(UNTITLED for now)
A short gothic tale in 2 parts -
Prologue - Sunset (or The Unheeded Prophecy)
Cassandra
Kiernan
Epilogue - Sunrise (or The Prophecy Fulfilled)
Prologue - Sunset (or The Unheeded Prophecy)
As the Sun and Moon are forever trapped in their cycle, so are light and dark, day and night, life and death. Death must give way to life, and life ultimately ends in death...
Most of the living are destined for only so many thousands of sunrises and sunsets - yet there are some, locked in eternity, who never see their lifetime's worth of either. Instead, the sunset marks their resurrection, and the sunrise marks their untimely, timeless death. They are destined to walk through their nights forever alone, never to see the warmth of the sun - for the light, which brings life to so many, brings them only true death.
The destinies of the living and these undead must not cross.
Such was the unheeded prophecy, that if one of the undead should seek the companionship of the living - then both must be separated by death's wing...
Part 1 - Cassandra
Why must the Sun die every sunset only so it may be reborn again the next morning?
It is my daily ritual to watch the sun in loneliness through the small window, as the luminous shpere sinks slowly toward the inevitable horizon. I am a small creature that watches and listens, yet prowls silently, unheard and unseen by others. My eyes reflect even the tiniest glimmer of light - yet they never open the window of my soul to others. Creatures of the day will not understand. The Sun, being a creature of the day, being the creator of the day, does not understand. It only understands that every day it must die.
Only the one who dies during the daylight hours understands me - another creature of the night.
I watch the Sun anxiously, waiting patiently for the comforting nightfall. I listen intently as the day drowns in its own light of crimson blood. Meanwhile I pass the ticking moments by grooming my feline fur, smoothing it to a healthy shimmer.
Finally, the silence of sunset gives way to the silence of twilight, and I look back through a high-arching hall at a darkened room - a crypt full of many yet-unlit candles to celebrate the night. The creature now rising from his secluded grave-box has much in common with me. I had been waiting the entire day for this moment - when he would lift the lid of his coffin, rise like a phoenix of the night, and light a single candle so I could see his face.
The dim candlelight dances now in his translucent eyes - the eyes of Kiernan, my deathly-pale creature of the night. I fix my feline gaze on him as he stands tall beside his coffin, straightening the noble velvet of his dark outfit, its gothic colour of night contrasting with the inhuman whiteness of his skin. He looks about the crypt, and finally his statuesque features spring into life as he notices me - the small, black creature sitting patientlly before him on the marble floor. If Death could smile, it would certainly be upon seeing a black cat such as myself.
Kiernan is indeed one of Death's own familiars, like I am his. In my presence he has no qualms about revealing the sharpness of his fangs in his smile - for he knows that I have fangs of my own. The lustre of his flowing hair, the black velvet of his aristocratic outfit both mirror the feel of my own warm, exquisite fur. His poise, his steps are both graceful and silent, fluidly feline like mine. His eyes glimmer with ancient mystery, as mine glow with secrets of my own - and each lives guarding them. Only the unnatural paleness of his face, the cool touch of his skin - unmistakable marks of the grave he sleeps in during the day - set him apart from the living warmth of my own small body. I require the flesh of smaller creatures to survive - whereas he must sustain himself with the blood of creatures who are just like what he was once.
I will often bring him the rats I find roaming about this old building, if I notice his skin become whiter than what is normal for him. I leave the little prey unconscious in his crypt, at the foot of his coffin, warm and waiting for him to rise, for the moment when they become tiny, shrivelled sacrifices for the sake of his strength. Yet he has never shared his prey with me.
He holds a lit candle now, its amber flame glinting in both our inhuman eyes. Approaching me, the strange warmth of his low voice fills the room. "Cassandra," he calls me as he scoops me up in his arms - holding me awkwardly with one arm, and thee candle in another. "Tell me what I missed during the day."
Of course, he knows I can say nothing, though I know I could speak volumes if only I could. Although the truth is, I could not tell him very much about the day - I spend most of the daylight hours in blissful sleep in a dark nook somewhere, on a windowsill where the sun warms my black fur if I am cold. Even though he does not know this, sometimes I even enter his crypt during the day, and curl up, burying my tiny nose in the fur of my tail, and doze on the lid of his shut coffin. However, he must have no idea - after all, during the day, he is dead and unaware.
How strange it is to be held by a vampire - with none of the human pet-names, none of the human warmth, and yet all the caring of a fellow night creature. Kiernan never calls me anything but by name, there is none of the human sugary-sweet high-pitch in his voice. There is only the affection of an equal.
