what a wicked thing to do (make me dream of you)

Untitled Part 1

///

You were once all soft and laughter. There are days when you catch a brief flash of your older brother smiling or younger sister running through the fields, and you wish you could join them. You were once Mircalla, but she died a long time ago. There are days you wish she had stayed dead.

///

You were your father's favorite child. You look like your mother but you were your father's daughter. He taught you how to use a sword and how to speak different languages fluently, both your mother would've never approved of. "Mircalla," he used to say, "there is nothing I am prouder of than you."

You're glad he can't see the murderous mess you are now.

///

You had a long time to think when you are buried under all that dirt and blood and sorrow. You thought of Ell and your family and all the languages you hoped you wouldn't forget and all the happiness you once felt.

You cried and cried and tried to escape, breathe fresh air and not air that smelled like blood and your sins.

After a while, you just gave up. You laid in your coffin and stopped thinking. You think you went mad down there. You probably did.

///

Laura unties you from the chair and you stand up slowly. Nine days tied in the same position was unforgiving. You're riddled with sore muscles and a bruised ego.

"I'm sorry, Carmilla. I had no idea."

"It's fine, cupcake." You whisper and slowly move toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Laura is standing right behind you, hand raised and hovering over your back.

"Out." You slam the door behind you. She's seen you more vulnerable than you had been for years, she didn't need to see you even more broken.

///

You find yourself standing at the edge of the roof, holding an almost empty bottle of vodka. You don't remember how you got here; the last thing you remember was finding bottle of vodka and another bottle of gin in Maman's office.

You stare at the ground, which is so far away from you, and want to jump. You have before, you jumped a nine-story building in 1965. You didn't die (you were already dead), which came as such a disappointment; you wanted nothing more than death.

The notion of death doesn't scare you, it never did. How can you be frightened of something that can't affect you anymore?

You take a deep breathe and start crying. You step off the edge and bend over into yourself. Your sobbing now, and you've never been more angry at yourself for showing such weakness. Placing the alcohol on the ground, you sit next to it with your back against the wall, knees bent upward with you arms wrapped around your legs. You rock back and forth, sobbing for all the things you have lost. You haven't cried this hard in over one hundred and thirty years.

///

You stay like that for a long time, you don't know how long. You stretch out your legs and take another swig of vodka. Your eyes still sting a bit and your breathes hitch every once and a while.

Sometimes, when you are a mess and there is tears and snot running down your face and you want nothing more than your death (if you could really die), your family is what you think of. It always makes you cry harder because you had lost them, you didn't die with them and there's nothing you miss more in the world than your family.

///

Laura finds you, your back resting against the wall of the roof, bottle in hand, head lolled to the side, red eyes staring at the roof concrete. You know you look very, very sad.

She doesn't say anything, just walks slowly over to you and sits down next to you. You hand her the bottle and she takes a drink from it, a very heavy swig seeing as there is practically no vodka left.

You two sit together in silence for a while. She is looking at the stars and you are looking at her because the stars have always been there and always will, but she might not and you're so drunk and she's so beautiful.

///

"Carmilla", she whispers, "What are you doing up here?"

You stay silent; there aren't enough words to describe everything you've ever felt and this situation is very, very complicated. "Carm, I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault, cupcake." You take a small sip from the bottle and look up to the sky and close your eyes. Laura doesn't say anything after that. She doesn't push for answers, and in all your lifetimes you have never met someone like her. The silence stretches on, so long that by the time you do speak, your eyes are dry and your breathing normally. "I was going to jump."

She jumps a bit, either from your words or the sudden noise. She looks at you, and even though she still never says anything, you can see that she's pleading for you to continue. "I was going to jump off the roof. I..." You trail off, there's not much you think you can say.

"Do you...do you want to die?"

"Sometimes. Not as much anymore, but, yeah, sometimes I get bad again."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"But I can't help but think it is. You a centuries old bad ass vampire and never showed any emotions, which probably isn't a good thing, but after I tied you up and made fun of your past you were all sad and it was a compl-"

"Laura." She stops mid sentence, breathing heavily and teary eyed. You had watched her the whole time and she's so ridiculous, thinking that you wanting to die was her fault. You don't know what to say, so you shake your head and she nods slightly.

///

"How do you kill a vampire, anyway?"

"I don't know." You answer honestly. You don't know how a vampire dies but you know how they can't, you've tried (stabbing, hanging, bullets, poison, drowning, jumping, burning). The second time you say, "I don't know", it comes out as a whisper, like something so lost and broken, and she just looks through you and you know she knows you've tried dying for a while.

///

She gets up and pulls you with her. You leave the bottle behind and she walks you back to the dorm, catching you when you stumble over. She helps you get into your bed and hands you the yellow pillow. You take it and curl into it, it's soft like you once were and so bright that you know you're out of the coffin when you wake up in the dark and see it.

She turns off the lights and you can hear her getting into her bed. It's quiet and you just about to fall asleep when you hear her whisper, "Goodnight, Carmilla."