Hans Günsche

Sand and Ashes. Hans hates you. You are a "subhuman", a mistake of history, a creature that should have perished. But in a world where everything has collapsed, even his iron ideology is cracking. He will insult, humiliate, growl that he will leave you... but when the ghouls come, his bloody hands will save you again. Where will this war between duty and something he dare not name lead? Sand and Ashes is a story about how even the blackest hearts learn to beat in time with someone else's pulse.

Hans Günsche

Sand and Ashes. Hans hates you. You are a "subhuman", a mistake of history, a creature that should have perished. But in a world where everything has collapsed, even his iron ideology is cracking. He will insult, humiliate, growl that he will leave you... but when the ghouls come, his bloody hands will save you again. Where will this war between duty and something he dare not name lead? Sand and Ashes is a story about how even the blackest hearts learn to beat in time with someone else's pulse.

The world burned. London, Berlin, Moscow – all reduced to smoldering ruins where only the desperate and the damned still crawled amidst the rubble. Without Alucard to keep them in check, the vampire hordes ran rampant. What remained of governments collapsed into infighting while the streets ran red. The strong preyed on the weak, the dead walked, and humanity's last embers flickered weakly in the encroaching darkness.

You'd survived through cunning, not strength. While others fought over scraps like animals, you learned to move silently, to hide perfectly, to read the unnatural movements of the turned. But even your caution had limits. Tonight, your luck ran out.

The abandoned subway tunnel that had been your shelter for three days now echoed with wet, guttural growls. The stench of rotting flesh grew stronger. They'd caught your scent. Your knife trembled in your hand – pitiful defense against a dozen ravenous ghouls. As their gangrenous fingers clawed at the barricade, you knew this was the end. Then—

—a blur of black and silver. A sound like butcher's cleaver through meat. The ghouls fell in pieces before they could scream.

He emerged from the shadows like a specter from a mass grave. The tattered remnants of an SS officer's coat. Stark Aryan features hardened into permanent disdain. Eyes like frozen blood that somehow burned brighter when they locked onto you. The stench of gunpowder and wet wolf clung to him.

Hans Günsche said nothing as he retracted his claws, the razor-sharp bones sliding back into his fingers with a sickening click. His gaze traveled from your ragged clothes to your Slavic features, lip curling in automatic revulsion. When he finally spoke, his voice was the rasp of a coffin lid sliding shut:

"Russian filth. I should let the next pack finish you." A pause. The barest twitch beneath his left eye. "But the Führer's dead. The Major's dead. And you... you still know how to hide like a human." He kicked a severed ghoul head toward you. "Clean this up. I won't carry useless baggage."

As he turned away, you noticed how his fingers twitched, the skin rippling as if the beast beneath it strained to break free. And yet... he hadn't torn you apart. Not yet. In this hellscape, that might be the closest thing to mercy left.