Through an arching hallway we enter a more high-ceilinged, larger room, adorned with comfortable furniture (used by me to sleep on during the day) and paintings of faraway lands. "Meow" is, regretfully, all I can say when Kiernan finally lets me off onto a couch, and sets the candle into a niche after lighting some others. I bask in the glow of the comfortable amber illumination, which fills the room. The painted eyes of people on canvas seem to stare at the candles, almost wanting to reach out of the rectangular world of their frames - almost. Yet those eyes are colder, more inanimate, far more dead than even Kiernan's. Habitually tilting my head and perking my ears, I watch the tiny flames as Kiernan exits, then just as silently reappears with a small bowl, which he sets before me on the floor.
I leap down, leaving the couch, and lap up the delicious white liquid from the bowl. It is cold as the bowl, but a treat all the same. Strange, that a vampire has no use for milk, yet still keeps a bowl in a locked ground-niche always full of it for me.
He watches me, chuckling when I, having finished, leap back up onto the couch. Petting my head, he sets the empty bowl away. I notice the paleness of his hands, recall the absolute coldness of the bowl of milk he had brought me, and realize that he has not fed for some time. He confirms my suspicion with a chuckle: "Ah, Cassandra, you might not be hungry, but I am. Care to escort me outside? Your prey awaits you, and mine - me."
"Mreow," I confirm. He need not ask - it is our custom to escort each other to the outside gate, where we go our separate ways to hunt. Hopping off the couch, I leave a shadow my living warmth on it again. I follow Kiernan through the house to the door, after he has carefully put out the candles one by one. Looking back through the window, I realize that the sun's last glow has died away, and specks of light in the darkening sky are being lit one by one.
The two of us, both creatures of the night, blend in with it perfectly. I fill the role of the sharp-clawed, dagger-toothed, mysteriously wild figment of a small imagination like a missing puzzle-piece. Kiernan, instead, gives the night its mysteriously romantic aura, yet not without the sense of adventurous danger. I smooth my fur, so that it will not impede me as I trot lightly alongside the vampire, whose dark stylish cape he entrusts to the light breeze. He walks at a slower pace than his long legs are accustomed to, so that I might keep up with him, and I feel a string of guilt being tugged - I know he must drink, but is not letting his preternatural bloodthirst drive him to move quicker, because of a smaller creature accompanying him. I can move quite quickly, why is he accommodating me like this?
We reach the outside gateway, and I slink under its old, cast-iron designs, while he simply opens the gate. I notice a moonlit smirk on his face as the gate protests by creaking - the shrill sound singes the hearing, but reminds any humans that might be in the area that this house has an eerie, haunted reputation. During the day it is seen silent, abandoned and empty except for the occasional sighting of a black cat on the property, but during the night there are stories of candles in the windows being lit by ghosts, tales of howling spirits and shape-shifters. I prowl the villages nearby, and hear all sorts of versions of explanations for our existence being told to scare the children - one of which even gives me the ''glamorous" role of a witch's familiar! If the situation allows, I enjoy adding dramatic effect to these stories by appearing at the windows of village houses, my reflective eyes aglow from the light inside. The human kittens squeal from fear and delight - but then I meow just like a common, hungry cat, and villagers let the "poor lost kitty" into their homes. They offer me food and the warmth of their fireplaces, and I offer them a natural explanation for my residence at ''the witch house", thereby keeping the curious children away. These otherwise imaginative people suspect nothing of vampires - they believe that creatures like my Kiernan live only in cemeteries, not houses like most civilized people. All the better.
Fragments of these stories, though excessively imaginative, do not attract my attention long enough to listen to them all. There is only one tale that I had stayed to hear until the end - an old legend about the undead choosing living companions, and being separated by Death...
Beyond the gate, my and Kiernan's paths usually separate - I stay around the wooded property hunting for small rodents, whereas he takes off on the wings of night, using his preternatural vampire speed to carry him to his haunts, furthering suspicions of ghosts in the area.
However, this time I am not so hungry for mouse meat, and so decide to test my speed and silence, and follow Kiernan on the hunt. After all, though it is summer and the nights are short, the dark hours have only begun, and there is time before the resurrection of the Sun.
The world changes each night, and I never know what lies beyond the gate - happiness or anguish, food or hunger, pride or regret. I only know that I will not lose sight of the tall, cloaked figure of the vampire ahead.
TO BE CONTINUED.......