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Strange things had been happening in the kingdom of Enchancia.
It all started weeks ago when bats were seen flitting about the streets of the village of Dunwiddie- a sight not at all common in Enchancia.
Soon afterwards a few people started to fall ill, plagued with some sort of terrible blood loss and all bearing matching puncture wounds, similar to that of a bite from an animal.
The best doctor in the village was fetched for these victims, and yet despite their best efforts, many of the victims died merely days after first taking sick.
The first of these deaths was the son of the baker, who was only a boy. What made these events even odder and frankly mythical in nature was the story that the mother of the boy tells which she swears to be true.
She insists that one night, while drawing water near a secluded river area on the edge of town, the mother saw her boy, alive and moving only as the living can move, near the river.
Except she swears he wasn’t her boy, not really.
She swears on all that was good and beautiful in Enchancia that although he carried the same form as her beloved young son, he had morphed into something else entirely-- something demonic and malicious.
Some villagers mocked her tall tale, of course, and some took it very gravely. Either way, they could all tell something was coming to Enchancia, and what they didn’t realize was that it was something more frightening and powerful than they had ever witnessed before.
…
Echancia was a kingdom so vibrant and full of life during the day that it was a wonder one did not constantly have a headache from the constant sunlight and barrage of saturated colors daily.
During the night it was not as harshly cheerful, but no less comforting and harmless. A typical night at the castle in Enchancia was rather romantic.
The hedges in the castle gardens shimmered nightly as the rotund, merry moon dappled each individual leaf with silvery light, the clouds up above were light and dreamy like a floating feather and hardly ever obscured the celestial objects hung in the sky with them.
The castle itself was always aglow with a warm light that made it look like an illustration from a fairytale book.
One common scene found at Enchancia’s castle at night was the sight of the kingdom’s royal sorcerer, Cedric, gazing out his window very late after a long day’s work.
He would nestle on the small bay window at the very top of his ancient stone tower and simply stare at the night sky. It was often a great source of comfort for him.
Perhaps the darkness and quiet of the night provided some sort of blanket of peace for his weary mind, or maybe staring at the stars and the vast cosmos from his high place reminded him of how small he was in the grand scheme of things.
The latter sentiment should have been distressing to the sorcerer since he didn't like to be reminded of how insignificant he was. He had spent his entire life trying to prove he was anything but that.
But often times it was comforting to feel small and lost in the great weave of stars up above, like a speck floating in the grand emptiness of space.
However, recent events had made the night seem less comforting and peaceful. The stars seemed less like friends and more like cold, piercing daggers staring down at him.
He shifted in his position where he sat on his windowsill, drawing his robes closer to him. He felt colder these nights, now that you were gone.
You used to accompany him in his nearly nightly vigil of gazing at the stars before bed. He had grown quite used to your presence.
Cedric shook his head and drew the palms of his hands swiftly to his eyes before any tears could fall from them.
In one swift motion, he drew himself up from his sitting position and nearly slammed the rickety window closed. He could not even enjoy what used to bring him so much comfort now that you were dead.
He trudged around his sorcerer workshop with the walk of an undead man and languidly took in the familiar surroundings of his scattered potions, magic ingredients and beakers.
Before, they were a familiar and comforting sight, but now they were only painful reminders of his failure to save the one he loved most.
…
You, his love, were the first in the castle to fall prey to the illness that seemed to be picking out the villagers slowly.
Cedric slaved for every hour of every day in the few days that you were sick over his potions and cauldrons to find a cure.
He was no doctor, but he could tell even before the doctor attended you that this was no ordinary illness.
Some hours you would appear to be improving, then some hours you would look like the dead.
Strangest of all, you would have the most vivid and horrifying dreams, more appalling than any dream you had had in your life.
The visions featured monstrous, indescribable creatures with red eyes and sharp fangs coming after you.
Dreams of death and decay would foremost plague your dreams.
You would dream of clusters of white maggots infesting raw flesh and carcasses picked on by vultures and all manner of horrifying images that would make any mortal quake.
Yet despite all this, you described your feelings while watching these scenes as unaffected and unbothered, despite how much they bothered you during your waking hours as you feverishly described the scenes to a concerned Cedric.
