Chapter 3 – Awakened in Blood
Michael remained still, crouched beside the wall, his back pressed against damp stone as the cold air settled over his skin like dust. His body no longer shook the way it had moments before, but a strange numbness lingered—quiet, heavy, and hollow. The silence wasn't hostile, just full, like the room itself was holding its breath. He looked down at his hands again, pale and long-fingered, with skin that didn't match the man he remembered being. They were the hands of someone younger. Someone untouched by needles, scars, or years of medical decay. He turned his palm slowly, studying the way the faint light caught along the skin, how the veins beneath it shimmered with a dull red glow. Alive, he thought. Not just animated. Not stitched back together. This body pulsed with something he hadn't felt in years—vitality.
The feeling unsettled him. He should've felt joy, or disbelief, or even fear. But what filled him instead was a calm, eerie acceptance. He hadn't asked for this. Hadn't fought for it. He'd simply… opened his eyes and been. No fanfare. No miracle. Just blood in his mouth and bodies at his feet. He dragged his fingers down his arm, half expecting to feel seams, stitches, something that explained what had happened to him. But the skin was smooth. Seamless. Whole. His thoughts, too, felt quieter now—less chaotic, more precise. Whatever had fused with him… it hadn't just kept him alive. It had redefined him.
He inhaled slowly, not to calm himself, but to test if it still felt real. The air entered his lungs, heavy with iron and mildew, and he held it there for a moment, feeling the weight of it sit in his chest. So I'm breathing, he thought. That should mean something. Should feel like victory. But it didn't. Not yet. Not until he understood why. His eyes drifted toward the bloodstains across the room, tracking the old trails near the shattered bodies. Some dried, some still fresh. His own blood had moved earlier—he remembered that now. Not in fear. In response. That thought alone made something cold shift in his spine.
"What… am I?" The words slipped from his lips, half-whisper, half-prayer. He wasn't expecting an answer. But the moment he asked, something inside him stirred. Not in his mind. Not in his heart. In his blood. A whisper threaded itself through the back of his skull, not words but impressions—glimpses of something ancient and raw. System classification failed… Species: Bloodbound. Status: Unstable integration… monitoring. Then silence again, as if speaking had cost it something. Michael blinked, still crouched, heart steady but hands tightening. That wasn't the voice from before. It wasn't the Universal System. This one felt more… familiar.
The name echoed through him again: Bloodbound. It didn't mean anything—shouldn't mean anything—but it settled deep, as if it belonged. He let the word spin around in his chest, let it anchor him to this moment. No screen appeared. No status windows. No explanations. Just that whisper. That truth. His blood felt warm beneath the skin, like it was waiting. Reacting not to commands—but to intention. Whatever the system had become… it was listening now. And Michael wasn't sure if that made him stronger—or something far more dangerous.
Something shifted beneath his skin. Not pain. Not heat. Just… motion. A pulse deep in his veins, slower than a heartbeat, heavier than blood. Michael froze. The sensation coiled up his spine, humming behind his eyes. He hadn't moved. Hadn't touched anything. But the blood already inside him—the first that had entered him in this place—reacted. As if stirred by the weight of his thoughts. His mind had wandered to the question: what am I? But the blood answered with something else entirely—a memory not his own.
A blur of stone. A ring of pale, cruel faces. "Filth." "Curse-blood." "Let the pit take him." A boy knelt on cracked stone, arms wrapped around himself, too weak to stand. Voices snarled from above. One hand pushed. The others laughed. He fell—limbs flailing, mouth open, no sound. The impact cracked through the dark. Pain bloomed in his back. Then blood. And then… silence.
Michael's breath caught as the vision snapped away, leaving his limbs trembling and his chest tight. The echo had been brief—blurry, broken—but the emotions were sharp. Panic. Shame. Helplessness. He pressed a hand to his ribs and felt phantom pain where the boy had landed. It wasn't his injury, but it might as well have been. The blood hadn't just remembered the moment—it had shared it. He sat in stunned silence, heart thudding against something that wasn't quite guilt. The boy hadn't screamed. He had already given up. That final, hollow stillness still clung to the memory.
He didn't know how, but he was certain—that had come from the body he now wore. From the blood that had merged with his. The sorrow had lived in these veins long before Michael woke inside them. The boy hadn't been old. Maybe fifteen. Maybe less. Thrown away by his own kind. Forgotten in a pit full of corpses. And now… replaced. Michael looked down at his hands, flexing them slowly. His survival had come at the end of someone else's. He didn't ask for this body. But now that he had it—he wouldn't let that death be meaningless.
"I'm sorry," he whispered, voice low and raw. He didn't know the boy's name, and maybe no one ever had. But he'd felt his pain—his last moment. And something in that quiet memory had stayed with him. Not pity. Not debt. Just… understanding. He knew what it felt like to be forgotten. To waste away unseen. He wouldn't forget him. Wouldn't waste this chance. He looked toward the dark corridor ahead, blood humming faintly beneath his skin. "If I'm still breathing… then I'll make it matter."
