Crimson Night (1)

The room, which had been lit until recently, now bathed only by the sweet and light moonlight, was the right environment to accompany the intoxicating aroma.

The spotlight in the center was broken, as was the main window; glass shards scattered everywhere. The room was not only stained with the blackness of the night, it was also stained red. Both floor and walls, like a modern art exhibition, it seemed as if someone had taken a bucket of paint and threw it against the surfaces of the 6×4 room.

A woman lay on the floor, motionless, becoming stiffer with each passing second. Next to her, a middle-aged man, balding in the crown area, felt the still warm blood with his cold hands.

Terrified, he did not take his eyes off the other woman standing on the sharp and pointed pieces of glass. She did not seem to matter; her lost gaze and hanging jaw. She appeared to be sniffing something, rather than seeing, as she stumbled forward. With each step on the cusp of losing balance.

The middle-aged man on the floor crawled, trembling, and made an involuntary sharp muffled moan. He did so up to hitting the wall. He wanted to ask, to shout, for help, but was inhibited by fear of altering the other existence in the small room. Furthermore, he feared that even the sound of his sweat impacting the floor would be the trigger, so he abstained from further movement.

He observed the red-haired girl sniffing and stumbling in circles around the room, as if dazed, until she seemed to find what she was looking for. At least that's what the man thought. All the hair on his body stood on end. A moment later, the girl lunged at him. Finally, he released the raw scream he had been choking on for a while.

He managed to avoid the girl and fled through the door, storming out with a mixture of baby crawling and commando crawling. Even hitting his chin with the floor, but he did not have time to process it. As soon as he crossed the portal, he ran at full speed down the long hallway while being pursued by the beastly girl with the clouded gaze. Her black eyes at times emanated a bloody shine, and during that short time she could locate the man with precision, jumping onto the spot she last saw him at.

The man pleaded for help with tears in his eyes, but nobody came to his rescue. The reason was simple, he was in the farthest wing of the third floor, where there were the fewest tenants. In fact, the building was considerably new, so throughout the premises there were no more than twenty people, including three who made up the administrative staff; two whose presence happened to be missing, or rather slaking from work that day. Those who were on the same floor in the opposite wing were workers and salary men who were deeply asleep after a hard day at work.

He ran in terror from one end to the other, he did not even think to take the elevator, and went straight for the stairs. His breathing was short, and at times choked on his saliva.

Less than a meter from reaching the stairs, he steeled his resolve. He just had to turn a corner, and he would reach them; then, if he had to jump and take his chances, so be it. Anything was better than being caught by the thirsty beast pursuing him relentlessly.

When a euphoric smile formed on his face, thinking he had managed to escape, the redhead's eyes shone crimson and with a long, effortless leap she reached the horrified man. Grabbed his ankle, and with her superhuman strength crushed it. It was as simple as cracking a piece of aluminum foil. The middle-aged man let out a hoarse, eerie scream. With his last instinct for survival, he broke the glass box embedded in the wall with a punch and clung to the pulley before being dragged away by the girl.

The "process" did not take more than two minutes. The man fought, resisted as much as he could, but it was in vain. The girl positioned him against the wall and fitted her long fangs into his victim's jugular vein. She drank and sucked frenziedly until the resistance stopped. The struggling limbs, having lost all their strength, surrendered to gravity. If it weren't for being held by the neck, he would have fallen to the ground. And even at this point, the girl did not stop. She drank until the last spark of life in her victim's eyes faded. Once she stopped feeding, she discarded the lifeless body like any other piece of litter.

As this was happening, a loud alarm flooded the facilities: rooms, halls, offices, everywhere. It was the fire alarm which ended up drowning out the last agony and cries of desperation of the man.

Mina Neri, with incredible speed, disappeared from the place, leaving behind her sin, in search of the next one because, naturally, the thirst was yet to be satisfied.

One by one, men and women of varying ages, some alarmed, others smoking because they had been awakened in the middle of the night, left their rooms. Soon most of them gathered in a common area, others, as they left their rooms and saw nothing dangerous, went back in.

In the meeting point, the lobby at the entrance. A couple joined to discuss their theories about what triggered the alarm. Someone yelled to "shut up the damn thing." The manager, pressured, silenced the alarm with a button on the reception desk, considering that the smoke detectors had probably been triggered by cigarette smoke. A group of three decided to explore the other floors, while a man with a peaceful appearance gave instructions to the rest to leave calmly. The group did not even make it out of the lounge when one of them noticed that someone was running towards them down the stairs.

—Hey, isn't that Mr. Miyagi from 305?

The man called Miyagi came up to the group, soaked in sweat and short of breath. One of the men in the exploration group was about to greet him, but was cut short by Mr. Miyagi.

—Killer… There has been… a murder on the third floor!