The Vampire's Mortal Bride

Cursed be I

It was a strange ordeal, to be cursed as a vampire, but also to be cursed with a love I could cherish, but never really have. At the moment of my creation, I had been only a street boy, no more than eighteen, yet my apprentice suggested I was in my early twenties. I was, and still am, of a bigger build, tall in stature, and I have been told that my gaze send ice into their veins. Surprisingly enough, that last one was before I knew what the insides of they're veins tasted like, from when I was still mortal myself. 

But, alas it was when I fell for the daughter of a powerful witch during my youth that the curses came to be mine. Let me explain, Cecelia was a wonderful person, and she bewitched me without the use of any magic. That was an easy task to do since she had no powers, unlike her mother. She was a simple girl, finding her way around the small village by touch, and hearing alone. Cecelia was blind, she had been since birth, yet her eyes were so clear, and hypnotic; I swore she had some for of magic locked away in them. 

Her lack of vision never steered me away from her, her personality, and conversation were too inviting for me not to return to her. She would stay out for the majority of the night with me, doing small tasks such as her knitting, not needing a light to know her work. 

We would sit and talk for hours into the early hours of the day, that was until I could see the colors of the morning sun coming over the forest. That was when we would say our goodbyes until the next night. She never once tired from out meeting of late night chatter, but it was when we grew to be more romantic, that was when her mother became suspicious of me, the boy who stayed with her throughout the entirety of the day while she went to town on errands, as well as staying to keep her company all night. 

She confronted me on several occasions, accusing me of a number of things that were false, saying I was a thief. or a liar. She never passed up an opportunity to tell me how she hated me, or to voice her thoughts of me to her daughter. At this time I could sense she was trying her hardest to keep something hidden from me, I now know that was the fact that she practiced witchcraft. Fearing I would tell the village of her secret if I found out, she tried to run me off, fearing that not only her life, but her daughter's life was at risk as well. 

It was the night that I asked Cecelia's mother for her daughter's hand in marriage, fully well ahead of time knowing my most certain answer of rejection, and disapproval from her. I entered the small dwelling with hopes of a near impossible feat. 

I was not expecting for Cecelia to bring me home at a time where she herself did not know what was going on inside her own household, for she usually always knew what happened at every minute. But that night it was different, her mother had invited her coven of witches over for a ritual. 

Inside the small hovel stood about twelve witches including Cecelia's mother, dressed in black hoods so as to cover they're faces from each other out of fear that one would tell on the other of they're crimes of witchcraft if given the inclination to do so.  And there I stood, with the woman I wanted to marry, in the doorway. Feeling every one of they're eyes dart onto me, I couldn't help but feel a set that burned into my soul. 

"Him, he's the one I've been speaking of! Trying to take my daughter from me, ruin us. And now look at him, he's seen all of us here tonight, under this roof, and soon he'll tell the whole village of us, and they'll kill every last one of us in this coven! And then as if that wasn't enough, my daughter will be without a mother, without a home, and then she'll perish as well. I tell you he'll kill us all." Her voice an angry whisper as she tried not to sound off with every fiber of her being. 

I looked down at Cecelia, who was about a foot shorter than I, and saw a look of pure confusion and horror on her face. Yet, she didn't dare speak a word to her mother, or to I. She clung to me, as I could feel the fears growing inside of her petite form. 

"What shall we do to him, kill him?" 

"Cut out his tongue, and feed it to the ravens?" 

"I know, gather round ladies." With a swipe of a hand, the door slammed shut and barred itself behind us. For a moment they spoke among themselves. Then actions were set into motion, and my last moments as a mortal would be spend in horror, and in a terrible death that I would never see the end of. 

Somewhere over the sounds of chanting as they drew closer to me, I could hear Cecelia crying out that she was scared. Her mother comforting her as she apologized to her daughter, trying to explain that it would be over soon, and that this was the only way things would be better. 

She faced me finally, wielding the curse that I would wander the earth forever as a living corpse feeding myself of the stolen blood of others around me. Be doomed by the purest of light, from which it would destroy me to dust, and ash. To have silver hate me, thus never letting me see my own face. The curse of a vampire was handed to me, and as I crumbled to their feet, she wielded another one. 

This time as fangs formed in my mouth, and my heart rate came to a painful close. She condemned me to forever fall for the soul of a witch's daughter, my Cecelia would always be mine, though i would never have her, to hold her, or to touch her. I would never be able to marry her, thus she would always be cursed to die before the date in which the event would transpire. 

A curse for not only myself, but for the woman I loved. 

But it was when I took my last breath, and that my immorality began was when I felt the hunger. My vision went black, and more a moment I thought myself to have gone blind. But it was only when I awoke from this trance that I found the scene. Twelve women dead, they're blood splattered across the room, and walls. But, the most horrifying sight I have ever seen and will ever see. Was the still warm corpse that rested in my arms, a look of terror still on her face. My Cecelia, I had killed her in my thirst for blood, my first feeding had been a revenge of the ones who had cursed me, but also the damning fact that I killed the woman I loved in my damned state of monstrosity. 

In my state of shock, and disgust with myself I sobbed over her. I pleaded with every higher power I could think of or name, wishing that this was a dream. That even if I was now a murder who no longer deserved life or anything from this world, I begged for her to be returned to me, for if I didn't have her in my waking life, then I would much more like to join her in death. 

It was only after that I had said it did I realize I already had joined her. I had no more heart beat, my blood no longer moved, and there I was a thief of their blood to fuel my own dead form. It was then that I realized I would have to live with my curse, wait till I found her again, but she could be born anywhere in the world, and my hopes seemed all but lost. 

But there in what seemed like my darkest hour a breeze came from nowhere, a book that had been thrown to the floor in my craze, now showed a page that gave me hope. 

Once I read it, it told me of the secret I now fallow. 

"Wherever a life ends, it is there it shall start again in a new one."