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The night is home to endless mysteries only seen by the willing eye.
When you first visited your now-friend, then-nemesis, you had one goal: to take some fruits and flowers from the garden near your home. Back then, you didn’t know of the chapel hidden behind verdant trees or the roses hidden behind the mist. With every step forward, the mist grew thicker, but so did your curiosity.
That’s how you ended up befriending the vampire that inhabited that chapel.
It began with eager gazes on your skin, your basket shaky as you stared at this man on the doorstep of his home. Questions upon questions spilled out of your lips, but they were answered by his quick, “Come inside.”
Hesitation of the past turned into trust in the present, and now the vampire is in front of you with a fruit basket. You’re in the midst of fluffing up a dress he made for you when you notice him standing there silently. “Are these for me?”
“Who else would it be for?” he taunts. His jokes are common, and for such a dark home, they are full of light. “I don’t desire fruit. I desire much more.”
“Hmph.”
The fruit basket is in your hands not even a second later, and you munch on your midnight snacks. Leave it to Sylus to find the sweetest fruits and the most irritating words to accompany them. The fruits leave evidence of your hunger on your lips, and Sylus stares with a ferocity that makes your heart burn. You can hear the thoughts in his mind, the screams of blood, blood, blood echoing in the chambers of his soul, and yet you ignore them by biting into an apple.
There has always been that tension between you both, an insatiable hunger countered by your indifference. It isn’t hard to notice the way his eyes darken, the way his fangs expose themselves at the very sight of you. And yet, you don’t address it, and neither does he.
For the most part, at least.
“Did you check my roses?” you ask. “The ones by the entrance?”
“Ah, yes. They have yet to bloom, my lady.”
Blood rushes to your cheeks at the nickname. No matter how many he uses, you will never get accustomed to the sound and the feeling of being honored like that.
His smile widens. By the obvious show of human flattery or by the sight of blood? You don’t bother to ask.
“I hope they bloom soon,” you murmur, your words coated in the remnants of sweet fruit. “I want to see how my creations grow in your magical garden.”
“They will invade the species that have always been here,” he hisses.
“I didn’t think roses could invade other roses. They aren’t humans.”
Sylus is quiet after that, and you go back to tasting your fruit. He lingers behind with no sign of leaving you be, and if you didn’t know better, you would offer him one of the berries in your basket. It is plentiful, certainly in the place to spoil before being consumed completely.
But you know better than to assume his companionship stems from casual desire.
After your third apple, you desire the taste of something else. In the company of the white crow perched atop of your dress’s mannequin and the antiques that settle in this little room, you look to your friend for assistance.
“A dance?” he asks when your palm touches his shoulder and your other hand links with his. It is not a matter of question, not when your legs move in sync with his and the music from the vinyl player plays his favorite melody. It is a comfort only given to you by your dearest friend.
Sylus smirks, amused, and yet he gives in with his own little hums to the music. A gentle vampire, who yearns for the taste of your blood, holds you with gentle grace.
“Mephisto is misbehaving!”
Sylus is at your side, his steps so hasty he accidentally steps on his black cape. He never misses a chance to see an amusing sight, and ever since you’ve rid him of his solitude, there are always events that keep him entertained.
The sight of Mephisto cawing at you as he perches atop of your shoulder has to be one of his favorites.
“Sylus! What does he want now?” you protest. “I’ve fed him some of my fruits from the basket. What else could he need?”
He crosses his arms as he pretends to ponder your question. Mephisto’s caws grow louder by the second, complaints echoing across the walls of this chapel. Your blood boils at the sight of his smirk.
But before you can strangle him, he hums. “Hmm… have you tried giving him a jewel?”
“And why would that ever cross my mind?”
He only scoffs before turning and walking away. You look at Mephisto, and for the first time since you entered this chapel, you feel like you understand the thoughts that are racing in this spirit bird’s little mind.
“What do you think Sylus is going to do?”
Mephisto tilts his head, a caw of confusion escaping his beak.
“Sounds about right.”
Sylus appears only moments later with a ruby in-between his fingers. He twirls the tiny jewel as though he’s confident it wouldn’t fall to the ground. With arrogance in his expression, he hands it to Mephisto, and the crow takes it before flying away contentedly to his spot on the shoulder of your mannequin.
“Where did you get the jewel?” you ask before you can help it.
He chuckles, the sound foreign in such a quiet home. “Why? Do you want some?”
Sylus takes a step closer to you, engulfing you in his cape when the breeze that swoops in through the windows disturbs your comfort. The retort that was supposed to escape your lips dies in the warmth of his embrace, and your desire for a new jewel to add to your dress is buried beneath the heat of his gaze.
You’ve never seen a shade of red so gentle before.
