And something did happen.
Draven's eyes snapped open.
He released her instantly, letting her body slump forward onto the cobblestone. Her weight hit the ground with a dull, lifeless sound.
His hand flew to his head.
Pain.
Blinding.
Violent.
It felt as though his skull were splitting apart from the inside, as if something vast and foreign were forcing itself into a space too small to contain it. His vision fractured. The alley twisted.
His teeth clenched so tightly the faint grind of enamel echoed in the narrow passage.
He refused to scream.
But the force of it bent him forward at the waist.
Memories flooded in.
Not images.
Not flashes.
An entire life.
He saw through unfamiliar eyes.
Smaller hands.
Softer skin.
A little girl running barefoot through tall fields of wheat beneath a golden summer sun. The stalks brushed against her arms as she laughed—clear, bright, carefree.
A woman's voice calling her name from a distance.
Warmth.
A modest home with yellow curtains swaying in the breeze.
A father kneeling behind her, gently teaching her how to braid her hair, his large hands clumsy but patient.
The smell of bread baking in a clay oven.
Flour on her cheeks.
The first time she left the village for the nearby town.
Fear tangled with excitement.
Wide eyes taking in cobblestone streets and market stalls.
Dreams—small, fragile dreams—of becoming something more than what life had quietly arranged for her.
Faces.
Names.
Moments.
First love beneath lantern light.
First heartbreak in the rain.
The dull, creeping ache of routine as years folded into each other.
Responsibilities.
Regrets.
Unspoken apologies.
Time compressed into seconds.
It was like drowning in someone else's existence.
Every joy.
Every shame.
Every silent humiliation.
Every fleeting happiness.
All of it crashed into him at once.
Draven dropped to one knee.
His fingers dug into the side of his head hard enough to tear skin—though it healed instantly beneath his grip.
The pain intensified.
As if his mind were being stretched—forced to expand—to accommodate what did not belong to it.
He felt the foreign consciousness unraveling.
Not possessing him.
Not overriding him.
Breaking apart.
Dissolving.
Becoming fragments of thought.
Becoming knowledge.
Integrating.
He saw the night she was attacked.
Walking home late, clutching a small parcel of bread.
The sound of footsteps behind her.
A shadow stretching too long across the ground.
A hand clamping over her mouth.
Teeth tearing into her shoulder.
Terror.
Helplessness.
The metallic scent of her own blood.
Then—
Darkness.
The flood slowed at last.
The crushing pressure receded gradually, like a storm withdrawing from shore.
Draven remained crouched there, breathing slow and controlled, forcing his body into stillness.
The alley returned to focus.
The cobblestones.
The corpse.
The faint drip of blood.
His vision steadied.
The pain dulled into a distant throb.
Silence reclaimed the night.
He lowered his hand from his head.
"…So that's it."
His voice was quieter now.
More certain.
He turned his gaze toward the woman lying beside him.
Still alive.
Barely.
But alive.
He knew her name.
He knew her childhood.
Her parents.
Her village.
Her fears.
Her unfulfilled dreams of opening a small bakery in town.
He had lived them in moments.
"It works," he murmured.
But only under specific conditions.
Blood taken from the head.
Close enough to the source.
The subject alive.
Human.
He studied her thoughtfully.
"You're fortunate."
Because the experiment—
Had succeeded.
Draven looked down at her unmoving form.
He parted his lips.
And called her name.
The correct one.
The softer version—used only by family when affection outweighed formality.
Her eyelids twitched faintly.
Recognition stirring somewhere deep within fading consciousness.
At that same moment—
Another voice cut through the alley.
"Mom—!"
Small.
Cracked.
Shaking.
Draven's head turned slowly.
At the mouth of the alley stood a boy.
Yellow hair.
Yellow eyes.
No older than eight.
His face was twisted in raw horror. His small frame trembled so violently it looked as though his bones might give out beneath him. Tears streamed down his cheeks as he took in the scene—the blood pooling on stone, the headless corpse sprawled grotesquely nearby, the pale figure crouched over his mother.
"M… mom…" he whispered again, his voice breaking completely.
Draven stared at him.
Recognition came instantly.
Not from sight.
From memory.
The woman's memory.
Her son.
He spoke the boy's name calmly.
Accurately.
The one she used when waking him gently in the mornings.
The boy froze.
His pupils shrank to pinpoints.
Hearing his own name spoken by the blood-covered stranger shattered whatever fragile composure remained within him.
A dark stain spread down his trousers.
He did not notice.
He simply stared, trembling uncontrollably.
Draven slowly raised a finger to his lips.
A faint smear of blood lingered at the corner of his mouth.
He smiled.
Subtle.
Unsettling.
"Shhh."
His red eyes glowed softly in the dim alley light.
"Be quiet now."
"Rowan."
He said it again—softly.
"Rowan."
He took a single step forward.
That was enough.
Rowan's breath hitched violently. His small body locked in place, overwhelmed beyond what a child's mind could endure. The blood. The corpse. The glowing eyes. The stranger who knew his name.
His knees buckled.
He collapsed onto the cobblestone, sobbing, unable even to crawl.
And in that instant—
Draven vanished.
The alley was empty of him.
Only the wounded woman, the headless corpse, and the trembling child remained beneath the indifferent night sky.
Across the rooftops, Draven moved at high speed, cloak snapping sharply behind him as he cleared building after building in near silence.
His thoughts were sharp now.
Focused.
Confirmed.
By drinking blood from the head—while the subject remained alive—he could obtain their memories.
Not fragments.
Not impressions.
Everything.
Complete human lives, compressed into knowledge.
The ghoul's blood had yielded nothing.
No memories.
No consciousness to absorb.
So the condition required humanity.
And proximity to the brain.
His jaw tightened faintly.
The taste still lingered.
Foul.
Rotten.
Like iron steeped in decay.
"Still tastes like shit," he muttered under his breath.
There was no pleasure in it.
No hunger satisfied.
Only information gained.
Useful.
Efficient.
Dangerous.
He accelerated, leaping a wider gap between rooftops.
They needed to leave.
Immediately.
The longer they remained in this town, the greater the risk. The female knight might already be investigating the disturbance. And now there was a dead ghoul in an alley—
And a child who had witnessed something that would haunt him for the rest of his life.
Draven's red eyes hardened.
The sun had long since set.
There was nothing binding them here anymore.
He cleared one final rooftop and descended toward the house, landing without sound.
His thoughts were decisive.
Cold.
*We leave now.*