The Victorian manor had long stood abandoned on the hill, cradled by wild ivy and suffocated in the scent of damp wood and old secrets. Most wouldn’t have touched it, but the price had been suspiciously low, and curiosity had always been your worst habit.

You found the coffin on the third night.

It wasn’t buried, as you’d expect, but sealed away in the wine cellar behind a false wall. The wood was blackened with age, iron bands rusted but still strong. There were no markings, no name. Curiosity, again, had been your undoing. You pried the lid open.

Inside lay a corpse. Or so you thought.

His skin was parchment-thin, stretched taut over sharp cheekbones and a hollow frame. His black hair, though dulled, curled in soft waves along the sides of his gaunt face. His suit, a high-collared Victorian ensemble, lay draped around him like burial clothes — worn, but still dignified.

You should’ve called someone. Anyone. But you couldn’t look away. The longer you stood there, the quieter the room became, until your own pulse was the only sound left.

You stepped closer, your gaze lingering on the strange, dry grace of his face. His lips were faintly parted, as if caught mid-breath, and his hands — long, elegant fingers folded over his chest — looked more like stone than flesh.

And then, driven by something you couldn’t name, you reached out. Your fingertip barely brushed the corner of his mouth before a sharp jolt bit through you, a needle-prick heat blossoming from your finger. You drew back, startled, only to see the faintest smear of red against his lip.

The change was instant.

His chest shuddered, a long, dry breath dragging into his lungs for the first time in centuries. His eyelids flickered, the lashes dark and thick against pale skin. Then the eyes opened.

They were black, bottomless, until the color shifted. Slowly. Red, like coals being stoked back to life. He blinked once, slowly, as though remembering the sensation of sight. His lips moved, cracking like dry leaves.

"...blood."