Prologue

December 29th, 2029

My mind was blank, the air around me stifling as it stabs at my wet, sticky chest. Everything was a haze as the black room flooded with noir colors, then red.

My clothes had been one of my attire as I was a young boy. The neck of my shirt was a laced tie, not having been tied until today for 400 years and my sleeves had the familiar fringe, with the unfamiliar hints of red splattered. From my mouth to my chest, down to the object in my arms.

That is, in my arms, lay a woman; hair, a natural bright red as an auburn sunrise, and skin pale as cream. Her face radiated light and my heart fell for it again and again. Then the coppery-sweet taste of blood fills my mouth, sweet enough to relish in ecstasy for a second, only to realize it's her blood… as red, as crimson fresh lava from her neck, covers me.

'What is this?'

Blood. Her blood…

My mind races to piece together the situation around me.

'What. The. Fuck. Have. I. Just. Done.'

My knees ache with the weight of kneeling on the cold ground, with her lifeless body in my arms. Holding her tight against my frame my mouth and shirt moistened with another's tears and now-cold liquid stains.

I look up at my surrounding, the winter-felt atmosphere contaminating the air around me.

The familiar aura still holds after centuries of abandonment, and the structure, though crumbling, holds with its magnificent fortitude. Old shelves are fallen with their holy books toppled over with them. Dust clouds the air and the icy cold wind seeps through the building as snow fills the stone cracks in the wall. The only unfamiliar being in this place is the haze in front of me, me, and this woman.

My breath hitches and fogs as the blurred haze in front of me stands and moves.

'Did it do this?' This figure, did it cause this all?

I feel the chain and collar around my neck struggling and cracking as I try to pull forward, stopping me from moving closer, but the man walks towards me.

My eyes fill at the sight of him, for… it can't be… him. I haven't seen him in over 400 years and he has been presumed dead for longer, yet here he stands in front of me. He walks down the old church steps towards me and stops at the last, "We meet again, boy," he strains the last word, echoing in the crumbled church walls.

My eyes glance through my surroundings and nostalgia blindly hits as terror drowns me.

This church, this man, this woman, and even my old-fashioned attire brings me back to that night. The night I lost everything.

Rather, I thought I had lost everything. The man standing in front of me proves my worst nightmares.

"How the fuck are you alive."

Even being as old as half a millennia, the man hasn't aged a day, his blond hair and pale eyes still resembling life. A thought crosses my mind, he is like me, a monster.

'Did he make me like this..?'

The man scoffs at my statement and steps down the last end of the stairs, and reaches for a shiny object on his left. My hazed expression must be apparent, for he doesn't try to hide that he has pulled out something, holding it in his right hand and putting something in it with the left.

"Why?" I call out, "what have you done…"

my tone clipped as I hold the woman in my arms tighter, my jaw twitching while his scoff turns into a chuckle.

"Pathetic."

His only word cuts me like a hot knife.

Walking to me, he lifts the shiny object towards me. The object is now clear as it rests between my eyes, its barrel glimmering in the faint moonlight, the click of the hammer singing with the taps of broken branches against old, dusted shattered glass.

"After all of this time… you're still just a worthless, savage monster."

"A freak."

My insides boil, "I'm the monster? Look at you, at what you've done!"

"The dead calling me a monster, you'd ought to be put out of your misery."

He laughs and it only pisses me off more, "You're the monster here," I say gritting my teeth. My fangs pierce my bottom lip as I do, and small trickles of blood mix with the dried blood along the corners of my mouth.

The man relaxes his shoulder, "is that so boy…" he smirks. "My, my… Your mother would have been so proud of you boy. Just look at how you have grown up, just like she said you would," his smirk fades into a scowl and he spits at the ground next to my knee, "look at how you're finally brave enough to stand up to dear old father after all of these years of you cowering at my feet." "I'm going to tell you a little secret," his eyes full with amusement.

His smirk had turned into a crooked grin and my stomach turned at the sight of it. His shoulder tenses again and I see clearly at the gun that rests between my eyes, "it sure was a shame I killed that whore already," he looks at me in the eye, emotion ridden and faded after all of these years in solitude, "I would have loved to make that fucking bitch watch this…"

A loud bang fills my ears and the black haze returns. My fingers run cold, and my head weighs a hundred pounds as my limbs fall. The sense of touch and taste fade away and soon, I lost the feel of the woman in my arms. I'm numb. Numb to a touch of my love. The woman I hold and the woman the one I swore to never hurt and always protect. The woman I killed and drained of life in a fit, tasting every drop of her. The woman I now hold dead in my arms.