The First Prince of Hell is Human?

Leo's feet halted with the final lines of the audio track. The short burst of adrenaline faded and with its absence came exhaustion.

Heavy panting, his clothes and face soaked with sweat. He was somewhere deep within the pine hill trail, surrounded by barely visible pine trees shrouded in the early morning fog.

"If I keep doing this, I may get lost one of these days," Leo mumbled under his breath while swiping some sweat off his face.

"Nah, Hollow Night is a small town. They'll find you, even if you are a corpse."

Leo's blood ran cold, his hand instinctively reaching for the pocket knife in his back pocket, and his head snapped down the trail.

A figure appeared within the fog, one he would recognize even in a dream. The unique circular head with blade-sharp ears and a protruding pot-belly—Isaiah Thorne

In this world, vampires weren't immortal, as folktales made many believe.

Nature is fair, it giveth just as much as it taketh.

Unknown to many, vampires are not born immortal; rather, their lifespan increases as they evolve. If one failed to evolve, they would be left with one final option—feed human souls.

While draining a person's blood, a vampire consumes the soul as well to boost their last span by a decade or so, while also chipping away their humanity and reducing them to mere beasts.

In this world, vampires lived and died—they just lived longer than most beings.

The Thorne family was the original vampire family in The Hallow Night. It was a small family of four—a small family because Luthor hunted them nearly to extinction with his team before leaving Hollow Night.

When the war ended, remnants of the family returned—the last surviving twins of the Thorne family with twins of their own—son Isaiah Thorne and daughter Lily Thorne.

They were both Leo's age, and they both attended Hollow Night Middle School, and they were going to attend the same High school, two days from now.

For some reason, even after the vampire family returned, they didn't retaliate even when other families of high-ranking military officials were being slaughtered in retaliation for the killings in the civil war.

While the Thorne twins weren't friendly and even showed hostility openly, they never attacked him. Initially, he found that strange but stopped bothering about it.

A pale, chubby kid with curly brown hair emerged from the fog, his glasses reflecting Leo's image as he walked forward with both hands up.

"It's me, chill out."

Isaiah rolled his eyes and dropped his hands. He walked up to Leo, who cautiously took a step back.

"Why are you here?" Leo's hand gripped the pocket knife in his back pocket tightly, his tone threatening.

Isaiah stopped in his tracks, giving out an exhausted sigh. He was barely 5'7'' and chubby compared to Leo who was the embodiment of handsomeness, aura, strength, and charisma.

He was the first vampire to lose to a human in a beauty contest. Ten out of ten times, girls would gladly pick Leo over him—it was embarrassing.

"Relax, what does it look like to do?"

Isaiah pointed at the black and red tracksuit he was putting on with an 'are-you-that-dumb?' look. He scuttled over to Leo's side, inspecting his condition with blurred movements.

"Get the fuck away from me."

Leo continued his jog up the trail, but he could hear Isaiah's haunting footsteps following closely. The eerie chuckles and occasional giggles escaping Isaiah's lips were heart-wrenching.

"Do you know how long I have waited for an opportunity to have this conversation with you?"

Isaiah's voice had a tinge of suppressed aggression. Leo looked over his shoulders and saw it—Isaiah's pupils were reduced to a tiny dot, drowned in the burning crimson light of his eyes.

Leo abandoned the trail and turned left, shooting into the pine forest. Pine trees flicked past him like a blur, and his hair whipped against the wind as he maneuvered his way through the forest.

"Only the guilty runneth when no one chaseth!"

The fog caught up to Leo's fleeing figure, clinging to his body as he ran as fast as he could, even though he couldn't see a thing.

"You shouldn't have left it behind... I can finally touch you!"

Isaiah's hysterical laughter resonated from all sides, his voice clinging to Leo.

'My ring?'

Only now did Leo realize he didn't have the ring his dad had given him before leaving. He had worn it out every day for the past five years, except today.

Thud!

Leo stopped running abruptly, and the fog chasing after him seemed to stop. Isaiah stepped out, his eyes revealing a crimson hue while saliva ran down his lips.

He looked like a depraved beast, starved for nearly a century.

Tueh!

Leo spat on the ground in disgust and pulled out his pocket dagger.

"Wh-what's going on?" Isaiah mumbled in confusion. "Why did you stop running?"

"Run?"

Leo shrugged, a mocking smile stretching across his lips.

"I simply led you away from the path; that way, people won't hear your screams when I cut you open."

Isaiah gritted his teeth in response to Leo's words.

While he had a general disdain for humanity, Leo was the worst of them all. Even after humans lost the war, even after they were forced to live alongside supernatural beings the look of contempt never left Leo's eyes.

Why isn't he afraid?

Why doesn't he just fall in line like everyone else?

Why must he be different?

"Your Father haunted my family..."

"He haunted bloodsucking animals who fed off human blood to survive... Next?" Leo cut him off in a tone lacking remorse.

"He killed my grandparents..."

"Don't forget, he also killed your great-grandparents and nearly had your parents. Unfortunately, they escaped... If he got it done, I wouldn't have been dealing with this now."

Isaiah was cut off once again, but this time, Leo sounded impatient. He turned his phone screen to Isaiah, showing the time '7:39 am'

"If you don't do something soon, you may never get the chance again," Leo said.