Obviously, we didn’t sleep that night. But we didn’t fake-sleep either. We just talked. We talked all night, about our lives, our families, friends, everything. It was a very sweet moment, which almost made me forget how shitty our situation was. She explained that her parents, despite presenting as a loving and caring couple, never paid much attention to her. As far as she knew, they never wanted her. She was an accident, that they kept because they’re too conservative to have an abortion. She didn’t have much friend either, just a few classmates that didn’t mind her, but that was it. Let’s just say that I could relate to the loneliness part.
Eventually, we came to the topic of what happened that day. We both had questions to ask each other obviously, a lot of new things took place.
“So, how did you know?” I asked.
“Know what?” She said.
“I mean, you knew that this man wanted to hide what was behind the door of the closet. How?”
She took a moment to think about it.
“Well, when you guys were talking, I started to have some sort of, I don’t know, vision? It was like, I could still see everything, but I was seeing something else, on top of it. It was a door, just where the man was standing.”
“The closet?” I asked.
“No, it was like, an old and wooden door, covered in mold. It seemed fragile. So, I got up, and opened it. Inside was a dark space, just like the one I find myself in when Vesel possesses me. There were whispers all around me, I couldn’t understand what they were seeing, it sounded like an old language. I wandered around for a little bit, but didn’t find a thing, until I found him. He was there, sitting on the floor, holding his own head, eyes white, no pupil, repeating the same thing: “the door is bad, no closet, it’s bad.”. Then, I had a strong feeling of guilt, sadness, despair all around me, like it was choking me. I ran back to the door, got out of there, and I was back. That’s how I figured…”
“Do you think you entered his mind? Like Vesel does?” I asked.
“I can’t possess him, but yes, I think I did enter his mind.” She answered.
“Are we even able to do that?”
“As far as I know, no. But I may have some idea of how I was able to.”
“Tell me, what is it?”
“Well, see, for 2 years, I was alone, and Vesel had me at his disposal whenever he wanted. He was possessing me pretty frequently, to get me blood bags, but he was also possessing me at other times, and I don’t know what he was doing with me, but I think he was using me, almost like his own body, using his abilities in me to have fun in the outside world. He probably thought that, because I was young, and also emotionally vulnerable, it wouldn’t do anything, but in the end, I think I now have some leftovers from what he did while possessing me, and I can access them now that my mind is getting stronger. I mean that’s my theory…”
“It holds up. Is that how you defeated him while he was possessing this man?” I said.
“Well, the beginning was pretty much the same. The old door, dark space, all of this, but this time, I found the man conscious. He was crying, on the floor, eyes closed. I tried to reason with him, to get him back, but he kept on crying, saying that he did everything wrong. Then I saw Vesel. He was standing still, his eyes were white, and he had a big smile on his face. It looked like he couldn’t see me, so, my instinct made me touch his face. His pupils came back, he looked at me with an air of surprise that I never saw on his face, and I said: “get out.” and pushed him. He fell on the floor and disappeared. That’s when I came back.
I thought about this. If she was able to get him out, there’s a chance that he could be defeated completely.
“Do you think that means you can beat him?” I asked.
“I don’t think I’m stronger than him at all, I think he was surprised this time…”
“Well, one thing is sure: we now know that he has weaknesses, and so we could defeat him!” I said.
“You are extremely optimistic, are you sure?” She asked.
“We don’t know until we try, don’t you think?”
“And how do you think we could do that?”
“We’re going to his museum. We’re going to burn the book he said he was in. And then, chances are that he’ll disappear.” I said.
“I don’t know if you realize, but from what we know, it’s a small book in the private collection of the museum. There are like, thousands of book there, and we have no hints, nothing, plus, it’s extremely secured, so, I don’t know how you plan on doing that…”
“Well, it’s not like we made any plans so far, so I suggest we improvise. We’ll go at night!”
She took a moment.
“Fine, I’m in. Let’s do this.
We kept on talking for the rest of the night, and when the day started, we got on our way. The drive was calm, both of us were pretty anxious about a possible interference from Vesel, but nothing happened. We stopped on our way to drink some blood from the bags we got from the man.
