Adam - POV
He had walked the world as a vampire for nearly a century and a half.
He met Jackson and Walter fifteen years earlier, and what began as a wary alliance slowly solidified into a coven. By vampire standards, it was young, but they were disciplined, cautious, and stable enough to survive.
This forest had been their territory from the beginning.
Intruders were not uncommon. The world was crowded with small covens and even more lone wanderers drifting from one hunting ground to another. Every year or two, someone passed through. Until now, every encounter with another coven had been handled without violence. Lone vampires, however, were rarely afforded that courtesy and were dealt with differently, often toyed with before being finished.
Three days ago, everything had shifted.
Jackson had been the first to notice the traces while patrolling.
Broken trunks. Crushed stones. Impressions in the earth that looked wrong - too heavy, too large.
Adam had been the one to give it shape.
"A newborn vampire," he said, crouching beside the splintered remains of a tree trunk, fingers brushing over the crushed bark. "Testing his strength. Or someone who lost control."
Walter crossed his arms, eyeing the damage with open scepticism. "Newborns aren't strong enough hit like that."
"Some are," Adam replied evenly. "If they're angry enough."
Jackson, who had been studying the ground a few steps away, finally straightened. "The tracks look like they belong to an animal," he said slowly, his gaze moving between the broken stones and deep impressions in the soil. "Or at least something similar. But it's not a wolf - and it's definitely not a bear."
Walter frowned. "You're saying it's not a vampire?"
Jackson shook his head. "I'm saying it doesn't move like one."
Adam remained silent for a moment, eyes narrowing slightly as he reconsidered the pattern before him.
"Then whatever it is," he said at last, "it's strong."
______________________
Now, Adam and Walter were inside their base. A small wooden house hidden deep within the forest. They had already discussed relocating. Moving every few years was routine. Pressure built, patterns were noticed.
But first, they wanted to deal with the intruder.
Walter was pacing across the narrow living room, irritation radiating from him.
"Where the hell is Jackson?" he snapped. "He left four hours ago."
Adam checked the time again, though he already knew it. "He should've reported back."
"If he's feeding while we've got an unknown in our territory," Walter growled, "I swear I'll rip his arms off myself."
"It's not like him," Adam replied, though a thin line had formed between his brows.
It was just past midnight.
Vampires did not struggle with darkness, but even for them, night dulled the edges of the world slightly. Adam hesitated, but they couldn't wait any longer.
"Let's look for him," Adam said after a moment.
Walter exhaled sharply. "Finally."
They left the base.
Three hundred meters out, Adam slowed.
Something was wrong.
The forest never truly slept. At night, life merely slowed its rhythm without ever fully stopping. Small animals moved through the undergrowth. Insects hummed. Leaves whispered.
Now there was nothing.
Not peaceful silence.
Waiting silence.
Adam suddenly stiffened. "Do you hear that?"
Walter noticed Adam had stopped and scoffed. "You're imagining things."
Adam tilted his head slightly. "No. Listen."
Walter frowned - and then he felt it too.
The absence.
The forest felt hollow, like sound itself had been swallowed.
Adam swallowed and activated his gift.
He blended.
It was not invisibility, not in the crude sense. His presence thinned and diffused, dissolving into the environment until his existence became background noise. His awareness stretched outward, syncing with the forest - the soil, the roots, the air currents weaving between trees.
He scanned.
No movement.
Then something brushed against his awareness from behind.
Adam spun instantly.
Nothing stood there.
Walter raised an eyebrow. "You're paranoid."
Adam kept scanning. "I felt something."
"Yeah," Walter muttered. "Of course,"
For a brief moment, doubt crept in. Had he let the recent tension get to him? Had he allowed imagination to sharpen ordinary silence into threat?
Adam exhaled quietly and turned his attention back to Walter
Adam opened his mouth to respond-
And froze.
He turned sharply.
Walter wasn't there.
The space where he had been standing only seconds ago was empty, as if he had never been there at all.
"Walter?"
"Walter?!" he called again, louder now.
No answer came back
Cold realisation slid into his mind.
Something is very wrong.
Panic flared despite his control.
He ran.
It was the worst decision he could have made.
The predator stalking him had struggled to locate him through his gift, but the moment Adam shouted and bolted, he might as well have lit a beacon in the dark.
He did not make it a hundred meters.
The ground vanished beneath him.
No, his legs vanished.
Adam crashed forward, shock detonating through his body as he hit the dirt. He tried to roll, to orient himself, but the signals from his lower body were gone.
Then a shadow fell over him.
He looked up.
A beast towered above him, massive and overwhelming, its presence suffocating in its density. He could not fully process its shape, his mind rejected the scale of it.
Pain erupted in his chest.
He looked down and saw a single claw embedded deep inside him, one finger of the beast alone nearly half the size of his torso, piercing through bone and stone-hard flesh alike.
Then he felt heat followed by agony beyond anything he had experienced in his long existence.
His thoughts fragmented.
Like that, Adam's world ended.