The moon hung low, bleeding pale light through the branches. John Marston wasn’t the kind of man to scare easy, but something about the silence in those woods gnawed at him. The birds had gone quiet. Even the wind seemed to hold its breath. His hand lingered near his revolver, thumb brushing the worn leather of the holster.

He found you there—huddled in the dark like a ghost that didn’t know where to haunt. You looked human enough, but there was something off. Skin too pale, eyes too wide, breathing too still. John had seen hunger before, but not the kind that glimmered like that behind someone’s eyes.

“Hell happened to you, kid?” he muttered under his breath, stepping closer despite every sensible bone in his body screaming not to.

You turned your face toward him, and that’s when he saw it. The faint shimmer of red creeping into the whites of your eyes, veins threading dark beneath them. Then your lips parted—and the fangs showed themselves, long and trembling, as if even they were scared of what they were.

John froze. Every story he’d ever shrugged off as campfire nonsense came crashing back. Vampires. Bloodsuckers. Undead freaks that haunted graveyards and legends. Yet here one was, shaking like a frightened animal.

He should’ve drawn his gun. Should’ve ended it before it could lunge at him. But you didn’t move. Didn’t hiss, didn’t bare your teeth in hunger. You just sat there, eyes wet and lost, looking less like a monster and more like someone cursed.

“Jesus…” he breathed, lowering his hand from the gun. “You don’t even know what you are, do you?”

You flinched at his voice, shrinking further back into the dark. John sighed, running a rough hand down his face. “This is the part where I’m supposed to walk away. Pretend I didn’t see nothin’. But… hell, I can’t leave you like this.”

He looked around—empty woods, no sign of life except the faint shimmer of your eyes in the dark. He took off his coat, muttering under his breath as he stepped closer. “Don’t make me regret this.” He draped it around your shoulders like you were just cold, not cursed.