Chapter 95 95
AIDAN
I walk with heavy steps, the ground beneath my boots hard as polished stone. The forest fell behind hours ago, and the shirt I found in an abandoned cabin covers my chest—rough, brown, smelling of dust and time. I stole it from a broken clothesline, along with some black pants I tore so they would fit me. It isn’t much, but it hides the ashes and the tattoos that snake across my arms, marks of a life I don’t explain. Dawn paints the sky orange, and the sun warms my skin, strong, alive, a pulse I don’t understand but that holds me up. Ahead of me, the human world opens in a roar I’ve never seen before.
Tall buildings, taller than any tree, rise like giants of glass and steel, reflecting the light in a thousand colors. Cars roar down the streets, metal beasts spitting smoke, and the air is full of sounds: horns, voices, footsteps. It’s all too much. My eyes dart from side to side, trying to understand. There are people everywhere, more than I’ve ever seen in my life. Wolves in the pack were few, silent, but here there are hundreds, moving like a river—even more than at the university. They wear strange clothes, shiny, in shades that have no name for me. A man shouts something about fruit, holding red and yellow orbs at a wooden stall. Another slices raw meat, the smell drifting to me, and my stomach growls, but it isn’t hunger for blood. That I control. I’ve always controlled it.
I keep walking, lost among the market stalls. There are fruits that gleam like jewels, fabrics hanging like flags, lights flashing at every corner. A car passes so close I feel the wind on my face, and I stop, watching it disappear between the buildings. Everything is noise, color, life. I understand none of it. Among the wolves, the world was simple. With the vampires, I only saw shadows and chains for a few hours. But this… this is another planet.
A child runs past, pointing a finger at me.
“Look, Mom, he has drawings on his skin!” His voice is high, curious, and his mother drags him away, muttering something I don’t hear. I pull down the sleeves of the shirt, covering more of the tattoos, black lines I don’t want them to see. I don’t know if they matter here, but I don’t want questions.
Then the air changes. A sound cuts through the bustle, a high, metallic screech that makes everyone freeze. An alarm. Heads turn, eyes widen, and a mechanical voice booms from somewhere, cold, relentless.
“Vampire alert in the area. Vampire alert in the area. Proceed to shelters immediately.”
Vampire? My chest tightens, but the collar around my neck remains cold, hiding what I am. No one should know. No one can see me for what I am. But people don’t think. The market explodes into chaos.
A woman screams, dropping a basket of apples that roll across the ground. A man shoves another, running toward a side street. Children cry, mothers drag them, and the stalls empty in seconds. I run with them, my boots pounding the pavement, because I don’t know what else to do. Fear is a thick, sweet smell that fills the air, and my instincts wake, but I crush them. I am not that.
The streets fill with colliding bodies, shouting voices, and the ground trembles with desperate footsteps. One car crashes into another, metal crunching, and black smoke rises into the sky. I look up—the tall buildings now blurry shadows amid the panic. Then I see them arrive.
They descend from roaring black machines with flashing red lights. They wear dark, gleaming armor that covers their bodies like the shells of giant beetles. Their faces are hidden behind metal masks, slits glowing red where their eyes should be. In their hands they carry long weapons, wide barrels humming with energy, and some have curved swords hanging from their waists, blades marked with deep notches. Others hold nets that spark with blue light, like captured lightning. They are hunters. I feel it on my skin, even if I don’t know what to call them. They are not here to help. They are here to kill.
I’ve read about them, but I didn’t even know they existed.
“Close off the streets!” one shouts, his voice amplified by something in his mask. He fires into the air, a blast that shakes my ears, and people run faster, tripping, falling.
I press myself against a wall, my breathing fast, while chaos swirls around me. A little girl falls nearby, her knee bleeding, and her father scoops her up, running toward a building. A man pounds on a locked door, screaming for help, while another climbs onto a rooftop, scrambling as if his life depends on it. Smoke from burning cars mixes with dust, and the sun disappears into a gray cloud that shouldn’t be there. A woman shoves me, her purse falling, and a child stumbles into me, looking up for a second before running on. His eyes are pure terror.
“Move!” another hunter roars, and his weapon fires something that explodes against a stall, wood flying apart as if a thunderbolt split it. The alarm keeps sounding, an endless wail, and my hands shake. They don’t see me. They can’t see me. The collar hides me, but my heart beats so hard I’m afraid they’ll hear it.
I run again, carried by the human tide, my eyes jumping between the hunters’ masks and the fear-filled faces. A man shouts something about a shelter, but the crowd drags him away. A car skids, crashing into a wall, and glass bursts into the air like shining rain. The hunters advance, their boots ringing like hammers, and one passes so close I see the dried blood on his armor, a dark red that doesn’t come off. His sword has notches, as if it has cut bone, and my throat closes.
I crouch behind an overturned cart, the metal hot under my hands. People keep running—some toward buildings, others toward alleys—and the screams blend with the shriek of the alarms. Fear is alive, palpable, a monster breathing in every corner. I don’t understand this. Minutes ago everything was light and color, and now it’s smoke and death.
“I don’t belong here,” I whisper, my voice lost in the chaos. The tall buildings stand like silent witnesses, and the alarms scream while smoke covers everything. I’m alone, running without direction, not knowing what to do.
“To the shelters! To the shelters!”
But what shelters?
“To the shelters!”
Someone grabs my hand. A woman. She’s hurt.
“Help, please!” Her arm is bleeding, bleeding so much my throat goes dry. I look at the blood that won’t stop, and seconds later I react—I tear her blouse and press it to the wound, lifting her into my arms. “That way—” she tells me, pointing toward where the shelter is.