Bloody Night
The bells rang shrill — and then chaos broke loose.
A shadow darted across the rooftops, silent and fast. In the next instant someone screamed — a scream that was abruptly cut short. Dogs howled, horses whinnied in panic, doors slammed shut.
Marion stumbled back, his heart racing. Shapes emerged from the darkness everywhere. Slender, elegant figures with eyes glowing red like embers.
Vampires.
One leapt from a roof and tore a man to the ground, his throat splitting open in a single motion. Blood sprayed across the cobblestones; the body twitched once and went still.
A woman ran, but a second vampire seized her from behind and bit into her neck, her scream choking into a wet gasp. Her body collapsed lifeless into the dust.
Marion ran, tripping over a bucket, hearing the crack of bones behind him. He saw children crying as they fled from a hut — only to be snatched by shadows and dragged away.
The lanes burned. Flames licked at the straw roofs, the crackling mixing with the whimpering of the dying.
"Alion, help us!" someone cried.
But the God of Light remained silent.
Marion burst into his parents' house, gasping, "Mother! Father!"
They stood in the main room, faces pale and rigid. His father gripped a pitchfork, his mother held a knife that trembled in her fingers.
"To the cellar," his father rasped. "Quick!"
Marion obeyed, stumbling down the steps. The door creaked, then slammed shut above him.
Darkness. Only his own breathing, the frantic pounding of his heart. From above came sounds: screams, crashing, splintering wood.
Then silence.
He crouched down, pressing his hands over his ears.
Don't move. Don't breathe.
But the silence did not last.
A crash. The door was ripped from its hinges, wood splintering. Footsteps — heavy yet graceful — came closer. A sweet scent of blood and death filled the air.
Marion pressed himself against the wall.
Please not me. Please not me.
Then something tore open the cellar hatch. A figure leaned down — a woman.
She was more beautiful than any woman Marion had ever seen. Long, blood-red hair fell over her shoulders, her eyes glowing gold in the light of the flames. Her dress was black, soaked in blood. Red gleamed at her lips.
Marion froze. Fear paralyzed him — but also something else, a shiver that crawled deep into his bones.
She smiled and pulled him out effortlessly, as if he were a toy.
"What a sweet little prey," she breathed.
His body trembled. He wanted to scream, but no sound came. He only felt her hand on his arm — cold and strong.
Outside, flames roared. Other vampires laughed, dragging their victims behind them.
A male vampire stepped closer, eyeing Marion with mockery.
"Tessa, what do you want with this vermin? He's nothing. Maybe a spark of fire-blood at best."
She smiled. "He's different. I can feel something. I want to keep him."
The other laughed scornfully. "Nonsense."
Before Marion understood, the vampire struck. A swift blow — and pain exploded in his skull.
The last thing he saw was Tessa's gaze: anger, perhaps even regret.
Then darkness.
When Marion opened his eyes, he lay once more among the ruins of his village. Smoke hung in the air, the stench of burned flesh mixing with blood. Bodies lay everywhere.
His parents.
The neighbors.
Marion staggered through the streets, tears burning in his eyes. Everything he had known was gone.
In Ruins
Dawn rose blood-red over the village. Smoke hung heavy in the lanes, the crackling of charred beams blending with the buzzing of flies. Marion stumbled through the wreckage, barefoot, clothes torn, hands empty.
Every step was a nightmare.
Bodies lay everywhere — neighbors, children, men, women. They lay in pools of blood, some with lifeless eyes fixed on the sky. The sickly-sweet stench of burned flesh burned in his throat.
His feet stepped into ash, into splinters, into things he did not want to see.
At the well, he saw her.
The girl he had secretly admired. Her jug lay shattered beside her, her hands stretched out as if she had been begging for help. Her lips were blue, her throat torn open.
Marion stopped. His chest tightened. Tears rose — but did not fall.
Instead, only emptiness.
Even her… she would never have known me. Never known my name.
His heart clenched — not from love, but from bitterness.
He staggered on.
He saw a man lying face down in the dirt, the pitchfork still clutched in his hands, as if he had fought.
