#the gothic imagination
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gnossienne · 1 year ago
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Bram Stoker's Dracula, published in special edition by Amaranthine Books, featuring carved wooden slipcase, real Transylvanian soil behind the small plexiglass window, glow-in-the-dark illustrations, and the title written in real blood of the creatives that worked on this book. (x)
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mervynbunter · 3 months ago
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I am all in a sea of wonders. I doubt; I fear; I think strange things which I dare not confess to my own soul.
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pasdetrois · 1 month ago
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Mourning for the beloved is a part of love; in fact, Catherine and Heathcliff's narrative in Wuthering Heights is in love with death. Mournful love searches for a revenant or any scrap or remainder of the lost beloved: in Wuthering Heights love adheres to scraps, parings, or castoffs. Heathcliff, in saying good-bye to Catherine just after her death, removes Edgar Linton's pale hair from her locket and replaces it with his own heavy black crop. Heathcliff's hair, as a synecdoche of his material self, symbolically enshrines his body in its most mysterious state: stillness. Here love resides in the decay of the body's ornaments, in its failure, in its always lostness. The body-in-fragments, and in the most fragmentary state—death comes to represent the possibility of love for Catherine and Heathcliff. That is, it is only in fragments or specters that their love can be, if ever, fulfilled. Throughout the story they describe the way parts of themselves reside in the beloved other. Catherine famously exclaims of Heathcliff, "He is more myself than I am" (68). Upon Catherine's death, Heathcliff calls out in grief: "I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!" (144). After her death, he doesn't so much lament that she has gone but rather that he can no longer locate her. "Where is she? Not there—not in heaven—not perished—where?" (144). He needs only to find where she now resides. Death does not present a barrier to their love but comes to constitute its very being.
Deborah Lutz, The Dangerous Lover: Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-Century Seduction Narrative
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dearorpheus · 2 years ago
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“...his full-toned voice swells in my ears; his lustrous eyes dwell on me with all their melancholy sweetness; I see his thin hand raised in animation, while the lineaments of his face are irradiated by the soul within.”
— Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
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cor-ardens-archive · 2 years ago
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klipkillakai · 2 months ago
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is this a safe space?
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the crow 2024
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lanadelreyscokewhor3 · 11 days ago
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“so i left my man in the middle of the highway, won’t be seen with him cause that’s embarrassing- he can be such a bitch and it makes me sick…”
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theriverbeyond · 6 months ago
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to me, the 8th house aesthetic is like if the apple store attempted gothic cathedral
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bebx · 7 months ago
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calling the fact there isn’t a pomegranate emoji as of now a crime
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gnossienne · 7 months ago
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Interview with the Vampire (1994), dir. Neil Jordan
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mervynbunter · 3 months ago
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LIES WE TELL (2023), dir. Lisa Mulcahy
What makes a monster, you may well wonder. My father taught me that only after our death will we know what we are, what we have chosen to be, angel or demon, creature of light or monster clothed in human flesh. He said I could choose, that I had a choice. He told me it's an easy journey between this life and the next. He told me he loved me. He told me many lies.
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pasdetrois · 1 month ago
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Deborah Lutz, The Dangerous Lover: Gothic Villains, Byronism, and the Nineteenth-Century Seduction Narrative
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dearorpheus · 2 years ago
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“Gothic novelists deliberately promote emotional responses in readers by creating through their landscapes and props objective correlatives for the human passions: dark, damp castles; ruined abbeys; locked cellars and dungeons; secret passageways; creaking doors; rattling keys. Inner psychological states are evoked, and readers become “hooked” on the intensity generated by the stories told. Readers are fascinated by the resemblance of what happens in a Gothic novel to what happens in their own most private thoughts.”