“My vampire is misbehaving,” you murmur against his chest, feeling a deep chuckle bellow from deep in his heart. His whispers are lost to the loud gusts of wind shaking the roses and trees in his garden, but they sound so sweet. So comforting.
You want more of it.
You twirl around in front of a mirror that only stands upright because of an old pew’s stability. The dress looked beautiful on the mannequin, but you didn’t expect it to compliment your entire existence. Maroon satin caresses your skin, coating your body with remnants of red, with some of the material flowing as a train on your back. It restricts nothing and exposes everything.
How does a vampire know you better than your peers did back home?
Footsteps echo behind you, growing in volume as the aforementioned man stands closer. His reflection is nonexistent, but his hand on the small of your back tells you that he’s there. Appearing in a suit and tie you only saw in lavish, expensive stores with designs you’ve grown to recognize as his — daturas on one sleeve, roses on the other — Sylus compliments your existence entirely.
“I guess I’m not the only one playing dress up,” he says, but humor disguises his awe as his red eyes boldly admire the way the dress looks on you.
“Such a shame you can’t see yourself in the mirror,” you tell him, turning back to the mirror only to see yourself reflected. “I guess you’ll have to rely on my commentary.”
“Is that a threat? There are rivers who are kind enough to show me what I look like.”
“But are they kind enough to tell you what you need to fix?”
In truth, there is nothing to fix about his attire. The designs that adorn the sleeves and the way his long silver hair sits on his shoulders is reminiscent of the trees that sit outside the chapel: beautiful, enticing, fruitful.
A man of effortless perfection. Truly a shame he cannot see himself.
His eyes glint at your mischief, his fangs peeking out when his lips curve upwards. “Tell me, my lady. What do I look like?”
An epitome of the night sky, you want to say. A dragon who flaunts his wealth with class. A fiend that would tell stories in exchange for companionship. A ruler who establishes his presence in every room with a flame.
But you fix the stubborn strands that stick up from your hair as you say, “You look like a vampire.”
Sylus laughs, and the richness of it is something you will never get used to. The sound reverberates, echoing like a pipe organ that hasn’t been used in centuries. A familiarity you will never understand, a connection you long to learn more about. It draws you closer to him until you can see your reflection in his eyes.
It is better than any mirror you have ever seen yourself in.
“You’re a brave mortal, aren’t you?” he murmurs, his fangs shining with the help of the flames in surrounding candelabras. “Stepping into my chapel and making a home out of it.”
You shiver when his lips inch closer to yours. Not touching, for his patience will always get in the way of his desires, but not pulling away either.
His hands land on your hair, brushing stubborn strands away from your face. Always gentle, never demanding.
Your breath hitches, and the dress is not to blame.
But as quickly as a blink of an eye, Sylus lifts his head so his lips can meet your forehead. A peck as light as a feather lands there, decorating your skin in a blush only he can give you. The gasp that escapes your lips is one of pleasure.
“You’re beautiful,” he says reverently. “So, so beautiful.”
“More beautiful than the roses outside?”
He chuckles, soft yet warm in its rarity. “They don’t even come close to you, my lady.”
When the chirps of birds provide a melody, Sylus invites you to a dance, and the night witnesses another display of utmost affection.
Like the roses have heard the insult uttered by your beloved vampire, yours refuse to bloom.
The garden is abundant with roses, daturas, and fruit trees. They need only the mist to grow, and they stay fruitful forever. No amount of human greed can stop them from bearing the finest petals and food.
But your roses, which sit right next to the chapel’s entrance, remain tiny as though they are afraid to grow.
“You should be able to grow soon,” you whisper as water enriches their roots. “I’ve been waiting for far too long.”
Cold breezes have turned into warm winds, but your roses have not yet bloomed.
When you stand up with your watering can in hand, you hear a chuckle that has now become a part of your life. Sylus stands on the doorstep, watching you fuss over your flowers with that familiar smile on his face. “Something wrong, my lady?”
“Sylus!” you say, startled. “Nothing’s wrong. It’s just that my roses aren’t blooming.”
He hums as he inspects the sight. His cape drapes over fully bloomed roses as yours become a priority. “Hm. I’ve never seen this happen before.”
“I think it’s because you insulted them.”
He looks up at you. “Pardon?”
“You said they didn’t come close to my beauty. Maybe they took offense to that.”
It sounds ridiculous as it leaves your lips, but even as Sylus lets out a chuckle, he doesn’t immediately dismiss that possibility. He turns his attention back to the buds, letting blood red mist cover them.
“I didn’t think roses could be bruised by a simple statement. They aren’t humans.”
That gets you to laugh, a soft sound that the mist has always heard ever since you arrived in this unusual place.
Sylus stands up and faces you. Even with a distance and the light mist that lingers in the space between, you can see the petulant frown on his face, the remnants of confusion settling in his expression. You can’t help but step closer to soothe the crease of his brow.
