Another fleeting glance. Another shiver. Shivers don’t belong in the balmy evening warmth of summer… but this one did.

All Hallows’ Eve had long since fled. Waiting to once again herald the return of All Hallows’ Day. Yet something had awoken that creeping sense of dread.

You knew it as you fled. They knew it as they took up the chase.

If they were a horse, they would have taken up the bit.

If they were a bloodhound, they would have taken up the scent.

If you were a pheasant, you would have felt the sting of lead shot.

If you were a rabbit, you would have been skinned.

Either way they would be the victor, and you would be the victim. There was no place for you both in this world. A world of changing views and ideologies meant that radical evolution needed to happen in order to survive.

Phantoms hissed through the static, irritated at the persistence of the heat. Somewhere a queen yowled in furious desperation for any tom to heed her call. Such a diabolical sound, it had claws of flashing power to turn the still air into ribbons.

The foreshadowing of the perfect storm.

Drawing your sweat closer, you scuttled onwards on sticky soles. Drinking in the heavy soup to nourish your muscles, you shook beads of exertion from your brow. That sense of being watch had momentarily fled.

You knew that it would come again.

Nodding politely at the raised hand in the corner shop window, you turned the corner. It was not worth the apprehension to spend thoughts of anxiety on the future.

The future would come, the future would pass, the future would come again.

Pushing open the reluctant gate that squealed on its hinges, you juggled with your bag, searching for your keys. They should be here, in this inside zipped compartment… where they always resided on your long days at work. In a last-ditch effort, you shook the bag violently by its handles, scolding its forgetful ways. The fabric flapped and sighed as if saying, “I told you, there are no keys in here.”

Hurling your closest ally in the fight against the Governmental changes to the ground, you winced as you heard the yip of pain. Slamming your clenched hand onto the stubborn glass of your front door, you slumped dejectedly against the panel. There was only ten minutes before the curfew bell rang, even if you ran you would not make it. Nor did you have an exemption card that granted you access to the night’s shadows. Your job was daylight hours only, not like some other jobs.

How you hated your job, you didn’t get to choose what vocation to enter. That was decided by the official dressed in sapphire behind a stout desk and protective glass. They took your name and ran their filthy rich finger over your files, searching for your credentials and potentials. After several minutes of being raked by scowling orbs lined with judgement did they nod, and reach into a draw and pull out a crisp card. On which your future, your status, and the city rules were printed.

“You must carry this with you at all times,” That was the stark warning, forget it once you were warned and forget it more you would regret the day you were born.

Hurling a silent plea at your watch you groan, four minutes and thirty seconds. If the patrol found you, they would have you carted away to the local gaol. Again, that sense of being watched returned.

“Are you looking for these?” Soft and innocent a voice rose from the violet whisps of dusk.

Spinning around, heart pounding in alarm, your wild eyes landed on a willowy figure resting easily in the gateway. From nimble fingers dangled a single key, and twisted keychain. Relief lightened your panic, “I am! How? Can I repay you in some way?”

A light chuckle took flight, “It matters not how, and you have already repaid me.” With a seductive flutter of their eyelashes, they held out your possession.

Reaching out you snagged the distinctive keyring, except you never reached your prize. Your outreached arm was twisted violently behind your back, with a sickening pop of tendons trying to anchor the joint into the socket.

“What are you doing?” The more you squirmed the greater the pain that sent slithers of ice through your veins and nerves.

“This.”

A slender tongue pierced the thin veil of your neck, injecting a slippery dose of venom before retracting. Then you knew no more.

Impenetrable penumbra shrouded your vision, casting a backdrop for scenes of pure terror.

People. So many people.

Some had their throats torn out by dancing talons in a glittering display of red crystals, hypnotic in a single harsh stream of Leukos light. Pent up anguish lost to the drowning gurgling of fleeing haemal cells of life and breath wrestled away by the cruel hand of fate.

Others obliterated by the seething eruption of pent-up rage and liquid anger. Any remaining tatters of flesh were eagerly lapped up by the burning xantho-tongues of starved demons.

While a handful watched their own demise. Lashed to tables of cold steel they screamed, primal and gut wrenching a disease that spread uncontrollably in a new-born epidemic. As their warm form fitting coats were unzipped revealing muscles striated and multinucleated. A single wicked blade sunk in with a delicious crunch and squelch of a warm feast. Peeling back the nutritious meal exposing the shy sheen of membrane and below the rich tapestry of organs. One by one they fell, dead to the cries of help, blood loss caused a final wracked quiver and saline to moisten the brow.

There would be no tomorrow.

A sharp slap of kerato-hands roused you from your slumber, before sliding down the pocked plains of your face and disappearing under the hem of your shirt. You felt mortified that they had crawled with callousness down over the hidden skin of your torso.

“Welcome back to the realm of the living,” Chirruped the same voice that brought you false hope.

Lunging forwards your arms yanked you back, shackled to the wall of filthy grime by rusted chains and gnashing manacles, you snarled, “Why should I believe your guise of jollity?”

“Feisty one, aren’t you? You will serve me well,” They did not flinch at your attack instead raised your chin in skeletal hands of menace, boring deep into your soul through the flashing windows in your skull.

Shaking your head wildly, you snapped your teeth together barely grazing their alabaster skin, “I will never serve you!”

“Oh, you see... you will serve me and only me.” Raising a solitary hand, they drummed their fingers on their curved cheek bone, haloed by a strange artificial ring.

“You will have to kill me before I bend to your will.”

“Is that so? Well, you shall get your wish, but not here in this stinking cell. No, in my brand-new laboratory, where things are not as they seem-”

“-Is that all you can do, twist your words in empty threats?” You held their gaze defiantly.

You would regret ever challenging them.

Out of nowhere two burly… creatures marched. Bowing low to their leader they took you bodily, raising you high so that no matter how fast your feet paddled they would be futile in their search for solid ground. By some luck the chains burst apart in a shower of dull sparks… how your arms not been torn off you would never know.

Dumping you onto the pristine table they pinned you down- a hand on your shoulder and a hand on your hip, flanking the table. Smirking as they saw your face freeze with dawning realisation.

Softly, the door swished as your captor breezed in. Only now entirely clad in blinding white, except for the hypothermic blue of their gloves. Looming over they wheedled with persuasive lure, “The brain cannot feel pain, only knows of it by the screamed alarm of nerves. So, if I may, I would like to examine your brain.”

With something like relief, you shot back, “If it achieves in killing me, at least it will be the end.”

“There is no end. This is your birth. This is the turning of a new age, an age where glory will reign, and we will be free from tyranny.”

“You are the only evil in this world,” Was all you could muster as milky liquid slipped into the vein that ran through the crease of your elbow, the last thing you saw was the conspiratorial wink of the scalpel.