Alas, these dreams must have been an omen of what was to come, for after three long days and nights of never leaving your side, your condition took a turn for the worst and one night Cedric found you had a pulse no longer.
The castle, of course, mourned the passing in unison. You were a beloved part in the castle life, courteous to everyone you met and with hardly any enemies.
The funeral was all that a good memorial should be, and yet there was the unshakeable feeling of unspoken dread amongst the attendees.
In the back of everyone’s minds were the events that had been transpiring in the village of Dunwidde below.
The fact that this illness had been spreading, and, even more uncertain and nightmare-like, was the story of the undead baker's son that was pervading every person’s thoughts.
King Roland of course was actively doing all he could do to remedy the slowly yet steadily growing epidemic.
He called all the best magic healers and medics from the Tri kingdom area and they were busily attending to the afflicted, or at least the ones who hadn’t succumbed to it completely yet.
However, they were left just as utterly frustrated as Cedric.
Cedric should have been right by the medics and cleric’s sides, as he was the royal sorcerer and was not a complete stranger to magical cures, but after your death merely days ago, he felt his motivation drain from his body, leaving him limp and frail like you were before your demise.
With this attitude he settled into his bed that was near the window he had just closed up. He drew his blanket over him, almost to his eyes, wishing to meld with the dark space under his covers and not have to deal with life and its cruel realities.
He hadn't had any dreams since you'd passed, but maybe tonight he would meet with you again in his dreams.
Cedric’s world was finally becoming quiet as he was edging into another restless and dreamless sleep when he felt something like a sort of presence in the room with him.
He kept his fetal position for a moment, determined not to move a hair and remain in the comfort of his covers, but something inside him tugged at him to look.
So, wearily but warily, he turned his head to look at the window which was streaming bright moonlight into the room.
He saw something that made his heart immediately stop in his chest.
It is never good to find oneself in the presence of an unfamiliar figure with them in their bedroom at night.
And this is the situation Cedric thought he had found himself in until, upon closer inspection, Cedric’s bleary eyes discerned that the figure was you.
He stiffened as he took in the figure he knew so well. He sat up in his bed and choked out your name. You turned your head and whispered.
“Cedric?”
With his eyes starting to blur with tears already, he flung the covers off of him and rushed around the end of his bed to meet you, stopping feet in front of you suddenly.
Wait… this was impossible. After all, you had died several days prior.
“Wh- what-“ Cedric swallowed thickly. “H-how are you still alive?”
“Never mind that, darling. All that matters is that I am here now.”
You stretched your arms out, signaling for an embrace. The moonlight streamed behind you, shrouding your familiar features in darkness, but outlining your form in a ghostly halo.
Perhaps you were a spirit come back from the dead and he had gone insane after losing you, Cedric mused.
'Ah well there’s no use in explanations then, this is a hallucination after all.'
Cedric felt his shocked face soften as he took a step forward to receive your arms. However, he stiffened once again soon as he drew close enough to take in your features.
In the dark from his bed it was impossible to see your face fully, but here, just an arms length away, he could see that you were not yourself.
Not the you he knew.
Over the past few days he had been thinking about nothing but you.
He thought about how beautiful he found you to be at first glance, the twinkle in your eyes as you talked with him for the first time, the heavenly smiles you exchanged with him when you two were first in love.
He thought much of the time you two had spent together, though it was so brief, and how you two had grown inseparable.
He even thought over the ugly parts of your relationship, like your quarrels over his plans to overthrow the king and rule the kingdom himself.
Oh how he wished he could go back and not have spent precious time fighting over now trivial things.
And though it pained him to remember you like this, he thought much of how you were just before you died.
How could he help from remembering such a cruel sight when your usual warm, loving smile was ripped from your face and replaced with such twisted, gaunt anguish?
All this to say, Cedric knew your face well, and he knew for certain something was off about the face he beheld before him now.
Your warm, welcoming smile was twisted into a curious, minuscule grin that grew the more he stared at you.
Your twinkling, glee-filled eyes were now harder looking than he had ever seen them. And was that a red glint in them..?
“What is wrong, my love?” You asked and he glimpsed horrifying sharp fangs flash out of your small grin as you spoke.
