Before the Sun Finds Us

Jakarta after midnight did not sleep. It merely changed shape. The city softened in darkness, its sharp edges blurred beneath rainwater, neon reflections, and exhaustion. Office towers glowed above crowded streets like sleepless giants. Motorcycles sliced through puddles in silver streaks. Convenience stores hummed quietly beneath fluorescent lights while taxis crawled through traffic carrying people too tired to speak. Somewhere in the distance, an ambulance cried through the rain. Kael barely noticed it. After three centuries alive, human urgency no longer startled him. People were always rushing toward something. toward money, hospitals, love, funerals. Usually too late. Kael stood near the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office on the thirty-second floor of a private medical corporation, watching rain slide slowly down the glass while encrypted reports flickered across the monitors behind him. Most employees had gone home hours ago. Only the night division remained. Security analysts. Data specialists. International logistics coordinators. And hidden quietly among them, predators. Kael looked human enough to disappear into modern society without difficulty. Tall. Dark-haired. Pale in a way that suggested chronic exhaustion rather than illness. His appearance rarely changed. Centuries passed while his face remained trapped somewhere around his early thirties. Immortality sounded beautiful until time stopped touching you properly. He wore black almost every night because blood was difficult to notice against dark fabric. Old habit. One of many. The city knew him as a cybersecurity consultant working for an international medical network specializing in blood distribution and hospital data protection. Quiet. Efficient. Forgettable. No one questioned why he preferred night shifts. Humans rarely questioned things that made sense conveniently. Kael leaned back slightly in his chair while another report opened across the central monitor. Missing blood units. Falsified donor identities. Unauthorized medical transfers. Most irregularities came from corruption. Some came from vampires. The younger ones were always careless. Too emotional. Too hungry. Too arrogant to understand how dangerous humanity had become. Three hundred years ago, monsters survived through fear. Now survival depended on invisibility. Cameras existed everywhere. DNA databases expanded yearly. Facial recognition software improved faster than predators adapted. Human beings had unknowingly built a world where creatures like Kael should have gone extinct long ago. And yet vampires survived. Not because they were stronger. Because they evolved. Kael closed the report after tracing an illegal blood shipment routed through three separate hospitals in Central Jakarta. Amateur work. Whoever organized the operation lacked discipline. Discipline was the only reason vampires still existed. A dull ache spread beneath Kael’s ribs. Hunger. Not severe yet. Just enough to irritate him. The parasite inside his body regulated itself through blood consumption the way engines regulated heat through coolant systems. Without feeding, vampire bodies slowly overheated from accelerated cellular regeneration. Humans romanticized vampirism because humans romanticized everything that could kill them beautifully. Immortality. Seduction. Power. The truth was uglier. Hunger dried the skin first. Then came tremors. Sensory instability. Light sensitivity. Eventually the body began destroying itself from within. Kael had seen starving vampires split open from internal heat like machinery melting under pressure. There was nothing elegant about it. At 1:43 AM, Kael finally shut down the monitors and stood. Rain still hammered softly against the windows. He disliked rain. Wet cities smelled stronger. Perfume. Sweat. Stress. Fear. And beneath all of it— blood. Warm and alive inside fragile human bodies. Kael grabbed his coat and left the office. The elevator descended silently through darkened corporate floors while soft instrumental music played overhead. Kael stared at his reflection in the mirrored walls. Unchanged. Always unchanged. Sometimes he tried remembering what his real face used to look like before the transformation. He never could. Memory became unreliable after enough centuries. That frightened him more than death ever had. The parking garage beneath the building buzzed faintly beneath fluorescent lights. His footsteps echoed softly against concrete as he approached the black sedan waiting near the far corner. Then he stopped. A familiar scent lingered nearby. Vampire. Young. Male. Hungry. Kael’s expression hardened instantly. “You’re either desperate,” he said calmly into the empty garage, “or profoundly stupid.” Silence answered first. Then movement. A thin young man stepped from behind one of the concrete support pillars. Early twenties physically. Probably transformed less than a decade ago. Too young to control himself properly. The younger vampire looked nervous immediately upon recognizing Kael. Older vampires carried a certain presence. Not magical. Instinctive. Predators recognized surviving predators. “You’re Kael,” the younger man said carefully. Kael remained silent. Fear flickered across the younger vampire’s face anyway. “There’s a feeding network operating near Tanah Abang,” he continued quickly. “They’re taking too much blood. Humans are starting to notice.” Kael already knew. “What do you want?” he asked. The younger vampire hesitated. “Protection.” Kael almost laughed. Protection. No matter how much the world evolved, frightened creatures still searched for something stronger to save them. “You want advice?” Kael asked quietly. The younger vampire nodded once. Kael opened his car door. “Disappear before sunrise. Stop feeding emotionally. And if you’re connected to the network stealing hospital blood, leave the city.” “That’s all?” Kael finally looked directly at him. “Yes.” The younger vampire swallowed hard before retreating back into the shadows. Seconds later he disappeared completely into the rain. Kael entered the car and drove. The city stretched endlessly around him. Street vendors beneath