The incredibly rge building had several wings, all dedicated to different purposes, and she was off to the Race wing today. After a few more hallways, she found the path towards non-emergency services, aeps quied now that she knew she was close. Many of the people she passed still had injuries, but they were minor enough that they could afford to wait. Katrina’s goal was the ter meant for non-medical treatment, which existed to help races that needed exotic material as a part of their day-to-day lives. When she found the line, she quickly stepped into pce, and sighed in relief.

  Her focus was somewhat distracted, however, when a feminine voice beside her spoke up. “Ma’am, are you in the right line? If you’re bleeding, you should head back towards non-emergency services.”

  Looking over, Katrina saw a Nekomata in bright pink scrubs holding a clipboard, clearly ed about the bloody towel. She was of middli, with bright green eyes and a slim build, and her bck cat ears twitched towards Katrina as she started talking. “N-no, I’m a Vampire. This is just… keeping me sane while I wait for my turn.”

  “Ah, that makes sense. Unfortunately, I’m going to have to ask that you let me dispose of it. Hazmat s, I’m sure you uand.”

  With a heavy sigh, Katrina nodded in agreement. “Sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight. This she is really messing me up.”

  “I pletely uand, ma’am. Looks like you’re almost up, though, so you’ll have your rations soon!” the Nekomata said, smiling wide. She pulled on a pair of gloves, grabbed the bloody towel, and walked off. Without even realizing it, Katrina found herself looking at the girl's neck, w what the girl's fur would feel like as her teeth sank into—

  Stop it, Katrina. Dennis lent you that towel to prevent an attack, and she's just doing her job.

  She shook her head and bit her tourning away from the hankfully, it was only another few minutes before Katrina was called to the window. She slid her donor card uhe gss a her cooler in a small drawer that would tra to the other side. The dy at the window, a tall Aelf with a short blonde pixie cut, smiled as she sed the card. She grabbed the cooler before walking off, leaving Katrina alo the window and nervously tapping on the ter.. After a few quick mihe Aelf returned with a full cooler.

  “Here you are, seven bags of human blood. Please wait until you’re outside the hospital to start ption, and make sure that all medical waste is properly disposed of. Sigo accept.”

  Katrina did as she was asked, signing her name as quickly as she could before she opehe cooler to look inside. “Wait, these bags are only 300 mL, aren’t they supposed to be 350?”

  “Rationing guidelines were just updated, and unfortuhey had to cut the portion sizes down.”

  “I… hadn't heard that. How long will this be in effect?”

  “I wish I could say. Officials are doing everything they to ence people to donate, but right now there’s no end in sight. If there’s nothing else you need, could you please step aside?”

  Katrina forced a smile, then closed up her cooler ahe line. She kept her eyes on the floor as she slowly navigated out of the building,

  As if things weren’t bad enough already. How am I supposed to tinue like this?

  Stepping outside, she found the cool night breeze had picked up slightly. It tossed her hair around, bringing with it the smell of the Dungeon Camp just a few blocks away. She'd visited once, about a year ago, and had almost lost trol when a guild returned from a run with several injured party members.

  Best not to tempt fate again.

  By the time Katrina made it back to the train, she leased to see the crowds had thinned slightly. The ride would still be difficult, but at least she wasn't packed like a sardine.

  Now that there ace to breathe, she noticed that the other passengers were subtly avoiding her, doing their best to lean away or switch spots. She didn't bme them, their fear erfectly justified, and at least it made it easier to find a er seat. With her cooler on her p, she thought about opening it, but ultimately decided to wait. She hated drinking blood in front of people, though she could never be sure if that was due more to their disfort or hers.

  Instead, as the smells of the other passengers began to assault her again, she decided to try and distract herself.

  “Status.”

