A metallic click echoed, silencing the insistent buzzing in Elara’s ear. She lowered the ancient receiver, its brass cold against her fingers. A fragile breath eased from her chest. For now, the medic from Oakhaven believed her carefully constructed lies, the ones about Julian’s ‘Slumbering Sickness’ being a peculiar strain of ancestral malaise, a family secret best kept quiet. Relief, brittle and fleeting, settled over her. Julian remained in his deep, unnatural sleep, the manor silent save for the groaning of old timbers. Each passing day was a reprieve, a moment salvaged from the precipice of discovery. — Far across the windswept moor, within the modest confines of the Oakhaven clinic, Doctor Albright frowned at his phone. The young woman’s voice, initially fraught with a desperate plea, had shifted to a strange, almost serene gratitude. It left a peculiar prickle of unease under his skin. His newest patient, a recluse from Blackwood Manor, had defied all expectations. Two years Julian Vance had lain in a near-vegetative state. Then, a week ago, a sudden, explosive awakening. His limbs, surprisingly agile despite disuse, hinted at a robust physique. Physical rehabilitation progressed at an astonishing pace. But the miracle had soured. For the past twelve days, Julian Vance had slept. A profound, unyielding stupor, as if his body craved the dark oblivion of his previous coma. Memory problems persisted, a fragmented understanding of his own identity. Albright hadn’t truly expected full recovery, not with the severity of the initial head trauma. He attributed the current state to some latent neurological damage, a cruel aftereffect. A memory stirred, a chilling whisper from Julian’s brief week of lucidity. Albright had leaned close, asking simple questions, coaxing a response. “Can you tell me your name, Julian?” he’d asked, the man’s eyes dull but fixed. “Hear me, Julian?” Albright pressed gently, a hand on his shoulder. “Just say whatever comes to mind.” “Ju…” Julian had murmured, a faint smile touching Albright’s lips. “Yes, good. Keep trying.” Yet, the next words Julian uttered, whispered in a haze, had haunted Albright. “Please don’t wake up.” Julian Vance had repeated them, countless times, through the dim hours of that week. Albright paced the deserted clinic hallway, rubbing his chin. He recalled the peculiar instructions from the manor’s distant trustees, their insistence on Julian’s return to Blackwood. Any major hospital would have been better equipped, yet the hefty remuneration for his silence and cooperation had effectively quelled his protests. Pausing, Albright snapped his fingers. A detail, forgotten in the rush of the call. Julian’s 'Slumbering Sickness' wasn't mere oversleeping. It presented as Klein-Levin Syndrome. And with it, accompanying symptoms: behavioral irregularities, an insatiable hunger, bursts of aggression, sometimes even abnormal sexual urges. “Still,” he muttered, shrugging off the thought. “He’ll be fine for tonight.” A single night. Nothing truly dire could happen. He yawned, the fatigue of his isolated practice settling deep in his bones. — Night wrapped Blackwood Manor in a damp, clinging embrace. Elara moved through the echoing halls, a candle clutched in her hand. Its flickering light cast monstrous shadows on the peeling wallpaper, illuminating cobwebs like ancient lace. The air was thick with the scent of damp stone and decaying wood. She hummed a tuneless melody, a nervous habit, the fragile peace of the last two weeks a thin membrane over a festering wound. Every creak of the old house was a potential threat. Her lie to Julian, delivered in desperation, still thrummed in her veins, a live wire waiting to snap. Reaching the master suite, she touched the cold brass handle. A shiver traced her spine. A familiar sense of dread, a chilling echo of past encounters, settled over her. This uneasy calm felt too precarious, too easily broken. Blackwood Manor never offered peace for long. Her steps led her away from Julian’s room, a magnetic pull drawing her towards the service passages. She had to check the grounds, just to be certain. A habit ingrained from years of living with the manor’s secrets. Approaching the servants' entrance at the very back of the estate, she noticed it immediately. A gaping wound in the ancient oak door. Not merely a latch sprung, or a hinge rusted through. The thick, iron-reinforced timber was splintered, forced inward with monstrous strength. Jagged wood shards lay scattered on the flagstones. A cold gust of wind, smelling of damp earth and decaying leaves, swept into the manor, carrying with it a faint, unsettling scent of… something wild. Something animal. “Julian?” The name was a fragile whisper, swallowed by the darkness. Her heart hammered against