I woke from my sleep, my soul heavy with the dregs of Dante's artificial paradise. I wiped the tears of those sold dreams from my eyes and stepped into the freezing, stench-filled air of the shelter. As I walked toward the border—toward that bloody tax office—the system chirped in my ear with mechanical pride.
[SYSTEM: MASTER HAS GRANTED ACCESS. DRONE FIRE CANCELLED. RISK OF INJURY 0%. SPECIAL PREMIUM ACCESS ACTIVE.]
I had allowed the vampire to drink my blood. Once I'd given my consent, no further permission was needed for vampires. The words had flown from my lips like a bird breaking free from its cage.
As for me, I was a bird with broken wings. Even if a bird that didn't know how to fly were to break free from its cage, where could it possibly go?
"Maybe I'm so bird-brained that I think of myself as a foolish bird singing songs of freedom," I said to myself. "Maybe I'm nothing more than a mouse. I have the heart of a mouse—rebellious, yet willing to give its life for a slice of cheese trapped in a trap."
I was now on my way to pay the price for the food he had fed me. I had eaten for him, I had drunk for him. He needed the dishonorable blood flowing through my veins so he could taste it directly. Before reaching the boundaries of the massive obsidian tower, there was one last "special zone" where we had to dispose of the filth from our shelters.
This is where the favorites and the sacrificial victims bound for service usually gathered. No, nuclear fallout didn't affect them; the carotid arteries and moss-covered hearts of those immortal bastards didn't beat. That didn't affect them. But since they couldn't derive pleasure directly from food, they could extract that taste from our blood.
They fed us like cattle, stuffing us until we defecated. While we drowned in our own filth, they watched and encouraged us to mate with one another. They took our babies, raising them for themselves—babies sold in exchange for freedom had a better fate.
Their bellies were full every day, and they grew healthy. We, on the other hand, were on display for everyone to see like live-stream beggars or fish in an aquarium, watched as a "series" on giant screens.
Now Dante would settle the score for every bite I took with my blood.
I didn't know what a curse sustenance was. I hadn't been born into this world with sustenance. By the time I was born, all resources had already run out.
My steps grew heavy as lead. The "Premium" preparation process Dante had promised me began to grind through the gears of the system. The lenses on my temples heated up, announcing thousands of perverted viewers trembling with excitement for the upcoming blood harvest with a digital static hum.
But right then, the sight I saw at the acid-burned edge of the ceremony grounds was like a corrosive signature carved onto my future.
Before me stood a legend of the past—once the most coveted "Human Pet" of Vivaricus. A woman whose name was once carved into the walls like a holy prostitute. Now, in the wreckage of her fifties, far from the vanilla pools and silk sheets she once swam in, she was displayed in the most wretched, raw state of nakedness.
That old, expensive lace jacket thrown over her shoulders hung from her frail frame like the tattered flag of a rotted empire.
In her youth, that fresh body had been fed by vampire masters until it almost burst, her skin stretched like porcelain. Now, with the comfort abruptly severed, it sagged like a heavy sack of meat. Her breasts hung down to her stomach, and her hips wrapped around her legs like deflated balloons in the grip of hunger.
The diamonds on her wrists stood like shackles next to her protruding bones and bruised skin—glitters that wouldn't buy a loaf of bread if sold, nor warm her soul if worn.
She was on her own live stream. Like the final gasps of a forgotten pop star, she had become the vomit-inducing entertainment for low-ranking vampires and distant wealthy colonists. The notifications in my lens dropped the disgusting commands of her stream before me, one by one, like lashes:
[SUBSCRIBER MESSAGE: Wrap those saggy tits around your neck and suck them, you old hag!]
[MISSION: Put both breasts in your mouth at once; let the whole galaxy see how much they stretch!]
[DONATION REQUEST: Shove that observation drone into your womb in exchange for a slice of stale bread. We want to watch your rotted decay in high resolution!]
(LADY POLİN : JUST CLOSE THİS FİLTHY MEAT. I WİLL GAVE U 10000 VİVA AND SOME FRESH FRUİTS. U LOOK LİKE A OLD SPONGE. DİSGUSTİNG."
"LADY MARGİA : U don't even have single Viva , poor vampires-hit. You are not trueborn,You're not a vampire; you're just a piece of human shit. I'LL GİVE 1 VİVA,OLDİE. BLOCK THİS GİRL :D GO MONKEY,GO HUMAN UNİON İSLANDS "
"Yes masters... Yes, my noble owners." the woman was saying, her voice trembling like a scratched record. She was clutching her own breasts like heaps of offal, hitting the rock bottom of humiliation while trying to force that nauseating, toothless fake smile onto her face.
"This wretched servant of yours... if you grant me just a little bread, I miss wine....I will do more... I will do it all..."
Someone was ordering her not to eat the synthetic food sent by drone, but to vomit it up and chew it again. A former goddess feeding on her own bile... she was the living proof of a betrayed past and a raped future.
I clenched my fists. As my nails pierced through my palms, the "Premium" chain in my veins began to boil with a hatred more searing than nuclear radiation. Dante's digital hand, stroking my hair in my mind, now felt like a greasy noose tightening around my neck.
"Look, Dorian..." Dante seemed to say through the icy silence of the system. "Look at what awaits you when you stop shining. If you leave my protection, that pile of rotting meat the woman is clutching will be your fate too. Be a good soldier. Listen to me."
I turned my head away in horror. As I went to give my blood, I realized once again that what flowed through my veins was not just a biological fluid; it was my honor, destined to be an appetizer on the masters' flamboyant tables. I swore that one day, I would shove those drones, those cameras, and those metal heaps being forced down that woman's throat, right into the hearts of those owners—into their chests of ice.
Dante had made me "Premium"; he had decorated and sealed me. But the primal hatred within me was too massive, too bloody to be limited by any subscription package or any chip.
I was his loudest dream, and one day, that dream would become his nightmare.