New chapter! I've added a scene of Alex since I've finally developed his plot. I had ideas for him before, but now I've finalised them, I'm able to add his journey into the other corresponding plots!
Alex wandered through the night forest, the moonlight barely cutting through the gnarled canopy above. The air was thick—damp with mist and tinged with the earthy scent of moss and rotting bark.
No trail guided him, and yet every step felt deliberate as if he had traced them many times before.
Eventually, he reached a knot of twisted branches tangled over a mossy mud hill. He stopped, staring down at the unnatural mass. It didn't belong here.
He inhaled, voice barely above a whisper. "Grant me passage."
At first, nothing. Just silence. But he didn't move. He waited, eyes fixed.
Then, with a soft hiss, the branches began to shudder. They slithered away, alive and obedient, scraping and cracking as they revealed a slanted steel door buried in the dirt. Cold, grey, and streaked with rust.
Alex grabbed the thick iron handle and pulled. The door groaned open, revealing a staircase that led down into the earth. At the bottom: a much larger, wooden door.
He descended, the air growing colder with each step. He opened the second door with much more ease. But as he did, a foul stench hit him like a punch: blood.
"Ugh—!" He gagged, stumbling back.
His eyes snapped to the room beyond—shredded bodies, walls spattered in gore, broken vials and chemical sludge puddled on the floor like glowing wounds. It was carnage.
A few vampires were already inside, silently cleaning the wreckage.
"What happened here?" his breath hitched.
One of them slowly turned. He was tall—taller than Alex remembered—with inhuman poise. His face was sharp, too perfect, like a sculpture come to life. But his eyes... cold, ancient, predatory. His smile curled, too slow to be friendly.
"Oh, Alexander! What a surprise," he drawled, voice smooth like velvet. He held a black sack in one hand, scooping flesh with the other like it was trash.
Alex took another step in, wary. Luna's words echoed in his head: They were attacked with the chemical.
"Did something go wrong with the chemical?" he asked, concerned.
The vampire's grin didn't falter.
"Wrong? Oh no! The chemical's developing beautifully," he delightfully declared as flies buzzed around the bag in his hands.
"Thanks to your notes, we've made real progress." He gestured casually to the massacre behind him.
"... Progress...?" Alex repeated, voice brittle. The word sounded grotesque in this room.
"This was just a... mishap. One of our test subjects had a very... passionate friend. She didn't take kindly to our work and, well, slaughtered everyone," he explained as if it was just a mundane setback.
"Test subjects...?" Alex's voice tightened.
"Wait—you forced someone into this?" he asked, eyes shaking.
"Of course not," he vampire said lightly, wiping blood off his gloves.
"She consented!" he smiled casually.
"Why would she consent to that?" Alex demanded to know, baffled.
The vampire arched a brow, tilting his head slightly.
YOU ARE READING
The Demons of Shadow Moon
FantasyAwake. But the nightmare has not ended. It's simply been forgotten. With her memories wiped, Luna wakes up on an island all alone. Scared and fragile, she clings to the kindness offered to her by two demons. They take her in, and teach her magic! B...
