The Origin of Blood
1772 Words
The laboratory didn’t feel like a place that had been abandoned.
It felt like a place that had been paused.
Waiting.
Breathing.
Watching.
Lily stood frozen between rows of glass tanks, her reflection fractured across dozens of curved surfaces. Each one showed her face.
Not as she was.
As she could have been.
Or worse—
As she was always meant to be.
Marcus stood behind her, completely still.
Jace, half-conscious and propped against a metal table, laughed weakly through bloodied teeth.
“Pretty,” he rasped. “Family reunion vibes.”
Lily didn’t respond.
She couldn’t.
Her eyes stayed locked on the fourth tank.
Empty.
Waiting.
LILY HARPER — PENDING RECOVERY
The words didn’t feel real.
They felt like a verdict.
A sentence.
A claim.
Her fingers pressed against the glass.
Cold.
Too cold.
“No,” she whispered.
Her voice echoed in the sterile room.
Then came the hum.
Lights flickered on across the ceiling.
One by one.
As if the room had just noticed her arrival.
A hidden terminal activated.
Screens booted up automatically.
Files began to scroll.
Marcus stepped forward immediately.
“Don’t touch anything.”
“Too late,” Jace muttered. “She already did.”
Lily ignored them both.
A single folder was open on the main console.
PROJECT LUNAR BLOOD
She clicked.
Against every instinct screaming at her to stop.
The screen shifted.
Text appeared.
Then images.
Then recordings.
And everything she believed about her life began to die.
—
PROJECT SUMMARY: LUNAR BLOOD INITIATIVE
A joint venture.
Wolf Council.
Blood Court of Vampires.
Unified objective: END RESOURCE WARFARE.
Lily blinked.
“Resource… warfare?”
Marcus didn’t answer.
His jaw tightened.
The file continued.
OBJECTIVE: CREATE STABLE BIOLOGICAL BLOOD SOURCE CAPABLE OF:
SUSTAINING WEREWOLF PACKS WITHOUT HUNTING
SATISFYING VAMPIRE FEEDING REQUIREMENTS WITHOUT KILLING
REDUCING INTER-SPECIES CONFLICT
PRODUCING “BINDABLE” SUBJECTS FOR CONTROLLED POWER TRANSFER
Lily stepped back.
“Bindable… subjects?”
Jace coughed.
Blood hit the floor.
“Translation,” he said faintly, “you’re not a person. You’re infrastructure.”
The words hit harder than any bullet.
Lily turned sharply.
“That’s not true.”
Marcus didn’t speak.
That silence was answer enough.
The screen continued.
LUNAR BLOOD: ARTIFICIALLY ENGINEERED BIO-RESOURCE
NOT NATURAL PHENOMENON
Lily felt something inside her crack.
Slowly.
Cleanly.
Like glass breaking underwater.
“No,” she whispered again.
But the files kept going.
—
Images appeared.
Genetic schematics.
Embryo charts.
Blood mutation maps.
And then—
A photograph.
A woman in a sterile lab coat.
Her face calm.
Clinical.
Her eyes tired.
SURROGATE MOTHER: SUBJECT 17
Lily stared.
“That’s… not my mother.”
Marcus’s voice was low.
“No.”
The screen changed again.
Another file opened.
GENETIC DONOR — HUMAN FEMALE (UNKNOWN STATUS)
Lily leaned closer.
The name blurred.
Encrypted.
But something inside her recognized the shape of it.
Familiar.
Uncomfortable.
Like a memory she didn’t own.
Then—
Another file.
GENETIC DONOR — WOLF LINEAGE (CLASSIFIED: BLOOD COURT)
Jace stiffened.
Even injured.
Even dying.
“That’s not possible,” he whispered.
Marcus didn’t move.
His eyes darkened.
Lily’s voice shook.
“Who is it?”
No answer.
Just more scrolling.
More truth.
More damage.
—
Then came the recording.
A voice.
Male.
Old.
Commanding.
Vampire accent layered with aristocratic precision.
“The Lunar Blood project will succeed. She will be the final vessel.”
Lily froze.
“She?”
The recording continued.
“Subject Zero will unify all feeding cycles.”
Marcus’s hand tightened slightly.
Jace laughed again.
“Subject Zero. Cute name.”
Lily spun.
“Who is Subject Zero?”
Marcus finally spoke.
Quietly.
“You.”
The word didn’t land immediately.
It hovered.
Then fell.
Then shattered her.
“No.”
“Yes,” Marcus said.
Lily shook her head violently.
“No, no, no—”
But the screen changed again.
A birth record.
A coded file.
And beneath it—
A designation:
SUBJECT ZERO — LILY HARPER
The world tilted.
Lily stumbled backward.
Hit the glass tank behind her.
Her reflection stared back.
Pale.
Broken.
Not human.
Not wolf.
Not vampire.
Something else.
Something made.
Jace watched her carefully.
“Congrats,” he muttered weakly. “You’re the prototype.”
Lily turned on him.
“You knew.”
Silence.
That same silence again.
The betrayal stacked like weight in her chest.
Layer after layer.
Marcus stepped closer.
“Lily—”
“Don’t.”
Her voice cracked.
“Don’t say my name like that.”
The room went still.
Even the machines seemed quieter.
Lily looked at the tanks again.
At the girls inside.
Copies.
Failures.
Versions of her that didn’t survive.
“Why are they dead?” she asked softly.
Marcus answered this time.
“Because they couldn’t stabilize.”
“Stabilize what?”
“The blood ratio.”
