The train rocked beneath her, a steady, mechanical rhythm that might have been soothing if her mind weren't consumed with loss. Villages blurred past the window like watercolors, the green fields stretching endlessly, broken only by winding roads and occasional stone houses. Yet the outside world barely registered. Her attention was swallowed whole by the absence of him. Her dog. He had been her companion, her small shadow in the world, always present and faithful. Now he was gone. A single misstep on the stairs, a moment too late, and that presence was erased.
The words repeated themselves over and over in her mind, sharper than the cold glass pressed to her forehead: It's my fault. I should have been there. I should have locked him somewhere. I could have stopped it. Logic, she knew, would argue that accidents happened, that no one could be everywhere at once, that life was unfair but not cruel. But logic had no foothold in the raw, jagged corridors of grief. Her heart kept replaying the fall, the helpless scramble, the tiny life extinguished by a single stumble.
For a week she had existed in a fog, each day blending into the next with the slow, numbing tick of time. Her parents had tried, as they always did, to pull her out, to calm her, to restore some semblance of normalcy. But their concern felt like a pressure pressing down on her chest, suffocating and relentless. Their words, meant as comfort, became echoes that bounced off the walls of her mind, reverberating with a hollow weight. And then, beneath all that human emotion, there was a quieter, colder voice. Not spoken aloud, not even acknowledged, but always present: You don't belong here. They don't understand you. Leave.
She had never named it, never recognized it as anything separate from her grief or her mood. To her, it was just a faint, insistent edge to her sadness, a logical suggestion threaded through emotional chaos. Leave. Go. You'll be safer alone. She told herself it was just her thinking, that it was normal to want space in moments of grief. And yet the thought persisted, threaded through her internal narrative like a quiet river beneath the storm.
The train carried her forward, Victorian-style and impossibly long, filled mostly with vampires and a scattering of naves. The vampires were pale and sharp-featured, their movements precise, their eyes luminous even in the dim carriage light. They spoke rarely, and when they did, their voices were low and measured. The naves drifted like shadows, unnoticed, their presence almost entirely absorbed by the crowd around them. She had tried, in a gesture almost desperate, to offer a cookie to an elderly lady sitting opposite her. The woman didn't even glance up. She ignored her completely, as if she were a shadow herself. The refusal made her feel a hollow space open in her chest, widening the already unbearable absence left by the dog.
She pressed her hand to the cold glass, tracing the faint condensation as the train rattled along the tracks. The rhythm of motion against her skin was almost hypnotic, but it didn't soothe. Her mind jumped to the accident again, to the week of quiet misery afterward, to the arguments with her parents that had seemed, at the time, like earthquakes tearing through her small world. Each memory flickered, unbidden: her mother's concerned voice, her father's soft insistence that she eat, that she rest, that she try to be herself again. Every word felt like a tether she couldn't hold onto, every suggestion a subtle pressure urging her to conform to the shape of their care.
And the voice of the cold presence, unacknowledged but always there, whispered again: You don't belong here. You need to leave. You'll be freer, safer, if you go. It threaded through the fog of grief, guiding her attention subtly toward her planned journey. It was not a command, not yet. But it was a pull, and it grew stronger as the train approached the outer reaches of the vampire town.
The station rose ahead, sprawling and imposing, Gothic spires cutting into the gray sky. Her stomach knotted, a coil of nerves and anticipation. Two figures in black long coats moved among the crowd, scanning with meticulous precision until their eyes found her. The sudden focus made her chest tighten, a mix of nervousness and curiosity twisting inside her. She was aware, fleetingly, of the other passengers, but they seemed to fade into irrelevance compared to the piercing gaze of the two in black.
One of them stepped forward, holding a coat. It was long, black, precise. She blinked, startled, and then felt a flush creep across her cheeks. How did they know I wouldn't have brought warm clothes? Her internal monologue was laced with a mix of embarrassment and awe. The coat was heavy, unfamiliar, and the weight of it settled over her shoulders like a shield she hadn't realized she needed.
The sedan waiting outside the station was sleek and silent, gliding along streets lined with angular Gothic buildings that seemed to lean in and watch. Inside, she sat quietly, lost in thought. The car radio murmured news reports — stories of murders, deaths, small tragedies magnified into headlines. They pressed against her mind, overlapping with her grief until the air inside her skull seemed thick and suffocating.
Then the knight spoke, tall and commanding beside her, his voice cutting through the fog: "How did your dog die?"
Her chest clenched. A stab of surprise, a moment of vulnerability. She hadn't told anyone outside her parents, hadn't even thought of talking about it. Words formed before she could stop them: she spoke of the fall, the helpless scramble, the guilt she had carried for a week. Her voice trembled in parts, but each word that left her lips felt like a small release, a weight being shifted from her chest.
"And his age?" he asked.
"Seventeen," she replied softly.
"Ah… that explains it. Old dogs stumble. It wasn't your fault," he said. The relief that washed through her was subtle, almost dizzying. Not freedom, not closure, but a sliver of weight removed. Speaking aloud had lightened the burden, even if only slightly.
The mansion loomed ahead, enormous and imposing, Gothic spires cutting into the low-hanging clouds. As the sedan stopped at the gate, two guards bowed to the knight. She reflexively began to bow as well, but he laughed softly, stopping her. Relax. It's not required. The warmth of that laugh made her muscles relax, a small human connection in the midst of alien formality.
Inside, the mansion was more than architecture; it was a spectacle of shadow and light, corridors twisting, ceilings impossibly high, candles flickering in iron sconces, casting dancing patterns across carved wood and stone. The butler appeared, silent and precise, leading her through the labyrinth of rooms. She walked, absorbed, mesmerized, every detail a new story, every shadow a hint of something both frightening and enchanting. She was fascinated, almost forgetting the grief that clung to her, lost in the spectacle of this strange, magnificent place.
Finally, she reached her room. The door opened onto a space vast and welcoming, dominated by a bed that seemed enormous, soft, and inviting. She collapsed onto it, letting the comfort engulf her, feeling the tension leave her body, thread by thread. Sleep called to her with a gentle insistence, and she surrendered to it. Her thoughts of grief, guilt, and absence faded into a muted haze. Only the weight of the bed, the vastness of the room, and a faint sense of relief remained. Somewhere, faint and persistent, the cold presence lingered, observing, waiting, but for now, she drifted into the first peaceful sleep she had known since the fall.
The journey had been long, lined with grief and shadow, yet it had brought her here, to this place of awe and isolation. And as the night wrapped around the mansion, she slept, unaware of the subtle battles that had begun within her mind, battles that would shape her path in ways she could not yet imagine