Bloody roses

1: Rebirth

The full moon shone brightly, illuminating a deserted landscape. Only a small cottage atop a hill signalised there were living beings nearby. Well, not exactly living, undead.
On the window, a girl with bright white hair tied neatly in a bun can be found, stargazing. Her face was void of any trace of emotion, her blood red eyes reflecting but emptiness. The girl was thin, her skin almost ghostly pale. She wore a Victorian black dress, resembling a woman in grief returning from a funeral, lacking any kind of jewellery even though she carried herself like a queen. One could almost think she herself was but a corpse with how still she was being.
Then, a deep voice broke the silence and destroyed the spell that had seemed to bewitch the girl. “Lacrimă, time for dinner!” She felt sick to her stomach.
The voice originated from a man wearing a suit that was, too, fitting for a funeral. His long black hair was tied back in a ponytail, and his eyes were darker than the girl’s blood red orbs. They seemed more brown than red.
“Yes, father.”
The girl stood up and went to another room. This one was small as well, not as small as the room she had been in before, which had only consisted of the window and a tiny bed, but still small. In it was a table made from dark wood. Covered with numerous burn marks and tiny to big dents, it gave the impression it had seen better days. Standing atop it, there were just two dirty wine glasses filled with a thick red liquid. To the untrained eye, it appeared to be cheap red wine. But what was its true nature? Blood, taken from innocent deers in the last moments of their pitiful lifes by a merciless predator.
Pale fingers wrapped around the glasses. The man took a sip instantly, while the girl just swirled hers in shaking hands, eyes fixed on it with disgust. Not a word was uttered when the girl blankly stared up at the man and him meeting her gaze in the same manner. This silence, however, was not as peaceful as it had been before.
Then, suddenly, it got interrupted by a harsh knocking at the door. The man jerked, dropping his glass. His gaze was clouded by fear, panic.
"Lacrimă, hide! I’ll open”, he ordered.
Lacrimă pushed back her shoulders. She was not going to back down this time. “But-” she started, only to be interrupted: “No buts.” This was final, an order demanding obedience. Still, in a last attempt to rebel, she stayed in the room, refusing to obey and hide.
The second the black door opened a mere inch, the man’s chest, and his heart with it, got impaled by a spear. “So we finally meet again, Mihnea Draculesti. So sad your story has to end here. In this world, monsters like you can and will not be tolerated. Plus, I really need the bounty set on you. I’m rich!” Mihnea did not let himself get provoked. Instead, he chose to devote the last moments of his life to the one person he had spent the most beautiful moments of his life with. His lips twisted into a smile, the first in decades and the last for eternity.
“Father..”
Then, his body grew limp.
A female scream pierced the silence. “Father!” The man who had thrown the spear and his companions turned around to see Lacrimă looking at her father’s body, terror apparent in  her expression.
Yet the men remained unfazed by her shock. In fact, they even seemed pleased.
“Another Draculesti! You all know what that means, don’t you?”
“Double the bounty, fellow hunters!”
Though they were the only humans in the cottage, their words and thoughts were anything but humane. Ironic, considering the ‘monster’ they were after was acting more like a human than the self-declared protectors of the species.
A sharp pain spread in Lacrimă’s mouth. She screamed in pain. It felt like her teeth were being ripped out brutally.
And yet, she had never felt better.
Finally, and way too soon, the pain ceased, and she could finally feel what had happened. Her human-like teeth had grown into fangs. These new fangs were yearning, begging for her to pierce them into flesh. Human flesh. And they desired, craved the blood flowing underneath.
The hunters circled the girl in, pointing their spears at her. That moment, she had no choice but to let her instincts take over.
Lacrimă dodged half a dozen spears before grabbing the hunter closest to her and pouncing on him. It all went so fast. The man couldn’t even scream before her fangs had pierced his neck and drained him of all blood. A twisted way of revenge, malice against the simple loss of control. Her world went blurry as she, barely conscious, attacked the hunters until there was nothing left of them except a pile of bloodless corpses.

Inmidst of them stood a woman. Her bright white hair glowed in the moonlight as it came undone from the confinement of the bun. Her bloody eyes were shining with euphoria. From her chin, liquid trickled down, turning the formerly white roses blood on the ground crimson. Her simple dress had ripped on multiple places. Her body was shaking as much as it had during the excuse of dinner. Though, the cause was entirely different.
Finally, she felt alive.