Later, we arrived at our city. Coming back there felt weird. I was there a few days ago, but it felt like I had been gone for months. We both put on our “disguises”: I was wearing sunglasses and a cap, and Claire had glasses and her hair were tied. We weren’t exactly unrecognizable, but that could do the job. We were earlier than planned, the museum wouldn’t close until another 4 hours. I stopped the car at a parking lot and there was a silence.
“Do you want to talk to your family?” Claire asked.
“Why do you ask this?” I answered.
“I mean, whatever happens tonight, I don’t think there’s an end to this where we go back to our normal life. So, maybe you want to, I don’t know, speak to them one last time.”
I thought about it. She was entirely right. Not only was I not sure that we could get rid of our condition and beat Vesel, but even if we were, there was no way life would get back to normal. To the eyes of my family, and Claire’s parents, I kidnapped her for no reason. Deep down, I wanted to talk to them again, one last time, but I knew it was not possible.
“I can’t” I said.
“Why is that?”
“Claire, right now, our houses and family are probably under police surveillance, there’s no way we can get to them without getting us and them in trouble. I want to, but I can’t. Do you want to?”
“Not really. You’re probably right anyway.” She said.
I took a moment to think about it. Then it hit me.
“Unless… I think I have a way to give one last word to my parents.” I said, starting the car.
“What’s that?” She asked.
“We need to go see my girlfriend. I could give her a letter to give to my parents, and yours too if you change your mind.”
“Sarah? Why wouldn’t she be under surveillance too?”
“We weren’t really advertising our relationship, it wasn’t very serious yet. We were together mainly because I was good at sex, and she was my ty…” I stopped, realizing what I was saying.
She looked at me with a shocked face. A smile formed on her face and she started laughing.
“Okay, right, mock me if you want, sorry, I shouldn’t have said that, it came out like that. Wait how did you know she was named Sarah? I never mentioned that.” I said.
“I mean, I don’t know if you remember but a few days ago, Vesel took a look at your mind while possessing me so, I saw many things too.” She answered.
I paused.
“Wait, what else did you see about her?” I asked, embarrassed.
She looked at me, clearly trying to contain a laugh.
“You don’t want to know, trust me.” She said.
She burst out laughing, and so did I.
“That’s not fair, you know my deep secrets and I don’t.” I said.
“What, you want to wander around my privacy?”
“I guess not, you’re right.”
We laughed for a bit. After a few minutes, we arrived at Sarah’s student room. We got out of the car and I took the time to make sure neither me or Claire were thirsty. We got to her door, and I knocked. I could hear her steps coming. The door opened and I tried to put on my most normal and relaxed face.
“Hello Sarah, can you get us in, I need you for something?”
She looked at us in complete disbelief.
“Come on in fast.” She whispered.
We got in and she closed and locked the door.
“What the hell Mark?! What the fuck are you doing here?! What did you do?” She was freaking out, which was understandable.
“Hey, I’m sorry to bother you with all of this okay.”
“Yeah, you can be, out of all the places you could have go, why the hell did you come here?”
“Did the cops came talk to you?” I asked.
“No, no one did.”
“Well, that’s why we came here.”
“Okay, and may I ask why you kidnapped that girl and disappeared before coming back here with her? If that’s not too much to ask?!” She said.
“You can ask, but you won’t believe the answer.”
“Try me.” She answered.
“Fine”
The three of us sat at her table and explained everything to her. She didn’t believe us, until Claire lifted her bed and that I put a knife in my harm to show it heal in seconds. She was absolutely flabbergasted, but at least she believed us. I asked her for paper, telling her that I needed her to give what I was going to write to my parents. Here’s what I wrote:
“Mom, dad, Jules, it’s me. I don’t know how to start this, maybe by telling you that I am not dead, and neither is Claire, the girl that came with me. I did not kidnap her, we found ourselves in a bad situation that pushed us to run away. I’m not going to explain it to you, because you wouldn’t believe us, but trust me. Unfortunately, it got so bad that we won’t see each other again. It sucks, and I’m so sorry, you have no idea. I want you to know that, even if I didn’t show it that much, I was happy that you were my family, I couldn’t have asked for better. I was dealing with my own things, so I wasn’t always the most fun or grateful, and I’m sorry, none of what I was going through was your fault.
