Inheritance of Shadows [Hugo Vlad x Fem!OC]

Chapter 19: The Heir's Requiem

The chapel was empty.

Candles flickered against stone walls, their weak flames barely pushing back the shadows. Serena's coffin rested at the altar, white wood dulled by the gloom. Violet and blue flowers scattered around her, her hands intertwined with each other on her chest like she's praying. No mourners filled the pews. Only two figures remained: Hugo, shoulders hunched, eyes red and swollen, and Maressa, silent at the back with her hands clasped tight.

Yukari stood unseen at the doorway, her chest heavy. She wanted to move, to comfort him, but the demon's presence pressed against her like chains, a whisper curling in her ear: "Not this time. You don't get to interfere."

She wasn't sure if she was seen by Hugo and others at this point, or maybe the Demon is only letting her watch.

Hugo knelt before the coffin, trembling hands pressed flat against its lid. His tears struck the wood in slow, steady drops. "I'm sorry, Serena... I couldn't save you." His voice cracked, raw with grief.

Yukari's breath hitched. She had seen his suffering, his humiliation, his loss. But this was different. In the hollow of grief, something else stirred in Hugo's eyes. Not just sorrow. Not just despair.

Wrath.

A gush of wind flew past by, fluttering their clothes. The dread was seeping within Yukari's mind.

She wasn't sure what was going to happen next. Everything had been unpredictable, she watched the scenes move without a notice and everything she tried to interfere was futile.

—

The days blurred together for Yukari—but for Hugo, they dragged on, heavy and endless.

He was a total mess. Cooped up in his room, sobbing whenever something reminded him of her, unable to pull himself from the bed tucked away in the dark corner.

Loneliness clouded his judgment. He refused to move. Thoughts of disappearing pressed harder than ever—whether burying himself six feet under beside his sister, or vanishing like smoke into the wind.

He was torn. His heart clawed up a steep cliff, reaching, begging to be free. But each day's climb only seemed farther from the surface. He wasn't sure if there even was a way to stay afloat.

He mourned harder still, biting his own arm just to cope with the ache of loss. His mind rattled, his chest tightening with every heartbeat like a vice closing in.

Maressa often knocked on his door, but silence was her only answer. On rare occasions Hugo emerged for supper, moving like a shadow—shoulders heavy, steps dragging. At the table, he ate in small, drawn-out motions, weary and detached, unbothered by the barbed words or taunts of his siblings.

Every sound blurred into static, every voice drowned in the distance. Each day bled into the next, colorless and dull. The absence of Serena hollowed everything; the smallest reminder of her twisted in his chest like a dagger, sharp and unrelenting.

The abuse? He endured it without flinching. The experiments? He submitted in silence. Nothing pierced deeper than the void she left behind.

He was growing tired. Numbness seeped into every movement, dulling him further with each passing day.

And when he slowly gathered himself, the abuse from the siblings was louder than before.

They whispered at first, venom slipped between bites of food.

"The cursed child."

"He couldn't even save his own sister."

"What use is he if he can't protect anyone?"