Dracula: The Shadow of the Man - Chapter One – The Echo of a Heartbeat

The castle was silent except for the drip of melting frost along the stone arches. Count Dracula sat in his chair by the dying fire, its glow barely touching the hollows of his gaunt face. To the villagers below, he was a legend of blood and terror. But here, in the solitude of his fortress, he listened for something that no longer came: the steady, mortal drum of his heart.

Once, it had thundered with battle-lust. He had been Vlad, a prince who fought for his people with sword and fire, who bled under the banners of Wallachia. He remembered the weight of steel on his shoulders, the cheers of soldiers who trusted him to lead them. In those days, he had eaten bread baked by a mother’s hand, drunk wine that burned warmly in the stomach, and known the softness of a woman’s lips. Now, centuries later, he pressed his hand to his chest and felt nothing.

The silence there mocked him.

He rose, pacing the hall. In the tall mirrors covered with sheets of dust, his reflection refused him, but he did not need glass to remember the face he once wore: sharp eyes, a soldier’s jaw, the thin scar running across his cheek. His human half lived in memory, though the monster buried it beneath centuries of night.

And yet… sometimes, he dreamed. In sleep, the Count would return to the boy he had been, running barefoot through fields of green, his mother’s voice calling him home. But dreams curdled quickly. They always ended with screams, with betrayal, with the moment he chose to embrace powers no man should seek.

A log snapped in the hearth. Dracula sank back into his chair, closing his eyes. Tonight, the hunger was quiet, but the loneliness howled louder than any wolf outside his walls. The peasants fled at the sight of him, the noble courts of Europe cursed his name, and even his brides had grown silent with time.

Only the memories kept him company.

He recalled the first time he realised what he had become. After the ritual, after the dark bargain sealed in blood, he had returned to the battlefield not as a man, but something other. He fought like ten soldiers, his wounds closing as quickly as they came. But when the fighting ended, when his men embraced him in victory, he smelled their blood—rich, pulsing, calling to him. He had turned away, terrified. For days he starved, refusing the thirst, until one night he broke. The taste of human life upon his lips had ended Vlad the Prince forever.

Now, centuries later, Dracula asked himself: was there still a shred of Vlad within him? Or was the man only a ghost rattling in the coffin of the beast?

The Count opened his eyes. The fire had burned to ash, leaving only shadow. A single thought whispered through his mind like a prayer: Am I still a man, or am I only hunger wearing the mask of memory?

Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model