— Toni Reed, Demon-Lovers and Their Victims in British Fiction
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namedvesta · 3 months ago
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mistreated clairvoyant, by light beyond the frame (𝟤𝟢𝟤𝟤)
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hotchsofficialwifey · 1 year ago
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okay hear me out... mike schmidt with goth!fem!reader (be warned: i'm not goth so this might not be very accurate lol)
he met you while he was working at the mall, eyed you from across hot topic. despite your intimidating black clothes, chains, and eye makeup, you had one of the sweetest smiles he'd ever seen, instantly drawing him to you. you said good morning to the worker with one of those perfect smiles and he immediately felt butterflies in his stomach.
he started hanging out at the hot topic more frequently. he began to pick up on your schedule, too. you'd usually come on Saturday's between 12-3pm, circle through the food court and your favorite stores (one time he even caught you at Victoria's Secret, but didn't go in, for obvious reasons). he felt a little creepy, but it wasn't like he was stalking you, just keeping you safe (this was his bullshit excuse). some part of you was simply magnetic, pulling him in like a siren, wrapping him around your finger so tightly he never wanted to be let go.
after a few weeks or so of this same routine, he got fired for beating up a man in broad daylight, and had to get a shitty job at Fazbear's Pizzeria. the only part of that job he missed was you, but his yearning would soon come to an end. he went on various apps, websites, whatever he could to find a babysitter for abby while he was at work, when he found your profile on one of the apps. you were around his age, lived in the same town, and were looking for a job as a babysitter. perfect! he got in contact with you shortly after, and you were fast to reply. you set up a day, time and location, and the next night you were there, knocking on his door.
it was as if the closer he got to you, the prettier you were. pink lips overlined with black liner, flared black jeans paired with a Siouxsie and The Banshees t-shirt, eyeliner so sharp it could probably poke him and black converse covered in doodles. you were more casual than usual, obviously, but god, you were beautiful. you hit him with one of your dazzling smiles, introduced yourself to him and abby (abby instantly liked you), and he went off to work, the scent of your sandalwood perfume on his mind.
you got closer over the months you babysat abby. he came home early in the morning, but you always made breakfast (not only were you beautiful, but amazingly sweet). he didn't pay you as consistently as you originally hoped he would, but you were begin to grow a crush on him, so you didn't really mind. it got to the point where you two even exchanged numbers, using work as an excuse, but you mostly talked and sent memes to each other. but what he admired most about you is how good you were with abby. you guys drew together, watched cartoons together, laughed together, you even did tarot readings for her. abby would fill him in on every little detail of your night together, start to finish. she adored you, and you adored her, which only made him fall harder for you.
the love confession was unexpected, but really sweet. he had invited you over for dinner before he went to work, which he often did, but after you put abby to bed and sat down on the couch with him...
"thanks for everything you do for us." he blurted suddenly. your face suddenly felt very warm, and you bashfully replied.
"it's no big deal, really. i like spending time with abby..." fuck it, you thought. "and with you." you stared at each other for a moment, tension in the air, before he kissed you. slowly, softly, easing you into it. it got heated quickly, and one thing left to another, and he was forty minutes late for work (but it was so worth it).
a/n: okay, this wasn't as focused on the goth part as I wanted it to be, but wtvr. i'll be doing headcannons for goth!reader later!! for now, here's some backstory lol
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dragongirlpoet · 2 months ago
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Dark Signs
Part II
<Read Part I here>
Alucard x female reader
Synopsis: You asked Alucard for a favour. Now you have to be careful what you wished for. (3.5k words) "To be born a dhampir is to be born a monster" - Vampire Hunter D
TW: Dark fantasy, horror & gore elements, blood, SMUT (Alucard is feral in this one) Explicit 🔞
Here's hoping you'll enjoy this too! Sorry it took longer than expected, I was unwell and didn't want to put out a story I wasn't proud of. Thank you for reading!
Also to @skychaser777 hope you can sleep after this 😉
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The hollow stone walls echoed my shaky breaths, caving them in, the thumping of my heart violent in my ears. My skin was pricked with goosebumps, foreboding dire dwellings. 
“Baby, what’s wrong?” Absurd question, considering everything was inherently far from right. 
There had only been one instance where I felt unsafe with Adrian. 
Located in the underbelly of Wallachia was a forgotten catacomb, a labyrinth where the dead and undead alike convened. I had been extracting bile from slaughtered night creatures, told to render powerful salves when mixed with mint, myrrh and…other herbs. 
Body sticky with sweat and hands grimy from reaching into revolting guts, I was almost to my fifth vial when a guttural growl stopped me dead in my tracks. 
From the marrows of a tunnel, a numbing cold, laced with strangled gnawing, reverberated through the passageways.
Every fibre of my being told me to run, alas I had all but the impudence of a child. Unsheathing my iron dagger, ensorcelled to wound even the most vile, I treaded warily towards my impending doom.  
