly smashing it over each other's heads in alcohol-fueled rages or debt disputes.
The walk home was a gauntlet of dejected faces and leaning shacks. When they finally stepped into their "enclosure," the silence was immediate. It wasn't the silence of peace; it was the silence of two people with nothing left to say.
Their dinner sat on a rickety table that groaned under the weight of two chipped cups.
"Eat," Kennedy said.
The "meat" was grey, stringy, and smelled of ammonia. They washed it down with fermented bioluminescent fluid—a glowing, neon-blue sludge that provided just enough nutrients to keep their hearts beating, but left a bitter, metallic aftertaste that never truly went away. In an empire without humans, they ate what the earth spat out.
Ezekiel stared at the glowing blue liquid, his reflection shimmering in the cup. "The Night of Crimson is coming."
The scraping of Kennedy's knife stopped. He didn't look up.
"Those bastards," Ezekiel hissed, his voice trembling. "The royals drink pure blood while we choke on glow-worm spit. They have a 'tradition,' and we have a funeral every other week because some Abyssal Gang thug wants our tax money. Why do you even care about their holidays, Dad?"
Kennedy sighed, a long, hollow sound that seemed to deflate his entire chest. He looked at the cracked window, his eyes glazed with a fatigue that went deeper than bone.
"It's just the hand we're dealt, son," Kennedy whispered. "Don't go looking for ghosts in the palace. Focus on the chisel. Grudges don't fill stomachs; they just get you buried faster."
"I don't care!" Ezekiel slammed his fist onto the table. The poorly cured wood gave way with a sickening crack, the table collapsing into a pile of toothpicks and splinters. "I'll kill them. If I can't reach the Emperor, I'll find the weakest one. I'll make them feel even a second of what we feel every day!"
Kennedy didn't yell. He didn't even look angry. He just stood up, his worn sandals slapping against the dirt floor, and pulled his son into a tight, desperate embrace.
Ezekiel stiffened, then slowly went limp. His father smelled of old sweat and cheap cedar.
"Revenge won't fix the table, Zeke," Kennedy murmured into his hair. "It won't bring back your mother. It won't turn this blue sludge into wine. It'll just leave me alone in this shack. Is that what you want?"
Kennedy let go, his narrow back turning as he walked toward his sleeping mat. "Clean up the wood. We have work at dawn."
Ezekiel stood in the dark, his fingers curling into the broken pieces of their lives. I'll kill them, he whispered to the shadows. I swear it.
-------------------
The next day at the carpentry shop was a blur of heat and repetitive noise. The snick-snick of the saws usually acted as a lullaby for Ezekiel's rage, but today, his hands wouldn't stop shaking.
Kill them. Kill them all.
The mantra beat in time with his pulse. Suddenly, the rhythm of the street broke.
A woman shrieked. She sprinted past the shop, her shawl fluttering like a broken wing, her face a mask of pure, unadulterated terror. Ezekiel dropped his plane, his head snapping toward the door.
"Don't," Kennedy barked, not looking up from his workbench. "Keep your head down, Zeke. It's likely the Abyssal Gang settling a debt. Curiosity is a death sentence in Fluxton."
Ezekiel hesitated, his heart hammering against his ribs. "...Sure, Dad."
But a few streets away, the Abyssal Gang wasn't the problem.
A crowd had gathered near the central well, but they were backing away, their faces pale. On the cobblestones lay a pile of what looked like discarded clothes—until you noticed the skin. Several vampires lay in the dirt, but they weren't just dead. They were husked. Their bodies had been drained of every drop of moisture, leaving behind shriveled, leather-like mummies.
"Is this a curse?" a man whimpered, clutching his young daughter. "Did we offend the Sovereign?"
"Forget the Sovereign! This is the Darkhavens' fault! They take our blood and leave us to rot!"
The wailing grew louder, a cacophony of grief and superstition rising like smoke. Then, a voice cut through the noise—deep, resonant, and cold enough to freeze the blood in their veins.
"What is the meaning of this disturbance?"
The crowd parted like a wound.
