The night burned.

The efforts of mankind and its greatest strength, it’s capacity for evolution, had been defeated by weaponised stagnation.

It was being replaced with screams

The heavy ink coated the sky, keeping away the twinkling lights and the promises of a better tomorrow. There were no more treasures in the heavens. Instead, the land was coated in the void.

As a final measure, to tear down what had come before, it had been set on fire.

And now the city became multiple shades of orange and red, as the flames raged unchallenged.

The Nation Capital of Shordon was being ripped apart in a tragedy disguised as triumph, with a nearly thousand year reign ending in much the same way that it had begun.

Except this time, the streets were filled with drained corpses.

Progress was built on that which came before, and today it was the Undead who claimed this land.

This was their destined hour.

This was the first night of what would be from henceforth.

A world devoid of sun, life, and hope.

The World of the Never Moon.

And standing atop the highest point in the legendary Capital of Shordon, resting at the edge and overlooking the fruits of her work, stood the Queen responsible for such horror.

She sat with a single leg dangling over the edge of the broken balcony, the glass having been shattered with her arrival, and wearing along with many jewels and colourful fabrics a content smile upon her face.

Her clothing should have been heavy, but she wore them with grace and flexibility. Undoubtedly it was easier because of the supernatural influence that had stolen her.

For, of course, she was a Vampire.

Her gloved hands were stained by dried blood from her many recent meals, and she opened her hand to let the ash and sparks dance between her fingertips before they faded away.

In death, she had changed.

Her hair was long and white, though untamed, for its requirement to be controlled now deemed unimportant in her new life.

Her thin skin clutched to her bones as gravity forced it to sag, whilst beneath its surface there was the occasional pulse of recently consumed blood appearing to travel along veins and arteries with the slow beat of her heart.

She was regal.

She was dead.

She spoke and despite her recent changes, her voice was still the same.

“Is it not the most incredible thing?” She said, moving her mouth strangely with each word as she navigated her new teeth; “I hear screams, yes, but with enough focus I can pinpoint onto a… particular individual.”

She pointed to the East.

“Did you know that seven miles that way is a child who whimpers for her mother who, I can hear, is bleeding out inches from her? The mother is… trying to comfort her daughter, but if those footsteps are anything to go by, they’ll both be gone very soon.”

And then she pointed to the West.

“And twelve miles in that direction, why, I can hear the prayers of an old man who is begging for help from some higher power. Remarkable that he does not realise that I am the highest power, now. Literally, in fact, since I stand here at the tallest spot in this city…”

She dropped her hand, a soft giggle escaping her lips.

“And, why, just below us I am listening to… so much fighting. They are moving so fast and trying so hard. I can actually hear every single heartbeat of every struggling, desperate, figure. It’s almost like I can hear by their cries that they don’t think this is impossible.”

She slowly pulled herself up. Standing on the very edge with no fear. Height, gravity, none of it was her weakness anymore.

“But, of course, it is impossible.”

Her curiosity hadn’t died with her. She still found the wonder in the world.

“And I should know. I have seen impossible. For I am, a miracle.”

She turned her head slightly, the bones cracking at the movement. Her lips were blue, though not with lipstick or bruising. They just lacked that necessary essence of life.

They lacked spirit.

“My eyes,” she continued, closing them; “Do you know what I see? More than the colours of a limited spectrum.”

“I can see through each of my kind, no matter how far away they are.”

She paused. Taking it all in.

“They are dancing through the streets, did you know?”

“I feel their elation. Their… joy, hidden so long behind bodies unable to feel anything at all.”

“They are wrenching open doors and, in those moments, granting themselves the right to what they have never had before.“

“They are free, and nothing can stop them.”

She sighed, content, though with no oxygen in her lungs.

It was more a force of habit.

“And the taste… I can feel it on my lips.”

“Cooked flesh.”

“Blood.”

“Fear.”

“Blood.”

“Tears.”

“Blood…”

“It’s as though I am drinking along with every meal that my subjects enjoy. I am there, in each of them. They praise me, and I am with them.”

She turned so she could be seen, placing her hands over her mouth, cupping them in an attempt to push more of what she could sense into her.

Her eyes rolled back into her head with pure ecstasy.

Bliss.

She then drew herself back, holding her arms out as she swayed on the spot and for a moment looked as though she would have vanished over the edge, lost in the sensations of her kin…

And then with a sharp, sudden, movement she launched forward to be away from the edge and closer to her guest.

She landed before him. Her hair, flopped over her face, revealing only one of her gleaming purple eyes that focused on her new target.

She stood over him, blocking his view.

It dilated, seeing him and him alone.

“Isn’t it just the most wonderful thing?” She said; “And just think… without you it would have been impossible.”

The figure sitting atop the tower clutched his side to hold onto the spear that had punctured his flesh.

