In the distance a wave of blood was building. Red, towering, topped with spitting heads of fire. On a vast plain, a mass of vampires waited. All three thousand or so faced the onrushing wave. At the rear, separated from the crowd, I stood alone. I was trying to push forward I wanted to be with the rest of the clan when the wave hit but an invisible force held me back.

As I struggled, roaring silently my voice didn't work here the wave swept ever nearer. The vampires pulled closer together, terrified but proud, facing their deaths with dignity. Some were, pointing spears or swords at the wave, as though they could fight it back.

Closer now, almost upon them, half a kilometre high, stretching in an unbroken line across the horizon. A wave of crackling flames and boiling blood. The moon disappeared behind the crimson curtain and a blood-red darkness descended.

The foremost vampires were eaten by the wave. They screamed in agony as they were crushed, drowned or burnt to death, their bodies tossed about like pieces of cork within the heart of the scarlet wave. I reached out to them my people! and prayed to the gods of the vampires to free me, so that I could die with my blood brothers and sisters. But still I couldn't break through the invisible boundary.

More vampires vanished beneath the breaking surf of fire and blood, lost to the wave of merciless red. A thousand lives extinguished… fifteen hundred warriors eliminated… two thousand souls sent soaring to Paradise… twenty-five hundred death howls… three thousand corpses, bobbing and burning in the flames.

And then only I was left. My voice returned, and with a desolate cry I collapsed to my knees and glared hatefully up at the crest of the wave as it teetered overhead. I saw faces within the walls of flaming blood my friends and allies. The wave was taunting me with them.