“They’ll grow with time,” you assure him as though they were his roses. As though your heart isn’t the one sinking when you see buds instead of flowers. “I’ll just have to pay attention to them more.”
“But you’ve given them so much already.”
Was that a whine in his voice?
The light mist clears a little, giving you a view of your vampire as he sulks. You’ve never seen Sylus so upset, and now that you have, it amuses you to no end.
“I suppose it’s not enough,” you murmur, pulling your hand away just to see if he will take them. “At this rate, I may have to give them all of my attention.”
Sylus doesn’t take your hands and pull you into his embrace, but his eyes darken as if a storm brews beneath his very skin. His silence pierces through the gust of wind that redirects roses and daturas. His fangs pierce his lips, and you recognize the thirst he desperately tries to hinder.
The screams of blood, blood, blood grow with every passing second, every moment of your indifference a torment to your Sylus. But he doesn’t push, doesn’t ever ask anything of you.
Until now.
“I need to… to feed on something, my lady.”
You scramble to find a dead animal he can feed on — his primary source of sustenance — but even in the vast gardens and the soothing atmosphere of the chapel, there is no food to be found.
Sylus watches you hungrily when you come up empty, and you find yourself in a battle between succumbing to his desires and making your vampire happy. The blood that flows beneath your skin is yours and yours alone, and it has taken you quite a bit of time to make sure no human will ever make it spill out again.
But Sylus…
Before you can change your mind, you prick your finger on a rose’s thorn until liquid spills from the new gash. With a hiss, you place your hand on Sylus’s lips, and he drinks and drinks and drinks your blood greedily. He’s never feasted this ferociously on an animal’s corpse before, and you let him take as much as he needs.
When he finishes tasting your blood, labored breaths escape his bloody lips. You watch as moonlight illuminates the gratitude and the simultaneous regret in his eyes. You watch as blood red mist encircles your palm, healing your pricked finger as though it were never wounded.
“T-thank you,” he murmurs. “Are you all right?”
You simply nod, for your body is still strong enough to do so despite the blood loss. How is it possible that a mere mortal survived such a feast? How is it possible for the wound on your finger to disappear as quickly as it had come?
How is it possible that new roses grow where your blood has dropped?
Ever since that night, you two have upheld an acknowledgement.
You agreed to become his primary source of blood. He would feast as much as he needed to, but he would only do so by pricking your finger. No bites on your neck or on your wrist.
In exchange, you asked him for stories.
“That’s all?” he asked when you offered. “Blood in exchange of tales doesn’t sound fair.”
But he upheld the agreement anyway, which is how you’ve come to find yourself perched atop of the chapel’s rooftop. Perhaps Sylus has always seeked somebody to watch the bright moon with him, or maybe moonlight has softened your heart as much as it has softened his eyes.
Nevertheless, you drape his cape over your legs like a makeshift blanket as you lay on Sylus’s chest.
“Tell me a story,” you whisper. The wind would’ve concealed your words if it weren’t for Sylus’s devotion.
“Have you gotten bored of my tales of fruitless wars and tragic love stories, my lady?”
You shake your head, the movement allowing you to notice the silence beneath his chest. It entices you further. “I want another one.”
“Okay, okay.”
Sylus takes a deep breath before letting the story flow through his soul.
“This chapel wasn’t always mine. It belonged to a religious group who despised the existence of vampires, but they abandoned it when their supernatural faith could no longer justify their human hatred.”
“What made you want to live in such a place?”
“The space,” he says with a grin. “It was sufficient for a lone vampire in need of a home. They left behind pews for me to sleep on, a pipe organ to play music, and lots of other trinkets that I’ve gotten to use over the years. It’s very convenient.”
The thought of Sylus doing his best to make a home out of such a ruined place makes your heart ache. How had he endured such solitude?
“Did you have other vampires to hang out with?”
He shakes his head, an indifferent expression on his otherwise focused face. “I don’t know what happened to my kind. Ever since I’ve inhabited this chapel, the mist prevented me from leaving. I only knew the company of distant memories and the items left behind in my new home.”
The mist…
“Nobody could go through the mist besides Mephisto,” he continues, his tone taking on a lightweight feeling akin to Mephisto’s spiritual feathers. “He was my eye to the outside world, the only friend I had for a long, long time. Until you came along.”
Your breath hitches, and you tighten your grasp on his cape.
“I don’t know how you were able to pluck fruits from my trees, let alone visit me.” Sylus strengthens his hold on you as realizations befall him with no defenses he could hide behind. Wonder engulfs his tone, alongside an awe that you’ve never heard from anybody before. “I don’t know how the mist didn’t suffocate you as soon as you took a step inside it.”
Even in your stricken state, you manage a teasing remark. “Did you want it to?”