plastic tarps. Motorcycles weaving through flooded intersections. Couples arguing quietly beside convenience stores. Night-shift workers smoking outside office towers. Humans living brief lives with desperate intensity. Kael remembered when he used to envy them. Now he mostly felt tired. Immortality was not endless living. It was endless surviving. After enough years, memories became heavy things. Faces blurred together. Entire decades vanished. Names disappeared. Kael no longer remembered his mother’s voice. Sometimes he forgot the language he had first spoken as a child. That was the true cruelty of immortality. Not living forever. Forgetting what forever was supposed to mean. The dull ache beneath his ribs sharpened slightly. Feeding would become necessary soon. Kael ignored it for now. He stopped near a private hospital mostly out of routine. The convenience store beside the emergency entrance remained open twenty-four hours a day. Kael occasionally bought coffee there simply to maintain appearances. Humans trusted routine. He stepped inside. Warm fluorescent light washed over him instantly. The smell of instant noodles, sugar, cheap coffee, and antiseptic filled the air. A cashier glanced up briefly before returning to her phone. Kael moved toward the coffee machine automatically. Then he noticed her. A woman sat alone beside the window with untouched noodles growing cold in front of her. Dark hair slightly messy. Oversized sweater. Exhaustion visible beneath her eyes. Nothing extraordinary. And yet Kael stopped moving. Her heartbeat reached him first. Steady. Not calm exactly. Controlled. Most people inside hospitals carried frantic rhythms. Fear disrupted the body long before tears appeared. But this woman looked exhausted enough to collapse while her heartbeat remained strangely grounded. Kael realized he had been staring several seconds too long when she finally spoke without looking at him. “If you’re going to keep doing that,” she said tiredly, “you should at least pretend to buy something.” Kael blinked. It had been decades since someone addressed him without hesitation. Most humans unconsciously sensed danger around vampires. Their instincts reacted before logic understood why. But this woman sounded more annoyed than afraid. Kael picked up a bottle of water mostly because she told him to. “That better?” he asked. She finally looked at him properly. And there it was. Not fear. Not fascination. Not attraction. Recognition. The quiet acknowledgment lonely people sometimes gave each other in public places. “You still look creepy,” she informed him. To his own surprise, Kael almost smiled. Almost. He moved toward the coffee machine instead. “You’re at a hospital convenience store at two in the morning eating cold noodles,” he said. “I don’t think either of us is winning.” A small laugh escaped her before she could stop it. Warm. Human. Unexpected. Something unfamiliar shifted quietly inside Kael’s chest. Not hunger. Something older. Something far more dangerous. The woman stirred her noodles absentmindedly. “My mom’s upstairs,” she explained after a moment. “Stroke. Minor one, hopefully.” Kael nodded once. “I’m sorry.” She shrugged lightly. “Could be worse.” Humans said that often. Could be worse. As though suffering became easier if measured against greater suffering. Kael bought his coffee and sat across from her before fully deciding why. Rain tapped softly against the windows. Neither spoke for several seconds. The silence felt strangely comfortable. “You work nearby?” she finally asked. “Yes.” “That explains the serial-killer office clothes.” Kael looked down briefly at his black shirt. “I’ll reconsider my wardrobe choices.” “You should.” Another smile tugged faintly at her mouth. Kael noticed then how exhausted she truly looked. Not dramatic exhaustion. Not cinematic sadness. Real exhaustion. The kind people carried quietly because life continued regardless of how tired they became. “What about you?” he asked. “What about me?” “What do you do when you aren’t insulting strangers in convenience stores?” She snorted softly. “I’m an illustrator.” Kael raised an eyebrow slightly. “For books?” “Mostly freelance stuff. Covers. Promotional art. Sometimes advertisements if I’m desperate enough.” “You dislike it.” “I dislike clients who think exposure pays rent.” Kael almost smiled again. The expression came easier around her. That alone should have concerned him. “You?” Mara asked. “Cybersecurity.” “That sounds fake.” “It’s not.” “It sounds like a job attractive people in thrillers have before they reveal government conspiracies.” Kael looked at her calmly. “You think I’m attractive?” Mara nearly choked on her noodles. “Oh my God, you cannot respond to that part.” For the first time in years, laughter escaped him properly. Soft. Brief. Rusty from disuse. Both of them looked slightly startled afterward. Mara stared openly. “There,” she said quietly. “What?” “That.” Kael frowned faintly. “You laugh like you forgot how.” The words landed harder than they should have. Because she was right. He had forgotten many things over the centuries. Laughter among them. For a moment, neither spoke. Outside, rain continued pouring across the city while ambulance lights flashed faintly through the wet streets beyond the windows. Mara glanced toward the clock and sighed. “I should go upstairs before the nurses think I died.” Kael nodded once. Still neither moved immediately. The silence between them no longer felt awkward. Just quiet. Mara finally stood and grabbed the untouched noodles. “Goodnight, creepy cyber-security man.” Kael looked up at her. “Goodnight, woman with terrible nutritional habits.” She laughed again before heading toward the elevators. Kael watched until the doors closed behind her. Then he remained seated long after she disappeared. Listening. Heartbeat moving farther away floor by floor. Still steady. Still alive. Something ancient inside him tightened painfully. Because for the first time in longer than he wanted to admit, Kael realized he was looking forward to tomorrow. And immortals should never look forward to anything. That was how attachment began. That was how grief survived.