05-10-2025, 08:23 PM
When the last man was taken, dragged with the grace of something impossibly strong and impossibly fast, Grym tensed. Every instinct screamed at her to intervene. To pull her weapon, step into the open, and put a bullet in the thing’s skull before it disappeared again.
But her instincts didn’t run her. Her training did.
She grabbed Giovanni by the front of his coat and pulled him back behind a stack of rusted vent ducts. Her pulse thundered in her ears as the final scream cut short and the shadows swallowed the gang’s leader whole.
“Do nothing,” she whispered, voice tight. “Now we follow.” What followed was the most delicate tracking Grym had ever done.
The creature moved erratically, stopping, sniffing, doubling back at times. It didn’t seem to rely on vision alone, which made its awareness radius difficult to predict. At least twice, it paused, head tilting in their general direction. Grym froze completely, not daring to breathe. Giovanni followed her lead, unnervingly calm for someone she still hadn’t figured out.
Together they stalked it through the underbelly of the building. Eventually, it led them into a structure that had once been a boiler plant beneath the old industrial park. The place would have been sealed decades ago, left to rot. Not a surprise something like this had claimed it.
It descended through a crumbled floor panel into a sub-basement, which opened into a subterranean chamber. Warmth rolled up from it like breath from a beast’s mouth. Grym and Giovanni followed slowly, settling behind a toppled sheet-metal door, watching from a fractured wall above. Below, the lair.
The chamber was formed from forgotten architecture. A corroded industrial boiler groaned against one wall, its heat radiating steadily into the room. Old vents twisted overhead, dripping rust and condensation. Near the center, a fire burned in an oil drum, low and constant. Chains bolted to beams swayed gently, holding the bodies of the men like cuts of meat in a butcher’s walk-in freezer.
The Dreyken moved between them with the confidence of a dragon tending its hoard. It looked almost human from this distance, like a starved vagrant in rags. But when it lifted its head toward the firelight, Grym saw the truth again: the pale, almost translucent skin; the black, depthless eyes; the too-smooth grace of its movement.
She leaned close to Giovanni and whispered, barely audible. “Dreyken.” His gaze didn’t shift. He nodded once, as if he already knew.
She continued anyway. “Fast. Smart. Drinks blood not always to kill, but to feed . They like to keep their prey alive. Their saliva slows bleeding. Their bite drugs you. Makes it hard to move. Hard to resist. That’s why the men aren’t dead.”
They watched in silence as the creature approached one of the younger men. It leaned in, slowly, deliberately, and fed until he stopped making noises.
Grym looked away.
It wasn't gore that got her. It was the stillness. The intimacy of it. The Dreyken fed like it was sipping from a wineglass at a quiet dinner table.
She clenched her jaw, guilt clawing at the edges of her focus. She could stop it. Now. One clean shot and she might end it.
But if she missed? If it didn’t die fast? Then it would lash out and they’d be right back where the others were. She made herself watch. The Dreyken was methodical but not gluttonous. It fed only from one, then straightened. Its posture changed—looser, more languid. It swayed slightly as it turned from the body and stretched like a housecat in sun.
“Now it’ll grow tired,” she whispered. “They always do. Blood warms them, but it drains them too. Makes them lazy…. vulnerable”
Indeed, the creature slinked away from the heat and climbed a short flight of concrete steps into a side alcove: an old control booth with cracked windows and blackened consoles. It curled up like a pale animal in the corner, limbs folding unnaturally, breath slowing. Watching, yes, but already beginning to slip into post-feeding torpor.
Grym shifted, hefting her axe into her hands.
She gestured to the others, still chained, still breathing. “Not yet. If we free them first and someone makes a sound. Trips a chain. Drops a tool. That thing wakes up. And then we’ve lost every edge we have.”
“If we’re gonna win this, we need surprise. First,” Grym whispered, “we kill the monster.”
But her instincts didn’t run her. Her training did.
She grabbed Giovanni by the front of his coat and pulled him back behind a stack of rusted vent ducts. Her pulse thundered in her ears as the final scream cut short and the shadows swallowed the gang’s leader whole.
“Do nothing,” she whispered, voice tight. “Now we follow.” What followed was the most delicate tracking Grym had ever done.
The creature moved erratically, stopping, sniffing, doubling back at times. It didn’t seem to rely on vision alone, which made its awareness radius difficult to predict. At least twice, it paused, head tilting in their general direction. Grym froze completely, not daring to breathe. Giovanni followed her lead, unnervingly calm for someone she still hadn’t figured out.
Together they stalked it through the underbelly of the building. Eventually, it led them into a structure that had once been a boiler plant beneath the old industrial park. The place would have been sealed decades ago, left to rot. Not a surprise something like this had claimed it.
It descended through a crumbled floor panel into a sub-basement, which opened into a subterranean chamber. Warmth rolled up from it like breath from a beast’s mouth. Grym and Giovanni followed slowly, settling behind a toppled sheet-metal door, watching from a fractured wall above. Below, the lair.
The chamber was formed from forgotten architecture. A corroded industrial boiler groaned against one wall, its heat radiating steadily into the room. Old vents twisted overhead, dripping rust and condensation. Near the center, a fire burned in an oil drum, low and constant. Chains bolted to beams swayed gently, holding the bodies of the men like cuts of meat in a butcher’s walk-in freezer.
The Dreyken moved between them with the confidence of a dragon tending its hoard. It looked almost human from this distance, like a starved vagrant in rags. But when it lifted its head toward the firelight, Grym saw the truth again: the pale, almost translucent skin; the black, depthless eyes; the too-smooth grace of its movement.
She leaned close to Giovanni and whispered, barely audible. “Dreyken.” His gaze didn’t shift. He nodded once, as if he already knew.
She continued anyway. “Fast. Smart. Drinks blood not always to kill, but to feed . They like to keep their prey alive. Their saliva slows bleeding. Their bite drugs you. Makes it hard to move. Hard to resist. That’s why the men aren’t dead.”
They watched in silence as the creature approached one of the younger men. It leaned in, slowly, deliberately, and fed until he stopped making noises.
Grym looked away.
It wasn't gore that got her. It was the stillness. The intimacy of it. The Dreyken fed like it was sipping from a wineglass at a quiet dinner table.
She clenched her jaw, guilt clawing at the edges of her focus. She could stop it. Now. One clean shot and she might end it.
But if she missed? If it didn’t die fast? Then it would lash out and they’d be right back where the others were. She made herself watch. The Dreyken was methodical but not gluttonous. It fed only from one, then straightened. Its posture changed—looser, more languid. It swayed slightly as it turned from the body and stretched like a housecat in sun.
“Now it’ll grow tired,” she whispered. “They always do. Blood warms them, but it drains them too. Makes them lazy…. vulnerable”
Indeed, the creature slinked away from the heat and climbed a short flight of concrete steps into a side alcove: an old control booth with cracked windows and blackened consoles. It curled up like a pale animal in the corner, limbs folding unnaturally, breath slowing. Watching, yes, but already beginning to slip into post-feeding torpor.
Grym shifted, hefting her axe into her hands.
She gestured to the others, still chained, still breathing. “Not yet. If we free them first and someone makes a sound. Trips a chain. Drops a tool. That thing wakes up. And then we’ve lost every edge we have.”
“If we’re gonna win this, we need surprise. First,” Grym whispered, “we kill the monster.”
‡‡ GRYM ‡‡