The sight that awaited me was sickening. Crouched over bodies upon bodies of night creatures was a pallid, mangled man? His face was buried in their carcasses, marring at their flesh, lapping at their blood. 
Before I could take another breath, the man turned, face smeared with ravaged viscera and foul, curdled blood. He had hair like the purest wisps of wheat and eyes like dark, desecrated graves. 
I choked back a gasp.
“You foolish, foolish girl. You are not prepared for the evil that lurks here, feeds here..” his bellow was deafening, diabolical. Blood spilled from his fangs, splaying his torso tainted with innards and rotten flesh.
“Wh..who are…you?” I paced backwards as he stalked towards me.
“You don’t know who I am? Most fascinating…” he offered a smile so sinister, as if he had stumbled upon the most naive of fools he was soon to devour.
“I am the sun…rain…the darkness. I am sin made flesh and I am whom you should most fear. I am Alucard, son of Vlad Dracula Tepes.”
A loud “smash” rattled through the room as I retreated into our wooden dresser, knocking over a prized hourglass Alucard so often used to practise his script. The pair of glowering molten eyes trailed me — never blinking, burning caverns into my soul. 
I shifted my gaze downwards to avoid stepping into glass, but that was regrettably the least of my worries. Lifting my stare, those eyes were gone — quick as spectres passing through dimensions. 
Our chamber fell into a boundless black, and my human sight could not adjust acutely enough to the darkness. I flailed my arms about willing to grasp onto anything that could give me some bearing. Anxiety crept through me like poison ivy ensnaring a forsaken home. 
“Adrian? Stop this please! This isn’t funny.” The volatile rhythm of my heart suddenly became too loud, too unbearable. 
No amount of breaths could repress my violent trembling. A faint flicker from the corner caught my eye — Alucard’s heirloom sword. If his magical estoc was there…he is still in the room with me. 
The hairs on my arms shot up, little by little.
Out of nowhere, forceful, ice cold hands prised around my throat, yanking me out of my state of terror. From behind, Alucard, voice grave like a thousand infernal souls, growled into my ear, 
“Do you understand the gravity of what you’re asking?”
Whether it was fear or the vice-like grip around my neck, I couldn’t speak.
“Answer me.” 
He clamped tighter.
”Ye…yesss,” I wasn’t telling a lie. 
“Then let’s finish what we started, shall we?”
One minute I was in Alucard’s death grip, the next I was shoved, hard, into the stone wall, my face chafing against the abrasive mortar. I winced at the pain.
“You’re hurting me, Adrian!” 
Behind, he tightened his grip on my wrists, binding them into the small of my back. 
“Am I? Ohh…but you like danger, don’t you?...His other hand reached down to unfasten his pants, his erect cock sliding out… “You are drawn to the darkness, just as I am.” 
He trailed the words up and down my neck, pausing ever so subtly to savour the scent of blood in my veins. 
A small bead of sweat started trickling down my face…no, no, it was blood — from my collision with the wall.
Alucard went eerily still again. I felt a shift in his countenance, like a malevolent cloud obliterating sunshine. 
He was hungry.
With one knee, he forced my legs apart and hauled my nightdress up, my backside fully exposed. I could feel the tip of his length against my rear — throbbing, impatient. He snaked his hands all over my naked body, grabbing at my breasts, digging into my thighs. 
The scent of my blood set his every carnal need aflame. 
Adrian had always been prudent — he would excuse himself at the slightest scent of my exposed blood, isolating himself in the castle dungeons for hours, as if he deserved it. Deserved to be punished for his beastly urges, deserved to be condemned for being born a monster. 
Every blood-month I had would send him away for days — “I don’t want to hurt you. You’ve seen what I become when I feed… I’ll just be hunting, it’d be just a few days, and your cycle would end when I’m back,” he would say with a smile. A sad smile.
And I was utterly tired and heartbroken that my Adrian, so kind and full of love, would admonish himself, rip his spirit to shreds, for a fate that had been unfairly handed to him. I was going to end this, tonight.
Alucard nuzzled his face into my hair, taking in all my smells, heaving. His body was unyielding against mine — elegant marble against bewitching velvet. I could hear his vampiric heartbeat ringing in his ears, drowning out all sense of reason. He was an animal in heat. 
