- Leo -
Weeks had passed. Or at least… Leo thought they had.
Time no longer felt real in this place. It blurred and twisted, days bleeding into one another like smeared ink. There was no sun, no stars, no rhythm to mark its passing—only a loop of blood and fear, again and again, until even his dreams forgot what freedom felt like.
Surviving inside the vampires' castle wasn't life.
It was endurance. It was breathing without living.
Every morning began the same.
Clang!
The cold, metallic scream of iron doors echoed through the stone halls like a bell tolling doom. It ripped Leo from restless, broken sleep, every time leaving him breathless and disoriented. Guards appeared outside their cell—tall, silent figures, their pale faces frozen in expressions emptier than the soulless metal that imprisoned them.
The door would swing open without warning, and with it came barked commands. Sharp. Cold. Non-negotiable.
They were herded like cattle.
Each cell held four kids—crammed into narrow stone rooms, the walls damp and always cold to the touch. There was no privacy. No quiet. Just breathing, shaking, and the constant awareness of being watched.
The only relief—if it could even be called that—came in the form of a single hour.
One hour each day where they were allowed to move through a restricted corridor of the castle. No windows. No exits. But at least there was space to walk. It was during one of those bleak hours that Leo found Ryo again.
They sat together in a shadowed corner, knees pulled to their chests, their words barely more than whispers carried between breaths.
"I can't take this much longer," Ryo muttered, his eyes scanning the corridor with a paranoid edge. "This place… it's killing us slowly."
Leo nodded, the weight of exhaustion slumping his shoulders. His body ached all the time now. "But we're still here. That has to count for something."
Ryo let out a short, bitter laugh. "Is it? Surviving isn't the same as living."
"Maybe not," Leo said quietly, but it's all we have left. "As long as we're breathing, there's a chance. A chance to escape… or fight."
Ryo turned toward him, and for the briefest moment, something flickered in his eyes. Something Leo hadn't seen in a while—hope.
"You really think we can?"
Leo didn't answer right away. He didn't know what he believed anymore. But he forced himself to look Ryo in the eye and say, "We have to try."
Because if they didn't… then all they had left was waiting to die.
But hope was short-lived here.
Because every afternoon, they brought them to the hall of blood.
A name the kids had started whispering when they thought no one was listening. Leo didn't know who said it first, but once he heard it, it never left his mind.
It was a fitting name.
The hall was enormous and cold, its high ceiling swallowed in shadows. The scent of blood hung in the air, thick and metallic, layered over something sour and chemical. Rows of metal beds stretched out like a battlefield of corpses, and every child who walked in knew they would leave weaker than when they arrived.
Leo lay down each time like a puppet on invisible strings. He didn't resist. None of them did.
What's the point of fighting if you can't even lift your arms anymore?
The tubes slithered toward his skin like snakes. They pierced without warning—straight into the veins. Cold. Precise.
One to two liters of blood drained from each of them daily.
The first time it happened, Leo had thought he would die.
His vision had gone white. His limbs numb. He remembered trembling on the table, unable to breathe, thinking this is it. They're killing me.
But they didn't let them die.
Not yet.
Because after the bloodletting, the guards shoved into their hands a small, grimy plastic bag filled with a thick, foul-smelling liquid. The kind of thing that looked like it belonged in a trash chute, not inside a human body.
They called it a "nutritional compound." Some of the older kids had other names for it: sludge, poison, puke juice.
But Leo knew what it really was.
Their way of keeping us alive just long enough to keep draining us.
The first time he drank it, he nearly vomited. The taste was an abomination—bitter, sour, almost rancid, like metal and mold blended into one thick, clinging nightmare. It scorched down his throat and burned in his stomach like rot.
But worse than the taste… was the knowledge that he needed it.
He couldn't survive without it.
None of them could.
He'd seen it happen. And it haunted him.
Leo forced the sludge down every day, no matter how much it burned, no matter how violently his stomach twisted. Because he'd seen the consequences.
Some of the kids couldn't do it.
They gagged. They cried. They pushed it away, shaking their heads, too broken or too stubborn to accept that survival now meant swallowing filth. Leo remembered each one of them. Their faces. Their names.
But Haru… Haru hurt the most.
He remembered how their skin had turned pale, then gray.
How they stopped standing.
How one by one, they faded—quietly, slowly—until they stopped breathing altogether.
And when they did… the vampires didn't say a word.
They simply came in, dragged the bodies away like scraps, and moved on.
Just like that.
Like trash.