A woman beside him, her apron soaked in blood.
Marion sank to his knees.
No scream came. No flood of tears. Only a leaden weight pulling him downward.
Then he remembered the night. The blood. The screams.
And her.
Tessa.
The red-haired vampire whose eyes had glowed in the darkness. Who had found him, touched him, claimed him. The look in her eyes when the other vampire had killed him — full of anger, almost… wounded.
Why? Why had she looked at him as if he were more than dirt?
Marion clenched his fists. He could still smell her scent, see her face before him. So beautiful. So cruel.
And within him, despite everything, something twisted began to grow:
Longing.
Hours passed, and the village was nothing but a field of corpses. No one came. No one helped. Everything was erased as if it had never existed.
Marion sat on the ruins of his home, staring into the embers. His body was whole — but inside him, everything was shattered.
Why am I alive? Why did I come back?
No answer came. Only the memory of pain, death, and the flames that had devoured everything.
At last he rose, staggering through the ash. The sun stood high, yet the village remained dark beneath smoke and shadow.
At the edge of a lane he found a shard of mirror glass, half-charred. He picked it up and looked inside.
A stranger stared back. Pale. Eyes reddened.
But alive.
"I died," he whispered. "And yet… I'm still standing."
He let the glass fall.
It shattered —
like the village.
Like his old life.
Sparks in the Dust
He stood among the charred beams of the house that had once been his home. The smell of smoke still hung in the air, mixed with the sickly sweetness of blood. Everywhere he looked, the dead lay scattered.
And yet his heart was beating.
Why me?
The question drilled into him again and again. He had seen Tessa drag him from the cellar. He had felt the blow that shattered his skull. He had died — and then awakened again.
And in the midst of that chaos, another voice kept echoing in his mind: the male vampire's.
"Maybe a spark of fire-blood."
Fire.
The word would not let him go.
If it was true… if he truly carried magic within him, then he was not just a nobody. Then he could become something. Something special.
He stood and searched for a piece of charred wood from the hearth. He held it in his hands, staring at it with fierce concentration.
"Burn," he muttered. "Burn!"
Nothing. Just a black splinter scratching against his palm.
Marion ground his teeth and closed his eyes.
It has to work. They said it. I heard it. A spark.
He focused, feeling his breath, feeling the heat of the sun against his skin. He wanted to gather it, to ignite it. His fingers grew hot, sweat beaded on his forehead.
For a moment he thought he felt something — a flicker, a twitch. His eyes flew open.
And indeed — a spark flared between his fingers.
So tiny that it vanished at once.
But it had been there.
Marion's chest rose and fell rapidly. A trembling smile flickered across his face — desperate, fragile, yet full of hope.
"I can do it," he whispered. "I really can."
He tried again. And again. For hours, until his hands went numb. Sometimes a small spark flickered, sometimes nothing at all. Sometimes he felt only dull heat, sometimes nothing. But the memory of that single flash of light would not leave him.
When the sun set, he sat in the dust, his fingers blackened with soot, his throat dry. The sky turned red, as if the village were burning once more.
Marion looked around. Everything he had known was erased. His parents. The girl from the well. Even the houses were nothing but shadows.
But he was still here.
And he carried a spark of fire magic.
Slowly he rose, wiping the soot from his hands onto his trousers. His gaze turned westward, toward the road that led into the kingdom.
He remembered the words of travelers who had once passed through the village — tales of cities, of an academy where one could learn the art of magic.
If he stayed, he would fade into insignificance here. No one would ever speak his name. But if he left… perhaps he could learn what slumbered inside him. Perhaps he could become something.
Perhaps he might even see Tessa again one day.
The thought made him tremble — not only with fear.
"I will find out," he murmured into the silence. "What I am. And why I still live."
With the first stars appearing in the sky, he gathered the few coins he had found in the ruins, wrapped himself in a coat from his father's cupboard, and stepped onto the road.
The shadows behind him were black.
The future ahead of him was dark.
But somewhere within it, a tiny spark glowed.