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Shadows, like long fingers, clasped the hotel’s towers. Dawn, an hour of deep sleep for most guests, this time brought not the usual daytime quiet, but an oppressive silence after an unbelievably tumultuous night. After a long, eventful evening and night, even the noisiest ghosts and most energetic mummies finally fell silent, giving way to deep repose. The day was a time of well-deserved rest for both the monsters and the rare but welcome human guests, mingled together under the hotel’s hospitable roof. The majority of inhabitants sank into slumber in respectful silence, careful not to disturb the neighbors beyond the thin walls of the ancient castle—and especially not the master.
The Dracula family, as befitted the owners, resided in a separate wing. Each room reflected its occupant’s character: from vivid chaos to exquisite Gothic. But Count Dracula’s own chamber stood out for its ascetic severity—no frills. Simple yet high-quality furnishings: a massive writing desk strewn with parchments, accounts, and schedules; a capacious wardrobe for impeccably pressed cloaks; and in the center, opposite the balcony door thrown open to the night air—a coffin. Unadorned in shape, devoid of ornate carvings or inlays, yet flawlessly crafted from select black wood with a plush velvet lining. Not for show, but purely for comfort and rejuvenation after endless cares.
Yet even such tranquility did not satisfy everyone. Although fear of the monsters had largely faded, society still harbored haters fueled by ancient prejudices and blind fanaticism.
A group of six such "fighters for the light"—more akin to amateurs playing heroes than to formidable professionals—managed to infiltrate the hotel under the guise of ordinary, if slightly eccentric, guests (fake documents worked wonders). None had ever seen Dracula in person, knowing him only from dark engravings and pompous descriptions in old books—stately, formidable, forever cloaked. Their plan, born of a distorted sense of righteousness, seemed brilliant in its simplicity: to destroy Dracula himself, this "original source of darkness", and thus "cleanse" the world once and for all. An idea fit for a cheap pamphlet, but in their imaginations it already brought fame and triumph.
As the dim morning light first touched the hotel towers, plunging all its inhabitants into a deep, serene slumber, the group of “fighters for the light”, nervously whispering and stepping on each other’s heels, ascended to the right floor, carefully avoiding security. The silence in the corridors was oppressive, broken only by the creak of old floorboards under their clumsy steps. Dracula’s room was known to many guests—finding it was no challenge.
One of them, a scrawny man with hands trembling like autumn leaves, who had boasted of being a lockpicking expert, managed to deal with the door on his third attempt, driven by his companions’ furious hissing. With a creak that seemed deafening in the ringing stillness, the door opened. They slipped inside, holding their breath, each person’s heartbeat pounding in their ears.
The room greeted them with the same austere severity spoken of in legend. But only one thing mattered to them. Ignoring the neat desk and the wardrobe filled with cloaks, all six of them froze before the coffin rising in the center of the room across from the open balcony. The massive wooden box of select black timber loomed ominously in the half-light, untouched by the first rays of dawn.
A whisper, more like the hissing of frightened geese, broke out—a quarrel riddled with foolish bravado and thick, suffocating fear:
“That’s a whole damn tree... You think it’s heavy?” muttered the youngest, eyes wide like a baby owl’s as he stared at the coffin. Clearly, he’d imagined something smaller—perhaps a jewelry box, not this monumental chest.
“Of course it’s heavy, idiot!” snapped a stocky man with a sweaty, glistening forehead, trying to seem like the expert, his hands on his knees as if ready to collapse. “The thing with him in it weighs two hundred kilos*—have you seen his height? Built like a wardrobe!” He adjusted his baggy jacket, under which something clanked awkwardly.
“Shut up, you morons!” hissed a sharp-faced woman, her head jerking around feverishly, as if the shadows themselves might give them away at any second. “His hearing’s like a bat’s! He hears everything!” She instinctively ducked, as if expecting an attack from above.
