Cover Art
The spell hit before she finished casting it.
A streak of violet light tore across the screen, cutting straight through her shield as if it wasn’t there, and her character collapsed in a soft burst of particles that scattered like ash in the wind. The world froze for half a second, then the familiar message appeared in front of her.
You have been defeated.
Erica stared at it longer than she needed to.
Not because she was upset. Not because she wanted to retry.
Just because… there wasn’t anything else to feel. Dev changes to spells and character builds ruined her character she spent 2 years of her life on.
The music kept playing. Bright, heroic, completely out of place now that her character was defeated. A few NPCs ran past where she had fallen, continuing their loops, their little lives unaffected. Somewhere nearby, another player laughed over voice chat, the sound cutting in and out like a bad connection.
She exhaled slowly and let the game fade. Deciding not to respawn.
The world dissolved around her, colors draining into soft white, then reforming into something quieter, softer, more intentional.
Sanctuary.
It was always like this when she came back.
No noise. No chaos. Just open space and clean light stretching across polished streets and gentle curves of buildings that didn’t quite follow real-world rules. Everything here felt… held together, like it had been designed not to overwhelm anyone.
For most people, Sanctuary was a break.
For her, it was just another room.
Erica took a few steps forward, her boots clicking softly against the smooth ground. She always noticed that. The sound. The way each step echoed just a little, like the world was acknowledging her existence.
She rolled her shoulders, stretched her arms, flexed her fingers one at a time.
It still hadn’t gotten old.
The fact that she could move.
Not just think about moving. Not imagine it. Actually do it.
She jumped lightly in place, just because she could. The motion felt clean, responsive, easy.
“Still works,” she muttered, mostly to herself.
A soft chime interrupted her.
A window appeared in the corner of her vision.
Incoming Room Request: Family Channel
She paused.
Then accepted.
The world shifted again, not fully dissolving this time, just folding inward until the open streets of Sanctuary became a smaller, enclosed space. A room she’d seen a thousand times.
A couch. A table. A window that showed a soft, fake skyline that never changed.
Her parents were already there.
Her mom stood first, like she always did, crossing the small space in two quick steps before pulling Erica into a hug that felt… almost real.
“Hey, baby,” she said, her voice warm and just a little too tight.
Erica hugged her back. She always did. She had learned early on that this mattered more to them than it did to her.
“Hey, Mom.”
Her dad gave a small wave from where he stood, a little more reserved, but his smile was still there.
“How’s everything going?” he asked.
Erica shrugged, stepping back from the hug. “Same. Been playing stuff. Nothing crazy.”
Her mom studied her for a second, like she was trying to read something that wasn’t there. Erica let her. She didn’t really know what she was supposed to show.
“Well,” her dad said, clearing his throat slightly, “we actually had some news today.”
That got her attention, if only because it was different.
“Yeah?”
Her mom smiled this time, and it looked more natural.
“It’s your sister.”
Erica blinked once. “What about her?”
“She graduated,” her mom said, and there was something proud and bright in her voice now. “Top of her class.”
Erica felt something shift, small and distant, like a memory she couldn’t quite grab onto.
“Oh. That’s… good,” she said, nodding once. “That’s really good.”
“And,” her dad added, stepping forward now, “she got accepted into a program overseas.”
“Japan,” her mom said quickly, like she didn’t want to lose the moment. “An AI research program. It’s… it’s a really big deal.”
Erica pictured it for a second.
Not clearly. Just pieces.
Airports. A different language. A life that moved forward.
“That’s cool,” she said. “She always liked that stuff.”
“She did,” her dad agreed, smiling. “She worked really hard.”
There was a pause after that.
Not awkward. Just… full.
Her mom reached out and brushed a strand of Erica’s hair back, a habit she’d never broken, even here.
“We just wanted to tell you,” she said softly. “We thought you’d want to know.”
Erica nodded again.
“Yeah. I’m glad you did.”
And she meant it.
In the way she could.
They talked a little longer. Small things. Updates. Her mom asked about the games she’d been playing, and Erica mentioned the wizard one without much enthusiasm. Her dad asked if she needed anything, like there was something they could send into a world that wasn’t physical.
Eventually, the conversation slowed.
It always did.
“We’ll check in again soon, okay?” her mom said.
“Yeah,” Erica replied.
“Love you,” her dad added.
“Love you too.”
The room faded.
Sanctuary returned.
