The cafeteria was half-full when Aidan and Hailey Morita, his colleague and the only person he'd call a friend in the entire facility, made their way to an empty table. Besides Hailey, no one else's friendship felt genuine or without ulterior motives.

Aidan's good relationship with Robert was well known, which meant that every now and then, someone would try to curry favour with Aidan in the hopes of using him to build ties with the professor. Needless to say, even within the scientific community, many sought power and prestige and were wilfully unscrupulous in getting what they wanted.

Because of this, Aidan ended up keeping mostly to himself. He didn't mind not having many friends since he was more of an introvert by nature, preferring quality friendships over quantity any day. Luckily for him, the moment he met honest, straightforward and no-nonsense Hailey, they immediately hit it off, even if they didn't necessarily share many common interests. To him, it had felt like he had known her a lifetime.

Aidan and Hailey placed their trays down before sitting at the table. Hailey, as usual, wasn't pleased with the limited diversity of food choices available, and in particular, that of Asian cuisine.

"Oh, come on, General Tso's Chicken is not the only Asian dish in the world," she complained in exasperation as she eyed it fiercely.

"I'm guessing it's the only recipe the chef knows," Aidan replied mildly.

Nibbling on a piece of deep-fried chicken, Hailey changed the subject, expressing outright relief, "Thank goodness tomorrow's Saturday. It's been a crazy week, and I really don't want to spend another day in a lab coat."

She popped a small piece of sauce-covered broccoli in her mouth. "The weather will be sunny, so I'm going to explore the more rugged part of the forest I told you about."

He blinked back at her in surprise. For the most part, the forested area immediately surrounding the lake was made up of flat land. But as the radius from their facility increased, the terrain became noticeably uneven, full of rolling slopes with steep climbs and drops that would make the journey traversing them far from easy.

Aidan knew Hailey was an expert hiker and rock climber, but the rough terrain coupled with unknown native animal species was a dangerous mix.

As he emptied the packet of thousand island sauce on his salad, Aidan grumbled, "I know you don't believe my story about the animal in the forest, but I wish you'd be more careful."

"You were imagining things," she answered dismissively without hesitation.

But before Aidan could deny it, she continued, "You said so yourself. You were tired after a long ride. I've been roaming the place every weekend for the past few months and haven't come across anything suggesting large animals roam the area.

"There are no large hoof or paw prints in the soil. No sounds besides the usual bird calls and such. No markings on the trees. Nothing."

She smirked before adding, "Unless you think I'm gonna suffer a head injury from a falling acorn hurled at me by a deranged squirrel, I'll be just fine."

Quietly munching his greens, Aidan didn't bother replying. Hailey was adamant, but so was he. Aidan knew it wasn't a figment of his imagination, no matter what Hailey said. Something had caused those branches to sway.

"At least go with someone," he suggested.

He received a loud huff in reply. "You think I haven't tried? I've been asking around for months, but apparently, not one person here is the outdoorsy type." She narrowed her eyes at him almost predatorily, "Since you're so worried about me, why don't you come along? I'll be leaving early in the morning."

"Other than the fact that I'm a major klutz who'll face plant when I trip over the first exposed tree root I encounter?"

"Oh, come on, you can't be that bad?! You're just exaggerating."

"Afraid not. My brother nicknamed me 'Your Royal Klutziness' when we were kids." The memory drew a gentle smile to his lips. "You know, you would have gotten along well with Gavin. I wish I could've introduced the both of you." He tried but couldn't keep the wistfulness out of his voice.

She gently patted his arm. "Yeah, I'd love to meet him too. He sounds like an outstanding guy from everything you've told me of him."

Aidan pushed away thoughts of his brother, feeling that now wasn't the time to reminisce. He turned to look at Hailey directly. "Anyway, I think I might be occupied tomorrow, so I can't follow you even if I wanted to. I analysed all the data we had, and it is good news. The drug V-01 is a winner."

"And you're only telling me this now?!" She smacked him hard on the arm, earning a muffled yelp of pain. "You should have told me this hours ago!"

After getting over being miffed with Aidan, Hailey pumped her arms in the air in celebration and turned to him with a beaming smile. "This could be it! The cure we've been looking for!"

Aidan tried to mimic her enthusiasm but could only pull off a stiff smile, answering her with a pathetic, "Yeah."

He couldn't fool her. Hailey dropped her arms, cutting short her celebration, "You should look like a man who just won the lottery, not a man facing execution. What's going on?"

