Chapter 07: A Wry Revelation
The fuck is this?
Lucien, who had just come back to his senses—or rather, 'woken' up from his long dream—stared, dazed, at the scene before him.
His vision swam, darkness creeping at the edges as his pupils struggled to adjust to the dim light.
A cold sweat broke across his forehead, trickling down his temple as he blinked rapidly, trying to dispel the lingering fog from his consciousness.
Horrified, he tried to make sense of what he saw. Up until now, all he had seen were bodies—no, corpses.
Under the silver moonlight streaming through the breathtaking expanse of stained glass panels overhead, carnage unfolded before him in grotesque clarity.
Fractured beams of colored light—crimson, amber, and midnight blue—painted the massacre in an otherworldly glow, casting murderous shadows that seemed to writhe with a life of their own.
The metallic scent of blood filled the entire space, thick and cloying, coating the back of his throat with each desperate breath.
The people Lucien initially thought were artists—or perhaps just film props—now lay on the ground in a gruesome tableau.
Their limbs were splayed at impossible angles across the mahogany floor, which now gleamed wetly in the moonlight.
Some had blood dripping from wounds scattered across their bodies; the liquid pooling beneath them, black in the half-light, reflecting the mechanical birds perched on the chandelier above.
Others looked like dried husks, their skin pulled taut across their frames like parchment, eyes sunken into hollowed sockets.
Most of them were twitching, fingers curling and uncurling spasmodically, like zombies from movies he had watched.
This dream… Lucien thought inwardly, his heart hammering against his ribs like a trapped animal—or at least it should have been. Instead, it felt strangely empty, yet the sensation lingered all the same.
It was too real! The coppery tang in his mouth, the weight in his stomach, the distinct feeling of fabric between his teeth—these weren't the sensations of dreams.
Had they started filming the next scene? Why was he—why were all of them—involved in such a dream? His breath came in short, sharp bursts that echoed softly in the cavernous space.
Just as Lucien pondered this, a sudden twitch—a pulse—traveled through him, starting in his gut and radiating outward to his fingertips.
His spine arched involuntarily, shoulders hunching as the sensation rippled through him.
It was a warmth, not like the heat from a stove but more like the gentle warmth of the morning sun, spreading into his mouth where something heavy rested.
For some reason, his vision seemed to narrow, tunneling until all he could see was what lay directly before him, forcing his eyes wide as realization dawned like a terrible sunrise—
"BLEH!" A heavy thud echoed through the foyer as a body hit the ground, bouncing once against the hard floor before settling into stillness.
The sound reverberated off the vaulted ceiling, setting the mechanical birds to trembling on their perches.
Lucien, suddenly aware that his mouth was holding—no, suspending—a body, finally let go.
The taste lingered—copper and salt and something indefinably human. He gagged, nearly vomiting, his whole body convulsing as he doubled over.
His fingers clawed at his tongue, scraping desperately as if to remove the memory of the texture.
"A body? How could this be? Am I really dreaming?" Lucien's nose scrunched in disgust, his lips curling upward as he grumbled, his voice barely audible over the pounding of blood in his ears.
His fingernails dug crescents into his palms as he forced himself to look down at whatever he had been chewing—or whatever had been stuck in his mouth.
"This… this is that woman…" he muttered, his voice a ragged whisper that barely carried over the soft creaking of the mansion's ancient bones.
His trembling fingers pressed against his lips as recognition flooded through him, clearly remembering the two beautiful women he had first seen when he arrived—or 'experienced'—this 'dream.'
The young woman who had just fallen from his mouth was wearing a gown—deep blue and silver, now tattered—clinging to her withered frame like a shroud.
Once magnificent, the garment now hung in ragged tatters, exposing yellowed bone where flesh had receded.
The elegant fabric was ripped open along her arms and sides, revealing glimpses of a ribcage that rose too prominently beneath skin that no longer fit its contents.
Blood—her own—had soaked the delicate layers, leaving ghostly stains across what remained of the silk and linen.
