Benjamin Elias Moore was never meant to become something mythic. He was a man from Georgia, raised in quiet absence by a mother who knew too well what it meant to grow up without a father and feared passing that same emptiness onto him. Instead, Benjamin built something whole. He fell in love young, deeply, without hesitation, and stepped eagerly into the promise of fatherhood. For a brief, fragile moment, his life was simple: a wife, a newborn daughter, and a future that felt steady beneath his feet.

That future ended the night the vampire world came calling. Word had spread, whispers carried through bloodlines and shadows, that Benjamin was the grandson of the Omni, a lineage too dangerous to ignore. They came not out of curiosity, but confirmation. What they found was not a legend, but a man who refused to kneel. Benjamin sent his wife and child away before the fighting began, choosing their survival over his own. He stood alone against them, outnumbered but unyielding, until they forced their blood into him twisting survival into transformation. He was killed.

What Winston Cordule finds in the clearing is the aftermath of that night: a burned home, the scent of ash and blood, and a body that refuses to remain a body.