Spring Forward, Fall Back (Alucard x Chubby! Reader)

Chapter 4 - Nightmares

Reader P.O.V.

Now I'm embarrassed. I can't believe I did that! I'm so worried that I've made a bad impression on everyone that all I could think of to do was get the hell out of there and think of a way to find my way home. Sypha came along with me to find a comfortable place for me to sleep and grab a blanket to keep warm with. The kindness of this woman was beyond what I'd expect from a stranger, but I couldn't help but find her incredibly likable.

"Here you go," she said when she found the blanket. A small fire was started in the fireplace to take the chill off the room before, so the blanket was just something to hold in that warmth next to my body for the night. I thanked her with a weak smile; it was all I could muster with my emotions running so depressive.

"If you need to go relieve yourself, there is a room two doors down to the left of these doors that you can go to. This castle is huge and it is very easy to get lost," she said.

"This castle looks a little familiar...like I've seen it somewhere," I mentioned.

"Well it is Dracula's castle, after all. Although, I'm surprised that you would find it familiar."

My eyes widened. 'Dracula's castle?! That means I'm in Wallachia!' I screamed internally to myself. I had always, always, ALWAYS wanted to see this castle, and here I was dead in the center of it without my knowledge. If I hadn't been so afraid to fly I would have flown to go see it in a heartbeat, and here I am, inside the famed castle of THE Vlad Tepes, the Romanian warlord and ruler who....

Then came that knowledge that I had been cataloging for as long as my interest in the story of this castle had run through my mind: Vlad Tepes, also known as Vlad Dracul: a word in Romanian that translated to both 'dragon' and 'devil'. Vlad Tepes was a strong and fair ruler who, when necessary, made an example of enemies and criminals alike by impaling them outside of the castle to scare criminals straight and keep his enemies away...very effective. At least it was until the day that his wife died. Before I could continue my inner musings, I could see that Sypha wanted something.

"May I ask," Sypha began, "why did you react the way you did? I mean, you don't have to tell me, but I was just wondering..."

I held a hand up to stop her. It was nice of her to worry about offending me, but it was something that I felt that I could easily discuss with her and owed her because of my behavior.

"I was in an abusive relationship, so when people try to touch me from behind I kind of get a bit jumpy."

"I see. So it wasn't something I did?"

"Oh, heavens no," I said to reassure her. I sat up a little bit on the sofa she'd led me to before I spoke. "Look, before that pink and green stuff found me on my way home, I had just gotten into a verbal battle with my ex. They tried to convince me to come back to them with sweet words and promises, but I refused. They hurt me in more ways than one. I'll show you."

I reached into my computer bag and pulled out my wet wipes. Taking a deep breath to calm myself, I took out one and began to remove the makeup from my face and neck that I had been using to cover up the bruises. The ex would always yell at me when they saw them, so I got really good with makeup to cover them. This not only stopped them from yelling at me and hurting me more, but also hid them from the outside world so they wouldn't ask me questions.

Slowly removing the last of the makeup from under my eye, I could see the look of shock and anger bloom on Sypha's face. I took the cloth and pitched it into the fireplace. As I listened to it crackle and sizzle while the last of the moisture on it burned off, I was now aware that the men were standing outside the door. Rather than raise the alarm, I just walked back to the sofa and sat down.