The Immortal

William grinned. His fangs, which were previously retracted, slowly came out as he got more and more excited. He hadn't had any meat in days! Or food for that matter.

The howl came again, closer now, and William's newly enhanced senses picked up the sound of massive paws crunching through the snow. Whatever was coming was bloody huge, and it was moving faster than a chav spotting an unattended bike.

"Right then," he muttered, shifting into a defensive stance. "Time to see what these vampire abilities are really good for, innit?"

The creature burst through the swirling snow like something out of a nightmare. It was a wolf, but not like any wolf William had ever seen. The beast stood nearly four meters tall at the shoulder, with fangs the size of kitchen knives and muscle-bound shoulders that would make a bodybuilder weep. Its fur was a mottled grey-white, perfect camouflage for this frozen wasteland.

"Oh, brilliant," William said, his voice dripping with sarcasm. "You're properly massive, aren't you? I don't suppose you'd fancy a nice belly rub instead of eating me?"

The dire wolf—for that's what it had to be—responded with a snarl that would have stopped a charging rhino in its tracks. It lunged forward, jaws snapping at where William's head had been a split second before.

But William wasn't there anymore. He moved with a speed that surprised even himself, ducking under the massive jaws and rolling to the side. The mammoth blood coursing through his system made everything seem to move in slow motion, like watching a film at half speed.

"Blimey," he breathed, watching the wolf's muscles bunch for another attack. "This is rather interesting, isn't it?"

The wolf charged again, but this time William was ready. He waited until the last possible moment, then leapt straight up—higher than any human could dream of jumping. The wolf barreled past beneath him, skidding in the snow as it tried to turn.

"Ha!" William landed gracefully, feeling rather pleased with himself. "Not bad for a former linguistics professor, eh?"

He was rather glad that he had enhanced strength and speed, for if not for that, he would have been wolf snack. Not a good way to go, eh?

His victory was short-lived. The wolf recovered faster than he'd expected, its massive tail catching him square in the chest. The blow sent him flying backwards like he'd been hit by a lorry, smashing through a sheet of ice and into a snowbank.

"Right," he groaned, pulling himself out of the snow. "That's going to leave a mark." He touched his chest, expecting to find broken ribs, but the pain was already fading. Vampire healing, apparently, was the real deal.

The wolf was circling now, more cautious after seeing its prey survive what should have been a bone-crushing blow. William could see the intelligence in its eyes—this wasn't just some mindless beast. It was calculating, planning.

Two can play this game, mate. He mused to himself as he started to think more logically. He also eyed it seriously, analyzing the wolf's movement patterns. Its right hind leg favoured slightly when it turned—an old injury, perhaps. And its attacks came in predictable sequences, like it was used to its prey being too terrified to notice.

The next time the wolf lunged, William was prepared. Instead of dodging, he stepped into the attack, ducking under those massive jaws and driving his fist upward with all his supernatural strength. The impact nearly shattered his arm, but it caught the wolf square under the chin, snapping its head back with a crack that echoed across the frozen landscape.

The beast staggered, stunned but not down. William pressed his advantage, darting in close where the wolf's size worked against it. He delivered a series of rapid punches to its ribs—each blow powerful enough to dent steel—before dancing away from its retaliatory snap.

"Is that all you've got, big guy? I've had rougher nights at the pub in Newcastle!" William taunted, bouncing around like a boxer. The wolf's response was to rear up on its hind legs, looming over him like a furry skyscraper. But that was exactly what he had been waiting for. As the beast came crashing down, he spun to the side and grabbed one of its hindlegs, the one that was presumably injured, using its own momentum to throw it off balance. The wolf tumbled, its massive bulk working against it, and crashed into a glacier with enough force to shake loose an avalanche of snow.

Before it could recover, William was on its back, his arms locked around its throat in a chokehold. The wolf thrashed and bucked like a mechanical bull after too many pints, but William held on, squeezing with every ounce of his vampire strength.

Finally, after what felt like hours but was probably only minutes, the wolf went limp. William held on a moment longer, making sure it was properly unconscious, then released his hold and slumped back into the snow.

"Bloody hell," William panted, not from exhaustion but from adrenaline.

He stood up, brushing snow from his clothes, and gave the unconscious wolf a respectful nod. "No hard feelings, mate. Though next time, maybe we could start with a handshake?"

