The Vault
636 Words
He led me through corridors I didn’t recognize. Narrow halls of stone and candlelight, the air growing colder with every step. Our hands remained clasped, his grip firm but not cruel. The silence between us wasn’t empty—it vibrated with something unsaid. Something old.
We reached a door I never would have found on my own. Iron-bound, arched, marked with a strange sigil I couldn’t read. He pulled a key from beneath his shirt. A long, thin thing of blackened silver. When it slid into the lock, the door gave a deep, echoing groan.
Beyond it: darkness.
“Stay close to me,” he said, voice lower than before. Like the stone could hear him.
I didn’t ask questions. I just followed.
The passage was lit only by wall-mounted torches, their flames low and whispering. Dust clung to everything. The further we went, the more I felt it—the hum beneath my skin. A warning. A summoning. I wasn’t sure which.
At the end of the corridor, another door. Smaller. Wood, cracked but strong. This one opened without protest.
Inside was a room that smelled like history and blood.
The walls were lined with shelves—books, glass vials, boxes sealed with wax. But what drew my eyes was the object in the center of the room: a tall glass cabinet, illuminated from within by some unseen source. And inside it…
A dress.
Pale blue silk, aged by time but still beautiful. Stained at the throat.
I stepped toward it without thinking.
“She wore that,” Elias said, his voice behind me.
I turned to face him. “Who?”
“My wife.”
The words landed like a stone in my stomach.
“You were married?”
“A long time ago. Before I became what I am. She didn’t know. Not until it was too late.”
I swallowed, staring at the bloodstain. “You killed her.”
“No,” he said. “But I turned her. And she asked me to undo it.”
My heart clenched. “Can it be undone?”
“Not without death.”
Silence wrapped around us like smoke. Then I asked the question I already feared the answer to.
“Why did you bring me here?”
“Because I don’t want to lie to you.”
He stepped closer, slowly, watching me for any sign of fear. “Eliza, this… hunger inside me. It’s not just thirst. It’s tethered to emotion. When I want someone, truly want them, the urge becomes unbearable.”
“And you want me.”
He nodded once.
“I can feel it,” I said quietly. “Like it’s inside me too.”
“It is.”
I reached out and touched his chest, just above his heart. Cold, hard muscle. Barely a beat beneath.
“Then take what you need.”
His eyes darkened. “You don’t understand what you’re offering.”
“I do.”
He hesitated. One breath. Two. Then, slowly, he lowered his head to my neck. His lips brushed my skin.
When the bite came, it wasn’t pain.
It was release.
A gasp escaped me, my hands gripping his arms as he drank—not deeply, not greedily. Just enough. Enough to claim. Enough to bind. The room spun, and I felt like I was floating in fire and ice all at once.
When he pulled away, his lips were red. His eyes burning.
And mine—wet with something I didn’t understand.
“Eliza,” he whispered. “You don’t belong to this world anymore.”
“I don’t want to.”
He kissed me again, blood and breath and something like love between our lips.
In that moment, I knew:
Whatever I had been before…
was gone.
- Writer