The silence felt different now.
Not heavier. Just… clearer.
Erica stood where the room had been, staring out across the open city again. Avatars moved in the distance, some alone, some in groups, their conversations muted into a soft background hum.
This place was designed to feel like peace.
For most people, it worked.
For her…
It was just another part of the system. Another layer stacked on top of everything else. Another world inside the only life she had.
She started walking.
No destination. No objective marker. Just movement.
She passed a fountain that didn’t use real water, just light shaped like it. A group of players sat along the edge, laughing about something she couldn’t hear. A pair of kids ran past her, their avatars flickering slightly as their connections struggled to keep up.
Everything here was temporary.
Except her.
“Hey.”
The voice came from behind her, casual, familiar.
She turned.
Nathan stood a few steps away, hands shoved into his pockets like he had just been there the whole time.
He looked the same as always. Relaxed. Slightly out of place, like he didn’t take any of this seriously.
“You playing Dragon Sword again today?” he asked, nodding vaguely in the direction she’d come from.
Erica let out a slow breath.
“Yeah,” she said. “Tried to, at least.”
“And?”
She tilted her head, thinking about it for half a second before answering.
“It’s getting boring.”
Nathan raised an eyebrow. “Already? That game’s huge.”
“I know,” she said, shrugging. “It’s just… the same. Magic, swords, quests, save the village, kill the boss, repeat.”
She kicked lightly at the ground, watching the way the surface reacted to the motion.
“It all feels kind of fake after a while.”
Nathan studied her for a second, then let out a quiet laugh.
“Yeah,” he said. “That tends to happen.”
There was a brief pause, the kind that usually meant the conversation was about to end.
Instead, he shifted his weight slightly and looked back at her.
“So,” he said, “you ever try anything else?”
Erica glanced up at him.
“Like what?”
Nathan didn’t answer right away.
He watched her instead, like he was trying to decide something, then scratched lightly at the back of his neck.
“There is one,” he said finally. “But it’s… not really like the stuff you’ve been playing.”
Erica turned toward him a little more, curious despite herself. “That sounds promising.”
He let out a small breath through his nose. “It wasn’t even supposed to be a game, originally.”
That got her attention.
“What does that mean?”
“It’s from Yggdrasil Industries,” Nathan said, glancing off toward the skyline like he was remembering something. “Their newest full-scale simulation project. Like… way past normal VR. Full neural sync, adaptive environment modeling, dynamic AI, all of it.”
Erica folded her arms loosely. “That sounds like every ad ever.”
“Yeah,” he said, smirking faintly. “Except this one actually works.”
She didn’t respond, so he kept going.
“They weren’t building it as a game. It was supposed to be a controlled simulation. Research, training, whatever. Something about modeling collapse scenarios.” He shrugged. “But then someone decided to open it up. Add progression, players, systems. Turn it into something people would actually use.”
“And now it’s a game,” Erica said.
“Yeah,” Nathan replied. “For some reason.”
There was something in the way he said that. Not confusion. Not even judgment.
Just… acknowledgment.
Erica shifted her weight slightly, looking past him at the empty stretch of Sanctuary. “What kind of game?”
Nathan hesitated again, just for a second.
“Name’s Helsings Online.”
She waited.
“And?” she asked.
“It’s…” He paused, like he was trying to find a version of the truth that didn’t sound like a warning. “It’s a vampire world. Post-collapse. Humans didn’t win.”
Erica’s brow lifted slightly. “So horror.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But not the cheap kind. It’s not scripted scares and jump moments. It’s… consistent. Everything behaves like it should. People included.”
She tilted her head. “People?”
“Players. NPCs. Doesn’t matter. It all runs the same way.” He glanced back at her. “When I play it, it feels like real life.”
That line hung there.
Erica didn’t react right away.
She had heard that before. A lot.
People always said that.
It feels just like real life.
It’s basically real.
You forget you’re even in a game.
She looked down at her hands, flexing her fingers slowly. Watching how cleanly they responded. How easily they moved.
Some games felt sharper than others. More detailed. More responsive. The system she was using, the incubation pod, pushed things further than most people ever experienced.
There were moments, sometimes, where everything lined up just right. Movement, sensation, timing.
Close enough that she understood what they meant.
But she also knew something they didn’t.
They were comparing it to something.
She wasn’t.
For her, this was all there was.
So when they said real life, it always sounded… incomplete.