“You think he can hear us through the lid?” questioned a fourth, tall and thin as a rake, trying to appear logical and calm—but his voice betrayed a tremble, and his fingers fidgeted with the hem of his shirt. “This wood’s thicker than my arm.”
“You sure he’s even in there?” whispered the youngest again, pointing at the coffin and yanking his hand back like he’d touched hot iron. “Could be empty.”
“Where else would he be at this hour?” the woman scoffed, shooting him a look filled with contempt. “Out strolling through the gardens?” Her sarcasm hung heavy in the air, thick as smog.
One of them—the impulsive one, the so-called "lockpicker"—finally cracked under the suffocating tension. Something in his mind snapped. He reached out, his bony hand trembling, to knock on the smooth, polished lid—just to see if something inside would respond. Something alive.
“ENOUGH!” The whisper came sharp as a whipcrack from the sixth member, clearly the leader. His hand shot out and clamped down on the "lockpicker’s" wrist with such force that the man yelped and yanked his hand away. The leader, a man with a hard stare and a clear flicker of panic in his eyes, swept a glacial, threatening gaze over the others: “Get on with it. Finish this damn job—and we get out. While everyone’s still asleep.” His voice, though a whisper, carried a ruthless command that brooked no argument—yet beneath it throbbed the same fear gripping them all.
Their plan was as simple as they were. No silver bullets, no holy water, no elaborate exorcisms. Stakes? Too risky—getting that close to a sleeping vampire had sent plenty of “great hunters” to early graves. Their method was simpler and, in their earnest belief, more reliable than a Swiss watch: carry Dracula’s coffin onto the balcony and toss it over—down onto the stone-paved courtyard or into the dark waters of the deep moat, from the highest tower whose spires vanished into morning mist.
The logic seemed foolproof: upon impact, the coffin would either shatter or spring open, exposing the slumbering vampire to the lethal dawn light. And if it fell into the moat—so much the better. The sun would finish the job, or he’d drown, weakened by its rays. Let the sky itself do the dirty work. Elegant. No contact. Genius.
At the hoarse command—“Now!”—all six of them strained, pressing their palms, shoulders, and even foreheads against the polished sides of the coffin. A collective groan erupted, like the moan of a dying bull. Clumsily and with a resounding thud, they managed to shift the heavy object from its resting place. It looked less like they were carrying a vampire and more like ants trying to lift a sleeping giant. Their movements were jerky, the pushes completely out of sync. The coffin lurched left, smashing into the nearest bearer’s foot, then jerked right, nearly slipping from the tall one’s hands.
“Ow! Damn it, watch where you’re dragging it!” the injured one cried, hopping on one leg.
“You watch it! You’re pulling the wrong way!” the second barked back, spitting out salty sweat that had dripped into his mouth.
“Shut up and carry!” growled the leader, himself wobbling under the weight.
At first, they couldn’t even decide which way to drag it toward the balcony, spinning the coffin on the spot like a clumsy top. The wart-covered nose of the burliest among them ended up pressed against the velvet lining.
“Left! I said go left!”
“No, right! That’s where the balcony door is, can’t you see?!”
“The balcony’s straight ahead, you idiots!” the instigator barked, losing the last shreds of his patience. His face flushed dark red—not just from exertion, but from fury. “Just go FORWARD! Straight!”
Finally managing to move an inch, they launched into complaints about the weight, which quickly devolved into outright groaning.
“Goddammit... this thing’s immovable!” the short one groaned, slipping on a luxurious Persian rug and nearly dropping his corner. “Bloody curse! It’s not just wood—this coffin’s filled with lead! Even if there were twenty of us, we couldn’t budge it!” He was clearly exaggerating, but the stabbing in his spine and the sensation of dragging a mountain told a different story. “Magic! Has to be! So no one could steal it!”
“And what, you thought the coffin of the Lord of Darkness would be light as a feather?” the leader hissed through gritted teeth, groaning himself under the weight. “It’s protected! Locks, wards... and maybe the weight’s part of it too. Shut up and pull, you whining wretch!”