“You know I cannot control myself around you. And you know what your blood does to me… Do you know how long I haven’t fed?” 
His writhing cock was brandishing my cunt, starving for my hole.
“Do you know I think about what it’s like to have your blood in my veins? How much I want it, need it, desire it. 
How much I want my blood in you. And you ask this of me, tonight, when I’m sitting at the precipice of hunger and lust…”
There was a sharp intake of breath. 
“Hmmm you don’t know what’s coming for you. Once I do this there’s no turning back. 
Do you know how long I’ve been holding out for you? To be better for you. And now you ask this of me…”
At that he yanked at my hair, forcing my head to fall back. The red trace on my cheeks bowed complete to his mercy. 
Staring defiantly into his eyes, I said, “Do it, Adrian. I want you to.” 
Danger, danger.
A devious smile tugged at his lips. Alucard skimmed my neck with his mouth, bruising it with reckless kisses and parlous nips. He moved precariously to suck at the aquamarine veins running down my breasts, licking slow circles about my nipples. He was a wolf dallying with his food. 
A true vampire, hedonistic even in the slightest of pursuits, moving inevitably to the blood trail. He had waited so long for this. 
Alucard pushed his lips delicately into my face, afraid of spilling even the smallest of drops. My blood was a sacred river, a bath of worship he would praise forever. Shaking, he ravened the scarlet off my face, sucking at the open cut, willing for more. 
He was a mixture of muffled moans and enthralled ecstacy.
It was exhaultant. I adored being able to give Adrian what he most craved. 
Drinking in more than necessary, the whites of his eyes were no longer — entire sockets now overtaken with crepuscular crypts darker than the blood moon that hung outside.
Alucard’s cock twitched beneath me, length growing harder and bigger by the second. Grunting, he pumped his sex and slid it against my pussy. I was light-headed with anticipation, but he had merely fondled my folds, prodding at my entrance, testing to see how wet I was.
Perhaps he had been right. Perhaps a dissolute part of me yearned for the darkness, but what I’d wanted most of all was to know that I had years, centuries — immortality, to be with Adrian. 
Head over my shoulder with eyes like lacquered obsidians, he interlaced his fingers with mine, bringing them down to press at my clit. Flagging off from my most sensitive spot, he traced them up my body, slowly, torturously. 
“I wonder…” fingers caressing my abdomen… “how far up…” I gasped as he adjusted them higher… “my cock will go when I’m deep inside you…” Alas settling on a spot above my navel.
A sacred river spawned between my legs. 
Incapable of restraint any longer, I reached back to stroke his shaft, thumb stimulating his tip until his pre-load creamed my fingers. I lathered his fluids, relishing in the feel of his hallowed flesh tethered to my hands. 
“Fuuuck.” Alucard bristled against my touch, face buried in my neck. Below, he was thrusting at my entrance, not yet entering, readying me for his carnal devotion. 
”Adrian please, I need you. I want you inside…”  
His last thread of resolve snapped. He rammed his boner into me from behind, stretching me, engulfing me. My tender walls were a haven to his brutal thrusts, welcoming him in. Cock barely to his hilt, he spread my bottocks apart, plunging his engorged member in. 
“Ahh…ahh…” I whimpered, hands braced on the wall. 
“How are you still so tight…” he hissed, enraged he couldn’t yet feel all of me.
My fingers weaved into his hair, tugging as I leaned further back into him. This feral urge, I craved it. It was scarce enough to satiate the searing lust in me, so I ground impiously against his length like the unholy girl he wanted me to be. 
Tonight, he was to have his way. He was the nefarious overlord and I was but a malleable zealot. My hips were firmly held down by his hands — he wanted to control my rhythm. I was, afterall, his submissive little prey. 
Alucard forced his cum-stained fingers into my mouth, swirling them about the insides of my cheeks, wresting in and out of my plush lips. I licked at them greedily, suckling on his taste. He was so deft — hands and length penetrating me in a lyrical sync, sating me above and below.
I gagged when he stuck his fingers further down, my throat wedging tight. Tears rimmed my eyes but I continued hollowing my cheeks, head bobbing. “Such a good girl…” praising as he brushed hair off my face. I was to appear immaculate while being fucked indecent.