But what Lucien noticed in detail was her skin: as he remembered, it had once been lively with a faint golden warmth, radiant even in the dim light of the foyer when he'd first laid eyes on her.
Now it had withered to a pallid, almost parchment-like hue, stretched tight around her cheekbones and fingers like a grotesque mask. Even her nails had turned a sickly blue-grey, curling slightly as if trying to grasp at life itself.
There was a hollowness to her features, as though something vital had been extracted from within.
Lucien's gaze darted, focusing on the fine lines of dehydration that marred her neck, tracing patterns like dried riverbeds across her flesh.
Confronted with her condition—with so many others sprawled on the ground in the same state, and especially the sight of a butler-like corpse riddled with holes that leaked not blood but something darker against the polished floor—Lucien felt his entire worldview crumble.
Reality itself seemed to warp around him, the mansion's grand architecture suddenly alien and threatening as the chandelier cast dancing shadows across the carnage.
His chest rose and fell rapidly with cold sweat; his thoughts began to spin like the mechanical birds overhead, their jeweled eyes seeming to follow his every move.
Cold sweat poured down his face, beading on his upper lip and stinging his eyes until he vomited, the spasm taking him by surprise.
"BLEH!" The sound tore from his throat, echoing against the high ceiling as one of the stained glass panels shifted, sending a shaft of moonlight directly across the gruesome scene.
His arms trembled uncontrollably as he staggered toward the wall for support, bending forward. His fingernails scraped against the ornate wallpaper, tearing small crescents in the faded pattern as he fought to remain upright.
Eyes hazy, vision swimming in and out of focus, he looked at the corpse again and tried to vomit once more.
The first retch brought only a gush of blood, which he didn't notice at first—his senses overwhelmed by the convulsions wracking his body.
But as he tried a second time, he froze, staring at what he had just expelled.
The crimson puddle at his feet seemed unnaturally bright against the dark wood floor, spreading in a perfect circle that mirrored the full moon visible through the stained glass above.
"What the fuck? Blood?" His eyes widened until the whites were visible all around, his pupils contracting to pinpricks of terror.
His mouth worked silently for a moment, tongue pressed against teeth that suddenly felt foreign in his mouth.
His mind grew more confused as reality and nightmare collapsed into each other, indistinguishable. His fingers, sticky with blood, trembled before his face as he tried to comprehend what was happening.
A dream that you can feel...
A dream you can hear...
A dream you can smell...
Can this still be called a dream?!
Fear rising like floodwater, Lucien's hands began to tremble with such violence that his fingers blurred before his eyes.
The moonlight filtering through the stained glass ceiling cast prismatic patterns across his pallid skin, making the blood—not his own—appear almost black against his trembling knuckles.
The thought of becoming a monster—hunted by humans, unable to enjoy a normal life, perhaps living eternally in shadow—crept into his mind like a poisonous fog, clouding all rational thought. His throat constricted painfully as the reality sank deeper with each passing moment.
Yes, he wanted to live, but... "Not like this!" he snarled, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth.
The sound echoed unnaturally loud in his own ears, as if his senses had been heightened beyond human capability.
Suddenly, he felt a strange sensation—something protruding from his mouth, pressing against his lower lip with unnatural pressure.
With shaking fingers, he reached up, flinching as his fingertips made contact with sharp points where normal canines should be.
He looked down at his reflection in a pool of blood on the floor to see his fangs, lengthened and jutting out like those of a predator.
At this point, he slumped to the floor, the strength draining from his limbs as if someone had pulled a plug.
His back slid down the ornate wallpaper, leaving a smear of blood in its wake. His head knocked against the wainscoting with a hollow thud as he settled, legs splayed before him like broken puppet limbs.
He sat there, resting his back against the wall, gazing absentmindedly at the carnage before him.
No matter how he tried to interpret this, it was almost certainly not a dream.
The shocking truth was... he was likely still alive, but for some reason had become a creature that killed everyone here, draining them of their essence until they crumpled like discarded skins.
"If not, then how could all of this have happened before my eyes?" His voice came out different now—deeper, resonant, with a slight metallic edge that made the dust particles dance in the air before him.
