Neither of the goliaths should have gotten involved but there had long been tensions between the two mammoth nations and as soon as one trigger-happy, idiot soldier fired the first bullet, things escalated — terrifyingly fast.

The tiny regions and their little dispute had turned into a global conflict with all kinds of unspeakable weaponry and wickedness as both sides of the world spewed venom and rage towards each other and everyone caught in their paths.

While Gethmane, the ironclad powerhouse of the east with her supreme naval fleets and control over the ocean, had dominated Galisthros at first, her masterful subterfuge gnawing at the enemy from the inside out, the conflict dragged on and on and eventually she faltered.

Believing fully in the heart of her ocean mastery, she failed to realise the dangers of the emerging aerial battlefields. No longer could she compete with the Galisthroan bombers, laying waste to her vessels and warships before turning their attention inland to her cities and civilians.

Gethmane was crippled and while she retreated to lick her wounds, the real cruelty began. Galisthros decided to invade, sending hoards of soldiers into the land.

When it looked like Galisthroan victory was assured, after razing the cities, wiping towns from history and massacring the civilians again and again and again, the country lost all contact with their men in Gethmane.

A dark cloud descended from the east: a horrific plague that would wipe 90% of Galisthros out within a week. Both nations were ravaged by the flames of wrath and choked by the smog of despair.

At the point of the plague beginning to fester among the mammoth western nation and the complete withdrawal of the goliath eastern nation, the smaller continents that lay between the two were left dumbfounded by the instant end to the war.

Now, Gethmane's story diverged.

Galisthros, left with the empty echoes of Gethmane's sudden and complete silence from the world stage, believed that Gethmane had siphoned all of her funding into a brutal bio-weapons project in a frantic attempt to save themselves the shame of a bitter, devastating defeat.

In the nation of Gethmane, however, the people were soon to learn that the truth was much darker. The plague was even more unholy than Galisthros could ever have imagined.

The details differed. Some vampires argued that Galisthros had somehow made a pact to assure their victory, sacrificing the population of Gethmane to seal the deal. Others claimed that the elderly King of Vankus had gone mad with despair and sealed their fate himself. Those people claimed he had figured out how to summon the forces of the Nightmare - vile demons that feed off fear and anger, always on the brink of our reality and waiting to strike. In a chilling pact, he sacrificed his entire nation in exchange for the strength of the netherworld.

Or so they claimed.

A black cloud had descended over Galisthros, yes, but it was no plague: it was a maelstrom of demons, destroying the Galisthroan population from the inside out, ripping out their sanity and leaving them as unholy husks who turned on each other.

Whatever the truth may have been, Galisthros surrendered but instead of celebrating a bitter victory, Gethmane instead immediately isolated herself from the rest of the world, shrouding herself in that same black cloud, completely impervious to satellite photos and aerial reconnaissance.

It was rumoured that any aircraft who tried to enter Gethmanic airspace, or ships who tried to enter her waters, were immediately torn apart by the same demons who swore their allegiance to the Vankan crown.

Trade and exports were sealed off, harbours and airports abandoned as people realised they were trapped on the continent.

Panic set in.

Since that day, Galisthros had lived in perpetual fear of when the next plague would come. Dean knew this all too well; although he was born and raised in Abermijah, Galisthros had influenced schools and history all over the globe. Everywhere except the cauterised Gethmane.

In the dusty, desert classrooms of the tiny Abermijahn school, Dean had been taught to fear Gethmane. The children were taught to always be alert and ready for the next movements, to always be prepared for the inevitable moment when the dark volcano would erupt once more.

After all, sleeping giants must awaken sometime.

Not long after being bitten and adjusting to his new life as an undead, Dean had realised that, contrary to everything he had been taught, the world had nothing to fear from Gethmane save for the blood harvesting work that he and Jak carried out. The vampire nation had demilitarised after the King's death, a mere two months after the war officially ended.

The new King, Axel Chalicen Faolin, the current reigning monarch, had been left to deal with the horrific realisation that he and his countrymen were growing fangs and developing an unquenchable hunger.

Vampires were not immortal; they died eventually, whether it be from millenia of old age, murder, suicide or illness, just like any human. The ageing process was slowed tremendously. Dean had no way of telling how old many of his peers were, Jak included, but he knew that he himself had only aged maybe two or three years, visually, over the decades he'd been turned.

A nigh-immortal population had to find their food source somewhere and that was where the Blood Works Major came into the picture.

King Axel had gathered the country's best scientists and researchers and within a few decades, they had figured out how to sustain the entire country at the cost of just one human life. One human could feed a settlement for a year but to keep the entire country sated, it had to be one per month. It was a strange, diabolical process that had been refined over centuries of research.

