The Eclipse's Dawn

The sky bled red over HatchVille. It was October 7th, 1983. The harvest season had passed, and a thick wind crawled in from the east, shaking the crooked crosses atop the town’s ancient chapel. The blood moon—a celestial omen long feared by the old Catholic folk—hung swollen above the mist-laced rooftops, casting a crimson hue across cobblestone paths and shadowy alleyways. To most in HatchVille, it was just another night. But for Badwiser Llorente, retired lawyer turned local whistleblower, it was the beginning of something monstrous. Something he had long feared—and long investigated. For weeks now, reports had filled his mailbox. Handwritten letters. Crying voices. All the same story. “My cousin disappeared after her night shift at the hospice.” “He said he saw a man vanish into black smoke.” “There are things in the hospital... that don’t breathe right.” He stood in the town square under the moon’s gaze, flipping open a worn leather file marked COSPIUS – CLASSIFIED. His fingers trembled. The ink was smudged with sweat, but he could still make out the names. Fifty-three. Fifty-three people missing in two months. No bodies. No signs of struggle. No police interest. Because no one believes in vampires. Except Annes Diane. Far from the square, down the muddy hill that led to the River Verro, Annes knelt at the grave of her mother. Or where the grave should have been. It was just a patch of dry earth. No headstone. No closure. “I know you’re not in heaven, mama. I know what they did to you.” She gripped a small silver crucifix in her hand, one she had worn since childhood. The night of the m******e still haunted her. The cold air. The hissing. The way her father had screamed—and how her baby sister never got the chance. They said it was a gas explosion. A house fire. But Annes had seen the creature. Tall, with eyes like ink and a face that peeled and reformed like wet clay. It had ripped through her family as if they were paper. She had lived because she was fetching water. That guilt had never left her. Neither had the fire in her belly. That’s why she left HatchVille. Why she went to Rome. Why she begged to join the Jesuit Order—not the one people read about in textbooks, but the real one. The secret battalion of Catholic warriors trained in the occult, combat, and ancient weapons meant to slay that which couldn’t die. Inside the Vatican, deep beneath the holy corridors lined with saints and marble, Father Antoine Mathieu stood over a stone table, studying an ancient parchment. The air was heavy with incense and prophecy. “The Cospius Bloodline... it’s real,” he whispered. Pope Papestine Hawort, cloaked in midnight-blue robes stitched with Jewish sigils, paced behind him. “We’ve known. We’ve just never confirmed... until now.” Antoine looked up, fearfully. “The blood moon… it means they’re gathering.” “They’ll try to breach HatchVille,” the Pope said. “That town’s cursed blood feeds their resurrection. They want to rebirth their Lord.” Antoine nodded grimly. “Cospius Dracula. The Fifth.” The Pope turned to a sealed glass vault embedded in the wall. Inside it rested a golden crucifix embedded with black thorns—the Cross of Cain, said to have been forged from the tears of the archangel Raphael and dipped in the fire of Gehenna. “It’s time we send our soldiers,” the Pope murmured. “I have someone,” Antoine said. “She’s not ready—but she’s destined.” That same night, Annes stood at the old sanatorium on the edge of HatchVille. She had followed whispers, tracked missing medical supplies, and snuck past guards. Inside, the hallways were dim, the walls peeling. A nurse walked by with a drip bag. But Annes saw it—thick, deep red. It wasn’t saline. It was blood. Suddenly, she heard a noise. A gurgle. A sharp inhale, like someone sucking air into a dry throat. She turned. There, in the hallway’s shadow, a man stood. But his skin was pale and cracking, like porcelain left in fire. His teeth—razor sharp. His fingers—elongated. And his eyes… Dead. Yet alive. “Found you,” Annes whispered, sliding a dagger from her coat. The vampire leapt at her, but she rolled beneath it, stabbing the silver blade into its thigh. It screeched, the wound sizzling. But it did not fall. It twisted, faster than anything she’d seen, and slammed her into the wall. Her crucifix snapped from her neck. “She’s one of them,” it hissed. Annes pulled a second blade—one given only to Jesuits. Marked with Latin. Blessed with holy oil. “In Nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.” She plunged it through the vampire’s skull. The creature let out a shriek that shattered every window in the corridor before disintegrating into black ash. Hours later, blood still on her hands, Annes knelt in the chapel of HatchVille, staring up at the crucifix. Her eyes were hollow. Her breath steady. This is real. It was always real. As the blood moon reached its peak, a voice echoed in her mind—calm, deep, ancient. “The feast has begun.”