Darion stood over the shriveled husks, his leather coat creaking as he shifted his weight. He didn't look like a man; he looked like a shadow carved out of the night. He ignored the begging of the crowd, his gaze fixed on one specific corpse—a female, her skin like parchment.
His jaw tightened, a cord of muscle leaping in his neck. When he spoke, it wasn't a shout. It was a low, vibrating hum that made the marrow in their bones ache.
"Who did this?"
"Darion, please!" A man scrambled forward, his forehead hitting the grime-stained cobblestones. "We didn't see! The shadows just swallowed them! We swear by the Sovereign, spare our—"
A flick of Darion's wrist. A line of crimson light, as thin as a razor's edge, whispered through the air.
The man's head didn't just fall; it slid off his shoulders with a wet, heavy thud. The crowd didn't scream yet—they were too busy choking on the sudden, hot scent of fresh copper.
"I don't do excuses," Darion said, his eyes scanning the kneeling ranks. "I gave one order. One life was off-limits. And yet, here she is, looking like a discarded rag."
He raised his hand again. "Answer me, or the ground drinks everyone."
Silence. Only the sound of terrified, shallow breathing.
"Fools." He swung his arm in a wide arc. Red aura erupted, a scythe of pure energy that harvested the front row like wheat. Heads skipped across the stone like heavy stones.
"Run," Darion whispered, a sick, jagged smile breaking his face. "Run so I can enjoy the catch."
The sky didn't just turn red; it bruised. A flare of crimson light erupted from the center of town, illuminating the jagged skyline of the slums.
In the heart of the settlement, the Mayor sat in his rocking chair. The wood creaked—creak-thud, creak-thud—as he watched the glow. His hands, spotted with age, gripped the armrests until the wood splattered.
"Raphael's dogs are loose," he wheezed, a bitter taste rising in his throat. He was the Mayor, the "authority," yet he felt like a child hiding under a bed. He closed his eyes, unable to watch his city burn, and began to rock again. It was the only thing he had the power to do.
At the workstation, the saws fell silent. The air was charged with static. Then, the owner burst in—a man usually obsessed with neatness, now disheveled, his eyes wide and bloodshot.
"The Rumbling!" he shrieked, his voice cracking. "They've started the Rumbling! Drop everything! Run for the hills!"
The shop transformed into a riot of splintering wood and screaming men. Kennedy didn't hesitate. He reached out, his rough, calloused hand snapping around Ezekiel's wrist like a vice.
"Dad—what is it? What's happening?" Ezekiel stumbled, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs.
"The Abyssal Gang's blood-toll," Kennedy hissed, dragging his son toward the back alley. "They don't stop until they hit a hundred souls. We aren't staying to be the statistics. Move!"
Ezekiel looked back at the glowing sky. Anger, hot and acidic, bubbled up in his chest. "They're just killing us for sport? Because they're bored?"
"Because they can," Kennedy growled. "Shut up and run!"
Darion kicked in the door of a nearby shack. The wood didn't just break; it vanished into splinters. He stepped over the wreckage, his boots crunching on the remnants of a family's dinner.
In the corner, a father huddled with his wife and children.
"Please!" the father wailed, his eyes darting toward the door. "Take the girl! She's young, she's healthy—just let the rest of us go!"
The daughter let out a small, broken whimper, clutching her mother's dress. Darion didn't even blink. He found the cowardice boring. He flicked a finger, a bolt of red energy slicing through the air.
In a reflex of pure, pathetic survival, the father shoved his wife into the path of the blast. The light tore through her chest. She didn't scream; she just looked at her husband with a silent, confused betrayal before collapsing into a heap.
"You're a special kind of gutter-trash," Darion mused.
He didn't give the man time to respond. He took the father's head next, then the girl who was trying to crawl away, and finally the boy. It was clinical. It was fast.
He stepped back out into the street, wiping a stray drop of blood from his cheek.
"Four," Darion muttered, looking down the long, dark stretch of the slum. "Ninety-six to go. I hope the ones in the woods can actually run. My hamstrings are getting tight."