It was as if someone else was wearing your face--as if--some animal had possessed your body.
“Who…. Who are you?” Cedric drew away from you with wariness.
You tilted your head with unnatural, languid grace to the side.
“Whatever do you mean? Cedric, it’s me, don’t you recognize me?”
You started making your way towards him slowly, arms outstretched.
You were speaking in a tone sweeter than any he had ever heard from you, but as he was no stranger to using insincere tones himself, Cedric could easily decipher it’s disingenuous intent.
Yet it was not at all similar to that drippingly obsequious and sarcastic tone Cedric often found himself using in the presence of the royals and their children when they called upon him, rather it was a tone whose dulcid, utterly hollow nature made him shudder to his core.
As you slowly advanced towards him, he stumbled back to get away from you, but while doing so, tripped and fell on his behind.
As he fumbled to get up off the floor, he recognized the clothing you were wearing. It was the same apparel you had been buried in days prior. Then it dawned on him.
So the rumors about the baker’s son were true.
Cedric drew himself up with as much courage as he could muster. He faced the creature that achingly resembled you and steeled his face as hard as he could muster at the moment.
“Leave here at once.” He ordered. “I do not know how you have risen from the dead or what your purpose is, all I know is you are not the one I used to know and I must ask you to leave me in peace.”
Cedric watched, on edge, as your previous overly-sweet and soothing persona slipped a little, your eyes briefly glinting with bright red light and your grand grin down turning slightly in disdain.
As quickly as they had cracked, though, your features melded back into their sickly sweet and predatory look.
“Ceddykins…”
Cedric flinched at the use of the nickname you had always used when joking with him, now so blatantly tossed around by the undead in front of him.
“Why must we fight? I have recovered from my illness and come back for you and this is how I am welcomed?”
There was that soft, sweet yet bone-chilling voice again. It put the sorcerer on edge yet somehow put him in a trance as well.
You swiftly and fluidly closed the gap between him and you and drew your hand up to meet his cheek, brushing the back of your hand and knuckles suavely against his face.
Cedric’s first reaction was to melt into your touch, but he quickly snapped out of it once he felt the chill of your hand. He pushed you away from him and ran to the side of his bed where his nightstand stood.
His shove left you reeling, as it was much more forceful than you expected.
When you focused your gaze on him again, Cedric was standing on the opposite corner of the room, holding with both hands his wand that he had retrieved from his nightstand. He was pointing it determinedly at you.
“Take one step towards me and you will regret it.”
Despite Cedric’s arms shaking, he delivered his line with fiery confidence.
Seeing that this was not going to be easy, you started getting annoyed. Your sickeningly sweet demeanor dropped and you put your hand on your hip tersely, staring back at the sorcerer who was now on defense.
“Alright, you got me. I did rise from the dead.” Your voice was now flatter and rougher like a wolf’s growl.
You sigh, closing your eyes and pausing. You look back up at Cedric, giving him a smile that was meant to be reassuring.
“But I’m still the same person you knew. In fact, I’m better now, better than ever before.”
“I am powerful and free.”
Cedric peered at you with doubt from across the dim bedroom.
“I can ride the moonbeams, I can transform into a bat, I have the strength of an ox…”
You take a stray beaker that was carelessly strewn on the floor in your hand and crush it effortlessly, its thick shards piercing your hand.
You wince and Cedric lets out a strangled gasp from this display, but does not waver from his defensive stance.
“But best of all…” You glide towards him, holding out your punctured hand for him to see.
“…is that I am immortal.”
He tensed as you drew closer, but his arms and shoulders started to falter as he watched you pick the shards from the beaker out of your hand and the resulting gashes started to heal themselves.
He looked up from your hand to your face then back to your hand and slowly back to your face. His arms were now drawn close to him, but he still grasped the wand in his hands, although in your eyes, he looked more like a child does when it clings to a teddy bear after a bad dream.
“Merlin’s mushrooms…” He whispered out of instinct, his eyes still fixed on your swiftly healing hand.
His face snapped to meet yours once again.
“B-b-but how?” He sputtered. “That’s impossible! Even the best sorcerers couldn’t conjure a spell for that.”
