After Dark ( Kylo Ren x reader Vampire AU)

Chapter 1 : Angor Nocturnus

 As far as you could remember, you had always been terrified of the night. When you were little, you had terrible nightmares. You would cry and toss in your sleep, fighting something that you didn't remember when the morning came. Maze, your foster mother, had spent countless sleepless nights by your bed : holding your hand, caressing your hair and whispering comforting words in an attempt to calm you. And yet, she couldn't wake you up, she couldn't save you from whatever horrible things your mind was showing you. You always remained trapped in the cage of your own mind, a prisoner of a nightmare you couldn't escape until the sun came up. She had taken you to various doctors, worried about your health . All of them talked about « night terrors » or « sleep terrors », a form of parasomnia that is quite common for children, especially those who have had traumatic experiences in the past. According to them, those « episodes » of screaming and crying while still asleep, weren't concerning as they would disappear when you got older.

Maze was not completely satisfied by their answers. Deep down, she knew there was more to it.  The old woman had deep knowledge of the occulte arts. She could read the future in the leaves of her teacup. She could seek powers in the magic stones that were in her family for generations. But, first and foremost, she knew about creatures that lurked in the dark and about their « ties » with us. She knew about the old tale, like her mother before her, of the vampyrs and of their empire of ghosts and shadows. Sometimes, she managed to understand some of the things you said when you talked in your sleep and it was bloodcurdling. You spoke in the old tongue of the dark lords about " a moonless night" and about the "love of a master that never dies". One night, she decided that she would  protect you from all of the violence and the darkness that lied beyond the veil of the "invisible world". She made you a little bracelet of amethysts, infused with white magic and powerful spells of defense. After that, your nightmare slowly faded, and she smirked when she imagined the frustration of the "master" that could no longer enter your mind. But, as hard as she tried, she couldn't ignore the lingering fear that she had when you were out of her sight. After all, if she was right, it would ultimately come for you.

You had no memories of those « nightmares » , yet, the fear of falling asleep never completely went away. It was as if your body remembered more than your mind did. When you laid in bed, you always felt anxious. Through the years, you had found little tricks to help you, like leaving a light on, as if a small lamp on your beside table was all it took to protect you from all the shadows that lurked. Spread on your bed, hands pressed against your beating heart, you counted each pulse until your eyes closed in exhaustion.

These days, night time was even more frightening. Maze bolted the doors of the house every evening when you came back and closed every curtain of every window. No one was crazy enough to wander in the streets after dark, unless they wanted to die a gruesome death. It had all started two weeks ago when two girls had been found dead, bitten and drained of their blood on the parking lot of your college campus. People said that they had strange drawings engraved on the pale skin of their chest. It was shocking and scary but, back then, everyone remained composed. Classes continued, nobody hurried to go home at night and daily life went on. Yet, other people died after that and things escalated. Each week, new corpses were discovered in the same horrifying circumstances : deep bite marks on their bodies, not a drop of blood left in their veins, cryptic symbols on their chest.

People in  town started to panic. They eyed each other every day, wandering who would be next. Some said it was a serial killer, others, caught up in their imagination, talked about vampires and demons with teary eyes and a strangled voice. « We are all going to die », they endlessly repeated and it felt more and more and it sounded like an omen to their feeble minds. Police investigations seemed to go nowhere. There wasn't any fingerprints, footprints or any traces of the killer on the crime scenes. The victims didn't know each other and weren't really similar, except for their gender. Officers, forced to patrol around the town at night, were as terrified as everyone for the most part. You saw them when you looked outside your window during one of your sleepless nights. They kept their hand on their service weapon and walked fast by the avenues, preferably the one that were lit. They had also been sent in the forest nearby to look for traces of an animal, but « what beast would draw pentagrams in the flesh of their prey ? », you always wondered.