As respectful as he was, he was not going to give up a free meal. It was only unconscious, not properly dead yet. And its legs were now broken, and probably its skull too, considering how fast it was thrown into the glacier. He'd give it a mercy kill if he could. But he couldn't. Not when he didn't have proper equipment. So he'd just have to leave it behind. After properly drinking some of its blood, of course. He couldn't pass up on that, considering that blood now tasted like finely aged wine to him.

William approached the unconscious dire wolf cautiously. "Right then, might as well get this over with." He knelt beside the massive creature, his fangs extending as he caught the scent of its blood. "Sorry about this, mate. If it helps, I'm not exactly thrilled about it either."

He bit into the wolf's neck, and immediately something felt different. The blood wasn't just blood—it was like drinking pure lightning. Every cell in his body seemed to vibrate, and his vision blurred like he'd just downed ten shots of vodka in quick succession.

"Bloody hell!" He stumbled backwards, his whole body tingling. "That's not normal, is it? Well, as normal as drinking blood can be, I suppose."

The fight had carried them quite a distance from where they'd started. William found himself at the base of a different glacier, this one partially melted to reveal something dark beneath the ice. Curious, he stepped closer, his enhanced vision piercing the frozen layers.

His breath caught in his throat.

There, perfectly preserved in the ice, was a human skeleton. But not just any skeleton—this one was different. The brow ridge was more pronounced, the jaw more robust. Next to it lay stone tools, crude but unmistakable in their purpose.

"Oh my days," William whispered, his academic training kicking in. "That's... that's Homo erectus. This is far more interesting than the ones I've ever seen on the internet." He pressed his hand against the ice, his mind racing.

He had a little interest in human history at one point. So he looked up all the available information on the human species, from Homo sapiens to the earliest Homo habilis. It fascinated him how humans could go from an unintelligent species to becoming the most intelligent species on Earth.

He stepped back, running a hand through his hair as the implications hit him like a double-decker bus. "I'm not just in the past," he said aloud, his voice shaky. "I'm properly in the past. Before modern humans. Before civilization. Before... before everything."

The unconscious dire wolf groaned behind him, beginning to stir.

"Right then," William muttered, still staring at the preserved specimen. "Suppose I'd better make myself scarce before my new friend wakes up. Though..." He glanced between the wolf and the skeleton. "If this is really a million years ago, I reckon that won't be the strangest thing I see today."

Now he knew the time frame he was in. He was in the Pleistocene Epoch, the last ice age. He could be anywhere from 2 million years to 100,000 years apart from modern times.

"Could be worse," he mused as he walked. "Could've ended up in Birmingham."

The wind howled through the glacier, swirling snow around him in thick, stinging flurries. William hunched his shoulders against the chill, but it hardly bothered him. His vampire body, it seemed, wasn’t fazed by the cold. Or much of anything, really.

"What now, though?" he muttered. "Not exactly like I can pop down to the nearest Tesco and grab a snack." He glanced back at the dire wolf, still unconscious but starting to stir. He had drained most of its blood, leaving it weak but alive. No point in killing it, he figured. Besides, he wasn’t one for needless violence—despite his newfound fangs and hunger.

He was about to continue on his way when something caught his attention. His enhanced senses picked up the faintest hum—like the distant echo of machinery. William froze, tilting his head, listening. There it was again, a low vibration beneath the wind. Impossible. No machinery existed here... did it?

Curiosity got the better of him, and he turned towards the sound, his vampire instincts pushing him forward at breakneck speed. He leapt over snowdrifts and jagged rocks with ease, his mind racing to make sense of what he had heard. After what felt like mere minutes, he found himself standing before a massive, icy cavern, its mouth yawning wide like the entrance to some ancient beast’s lair.

The hum was louder now, coming from deep within the glacier itself.

"Right, because entering creepy caves always works out well in horror films," William muttered, but his curiosity—and something deeper, almost instinctual—drove him forward. He stepped inside.

The cavern was enormous, the walls shimmering with the cold blue light of ice. Stalactites hung from the ceiling like frozen teeth, and the ground beneath his feet was slick and uneven. As he ventured deeper, the humming grew louder, more insistent.

Suddenly, the tunnel opened into a vast chamber, and William’s eyes widened at the sight before him.

In the centre of the chamber stood a structure—definitely not natural. It was sleek, metallic, and covered in strange symbols that William couldn’t immediately recognize, though they vaguely resembled some of the ancient scripts he’d studied in his academic days. The structure glowed faintly, pulsating with the same rhythmic hum he had heard from outside.

"What in the bloody hell is this?" William whispered, stepping closer. His fingers traced the symbols on the surface, feeling the cold, alien metal beneath his skin.