Shaking out the last of the shards from your hand, you turned towards the window and stopped in front of it, staring out the window and letting the moon rays hit you once again.
“The sickness that came over me was no sickness, darling. It was a transformation.”
You turned your head from looking at the night sky to look at Cedric, your eyes glinting as you spoke.
“You humans are saddled with everyday, mundane life and for what? The promise of a quiet, miserable death somewhere down the road?”
You laughed a breathy laugh that sounded too much like your laugh. It rang hollow on Cedric’s ears, giving him a sensation akin to hearing nails on a chalkboard.
“I was given the blood of the undead and it made me one of them. Now I am powerful and can live forever. And all it takes for me to keep on living…”
You paused and drew your red tongue wolfishly around your white, gleaming teeth.
“…is human blood.”
“Wha-“ Cedric’s large eyes blinked rapidly in shock at this revelation. “But that’s- that's inhumane. You’re a monster! A-a-a demon!”
You shrugged without feeling.
“Call me whatever you like, but it’s only nature. In order to keep on living, I feed like a wolf must feed from its prey, just like you must feed from plant or cow.”
“But feeding on humans?” Cedric protested. “That’s eating your own kind!”
“We are not human!” You started to raise your voice, causing Cedric to flinch.
"Humans are below us and serve to be nothing but sustenance so we, the more powerful beings, can keep on thriving."
Before Cedric could counter you, you brought yourself inhumanly quickly in front of him and drew his gloved hands into your bone chillingly cold ones.
“Cedric, darling…” You returned to your previous overly-sweet tone and Cedric shuddered at his name.
“Join us, I implore you. Join our ranks of the undead and you can have all the power you have always wanted, more powers than that silly amulet could ever grant you.”
Cedric’s wide eyes were stuck on yours, his mouth open and speechless.
He gazed at your hands clasped in his and thought.
Immortality, inhuman strength, shape shifting… those would certainly all make him exceedingly powerful.
He would gain the kind of power he had always wanted and finally be a revered sorcerer, maybe even a legendary one. A legend that would never die, in fact.
The air grew silent between you two as the emptiness of the night prevailed over the room.
You let him ponder a little longer before pressing further.
“You always said you wanted to rule the kingdom, and you can if you but join us!
In fact, it is our plan now to take over Enchancia and turn every human into one of us or one of our livestocks. We shall rule cruelly over this pathetic land!”
Your eyes glinted sharply at Cedric, whose head was turned away and was seriously contemplating gaining the immortality and power of his dreams.
Cedric then looked back at your eyes and was hit with the blood red glint of them. He looked at your smile once again and was reminded of your once familiar, beloved features now twisted so strangely as your teeth glinted in rows at him.
A sensation akin to a cold bucket of water being dumped over one’s head overtook Cedric.
He drew his hands quickly away from yours despite how much he had missed the way they fit perfectly into his own.
“It is true that I want to be powerful.” Cedric said quietly, looking away from your face.
“But I refuse to participate in any plot taking the lives of humans so carelessly.” He squared his shoulders as he said this, looking hard into your eyes.
"You may be resurrected, but it is clear to me that your soul has gone completely and I refuse to listen to such an irreverent imitation of the love of my life."
Cedric huffed and crossed his arms at this.
"The you that I knew-" Cedric swallowed hard as he remembered with regret.
"The you that I knew always encouraged good in me and I should have seen that you were right all along. I didn't need power to gain respect and love."
His large eyes looked at you in sorrowful regret, remembering someone who no longer existed.
“Urrrgh… Cedric…”
You growled and your features took on a much more animal-like, almost demonic look.
“I am the one you love, just more free and powerful. Don’t you see? You could be like me!”
You drew yourself up menacingly, deciding it was time to take what you wanted by force.
Cedric saw your advances and firmly and swiftly flicked his wand towards you, calling out a spell.
“Expelio!-“
He was cut off as you leaped onto the sorcerer, casting his wand aside with brute strength.
You grasped Cedric’s waist in one hand and clenched his hair in the other. Tilting his head to one side, you now had a clear view of his exposed neck. You narrowed in, stopping just above his jugular with salivating jaws.
