2026-04-01 14:59:49"Baby, if you don't give your blood, won't she be angry at you?"
The woman's voice was like honey dripping over broken glass. She lounged on the hospital sofa, twirling a lock of hair around her finger as she looked at Roy. Her eyes were bright with the predatory gleam of someone watching an obstacle being removed. Roy let out a jagged, ugly laugh. "Angry at me,pfft? Teresha is obsessed with me. Even if she wakes up... which she won't. She'll probably thank me for not ruining my health with a needle. She's a pain, honestly. Always has been." "Baby, look at Dr. Andre," she whispered with a sharp smirk, pointing toward the door. "He's still standing there. Hoping you would donate your blood." Roy turned his gaze toward the doctor. The air in the room seemed to thicken with the stench of his arrogance. "Dr. Andre, I believe you value your career, don't you?" Roy's voice was a low, vibrating threat. The doctor's face went from pale to a deep, insulted red. "What exactly are you implying, Mr. Roy?" "Are you slow?" the woman mocked from the sofa, her voice sharp. "Roy just has to snap his fingers, and your little medical license is as good as scrap paper. He's telling you to walk out that door and forget you ever asked for a donation. I hovered near the ceiling, my wings vibrating with a frequency that felt like it was tearing my tiny thorax apart. I had seen enough. This was the kind of casual, smiling evil that made my own memories of the rooftop scream in the back of my mind. But then, the temperature in the room plummeted. It didn't just get cold; it became stagnant, like the air inside a tomb. I swiveled my thousand-lensed eyes toward the corner of the room, near the darkened IV stand. A woman was standing there. She wore a blue hospital gown, the fabric translucent and shimmering with a sickly, ethereal light. She wasn't a living being. She was a flickering shadow of grief, a soul caught between the scalpel and the shroud. I could see right through her literally and figuratively. The sadness in her translucent eyes was a crushing sorrow that made my own thirst for blood feel small. Is that his wife? I wondered. Is she watching her husband negotiate her death sentence while he flirts with her replacement? The shadow flickered, a single tear of light rolling down her cheek before she vanished into the gray wallpaper. A surge of fury hit me. I wanted to dive. I wanted to sink my proboscis into Roy's throat and watch that Crimson aura drain into the floor. But I couldn't. If I killed him now, Teresha would die with him. She needed that blood. "System..." I buzzed into the void of my mind. "I need help. Now." [What is your requirement, Host?] "Find a way to make him donate blood to his wife. Control him. Break him. Whatever it takes to save that woman in the next room. After she's safe... I'll decide his fate myself." [A condition exists that the Host must acknowledge before the System executes this protocol. Since the Host is requesting a Benevolent Intervention rather than a standard harvest, a sacrifice is required. The cost is one year of your total human lifespan. Do you agree?] I hesitated. My heart or the tiny pump that served as one stuttered. I only had five days to live as it was. Taking a year off my eventual human life felt like a high price for a man who had already lost everything. "You're a cruel piece of work, System," I muttered. [You have only five seconds to decide, Host. 5... 4... 3... 2...] "I agree! Take it. It's just a year. If I can't save a life while I'm down here in the dirt, what's the point of going back?" [Deal sealed. Longevity recalculated. Executing 'Puppet Master' protocol.] Suddenly, a rhythmic, robotic pulse echoed through my senses. Roy, who had been leaning back in his chair with a smug grin, suddenly jerked upright. His spine snapped straight with an audible crack. The light in his eyes changed. The arrogance vanished, replaced by a dull, glowing red film. He looked like a machine wearing a man's skin. He turned his head slowly toward Dr. Andre, his movements unnatural. "Doctor," Roy said. His voice was flat, devoid of emotion, yet the words were clear. "I will donate. Take as much as is required. You must save my wife. At any cost." He reached out and took Dr. Andre's hand, shaking it with a firm, desperate grip that looked like a plea for mercy. What's happening with my body? A voice screamed from inside Roy. I could hear it through the System... the real Roy, trapped behind his own eyes, watching his limbs move against his will. It's like someone is inside me! Get out! Dr. Andre's face lit up with a mixture of shock and profound relief. "I knew it, Mr. Roy... I knew. I couldn't believe a husband would truly be cruel enough to let his wife slip away like that. Please, follow me immediately. We don't have a second to lose." "Roy? What's wrong with you?" the woman on the sofa cried out, her face twisting in confusion. She stood up and grabbed his arm, her nails digging into his sleeve. "You just said you wanted her gone! You said we could finally enjoy together! Roy, stop this!" Roy didn't look at her. He didn't even acknowledge she existed. SLAP. Roy's hand moved with a lightning speed he didn't possess. He backhanded the woman so hard she spun and collapsed back onto the sofa, her lip split and bleeding. I hovered by the door, watching the scene with a dark, satisfied hum. Serve her right, I thought. "Take him, Doctor," I buzzed. "Drain him dry if you have to." As Roy was led out of the room like a lamb to the slaughter, the System's voice returned, cold and mocking. [Puppet Master protocol active. Harvesting of Crimson Tax will begin once the needle is inserted. You have sacrificed time, Host. Let us see if the blood is worth the price.] ---
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A Promise to the Dead
