CHAPTER 199: The Beginning

CHAPTER 199: The Beginning

Year 0.

In Eden, Adam and Eve rested in calm, surrounded by the perfection of a world that did not yet know pain or guilt. The grass was soft, the air pure, and the fruit-laden trees gleamed under an eternal light. Everything was in balance… until curiosity broke the silence.

Adam stopped before a tree different from all the others. Its trunk seemed more ancient, and hanging from its branches were apples of an intense, almost hypnotic red. Eve watched him uneasily.

"We shouldn't get closer," Eve said, her voice low. "That is the only tree that was forbidden to us."

Adam smiled smugly, reaching out toward one of the fruits.

"Forbidden why?" he replied. "If all of this was given to us, why fear a simple apple? There can be no evil in that which exists under creation."

Eve shook her head, stepping back.

"It's not fear, Adam. It's obedience. Only one thing was asked of us."

Adam looked at her condescendingly, as if he had already made a decision impossible to reverse.

"They treat us like children," he said. "Don't we deserve to know more? Don't we deserve to choose for ourselves?"

He took the apple. Eve hesitated, but seeing the certainty in his words, her resistance began to crumble.

"If you eat… I will too," she whispered.

Adam took the first bite. The crunch of the fruit echoed unnaturally. Eve imitated him seconds later.

Then, the world changed.

The sky of Eden darkened instantly. The pure light was extinguished as if smothered, and an overwhelming presence descended from above. It had no defined form, only an absolute light that covered everything. The ground trembled beneath their feet.

"You have done the one thing you were not supposed to do," resonated a voice, deep and eternal. "Everything was given to you, and yet you chose to disobey."

Adam fell to his knees. Eve felt a fear she had never known.

"It was not out of wickedness," Adam tried to say. "It was out of a desire to understand."

"Understanding without obedience is arrogance," the voice answered. "And arrogance demands punishment."

The light grew more intense, almost unbearable.

"Eve," it continued, "your punishment will be eternity without rest. You will live by blood, walk in the night, and never again belong to the light. You will be a vampire, and the world will fear you."

Eve screamed as her body burned from within, feeling something new and dark awaken in her blood.

The voice turned to Adam.

"And you, Adam, will be condemned to the beast. Your flesh will break, and your spirit will be trapped within it. You will be a lycanthrope, and you will never return to your human form. Reason will no longer be your refuge."

Adam screamed as his bones deformed, his body consumed by a wild, uncontrollable force.

When the light rose and the sky began to close, Eden fell silent. Two figures lay on the ground, forever transformed.

Thus the curse was born.
Thus the night began.

The punishment did not end with the transformation. After that forbidden act, Adam and Eve were cast out of Eden, exiled from all grace and divine protection. The gates of paradise closed forever, and with them, the last possibility of redemption was extinguished. The world that awaited them was hostile, vast, and silent, a place where abundance and mercy no longer existed.

To prevent creation from being condemned by the first humans' sin, God shaped a new humanity. On each continent, He created a primordial civilization of one hundred people, men and women born with no memory of Eden, free from the punishment that weighed upon Adam and Eve. From those small communities would arise nations, languages, and cultures. Over generations, humanity expanded, ignorant of the true origin of the evil sleeping in the world's blood.

Adam and Eve, for their part, wandered far from those new peoples. Isolated, marked by their curses, they formed their own lineage. They had ten children, though only nine saw the light. Two of them were twins, conceived in a time of extreme hunger, when scarcity began to exact its price even before birth. In Eve's womb, one of the brothers devoured the other, a primitive, instinctive act that sealed the destiny of their lineage before it had even begun.

That event was the first fratricide, committed without hands or words, born of the need and darkness that already dwelt in their parents' cursed blood.

From those nine children born of the curse arose a lineage that time would both fear and forget. They became known as the Nine Progeny of Humanity, the first truly aberrant beings to walk the Earth. They were neither lycans nor vampires. They were something earlier and superior, a species of their own, born directly from the curse of Eden. Progeny, demigods to some, demons to others.

Their very presence altered the world they walked. They possessed strength, longevity, and abilities no other creature had at that time. In different regions, ancient cultures came to worship them as primordial deities, raising temples, offering sacrifices, and writing hymns in their honor. For a time, the Progeny were both law and myth. However, over the centuries, their names were erased, their temples fell, and their stories were reduced to rumors, distorted by fear and ignorance. Humanity forgot… or preferred to forget.

Adam, consumed by his curse and by hatred of divine creation, took a different path. He dedicated himself to spreading his disease across the continent. He did not do so at random, but with intention. He bit, contaminated, transformed. Thus the first lycans were born, creatures emerging directly from Adam's blood, bearers of a wild and irreversible heritage. Unlike others, Adam never regained his human form; his punishment was to be the first and most damned of his kind.

Eve, instead, chose another path. She did not seek indiscriminate expansion, but rather a pact. On one of her travels, she met Lucian, an elderly commander, leader of men hardened by war. Eve saw in him an iron will and a silent ambition. She transformed him into a vampire, granting him power, immortality, and hunger. Lucian, true to his nature as a leader, soon converted his army. Thus the first vampires were born, not as a plague, but as an organized legion.