People fear many things. The dark. Insects. Animals. The depths of the ocean. Death, hunger, sickness. But in this age, the thing people feared most could be summed up in a single word: Creatures.
Day 4
When morning came, all four of them were still sitting.
Nobody had gotten up. The light just came — shifted from night-grey to morning-grey, the forest sharpened a little. The fire had long since burned out. It wasn't cold, but there was a chill to it, the kind that settles into bone.
Eren stood up. His ribs ached — last night, the slaad's body catching him as it passed. He felt it on a deep breath.
Not broken. Just annoying.
Rowan had fallen asleep crouched, leaning on his staff. Mira was still awake, her eyes on the forest.
Dean got up, stretched, scanned the area. "It didn't leave."
"How do you know?"
"You can feel it."
Eren looked too. The forest was silent. No animals. No birds. That absence had been there since last night, but now it weighed more.
They woke Rowan. He opened his eyes, took in the situation, stood up. He didn't ask anything.
The morning passed slowly.
Mira had gone out early and come back with a few things — mushrooms, two kinds of wild herbs, a handful of small red berries.
"How sure am I about these? Moderate. Probably not poisonous."
"Probably." Rowan looked at one of the berries.
"Not certain. But you can also die from hunger."
Dean picked up a mushroom, smelled it, put it down. "These are edible. The herbs too. The berries are uncertain."
"How do you know?" Rowan asked.
"I learned it at the Academy."
"I go to the Academy."
"We took different classes."
The berries were set aside. The mushrooms and herbs were cooked over the fire, eaten with dry bread.
They went out to explore before noon, all four together this time.
The ground was softer, the trees thickening as they moved toward the center of the forest.
Then Rowan stopped. "Hold on."
He crouched. "The moisture's different here. Linear — like it's moving from one place to another."
Dean crouched beside him. "Footprint."
It was pressed in shallowly. It resembled a human foot but wasn't — four toes, the second longer than the rest.
"Slaad?"
"No. The slaad doesn't leave prints this light." Dean stood, didn't answer further, kept walking.
He knows. He's not saying.
They found him at the base of a tree.
He was from another team. His uniform was on, his weapon still in its sheath. He was lying face down.
Mira went over, crouched, checked his neck. She stood. "Dead. Tonight. Not long ago."
Eren looked at the badge. Team 8. Two small marks on the neck. Deep, clean.
"Vampire." Dean said it without turning. "The slaad's pressure is gone. The island's old residents are back."
"The slaad was keeping them down." Eren could hear his own voice, but it felt like it was coming from somewhere else. "When we cornered it—"
"The island became more dangerous for us. Yes."
Rowan's voice was unsteady. "This kid came here for an exam. He wasn't supposed to die."
"I know." Dean looked into the forest. "We're moving."
Nobody argued.
They came back to camp in the afternoon, without talking.
Rowan tried to collect water, got very little, his hands were shaking. Mira spoke that evening.
"Raphael's team was to the east. There's no way to reach them."
"No."
"That kid was probably moving alone too. So we stay together."
"We stay together."
Nothing else was said. What needed to be said had been said.
Rowan lit the fire, bigger this time. The sun went down.
Night 4
It hadn't fully gone dark yet.
There was still red on the horizon, but inside the forest, the dark had already settled. Rowan's crystal lit up before Eren had taken his watch.
Red. Steady. Silent.
"North." Rowan whispered. He was looking at the crystal, the color hadn't changed. "More than one. And they're not stopping."
Dean got to his feet. The sword came out of the sheath — one motion, silent. Mira was already up, bow in hand. Eren drew his pistol.
They came through the trees.
Five of them. They were in human form but their movement was wrong — too quiet, too even. When their feet touched the ground, not even a leaf rustled. Their eyes were red, bright, not reflecting the fire but burning with their own light.
"How many?" said Rowan.
"Five." Dean tightened his grip. "Last night there were two."
"I know."
They came forward. Without stopping, without slowing.
"Rowan!"
Rowan extended his staff. "Aqua!"