Aidan gave a slight shrug of his shoulders. "After showing Robert the data, he gave me a cryptic reply about the source of the drug. I don't know why he couldn't just tell me everything this morning, but he insisted I meet him tonight because he wants to show me something."

Hailey caught on quickly to his suspicions and began tapping her foot on the ground, an unconscious habit of hers whenever she was uneasy or stressed out. "That is odd."

Aidan's deep blue eyes couldn't hide the worry he felt as they sought reassurance in Hailey's dark chocolate ones. "Yeah. I'm not sure what we've gotten ourselves into here, Hailey."

At precisely eight o'clock that evening, Aidan stood outside the professor's office again, hesitantly raising his hand and knocking on the smooth, solid wood door, the ensuing sound echoing along the quiet hallway. He heard Robert's deep voice calling him in.

"Right on time, Aidan," the older man said with a warm smile, receiving a nervous one from Aidan in return.

"I guess this shows how eager I am to know more." Aidan stood across Robert, who remained seated at his desk. He noticed that the older man had what looked like, judging by the discolouration of its pages, an antique manuscript spread open on his desk. The book cover appeared leathery, with a pair of rustic metal clasps attached at the fore-edge of the upper cover, aligned with matching catches on its lower cover.

"We have quite a bit to discuss," the older man said while pointing to the empty seat in front of his desk. Aidan obediently complied, now seated at eye level with Robert. He waited for Robert to speak, but the man continued to leaf through the delicate pages of the thick book. Curious, Aidan snuck a peek at the writing but found the cursive, handwritten words illegible, especially since he was trying to read it upside down. What he could make out was the hand-drawn image that accompanied it. It seemed to be of a woman crouching under the glare of a bright sun, her body engulfed in flames. It made Aidan's stomach twist in unease.

"Would you like to have a look?" Without waiting for a reply, Robert shut the manuscript and carefully placed it on the desk in front of a startled Aidan. Forced to be polite, Aidan gingerly turned the heavy leather cover to read the large handwritten font on the front page: Towards the Aim of Subjugation of Non-Human Beings. The bold words elicited confusion as he glanced back at Robert, who in turn smiled encouragingly back at him.

Aidan turned his gaze back to the ancient book and began turning the pages. The more he read, though, the lighter his mood became. As he leafed through it, he struggled not to laugh out loud at its contents. It was obviously written by someone looking to start a witch hunt for mythical creatures. The author, in all seriousness, wrote about the existence of three non-human species, invaders from other worlds who were conquerors of humans and overlords of this world.

The first creatures described were witches.

Witches are indistinguishable from humans in bodily form, but for their longevity. The lifespan of fifty men combined makes but one witch's life. Though they fare no better in physical strength than a sturdy man of good health, their true power lies in the magic which flows within their vile blood. Aidan smiled wryly, feeling thankful he wasn't born in a time where such preposterous and unscientific views were easily propagated amongst the common people. He humorously continued with the subsequent paragraph dedicated none other than to vampires.

Such vile creatures of the night, deathly pale-skinned with an unquenchable desire for blood, these monstrosities have the strength of ten men and moveth with the grace of a stealthy feline predator. Of greatest magnificence is the speed of their attack, double that of the fastest human alive. Pity upon the man who chances himself in the presence of a vampire in blood lust, for his death is inevitable. Like the witch, vampires appear as humans, save for when they feed, their canines sharpening into long white fangs to pierce the necks of unsuspecting victims. To kill a vampire, one need only trap the being under a cloudless sky, in the glorious brightness of the sun.

The cursive text was wrapped around the hand-drawn image Aidan had noticed earlier, which put into context the flames engulfing the woman. Aidan moved to hand over the manuscript to Robert, but the older man shook his head. "Read the last bit," he said without further explanation. Aidan had half a mind to jokingly tell his superior off for wasting his time, but instead, he flipped the page and began reading about werewolves.

This shapeshifting vile creature will tear a human in half with ease. Equal parts man and beast, it is the strongest amongst all foes, stronger even than vampires. When fully turned to beast form, its enormous body dwarfs that of true wolves, more akin in size to a young brown bear. Though not as quick as the blood drinkers, strength be their greatest asset. Just like wolves, werewolves gather in packs to hunt, for this vile beastly creature is most vulnerable when alone, without the protection of others of its kind.

