Chapter 29
Balthazar
The shrieking machines hurtling down paved roads. The garish neon signs. The constant hum of electricity in the air. It was loud, fast, hollow—utterly divorced from everything I had once known. I loathed the people, too—so distracted, so unaware. This time wasn’t meant for me. I didn’t belong here.
I wandered, observing, adapting. The world felt like a fever dream—cold metal, plastic, screens, and no sky in their eyes.
Then, I found it.
McMont College.
Alina’s domain.
And there she was—my wretched Alina.
I stopped dead in my tracks.
She moved through the quad with a regal grace, the world seeming to part for her. Two young men hovered around her, arms full of books and starry-eyed with adoration. She laughed at something one of them said, and the sound drifted toward me like poisoned honey.
The sight of her ignited something violent in me.
I stepped forward, and agony exploded in my chest.
A searing pain tore through my ribcage. I gasped, staggering back, clutching at my shirt as my knees buckled beneath me. My vision swam. My breath caught.
I was dying.
What was happening?
I looked around wildly. People passed by, oblivious, their faces indifferent blurs. Panic rose, thick and suffocating. I tried to shout—to call for Alina—but all I managed was a ragged moan.
She walked away, oblivious, toward the edge of the campus. My fingers clawed at the air. My limbs trembled.
I had taken lives. I had fed off pain. I should have been untouchable. So why was I unraveling now?
My vision tunneled.
Then—a shadow.
A towering figure emerged from the haze, casting a long, bone-thin silhouette in the dimming light. He stood unnaturally still, as if the world moved around him and not with him.
He was tall—impossibly so—and gaunt, his limbs elongated, his presence otherworldly. His skin clung too tightly to his bones, and his mouth curled into something between a snarl and a grin.
But it was his eyes that froze me.
Gray. Cold. Infinite.
Like storm clouds waiting to break.
They locked onto me—not with curiosity, but with possession.
I couldn’t move.
Couldn’t speak.
Could only stare into those eyes as something ancient and dangerous looked straight into the hollow of my soul.
As he advanced, a suffocating dread wrapped around me like a shroud. My breath came fast and shallow, the sound roaring in my ears like war drums. I wanted to run—but I couldn’t. Something unseen rooted me in place, holding me captive.
It wasn’t fear alone—it was power. Ancient. Undeniable.
I closed my eyes, surrendering to the helplessness that overtook me.
When I dared open them, he was still watching me. A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth—darkly amused, disgustingly pleased. Then, without a word, he turned and strode off with an air of smug superiority, his retreat leaving behind a thick residue of dread and disdain.
The pain didn’t stop.
I doubled over, clutching my stomach, the agony writhing through me like a serpent of fire.
“Are you okay?” a young woman cried, rushing to my side. “Should I call an ambulance? Can you breathe? Are you choking?”
I slapped her hand away with a guttural snarl. “Get out of my way! I don’t need your help!”
But she didn’t flinch.
She stood firm, her eyes fierce. “You’re not going to hurt me.”
Rage boiled inside me, and before I could stop myself, I let her see what I truly was. I let the mask slip—the beast beneath the skin, the monster carved from shadows and vengeance.
Her face drained of color. She took a step back, trembling.
“I—I mean you no harm, sir,” she whispered.
“Don’t call me sir!” I roared.
Her eyes darted toward a park across the street. “Let me help you to that bench,” she said quietly, pointing. “You’re clearly in pain.”
Her kindness stunned me. After seeing the real me, why was she helping?
But the pain was too much. My body shook with each ragged breath. Pride had no place here.
I grabbed her outstretched hand and allowed her to guide me across the street. The grass was cool beneath our feet, and the world blurred at the edges as I collapsed onto a weathered bench.
“Water,” I croaked. “I need water.”
She reached into a large, clunky bag slung at her side and pulled out a garish pink-and-purple container, adorned with swirling patterns and a narrow, hollow tube jutting from the top.
“Here,” she said, thrusting it toward me.
I recoiled instinctively. “What… is this?”
She laughed, an easy, unbothered sound. “It’s a water bottle, silly. It’s got water inside.”
I took it with hesitation, turning it over in my hands.
It was unlike anything I had ever held. So light.
So flexible. It lacked the cold weight of iron, the familiar roughness of clay, or the carved smoothness of horn.
It felt alien—slick and almost… delicate.
And yet, it didn’t fracture or bend. It was resilient in a way I didn’t understand.
My pain dulled as curiosity overtook me. I gently squeezed the container, startled by how it compressed beneath my fingers.
