"Fuck this," he muttered, rubbing his bloodshot eyes. The clock on the register read 2:47 AM. Three more hours until his shift ended, then straight to his 8 AM lecture. If he was lucky, he'd catch maybe two hours of sleep.
The fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like dying insects, their sickly glow across the aisles of Quickmart.
Kael Vyrnheart slumped against the counter, his economics textbook spread open but forgotten.
The numbers blurred together—not from studying, but from the exhaustion that came with working twelve-hour shifts just to scrape together rent money.
The store was dead quiet except for the hum of the slushie machine and the occasional car passing outside.
Kael had been working nights at this shithole for eight months now, and he could count on one hand the number of customers who came in after 2 AM.
Usually just crackheads looking for energy drinks or college kids like himself grabbing late-night munchies.
His phone buzzed. A text from his roommate Marcus: Yo bro, party at Delta house tonight. You coming?
Kael snorted. Yeah, right. Like he could afford to party when his bank account was sitting at a whopping $23.47.
He typed back: Can't. Working. Some of us have bills.
The bell above the door chimed, making him look up. Nobody there. Must be the wind—the door had been acting up for weeks, and Mr. Peterson was too cheap to fix it.
"Hello?" Kael called out, more out of boredom than actual concern. Silence.
He went back to pretending to study, but something felt... off. The air had gotten colder, and there was this weird smell—like copper pennies mixed with rotting meat.
Probably just the dumpster out back. City had been late picking up trash again.
Twenty minutes crawled by. Kael's eyelids were getting heavy when he heard it—a soft scraping sound coming from the back of the store. Like fingernails on concrete.
"We're closed!" he shouted, grabbing the baseball bat Peterson kept under the register. His heart was hammering now. "Store's fucking closed!"
The scraping stopped.
Kael waited, bat raised, but nothing happened. After what felt like forever, he slowly made his way toward the sound.
Past the chip aisle, past the refrigerated section, toward the back door that led to the alley.
The door was slightly ajar.
"What the hell?" He always locked that door. Always. It was the first thing Peterson had drilled into him—keep the back door locked at night.
Tweakers loved to slip in through the back and boost whatever they could carry.
Kael pushed the door open with the bat and stepped into the alley. The smell hit him full force now—that copper-and-rot stench that made his eyes water.
The single security light flickered weakly, shadows dancing between the dumpsters.
"Whoever's back here, I'm calling the cops!" His voice cracked on the last word. Real tough guy.
Something moved behind the far dumpster. A shadow, but... wrong somehow. Too tall, too fluid. Like it was sliding across the ground instead of walking.
"I see you, asshole!" Kael's grip tightened on the bat. "Come out where I can see you!"
The shadow laughed. Actually fucking laughed. The sound was like broken glass scraping against concrete, and it made every hair on Kael's body stand up.
"Bold words from such a small meal," the thing said, and its voice was all wrong—too deep, too layered, like multiple people speaking at once.
That's when Kael saw the eyes. Red as fresh blood, floating in the darkness about eight feet off the ground. Way too high to be human.
"Oh shit. Oh fuck. Oh shit oh fuck oh—"
The thing moved faster than anything had a right to move. One second it was by the dumpster, the next it was right in front of him.
Kael swung the bat with everything he had, felt it connect with something solid, heard the satisfying crack of wood on bone.
The bat exploded into splinters.
"Cute," the creature said, and Kael could see it now in the flickering light. Humanoid but wrong—too tall, too thin, with skin like wet leather and teeth like broken bottles. Its fingers ended in claws that looked sharp enough to cut through steel.
"What... what the fuck are you?" Kael stumbled backward, tripping over a garbage bag.
"Hungry," it replied, lunging forward.
Kael rolled to the side just as those claws raked the concrete where his head had been, sending up sparks.
He scrambled to his feet and ran for the back door, but the thing was already there, blocking his path.
"Please," Kael gasped, "please, I don't want to die. I don't want to fucking die!"
"Neither do I," the creature said, almost conversationally. "That's why I eat."
It moved again, and this time Kael wasn't fast enough. Pain exploded across his chest as the claws tore through his Quickmart uniform and into the flesh beneath.
He screamed and fell backward, warm blood soaking through his shirt.
"Don't worry," the thing said, crouching over him. "I'll make it quick. Mostly."
Kael tried to crawl away, leaving a trail of blood on the dirty concrete. His vision was getting fuzzy around the edges, and his chest felt like it was on fire.
This couldn't be happening. This shit didn't happen in real life. Monsters weren't real.
But the pain was real. The blood pooling under him was real. The creature's claws digging into his shoulders, pinning him down, were definitely fucking real.
"Any last words?" it asked, almost politely.
"Go... go fuck yourself," Kael wheezed.
The creature laughed again. "I like you, boy. Shame I have to eat you."
It raised one clawed hand, and Kael could see his own blood dripping from the tips. He closed his eyes and waited for the end.
But instead of pain, there was... light? Even through his closed eyelids, he could see it—a soft blue glow that seemed to push back against the darkness.
"What?" The creature's voice had changed, confusion replacing the predatory confidence. "What is this?"
Kael opened his eyes and nearly passed out from shock. There, floating in the air between him and the monster, was what looked like a computer screen. Translucent blue text scrolled across it:
BLOOD SYSTEM BETA VERSION 0.7 - INITIALIZING...
SCANNING HOST... SCAN COMPLETE
COMPATIBILITY: 99.7%
CRITICAL INJURY DETECTED
EMERGENCY PROTOCOL ACTIVATED
WELCOME, NEW USER
The creature hissed and swiped at the screen, but its claws passed right through it. "Impossible. The old systems were destroyed. They were all destroyed!"
BINDING PROCESS INITIATED
WARNING: HOST VITALS CRITICAL
INITIATING EMERGENCY HEALING SEQUENCE
ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETION: 47 SECONDS
Fire raced through Kael's veins—not the fire of pain, but something else. Something that felt like liquid lightning.
His wounds began to close, the torn flesh knitting itself back together with wet, sucking sounds.
"No!" the creature shrieked, raising both hands to strike. "I won't let it bond! I won't—"
DEFENSIVE PROTOCOLS ONLINE
THREAT DETECTED
ELIMINATION AUTHORIZED
The blue screen pulsed once, and the creature simply... exploded. One second it was there, the next it was just chunks of wet meat scattered across the alley walls.
Kael stared at the carnage, then at the floating screen, then at his chest where the claw marks had been. Clean, unmarked skin showed through the tears in his shirt.
"What the fuck?" he whispered.
BINDING COMPLETE
WELCOME TO THE BLOOD SYSTEM, USER KAEL VYRNHEART
TUTORIAL MODE ACTIVATED
WARNING: ADDITIONAL THREATS DETECTED IN VICINITY
ESTIMATED ARRIVAL TIME: 3 MINUTES, 17 SECONDS
RECOMMENDATION: VACATE AREA IMMEDIATELY
The blue screen flickered and began to fade, but not before one final message appeared:
GOOD LUCK. YOU'RE GOING TO NEED IT.
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