1078: Story 1078: The Vein Thief 1078: Story 1078: The Vein Thief In the shrouded outskirts of Eldenridge Hollow, there lies a forgotten hospital wrapped in thorns and fog—Saint Marrow’s Asylum.
It is never marked on maps, and its windows pulse faintly in the moonlight like heartbeats.
Once a sanctuary for plague victims, it now serves a darker purpose.
It is the feeding ground of The Vein Thief.
They say it walks like a doctor—buttoned coat, leather gloves, surgical mask made from stitched eyelids—but its gait is too fluid, too precise.
It does not stumble like a zombie, nor rage like a revenant.
The Vein Thief glides, scalpels whispering in its wake.
What it takes is not life.
Not entirely.
It takes connection.
Veins.
Arteries.
Nerve lines.
The very network of humanity.
Silas Trenholm, a wandering scavenger with a mechanical heart, thought the asylum was empty.
He was wrong.
The moment he crossed the rusted threshold, the air shifted—warmer, thicker.
Like blood.
The walls were covered in living diagrams, veins stretching from floor to ceiling, twitching and pulsing like a vast, communal circulatory system.
They called to him.
“You’re still connected, Silas.
Let us cut the burden.”
His mechanical heart began to beat faster—faster than it had in years.
The Vein Thief emerged from the shadows, scalpels hovering midair, moved not by hands, but by intention.
It didn’t speak.
It bled meaning into the mind.
Each victim it carved was left alive, walking husks with no visible scars—only a single absence: they no longer felt attachment.
No joy.
No sorrow.
No fear.
They simply drifted, drained of all bonds.
That was its gift: freedom from feeling.
Silas ran, but the asylum expanded with each turn.
Hallways lengthened.
Stairs coiled back into themselves.
The walls pulsed louder, screaming with the stolen memories of those disconnected from their veins.
In a chamber lined with floating organs, he made his final stand.
Using his mechanical heart, he overloaded the device—its ticking rhythm reverberated through the asylum, disrupting the delicate frequency of the Thief’s senses.
The creature flinched for the first time in centuries.
He saw its true face.
Not a man, not even a god—but a collector, a surgeon of unholy symmetry.
The Thief was compiling a perfect network of severed humanity, forming a lattice of disconnected veins to offer to something beneath.
Something that feeds on solitude made flesh.
Silas escaped—barely.
His heart sputtering, his veins humming, his emotions frayed like threads.
But he still feels—a dull ember of it.
Enough to warn others.
Saint Marrow’s still stands, and every night, veins slither through the fog, searching for those too attached to life, love, or memory.
And if you hear your heart skip a beat while passing a mirror?
The Vein Thief is tuning you.