As his hand made contact, the hum intensified, and the structure seemed to respond to his touch. Lights flickered on along the edges, and a deep vibration thrummed through the ground, causing the ice to creak ominously overhead.

Before William could pull away, a section of the wall slid open with a hiss, revealing a hidden chamber within. A blast of warm, stale air hit him, and William’s heightened senses immediately picked up on something unsettling: the scent of blood. But this wasn’t animal blood. This wasn't human either. This was something more foreign. It was... alien to him.

He stepped into the chamber. Presumably, there was no light inside but it didn't matter to him. He could see all.

William’s heart pounded in his chest as he moved closer, wiping the frost away with the sleeve of his coat. The figure inside was still, its skin pale, almost translucent. It looked like a woman, though her features were sharper, more angular than any human he’d ever seen. She wasn’t Homo erectus—that much was clear. She wasn't Homo Sapien either. This was something... else.

"Well, this just keeps getting better, doesn’t it?" William murmured. "First giant wolves, now cryo-chambers in the middle of the ice age."

Suddenly, the figure’s eyes snapped open—bright, glowing amber eyes that locked onto his with a predatory intensity.

William jumped back, his vampire instincts flaring. "Oh, bollocks."

The chamber hissed again, and the cryo-pod began to open, releasing a cloud of cold mist into the air. The figure inside slowly wobbled out before falling limply on the floor. William moved fast, catching her before she could hit the ground. "What's wrong with her?" he muttered to himself.

He could hear the blood rushing around in her body, and her heartbeat slowing down.

William crouched down, holding the strange woman’s limp form in his arms. Her body was freezing cold, far colder than the surrounding air—unnaturally so. Her skin, pale and thin like paper, seemed to shimmer in the dim light.

William crouched down, holding the woman’s frail body in his arms. Her hair, long and tangled, was a deep black, so dark it almost blended into the shadows around them, with strands that shimmered faintly in the dim light, as if dusted with frost. It clung to her skin in damp, uneven waves, framing her sharp, angular face.

Her eyes, even closed, gave off a faint glow—an otherworldly amber, like molten gold. When they had been open, they were intense and unnerving, radiating a light that seemed too bright to be natural. Even now, with her eyes shut, the afterimage of that glow lingered in William's mind.

Her eyelashes were unnaturally long, delicate, and dark, casting faint shadows on her pale cheeks. The skin beneath them was almost translucent, stretched tight over high, pronounced cheekbones that gave her an almost ethereal beauty. Her lips, pale and cracked, were slightly parted, revealing just a hint of sharp teeth beneath—too sharp to be human.

His heightened vampire senses told him that whatever she was, she was fading fast. Her heartbeat, already weak, was slowing to an almost imperceptible rhythm.

"You're not gonna make it, are you? What in God’s name are you?"

Her eyes fluttered open for a moment, glowing amber in the dim light. She let out a low, guttural sound. It was clear to him that she couldn’t communicate, or didn’t know how. The sound was broken, raw, as though her throat had forgotten how to form words.

William bit his lip, thinking quickly. She was dying, no doubt about that, and without whatever technology had kept her frozen in the cryo-chamber, she didn’t stand a chance in this harsh environment. He could sense her pain—could feel it, even—and something inside him stirred.

I could try one thing, I suppose. He thought to himself. His blood could potentially save her, could it not? If he was truly a vampire, he could have the ability to turn others into vampires. He wasn't sure if he really did have it but it wouldn't hurt to try. After all, it was better to be alive than dead.

"Alright, then," William whispered, biting into his wrist. The familiar sting of his fangs sank into his flesh, and dark red blood welled up. He pressed his wrist to her lips. "Come on, love. Drink."

At first, nothing happened. Her lips barely parted, and William feared it was too late. But then, almost instinctively, her mouth latched onto his wrist. The strange woman began drinking, slowly at first, but soon with more intensity. William winced as he felt the pull, his blood rushing into her system like a lifeline.

Her body reacted violently. She convulsed in his arms, her limbs twitching as if trying to reject the foreign substance. Her amber eyes snapped open again, glowing brighter than before. For a split second, William thought he’d made muck it up, that he’d doomed her to some worse fate.

But then, her convulsions stopped. Her breathing steadied, and the colour began to return to her pale skin, faintly at first, but unmistakably. Her body grew warmer in his arms, the deathly chill fading as his blood took hold. The transformation wasn’t as dramatic as he had hoped—no levitation like in movies or blood swirling around her—but it was enough to keep her alive.