Nathan shifted slightly, pulling her attention back.
“I never brought it up before,” he said. “You seemed pretty into your whole magic thing.”
Erica huffed quietly. “Was. Past tense.”
“And,” he added, a little more carefully now, “considering you’re in an incubation pod…”
She glanced at him.
“It might be a bit much.”
There it was.
Not judgment. Not pity.
Just concern.
Erica looked away again, letting her gaze drift across Sanctuary. The clean lines, the soft light, the calm that never changed.
She thought about Dragon Sword. About the spells and quests and perfectly timed encounters.
About how safe it all felt.
About how empty it felt.
Then she looked back at him.
“What’s the catch?” she asked.
Nathan shrugged. “No real rules. Players do what they want. System doesn’t step in much. It’s rated for a reason.”
She considered that.
Violence didn’t bother her. It never had. Not in the way it seemed to affect other people. Maybe because she had never felt it. Not really.
Fear was… theoretical.
Pain was… interesting.
And everything else?
Just another experience she hadn’t had yet.
“You said it feels real,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“How real?”
Nathan held her gaze for a second.
“Enough that you stop asking that question.”
That should have sounded like a warning.
It didn’t.
Erica felt something shift inside her. Not excitement exactly. Not nerves.
Something closer to curiosity sharpening into intent.
“Okay,” she said.
Nathan blinked once. “Okay?”
“I’ll try it.”
He studied her for a second, like he was making sure she meant it.
Then a small smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.
“Alright,” he said. “Your call.”
A notification appeared in her vision.
Incoming Share Request: HELSINGS ONLINE
From: Nathan
Erica reached out and tapped it open.
A panel expanded, clean and minimal.
Download Size: Large
Estimated Sync Time: Variable (Adaptive Neural Integration Required)
Warning: This simulation includes extreme content and unrestricted player interaction
She skimmed it, not really slowing down.
“Wow,” she muttered. “They really want to make sure no one can sue them.”
Nathan laughed. “Pretty much.”
She hovered over the confirm option for a second.
Then pressed it.
The world dimmed slightly as the system began allocating resources. A soft pulse ran through her awareness, subtle but present, like something deeper had just engaged.
Progress bars formed and dissolved as data streamed in faster than she could track.
Unlike normal downloads, this wasn’t just installing.
It was syncing.
Mapping.
Preparing her.
She felt it in small ways first. A tightening behind her eyes. A faint pressure at the base of her skull. Not painful. Just… noticeable.
Different.
“Still good?” Nathan asked.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “Just feels… heavier.”
“That’s normal,” he replied. “It’s a deeper link than most games.”
Of course it was.
The incubation pod adjusted automatically, compensating, stabilizing the connection. She felt that too, like the system around her was leaning in, supporting the process.
The progress completed without fanfare.
The panel shifted.
INSTALLATION COMPLETE
Launch HELSINGS ONLINE?
Erica didn’t hesitate this time.
She selected it.
Sanctuary began to fade.
Not like before.
Not clean.
This time the world seemed to stretch, distort slightly at the edges, like it wasn’t fully letting her go.
The light dimmed.
The sounds thinned.
Nathan’s figure blurred just slightly as the system transitioned her out.
“Hey,” he said, voice cutting through the shift. “When you get in—”
The connection fractured.
His voice clipped.
“—don’t—”
Gone.
Darkness took over.
Not empty.
Waiting.
And then—
she was falling.
The fall didn’t feel like anything at first.
No wind. No rush. No panic.
Just motion.
Darkness stretched around her, endless and quiet, like the space between worlds hadn’t fully decided what it was supposed to be yet. For a second, she thought this was it. That this was how the game loaded.
Then everything stopped.
Not slowed.
Stopped.
Erica hung in the air, frozen mid-fall, one arm slightly raised, her legs angled beneath her like gravity had simply forgotten what it was doing. She blinked once, adjusting to the stillness.
“…Okay.”
The darkness shifted.
Thin lines of white light traced themselves around her, forming clean geometric shapes in the void. Panels unfolded one after another, sliding into place with quiet precision until they surrounded her completely.
A soft tone sounded.
Then the interface resolved.
───
WELCOME TO HELSINGS ONLINE
INITIALIZE CHARACTER
───
Erica looked down at herself.
She still wore her Sanctuary avatar, but now that she really looked, the system was already refining it, locking details in with a kind of quiet finality.
A translucent panel opened in front of her.
