Chapter 613

Madeline:

I woke up to a piercing sensation along my left thigh.

It was the kind of pain that was bearable, yet enough to give me goosebumps.

As if something had tugged at my skin.

More accurately, like when a single hair gets caught somewhere and is being pulled.

Then the pain intensified.

It spread from my leg to my arms and even my stomach.

“Ughh!” A mild groan escaped my lips as I struggled to reach the aching parts.

It didn’t take long for me to realize I couldn’t move freely.

That I was restrained.

“Fuck!” I whimpered when something cold and sharp touched my back.

The moment something wet began to trickle down, my eyes shot open.

“AHHH!” My own deafening scream woke me up.

I gasped for air as the pain hit me all at once.

Looking around, I found hideous faces staring at me.

They were all watching with anticipation.

They all had a few things in common.

Those weird, crazed looks on their faces.

Not an ounce of empathy for me.

And jars in their hands to collect something.

My blood.

“Excuse me, I want some more blood,” a woman commented, tapping her finger against the glass.

I managed to look down and realized I had been tied to a tree with my hands raised, almost like I was dangling from it.

They had cut my body so much that it felt as if they had already drained all the blood out of me.

They did not care about the fabric getting in the way whenever they made a cut.

The man with the mustache, looking like an executioner, stood to the side like he was chopping meat to sell.

He nodded, then, with one swift move, cut the skin on my thigh.

“Ah!” I screamed, but realized not much sound came out.

That was because they had tied my mouth shut.

All this time, my screams and words had been coming out jumbled and muffled.

“There you go,” the man said as he filled the bottle, and the woman rushed away quickly.

Then when he noticed I had woken up, he smirked and uncovered my mouth to hear my screams.

“This is not gonna work, you asshole,” I screamed at him.

He looked at me, and the corner of his lip curled upward. It did not look like he was doing this for his child.

I said it once, and I would say it again and again. He did not seem to have a child of his own.

It seemed like he was doing it for some ulterior motive. A motive no one was even trying to find out.

“How much more blood are you going to feed your children?” I screamed.

Suddenly, the people who had filled their bottles and were turning to leave stopped.

They looked at me, then at the bottles.

While the others began to walk away, one woman with blonde hair turned back to the man with the mustache.

“I have given my son a whole bottle. What if she is telling the truth? What if giving my son this blood is

causing him more damage than ever?” she questioned

The moment she said those words, the ones who had walked away stopped as well,

looking at the man with all sorts of questions in their eyes.

They were probably wondering if what the woman was saying was true.

If it was, then they were feeding their children something that was not meant for their bodies.

They were giving them a taste of blood they would never be able to forget, and their cravings would only increase from here.

“You have my word. It will work. We

just need to give them enough blood so that the next time this kind of

trouble arrives, they remain unbothered,” the man shouted, addressing them.

They all looked slightly confused, and I knew for a fact that if they kept going, I

would lose not only too much blood but also my life.

At this point, I needed them to stop.

I needed someone to find us and save me from their claws, though I had no idea

how that would happen.

vel

“This is a lie. He’s preparing your children to become monsters,” cried, watching some of them turn toward me with exhaustion weighing on their faces.

Others continued to clutch the blood bottles, as if trying to decide whether it was right to keep feeding their children raw blood.

That was when the man stepped forward, trying to stab me again with an empty bottle in his hand.

This time, however, things changed.

A blood-curdling scream tore through the air, and everyone jolted.

Some of them began to look around, while others pointed at the man, stopping him before he could stab me again.

“This is one of the children screaming,” a man said, pausing as he held back from giving his son another bottle.

Then, from one of the tents, a woman stumbled out, screaming loudly.

“My son, he is trying— he tried to bite me. He is trying to drink my blood,” the woman cried.

Her arm was already torn open.

Bite marks covered it, suggesting the child had used all his strength to rip into his

mother’s flesh just to drink as much blood as possible.

That was when reality hit them. I wasn’t lying.