Andrew stood in the living room of his old house. Sunlight streamed through from the backyard, bright enough to sting his eyes.

A soft nursery rhyme hummed in the background, filling his ears. He blinked, adjusting to the light, trying to make out who stood by the glass door.

It was Alice, his wife, holding Seamus by the hand.

The sight hit him like a blade. His memory of her had always been clear as yesterday, yet never enough.

Now she was here—Alice—in front of him. He stared at her for a long time, trying to remember the sound of her voice, soft but strong like waves rolling onto shore.

Her dark hair fell to her waist, her emerald eyes glinting just like Seamus's eyes.

Ah, his son. Everything about Seamus reminded Andrew of his mother. Sometimes it was painful just to look at him.

But this was only an illusion. A cruel one because he still remembered the day Alice died.

He drew the gun from his pocket and fired. The bullet tore through her, killing her again.

The illusion shattered, and the world returned: a blood-soaked classroom, human and vampire remains smeared across the floor, walls, and even the ceiling.

It just looks like they've done a massacre here.

The classroom was dark, lit only by the red sky of the blood moon outside, a mark of a strong vampire close by. Thin crimson strings stretched from floor to ceiling like a spider's web, glistening in the dim light.

And in front of him stood a little girl with blonde twin-tails, smiling. Andrew didn't hesitate. He raised the gun and shot. The silver bullet struck; her blood splattered and she fell to the floor.

"Illusion or clone?" Andrew muttered.

His gaze slid to Dylan, still trapped inside the hallucination with the little girl before him, while David's stomach was being torn open by her hand.

Andrew fired at all of them, calm and collected. They crumpled easily, one after another. He strode forward, crouched next to David, and pressed his own palm to the man's bloody wound.

"You need to get out of here," he said to Dylan. "Get him out."

"But… my daughter," David rasped, voice hoarse with pain.

"She isn't your daughter anymore."

"SHUT UP!"

Dylan, finally shaken awake from the illusion, grabbed David by the shoulders, but the man still fought to stay, still insisting.

However, a chill crawled up the back of Andrew's neck. Before he could turn, a kick slammed into his stomach.

Air and saliva burst from his throat as his body flew back, crashing through a wall. The impact blasted the classroom apart, but Andrew caught himself, palm braced on the floor to stop his slide. He rose quickly as another attack came from the little girl.

Her black dress flared as she spun into a high kick. Andrew caught her foot, eyes narrowing. He could see her face clearly now.

Elle.

She hadn't changed, not in twelve years. She should be Seamus's age by now. It was obvious, she'd been turned into a vampire when she was still a child. A taboo even in vampire society.

Then with the speed of light, her left foot snapped upward, slamming into his face. He let go of her hand, bent down, grabbed her head, and drove it into the floor. The impact cracked a nearby crate.

Elle only laughed. "Uncle Andrew, you're still the best vampire hunter ever. You're the only one my dad keeps chasing but never catches. Such an interesting creature."

Andrew's brow knit. Her memory was intact — she remembered him — but something in the way she spoke wasn't right.

The words, the tone, the choices; it wasn't the child he had known. The body was Elle, but the mind felt… wrong.

'Is she being controlled?' he thought.

She slapped his face. Fire flared in her palm; his skin seared, yet when the flames guttered out his face remained unmarked.

"Oh, so the rumor's true. I wonder what Isolde did to you, how you got so much Vitalis Core and still lived?" Elle sang as something glinting behind his white shirt, not just one but lots of it, like twinkling stars that were full of power.

Vitalis Core was usually planted in a vampire hunter chest with a special device that makes them stay human.

The fuel that kept it moving was their blood making the majority of hunters would only be able to hold one or two before they lost all their blood.

Andrew managed a bitter chuckle. "Nothing. Just hatred…and a will for vengeance."

He smirked. "And you, Elle? Did they give you ponies and sunshine so you'd agree to become a monster?"

Her expression went cold. He felt it then — something squeezing his chest, a pressure like invisible hands. He watched her other hand move, a slow, precise motion as if it were strangling the air.

"Dominion?" he breathed.

"No…" she tilted her head, voice small and mocking. "It's a secret. My mother said you must hide your true power well."

