When the Night Calls

The Red String of Fate

The nights in Transylvania were never silent if you listened close enough, and the present was no different because the now was plagued with blood.

A crusade that had began decades ago raged on in the inky dusk, frost clinging to the ground where hurried feet marred its serene beauty for a glimpse at the monster in the sky. Dracula faced the ever looming threat of his persistent enemies, the Valerious, and it appeared that he was losing. Endless shots whistled through the air—hollow silver casings filled with some liquid that, when it hit home, tore a hellish peel from Dracula's maw as he bowled in pain. The hooves of the horses were thunderous, only second to the roaring sound of his wings as they beat the air, as they pursued his withering form as it tried to hide itself in the dark clouds.

One arrow sought him out, tearing through the tendons of his back and burying itself to the hilt in his chest, specifically the cavern where his dead heart lay. Even among the others that had ripped at him, this one burned the most, and with a final attempt to salvage what was left of his longevity, he disappeared in a flash of black smoke as he began to plummet towards the ground.

When he hit the ground seemed to shake, leaves scattered in a forest a safe distance away from his hunters, where hardly any homes were but scarcely one or two. No one would dare to startle him, weakened or not. A hunting trip gone horrible wrong had led him to this: pushed to the brink of a slow death, caused by innumerable wounds that weeped a blackish crimson viscous liquid that substituted as his blood.

In one of the houses not so far away a young woman could hardly find herself asleep. Her mind was wrought with whispers she heard in the forest, accompanied only by the crickets and other creatures that lurked in the shadows of the night. Aeliana heard a howl tear her peace asunder, and then there was a resounding thud no less than twenty meters away, and she knew she would not sleep again.

She was not ignorant to the source of the sound, and yet her feet moved on accord of her heart, her mind oddly quiet as she tip-toed through her home and to the outside, where she would seal a fate she did not yet know had been strung.

Twigs snapped underneath her feet, a single candle she shied from the breeze clasped in her hands. Aeliana did not shake or falter as the distance waned, nor did the prudence of her decision dawn on her, and it would not for a considerable time. Perhaps ever.

She noticed how silent it was, the shouting and pursuance of the hunters dying out as if they had not existed at all. The nightdress she wore was thin, and her feet were bare as she made her final approach.

When she saw him laying in a pool of his own blood she watched as he transformed from a winged monstrosity to a man.

His injuries were many, spanning over his arms and abdomen in gaping holes that refused to heal as they usually would, a fact unbeknownst to her. Aeliana was not daft, but her heart was blind to anything other than helping the man in the spurred moment of sympathy.

In the small glimmer of the light Aeliana could see him quiver, cloaked in a thin suit as dark as the night around him. It was emblazoned with golden stitching, appearing as a variety of classic military wear from years ago. It was sullied by...whatever poured from his afflictions, which had begun to flow heavily and began flooding the soil.

Dracula was too weak to move, hardly able to even manage a glimpse at the girl that found herself standing above him in naught but a nightgown. He snarled in an attempt to warn her off despite his state of distress, but she showed no sign of leaving in her slow advance.

"Shh," she whispered, hands drawn up as if in surrender, "Don't move." Against her words he jostled, groaning in pain at the jerky movement that sent jolts of hurt through his whole body. Aeliana bent down, her hand ghosting over the skin of his cheek—it too was marred with harm, but it was deathly cold. She had expected little else.