This time, calmer—though the calm was that of shock rather than acceptance—he began to analyze the situation.
Let's count from the start, once again—what is happening now?
First, at midnight, he awoke to find his tongue already stiff, like leather left too long in the sun.
He remembered the peculiar sensation of it filling his mouth, foreign and unwieldy.
After that, he noticed his chest was no longer rising and falling, as if he couldn't breathe—and that was how he died.
But for some reason after that, he awoke again, this time in an old, lavish, abandoned manor, surrounded by two beautiful women he thought were actors, and the rest of the people dressed as maids and butlers.
He assumed they were shooting a film and that he was just a prop or an extra, positioned carefully among the elaborate set pieces.
But then, he had thought all of that was just a dream, because his last memory was of dying. Lucien's brows furrowed deeply as he pondered inwardly, the skin between them creasing into deep furrows.
Using the wall for support, he pushed himself up, legs still unsteady beneath him like a newborn colt's.
Standing now and looking at the corpses before him, he noticed details he'd missed before—a pocket watch still ticking in a butler's waistcoat, a maid's hand frozen in the act of reaching for something, the slight rise and fall of one victim's chest, proving they weren't all completely dead yet.
After that... because he thought he was dreaming, he tried to sleep—only to find memories suddenly flooding into his mind like a broken dam.
The bite… the growl, the roar… While he 'slept,' all these memories slowly flooded back into his mind, not as distant recollections but as visceral sensations that made his newly sharpened teeth ache.
He remembered how he bit, the initial resistance of flesh before his fangs pierced soft skin with terrifying ease, like a needle through silk.
He recalled how warm blood flowed into his body—coppery, sweet, impossibly rich—filling him with a terrible vitality that made his dead heart flutter.
The sound of screams, agony, and hopelessness echoed in his ears now, phantom sounds that made him press his lips together in guilt, his jaw clenching so tightly that a muscle jumped beneath his pallid skin.
A hot, burning sensation—like blinding light—had ripped through his body, making him feel as if he were screaming in agony, though no sound had escaped his lips.
The memory of that searing pain made him flinch physically, his shoulders hunching as if to ward off a blow.
It had originated from one of the beautiful women now collapsed amid the wreckage of the chamber—the one whose elegant form lay twisted near the base of the grand staircase, her arm outstretched as if reaching for salvation that never came.
Shreds of her gown—satin torn open over her shoulders—revealed the high-collared dress of deep blue and silver she wore, now ripped and flecked with blood that appeared almost black in the moonlight.
Just like the first woman he'd dropped from his mouth, this beautiful lady lay unconscious, her long, pale hair spilled in tangled waves across her face and shoulders like water over stone.
The ivory strands were matted with crimson where the vampire's fangs—his fangs—had savagely pressed into her neck, leaving two perfect punctures that stood stark against her flesh.
Her skin had faded to a nearly translucent pallor, faint blue veins stark against a complexion that had turned ghostly and slack.
Holy light… church… The fragments of memory came with physical sensations—a searing across his skin, a tightness in his chest as if bands of iron were constricting his lungs.
He remembered cowering, hissing, his newfound instincts driving him away from something his human mind couldn't quite recall.
This time, as Lucien slowly pieced his memories together like a gruesome jigsaw puzzle, he began to understand what was happening to him. Each revelation fell into place with awful clarity, building toward a truth he could no longer deny.
Then, another memory came: the butler, pierced by the giant chandelier.
Lucien's gaze drifted upward to the chandelier hanging in the center of the room, its brass arms now bent at unnatural angles.
Bloodstains and torn clothing clung to it like macabre decorations, darkening the metal that once gleamed proudly.
His eyes followed a trail of destruction down to where the butler—whom he remembered fighting, remembered kicking it with inhuman strength—now lay on the ground, riddled with holes where the chandelier's spikes had impaled him.
And after that, a conclusion formed.
"I'm the vampire," he uttered—not with joy, but with deep sadness, even guilt, as he surveyed the carnage before him.