As an undead that feeds on others, one new exhilarating thing you experienced was the smell of fear.
You drank in Cedric’s fear with relish. It was intoxicating and almost enough to make you remember how much you had loved him as a human. When you were capable of feeling any kind of love.
“Wh-what are you-“
Cedric gave a cry of fear and started to struggle against you pitifully. You found his flailing limbs to be a nuisance, so you drew back, still keeping one hand firmly on his waist and taking the other away from his scalp.
Cedric watched in wide-eyed fear as you traced one finger down his jawline and brought it to a halt at his chin. Taking his chin in your fingers, you looked him squarely in the eyes, deeply, deeply…
You could see your spell working as his frame relaxed in your grip and his wide eyes drooped and clouded, his expression now listless and dreamy.
Once you had decided he was fully in a trance, you closed in on the same spot on his neck as before and bit down hard, sinking your teeth deeper and deeper into his neck as you began to suck up his life force.
You felt the sorcerer’s frame stiffen and he started to utter some weak sounds of protest. The effects of your spell were evidently starting to waver a little after the shock of the bite, but you were locked onto the task at hand and nothing deterred you from consuming.
While you two were a couple, Cedric had often found himself weak in your arms, but this was entirely different.
It was an indescribable sensation, being drained of what kept him alive. It left him utterly and completely limp by the time you had decided you were satisfied.
Actually, you had wanted to drain him of every drop of blood he had since you hadn’t fed in a while and he wasn’t much of a meal in the first place with his skinny stature, but you had to leave him with some blood so he didn’t die immediately and would be able to undergo the transformation.
You unlatched your fangs from his neck and his thin frame at once collapsed to the floor.
You stood over him, a trail of his blood making its way down your chin. You wiped it away as you stared at his crumpled body. You stooped to his level swiftly.
Once you had kneeled on the floor, you took his head in your hands. You bit your lip hard and felt your cold blood flow freely from where your fang struck true. You drew Cedric’s mouth open, and leaning in deeper, let the blood from your lips drip into his mouth.
Cedric let out strangled, shallow gasps, the fear in his eyes dulling with every passing moment as he began to slip into unconsciousness, powerless to do anything.
Once you were sure he had swallowed enough of your blood, you let go of him.
Cedric let out a groan and finally passed out. You were surprised he hadn’t done so sooner.
You stood up with slow, unnatural grace and gazed down at the sorcerer.
The moonlight from the window streamed just onto his face, revealing his skin to be even paler than it was previously and shrouding the rest of his figure in darkness.
‘As an undead, he will be pale as the moon.’ You thought.
You grinned at yourself for a job well done at taking out a clumsy yet powerful sorcerer without a scratch.
And with that, you stepped into the moonlight yourself, stretching your arms out and feeling its ghostly rays on your face.
With Cedric’s fresh blood in you, you felt renewed and you dissolved into the moon rays to ride them back to your lair, eager to tell your master of a job well done.
…
In the morning, the little princess Sofia would visit Cedric and find the poor sorcerer still lying on the floor by his bedside, now stricken with the illness that had befallen his lover before.
He would lie in anguish for days afterwards, visited by awful memories and dreams, his life a waking nightmare.
Before he finally passed, he told Sofia that the rumors of the dead coming back to life were true and how you had visited him and bit him.
Fearing he would rise again to wreak havoc after death, Cedric requested that his body be burned, but Sofia, that sweet child, couldn't bear the thought.
So he instructed that they bury his body deep, deep in the earth and fetch another magic user to place heavy enchantments over his grave.
Despite her heavy heart at his passing, Sofia ensured her friend’s wishes would be carried out.
However, it didn't matter if she carried out his dying wish, anyway, for not long after his death, Cedric awoke from his temporary sleep and broke through the layers of dirt and enchantments as if they were a few inches of sand.
The army of the bloodsucking undead, or “vampires” as they soon came to be known, would soon have a great sorcerer join their ranks.
He would help the undead creatures take down the royals and the kingdom itself, leaving the sorcerer and the rest of his vampire crew to rule over the land.
He was granted the power and infamy he so desperately sought while he was alive, and this time, his lover would stand by his side as the one who granted it all to him.