APPEARANCE
Her reflection formed in the air.
She tilted her head slightly.
It was her.
Not idealized. Not exaggerated.
Just… complete.
She stood a little over average height, around five-six, her build naturally slender without feeling weak. There was a softness to her frame, like it hadn’t been shaped by strain or repetition, but it didn’t look fragile. Just… untested. Her shoulders were narrow, her posture slightly uncertain even in stillness, like the system had recreated not just her body, but the way she held herself in it.
Her proportions settled into something balanced. A modest chest, natural against her frame, not emphasized or minimized. Her waist drew in slightly, her hips subtle, giving her a silhouette that felt quietly feminine without trying to be.
Her skin was smooth and pale, not sickly, just untouched. Clean. Even. No marks, no imperfections the system felt the need to include.
Her hair fell just past her shoulders in soft, natural strands, a deep brown that almost looked black in the dim light. It shifted slightly as she moved, not styled, not controlled, just sitting the way it wanted to. A few strands slipped forward near her face, and she instinctively brushed them back, pausing for a second after she did, like she hadn’t expected that to feel so… normal.
Her eyes were a muted gray-blue, steady and observant. Not sharp. Not intense. Just quietly focused, like she was always taking in more than she said.
Her face was softly shaped, gentle angles instead of sharp ones. A slightly rounded jaw, subtle cheekbones, nothing that stood out too strongly on its own. Her lips were lightly full, resting naturally in a neutral line that shifted with small, unplanned expressions instead of anything practiced.
No makeup.
No enhancements.
Nothing added.
It wasn’t that she chose not to change anything.
She just… didn’t.
Because this—
this already felt like more than she was used to.
She flexed her fingers slowly, watching how cleanly they responded. The slight shift of her wrist. The way her arm moved without hesitation or delay.
For a moment, she forgot about the menu entirely.
Then she glanced back at the panel.
“Yeah,” she said quietly. “That’s fine.”
The system responded immediately.
APPEARANCE CONFIRMED
Another panel slid into place.
───
LINEAGE RESTRICTION NOTICE
───
She raised an eyebrow.
“Already?”
Text filled in beneath it.
Certain bloodlines are restricted to system-controlled entities.
Player identification must comply with lineage separation protocols.
Erica skimmed it without much interest.
“Not planning on being anything special,” she muttered.
The panel closed.
───
ENTER NAME
───
A cursor blinked in front of her.
This time, she hesitated.
Not because she didn’t know what to put.
Because this felt… different.
Like it actually mattered.
She reached out and typed.
Erica
She paused.
Then added the rest without thinking too much about it.
Van Helsing
The name of the game, figured it would be fine. The moment she confirmed—
everything stuttered.
The panels flickered once.
A thin line of red text flashed across her vision.
───
ERROR: LINEAGE CONFLICT DETECTED
───
She frowned.
“…What?”
The system didn’t answer.
More text layered over it, faster now.
───
VERIFYING…
OVERRIDE FAILED
RECONCILING DATA…
───
Her reflection lagged slightly, like it was being rendered twice and neither version fully agreed with the other.
Erica tilted her head.
“Uh… hello?”
No response.
Then—
everything snapped back into place.
Perfect.
Seamless.
Like nothing had happened.
───
NAME CONFIRMED: ERICA VAN HELSING
───
She stared at it for a second.
“…Okay.”
Another prompt appeared.
───
FINALIZE CHARACTER?
───
She hesitated.
Just for a moment.
Then pressed confirm.
───
The panels collapsed instantly.
The darkness rushed back in—
And gravity remembered her.
She dropped.
The world didn’t load gently.
It hit her.
Sand slammed into her side as Erica crashed hard into the ground, the impact knocking the breath out of her in a way that didn’t just register… it stayed. Her lungs locked for a second, her chest tightening as air refused to come back when she expected it to.
She curled instinctively, fingers digging into the sand as she coughed, dragging in a sharp breath that burned on the way down.
For a moment, she didn’t move.
Not because she couldn’t.
Because she was… processing.
Pain spread from where she’d landed, dull at first, then sharpening as it settled into her shoulder and hip. It wasn’t overwhelming. It wasn’t some dramatic spike meant to shock her.
It was steady.
Persistent.
Uncomfortable in a way that didn’t fade the second she noticed it.
Erica let out a slow breath, still half-curled against the ground.
“…Oh.”
She’d felt pain before.