Leo drank every drop.
Even when his throat screamed and his stomach recoiled. Even when every instinct in him wanted to spit it out and scream. He drank.
Because some part of him still refused to give up.
Even when giving up would've been easier.
After the daily bloodletting, they were marched back to their cells—cold stone boxes with rusted bars and no escape. Leo's cellmates changed over time, but eventually the rotation stopped. He was stuck with the same three kids for what felt like an eternity.
There was Kaito—tall, sharp-eyed, with a temper that burned hotter than most. He was angry all the time, and Leo understood why. Anger was his armor.
Then there was Souta, quiet and calm. Always thinking. Always watching. He rarely spoke, but when he did, it mattered.
And finally, Haru.
The youngest.
Just a kid. Maybe twelve.
Haru had started out with fire. With light. In that first week, he talked about escape. About freedom. He whispered to Leo at night about cities beyond the mountains, places the vampires hadn't touched, where people still lived like before.
He clung to hope like it was oxygen.
But hope doesn't last long in a place like this.
It gets chipped away. Bit by bit.
At first, Haru stopped talking. Then he stopped eating. Then, even worse, he stopped drinking the sludge. No matter how much Leo begged. No matter how much they all pleaded.
His eyes lost their shine. His body grew thinner by the day. And then, one morning—
Leo woke up and Haru was gone.
Not physically. Not yet.
He was just lying there in the corner of the cell, curled up like a child asleep after a long night of crying. But his chest wasn't rising. His lips were pale.
And he was cold.
Leo crawled toward him, calling his name again and again. But there was no answer.
No. No, no, not him…
Souta stood in silence. Kaito punched the wall so hard he started bleeding.
No one came to check on them. Not until the usual hour.
Then the guards arrived. Silent. Unfeeling. They entered, dragged Haru's small body away like it meant nothing, and shut the door behind them.
They didn't say a word.
Neither did Leo.
Because there was nothing left to say.
That night, Leo lay on the hard floor, his eyes fixed on the cracks in the ceiling above. His body was weak. His veins ached. His soul… felt thinner somehow.
How much longer can I do this? How long before I fade like Haru?
He closed his eyes, but sleep wouldn't come.
Only memories.
Only fear.
And a whisper deep inside him that said he was next.
It happened after another routine evening.
Just like the ones before. Just like the one that took Haru.
Another draining.
Another burning drink sliding down Leo's throat like molten rust.
He lay on his cot, arms limp at his sides, the foul taste still clinging to his tongue. His body was cold. Weak. Empty. The kind of empty that went beyond blood and bone.
The others had already collapsed, barely breathing, barely conscious. The silence of the cell was familiar now—dense and absolute, like the stone walls themselves had given up.
But then—something shifted.
Leo heard voices.
Not guards.
Not commands.
Whispers.
Urgent. Excited.
He turned his head slowly toward the door, every muscle protesting the movement.
...What is that?
He pushed himself up on trembling elbows and crawled across the stone floor, wincing at the ache in his knees. He pressed his ear to the cold iron bars, holding his breath.
"...Did you hear?" one voice hissed. A vampire's voice—undeniable. But it wasn't cold or cruel. It was electric.
"We found it. The Dark Flame Virtue."
Leo's heart stopped.
Dark Flame… what?
"What?" another vampire whispered, trying—and failing—to mask his shock. "Seriously? Where?"
"Doesn't matter. The higher orders confirmed it. It exists."
A pause.
"Finally," the second voice breathed. "Now we just need the Bright Flame Virtue."
Leo's skin prickled.
Bright Flame Virtue? What are they talking about? What the hell is this?
Their footsteps began to fade, swallowed by the endless stone corridors… but their words remained. Burned into his mind like fire against paper.
Dark Flame Virtue. Bright Flame Virtue.
He slid back from the bars slowly, lowering himself until his back hit the wall.
His breath was shaky. Shallow.
They're not just draining us for blood…
They're searching for something. Something ancient. Something powerful.
The words swirled through his thoughts like smoke, impossible to grab, impossible to forget.
He didn't understand it yet. Not fully. But something inside him shifted. Not fear. Not hope.
Something else.
If the Dark Flame Virtue is real… if there's another called the Bright Flame…
Then this nightmare is only the beginning.
He clenched his fists, nails digging into his skin, anchoring him to the now.
I need to know what they're planning.
I need to know why I'm still alive.
He looked toward the ceiling, toward the darkness beyond the stone.
I'm not just going to survive anymore.
I'm going to find the truth.