The Nocturnal

Chapter 1

       

With eyes as dark as the night surrounding him, he watched; waiting. Waiting for the perfect moment, trying to time his every move. He has waited too long to mess this up. He only has one chance to get this right. If he is to early or to late, everything he has worked for will be wasted.

“I could just kill the girl,” he thought to himself. Standing inside the boundaries of the forest shrouded in darkness, he watched. In front of him, on a small grassy knoll, sits a young couple. Sitting romantically beneath the full moon. The brightness of the moon is almost too much for his dark eyes.

All the sounds of the wilderness are silent, as if his presence overpowers them. Even the wildlife have cause to fear him, and why shouldn’t they? He is death. A monster, in capable of anything but killing, or so myth says. He would’ve made his move already, but he was told specifically not to harm the girl.

“I’ve waited over a century,” he thought, “what’s another few minutes going to hurt.” He grows increasingly impatient. It sickens him listening to the couple babble on, about love and life. Everything he had to give up. And shortly neither of them will have it either. From his place in the forests he can feel the heartbeats of the couple. The rhythmic ba-dum ba-dum, draws him in. Its like music to his hears, it surrounds him, engulfs him. Causes the fire in his throat to swell. He can clearly pinpoint the artery in the mans neck, almost bulging with blood. It tempts him, to ruin the plan and just feed on them both. He can almost taste the familiar warmth gush into his mouth the sweet trickle down his throat. Instead of attacking then and there, he forces himself to turn away. His hands clenched in fists. He is stronger than this, and he knows it. In all his years he has never let the hunger take control. He must remain patient, the seer told him specifically what he had to do.

     He recalls the meeting he had with seer. In all his years he had never known a woman as beautiful as she. If only she had not been placed in that damned book, binding her being to its enchanted pages. She would’ve made a wonderful queen. Her flowing blonde hair, almost the color of the suns rays. Her skin, as white as cream, yet her cheeks was always the rosiest shade of pink. He remembers the feel of her skin as he ran his hands along the side of her face. He longs to look into her blue eyes, vast and open like the deepest oceans of the world.

    “He is the one.” She whispered ever so lightly into his ear, as he held onto her that one last time. He knows he will never see her again. His time as King is coming to an end. He feels his own face in the darkness, the face of a leader, his high cheek bones and chiseled jaw. He has been around for centuries and yet he is still the same young man he always was. When he was alive, he wasn’t royalty. He was a mere peasant, in a land as far away as the sun. He was a servant for some Duke. He thinks to his past, of how ill treated he was. Now all that is left of those men is dust. Yet he is here, and untouched. Time has stopped for him. It stopped the day he met Count Lillitue.

          It was ages ago, in the land across the sea. A land filled with castles and Kings. Viktor had never been outside the castle walls before. He had never known any life besides that of Edenburg. He never really had a need to leave. He was born to a very large, very poor family. He had seven brothers and two sisters. His parents never had much to begin with, and even less with all the children to feed and care for. His father farmed land for another man, and his mother would clean for the Duke, when she was needed. Viktor never got a chance to go to school, by the time he was able to work, he was sent to the fields to help his father sow and harvest. That was to be his life, he would never go to school, never amount to anything other than a farm boy.