Games simulated it all the time. Pressure, impact, feedback spikes meant to mimic damage. She’d even played a few higher-end titles where the system pushed things further, trying to blur that line people always talked about.
Feels just like real life.
She had always thought that was… exaggerated.
Even at its best, it had limits. You could feel where it stopped. Where your brain decided it wasn’t worth reacting to anymore.
This didn’t have that edge.
This didn’t taper off just because she expected it to.
It lingered.
She shifted slightly, testing it.
The ache followed.
“…Okay,” she said under her breath, a little quieter now. “That’s… different.”
Her fingers pressed into the sand, grains sliding between them, grounding her in a way that felt immediate and unavoidable. She pushed herself up slowly, her body resisting just enough to remind her it had been hit.
Not punishing.
Just real.
A thought slipped through her mind before she could stop it.
Maybe this is what they meant.
Not the exaggerated version people liked to say.
Not just like real life.
But…
Close enough that your body stopped questioning it.
Erica stood carefully, adjusting her weight as the dull ache settled into something she could move through instead of around. Her balance wavered for a second before stabilizing, her muscles catching up faster than she expected.
She exhaled slowly.
“…Yeah,” she murmured. “Okay.”
Then she looked up.
And the world finally introduced its self. She decided to just start walking.
Erica didn’t get far before she saw him.
At first, she thought it was just another ruin shifting in the distance, something half-buried rising out of the sand like everything else in this place. But then it moved—too smoothly, too deliberately—and she slowed without realizing it, her attention locking onto the figure as it stepped up onto a broken slab of stone.
“Nathan?” she called, unsure if it would carry.
It did.
He turned immediately.
Even from a distance, she could tell something was different.
He wasn’t just standing there the way he had in Sanctuary, relaxed and casual like the world couldn’t touch him. There was a stillness to him now, a kind of controlled quiet that felt deliberate. When he moved toward her, it wasn’t rushed, but it was fast in a way that didn’t quite match the terrain, his steps barely disturbing the sand as he closed the distance between them.
Up close, the differences were harder to ignore.
His skin had taken on a pale tone that wasn’t just a lack of sunlight. It looked… refined, like the system had smoothed out imperfections rather than simply removing them. His features were sharper, more defined, his jawline cleaner, his cheekbones more pronounced, but not in a way that felt artificial. It was as if everything about him had been pushed slightly past normal into something more deliberate.
His eyes stood out the most.
They were darker now, not in color exactly, but in depth. There was a faint red undertone that didn’t glow or flash, just sat there beneath the surface, subtle enough that she might have missed it if she hadn’t been looking for something to be off.
And when he smiled—
It was the same smile she knew just with some fangs.
“You made it in, Starting area is dangerous even for player vamps you know” he said, stopping a few feet away. His voice sounded the same, but there was a clarity to it that hadn’t been there before, like every word landed exactly where it was supposed to.
Erica looked him over, not hiding it. “Yeah,” she said. “Wow, You look… different.”
Nathan glanced down at himself briefly, then shrugged one shoulder. “Yeah. That part’s not optional.”
“You’re already a vampire?” she asked, tilting her head slightly.
“Been one,” he replied. “I told you, remember? I got turned a while back.”
She stepped a little closer, circling him halfway like she was trying to figure out where the change started and stopped. “You don’t look like the ones in movies.”
“That’s because those are made to scare people,” he said. “This is made to work.”
She nodded slowly, still studying him. “You look… kind of sick.”
“I am technically dead, but I'm definitely faster dead,” he said simply. “Stronger too. Harder to kill. Comes with trade-offs, but early on it’s honestly not even close.”
Erica stopped in front of him again, folding her arms loosely. “So are you going to bite me now, or is there, like, a process?”
Nathan blinked once, then let out a quiet laugh. “Straight to that, huh?”
“I mean, you said being human sucks,” she said. “Seems like skipping ahead would save time.”
“It would also make you useless for a while,” he replied, the humor fading just a bit. “You want your hunter ability first.”
She frowned slightly. “Even if I’m going to be a vampire?”
“Especially then,” he said. “You only get one. Doesn’t matter what you become later, that ability sticks. Most people rush past it and regret it.”
Erica considered that, glancing briefly at the empty horizon behind him. “What did you get?”
Nathan tapped the side of his head lightly. “Item detection. If there’s something nearby worth grabbing, I know about it.”