“Ha. Ha,” he responds dryly, but his eyes are anything but. Moonlight spills into his blood red eyes, making them look like hearts.
For the life of you, you can’t look away.
Sylus catches you staring, but he continues on with the story anyway. Was this how he felt when you constantly refused to feed him your blood?
“The garden provides no sustenance to me. Fruits and flowers don’t fuel my being, so I never understood why they began growing outside of my residence when that mist trapped me here. But I never attempted to kill them, for nature always wins.”
His lips boldly meet your forehead, and you close your eyes at the solace it provides you.
“I think I now know why they grow despite their lack of purpose in my life.”
You meet his gaze now. “Why?”
“They bloom for you.”
You look for any trace of sarcasm, humor, anything that can break this illusion that coats your heart and drives your mind. The idea of an eternal garden with endless prosperities blossoming for a life that is only here once is preposterous, and yet you find yourself enamored by the possibility.
Greedy as it may be, the human world had never once offered such a level of devotion. Only bloodshed, hatred, and selfish desires encompassed your life before you met Sylus, so at the prospect of devotion, you take as much as you can.
“Tired?” he asks when your silence befalls you both. “I’ll take you back inside-”
You push him back before he can sit up, adamant on letting him stay. “The moon is a good companion with your stories,” you lie to hide the emotions brewing within your soul. “I want to watch it with you.”
Sylus hums, but as he continues telling tales about Mephisto’s little tricks, you feel the weight of the past settle alongside the tranquility of the present. You hold him a little tighter.
On this particular night, your vampire lingers on his doorstep, seemingly enamored by the mist and the garden that has accompanied every moment of his peaceful life.
His red eyes dart from a datura to a rose, eventually coming back to the buds that linger beside his feet. His cape touches the shy, peculiar flowers as he bends down to their level. “Hello, little roses.”
The roses don’t respond, but Sylus continues talking.
“You’ve given me more questions to ponder, as if I don’t have enough already.” He touches one of the flower buds gently, letting the blood red mist nourish the tiny being. “Does your refusal to bloom have something to do with the woman who planted you?”
Sylus knows that you’re different. From being the only one who could cross the thick mist to thoroughly enjoying his company, you’ve given him so many reasons to welcome the sweet curse of immortality. But the implications of these impossible things stumps him, and he wonders why this is happening.
“Sylus!”
He whispers a farewell to the growing buds before following your voice and the melody you’re playing from the chapel’s pipe organ. For whatever reason, your vampire shudders at each note, the familiarity of the tune enticing him. He hums along to your playing up until the song’s abrupt end.
“Where did you learn that melody?” he asks, sitting next to you on the rusty chair. For whatever reason, he had never thought to maintain it as well as he did with the pipe organ. “It sounds familiar.”
You answer with a simple shrug. “I’m not sure.”
He raises a brow.
“I’ve never played this song before. I just sat down and it came to me.”
Sylus sits with the implications of that statement before he drapes his cape over the both of you. He invites you to place your head on his shoulder as he begins to talk.
“That melody was my solace when I needed to find a home. I would sing it when I roamed around forests and ran from hunters and religious groups.”
Memories surround him like pests, but he rids them with a shake of his head.
“I don’t know how I learned it either. I was always alone.”
Your arms tighten around his torso, and for a moment, your vampire’s chest tightens. Is this how it feels to have your heart race? He had never felt it before.
“But you…” he clears his throat from all the emotions welling up in there. “You have always been my solace. I was always meant to find you, to maintain this garden until you would find your way to me.”
“How do you know that?” Your voice is so, so soft, like a blooming rose waiting to be welcomed by love.
“Because everything fell into place when you entered.”
Mephisto settles atop of the pipe organ’s cover, watching the conversation occur. “Mephisto hasn’t left this chapel ever since you came,” he continues. “The mist feels less suffocating. Immortality is nowhere near a curse, so long as you’re around.”
He hears your little hum of approval, a habit you’ve taken from him.
“And your blood enriches my soul. I can only feel satiated when it’s you, my beloved.”
Sylus places a tiny kiss on your forehead as the melody created by the night accompanies the both of you. He feels your arms tighten around him as he hears the words, “I love you,” escape your lips, and his heart beats impossibly faster.
Love.
In his world, love is what binds souls together until they are one. Vampires would find other vampires and live the rest of their lives together. Till death do they part, but even then, there is always the underworld for them to rekindle that flame again.
Sylus had never thought that would happen to him. Centuries of being alone convinced him that his soul would wander the remains of this planet, the curse of immortality preventing it from dying of exhaustion.
But as he gently tastes more of your blood, he knows better.
There is so much more to learn about your connection and love in general, but as your roses slowly begin blooming outside to be noticed on a different night, your vampire and his crow accompany you as you fall into a deep slumber.
The night is home to endless mysteries, indeed.