Seko had grown quieter.
Not the usual silent-brooding kind, but the kind where breath itself became effort. His body, toughened by vampiric blood, was supposed to resist illnesses—yet something ancient churned in him. A fever, not of the body, but of the blood. Kiyomi sat beside him, dabbing his forehead with a cloth, concern in her eyes hidden behind a mask of calm.
"You should rest," she whispered, though she wasn't sure if he could even hear.
Far from them, on a junk-littered planet orbiting a dying blue star, Atama was knee-deep in ship parts and old rusted reactors. He wiped grease from his hands with a half-eaten wrapper, tossing it over his shoulder as he grinned at a levitating engine core.
"Not bad, huh?" he muttered to himself.
Violet stood nearby, arms crossed, watching vines grow around the base of the ship. He guided the flora with subtle gestures, letting thick canopies rise behind them. A natural dome began to take shape—its purpose simple: shade Seko and Kiyomi from the harsh light of the system's twin suns.
"The vines absorb ultraviolet and trap moisture," Violet explained, "Should keep him stable. For now."
Atama barely nodded, deep in concentration. The original spaceship offered by Kutol's leaders had been ambushed—bandits, maybe hired, maybe desperate. It didn't matter. The vessel was lost. But Atama, true to his word, was rebuilding—from nothing but scraps and genius.
"I need a core that bends time slightly… something responsive. Maybe a graviton matrix?" he muttered.
Violet raised a brow. "From this trash heap?"
"I once built a hover-scooter with three pieces of bubblegum and a sock. Trust me," Atama said with a grin.
Back in the shelter, Kiyomi looked at Seko's face. He was mumbling in his sleep.
"Family… monks… I didn't want it…"
Whatever illness this was, it wasn't just physical. Something was surfacing—maybe memory, maybe something older.
The world around Seko blurred—no longer the vines of Violet's shelter, nor the silver-blue sky of the scrap planet. Instead, it was stone... wet and cold. Walls that bled with old, dried iron. The clinking of chains echoed through the chamber, low and cruel like the laugh of something inhuman.
He was eight again.
His arms were too thin, the cuffs too heavy. His knees ached from crouching in the cold. He couldn't stop trembling—not from the cold, but from them.
The vampire family.
They stood above, on balconies carved into the cavern walls, their eyes like distant suns—merciless, ancient. Watching. Waiting.
And then—
Nivarna.
She stood between them and him like she always had. Her body, already bruised and bloodied, trembled slightly—but she smiled. Always that same crooked, cocky grin. Her black hair was matted with sweat and dirt, and her once-clean white gown was now torn and scorched.
"Don't cry, Seko," she said, her voice cracking with defiance. "You're stronger than you think. I'm just built better, that's all."
Seko, chained to the opposite wall, sniffled and shook his head. "I don't want them to hurt you."
"Too late," she said with a wink. "But it's worth it, as long as you keep breathing."
A vampire lord leaned down, voice like silk-wrapped poison. "Let's see if the bond breaks when both are broken."
The next thing Seko heard was the sound of flesh being torn.
Nivarna didn't scream. She laughed.
"You really think this is enough to kill me? You'd need a hellfire sun for that."
He watched her take the pain he should've felt. Again and again. Days passed. Or maybe years. The dungeon never told time. He remembered her voice in the dark.
"One day, you'll become someone so terrifying they'll regret not ending you here."
Then… the day they dragged her away.
The door slammed shut.
She never returned.
And Seko was left, alone in the dark, screaming her name into a silence too thick for echoes.
Back in the present...
Seko gasped awake, lungs empty of air but full of rage and sorrow. Sweat drenched his body. The vines shaded the sunlight, and Kiyomi stirred beside him.
"You alright?" she asked.
Seko didn't answer. He just stared at his hand, trembling slightly. Nivarna. She was gone... but her fire still burned in him.
"Soon," he whispered. "Soon, I'll find out why they took her."
Kiyomi leaned in, gently wringing out a cloth soaked in cold water and placing it on Seko's forehead. His breathing had slowed, but his eyes were wide open—haunted. She could tell he hadn't just woken up from a nightmare.
It was a memory.
"Who's... Nivarna?" she asked softly, brushing a strand of hair from his face.
Seko didn't respond at first. His gaze was distant, lost somewhere far beyond the vines of Violet's shelter and the sky of the forge planet.
Then, finally, he spoke.
"She was my sister," he said, voice low. "Not by blood. She was human. Adopted... like me."
Kiyomi blinked, surprised. "The vampire family… adopted a human?"
"They adopted her," Seko corrected, his tone heavy. "To test how far a human could go... before breaking. She wasn't meant to last. But she did. Longer than they expected. Longer than any of them wanted."
He closed his eyes for a moment, as if steadying the weight of the memory. "They used her as leverage. As punishment. As armor. Whenever I bled too much, she took my place. She never asked. She just did it."
Kiyomi placed her hand gently over his. "What happened to her?"
Seko opened his mouth... then stopped. A silence lingered, longer than it should've.
"They took her away," he said finally, voice colder now. "I never saw her again. Maybe she's gone. Maybe they turned her into something... else. All I know is, I owe her more than I've ever owed anyone."
Kiyomi watched his face, seeing the rage flicker beneath the stillness. She didn't ask more. She didn't need to. She just nodded and sat silently beside him, watching the light flicker through the vine shelter, knowing something else had just awakened inside Seko.
Seko's breath hitched. The fever blurred the edges of reality, but memory came back with merciless clarity.
He was small again—eight years old. The stone dungeon was cold, its walls slick with moss and rot. The air reeked of blood and cruelty.
He remembered Nivarna. Standing before him. Bruised, exhausted. But unyielding.
The goblins had swarmed them—twisted creatures driven by violence and vile desire. There were too many. Seko was paralyzed, shaking, crying. Nivarna didn't cry As she was being violated by the filthy Goblins, They were forcing Nivarna to breed more Goblins driven by lust.
She fought like she always did. She bled like she always did.
And when they broke her…
She rose.
Her obi, stained and torn, was still tied firm around her waist. Her body trembled, but her spirit refused to.
She knelt by him, brushed back his messy hair, and even smiled—smirked, like it was just another bad day.
"See?" she whispered, voice soft but hoarse. "That wasn't that bad…"
He tried to speak. But before he could, shadows reached from behind her and dragged her away into the dark.
He never saw her again.
Seko wandered the tunnels for what felt like days—no food, no direction, just fear and grief tearing at him. Until one day, a small group of monks passed through the ruins. They expected him to pounce—to drink their blood.
But instead, they saw a broken child, weeping.
He wasn't a beast. He was begging for help.
And so they took him in.