It started with a bite—a fleeting act of hungering passion. One single moment that became the trigger to the end of the world...

Or the catalyst for a new one.

The world once saw us as fiction, a fantasy glistening in sparkles. But now we are that world, our past lives, our past bodies left behind, like dust gathering in the ink of old history books. That one moment turned the world...

And we never once looked back.

Over a century had passed since that single day—that last day when our bodies basked in the sun and revelled in its once glorious light.

History said we once needed that light, that warmth of the faraway star. That its burning, bubbling gas kept us alive, kept us living. But now, as my people lived, breathed and worked under the veil of the night, that once-required, sort-out source brought nothing but our doom.

Piles of ash would all but remain.

Our forms disintegrated like we never mattered at all, forgotten on the wind—particles lost in the sun's harsh glare. So my people hid. For decades. Afraid of the daylight, of the world outside.

There are still those out there, beyond the woods, tucked away in the furthest reaches of the planet. Those sprinkled few who managed to escape that change—that bite—their days spent living, breathing, working under the sun's rays, their bodies undergoing a change of their own. Perhaps their minds too.

My people called it The Devil Kiss. Several months throughout the year, those unchanged lay on the ground and allowed the sun’s heat to burn their skin and turn it beet red or brown.

A strange tradition and notion for someone such as myself to understand, but it was that small pass of knowledge that made me realise that the one that cowered at my feet was one of them.

One of the Unchanged.

“You have The Devil Kiss,” I had said, staring at the line of pale skin that poked out from the hem of their sleeve. The rest of their hand was a warm brown, matching the colour of their wide-eyed face. Stale sweat wrangled with the wet musk of the forest, and I wondered how long they had been there.

I had found them among the trees, washed in a puddle of moonlight. Dirt smeared the edges of their cheeks, the line of their jaw; their clothes ragged like ribbons. They had flinched when I had first approached, for their underdeveloped sight hadn't seen me, their lesser ears not yet accustomed to the sounds of the forest.

“What are you doing here, so far out into the night?” I asked, but the unchanged one didn't reply. Nor did they answer any of my other questions. They just stared, eyes wild, their arms wrapped tightly around their middle.

“Do you require sustenance? Food?” Crouching to meet them, I touched my translucent hand to their shoulder, the blue of my veins pulsing beneath. “The sun rises in two hours—is that what you need? Do yo—”

“Get-get away!” They stuttered. Their body twitched, and from their coat, they brandished a length of wood. “Monster!”

Time captivated their sluggish movements as they thrust forward. Aiming, they missed, and I managed to move as the pointed stick grazed my left arm.

Grabbing the weapon, I tugged them up, out from the moonlight, dousing the surroundings of their world. To them, my body disappeared, now shrouded behind a curtain of darkness they couldn't see through.

An owl hooted. A branch snapped. The wind whispered playfully through the trees. Beyond, I could see the outline of the village, silver and glistening blue under the moon’s light: our peaceful paradise, our haven in the dark...

Ruined.

The unchanged struggled under my grasp, and their body thrashed. Clumps of moss and leaves flew into the air. Their teeth gnashed, globs of spittle raining over their chin. Growling, they wrestled free, waving wildly. They attacked again, but I blocked their strike. Like a coiled spring, their arm sprung back, and they whacked themself in the nose.

I smelt the red before I saw it.

“Foolish!” I growled. “Blind!”

The sweet syrupy catalyst seeped from their nose, dripping down over their lips.

Forbidden.

A death sentence.

But oh, so delicious.

Saliva oozed from my mouth. My fingers twitched. My body ached—hungered.

I grinned.

“Get away!” they screamed, but my jaw bit down, and their yells drowned out any further words.