Chapter One: When Gods Bled
They called it The Breaking.
No one remembers the exact date the monsters stepped into the light.
Then, someone broke the veil. No one knows who. A leaked video. A torn throat on live news. A senator who didn’t stay dead.
The world didn’t end. It shifted.
Some say it started with a massacre in southern Belgrave—a noble family found in pieces, their hearts nailed to the walls, their blood spelling out a single word: “FEED.”
Others point to the church fire in the high north, where every priest inside was drained and crucified upside down, left to burn with smiles carved into their faces.
For centuries, the creatures of myth had walked among men, draped in flesh and false names. Vampires sipping quietly from willing lovers in dark alleys. Werewolves burying their wild in human skin and suburban smiles. They hid not out of fear, but out of boredom. Watching. Waiting. Feeding when they pleased. Then, someone broke the veil. No one knows who. A leaked video. A torn throat on live news. A senator who didn’t stay dead.
But it didn’t matter where it began.
It only mattered that it didn’t stop.
The truth came in waves—bloody, merciless, undeniable.
Vampires. Werewolves. Shifters. Demons. Creatures man had pushed into myth were never myths at all. They had lived beside humans for centuries, hidden under glamour and grace, quietly feeding and watching… like shepherds pretending to be sheep.
When the veil was torn, they did not roar.
They laughed.
At first, humanity fought back the only way it knew how—like animals.
Entire cities were bombed in a frenzy of panic. Temples turned to war rooms. Scientists were crucified for suggesting co-existence. Governments fell as leaders were revealed to be inhuman. Paranoia spread like wildfire.
Witch hunts began.
Neighbor turned on neighbor.
Children burned their parents at the stake for glowing eyes or elongated shadows.
In the shattered remains of what used to be London, a militia known only as The Purgeborn dragged suspected vampires into daylight and flayed them alive with silver barbed wire. Their screams were broadcast across every channel, every feed.
And yet... the monsters kept coming. Smiling. Feeding. Dancing in the ashes of man’s delusions.
They didn’t need armies.
They didn’t need war.
They had time, and humanity was already rotting from the inside.
Religion declared war. Science scrambled for weapons. Entire nations turned cities into kill zones. But silver runs out. Fire dies down. And humans... bleed too easily.
By the end of the third year, the wars were over—because the supernaturals simply stopped hiding. Then came the Divide.
The monsters—organized, elegant in their cruelty—proposed a solution. Not peace. Not surrender. A contract.
Human colonies would be built. Protected. Fenced. Clean. Supernaturals were forbidden from entering without sanctioned cause.
In exchange, humans would provide resources: blood donors, labor, entertainment. All voluntary. All “regulated.”
Most of the desperate accepted.
But not all.
The world splintered.
Some humans became Collectors—those who hunted and delivered their own kind for profit.
Others became Worshippers, painting their skin with runes and offering themselves up in alleys, begging to be bitten, marked, taken.
Others—richer, crueler—sold the poor. Entire families traded for favor. For luxury. For immunity.
And some tried to rebel. They formed factions, screaming of human purity and vengeance. They blew up border checkpoints. Kidnapped donors. Tortured vampires and hung their skulls on colony gates.
But the monsters were always watching.
And when they struck back, it was never fast.
It was art.
In the colony of Thensgate, every child under the age of ten disappeared overnight. No one saw them taken. No one heard a scream. Just silence… and then, the next morning, every adult found a tiny, bloodless body on their doorstep. Wrapped in silk. Eyes gouged. A note pinned to their chest.
“A gift for your resistance. Sincerely, the Vael Court.”
After that, most colonies complied.
Now, humans live in cages made of rules. They’re fed, clothed, kept busy with work and whispers of freedom. But they know the truth. Every family knows someone who works outside—as a blood donor, a servant, a songbird, a pet.
And in the shadows of the cities, where immortals rule and secrets breathe, there are places where humans are polished and paraded like gold.
Places like Sexe & Affaires.
They didn’t conquer with armies. They offered peace, cloaked in contracts and diplomacy. Cities were divided. Colonies built—gated safe zones for humans, “protected” by supernatural law. No supernatural could step into a colony without cause. No human could leave without permission.
But humans still needed food. Medicine. Jobs. Money.
And the supernatural's needed entertainment.
The colonies became cages—clean, efficient, full of rules.
The outside world became playgrounds for the powerful.
They say peace reigns now.
But peace, like beauty, is just something the monsters let you see—before they bite.