Aidan was tickled by the author's love of the word 'vile'. Still fighting a smirk, he turned the page and froze. The drawing before him sent chills down his spine because it looked exactly like the creatures from his dreams. A terrible surge of panic flowed through his veins before he forcefully converted the roiling waves of emotion into ridicule in a bid to trick his mind into maintaining a false calm.

Abruptly he closed the book and handed it back to the professor, no longer bothering with pleasantries, "Robert, just what are we doing here?"

The older man calmly accepted the book, "You wanted to know the truth about V-01. The contents of this manuscript were an introduction to my explanation. It is one of only a handful of surviving manuscripts from around Europe that talk of creatures from alien worlds that invaded our own and enslaved its occupants."

Robert watched as Aidan stared back at him, slack-mouthed. The reaction was just as the professor was expecting from the young scientist. "Aidan, the world isn't as safe as you may think. Humanity thinks it is at the top of the food chain, but there are others far superior to us who are the true apex predators." Robert lightly tapped the book's cover in front of him, "Vampires, werewolves, witches. You think they are myths only because they want you to believe the lie."

The room was pin-drop silent for a good thirty seconds before Aidan managed to snap his mouth shut, narrowly preventing any drooling. "Wait. Hold on a second, Robert. Are you telling me that you, a man of science, believe in the existence of the supernatural?! Scientific evidence has long disproved the existence of these make-believe creatures!"

Aidan raised his hands in front of his chest as if they could somehow act as a shield against his professor's words, as his own spewed out of his mouth in rapid-fire. "They were born merely as humans' reaction to the environment, as an explanation for things that people from earlier civilisations did not understand or couldn't fully comprehend! Cognitive scientists the world over will tell you that the need to explain occurrences in the natural world was the basis for creating beings with powers, either to act as our protectors or to represent our worst nightmares!" He was breathless by the end of his rant.

Robert was unperturbed by his outburst, calmly replying, "And yet, in this very building, behind the doors of the restricted area lies tangible proof that such creatures exist."

"What?"

Robert stood up and motioned for Aidan to follow him out the door. Aidan stood uncertainly until Robert ushered him out. Then, he led the way to the section of the building Aidan had never been to. The professor spoke with an air of confidence to Aidan as they walked, but his eyes held a dangerous wariness that Aidan failed to catch. "We are going to enter the restricted zone. What I am about to show you is confidential research that very few are privy to. I want you to be a part of it, which is why I am taking this risk to show it to you."

They stood before a metal door, a keypad with an inbuilt biometric sensor located on the wall next to it. Robert keyed in a code and scanned his entire hand, eliciting a click from the door. He held it open for the younger man to walk through. Aidan found himself in a long corridor, well-lit and empty. At the other end stood an identical door to the one they had just entered. Robert once again took the lead, walking confidently towards the second door. As they walked, Aidan noticed a peculiarity of the walls and ceiling. Tiny holes the size of a dime permeated the surface at intervals of half a meter from each other, creating an odd latticework of holes that triggered a mild wave of trypophobia in Aidan.

"Lasers, built into the walls just in case," Robert said in such an off-handed manner that Aidan nodded habitually at first before registering how fantastical the situation was. 'Just in case what, exactly?' Aidan tried to maintain an outward calm but inside, he was a half-step away from a panic attack. 'This is pure insanity!'

At the second metal door, Robert pulled out a key card from his pocket which he slotted into the reader on the wall before scanning his hand again. This time, when Aidan walked through the door, he was left frozen in place from shock. At just a glance, his mind processed where he was at. The restricted area was a prison. First impressions were sometimes spot on, as the young man remembered thinking the same thing when he first laid eyes on the research facility building all those months ago.

Cells with thick iron bars behind glass doors ran on either side of Aidan as he haltingly walked ahead. Glancing up, he counted five levels rising all the way to the top of the building. Black clothed guards, just like the ones patrolling the exterior of the building, stood watch on each level. The middle of the prison enclosure was devoid of all but a reinforced guard house situated at its very centre. At the opposite end of the enclosure stood a third metal door equipped with a key card slot and biometric scanner, just like the one he'd just exited.

As he stared at his surroundings in bewilderment, a few of the inmates approached the bars to look at him in curiosity. They seemed wary of touching the metal, keeping about a foot away. As far as he could tell, they were young, some probably not past twenty, and of multiple ethnicities. From where he stood, Aidan could see into the ground-level cells, noticing that the interior of the tiny rooms appeared to be made of reinforced steel and held nothing but a small sink and a toilet. Aidan gasped when he noticed that some of the inmates were stark naked.

