*Two days later.*
Santiago awoke with a jolt—his eyes snapping open to a dim, cold room filled with shadows and silence.
He lay on a metal table, stiff and trembling. His breath came in short, sharp gasps. Everything felt wrong.
His skin prickled. His mouth ached. And his stomach… it howled with a deep, gnawing hunger that burned like fire.
Then he saw them.
Around him—bodies.
Small, still, lifeless.
Children.
At least twenty of them, sprawled across the cold floor. Their faces pale. Their eyes empty.
Santiago gagged, pushing himself upright—only to freeze.
Two children in the far corner were still alive.
They were huddled together, eyes wide, breathing shallow.
One of them looked at him.
And Santiago saw it.
The fear.
Not confusion. Not curiosity.
Fear.
He stumbled backward off the table, his feet tangling in wires, and crashed to the floor with a sharp thud.
He gasped for breath, clutching his chest, heart pounding—
—and then he saw it.
The mirror.
Cracked and grimy, mounted to the wall.
He crawled toward it, drawn to it by instinct, by dread.
And when he looked…
He screamed.
A raw, broken sound that echoed through the chamber like a dying animal.
His face—his skin—was pale, almost ghostly.
His hair, once dark, was now pure white. Snow-white.
And his eyes… were wrong.
Too sharp. Too bright. Too hungry.
Then he opened his mouth.
And saw them.
Fangs.
Long. Curved. Gleaming in the low light.
"No… no, no, no…" he whispered, shaking his head. "What did they do to me?"
He scrambled to his feet, swaying with dizziness. His mouth burned. His throat was on fire.
Hunger.
It clawed at his insides like a beast.
He stumbled to a table, found a cluster of reddish berries in a rusted bowl, and stuffed one into his mouth.
It crumbled like ash on his tongue.He spat it out, gagging. Then he heard it.
A quiet sound behind him.
Slurping.
He turned.
One of the two living children—barely more than a boy—was crouched over one of the dead bodies.
Drinking.
Blood smeared his lips, his chin, his hands.
Santiago reeled back, horrified."No… no—what are you doing?!"But the boy only looked up, eyes hollow. He didn't speak.
He just drank.
Santiago's stomach twisted. His mouth ached. His fangs throbbed.
He shook his head. "I won't. I won't!"
He tried to look away. To run.
But the hunger…
It was too strong.
And the smell of blood—fresh, still warm—was too close.
Santiago fell to his knees.
He crawled.
Hands trembling.
And then—he gave in.
He pressed his mouth to the nearest body.
And drank.The taste flooded him. Rich. Warm. Electric.His eyes rolled back. His body stopped shaking.The fire in his veins began to cool.And in that moment—he wasn't Santiago Jaskulski anymore.
Not completely.
Something else had awakened inside him.
Something old.And hungry.