Under his constant hissing pressure—laced with promises of a gruesome fate for failure—they somehow managed to drag the massive box, step by torturous step, toward the open balcony doors. The fresh, pre-dawn air rushed into the room, carrying the promise of freedom... and sunlight.
But in the final, most critical turn—to pivot the long coffin and carefully guide it onto the stone balcony—disaster struck. The stocky man carrying the front left corner yanked too hard. The tall one opposite him panicked and pulled sideways. The coffin tipped.
THUD!
The front corner of the coffin slammed with full momentum into the stone doorframe of the balcony. The impact was so strong that it nearly tore from their sweaty hands and vibrated deeply, like a giant bell. A chorus of outraged, no-longer-whispered shouts and muffled cries of pain followed:
“Are you blind, you idiot?! You saw the frame!” howled the one whose hand had been crushed between wood and stone.
“Look who’s talking! You dropped the left side!” the stocky man snapped, rubbing his bruised shoulder.
“QUIET, YOU DAMNED FOOLS!” hissed the woman, like a furious cat, glancing around with wild, animalistic fear. But self-preservation of property kicked in just as fast: “You brainless oaf! You could’ve chipped the corner! That wood’s expensive!”
“To hell with your precious corner! My hands are crushed!” groaned the tall one, shaking his numb fingers.
But not a single one of them—even for a second—considered that Dracula might have awakened from that hellish noise. In their fevered minds, addled with fanaticism and adrenaline, the crash had already blurred into the background of their ragged breathing, pounding heartbeats, and the ringing from the impact. To them, the sleeping lord of darkness, securely locked in his oak fortress, was simply dreaming through another peal of distant thunder or creaking of an old castle wall.
They believed—blindly, fanatically—in the impenetrable depth of his daytime sleep and the absolute security of the wooden walls of the coffin: their greatest protection, and his tomb. The only thing that mattered was to get him under the rays. Everything else was noise.
The balcony was small, but just big enough for their grand operation. Groaning like aging mechanics and nearly tripping over one another, they heaved the precious burden over the high stone threshold. With a collective exhale—almost perfectly synchronized—they hauled the massive coffin over the cool stone railing… and let it drop. Into open air. Straight into the merciless, rising rays of the sun, aimed toward the dark, nearly black waters of the deep defensive moat below. The logic seemed flawless: if the sunlight didn’t finish the job, the water would. Guaranteed. A neat little two-step kill plan.
In silence, shoulder to shoulder like comrades after a great battle, they leaned over the edge, breath held, watching the descent. The coffin fell, slowly spinning mid-air, the slick wood glinting in the first light.
SPLASH!
The dark water closed over the black wood, swallowing it without a trace. All six exhaled at once, jaws unclenching in unison. Their faces wore a wild mix of relief and smug satisfaction. They had done it. Mission accomplished.
“Phew... That’s that.” breathed the leader, wiping his sweat-slick brow with the back of his hand. His voice carried the fatigue of a victor.
“The world… is saved.” whispered the woman solemnly, still whispering out of habit, crossing herself automatically—though who she was praying to remained a mystery.
“Success.” grunted the stocky man, slumping against the railing like he’d just lifted a tank, not a coffin. He was already imagining how he’d tell this story at the bar.
They exchanged short nods—full of pride and self-respect—ready to slip away into the hotel’s corridors like heroes riding off into the sunset.
But the moment they turned to head back into the bedroom... there he stood. On the threshold of the balcony door. In the frame of his own bedroom.
Dracula.
No regal cloak—no trace of the fanatical perfectionism he applied to its upkeep. No icy, bone-piercing gaze of the Lord of Darkness. Not even a hint of an ominous aura. Standing before them was a man in... pajamas. Blinding, screaming, neon fuchsia pajamas—the exact same shade as the lining of his ceremonial cloak (the one people carefully whispered about as “pink” behind his back). His hair was a mess, sticking out in all directions like a child jolted awake mid-dream. Deep, dark circles sagged under his eyes—evidence of a sleepless night, maybe even a sleepless week. His gaze was bleary, confused, completely at odds with the moment—or with his legendary reputation. He squinted into the soft morning light spilling in from the balcony.
