Vampire Residence

I

London, 1347.

In the dead of night, London's streets were empty. Silent. Every door and shutter in the city was closed, tightly shut, in an attempt to prevent the plague from entering. Behind one such door was a young woman called Eleanor, slowly succumbing to the effects of the plague.

She coughed. Her body was weak, her skin pale and clammy. The plague was doing its work, and thoroughly, too. She shivered under her thin blanket, though her temperature remained feverish. As she lay there in the dark, she heard a faint sound, a gentle tapping on her window.

A quiet gasp. A cough wracked her frail frame once more.

At the window stood a tall, slender figure, watching her silently. The figure's face was hidden by a cloth mask, and the black cloak it wore was made of a fine material, the fabric falling perfectly around her shoulders. It was almost as though it was made specifically for the shadow to wear.

For a long moment, it continued to stare through the glass. Then, the figure raised its slender hand and lightly touched the tips of her fingers to the window.

Just as she had done the previous night.

And the one before.

And nearly every other night since the plague had begun to spread.

Eleanor coughed weakly, her body shuddering with the force of it. She pulled the thin blanket closer around her, attempting to fight off the chill that was setting into her bones.

As she looked up at the figure in her window, she could barely make out the dark cloak and mask that concealed its identity. It was the same figure that had appeared outside her window in the previous nights.

A hallucination, she had always assumed.

Eleanor's mind was foggy with fever, the plague taking its toll on her already weakened body.

She blinked sluggishly, trying to focus on the figure before her. The mask covering its face was dark, the cloth blending into the night's shadows. She wasn't sure if what she was seeing was real or a figment of her feverish imagination. Another coughing fit wracked her body, leaving her breathless and weak. When she glanced up again, the figure was gone.

Eleanor let out a soft, shaky breath, her head falling back onto the pillow. Her body was too weak to sit up, and every movement caused a wave of pain to wash over her. She closed her eyes and tried to calm her fevered mind, shaken by the sight of the woman in the night. She seemed to always appear after dark when her mind was playing tricks on her.

As the night progressed, time had become a blur. Her fever did not break, and her body continued to ache and shiver. She drifted in and out of consciousness, her mind wandering through fever dreams, when suddenly she felt the distinct sensation of someone watching her. Her eyes snapped open, and she squinted through the darkness. The figure was back at her window. The dark cloak billowed around its slender frame, the mask still obscuring any trace of a face. It stood there, calmly observing her.

Eleanor couldn't help but stare back, her breath catching in her throat. Despite the intense fear that the plague had instilled in her, there was something about the figure that drew her in. Its presence, while ominous, also held a strange sense of familiarity. She wondered if she should call out to the figure. Was it real, or just another hallucination brought on by her illness? The uncertainty added a layer of fear to her already nightmarish reality.

As the figure continued to watch her, Eleanor slowly became aware that it was different this time. The figure's hand was pressed against the window, slender fingers splayed against the cool glass.