I pressed my back against the damp plaster, clutching the two-foot chef's knife. My human heart was a frantic bird trapped in a cage of ribs, hammering out a rhythm of pure terror."If you die here, your existence will be erased in all timelines."The System's words looped in my mind like a funeral dirge. I've faced a twenty-seven-story drop. I've lived as a parasite in the dirt. But this? A world where the dead refuse to stay down? This was a different kind of nightmare. I was a man who used to close his eyes during horror movies, and now, I was the lead actor in one. Should I say holy zombie!"Better than dying in Xena's hands," I whispered, a hysterical laugh bubbling up in my throat. "At least these monsters don't pretend to love you before they bite off your flesh."Snap out of it, Zilu, I scolded myself. I had twenty-four hours to survive. Energy was my most precious currency. I needed to find a hole, crawl into it, and wait for the clock to run out. I began to move, d
The Red Zone Hunt
"Yes, of course. Show me," I muttered, my wings twitching with a mix of dread and desperation. I had paid the tax in blood and years of my life. I wanted the prize.[Look at your shadow, Host. Enjoy.]The red glow from the ritual hadn't fully faded when I looked down at the surface of the rainwater puddle. My heart...or the frantic little pump in my chest nearly seized."Holy... what kind of monster is that?" I screamed.On the surface of the water, I was still a mosquito. But the shadow I cast on the stone beneath the water? It was the towering, jagged silhouette of a man. A man with elongated, claw-like fingers and eyes that burned like embers in the dark. It looked like a demon made of cheap ink.[That is your new form, Host. You can haunt the waking world now. Consider it a gift.]"A gift? This is a nightmare!" I buzzed, my voice spiraling into a panic. "Imagine a mosquito flying into a room, but the shadow on the wall is a six-foot-tall reaper. That's not a gift, that's
The Altar of Ascension
The night air was heavy, thick with the scent of damp earth and the electric hum of an approaching storm. I was hovering aimlessly over a stagnant pond, my wings beating in a restless rhythm. To anyone else, I am just a nuisance in the dark (that's actually true though). Anyway, I was an anxious mosquito counting the seconds until midnight.In the hollow space where my stomach used to be, I felt the weight of the prize: the Crimson Tax. The blood of that monster Roy was still warm within me, a pulsing, rare energy that felt like liquid fire. It was Rh-Null. The Red Blood. The kind of rare essence that was supposed to bridge the gap between my bug life and my human soul."System," I buzzed, my tone sounded sharp and impatient. "Midnight is breathing down my neck. Where are you?"Silence.Usually, that cold, robotic voice used to snapped back before I could even finish a thought. But now? No answer came. Just the distant croak of a bullfrog and the rustle of leaves. A cold knot
Blight of the Damned
The transfusion room was a sterile, white-tiled purgatory that smelled of rubbing alcohol. Nurses moved with a frantic urgency, their rubber-soled shoes chirping against the floor like panicked birds. In the center of it all stood Roy or rather, the hollowed-out shell that used to be Roy.I watched from the back of a plastic chair, my compound eyes tracking the jerky, robotic movements of his limbs. Inside that body, the real Roy was howling. I could feel the vibrations of his terror through the System's link; he was a passenger in his own skin, screaming at a wall of silence."Get out! Get out of my body, you freak!" his mind shrieked.I chuckled, the sound came out a low, dry vibration in my thorax. No one gonna noticed me... A mosquito! Hahaha..."Lay down here, Mr. Roy," a senior nurse urged, her voice tight with the stress of the ticking clock. "We need to tap the vein now. Every second we lose is a second your wife doesn't have."Roy stood stiffly, his muscles twitching
A puppet
"Baby, if you don't give your blood, won't she be angry at you?"The woman's voice was like honey dripping over broken glass. She lounged on the hospital sofa, twirling a lock of hair around her finger as she looked at Roy. Her eyes were bright with the predatory gleam of someone watching an obstacle being removed.Roy let out a jagged, ugly laugh. "Angry at me,pfft? Teresha is obsessed with me. Even if she wakes up... which she won't. She'll probably thank me for not ruining my health with a needle. She's a pain, honestly. Always has been.""Baby, look at Dr. Andre," she whispered with a sharp smirk, pointing toward the door. "He's still standing there. Hoping you would donate your blood."Roy turned his gaze toward the doctor. The air in the room seemed to thicken with the stench of his arrogance."Dr. Andre, I believe you value your career, don't you?" Roy's voice was a low, vibrating threat.The doctor's face went from pale to a deep, insulted red. "What exactly are you i
Blood of a Betrayer
The first rays of the morning sun didn't feel like a blessing. it felt more like they a blowtorch.I tried to yawn, but the motion was just a sickening vibration of my chitinous jaw. Last night was a fever dream. A blurred montage of shadows, the metallic tang of human life on my tongue, and the terrifying rush of playing god. I still couldn't wrap my head around it. I was a man who used to order expensive steaks and vintage wine... And now, I was a parasite lurking in the weeds.As the sun climbed higher, my skin began to sizzle. To a human, it was a pleasant morning. To me, the light was a searing radiation that threatened to cook me from the inside out. I scrambled into the damp, dark safety of a hollowed-out log, my tiny heart hammering against my ribs."What now?" I croaked into the silence blaming my bad luck.I was bored, terrified, and fueled by a singular, jagged purpose: I had to make Xena bleed. I had to see the light leave her eyes just like it almost left mine. Bu
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