The water bolt hit the first vampire in the chest, threw it back — five meters, six. It struck a tree trunk and went down. It got up. It hadn't slowed at all, just paused. It raised its head, found the fire with its red eyes, and walked forward again.
Not silver bullets. Only slowing them.
The second one was coming straight for Eren. He fired, two shots — one caught the shoulder, the vampire turned, flinched, kept moving. The other went wide. The vampire didn't slow.
The third had targeted Mira. Mira stepped back, drew, released — the arrow went in through the chest. The vampire stumbled, one step, two steps, stopped. It lowered its head and looked at the arrow in its chest. Then it looked at Mira. It kept walking.
Dean came from the right, sword swinging, aiming for the neck. The vampire dropped to its knees. Dean came down again, hard.
One.
The fourth had peeled left, toward Rowan. Rowan put the staff between them, pushed energy through it — it was more like a burst than a spell, threw the vampire back. Rowan's breath cut off. He went to his knees, grabbed the staff, couldn't get up yet.
The fifth had stopped.
It was just standing there. Watching. The red eyes moved from Eren to Rowan, settled on Mira. It was calculating.
This one's smart.
Then it moved — fast, genuinely fast, the kind of fast that people aren't supposed to be able to move. Eren cut sideways, too late. The vampire caught his arm, spun him, slammed him into the ground. The breath left him. His head hit a rock and his vision blacked out for a moment.
Get up.
The vampire crouched over him. Aiming for the neck. Mira's arrow came in and redirected it — Eren got to his knees, grabbed the sword from the ground, moved in. The vampire turned, caught the blade one-handed. It squeezed his wrist. His bones screamed, the sword fell.
Eren hit the ground again. Hard. His ribs cried out.
Get up.
He tried to get up. His legs didn't respond. He stayed down.
The vampire leaned over him.
Dean saw it.
One moment — just one moment — his eyes went to Eren. Lying on the ground, trying to get up, the vampire closing over him.
He gripped the sword hilt with both hands.
Wait. Not yet.
He had used this ability three times at the Academy. During control exercises, with supervisors watching, to map his limits. Each time he'd spent the next day in bed. He had never opened it outside the Academy. This was what Guilliman blood did — it was suppressed, disciplined, saved for last.
He closed his eyes. One breath.
He opened them.
Green veins spread from the sword hilt — climbing his wrist, his arm, his shoulder. Visible through the skin, bright, living, lit from inside. The same thing was on his face — lines running from his temple down to his neck, green and steady. Something about Dean had changed. He was heavier, different. Eren felt it even from the ground — a weight, a pressure, not in the air but on top of everything.
Dean stepped forward.
The fifth vampire let go of Eren. It turned. The red eyes locked onto the green veins — for just a moment, one single moment, its steps slowed. Had it recognized something? Had it been afraid? He didn't know. But it had felt something. That much was clear.
Dean raised the sword — the block was ready when the vampire arrived, half a second ahead. He threw it against a tree, five meters, the trunk cracked on impact.
He turned to the second one. It tried to run. He reached it. The sword went into the arm, cut at the elbow. The vampire screamed. Dean took it to the ground, came down.
Two.
The third jumped from behind. Dean turned, caught it one-handed — the vampire was still in the air — slammed it into the ground, the sword came down.
Three.
Two vampires remained. They stood and looked. They looked at the green veins, looked at Dean. That calculating, waiting expression paused for a moment. Then they pulled back — not slowly, quickly, into the forest.
Dean didn't follow. He stopped. He was breathing, heavy, steady, measured. The green veins were fading slowly, wrist to arm, arm to shoulder, shoulder to face. Dean's face returned to normal, but the color under it had gone pale — real exhaustion, the cost of what had been kept down.
He dropped to his knees. The sword touched the ground, he held onto it, stayed there.
Two vampires left.
Rowan got to his feet. His knees were shaking. He took his staff in both hands, gripped it. His eyes fixed on the two vampires — they were standing at the edge of the tree line, not moving, waiting.
"Rowan." Mira lowered her voice. "Do you have enough left?"
Rowan didn't answer.
No. I know I don't.
