Chapter Text
The world bled.
Crimson clouds bled across the sky, eclipsing the stars and casting a fleeting, ephemeral maroon glow upon the moon before they shifted once more to obscure it completely. Gales of frigid air ripped across the land, tearing through flesh and fabric without discrimination and leveling buildings in a single icy blast. Grass instantly withered and died, shriveling to nothing and leaving only ashy residue in its wake. Once-fertile soil cracked and withered, turning from lush peat to wrinkled brown in the blink of an eye. As the sky grew red and angry, the ground wept tears of mud and blood, gaping chasms cracking open as rivers of rusty red welled up from below to sweep across barren fields and spill down slopes to meet with frothing rivers. What livestock remained spooked and fled, stampeding across the barren waste of land and often as not falling prey to the rampant rendering of the earth.
Above it all raged a vicious storm, forks of jagged lightning wailing down to blast the scorched earth, rending trees in two and igniting fire across the ruined earth as the clouds wept scarlet tears. The massive castle rose high amidst it all, a silent silhouette against the bloody sky. It sat amid a field of ruin, the surrounding land scorched for miles beyond the horizon, blackened soil and burned out skeletal trees eerily still against the raging gale.
Windows sat darkened, doors sealed shut, and even the constant, whirring hum of the engine deep within the bowels of the structure was muted. Silence hung heavy across the entire land, the world stagnant and muffled against the overwhelming agony and wrenching rage, the sorrow and regret and stabbing, blistering, gnawing sense of absolute and utter loss emanating from the being enclosed within.
Dracula sat unmoving, back stiff against the straight back of his chair, hands clenching the arms so tightly that his clawlike nails gouged chunks out of the wood. He had not moved from this position in the two days following his return to the castle--following Lisa’s death. His fury had powered him long enough to initiate the muster of his army, then all of the emotions he had repressed had begun to burn, consuming him from the inside out until he could do nothing more than sink slowly into the chair in his study and watch the wood in the hearth turn to ash.
Despite his near-perfect posture, his head hung low, bowed in uncharacteristic submission as a horde of emotions played within burning eyes that sat within his otherwise-stony face. Those eyes were completely consumed by blood-red and black, any trace of white long eclipsed by the brilliant, bloody flame. Dracula stared desolately into the fire crackling in the hearth, the image of Lisa’s burning body flickering before him with every dancing tongue of flame and upturned log. Screams echoed in his ears, horrible, pained shrieks that took what little humanity he had left and shredded it, peeling back layer after layer of carefully constructed armor until his very soul was left exposed, red and raw and shivering beneath the accusation of a pair of piercing blue eyes.
He felt tired, worn down beyond anything he had experienced in his long life. The years spent alone prior to meeting Lisa seemed infinitesimal when compared to the few days that had passed since her demise, and now an eternity alone yawned before him, an endless cycle of loneliness overshadowed by the knowledge of all that he had lost.
This life was nothing without her to grace it, the humans less than worthless without her as their champion—little more than vermin to be exterminated in order to erase their pollution from this earth. Humans, who only believed in false teachings and fake magics, who turned on each other at the barest whisper of suggestion. Humans were worthless, vile pollutants, a plague upon this world.
She had been human, a treacherous voice whispered in his ear. She loved them, cared for them, would do anything for them. “And they killed her,” he snarled out loud. “She gave her life to them.”
He blinked furiously, eyes trailing tears of blood as he rose to the full extent of his towering height. Unseeing, he slammed a fist into the wall, punching through stone and sending tremors reverberating through the castle down to its sluggishly-beating heart. The pain of the impact was inconsequential, skin and bone knitting almost instantaneously after the impact. He roared, a wail of rage and fire and hopelessness that cut across the land, the storms outside seizing his pain and fury and expanding in a wave of ferocity.
He couldn’t—
Gone—
Teeth bared in a silent snarl, he spun and began mindlessly smashing everything in sight, toppling candelabras and vases, crushing furniture and paintings. Mindlessly, ferociously, he turned ancient tomes to shreds and ripped tapestries from their walls. Finally, chest heaving, he sank to his knees, the visceral, primal rage that had previously consumed him leeching from his body and leaving him hollow. He was truly empty, no spark of joy or even purpose to be dredged up from within his depths. No purpose of hope or life or joy remained to be seen in the blackness that now gripped his heart.
Lisa was gone, dead and burned and departed from this world.
He had not been there.
He. Had not. Been there.
She had been taken from him far before their time and he had not even been there to protect her, to care for her and save her as he had promised. The brightest spot of his long and lonely life, extinguished in an instant without giving him the chance to truly say goodbye. And he, with the unending life of the immortal he was, as close to all-powerful as any being that walked the earth, had no hope to truly join her.
Never before had his life felt so like a prison, the bars of eternity swinging shut before his hollow eyes.
Bracing one fist against the cold stone beneath his knees, he bowed his head, dark hair falling to frame his face. “Lisa,” he breathed softly. “Forgive me.” The plea was layered, grief pairing with absolute fury and a bloodthirsty drive for revenge, the burning, all-consuming rage welling up from endless reserves within him as it slowly devoured him from within. “Forgive me for failing you, for not being there when I was needed, for not doing my duty.” His eyes hardened, the faint traces of white that had returned slowly eclipsed by a crimson gleam. “Forgive me for what I am about to do. You might have loved them, but for what they did to you…they deserve to die.”
He stood, clenching his hands into fists at his sides, fangs bared. “They all deserve to die.”
There was nothing left in humanity, nothing to redeem them in his eyes. Even his son—his last connection to the human world, to her—lay slumbering in a healing trance, deep below the earth after attempting to intervene. Nothing would stop this.
The tempest outside picked up in fury as its master raged, loss and sorrow hollowing out into a fathomless void of enmity, violence, and resentment. It filled him to the brim, overshadowing Vlad, consuming the man who valued science and knowledge and creation—and love, his traitorous mind whispered—until only a burning shell remained.
One final, traitorous cry tore from his throat, a wail of sorrow that ripped through the castle and left him shaking, hollow, burning with feeling and overcome by too many emotions to name. As his scream died away, one by one he extinguished those lingering agonies, snuffed out all the burning little lights that had kept him tethered and sane. Vlad Tepes was done playing human, playing a man. Dracula would bring hell on Earth, and no one would be spared. He spun on his heel, putting the room and all of its memories behind him as he did, unheeding of the bloody tears streaking down his angular cheeks.
Dracula wept, and the world would weep with him.