Morning never touched the inside of Castle Dracula. Its stones had absorbed centuries of darkness until even the air seemed carved from shadow. Yet in his rest, the Count dreamt of sunlight.He dreamt of her.
Her name had been Elisabeta, though the centuries had eroded her face in his mind until she became more symbol than woman. Still, he remembered her laughter, high and bright as bells, and the warmth of her hand in his. She had been his bride in truth, not like the hollow spectres he kept now for company. She was the anchor to his humanity, the proof that he had once been a man capable of love.
The dream soured into memory, and memory into torment.
Dracula remembered the day the letter came—false word of his death on the battlefield. Elisabeta had thrown herself into the river rather than live without him. He had rushed to the church where her body lay, begging the priests to consecrate her soul for Heaven. Instead, they called her damned, for she had taken her own life. Their cold condemnation cracked something within him, a wound no blade could heal.
That night, grief boiled into fury. He renounced the God he had fought to defend, and in his rage he turned to darker powers. Blood answered his cries, and with it came immortality. But Elisabeta was gone, and he was left only with the thirst.
The Count awoke from his reverie with clenched fists, the heavy velvet of his coffin cover brushing his knuckles. Slowly, deliberately, he pushed it aside and rose into the chamber. The hunger stirred at once, crawling through his veins, reminding him of what he had become.
But there was another feeling, subtler, one he hated more than thirst: regret.
He walked the hallways of his castle, his steps echoing. Tapestries of old campaigns hung faded on the walls, their colours drained. He paused before one, the great banner of Wallachia, its crimson now the shade of dried blood. His human half had fought beneath it, had believed in sovereignty, in a kingdom where his people might live free. He traced the fabric with a pale finger and asked himself: What became of that man?
The answer was simple. That man had died with Elisabeta.
Yet still, fragments clung to him like burrs: his soldier’s discipline, his pride in his homeland, his ache for companionship. They made him restless, pulled him between two worlds—never fully beast, never again man.
At the high window, he looked out across the Carpathians. Smoke rose from a village far below, humble fires of peasants who crossed themselves when they whispered his name. He envied them. Not their fear, but their ordinariness. To wake, to work, to break bread with family at day’s end—these were miracles he could never reclaim.
The Count rested his forehead against the cold stone, and in that moment, he wished the priests had been right: that there was no soul left in him, no man to remember. Because memory was the cruelest torment of all.
Source: Some or all of the content was generated using an AI language model
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