her ribs. He was gone. Thirty minutes she spent, her breath ragged, stumbling through the overgrown kitchen gardens, across the churning mud of the service yard. Should she seek help? The thought was a bitter laugh in her mind. Who in the isolated village would believe the girl from Blackwood Manor, the girl burdened by its whispered horrors? Even if she could find a soul brave enough to approach the estate, what could she tell them? Julian was merely ‘wandering’? The truth was a tangled knot of magic, lies, and primordial fear. She ran a nervous hand over her face, the mud-stained fingers trembling. Moonlight, thin and watery, struggled to pierce the persistent moor mist. The wind howled, a mournful lament across the desolate landscape. Elara pushed deeper into the moorland, the marsh grass grasping at her boots. She called his name again, a desperate cry. Distant barks answered her, the sheepdogs from the far pastures disturbed by her presence. Her eyes, trained by years of quiet observation, scanned the churned earth. Ahead, a disturbed path. A long, uneven trough in the soft peat, as though something heavy and immensely powerful had dragged itself along. Not a typical walk. More like a serpentine trail, a massive, sluggish creature having forced its way through the undergrowth. A dry, humorless laugh escaped her lips. “He truly is horrible,” she murmured, the words catching in her throat. The trail led her towards a cluster of ancient standing stones, half-swallowed by the moor, a place steeped in darker local legends. Following the bizarre track, a fluttering sound reached her ears, carried on the damp air. An unnatural, frantic beating. Fear, sharp and cold, seized her. Her pulse pounded a frantic rhythm. She moved closer, pushing aside the thorny brambles. “Julian! Put that down!” she screamed, the words ripped from her lungs. The scene before her froze the blood in her veins. Julian knelt amidst the stones, his back to her. His form was stark against the pale, bruised sky. He was tearing at something, his jaw working with a grim, primal efficiency. When he turned his head slightly, her stomach lurched. His eyes were milky, unfocused, vacant. Dark blood smeared his lips, his chin, glistening in the moonlight. He groaned, a guttural sound, and spat a ragged clump of feathers and raw meat onto the marshy ground. Beside him, a moorland raven, its ebony feathers ruffled and broken, lay still. Its neck was twisted at an impossible angle. Elara’s hands began to tremble uncontrollably, a tremor that shook her entire frame. He looked up at her then, bloodied and utterly detached, a stranger beneath the familiar face. This was not the refined Julian Vance, trapped in a mystical slumber. This was something else. A creature of raw instinct, operating on a level far removed from human consciousness. His gaze seemed to pass through her, empty and unseeing. “It must be difficult to move right now, Julian,” Elara forced herself to say, her voice thin but steady. She feigned a concern she didn't feel, her mind racing. How much did he remember? Did the lie still hold its power? “Why did you come out here?” She took a slow, deliberate step forward. “Let’s go back to the manor. You shouldn’t be out in this cold.” Julian dropped the remains of the bird. His head tilted. His empty gaze settled on her. A profound chill passed through Elara. He stood taller than she remembered, his form more imposing, shadowed by the ancient stones. He seemed to have crawled, not walked, towards her, his clothes—the simple nightshirt and trousers she’d put on him—caked with mud and damp earth. A sudden gust of wind whipped across the moor. His mud-splattered garments flapped wildly, briefly revealing the lean, powerful silhouette of his body beneath. Elara felt a strange, detached sensation, a bizarre memory surfacing. She recalled an old engraving in a forgotten book in the manor library – the description of the legendary ‘Bloodroot Tree’ from the ancient texts, its branches twisted, its sap the colour of deep crimson, a living thing sustained by a grim, hidden vitality. Julian, even in his long sleep, had sometimes borne the faint scent of something earthy and metallic. Now, splattered with fresh gore, he embodied a similar, brutal life force. “Julian…” she whispered, fear thickening her tongue. His lips parted, a rasping sound escaping. “Name…” “What?” Her voice was barely audible. He took a slow step towards her, his blank eyes fixed on her. “What’s your name?” His cold, empty gaze pierced her. Elara’s mind raced, searching for an answer. Her careful lie, her desperate oath – did he remember any of it? Or had this new, monstrous hunger wiped it all away, leaving behind only a terrifying, primal blankness? She was utterly at a loss.

A Hunger Awakens