Horrific. Demonic. Yet there was no other way. Animal blood couldn't sate the maddening thirst. Vampires had no way of controlling the hunger. It was untameable, like a wild beast tearing out of the flesh and devouring everything and everyone indiscriminately.

The pristine metal floor was cold and clinical, uncaring, the lights bright and blinding as Dean squinted to adjust his vision to the massive industrial spotlights bearing down on the trio.

He'd always hated the Blood Works.

The putrid metallic smell of blood and the rancid yet bittersweet stench of death permeated the air, mixed in with the pungent odour of strange chemicals and solutions. It was hard to breathe the horrid oxygen without gagging but thankfully Dean had learned to control himself over the years.

As he was about to get to his feet, a ghostly hand stretched out before him to offer aid. It was Rei. Gazing up at his strange sanguine eyes, Dean noticed those creepy pupils - absolute pinpoints, as though Rei was staring directly into the spotlights, even though they loomed overhead instead.

Cautiously, Dean accepted his cold hand, letting the smaller man pull him to his feet with unearthly strength. Resting a hand on his stomach and pressing down hard to try to quench the queasiness, a new burning sensation began to froth in his guts: indigestion from the alcohol.

"Are you okay, my new friend?" Rei's voice sliced through the silence like glass shattering on the metal floor, its dark and and bloody contents seeping into the clinical whiteness. "Not one for travel, are you? T'would explain why you insisted on delaying our journey."

A smile crept across his devilishly handsome face as he lowered his dark lashes to the tanned, tattooed hand intertwined with his, seemingly enjoying Dean's warmth for a moment before letting go and turning his attention to the older vampire at his side. "I am surprised you were able to track me down again, Jak." He sounded serene, calm.

Jak merely grunted in response.

"You did mention Coldwoods by name in your journals, m'Lord."

Dean had never heard Jak address anyone formally before and so he listened to the exchange with even deeper curiosity.

"Ah, yes. But that was months ago, no? I thought my darkest secrets would have been sacred but alas, I am denied the basic privacy of even a journal..." Rei sighed deeply but Dean noticed the remnants of his smile lingering on his pale face.

"Any lead is viable."

"Yes, yes, I understand."

The two black-haired men began to strut off down the brightly lit corridor towards the main laboratory, leaving the blond in their wake.

Dean took a second to collect his thoughts, feeling a bead of sweat forming on his brow before trickling down his nose, coming to rest on the ring hanging through his septum. He'd forgotten how uncomfortable the temperature in the Blood Works often was. It didn't seem to have any effect on the full-bloods but for him, it would ebb and flow from blisteringly hot to pleasantly warm with no apparent reason.

Before continuing, an inked hand reached up, running through the short, shaved side of his head. Old combat boots scuffed and echoed through the corridor as he broke into a gentle jog, catching up with Jak and Rei, nose scrunched up as he moved.

Dean didn't care how many times Jak told him; he would never get used to the smell, no matter how many centuries he would spend here.

As Jak and Rei chatted idly about Coldwoods and the patrons, they moved through the metal doors to the Blood Works main laboratory. More of the scientists scurried from machine to machine, monitor to monitor, as numerous beeps and buzzes rang out amid the constant bubbling of beakers. This was where the harvested victims would end up eventually.

The exsanguination chambers lined the walls from floor to ceiling, each one with a single naked human floating in the strange gel-like liquid, wrists and necks degloved, tubes connected to their exposed veins as machines controlled their heart and brain functions. The poor bastards were kept alive but barely, their life essence treated and captured in tiny quantities before being processed and duplicated to create the blood supplies. Each tank was marked with warning signs indicated blood type, victim's age, whether it required extra processing to treat any diseases that would affect the vampires, and so on.

Dean couldn't stand to look at the tanks - the degloving and exposed nerves and veins made him feel nauseous enough but the added horror and guilt of knowing these people were here because of him was enough. These were the poor souls who had refused to trade their humanity for longevity. They were meat to the grinder now. All their hopes and dreams, stripped away just like their life essence. Each and every one of them would die in these tanks when their bodies could no longer handle the stress and strain of the exsanguination process. They would die in the tanks and then be incinerated, their ashes used to fertilise the castle's gardens.

Gone, just like that. Erased from existence in a heartbeat.

Dean kept his eyes forward although his mind always wandered when he walked through here. He would often ponder which tank he would have been in, had Jak not decided to sire him. How long would have he have lasted before his body succumbed to the shock? Horrible thoughts but it was so difficult to fight them.

Maybe one day he would be able to distance himself from these people and view them as merely dinner... He knew he was kidding himself: he'd never be able to mentally distance himself from the reality of this clinical hellhole.

He did, however, take some solace in the knowledge that he'd never seen any of the victims conscious once they landed in the Blood Works Major. That meant they didn't feel any pain — that was what he'd decided to keep telling himself, anyway. Whether it was true or not, it didn't matter. It wouldn't change anything.