Hypnotised by his bulge assaulting my hole, I bit sinfully on his index, tearing his skin. He pulled out from my mouth, eyes transfixed on the blot of blood. 
“You’re being a naughty little lamb tonight…” His smile was insidious, like a serpent suffocating its meal.
My vampire smothered his blood over my parted lips. My tongue grazed over it, wiping it clean like I was the one writhing in blood lust. What I did had Alucard under a powerful spell. He plummeted his smug into me, our kisses heedless, crashing into each other in depraved lust. 
We sucked and bit them swollen, both of us unrestrained and shameless of our monstrous love. Under, he continued hammering his heat into me, hand pushing my cunt back to swallow more of him.
Alucard was never one to trifle with a perfect opportunity. Hands at his favourite spot, he rubbed his digits forcefully at all the places his cock didn’t already fill. My knees buckled at once from overstimulation. 
“Stay.” He landed a firm smack onto my soaking sex… “Still.”
“Or I won’t let you cum.” An order.
He bent me over, my backside raised to allow him easy entry. I compelled my wobbly legs to stand, muscles quivering at my bones.
“Good. Hands on the wall.” 
Like his obedient little lamb, I hoisted my arms on the cold stone, squeezing taut around my feral wolf.
I was begging, moaning his name, my being in complete disarray.
Content with how tight I was clenching around his shaft, Alucard drove his erection mercilessly into me, pounding so hard I was lifted off the ground. 
I cried out in pleasure and pain. “Adrian! Adrian please…”
“You like it when I’m rough with you, baby? You want me to turn you, and fucking you senseless comes with it,” he spat in between thrusts, dragging hair away from my ears to ascertain I could hear him loud and clear. 
I was so deliciously filled my lewdness spilled out onto my legs. Paths of sweet nectar trickled down my trembling thighs, glazing his girth with my wicked desire. 
I was so close.
Smelling my arousal and imminent climax, Alucard slammed faster into me, his own pace losing cadence. 
We were so close. 
He had everything timed perfectly. Just as he had countless times before — night creatures and wild animals — all unsuspecting pawns to his blood thirst. He was adept at hiding his deplorable little secret, but I knew better. 
Fangs fully exposed, he grazed them masterfully over my neck, humming at my veins and arteries. Quite like a skilled chef discerning food, he was choosing which would taste most exquisite. My scarlet vessels were pulsing in tempo with my heartbeat — palpitating, quivering, waiting.
“Are you frightened? I can feel your terror in my bones…” villainy laced his snarl like a wolf finally rid of sheep’s clothing. 
I had to inhale gulps of air to articulate my words, “No….” But what I said or what I thought mattered no longer. Gone was Adrian — human, moral, benign. A bestial, debased monster, instead, all consumed him. 
Soulless eyes searched me once more, as if to forewarn me about my perilous decision, as if the human in him was straining to break free of his chains to stop this atrocity.
There was no turning back now.
I offered my neck to him, reckless, bloodstreams on full display. At last, with Alucard’s throbbing cock still stuffed full inside, I felt the firestorm in my core and the crushing torrent soon overcame me. 
My release tonight felt different — cathartic. I was once again the delicate driftwood being dragged underwater — careless, aimless, going where the current took me. My limbs fell limp at my sides, my spirit devoid of vigour. And I knew why. 
Alucard’s fangs were buried in my neck, drinking my blood as if a divine offering. When did he bite me? I felt no pain, only a rapture so heavenly I ached for more. 
And so drink he did. Rivers of blood coated his lips, crimson tributaries surging down his throat. He sucked and lapped at my vital spark, clawing at my body so arduously as if I was the most cherished jewel of immeasurable value. 
Like a vampire deprived of debauchery, he drank me in like sweet sin. He had no beginning and no end. And rightfully so. I was profoundly proud of my Adrian. At long last, he no longer had to be ashamed of who he was. He was liberated. He was free. 
My racing heart was now a supine hum. I lay naked — pliant and frozen in his arms. The sleepy swell of the ocean lulled me into the black nothingness. I was rising and falling, so in harmony with the current.
Above, hazy sunbeams fractioned the waves like sparkling diamond necklaces. Beneath, the sombre abyss tugged at my essence, diffusing all manner of light. The ominous depth, though a macabre embrace, was one so full of promise. It was beckoning to me, calling my name — stay, stay, stay…
I awoke to a pall of infinite blackness. 