Jace wiped blood from his lips.
“Too wolf. Too vampire. Too human. Not enough… balance.”
Lily stared at him.
“So I’m the perfect mix.”
Marcus didn’t deny it.
That was worse than confirmation.
—
Silence stretched.
Heavy.
Suffocating.
Then Lily laughed.
A single broken sound.
“Let me get this straight.”
She gestured at the room.
“At some point in history, wolves and vampires got bored and decided to build a human blood ATM.”
No one corrected her.
That made it worse.
“And I’m the ATM that works.”
Still no argument.
Lily pressed her fingers to her temples.
Her voice dropped.
“Who created me?”
Marcus hesitated.
That hesitation said everything.
Jace answered instead.
“A council of scientists.”
“Wolf?”
“Vampire.”
“And human,” Marcus added.
Lily froze.
“Three species.”
“Three founders,” Jace said. “Three rulers. Three liars.”
Her voice went quiet.
“Names.”
Marcus exhaled.
“Wolf Council: First Alpha Research Line.”
Jace continued.
“Vampire Court: Blood Regent Consortium.”
Marcus’s jaw tightened.
“And human side?”
Silence.
Then Marcus spoke.
“One man.”
Lily looked at him.
“Who?”
Marcus hesitated again.
Then said it.
“A rogue scientist from my pack.”
The words hit like a punch.
“And your father,” Marcus added quietly, “was part of the system that maintained the experiment.”
Lily went still.
“What?”
Jace shifted slightly.
“You heard him.”
“No,” Lily whispered.
Marcus continued.
“He wasn’t your biological father.”
Lily’s breath stopped.
“He was your caretaker.”
The room spun.
Everything she thought she knew about her family collapsed.
Layer by layer.
Brick by brick.
Burning.
Jace spoke softly.
“You were stolen.”
Lily’s voice cracked.
“From who?”
Marcus’s eyes darkened.
“The Blood Court.”
A pause.
Then—
“Your real father is one of the original Vampire Princes.”
The world went silent.
Completely silent.
Even Lily’s heartbeat felt distant.
“No.”
Marcus nodded once.
“Yes.”
Lily backed away slowly.
“That’s impossible.”
Jace coughed.
“Welcome to your life.”
Lily turned toward the tanks again.
Her reflection multiplied.
Dozens of her staring back.
All failed versions.
All discarded.
All dead.
Except her.
Still alive.
Still here.
Still… useful.
Her voice came out barely above a whisper.
“So I was never a daughter.”
Marcus stepped forward.
“You were always more than that.”
“Don’t.”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Don’t turn this into something noble.”
Silence.
Then Jace spoke again.
“This is why I burned the house.”
Lily froze.
Marcus turned sharply.
“What?”
Jace met her gaze.
“I wasn’t trying to kill you.”
A pause.
“I was trying to stop them from activating you.”
Lily stared.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I was.”
The truth hung between them.
Heavy.
Unavoidable.
Jace exhaled.
“I didn’t save you because I’m good.”
He looked away.
“I saved you because I failed the first time.”
Lily’s voice shook.
“Failed how?”
Jace didn’t answer immediately.
Then—
“I loved your surrogate mother.”
Silence shattered again.
Marcus’s expression hardened instantly.
Jace continued anyway.
“And when the Council decided to ‘stabilize’ the project…”
His voice dropped.
“…she was next on the list.”
Lily’s chest tightened.
“So you chose her over them.”
Jace nodded slowly.
“And I lost everything.”
The confession didn’t make him innocent.
But it made him… human.
In the worst possible way.
—
Hours passed.
No one moved.
Eventually Lily walked back to the tank labeled with her name.
She placed her palm against the glass.
Cold.
Unfeeling.
Like the system that created her.
“I’m not this,” she whispered.
Marcus stepped beside her.
“You are what you choose to become.”
Jace laughed weakly.
“Very inspirational Alpha quote.”
Lily ignored him.
She wiped her face.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
When she spoke again, her voice was different.
Not broken.
Not lost.
Something sharper.
Something dangerous.
“Tell me how to destroy it.”
Marcus looked at her.
“Destroy what?”
“All of it.”
Her eyes hardened.
“The Council. The vampires. The wolves. The experiments. The system.”
Silence.
Then Marcus spoke.
“The data is stored in Blood Court headquarters.”
Jace added quietly.
“Protected by the Three Vampire Princes.”
Lily nodded once.
“Good.”
Marcus frowned.
“Good?”
She turned toward them.
“Then that’s where we start.”
Jace blinked.
Marcus studied her carefully.
Then Lily smiled.
Small.
Cold.
Reborn.
“I’m not running anymore.”
A pause.
“I’m not a weapon.”
Another pause.
“I’m not a resource.”
Her eyes burned.
“I’m the thing that ends the system that made me.”
Silence filled the lab.
Then Marcus nodded once.
Jace smirked faintly.
“Well,” he muttered. “That sounds like a terrible idea.”
Lily didn’t laugh.
Because she was done laughing.
—
The alliance formed that night.
Three broken things bound by necessity.
Wolf.
Rogue.
Experiment.
Heading toward war.
—
But before they left, Lily did something no one noticed.
She stepped outside alone.
Pulled out her phone.
Typed a single message.
To an unknown number.
Tell Blood Court I’m coming in three days.
Send.
Then she looked up at the night sky.
The wind moved gently through her hair.
And somewhere beneath her skin—
A faint symbol appeared on the back of her neck.
A tiny black bat.
Watching.
- Writer