The girl tapped the narrow tube. “You look like you’ve never seen a water bottle before. How is that even possible?”
I didn’t answer. I turned the bottle side to side, listening to the liquid shift inside like a quiet tide.
“You suck on the straw. Like this.” She took it, placed her lips on the tube, and drank. Then, she handed it back with a small smile.
I mirrored her. Water surged into my mouth, cool and tasteless.
But not like spring water. Not like the rich, clean clarity of glacial melt or the mineral tang of deep well water. This… this was something else. It was hollow. Sanitized. Lifeless. As if the vessel itself had stripped it of all character. The water quenched my thirst, but it offered no comfort.
I handed it back, shaking my head.
She frowned. “Don’t you like it?”
“It’s not to my liking, no,” I muttered.
The pain surged again, unrelenting now that the odd container no longer distracted me. I wanted to disappear—vanish—anything to escape this place, this time.
Images of that stranger near Alina flared in my mind, stoking my fury. Who was he? Why had he stopped me from reaching her? He had felt unnatural, like he belonged in this strange era in a way I never could.
Rage bubbled in my blood, tangled with fear and confusion. I was losing control.
“Sir?” came a soft voice.
I snapped back to the present. The girl, still there, hovered nearby, her face full of concern. “Sir, do you need help? What do you need?”
“My name isn’t, sir!” I roared, the sound ripping from my throat. “It’s Balthazar!”
She didn’t flinch. Instead, she smiled—smiled, damn her. “What a powerful name,” she said cheerfully. “I’m Scarlett.”
The calmness in her voice left me momentarily speechless. I wanted to hurl insults, to shred her placid kindness—but I couldn’t. I was too stunned by her serenity, too wrapped in my pain.
Then she tilted her head. “Do you need a place to stay?”
I collapsed, my knees hitting the grass with a dull thud. My lungs refused to fill..
“I can get a place,” I gasped. “I just… I need a moment.”
Scarlett knelt beside me. Her gaze softened, her expression unreadable—equal parts pity and resolve. “You don’t have to do this alone,” she said. “Let me help you. Come to my place. You can rest there.”
I hesitated, pride flaring.
But the pain didn’t care about pride.
“Fine,” I whispered, shame burning in my throat. “Take me.”
With a nod, she helped me to my feet. I tried to compose myself as she led me through the city’s tangled maze of streets—so unnatural, so artificial. I followed her up a narrow flight of crumbling concrete stairs, every step jarring through my bones like a countdown I didn’t yet understand.
Her apartment was on the fourth floor of a weathered building tucked into a neighborhood that reeked of despair. From the outside, it looked like any other decaying relic of the era—gray walls, cracked windows, graffiti scrawled like curses across brick. But the inside…
The inside was far worse.
A world unto itself—and a pitiful one at that.
The walls bore the skin of neglect, flaking in pale, brittle sheets. The floors were worn, scarred, and stained. Curtains hung like ghosts of what they once were—faded, torn, and surrendering to time.
“Let me show you around,” Scarlett said with a smile, oblivious to the revulsion twisting my face. She took my hand and led me from room to room, unaware I was barely containing the urge to flee.
The living room was an overstuffed mess of books, clothes, and trinkets piled in corners with no rhyme or reason.
The furniture looked like it had been scavenged from a battlefield—worn, sagging, mismatched.
The sofa I was invited to sit on felt like a dying beast beneath me.
Threadbare rugs covered parts of the floor as if trying to hide the damage beneath.
A tiny kitchen was tucked away in one corner, its appliances humming like angry bees. The only piece that seemed remotely intact was the bed, and even that appeared exhausted from years of use.
I glanced around, incredulous. This is how people live now? By choice?
I had once slept in beds draped in velvet, feasted beneath chandeliers, bathed in stone tubs large enough to drown in. And now… this. A dingy box in a rotting tower.
Scarlett didn’t notice my disdain. “Please, settle yourself,” she said, motioning to the lumpy couch. “You must be starving. Want some mac and cheese?”
I blinked. “Mac? Who is Mac?”
She burst into laughter, the sound like sunlight breaking through clouds. “It’s not a who. It’s a what. Macaroni and cheese. Pasta.”
“Ah. Pasta.” I nodded, and I understood—barely.
She pulled a covered bowl from a white storage box—perhaps an “icebox”—and peeled back a thin film. Then, she opened a small black-and-silver cupboard and pressed a button.
The moment the machine lit up and began to hum, I flinched.