Thankfully for Lev, this was only his imagination.
Despite being relatively lighthearted and sometimes downright hilarious moments, there are some moments that range from uncomfortable to downright horrifying.
WARNING: SPOILERS INBOUND.
- Series wide, the slow expansion on just how terrible the racism against vampires is, which starts as dehumanizing and is increasingly shown to be outright genocidal - with much of the chills coming from just how little most of the cast cares about it being genocidal: reactions to Irina's presence and Lev's empathy for her range from legitimate bafflement at the idea of perceiving vampires as anything approaching human, to outright laughing in Irina's face over the fact that government will eventually kill her. Irina seems to be unaffected or resigned most of the time, but it's increasingly shown that her experiences have caused her to despise humans right back for their cruelty, especially as we slowly learn her backstory: in Episode 3, Irina vaguely explains that her parents were "caught in the middle of the war" and killed. Episode 4 we actually get to see what happened, and it becomes clear just how much she underestimated: she lived in a peaceful village in the middle of nowhere, when Zirnitra troops showed up en masse and massacred everyone
for no discernible reason other than being born as a vampire. - Although it is not as nightmarish as other examples listed here, Episode 1 has Lev hallucinating a nightmarish version of Irina, showing her brutally biting Lev, with a whole lot of blood splattered on him. In Episode 2, he hallucinates a nightmarish version of her, this time during the endurance run test. In this scene, as shown in the page image, Irina is depicted as a terrifying bloodsucker whose hair literally expands massively. This hallucination is so terrifying for Lev that it actually allows him to barely outrun Irina in the run. Thankfully, they are only figments of his imagination.
- In Episode 2, Irina is introduced to the absolute worst of what the Laika-44 Facility can do to her: Vice Director Sagalevich. Unlike most personnel, who merely mock her but are otherwise harmless, the Vice Director actually physically abuses her, as well as verbally, making him the dirtiest out of all the Dirty Communists in the light novel series and its anime adaptation. She is literally cuffed and forced to wear what looks like an anti-dog bite mask. Further, the Vice Director buckles her to the High-G Training machine so tight that it actually injures her. No wonder Lev shows concern for her safety.
- In Episode 3 we see glimpses of how Irina was brought in. While she is going through heat tolerance test, she thinks back to how she arrived to Laika-44. In this segment, we are shown a rather unsettling and creepy shot of an almost naked Irina strapped to the table, surrounded by a large group of scientists and wires attached to her. Making that scene even creepier is that the eyes of the scientists are literally blank white, no pupils. Even worse is that by Episode 4, it is revealed that she is actually Seventeen years old, making this much more unsettling than it already was.
- Episode 5's ending. Irina and Lev witness what at first seems to be a meteorite crashing down nearby. Unfortunately, it turns out to be the charred corpse of a test animal. This sight, although not shown directly, is still absolutely unsettling and disturbing enough that Irina literally suffers trauma to the point it affects her in episode 6.
- Episode 6. Just Episode 6. The beginning of this episode is a truly terrifying piece of nightmare fuel. A massive rocket coming down and crashing on Irina? Check. Charred corpses of animals staring down on her? Check. And to top it off, Irina literally turns to stone and painfully disintegrates as she screams? Check. The rest of the episode is not much better anyway, for Irina at least.
