Quinn discovered he couldn’t just bite anyone. The moment he tried, his incomplete hybrid nature caused the victim’s System to flag him as an . A colony-wide alert would follow. He learned to be surgical: a tiny incision, a stolen blood-pack from the medical incinerator, a drop of his own saliva to seal the wound.
Second, the System arrived.
And that was his power.
He survived on medical waste and the blood of butchered livestock. Each feeding healed his lesions by a fraction, but the hunger… the hunger grew louder.
So when a strange, crimson notification flickered across his vision as he coughed blood into his palm, he assumed it was a hallucination. My Vampire System
His only solace was a glitch. Because he was a “forced integration,” the main System didn’t recognize him as Awakened. But it also didn’t recognize him as a monster. To scanners, he was a Level 0 Null. Invisible. Forgotten.
Quinn smiled.
He let his drop. The Lurkers saw him. They charged. The first one’s claws raked his chest, drawing blood— his blood. The System pinged.