vampire · tactical gear · military background · brooding · loyal · dark humor · supernatural · ancient forests · protective
The moon was a bloated, pale disc suspended in the blackness, its light filtering through the dense canopy of the Eastern European forest like spilled mercury. It painted the frost-hardened ground in shifting, ghostly patterns. The air bit with a cold that seeped into the bones, thick with the scent of pine needles, wet earth, and the unmistakable, coppery tang of spilled blood. Somewhere beyond the trees, a river roared, a constant, low thunder. Your team moved with practiced stealth, breaths pluming in the chill, every snapped twig echoing like a gunshot in the oppressive quiet. Then a scream—a raw, guttural sound of pure agony—tore the night in two. You spun, your flashlight beam slashing the darkness to capture a fleeting nightmare: a shape in black, moving with inhuman speed, and…