I was gathering wet, rotten wood from the ground to light a fire, while Joseph was still murmuring about honor; but in my ears, only Dante's justified, mocking whisper echoed. On the stove, leeks and withered potatoes floating in mud-colored water... they were the silent and tasteless witnesses of my struggle for survival. While people outside were throttling each other for a gram of rice, I was only trying to feed my brother. Until that voice shattered the fragile peace in my mind like a shard of glass.
"I don't think I want leeks in your nutrition, honey."
[SYSTEM: MEDITERRANEAN DIET MENU ACTIVATED.]
[CONTENT: GRILLED SALMON, ROSÉ WINE, ROASTED MEATBALLS, BUTTER COOKIES, CARAMEL SYRUP ESPRESSO.]
The scent wafting from the silver trays dropped by the drones instantly smothered the dampness of the room and the stale smell of the leeks. As my brother clapped his hands excitedly and reached for those glowing cookies, a heavy lump settled in my stomach.
"You..." I said, my voice trembling with both rage and hunger. "Do you know how many families out there could be fed with this meal?"
"I am only interested in one family," Dante said, the aristocratic boredom infused into every word. "Come on jerk, I want caffeine in your blood. Don't make me send a double shot coffee; don't make the taste harsh. Soften up for me."
I pushed my tasteless, colorless leek soup aside. I reached for the plate Dante sent with a guilty appetite, as if I were committing a crime. While my brother bit into his cookie with joy, I caught a piece of the meat with my lips. The moment the flavor hit my tongue, all the dust and grime of Vivaricus was wiped away. As I pulled my legs up and curled on the couch, I heard Dante take a deep, hungry, and satisfied breath in my mind.
FEATHER TOUCH AND PINK HEELS
[SYSTEM: FEATHER TOUCH ON FEET ACTIVATED.]
I jolted suddenly; I let out an uncontrollable, almost childish giggle with the meat still between my lips. "Stop... that! My feet are ticklish!" I said, but the hardness in my voice had already shattered.
"It's unfair that you get to enjoy those delights directly when I'm supposed to feed off your blood like a parasite." Dante whispered. His voice was now wandering around my ankles like a physical touch, stroking my skin. "I should have asked you to jump in the air for this menu."
With a kind of surrender—or rather, the strange comfort of knowing there was nowhere left to run—I extended my feet a bit further.
I presented my ankles, emerging from the hem of my trousers, to Dante's all-seeing invisible gaze like a sacrifice. I took a large sip of my wine; the warmth traveling down my throat made my shoulders drop. I asked with a mocking, yet resigned glint in my eyes.
"Master Dante... What if you don't like the taste of my blood? Will you spoil me like this and then throw me out like a rag? Because if it's going to disgust you, I could eat a nuclear bomb with my bare hands."
Dante's laughter was heavy, dark, and unshakable like the door of a thousand-year-old vault. "I was a tobacco addict a century ago, Dorian; I love poison. Even if I smoke until I die, I love living with that poison... Just as I will f-ck you until I kill you, yet never allow you to die. You are my blood bank and my pawn."
As I felt the caffeine and the artificial warmth of the wine circulating in my veins, I realized how deep I had sunk into this "poisonous" love. I was no longer just a rebel; I was the favorite, most special, and most sealed drink of an ancient vampire.
The grease from the seared salmon, the tart warmth of the wine mingling with the roast, and the artificial throb of the caramel-syrup espresso in my veins... The heavy fullness in my stomach slowly severed my mind from the dampness of Vivaricus, surrendering me to a leaden weight.
The numbing lethargy flowing from Dante's system pulled my eyelids down like guillotines. As I curled up on the couch, the rusty smell of reality was replaced by an impossible peace.
When I opened my eyes, I was in the womb of that lost age where time did not yet breathe down my neck like an executioner, and the sun kissed the earth with a mother's tenderness. What dazzled me was not just light, but pure possibility. The redness hanging from green branches beat like the heart of a world not yet introduced to sin, rather than mere apples.
The smell of fresh buns hanging in the air carried not the dampness of a shelter, but the peace of Sunday mornings and the ceramic chime of porcelain cups.
I sleep like a sheep.
Ordinary human life.
Streets,schools,cars...
Everything belonged to that old but ordinary world. People wore suits and were rushing somewhere with paper coffee cups in their hands. Cars stopped at red lights, and children walked to school.
Unlike today, there were restaurants. People could order and enjoy fresh, hot, and delicious food.The hands of those traitors who stole our futures were so steeped in sin that I felt a desire to tear them apart. I would have laid down my entire being just to be a part of this ordinary dream.
I could have knelt down and begged the gods who never heard us for the life we had before becoming the vampires' prey or playthings.
"How could this ?" I whispered.
My voice was like the echo of a ghost that never existed.The sound was metallic and harsh. It was just like the sound of steel scraping against something. It was deep and resonant.
"I am a flower blooming in the ruins of this world. How can I mourn this palace I've never seen, this freedom I've never breathed?"
Suddenly, the space warped. I was no longer in a garden, but in a divine realm woven of glass and steel. Skyscrapers rose like giants kneeling at my feet, each glass surface reflecting my momentary, false power. The fabric on me was not a breeze touching my skin, but prestige itself. The amber-colored whiskey swirling in my crystal glass trapped the last glints of the setting sun.
And god spoke with the voice of the devil.
I wanted to take refuge in the eternity of this dream, to remain silent forever within that glass kingdom. But the fabric of the dream tore with a sizzle, like silk being ripped by a knife. The sun in the sky suddenly expanded and turned into Dante's ominous, blood-red gaze.
"What you see is not just a memory, Dorian. This is my life." Dante said. His voice was jet-black and fluid, like a poison seeping into the peace of the dream. "It is the funeral of that 'self' sleeping deep in your blood, which you can never possess. Your Alcatraz is mine.You never had it. As for me, even if I were to build empires in its place, I could never heal the wound."
Dante appeared behind my expensive chair; his hands burned my skin even through my silk shirt. "This dream is not yours, but a grace I offer you. For your freedom is only as wide as I allow in your sleep.If you serve me well, I will reward you. But if you betray me, you rat, even this hell will seem like a breath of fresh air to you."
He leaned toward my neck; his breath was a winter storm freezing the sea breeze of the dream. "Now is the time to fall from your fake kingdom... Wake up, Dorian. Wake up and fill your lungs with the dampness you deserve."
When I opened my eyes in terror, the lethargy of the heavy meal gave way to a sickening reality. As acid rain pierced through the shelter's iron sheets, there was the same corrosive ache in my soul.
I felt my ancestors turning in their graves; I had failed to die with honor, trading being "property" to save a life. As I collapsed to my knees, my gaze locked onto Dante's flawless, handmade leather shoes—without a single speck of mud.
"Take my honor..." I whispered. My voice was as dry and mournful as the crack of a breaking bone. "You don't have it... Take my honor. It's too heavy for me now."
Dante, with his blonde nobility resembling an ice statue, watched my destruction from above. Without deigning to touch me, he activated the system's harshest punishment protocol with a mere mental command. As the chips in my body pumped obedience hormones into my veins like poison, I shook with sobs.
"Drink and let it end..." I said, with the bitter taste of surrender. "My soul, my blood... Drink whatever is there and end this torture."
And even after hundreds of years spent in captivity, vampires still had to ask for permission to be invited. Being masters didn't change a thing. Their palaces were no longer in the shadows, in their own underground palaces, but built atop human remains.
Still, the permission had slipped from my lips once. I had said yes to a vampire.