It was the darkest day of autumn. The wind was cold, several degrees below zero, frost covering Hell’s floor. The trees hovered over me, throwing their shadows at me, silent specters sent from the vegetation. Then something caught my eye. A reflection of the moon, shimmering on the surface of a pool of blood. Human blood. So, the myths were true. I was in danger, worse danger than in my most abominable nightmares. There was a rustle of leaves. The hair on the back of my neck tingled. I was being watched. Then, I slowly turned around to face my certain doom.
“Welcome to Hell’s Forest.”
The first thing that struck me was the odor. The man smelled like a dead corpse that had died a really long time ago. There was mist around his feet, reaching almost to his visible knees under ripped, black pants. It was slowly spreading toward me, like a predator who knew there was no escape for his prey. He had such a cold smile, a shiver went up my back. His teeth were positioned in several rows, and they were deadly sharp, like a shark’s. But the thing that scared me the most, was the blood in them. It was the same one as the one in the floor. His ears were pointy, and there were abnormally many hairs on his face and on top of his hands.
He spread his hands in a welcoming gesture, but his expression read otherwise.
I should get out of here, I thought. There was one word to describe the man. Alien. But something stopped me from running away. This man was a threat, and he couldn’t be free, slaughtering people and drinking their blood. The villagers had to know. And if I tried running away now, well, something told me this man was faster than he looked. I didn’t stand a chance. I promised to myself that when I got out of this mess I would come back to fix it. For the villager’s. For the safety of this country. And most of all, for the son of the king, who had gone missing, and I knew, it had something to do with the man, the thing in front of me. Then I thought about the pool of blood in the forest’s floor, that might be the prince’s… I shook the thought out of my head. I couldn’t afford to think like that. It would get me killed. Then, the monster in front of me brought me back to reality.
“Who are you?” it asked.
I didn’t know how to answer. My tongue felt as heavy as lead.
“Are you from the castle?”
More silence. Then, I nodded slowly.
His eyes flashed, a grin spread across his face.
“You are to go to the castle, get the king, and bring him to me. At all costs.”
Then the pieces of the puzzle clicked together.
“The other man,” I started, “the peasant who disappeared too, you sent him to fetch the king’s son for you? Didn’t you?”
He nodded, a big smile on his face.
“You’re good,” he told me, “you’re smart, you will help me much indeed. As for the peasant, I turn out to be quite cunning, I can make people do what I tell them to sometimes…”
“I think I know who you are. I’ve heard storytellers talk about you.”
“Really? Who am I then?”
“Well, it’s just a legend.”
“All legends come from facts, although they are sometimes distorted.”
“So then, you’re Dracula.”
“As I said, all legends come from facts. I am not Dracula, but his origin.”
“Vladimir?”
“Call me Vlad.”
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