  —

  General Information

  Name: Katrina Ma

  Race: Vampire

  Age: 25

  HP: 100%

  SP: 31%

  MP: 100%

  —

  Attributes

  STR: 11

  END: 16 (+4)

  DEX: 12

  AGI: 15 (+2)

  INT: 9

  WIS: 10

  CHA: 19 (+4)

  LCK: 12

  PER: 13 (+2)

  HLT: 15 (+4)

  —

  Racial Features

  Vampiric Curse

  Flight

  Undead Fortitude

  Enting Gaze

  —

  Css

  Bard - Path of Magic

  Level: 2

  Progress: 5%

  —

  Css Features

  Inspiring Performance - Guitar

  Bardiowledge

  Improved Performance

  —

  There was nothing new oatus s, but she was used to that. Most people used this s to keep tabs on their abilities, pn out their builds, and make sure they stayed healthy. One downside, however, was that fog on this s for too long induced painful headaches, especially for the more exotic races. For Katrina, this was the primary reason she used her Status s.

  It mentally blocked her vision, obsg her view of the train car, and the headache helped distract her from the hunger. While she was effectively trading one misery for another, at least the status headache didn't urge her to kill people.

  She lost track of time as she stared at her stats. The train would stop and start, passengers ing and going, as Katrina focused on holding out. The headache grew increasingly worse, and as it did so, she found it difficult to focus ohe train was stopping. By the time she'd finally had enough, and closed her Status s, her train car had pletely emptied. When she looked at the LED sighe exit, she didn't reize where she was.

  Shoot. Must have missed my stop.

  She jumped to her feet and ran to the exit, hoping she wasn't too far away from home. Still, even if she were, she could easily fly back.

  Walking off the train, she briefly explored the small nding before looking to the neighborhood in front of her. She was definitely further away from the city, and the rows upon rows of houses ahead firmed she was fortably in the suburbs. As she looked at the neighborhood in front of her, however, something seemed off. She didn’t see any signs of life, and many of the streets were rown with foliage. Floating off the ground, she happily took to the skies as her curiosity took hold. It was her day off, she had her blood, and she had nothier to do today.

  From a higher vantage point, she realized that not only was the entire neighborhood likely deserted, it was more than obvious why. Huge swathes of destru scarred the ndscape, with many of the houses having been pletely reduced to rubble. Some of them appeared to have been burned down, others looked as if they’d been crushed by something massive.

  As Katri expl, she found more and more pnt life, to a degree that seemed oddly accelerated. The ge had only been 4 years ago, and she doubted nature would have recimed this neighborhood so quickly. Weeds abounded, but so too did bushes, small trees, patches of moss, and all manner of flowers. Vines crept in and around the debris of the maroyed houses, and there even appeared to be a healthy stream cutting through the memories of previously bright green wns.

  She flew even higher, above the majority of the two-story houses, and gasped at what she saw. Close to the ter of the neighborhood, t over everything else nearby, stood a massive cherry blossom tree. Its hundreds of branches held aloft a magnifit tapestry ht pink flowers, and it looked like there were roughly a dozen particurly thick branches all diverting from the main trunk. Eae cradled a ueau of leaves and flowers, many of which had fallen and coated the ground with a beautiful floral carpet. The trunk itself appeared to have grown out of one of the houses, this one appearing mostly undamaged apart from the er that had beeroyed to make room for the tree.

  After realizing that she’d stopped moving, Katrina flew in closer to marvel at this incredible spe that had somehow survived the destru of the neighborhood. As she approached, the occasional flower petal would drift by her, some even nding in her hair and daring t some color to her pallid visage. She floated between some of the heavier branches, running her hands over the bark, aually decided to take a break and finally dig into her blood.

  She settled down on a branear the main trunk, ohat angled up sharply in such a way that she had a wonderful perch to lean against. She breathed in the smell of the tree, happy to be free of the many people that had surrounded her earlier, and opened up her cooler. The seven bags inside were all designed with Races like her in mind, which meant they had small spouts that allowed her access to the blood inside. Essentially, the bags had fancy straws that could also twist closed, should someo want to finish it all at once.

