Awakening

Awakening

The world smelled of ash and blood.

The first thing I felt was cold stone beneath my back, slick with moisture. My eyes snapped open to a vaulted ceiling, crumbling and ancient. Shadows clung to the corners like secrets. I sat up too fast—vision swimming—and realized three things in rapid succession:

One—I wasn't in my bed.

Two—my body felt different. Sharper. Stronger.

And three—I wasn't... me.

Panic clawed at my chest as I scrambled to my feet, fingers brushing against a wall that pulsed faintly with the hum of old power. I caught sight of myself in a cracked mirror half-buried in debris, and my breath caught in my throat.

Black coat. Icy eyes. The lean, lethal features of someone I'd only seen on screen.

David. The vampire hybrid from Underworld.

"What the—?"

A sudden roar of gunfire cut through the silence, echoing through the stone corridors outside the chamber. Screams. Growls. Something inhuman. Something familiar if you'd ever binged Hellsing past 2 AM with the lights off.

I didn't have time to think. My body moved on instinct, fluid and inhumanly fast. One second I was standing in the chamber, the next I was on the battlefield.

And there she was.

Seras Victoria, wielding her impossibly massive Harkonnen cannon like it weighed nothing. Her red eyes blazed, fangs bared as ghouls swarmed her. She looked just like the anime—but real. Bleeding, breathing, brutal.

My new instincts surged forward. I didn't question them.

I lunged into the fray, claws tearing through undead like paper. Seras blinked at me, just for a moment, confused—but not afraid.

"Who the hell are you supposed to be?" she shouted over the chaos.

"Long story," I growled, voice half-David's, half-mine. "Let's just say I'm on your side."

From above, I felt a presence descend. Not with noise, but with gravity. Like reality bending around a singularity of menace and smirking ego.

Alucard.

He appeared atop a pile of writhing corpses, smiling down at me with that grin that made lesser beings crumble.

"Well, well," he purred. "A little hybrid dog, lost in London."

My fists clenched. My blood boiled.

And I grinned back.

"Guess I'm in the wrong universe," I said, "but I'm not going down without a fight."

Alucard laughed—low, and pleased. "Good. The last few have been boring."