“That sounds… actually really useful,” she admitted.
“It is,” he said. “Saved me more than once.”
She nodded, then looked back at him. “So what do I do?”
“I’ll take you to a tutorial zone,” Nathan said, turning slightly and gesturing out toward the ruins in the distance. “There are a bunch of them scattered around. Each one gives a different ability depending on what you complete.”
“And you can just find them?” she asked.
“Usually,” he said. “They’re not marked, but once you know what to look for, they stand out.”
He started walking, not checking if she followed.
She did.
Keeping up wasn’t as hard as she expected. The sand still dragged at her feet, but her body adjusted quickly, her steps becoming more efficient the longer she moved. Nathan stayed just ahead of her, his pace steady, barely affected by the terrain.
“So,” she said after a moment, “how many levels do you have again?”
He glanced back at her. “You want to see?”
“Yeah.”
A small window flickered into existence between them, angled so she could read it clearly.
Nathan
VL 112 + L 78
She slowed slightly, staring at it. “That’s… a lot.”
“Depends who you ask,” he said. “But yeah, I’ve been around a bit.”
“What does the split mean again?” she asked.
“Human levels are what you earned before you got turned,” Nathan said. “Vampire levels are everything after. No one really knows why the system tracks them separately, but people use it to judge experience.”
She looked at the numbers again, then back at him. “So you survived as a human for seventy-eight levels before becoming… that.”
“Pretty much.”
“And now you’re… what, almost twice that?”
“Something like that.”
She nodded slowly, letting the panel fade. “Okay. That’s kind of cool.”
Nathan gave a small shrug. “It’s useful.”
They walked a little farther in silence.
Then—
Nathan stopped.
Not gradually.
Immediately.
Erica nearly walked into him.
“What—”
He didn’t answer.
His head tilted slightly, like he was listening to something she couldn’t hear. For the first time since she’d seen him, that controlled calm shifted into something tighter, more focused.
“…That’s not good,” he muttered.
“What?” she asked, her voice dropping without meaning to.
Nathan glanced back at her, expression sharper now. “I’m picking something up. Movement. More than there should be.”
Erica’s stomach tightened.
“Players?”
“No,” he said. “Not moving like players.”
That didn’t help.
“What does that mean?”
“It means—”
His voice cut off.
Not trailed.
Cut.
His body flickered.
Just for a second.
Then again.
Erica frowned. “Nathan?”
He looked at her, and for the first time, there was something like frustration in his expression. “Connection’s—”
He glitched.
Harder this time.
Pieces of him stuttered out of place, like the system couldn’t decide where to keep him anchored.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” he said under his breath.
Erica took a step closer. “What’s happening?”
“Real world interruption,” he said quickly. “Or the system’s kicking me. I don’t—”
He flickered again, his outline distorting.
“Listen,” he said, forcing the words out faster now. “If I drop, don’t stay out here. Find cover. Buildings, underground, anything enclosed. Avoid open space.”
“That’s not very reassuring—”
“I’ll try to get back,” he cut in. “If not, just—”
He froze mid-sentence.
Then vanished.
No fade.
No warning.
Just gone.
───
The wind rushed back in like something had been holding it back.
Erica stood there for a second, staring at the empty space where he’d been, her mind still catching up to the fact that he wasn’t coming back immediately.
“…Okay,” she said quietly.
Then something moved.
Behind her.
She turned slowly, already knowing what she was going to see.
Shapes.
Multiple this time.
Low to the ground at first, then rising, their silhouettes sharpening as they stepped into clearer view. Their movements were wrong in the same way she’d noticed earlier, too smooth in some places, too loose in others, like their bodies moved different than normal humans.
One of them tilted its head.
Then smiled, and picked it's lips.
Erica took a slow step back, her pulse picking up as instinct finally caught up with understanding.
“…Right,” she muttered. “Bad vampires.”
They didn’t rush her immediately.
They watched.
Then one moved.
And this time, Erica didn’t wait to see what happened next.
She turned and ran.
That instinct hit first, sharp and immediate, but Erica forced it down almost as quickly. Running without thinking was how you got cornered. Every game she had ever played drilled that into you eventually—movement wasn’t just speed, it was control.
She pushed forward, but her eyes were already working ahead of her, scanning the terrain instead of the threat. The sand wasn’t uniform. Some patches held firmer than others, packed tighter where debris had settled or where wind had stripped the surface thinner. She angled toward those instinctively, adjusting her stride to keep from sinking too deep with each step.
