Eternally, I Do

Chapter 14: Never-ending Nightmares

I backed away.

Trembling with fear.

“W-what have you done to me?” I squeezed my eyes shut, wrapping my arms around myself tightly. I was shivering with fear. I admit that. I mean, who wants to become a vampire? A creature of the night damned to eternal darkness? I don’t. “Turn me back, please.”

King Stefan’s expression softened and he reached out to me. I retreat back immediately, shaking my head furiously. He sighed and raked through his hair before saying in a soft voice, “All will be well in time.”

I jerked up, and said stiffly, “I didn’t ask for this.”

“You know what will happen and yet, you chose to stand under that tree,” he replied coolly, keeping his sly smirk.

Looking at his crooked smile and the vampire fangs his in his mouth, I felt sick. Husbands and wives… No. Every fiber in my body told me to run away from this stranger. Stay calm, I told myself. “Well,” I crossed my arms. “I married you. Now I want a divorce.”

“I frightened you,” he apologized and I looked away. “I am sorry. It was not my intent. Please give me another chance. I will be charming.” I scoffed and imagined him, a vampire, sinking his fangs into the neck of his prey, sucking the life force out of him, crimson red blood sliding down his chin. I shivered at the thought. King Stefan continued, “You are nothing I have ever known. You are brightness. You are light. You are fire. And I come from a world of ice and darkness.”

I was shocked. He looked as if he really meant it. No one had ever said that to me before. And that made me feel unbalanced. “Oh? Do you know what fire and ice make?”

King Stefan stared at me with his golden, amber eyes. “Tell me.”

“Lukewarm water,” I told him. “I want to go home.”

“No. I need you,” he pleaded. “You. I have waited an eternity for you. After all, I am not willing to let you go.” Then, like a predator, he started crawling towards me, each step he took, slow and painful.

My eyes widen and I finally gave in to terror, jumping out of the bed and bursting through the door. I didn’t look back, didn’t dared to. However, from the corner of my eye, I thought I saw King Stefan sat silently on the edge of the bed, a pained expression on his face as a single tear rolled down his cheek.

I gasped when I heard him whispered, “What have I done…”

~◊~

I ran and ran and ran. The only thought in my mind: Escape.

I need to get out of here, but for some reason, these hallways looked as if there was no end. As if time wasn’t an element here, eternity at its glory. There were no windows, only the void of a space trailed by a single red, velvet carpet. I kept running and as I went deeper, the narrow hallways widened into vast chambers linked together by corridors like beads on a string. Stone bridges hung over dizzying drops and from them, I thought I caught glimpses of eerie streets and buildings flecked with distant lantern lights.

I knew I was lost but I didn’t care. I pushed on until my lungs begged for oxygen and the muscles in my legs burned, wanting to run away from everything, the vampires, the king and everything else. It was a nightmare and I wanted to end it, to be torn away from the darkness once and for all. Everything has to have an end, nightmares and eternity. And I want this horrid dream to end, to wake up in my bed finding everything was just an illusion.

I wanted a normal life.

Tired and worn-out, I slumped my back against the hard, cold wall of the hallway. Shivering once more in the cold of the hallway, I knew there was no way out of here, so I sat down and tuck my hands under my arms and bit my lip. I pulled my knees close to my chest and let my head rest against them. I figure crying would be a reasonable thing to do right now, but my eyes remained dry. I’d hit a kind of emotional overload and I felt numb and listless.