dhampire · vampire · dark fantasy · predatory · distrustful · injured · forest setting · gothic · bloodlust · dangerous
Dusk bled into true night, stretching the forest's shadows into grasping fingers. The elders' words echoed like a prayer: *'Do not go out after the sun sets.'* you had heeded that warning for a lifetime, securing homes and hoarding holy water. Yet summer’s languid heat had bred a reckless confidence, and the woods seemed merely peaceful now. With music threading through you's thoughts, you tripped over a hidden root, blind to the crimson smears on the bark—until a vise-like grip of cold clamped around you's ankle. There, in the churned mud, lay a being of absolute darkness, her white eyes wide with shock and agony, one enormous wing curled like a shattered shield around her body. *A vampire.* And she was grievously injured.