they drink our blood

What if the superstitions are right?

What if we built a tower of human knowledge on a rotten foundation?

What if all those peer-reviewed conclusions are no more than convenient untruths that satisfy our need to know why an unfathomable tragedy occurs? That kid in the trench coat just played too many violent video games. What if we lied to convince ourselves the catastrophe could never, ever happen again? We have a culprit! We have a cure.

What if disease, destruction, and depravity are all mere symptoms of one underlying cause?

In a way, it would be comforting, wouldn’t it? If we knew why we exist and why, someday, we won’t. For some, sure. For others, a call to arms.

Maybe we aren’t the top of the food chain. Maybe we never were. What if our predators have been lurking among us since we began and our five senses aren’t enough to detect them?

And what if they drink our blood?

Illustrations by Lucy Leitner.

Cover art by Michael Lotenero.