Legendary Vampire in the Apocalypse
Chapter 10: Young Man In the Apocalypse ~ 2

Chapter 10: Young Man In the Apocalypse ~ 2

For several long moments, Dion could not move himself at all, and a part of him had been trying to convince himself against the real reason he could not do so.

It told him he was keeping himself still because he would hurt himself if he were to step on the fractured pieces of the landline scattered over the floor before him.

The coiled cord of it had fallen over his bare foot, and could also perhaps trip him.

His family, in that framed picture, were untouched by whatever madness had possessed him and this city; all that ugliness he had suffered last night and the people outside had been suffering as he slept, and that same foulness that would have made them struggle for their lives as well.

They smiled so happily, with his father, his mother, and his little sister laughing over his back, one of her fallen-out teeth revealed by her smile.

The picture had only been taken a year ago, when he had come back home for a part of that semester’s holidays.

Eventually, he quivered to move, his hand rising to cover over his mouth.

What was he meant to do when he didn’t even know if the deadline meant that there was no service, or that there was no longer anyone alive on the other end to answer him?

"No..."

The word shivered free from his barely parted, covered mouth, as if speaking it any louder might give that possibility enough substance to become real.

Dion took the photograph down. His fingers trembled against the frame, and for several seconds he only stared before pressing his forehead against the glass.

’They’re fine.’

His eyes shut hard, his eyelids quivering as the tears pooled over the image’s glass.

’They have to be fine. They’re smart, and home isn’t too populated...’

The Akashic Records should have spoken to the whole world.

Whatever had happened in Lullin should have happened where they were as well. So, his father could have awakened, or even his mother.

And they were smart enough to prioritise their safety above anyone else’s. They wouldn’t pick a fight unnecessarily. They would save their lives, and his sister’s, before trying to play the foolish saviour.

Thereupon, the sight of the Gnoll tearing through the awakened Spencer, who had dared to fight the thing, and then him with ease came back to him vividly.

One of those things could have crashed into their home while they were asleep, burst into their rooms before they could do anything and...

Dion’s breathing strangled him, and his brows gnawed together.

The ignorance of not even being able to find out made his gut churn, as if he would puke again.

But at this point, what more but bile was left in him?

Dion dragged in an unsteady, deep breath, lifting his head from the image, and he didn’t hang it back up. He laid it over the table where the landline’s body was.

Thereafter, he crossed the main room towards the back window with long strides that were at first uneasy, and gradually gained some sort of balance.

The back window had been covered with a black curtain, and he hugged himself against the wall, then didn’t pull it wide open. He only allowed himself the bare minimum space to peek outside.

Morning light flooded in, smashing against his face and forcing Dion to narrow his eyes.

The apartment that he was in was one of the complexes that were in agreement with the college to provide free homes for their most prized students who did not live in the area.

From the height of his apartment, he could see far across this portion of Lullin City, and in the distance was the expanse of land that the College occupied, to the North District.

Between there and him, the buildings, whether great or modest in size great buildings had been broken through their sides, and smoke rose in dark columns across the partially cloudy morning sky.

Cars had been abandoned over the roads below. Figures moved between them, but Dion could not tell whether they were people searching for safety or zombies searching for people.

Every so often, the silence was cut through by the distant crack of gunfire, or the familiar, chilling roar of a gnoll, and then, screams.

’It’s seriously real... The world has been reduced to an apocalypse...’

A part of him had still not wanted to believe it without seeing it. It was why he had so hurriedly come to look.

Suddenly, his tongue had accidentally brushed across the elongated point of one of his canines.

The taste of blood filling his mouth, soothing down his throat, and filling him with such a revelrous sensation as his mouth had bitten into a pale neck returned.

He hurriedly threw himself back from the curtain, and then the memory of himself destroying the toilet seat rushed back to him.

His eyes, as he staggered away from the light, remembering that luxurious taste, had widened.

"...What did I do? I... ate her?"

Disgust filled his voice; however, beneath it, he could feel the stirring of a new, deep hunger.

Unlike what it should have normally felt like, coming from his stomach, where it should have grumbled and complained, folding in on itself a little to demand sustenance, he felt it now through his chest.

And bursting from there, a dryness ran through his throat, and he even felt that rough texture of it sanded thorugh his veins.

It was so apparent a sensation that he had to raise his hands, glancing down at his arms as he brushed against his forearms and his torso to relieve it.

As his heart rate increased from what he now noticed to have been a very much slower pace than what it should have been, his eyes quivered, and he could feel the elongation of his pupils into slits this time.

"I’ve become a vampire..." Dion almost gave a disbelieving laugh at this.

Just what the hell was going on?

Upon checking his body, he found that, unlike his fear suggested he should have been, he was not burned by the sunlight as he had been worried that he would have.

There, through the urgency pressing against his thoughts, he remembered the message from the Akashic Records.

It had spoken about statuses, and even though he had remembered the errors, he had also remembered that strange event that had happened when he was supposed to die.

"...Chronicle." Dion could hardly believe his own ridiculousness for saying it.

Yet, a translucent screen, black in colour with red, elegant text, immediately congealed from red mist-like streams before his eyes.