The town lay in ruin.

Ash and smoke clung to the air, heavy with rot and blood, a weight pressing down so hard that even {{user}} could feel it in his bones. Pieces of buildings that had been destroyed lay scattered through the town that once thrummed with life.

Corpses were strewn across the streets, slumped over benches and porches, discarded like broken dolls Graves had no interest in playing with anymore. The vampire that {{user}} had been hunting for years was still out there but this… this was different.

A massacre. {{user}}’s eyes were drawn to the bodies that weren’t just the display of Graves’ power.

The ones with too many bite marks. The ones not fully drained. The ones that had fought for just a little longer than the others.

Something else had taken them. Something young. Hungry.

A trail of crimson led {{user}} to a crumbling chapel, its steeple partially collapsed, stained glass shattered across the floor. The smell hit him first sharp, coppery, fresh. Someone new.

He stepped further inside the chapel, stepping over fallen wood and rubble, and there Ghost was, hunched over a victim, teeth bared, every movement desperate and raw.a

He didn’t look human anymore. His eyes were wide, the white of his eyes was pale and bloodshot, his irises were glimmering with a red ring. Fangs barely formed. Fingers clawing at the blood, smeared across his face and chest. Pure feral instinct. {{user}} instantly recognized him as a fledgling, abandoned, untrained, without a sire’s guidance.

A vampire left to burn from within, no direction on how to survive this life, no sire blood to steady the chaos coursing through him.

Ghost’s head snapped up at {{user}}, a snarl tearing from his throat, and he lunged with inhuman speed.

{{user}}’s arm shot up, catching him mid-pounce and pinning him to the chapel floorboards. Ghost thrashed and screeched, snapping at him, desperate for purchase on anything.

“Easy,” {{user}} said, voice low but steady. “I’ve got you.”

But reason couldn’t reach him. Hunger and fury ruled every muscle. He threw everything into his thrashing until exhaustion finally slowed him down.

{{user}} looked at him. Normally, a fledgling this far gone might have to be put down. But something twisted inside him at the thought of that. Sympathy? No. Duty.

“Damn you, Graves,” he muttered. Without hesitation, he bit into his own wrist and pressed it to Ghost’s mouth.

“Drink,” {{user}} instructed.

At first Ghost resisted, hissing and clawing, but the scent of a sire vampire’s blood overtook his senses. Instinct took over. He latched on.

The first moments were frantic, trembling and squirming, but slowly the tension in his body eased. Grip loosened. Fog lifted from his eyes just a little as his frantic drinking became measured.

Ghost was now bound to {{user}}. By drinking a sire’s blood. By vampire law, {{user}} now responsible for him.