I had been dreaming. There were shadows — silhouettes, of people I couldn’t quite make out. They were whispering, a sonnet of hurried voices, as if going somewhere, but nowhere at the same time. Then there was a lambent flame — the colour of pale amber, always in the distance but never near. Always tailing, always watching…
Where was I? 
I could see nothing, hear nothing. I shifted slightly, and my shoulders were met by cool textile — silk? As more of my senses reconciled, I felt the mattress below me, a satiny divan not reminiscent of my bed. Muted was the air, hollow was the roof, and
…algid was my skin. 
I was in a coffin.  
Panic coiled through the ridges of my ribs, puncturing my heart like lethal thorns. I clawed and pounded at the wood…was I buried alive?
Alas, like the caves of hell being vaquished by divine light, the casket slid open, and I clambered onto a sprawling granite floor. I was heaving, frantic to take in air, clamouring at my chest as if ghostly hands were crushing my heart, splintering my valves. 
Where was Adrian?
A succession of torches adorned the upper vaults, the mellow ebb of light suddenly becoming glaring to my eyes, as if I had been staring directly at the sun. I could make out the phosphorescent ripples and saffron hues that wreathed the flames. 
The air smelled vaguely of mildew and crumbling concrete, while the scampering of rodents in between masonry thundered in my ears. I could hear them squeaking, the sounds of their bones compressing while they squeezed through cracks and crevices. 
I could hear their heartbeats — tiny surges of blood in their capillaries. 
Such fragile little things, I wonder what they’d feel when they’re crushed by the force of my teeth. If they’d feel pain, if any at all, as I drain them dry…
I was so, so hungry. 
My awareness had heightened ten-fold, the anarchy of it all confounding whatever human that was left in me. The sensation of everything all at once was too much to bear and I covered my ears to drown out the distress. 
Futile efforts indeed. 
“Adrian? Adrian…” My voice hoarse from wheezing.
Was this what he had to endure? Being so akin with the presence of entirety, enough to render one insane. Was this why he had been so loath to turn me?
I hauled myself off the ground, bidding my legs to what looked to be a door. Scarce a blink had passed than I was face to face with a metal threshold — intricate lineations etched faintly onto the frame. 
“Willing blood of the Raven Maiden,” — Enochian, words of ancient bygone, but Adrian and I had been avid philologists.
I didn’t concern myself with whether the translation had in fact referred to my blood, but I sank my fangs — a lurid extension — into my wrist and smeared them over the threshold. 
The magicked portal transported me to a bed chamber, a former bed chamber, now resembling the crux of a dense forest.
Creepers cleaved through stone, while poison vines slivered across furniture. Rich moss clung to the bed frame, eating away at the tulle canopy, embedding itself into rotted linen.
That chaise…it was ours. 
Horror flooded my senses as I glanced furtively around. 
Our armoire, our settee, our desk. 
Strewn across the floor, some shredded by tree roots dissecting the wooden panelling, lay stacks of disintegrating parchment like remnants of forgotten lore.
Vampiric speed overtaking, my eyes scanned the moth-eaten pages over. 
“Come back to me.”
“Come back to me.”
“Come back to me.”
I choked on my tears. 
“To be born a dhampir is to be born a monster.”
They fell like glass, shattering on the ink, eroding the paper more.
How long had I been asleep for?
“No, no, no…”  I wept into the emptiness, anguish imprisoning my lungs, blocking off air. In spite of being undead, I had a heart, and it bled — it bled crimson, pain and grief. It bled with all the words I wished I could take back. 
It bled with all the ache that I might never see Adrian again. 
I scoured the castle. Every tower, every room, every dungeon, each a shell of its former mirth. The scenes ran parallel  — overgrown foliage, wrecked furnishings, pillars atrophied by decay. Our home had been eaten away by the curse of time. There was no sign of life, no essence of Adrian. 
With a threshing hole in my heart, I raced past the lattice of abandon toward the main doors. As the iron portcullis lifted, I recoiled at the hell that awaited me. 
There, in the blistering winter, impaled upon rows and rows of stakes, dangled festering corpses of night creatures…and humans. 
What have I done?
Part I
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