Blood speaks in ways we don't always hear. Mine began to whisper before I understood what it was saying.
It began the night after the letter.
I couldn't sleep. Every creak of the old house made me flinch. The trees outside scraped against the glass like bony fingers. I didn't open the letter again—I didn't need to. The words had burned into my mind.
"They have chosen you."
Who were they?
I didn't know.
But something was watching me. That much, I was certain of.
By morning, the air felt different—heavier, charged, as though the sky was holding its breath.
I wrapped myself in a jacket and went to the Hollow Café. Eva greeted me with her usual smile, but her eyes flicked to the shadows behind me like she saw something I didn't.
"You okay?" she asked, pouring tea.
"Yeah," I lied. "Just didn't sleep."
She nodded slowly. "Full moons make the town weird sometimes."
It wasn't full. Not yet.
But I didn't argue.
That day, I walked through the woods behind my house—part of me trying to prove I wasn't afraid, the other part desperately searching for answers. The deeper I went, the stranger it felt.
The trees grew too close together. The light barely reached the forest floor. I heard things. Not just birds or wind—something heavier. Breathing. Footsteps that weren't mine.
I turned around more than once, but no one was there.
Until I saw the man.
He stood just beyond a thick curtain of trees. Tall. Still. Watching.
I couldn't see his face, but I felt his eyes. Cold swept through me like winter air. When I blinked, he was gone.
I ran all the way home.
That night, the dreams came back. Worse.
This time, it wasn't just the forest. It was fire. Blood. Teeth. I was standing in a circle of trees, barefoot, wearing something white that clung to my skin like it had once been soaked.
I was not alone.
Figures moved just outside my line of sight—shadows with eyes. I heard a growl, low and hungry. Then I turned, and there he was again. The man from the woods.
Closer now.
And smiling.
I woke up screaming.
My reflection looked haunted. Pale. Eyes sunken from sleepless nights.
The mark on my neck—it wasn't big, but it was real. Two small bruises, like something had pressed into my skin. I hadn't noticed them before.
Had they always been there?
I touched them and felt a twinge, like electricity under my skin.
Something in me felt… changed.
I went back to the records office.
This time, I asked about the town's history. Not the deaths. Not the missing. Just general archives.
The clerk handed me a dusty volume that reeked of mildew. I flipped through pages of old maps, event logs, and town festivals.
Then I found a section labeled "Bloodline Celebrations."
It listed dates. Names.
And strange rituals.
"The Chosen are offered. The pact is renewed in blood."
Offered to who?
There were symbols drawn in the margins. One looked like a crescent moon carved from bone. Another was a fang dipped in ink.
My stomach turned.
I didn't understand what I was reading, but it didn't feel like folklore.
It felt like a warning.
That evening, someone knocked on my door.
I opened it to find a small wooden box on the porch. No note. Just a necklace inside—a crimson stone set in silver, shaped like a drop of blood.
I should've thrown it away.
But I didn't.
I held it in my palm, and my skin burned where it touched.
I wore it to bed.
The dreams were different this time.
I wasn't running.
I was kneeling.
And someone was behind me, breathing against my ear.
I heard a voice—not words, but sound that filled me like a song I somehow knew.
I woke up with blood on my sheets.
My nose had bled. At least, I hoped that was all it was.
Eva noticed the necklace the next day.
"That's… old," she said, voice low. "Where did you get it?"
"Someone left it."
She stared at it, then at me. "You should be careful, Sophia. Not everything pretty is harmless."
I didn't answer. My throat felt too tight.
The town was shifting. I could feel it.
People moved differently. Looked at me longer. Whispered behind their hands when I passed.
One afternoon, I caught two kids drawing chalk circles on the sidewalk. One looked up and whispered, "She's the one."
Their mother yanked them away.
The wind howled that night.
And I smelled smoke.
When I looked out the window, I saw fire deep in the forest. Small. Contained. But not accidental.
A ritual.
I stayed up, holding a flashlight and my knife.
Nothing came.
But the next morning, I found a symbol carved into my door.
The same one from the book.
The fang.
I stopped sleeping.
I stopped eating much, too.
But I started to feel things.
Sometimes, when I was near someone angry, I felt it in my skin—hot and prickling. When someone was afraid, I tasted copper on my tongue.
And I heard things.
Heartbeats.
Faster than they should be.
I thought I was going crazy until the man returned.
Not in a dream.
In the woods.
I saw him clearer this time. He was handsome, in a cruel way. Pale. Tall. Eyes like dusk.
He didn't speak. Just watched.
But I felt something in my chest respond—like it knew him.
And then he was gone again.
A few days later, I saw the other one.
He was not like the first.
Broader. Wilder. Golden skin and eyes like burning amber. He stood on the edge of town, watching me from across the street.
He didn't smile.
He stared like I was prey.
I went inside and locked every door.
They were both circling me.
Drawn to something in me I didn't understand.
They hadn't spoken. Hadn't touched me. Not yet.
But they didn't need to.
My blood reacted to them. A pulse, a pull, a low hum in my bones that I couldn't shut off.
I started hearing that voice again in dreams.
"You belong to the night."
I didn't know what it meant.
But I was starting to believe it.
And then the town held its Harvest Night.
A celebration, they called it. Bonfires. Costumes. Music.
I was told to attend.
Everyone goes, they said.
I wore the necklace.
Eva did my makeup. She looked nervous, but didn't say why.
When I stepped into the town square, the music stopped.
Everyone turned.
Not in anger.
In awe.
I walked like I didn't notice. Like I didn't feel their eyes on me. But every step was harder.
And then I saw them.
Both of them.
Standing at opposite ends of the square.
Watching me.
Their names were still a mystery.
But they knew mine.
And I could feel it now.
The blood in me wasn't normal.
It called to them.
And they had started to answer.
The Blood Awakening had begun.
And I was at its center.
Still clueless.
Still human.
But for how long?