But Dean was on his knees. Eren was barely getting off the ground. Mira's arrows weren't stopping them — without silver they weren't cutting through. There was no other option he could see.
He raised his staff. He closed his eyes.
The forest went quiet.
Something was gathering. In the air, above them, invisible but with weight to it — not moisture, not cloud, none of those things. Something with mass, with a location, with a target. The tree leaves moved, and there was no wind.
"What is Rowan doing?" Eren whispered.
Mira didn't answer. She was watching.
Rowan opened his eyes.
The sky shuddered.
There was no sound at first. Just the sense that something was moving up there, very high, somewhere among the stars, something was collecting. Then the sound came and covered everything — one sound that swallowed all other sounds, ringing in the ears, striking the ground.
"Cataracta de caelo cadens."
It came from the sky.
A mountain was falling — water, but it wasn't water anymore, wasn't a river, wasn't a waterfall, was something without a name. Massive, deep, a force that knew where it was going. It had no light, no color, only weight, and as that weight fell the forest made way for it.
It came down on the two vampires.
The ground gave way. Where the vampires had been standing a crater opened, trees bent, one trunk split, cracked, came down. Water scattered in every direction, cold, violent, without mercy.
Then silence.
Rowan didn't know if he could feel his legs. He sat down — not controlled, not gradually, not gracefully. He just sat.
"Is it over?" His voice barely came out.
Mira walked to the edge of the crater. She looked in. She stopped.
"Nothing here. It got away. Wounded, but it got away."
Eren was getting up, slowly, one knee first. His ribs were screaming. He got to his feet.
He saw Mira.
Why isn't she moving?
Mira was standing at the edge of the crater, not turning back. She took one step, bent down — she was looking at something on the crater floor.
Then a hand came from her left side.
It took her by the neck. One motion, hard, fingers pressing in deep enough to leave marks.
It was the wounded vampire — it had grabbed the crater's edge, climbed up, silent, unseen, escaped from Rowan's water. Its arm was badly cut, black blood seeping from it, but it was standing. It was holding Mira, lifting her — her feet left the ground, she was suspended like a weight in the air. Her eyes were open but trembling, she was breathing, barely.
"Mira!"
The vampire didn't turn. It moved toward the forest. It wasn't fast, it was wounded, but it reached the tree line before Eren. It was going in, still holding her.
"MIRA!"
The dark swallowed them both. The trees closed.
Eren hit the boundary, went in — five steps, ten steps, it was dark, there was no sound, no trail, nothing at all. He stopped.
He was breathing. Fast, uneven.
Where.
There was no answer. The forest had taken them both.
He turned back. The fire's light was visible between the trees, small, distant.
Dean was still on his knees but he had raised his eyes.
Rowan was watching from where he sat.
When Eren came back into camp, both of them understood. Mira wasn't there. Eren's face was different.
"It took her." Eren stopped. His voice was level, but the effort of keeping it level was visible. "Went into the forest. I couldn't follow."
Silence.
Rowan looked at his hands. The shaking had stopped but his palms were wet.
Dean got to his feet, using the sword for support. Slow, but he got there. "We can't go in while it's dark." His voice was normal — that flat, informational voice. Nothing else in it. "When morning comes."
Rowan said, "Vampires move in the daytime on this island too."
"They're slower in the daytime."
"'Slower' is still a vampire."
Nobody answered.
The fire burned, smaller now. The forest was silent. That weight of absence was still there — left behind by the slaad's presence, left behind by the vampires' passing, and now coming from Mira's not being here.
Sounds came.
From the south. Footsteps, more than one, fast. Hands went to weapons.
Someone came through the trees.
Yellow hair, large frame, a wolf-fur jacket over an open shirt. There was a fresh wound on his face, left cheek. The expression on his face wasn't cheerful this time, but it was familiar.
Raphael.
Two more came out behind him.
He stopped. He looked around — Dean barely standing, Rowan on the ground, Eren standing but alone. Mira wasn't there. He looked at the crater. He looked at the split tree. He looked at how small the fire was.
He understood something.
"What did we miss?" he said.
Eren looked at him for a moment.
He laughed. Involuntary, brief, but real.
"A lot.