Michael moved with care now—not because he was afraid, but because he felt the weight of the silence pressing down around him. The room was large, oval-shaped, its walls broken by time and neglect. Stone coffins lined the edges like forgotten offerings, half-buried under bone fragments and dust. It was colder here than it should have been. Not wind-cold. Death-cold. The kind of chill that came from still blood and broken memories. He didn't know if this place had ever been sacred, but if it had, it wasn't anymore. Every step left soft imprints in old dust and dried rot. His blood stirred faintly, brushing at the edges of the floor like tendrils searching for memory. This place remembered too much.
There were dozens of bodies, scattered like discarded toys. Some bore armor. Others looked half-devoured. None of them moved. None breathed. Michael didn't linger. Not out of disgust—but out of respect. He stepped lightly between them, scanning for anything intact. His instincts pulled him toward one far corner where a crumbled archway sagged against the wall. Buried beneath collapsed stone, something protruded—leather, tattered and darkened by age. He knelt, brushing the rubble aside to reveal a long-dead backpack, mostly intact. The leather groaned under his fingers, and when he opened it, a faint metallic scent spilled out. Not just age. Not just rot. Blood.
Inside were remnants—nothing magical, nothing dramatic. A half-torn cloth cloak. A bone-handled knife, its blade dulled by time. And beneath them, carefully wrapped in the remains of a red-stained scarf… a book. It was thick. Bound in leather the color of dried blood. The cover bore no title, only faded runes scratched in uneven lines across its face. The moment Michael touched it, his breath caught. Something inside him stirred—not violently, but like a ripple across still water. His blood responded before he did, warming faintly, just enough for him to feel it in his fingertips. The book wasn't alive. But it had been touched by something that was.
He didn't open it. Not yet. He turned it over slowly, feeling the roughness of its skin, the weight of its spine. It smelled faintly of ash and copper. He couldn't read the markings. Not yet. But something in him wanted to. Needed to. Like a whisper on the edge of thought that hadn't spoken yet. He placed it gently into the pack and slung it over one shoulder. The blood within him calmed again, like it had recognized something old—familiar. This wasn't just a journal. It was a relic. And for now, it was his.
As he rose, he looked around once more. Not with fear—but with focus. He was starting to understand. The blood didn't just serve him. It listened. Reacted. Echoed. And now, it watched. Not just for danger—but for meaning. Everything here had been forgotten by the world. But the blood remembered. And Michael… Michael was beginning to remember with it. This wasn't resurrection. It was a second chance. And he wouldn't waste it.
Michael paused near the center of the room, blood still humming faintly beneath his skin. He focused inward—not through thought, but through will. Not a demand. Just a push. What am I? The whisper returned, softer now, like a memory shaped into words. A flicker of red shimmered in the edges of his vision. Then, slowly, a screen unfolded before him—not mechanical, not glowing with magic. Just presence. Red. Organic. Raw. It wasn't a perfect window—it pulsed like a heartbeat and bled at the edges, barely held together. But the message was clear:
[STATUS SCREEN – UNSTABLE FORM DETECTED]
—Species: Anomaly – Bloodbound
—Bloodline: Unknown
—Rank: None
—Traits:
• Pain Resistance (Max)
• Mental Resistance (Max)
• Soul Resistance (High)
• Drug Resistance (Max)
—Skills:
• Blood Domain – Manipulate absorbed blood through will
• Blood Echo – Absorb instinct or memory from blood
• Blood Sense – Perceive nearby blood, presence, and emotion
—Blood Resonance: 0%
—System Core: Forked – Partial Integration
(Further data pending system stabilization…)
Michael blinked. The screen hovered for another moment before fading back into the shadows behind his eyes. The information sat like iron in his chest. Bloodbound. Not vampire. Not human. Not anything he'd ever heard of. Just a creature made of blood and will, barely stitched together by a system that had broken trying to understand him. And yet… it felt right. He didn't fully grasp what any of it meant, but the words clung to his bones like truth. His body wasn't borrowed. It was forged. His strength wouldn't come from spells or levels—but from survival, instinct, and blood.
He reached down and adjusted the strap of the backpack slung over his shoulder. The worn leather pressed tight across his chest, grounding him. Inside sat the knife, the cloak, and the blood-bound book—each a remnant of something lost. He hadn't opened the book yet, but he would. When the time was right. For now, just holding it gave him a strange sense of connection. As if it was waiting for him, just as much as he was waiting to understand it. He would keep it safe. Keep all of it safe. Because deep down, he knew: every scrap he found here had been discarded, like the body he now wore. But maybe not everything needed to be forgotten.
The hallway ahead loomed—arched, cracked, and soaked in old silence. Whatever lay beyond it, Michael would face it. Not because he was brave. Not because he was chosen. But because he wasn't supposed to be here. Because someone else had died here without a name, and something had brought Michael back in his place. He didn't know who he would become. He didn't need to know. His blood pulsed once, steady and sure. He took his first step toward the dark.
If this was life, he would make it his.
And if this was death's second chance—he wouldn't waste it.