“Pardon... me?” he mumbled, more like an apologetic butler caught mid-cleaning than a lord catching intruders who had just hurled his bed into a moat. He had just come up from the underground library—he’d spent the entire night hunched over a painfully dull audit of century-old guest records, trying to organize the hotel’s archives ahead of the Council’s inspection. All he wanted was a couple hours of sleep before another day of bureaucratic misery… and instead, he found this bizarre group on his balcony.
Silence returned, this time thick with awkward tension. The “saviors of the world” stared at his rumpled, absurd appearance—no terror, no majesty, no threat. Before them stood not Count Dracula, Lord of the Night, but some sleep-deprived middle manager who’d burst out of his room to deal with suspicious noise on his balcony.
The group shifted from shock to pure irritation. His pathetic appearance completely destroyed the drama of their triumph.
“What’re you staring at?” snapped the stocky one, turning his eyes away in disgusted confusion.
The tall one rolled his eyes:
“Great. We left a witness.” he muttered with a scowl. One more problem.
Another—the young one—brushed past Dracula on his way out of the room, roughly bumping his shoulder like someone pushing through a crowded subway:
“Outta the way, go do your thing.” he threw over his shoulder, like swatting away a pushy beggar or some door-to-door salesman.
Muttering to one another in low, irritated voices—no longer bothering to whisper—they walked off, their remarks laced with disappointment and annoyance. They left the hotel’s owner standing there in the doorway of his own bedroom, wearing bright pink pajamas, watching them go with a silent, baffled stare. The noise of their awkward footsteps faded quickly into the corridor, leaving him alone with the echoing silence, the wide-open balcony... and no bed.
Guests had gone. Dracula stood on the balcony threshold for a few more seconds, surveying the empty spot in the center of the room where his coffin should have been. His legs felt as if filled with lead, turning to cotton from sleep deprivation and the absurd catastrophe. He slowly stepped toward that yawning void, bare feet touching the cold stone floor. Subconsciously, he even paused, as if hoping the coffin would materialize back at the snap of his fingers or the wave of his centuries-old vampire will. But the emptiness remained emptiness. Only a faint rectangular imprint from the heavy legs on the dusty floor and several dents on the luxurious Persian rug testified that his dependable resting place had indeed been there—and had indeed just been taken.
He turned, his movements mechanical, as though someone else controlled his body while he tried to grasp the magnitude of the disaster. Reaching the desk, he found his phone by feel—an old button-phone, because new technologies irritated him. With a finger trembling from exhaustion, he dialed his sister Lydia’s number.
long rings… Each tone echoed through the silent room like a bell striking his already shattered nerves. Finally, a slurred, sleepy murmur came through the receiver:
“M-m-mrrr? Kshh… Who’s…? What time is it…”
“Lyd… Lyd, it happened again!” he whispered plaintively, his voice crushed, almost childlike. “They’ve thrown it out again… Again!” He waved his free hand toward the open door, though his sister could not see it.
Silence. On the line, only Lydia’s heavy, half-dreaming breath could be heard as she fought through the cotton of sleep to comprehend what she’d heard. Dracula gripped the phone so tightly that his knuckles whitened and the plastic creaked under the pressure of his ageless strength unleashed in helplessness. He closed his eyes, imagining once more the comforting darkness and velvet lining of his vanished bed. When he spoke again, his voice carried an unbearable weariness amassed over centuries, mixed with the bitter knowledge of grim repetition:
“Lyd… This is… the fourth time this century, Lyd. Fourth. Like clockwork.” He opened his eyes and wearily surveyed the chaos on his desk. “And where am I supposed to sleep now? And who’s going to pay for a new coffin?”