Castle | Ghost & König ✓

06 | monster

The dining hall looked the same as it did earlier today when I encountered Count Ghost here, and when we had discussed "The Last Supper" by da Vinci. I passed the flickering candles on the elongated table and went into the archway to the kitchen. The kitchen itself was very grand, but generic. I see that the residents of this castle do not care much for frivolous cooking or family dinners.

I passed the counter and headed to a boxy wooden-like structure, which I identified as an ice-box — of course Ghost would own one, he and his wealth. When I lived at the cottage on the moors with my family, I had to fetch pails of water from the river down the hill myself, boil it to purify it, and then wait for it to cool before I would serve it to myself and my family.

A little awestruck, I opened the icebox and fetched a container of what I assumed to be water, and then scavenged for a glass. Stepping on my tiptoes, I opened a cabinet and peered inside. There were glasses, but they were on the top shelf. I reached as far as my small wingspan would take me, but I simply could not reach the glass.

Frustrated, I stepped back staring in annoyance at the cabinet, as if it had hurt me personally. In my frustration and extreme focus on the cabinet, I hardly noticed when a singular glass on the top shelf began to quiver and move inch by inch forward.

I only broke out of my trance when it came plummeting to the ground, and, miraculously and instinctively, I yelped and ducked forward to catch the glass in my hands. Mouth open, I looked at the glass and then the cabinet, and knew somehow that I had made this happen.

A little shaken, but not entirely surprised, I refrained from questioning anything from my sheer exhaustion and walked back over to the counter with the glass in hand, setting it softly down, as if afraid I would break it into a million pieces. I then grabbed the container of water, and tilted it so that it would pour.

Only a droplet had made it into the cup when I heard a loud thrashing sound, as if someone had collapsed onto the wall in front of me dividing me from the dining hall. I gasped quietly, and set the container back down, going to investigate.

I only made a few steps before another, similar sound commenced, and I halted, my heart pounding and my blood running cold. I stood in silence, listening to my own thin inhales and exhales, and waiting for something to jump out at me — surely if I had some sort of magical power, I could defend myself.

But out of the archway strolled a young man my age, of extreme height with long scraggly dirt-blond hair and pale, sickly skin. His clothes were clean and new and casual, his face gentle and confused, as if amazed he was to see me.

"Jezebel," he groaned, and my brows furrowed. He was not asking my name, he was saying it, as if greeting me. But he sounded very tired, his voice very hoarse, as if he had never spoke before.

"Yes?" I said cautiously, but kindly, and as I came to a gradual conclusion, my guard began to be let down ever so slightly.

I looked up to his face. His eyes were sunken and tired, but puppy-like and gentle. His irises were a striking green, his lashes long and very visible when he took the occasional slow blink. His body seemed to twitch a little, as if feeling his own fingers and toes for the first time ever.

He met my gaze, and was focused on me, but I could see his eyes desiring to look elsewhere, to observe other things, to take in the world around him. Had he never been outside? His demeanor was suggesting to me that he had never encountered another person at all.

"My name," he said slowly. "Is-"

"Are you Dr. Price's son?" I asked, my English accent sounding more prominent in the echoey chamber. I could not wait any longer. I needed to at least confirm this was not a stranger, that it was someone I could put a title on, so I could feel a little bit more safe.

He nodded, and then his eyes drifted over the the container on the counter, and my cup, with a single droplet in it. His gaze took seconds to reach its destination. I looked slowly over too, and then realized that the liquid in the cup was not water at all, but some sort of richly dark crimson substance.

"Do not drink that," he said hoarsely. "He put it there on purpose. The room.—" he gestured his limp arm outward, "—Dark. On purpose."

I backed away, gradually deeming this stranger even more insane than his father — or, should I say, his creator. When Dr. Price claimed he had created life to me, and when I had heard the banging in the wooden coffin-like structure, even when I read a little of the Frankenstein book, I knew that the "man" in front of me was not even human. He was man-made. Created. I do not know how, or why the Lord would allow such a monstrosity to be created in the first place. With this thought, my faith began to dwindle.

"Who is he?" I said, voice wavering. "And why... why the devil would a person put... this... for their guest to drink out in the open?" I thought at first glance that it was wine, but then as I looked further, I knew that it was not.

It was blood.

"The Count," he said weakly. "He wanted you to consume it. To change you, then sire."

"What does that word mean?" I demanded.

He opened his mouth, closed it like a dumb fish, and then opened it again. "I don't know."

"How do you not know?"

"This is my first day," he said oddly. "First day here. I tried to come out yesterday, but the Doctor said I wasn't ready yet."

"What?" I said in disbelief. This could not be happening. This was just more of my dream, surely. "Then how.." If he didn't know what it meant, why would he use that word in the first place?

"Doctor put certain knowledge in my mind," he tapped his noggin, "he gave me the capability to learn, but I do not know what everything means just yet. Just the basics."

"Why would you use that word then?" I was so hellbent on discovering what it meant. I knew something was odd about Count Ghost, but nothing makes sense right now. All that I know is that the creature in front of me is not human, and that I am somehow supernatural like my father, and I also know that Ghost is too.

"The Doctor must have put the word in there for a reason," he shrugged.

Before there could be any more of an exchange, I felt a prickly sensation run up my sine, a warningly sharp stabbing pain on the back of my neck. Something was near. Intuitively, I could feel it.

I was so confused, more confused than I ever had been in my life, but I knew somehow that this creature was not a threat to me. I just knew that I needed to get back up to my room immediately and lock the door. I was in danger. From something... someone else. I needed to protect myself.

I looked at the monster in front of me, who, as I observed him, was probably the most beautiful young man I had ever encountered in my life. If his skin and eyes and face were all artificial, if his soul was not real, if his brain was man-made, created and tuned and tweaked and pricked and prodded at in a laboratory... It didn't matter; he was gorgeous, and he did not intend to hurt me, I knew that somehow.

I looked at his body, which was covered in clothing, and then looked at his neck. Staples. A cut all round his neck, mended by large, messy staples. I felt sick. I felt pity for the boy. But I needed to leave him for now.

"What is your name?" I said hurriedly, already beginning to depart.

"König," he said bashfully.

Odd. A German name. I nodded, shivered a little, and then mustered a friendly smile, "well, it's... it's very nice to meet you. I must get back to bed now. I am certain you understand."

He nodded in response, dumbfounded and staring blankly at me, engrossed in me, and I looked back and forth from his puppy-eyes to the exit, and pulled up my white nightgown and left.