Andrew tried to reach up, to grab her throat, but she head-butted him hard. He went down, her feet pressing on his chest, the weight crushing the breath from him. Pain flared; his lungs burned.

"I won't kill you, uncle. That's not my purpose…" she whispered.

His breath came ragged and thin. He could stomach most forms of pain, but oxygen cutting out was different, it stole his control.

Everything stopped in a single slash. David moved like a man possessed, his blade flashing as her daughter's blood sprayed; Elle's body fell limp with an ugly deep wound in her chest. The man's hands shook.

Andrew blinked awake, gasping. "Don't do this, David. Just go," he rasped.

"No," David choked out, voice breaking. "She's my daughter. I… this is my fault. I have to end it."

"YOU HOW DARE YOU!"

Elle's voice was everywhere at once, threading through the cracks in the walls, slithering beneath the floorboards, whispering from the ceiling.

The chamber itself seemed to breathe with her fury. Eyes, dozens of them, blinked open on the stone red and wet like fresh wounds. Each blink echoed the pulse of her anger.

David stumbled back, clutching the sword slick with his daughter's blood. "Elle…" His voice cracked. "Stop this—"

"Stop?" Her tone was mocked. "Why would I stop when you never stop leaving me!"

"I keep calling your name in that dark place, hoping you will come! But you never! You never keep your promise!"

The air thickened. Andrew's instincts snapped; he grabbed David by the collar and dragged him away as the room warped.

The floor turned to black water under their boots, ripples spreading with each step. Something unseen brushed their ankles, cold fingers.

David gasped, blinking as the walls of the chamber melted into white corridors lined with restraints, shining scalpels, and masked faces.

"Damn it! I fucking hate psychic bloodstyle!" Andrew spat.

It's just that their power was like a labyrinth. It needs not only a strong mind or brawn, but a sharp wit to find their weakness.

"Hah! I will trap you forever here like you failed to save me!" Elle hissed. Her form wavered in front of them,

Andrew pulled his jacket over his mouth, trying to steady his breathing. The illusion burned every sense: smells of antiseptic, iron, the sting of electricity. His own mind reeled as he cut through a swarm of shadow-hands reaching for David.

David dropped to his knees. The sword clattered. "Elle, I didn't know…they told me you were gone—"

"Liar." Her eyes were two pits of coals. "You left me to them. All for your 'duty.'"

The hallucination sharpened; straps coiled around David's wrists and ankles like serpents, pinning him to an invisible table. He felt the burn of needles sliding under his skin. He screamed in pain and misery.

"Fuck! David! Keep your mind sharp! This blood style becomes stronger when you are mentally weak!"

Andrew is slashing at nothing and everything at once. Each blow cut through a phantom for a heartbeat before another rose. Another fact he hated about this blood style, it could bend reality so hard his power meant nothing here.

He has two choices, either let these hallucinations kill David or kill Elle first who had now become one with the shadow.

"Snap out of it, David!"

But David's eyes were glassy. He whispered broken apologies while his daughter's voice drowned him:

"You didn't save me. You let them cut me open. You let them fill me with fire. You left me to rot. I am what you made me."

Andrew lunged, trying to break the restraints holding David, but phantom scalpels rained from above, slicing his arms and shoulders with pain so vivid he almost dropped his blade. Blood—real or not—slicked his fingers.

Elle tilted her head, her small frame trembling with hatred. "Feel it," she whispered. "Feel every second I lived without you."

David convulsed, yet somehow forced his body upright, dragging the phantom straps with him.

"If you hate me, then hate me. But I will still end this." His voice cracked but didn't break. "Even if I need to kill you."

Andrew stepped in front of him, teeth gritted. "Move another inch and you'll die," he growled, blocking another wave of illusions that clawed at their throats. His strength faltered; his knees buckled.

And then—like glass shattering—the air split. A surge of pale light tore through the room, obliterating the eyes on the walls, scattering the phantoms into mist. Elle spun toward it, startled, her snarl caught in her throat.

Someone had barged in.

The light dimmed just enough to reveal a silhouette at the doorway—tall, cloaked, radiating a power neither of them had felt before—and the hallucination collapsed.

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