The girl and the hamster

The moment the boulder split, he struck.

A shadow detached from the darkness, moving faster than a human eye could follow.

A blur. A force. A death sentence.

Ariel barely registered the movement before Violet screamed.

Elias had already reached her.

His grip snapped around Violet's wrist like a vice, jerking her toward him with unnatural strength. She barely had time to react before his other hand—clawed, inhuman—ripped toward her throat.

Violet twisted, instinct kicking in. Too slow.

Ariel's gun was in her hand before she even realized she had drawn it. Bang!

The gunshot cracked through the air, echoing off the cave walls.

But Elias moved before the bullet hit him.

He tilted his head—just slightly—but it was enough. The bullet whizzed past, missing by a hair's breadth.

Then his eyes locked onto Ariel.

Not Violet. Not the others. Her.

A split second. A moment of recognition.

Then he vanished.

One second he was there. The next, he wasn't.

Ariel's instincts screamed. Behind!

She twisted, ducking just in time as something cold and sharp slashed through the air where her throat had been.

Elias' claws.

He's fast.

Faster than a feral. Faster than a vampire. Too fast.

She rolled back, her heart hammering, barely avoiding his next strike. The moment her boots hit the ground, she fired again—two shots, center mass.

Bang! Bang!

Elias twisted his body unnaturally, avoiding one shot, but the second one—

Hit.

A spray of dark, inky blood splattered onto the stone floor.

But Elias didn't stop.

No hesitation. No pain. No humanity.

He lunged again, closing the distance between them in a blink.

Ariel barely had time to react before his hand—cold, clawed, monstrous—slammed into her shoulder.

She felt herself fly backward, her back smashing against the cave wall with bone-rattling force.

Pain exploded through her body.

The gun slipped from her fingers.

Damn it.

Elias stalked toward her, his movements fluid, predatory. His head tilted slightly, studying her.

He didn't speak. Didn't make a sound. Just watched.

Like a hunter evaluating its prey.

Then he moved for the kill.

Ariel gritted her teeth. Not today.

Her hand shot out—grabbing a fistful of dirt and loose rock.

The moment he stepped closer, she threw it into his face.

A distraction. A flicker of hesitation. Just enough.

She used that split second to slam her knee into his ribs—once, twice—before grabbing her knife and slashing upward.

The blade bit into his side.

Not deep, but deep enough.

Elias staggered back, his movement almost… surprised.

Like he wasn't used to being hurt.

Ariel didn't hesitate. She rolled to her feet, grabbed her pistol, and—

Something massive crashed into Elias from the side.

A blur of movement. Rolf.

He tackled Elias with a snarl, his enhanced strength finally coming into play.

They collided hard, skidding across the cave floor, exchanging a flurry of inhumanly fast blows.

Elias lashed out, his claws raking across Rolf's chest, drawing blood.

Rolf grunted but didn't let go.

His fist slammed into Elias' jaw with a sickening crack.

Elias didn't even flinch.

Instead, he twisted—slipping out of Rolf's grip like liquid shadow.

Before anyone could react, he vanished into the darkness.

The cave fell silent.

Only the sound of heavy breathing remained.

Ariel forced herself to stand, ignoring the pain in her shoulder. Her gun was still trained on the shadows.

But he was gone.

For now.

In a cave not far from the fallen shelter, he stopped to take a rest. He had targeted Violet because she was the weakest of them. Unfortunately, he had been unable to keep his hands on her. Had she fallen to her hands, he could have blackmailed the rest to do his bidding. 

As he tended to his wounds, he saw them recover at an inhuman speed. Likewise, the need to feed increased tenfold. He took out a cocked vial containing dark red content and dumped itsxontent all in his mouth in one go.

His wounds healed in an instant. 

"Who was that girl?" Elias knew it before he even attacked her. She was special. So was the rodent in her arms. It had sensed her long ago. 

The first time he died, he was ten.

The boy's name was Elias back then—just Elias. No titles, no myths. Just a boy with sun-browned skin and scrawny limbs, running through the dusty streets with his older brother, laughing as they stole apples from the market stalls.

That was before the vampires came.

Before the world turned into something twisted and wrong.

Before the hunger.

Elias had clung to his brother that night, their backs pressed against the cold stone of an alley wall as they listened to the screams. They had seen their parents fall, seen their blood stain the streets. But it wasn't over. The ferals had smelled them—two frightened boys huddled in the dark.

Run, Nichole had told him. Run, Elias. Don't stop.

And Elias had run.

But the feral had been faster.

He could still remember the feel of its teeth sinking into his shoulder. The agony that tore through him as it dragged him down, his small body thrashing beneath its weight. The suffocating scent of blood and rot and death.

Then—blackness.

That should have been the end.

But he woke up.

Not dead. Not fully alive. Something else.

The hunger came first. A monstrous, terrible hunger. It gnawed at his insides, clawed at his throat, demanded blood. He had tried to resist it. Had forced himself to eat normal food. But the hunger grew worse, twisting his insides, breaking him.

Then, one night, he had given in.

The first kill had been messy. A beggar who never saw him coming. Elias had torn him open, sinking his teeth into flesh, drinking deep—and the pain stopped.

But the hunger never did.

It became a part of him. It whispered in his ears, coiling through his veins like a second soul. The more he fed, the stronger he became. Faster. Sharper. More than human.

And yet—he wasn't like the others.

The ferals were mindless. He wasn't.

The vampires were calculating. He wasn't that, either.

He was something in between.

And he wasn't alone.

The others found him—The Broken Ones, they called themselves. Ferals who had somehow retained fragments of their minds. Not enough to pass as human, but enough to hate the vampires who had made them.

They had taken him in. Trained him. Molded him.

Elias learned how to hunt without being seen. How to track prey without them ever realizing they were being watched. How to kill swiftly and silently.

And he learned the truth.

The vampires had let the outbreak happen. They had turned entire cities into feeding grounds, treating humans as nothing more than cattle. But they hadn't just created ferals—they had created mistakes.

Like him.

So Elias made a decision.

He would kill them all. Every last one.

Not just the vampires.

The humans who worked with them.

The resistance that fought them, too.

Because in the end, there was no difference. They were all just fighting for control. None of them were fighting for the broken ones.

And now—

There was a girl in this cave.

She had a name. Ariel.

She had Leo's face.

Leo's eyes.

And the hamster? He had seen it kill. It wasn't normal. She wasn't normal.

Elias had watched them from the shadows, unseen, patient. Waiting for the right moment.

The moment had come.

He intended to take Violet hostage to gain the upper hand. But that girl named Ariel... She was way too fast.