It had pinned him to the ground, blood pooling around the wound and dripping to the stone floor.

He breathed heavily as he stared at the woman with a burning and indescribable emotion.

It was fair to say he was conflicted.

“Well, I can’t take all the credit,” he said with a pained voice; “And honestly, it’s not my favourite way that we’ve spent our time together. That night playing board games was pretty great, in retrospect, but this…”

Unlike her beautiful and regal form, his attire was more basic.

Functional.

It was uniform, black in colour and one that would have kept him hidden in the night. Even his hair, dyed a deep black with the occasional hints of the true bright red that lay underneath, was designed with darkness specifically in mind.

He shifted slightly, wincing slightly, and said;

“…don’t… you think you’ve done enough?”

His pain alone was a meal.

Physical, emotional, psychological, it was a starter, main and dessert all wrapped into one.

She reached forward and press the side of his face with a cold, marble-like, finger.

The nail punctured his cheek and she drew a single droplet of his blood, placing it directly onto her tongue.

Her eyes flickered and she shivered as, for a brief moment, she felt.

“I think…” she whispered, shuddering as the droplet travelled through her veins; “…that you fear your part in a world forever altered.”

He watched her stand up and he then grunted as she playfully tapped the edge of the spear in passing.

She walked away, her footsteps light and yet heavy with the force that she commanded.

“I am amazed that you don’t see this for what it is.”

“We have won, together, to change this world from one where a greater race was being subjugated by a biological disadvantage, to one where that weakness has been eliminated.”

She stopped, refusing to turn back, though commanding the space with her presence.

“I stand as Queen in a world where there are no lights.”

“The heavens are empty.”

“The doors of this vanquished nation are open.”

“I have achieved it all in one night.”

“Never before has someone so decisively changed the world.”

He watched as she raised both arms into the sky as in the silence and on the wind came the reveal of the extent of her actions.

The screams surfed the wave.

The bodies burned, the blood flowed, the teeth punctured, and the dead reigned.

It was, in the updraft, that her final echoes of humanity faded completely.

She relished in it.

The person who she had been in life with her thoughts, hopes, and dreams vanished in the reveal of the destruction she had wrought.

She was truly, at this point, separated from who she was.

She was… dead.

No, worse.

A Vampire.

She lowered her arms again and stood on the edge of the building once more, her long and colourful dress ruffling in the wind as she prepared to leap from its highest point and join her people…

Only to stop as he spoke from the heart one last time.

“Please… reconsider. I know what you think you feel is powerful, but, on the memory of what we were to each other… Please. Rethink where this will take us.”

There was a flicker of something in her.

A last remnant, perhaps the ash of the burnt out husk that was her soul, caused just a flicker of hesitation-

But it was just a flicker.

“If it helps…” She said, her voice defiant and yet soft; “We were always heading here, since the second we met.”

He focused on her outline, highlighted by the newly orange city, as he recalled the woman she had been.

He sat, bathed in her shadow.

And then, it was a stranger who spoke her final words to him.

“Watch on, My King of the Shadows.

“Watch, my Saviour.”

“My Friend.”

“My Knight.”

“My Lover.”

“Watch… as everything ends.”

And she was gone.

Falling from the tower he knew she would land gracefully on the surface below.

With every second of her unlife, the lives of this great Nation were to be brought further brought to ruin.

So, he felt it for just a moment longer.

The disappointment, the betrayal, the pain in the truth that there was no turning back.

He held it, like water in a clenched fist, and then he pushed forward.

Ashyer Zephro rested a hand on the spear in his chest, breathed once, and then raised his head.

He summoned a Pulse.

A sensation of black coated the weapon. As a rival to the burning, it itself took the form of flickering, dark, flames.

They, however, were deeper than the very night itself.

A void upon the void.

He grasped the weapon with both hands, now fully engulfed, and with a grunt ripped it out of his body.

It clattered to the ground, the flames vanishing from the weapon and gathering instead in the space of the wound, reacting to his need as the flesh sizzled closed.

He winced, swearing, but he wouldn’t die.

He stepped up, holding onto the wall for a second to make sure he wouldn’t pass out, the yellow outline of his eyes unmoving from where the Queen had once stood.

But even with the quick patch, he knew that the scent of dried blood would draw his enemy to him.

But that wasn’t a problem.

If anything, that was a bonus.

He marched forward and stood at the edge of the tower, where she had just been.

This had been the final opportunity to speak some sense to her, but it had fallen on Dead ears.

That was fine.

At least now he knew.

And that meant he knew what he had to do next.

He summoned from the very shadows themselves an armoury of weapons, each blade shimmering as he selected what he required, and the pair formed into his open palms.

He then bent his legs at the edge of the burning city.

The Queen had commanded him to watch.

He was now forced to disobey.

He leapt towards the burning city at the speed of darkness, weapons drawn, to save humanity from the night itself…