This was incomprehensible, humiliating abuse!

Feeling disgusted, he turned to glare at Robert, loudly demanding answers. "What the hell is going on? This isn't what I signed up for when I agreed to work for you!"

Robert remained unaffected by his emotional outburst, "Don't be fooled by their looks, Aidan. It's how they've tricked us for centuries. These creatures are dangerous and powerful. Admittedly so powerful, if the walls weren't reinforced by layers of concrete and metal and the cell bars not electrically charged with a high enough voltage to stun them, they'd have killed us all long ago. They need to be locked up for the safety of humankind."

Robert reached out and yanked him by the arm to stand a safe distance from one of the cells, where a young man with long white-blond hair stood standing, shooting daggers at them with his eyes. Robert signalled to one of the guards, who in turn said something into a walkie-talkie. A second later, a fine spray of liquid was discharged through the air duct in the cell, and the blond inmate collapsed face down on the floor, gasping in pain. The glass door prevented the spray from escaping the room.

Aidan was just about to yell at Robert to stop hurting the prisoner when the blond man turned to lay on his back, revealing long upper canines jutting out of his lax mouth. The man's nails had elongated about an inch, tapering into sharp points like those of a domestic cat. Aidan lost his ability to speak as realisation hit him like a brick.

Robert wasn't joking or delusional. The blond man... wasn't a man after all. Based on the information in the manuscript, this man was a vampire. A myth turned real. Aidan shook his head slowly, still in denial. How was this possible? How was a villainous creature from historical horror stories (or the hero in modern fantasy romances, depending on the chosen timeline) here right now, in front of him and in the flesh?!

A smile slowly blossomed on Robert's lips now that he had finally gotten through to Aidan. He turned cold eyes to the writhing body on the floor, "V-01 isn't the name of the drug. It's the number given to the subject whose spinal fluid it was extracted from."

Right beside the prison cell was a simple sign with V-01 engraved on it. Clutching a hand over his mouth, Aidan wasn't sure if he was going to puke or faint at that moment. The 'miracle drug' he'd begun to place his hopes on was obtained through unethical and violent means.

"So far, we've managed to obtain samples from vampires and werewolves with ease, but witches have proven difficult, with their unpredictable powers," Robert said as if he were talking about the weather. "They are hard to corner. We've only trapped one measly witch over the past two years."

Aidan turned slowly to look at the man he worked for, seeing him in a new light. The professor continued to smile as he studied the unconscious vampire before him.

Aidan had misplaced his trust in someone he thought was the role model of everything he hoped to see in a leader: a man who seemed patient with subordinates, calm under pressure and always planning ahead as a forward thinker. This man had given him a chance to make a difference in the world, or so he'd been fooled into believing.

Aidan squeezed his eyes shut. 'Remember, kiddo, when something is too good to be true, it probably is', his father used to say with a chuckle, and yet here he was, caught in the exact situation his dad had warned him of.

"What did you do to him?" Aidan asked in a whisper.

The professor seemed pleased with the question, walking to stand beside Aidan. "Through the dedication of members of my team, we've finally found their weakness. Funnily enough, it comes from a rare species of orchid found only on the footsteps of one particular mountain in the tropics, hidden away until now." Robert pointed to the air duct, "By extracting the sap and diluting it with water, turning it into an aerosol, we can render these creatures unconscious for hours. I have teams working on synthesising it in the lab so that we can begin large-scale production."

The professor wrapped his arm around the younger man's shoulders, gently leading him to the third metal door. "Let's talk somewhere more private, shall we?" Dazed as he was, Aidan didn't try to resist. As they walked, an odd feeling arose, eliciting fluttery tingles along his neck. It made him instinctively glance towards one of the cells, two floors up where his eyes locked on the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen in his entire life.

She had sky blue eyes that seemed to pierce right into the deepest depths of his being, and try as he might, he couldn't break their gaze. Her delicate features were framed by waves of chestnut brown hair that fell in layers down her back. For a second, Aidan felt a sense of familiarity with her, although he was certain he'd have remembered if such a dazzling woman had crossed paths with him before. The moment was broken when the woman abruptly turned and ventured further into her cell, out of sight and allowing Aidan to glance back down at his feet in unease.