  Katrina happily pulled o, ope up, and began to drink.

  Immediately, she felt a rush of energy surge through her body. The blood was absolutely delicious, and she swore every undead molecule inside her sang with joy. Warmth spread from her stomach to her limbs, and the ravenous huhat had been hounding her all day began to quiet. While she would have loved to finish the entire bag, if not the entire cooler, she forced herself to stop. She wao enjoy what little she had, to draw it out as long as possible.

  Pulling out her phone, she navigated back to her favorite Dungeon news sites. There were a few hy Level Ups, some iing trades between two of the bigger guilds, but it seemed that progress in the Dungeon itself had stalled somewhat. Currently, everyone was on the hunt for the key to open the level, but they were often incredibly difficult to find.

  Taking another sip, she switched over to the forums where everyoalked about their builds. Everyone was stantly learnihings about the System, and so opinions were frequently ging about the best way to build certain csses. Katrina mostly followed the Bard discourse, as that was her own css, and frequently dreamed of the day she might finally surpass Level 2. If she ever mao Level Up again, she would finally gain access to Bardic Spellcasting, which was the specialty of her subcss.

  Not that I’d ever be in a position to use any spells.

  She turned off her phone, setting it in her p as she leaned her head against the branch behind her. With a heavy sigh, she thought about all the time she’d spent practig sihe ge. How much effort she’d put into perfeg her craft, in the hopes of doing somethiing with her life, only to have everything gatekept by her Race. How was she supposed to inspire a party when, at any moment, she might lose trol and attack them? Who in their right mind would put a Vampire in their party in the middle of a blood she?

  Katrina sighed, taking another slow sip of blood.

  Her eyes lingered on the beautiful blossoms surrounding her, decorating the thousands of branches of the tree. To her left, a small branch swayed with the breeze, and she carefully reached out to feel it move, her fingers gently brushing against the deep green leaves before reag some of the flowers. As the breeze picked up, the eree swayed, the leaves joining together as they sang in peaceful, aeolian tones. Katrina’s eyes slowly traced over the brahe veins of this magnifit tree, and soon nded on the main trunk in front of her.

  Curiously, a small colle of cherry blossom petals had gathered in front of her.

  That’s odd, was this here before?

  The petals, and even a few flowers, seemed to be trapped in a tiny bundle of small leaves and vihe whole colle cascaded dowually parting in the middle, as if they were decorative curtains. Underh, instead of the rough bark of the tree she might have expected, she saw twht greearing back at her. Katrina tensed, and her breathing quied before this stranger finally spoke up.

  “What are you doing in my tree?”

  —

  That brings our first chapter to a close! I'm very excited to tell this story, so I hope it's piqued your i. If you're particurly ied iting, don't fet to check out the many other stories that have already been published by AiLoves and OtterlyMindblowing. If you're already hooked, and eager for more of Blood & Chlorophyll, then thank you! I'll do my best to keep you all updated oo expect future chapters, so keep your eyes peeled for-- Hey, what are you--

  "Whoa, you live like this?"

  How are you even here?

  "Oh, be quiet before I turn you into my lunch. Did you seriously have to write in a massive blood she? Actually, I don't care. Is this the audience?"

  Um, yeah I supp--

  "Hey everyone! Did you enjoy my debut? This is Katrina, obviously, and I'm popping in because, as you may have noticed, I don't really have ao share my music with. I'm going a little stir-crazy, so I figured I could do that with you! For this chapter, I highly reend listening to Mallorca, Op. 202 by Isaac Albéniz. It's an incredibly beautiful piece, and it's one I've been pying pretty frequently myself. It's always evoked a mencholy too me, but ohat's tinged with hopefulness, and I think you're really gonna like it. Sadly, I couldn't bring my recs with me, but you run a quick Google search, right? Anyways, I'll see you ter!"

  Well, that was strange. I did listen to that song of hers, though. It's pretty good!

  Until ime! Nyx <3