The city had forgotten the taste of sunlight.The alleys stank of blood, smoke, and despair. Even the wind moved like a living thing — slow, heavy, tasting the air for weakness.
Three figures crawled through the ruins of the lower quarter: Lumiel, Daniel, and Luminous.Their cloaks were torn, their veins nearly dry.
They had not eaten in four days.
The Starving
Luminous leaned against the crumbling wall of a collapsed temple. Her lips were pale, her eyes dimming with every breath.Daniel crouched near her, clutching his chest. His blood — half divine, half cursed — pulsed erratically.
"We can't keep going," Daniel muttered."We don't have a choice," Lumiel said, though his voice sounded like ash.
Cartethyia's voice hummed faintly in the back of his mind — a flicker of light trying to survive in static.
[Vital signs critical. Blood capacity at 8%.][Warning: starvation entering cellular collapse phase.]"You're late," Lumiel whispered.[Correction: I was… offline. Power levels insufficient.]"You and me both."
He coughed, spitting dark red. It burned on the way out.
The Thieves of the Temple
The temple loomed before them — once devoted to the Blood Saints, now abandoned and half-swallowed by shadow fungus.But inside, the air shimmered faintly — the smell of preserved essence.
"If there's blood left in there," Luminous whispered, "it'll be guarded.""Then we'll take turns dying," Lumiel said, and drew his blade.
They slipped inside like ghosts.The walls pulsed faintly with crimson veins — tubes carrying ancient vitae to unseen altars.In the center stood a statue of a vampire lord, bowl in hand — filled with congealed, half-alive blood.
Daniel hesitated.
"If we drink this, we don't know what it'll do.""If we don't," Lumiel said, "we stop existing. Easy math."
They knelt around the bowl.
The first sip was agony — burning cold, liquid flame.Luminous screamed, clutching her throat. Daniel's vision blurred to gold.Lumiel's Red Code reacted violently — a spiral of crimson lines bursting across his arm, carving new runes into his skin.
[Warning: incompatible essence detected. System adaptation required.][Rewriting… completed. Temporary stability achieved.]
The pain faded — replaced by fire.Their hearts beat again.
The Side Effect
But it wasn't clean hunger anymore.It was need.
The blood didn't just feed them — it whispered.Voices crawled up their throats like vines. Memories they didn't own flooded their minds.
Luminous gasped, tears of blood running down her cheeks.
"I see them… people dying. Praying to gods that never came…""Ignore it," Lumiel said, holding his head. "It's not real.""It feels real," Daniel said. "Too real."
[Correction: you are consuming stored consciousness.][Simplified: you are eating souls.]
"You could've said that before we started!" Lumiel snapped.[Processing delay. Apologies.]
Daniel laughed — a broken, hollow sound.
"We're monsters now, huh?""We were born cursed," Lumiel said. "This just makes it official."
The Collapse
When they stumbled out, dawn had not come — only more of that red-gray gloom.The temple behind them began to crumble, drained of what little life it had left.The city didn't care. It was too used to things dying quietly.
They found an alley and collapsed against a wall.Lumiel closed his eyes, hearing Cartethyia's static flicker back to life.
[Analysis complete. Essence integrated. Physical condition: improving. Mental stability: degrading.]"Yeah," Lumiel muttered. "I can feel that part."[Query: do you regret survival?]"Not yet."
The voice hesitated — almost soft now.
[I… remember something. Hunger. Endless hunger.][Perhaps that's why I was made.]
"To feed?" Lumiel asked.[To end hunger.]
He laughed bitterly. "Then you've got your work cut out for you."
The Scar
When he opened his eyes, a faint red line burned across his chest — glowing with the same code that ran through his veins.Daniel and Luminous stared.
"What's that?""A warning," Lumiel said. "Or a promise."
He looked up at the endless night.Every flicker of light looked like prey.His stomach growled again — not from emptiness, but from memory.
Cartethyia's voice echoed quietly in his head:
[Designation: The Scar of Hunger established.][Survival probability… increasing.]
Lumiel smiled faintly, the corners of his mouth red.
"Good. Because I'm not dying until I taste the stars."
The wind shifted. The blood in the air thickened. Somewhere in the distance, a scream was silenced too fast.
The City of Eternal Night had new predators now.