A thin bar flickered into existence at the edge of her vision.
───
STAMINA
───
It dropped faster than she expected.
“Okay,” she muttered under her breath, “there it is.”
Her breathing tightened as the bar dipped, her legs starting to burn in a way that felt sharp and immediate, not overwhelming but enough to warn her. She eased back slightly, not stopping, just letting her pace drop from a full sprint into something more controlled.
The bar slowed.
Then, gradually—
it started climbing again.
“…Right,” she said, adjusting immediately. “Burst, don’t drain.”
Behind her, the movement didn’t slow.
She could hear them now.
Not footsteps exactly, but something close enough that her brain translated it that way. Fast. Uneven. Closing.
She didn’t turn yet.
Instead, she pushed again—short burst, controlled—letting her stamina dip just enough to gain distance before easing off again. It wasn’t perfect, but it worked. The rhythm settled quickly: sprint, coast, recover, sprint again.
When she finally risked a glance back—
the interface filled in the rest.
Above their heads, thin red bars hovered in place, flickering slightly as they moved.
───
?? – FERAL VAMPIRE
HP: ████████░░
───
“…Oh,” Erica breathed.
They looked worse up close.
The ones chasing her didn’t have the clean, controlled appearance Nathan had. There was nothing refined about them. Their skin pulled unevenly across their faces, too tight along their cheekbones, too loose around their mouths where their lips stretched back too far when they moved. Their eyes were dull, unfocused in a way that made their expressions feel wrong even before they smiled.
Hungry.
Not styled.
Not chosen.
Just… broken versions of something that used to be human.
One of them tilted its head again, that same unnatural motion—
and then it moved.
Fast.
Erica snapped her head forward and pushed into another sprint, her stamina dropping sharply again as she forced her legs to keep up. The burn hit harder this time, sharper, like her body was warning her she was pushing too far.
“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” she muttered, easing off just before the bar bottomed out.
The world ahead shifted.
The ruins thickened into something more structured, the scattered debris giving way to tighter formations of broken buildings and narrow streets that cut between them. The terrain changed under her feet, sand giving way to cracked stone and uneven rubble.
Better.
Open space was death.
This—
this she could work with.
She cut left sharply as she reached the first wall, planting her foot against solid ground and using it to redirect her momentum without losing speed. Behind her, something slammed into the corner she’d just cleared, missing the turn just enough to matter.
Good.
They were fast.
But they weren’t thinking.
She pushed forward again, another short burst, then eased as her stamina dipped, letting it recover just enough before accelerating again. The rhythm came naturally now, each adjustment tighter than the last.
A shadow dropped in front of her.
She reacted instantly.
One of them had leapt ahead, cutting off the straight path through the street. It landed low, its health bar flickering as it absorbed the impact, already turning toward her.
Erica didn’t hesitate.
She angled right instead, planting her foot against the wall and pushing off it in a quick, clean motion that carried her past the creature before it fully reoriented. Its arm lashed out as she passed—
close enough that she felt the air shift—
but it didn’t connect.
Her stamina dipped again.
Harder this time.
“Okay—slow,” she said, forcing herself to ease off before it fully drained.
Her pace dropped just enough for the bar to start climbing again.
Behind her, they adjusted.
Not instantly.
But fast enough.
The path split ahead.
She chose left without thinking, cutting into the turn and using the wall to stabilize her momentum again instead of losing it. The vampires followed, but there was a delay now, small but real.
That difference was the only thing keeping her ahead.
The street narrowed, dipping downward into shadow as the walls rose higher around her. The air shifted again, cooler, less exposed, the red glow from the sky thinning as she moved deeper into the ruins.
Her stamina climbed.
Full.
“Now,” she whispered.
She sprinted.
The final stretch opened ahead of her—a collapsed structure with a jagged entrance cut into its side, the interior swallowed in shadow.
She didn’t slow.
Didn’t hesitate.
She pushed everything into one last burst, her stamina bar draining fast as she crossed the distance, her legs burning as she forced them to hold just a little longer—
Then she threw herself through the opening.
Her feet hit stone, solid and stable, her momentum carrying her forward before she turned sharply, breath tight but controlled.
The change was immediate.
The wind stopped.
The air cooled.
The sound behind her… shifted.
One of the vampires reached the entrance, its health bar flickering above it as it leaned forward—
and stopped.