Now, even though my situation isn’t great while writing this, I want you to know that, I’m good, and I’m going to fix it. I hope you’ll be good too, I am so sorry for everything, and I love you all so much. Be happy.
PS: Jules can have my CDs.”
I gave Sarah the letter. She promised she’ll find a way to give it to my parents. We said goodbye, and we left.
We still had a bit of time ahead of us, so we waited in a parking lot, drank a bit more of blood. Then came the time to go. It was dark, and we drove to the museum. When we got there, Claire fortunately knew a back entrance that would be easy to force, so we walked there. When we arrived at the door, Claire started to try to force the lock, but we were surprised to see that it was open. We went in and slowly walked through the hallway. Around us were offices, and we could see that one of them still had a light on. We approached it slowly, we knew we were on Vesel’s territory. When we arrived, we saw Claire’s mom. She was sitting there, crying.
“Mom?” Claire said.
Her mom raised her head and saw us. I let Claire get closer to her while staying alert. Nothing proved me that this was really her mom, so, better stay on the lookout.
“Claire? Is that really you?”
“Yes, that’s me…” Claire looked confused.
“Ho, you’re back, come here honey.” Said her mom while getting closer to Claire.
Claire took a step behind, and her mom stopped.
“Why are you even crying mom?” Said Claire.
“What do you mean baby? I’m happy to see you, that’s it. Come here, you don’t have to worry about him.” She said pointing at me.
“You are? You’re happy now? You don’t care about me! You think I worry about him?! No. I worry about how you suddenly seem to care about me! Tell me, when was the last time you told me that you loved me, you or dad? You spend almost every night outside, I see my baby-sitters more than you, you barely talk to me, and now you’re “happy to see me”?! You want to know the truth? Mark didn’t kidnap me, he didn’t even want to take me, but I begged him to. That’s how much of a disappointment you made me feel. And now you cry?!” Claire was upset, she was not screaming, but her tone was dry.
Her mom seemed shocked.
“Claire, listen to me, I’m sorry. I am so sorry. I am sorry we made you feel this way. You disappearing, made me face some things. You know, when we had you, your dad and I, we weren’t ready for a child, neither of us. And then we had you, and our relationship was falling apart because of how unexpected that was, and for some reason, the only way we found to fix it was by turning against you together. And it was dumb, but once we started doing it, we couldn’t stop, it was in us. And we’re so stupid for doing this for so long, because you’re such a great girl, and we couldn’t hope for better. Now, if you come back home, we can start things over, we’ll be like a normal family, and your dad and I, we’ll do better, I promise you, but please come back…”
Both were crying now.
“I can’t come home mom.”
“Why, you can honey, just come back…”
“No mom, Mark and I, we’re fucked… I can’t come back. You have to go.”
“What do you mean whatever is happening we can help you.”
“No, you can’t mom, you have to go away, we’ll never see each other again. That’s how it has to go.”
“But Claire…”
Claire took her mom’s hand and started forced her outside of the museum. When her mom was out, she looked at us in disbelief.
“Claire, what are you doing?” She asked.
Claire looked at her for a few seconds, her eyes filled with tears.
“Do better with the next one… Goodbye mom.”
Claire locked the door. I took a moment to ask her how she felt.
“Better now.” She answered.
We started wandering around the museum, in direction of where Claire said the private collection was. We were in a hall full of old scientific stuff used by ancient civilisations when we saw him.
He was sitting in the middle of the hall. Vesel, in his true form, waiting for us. He got up and smiled.
“Now that, that was emotional! A bit long however, I thought it would never end…” He said.
Claire stayed silent, and I could see that she was focusing, trying to reproduce the same thing she did to him the day before. Vesel saw it too and laughed.
“Ho, Little Lady, that’s not going to work you know. I admit, you got me yesterday, I was surprised, but if you think that you’ll get to me… You didn’t enter my mind yesterday, only this guy’s weak mind. Mine is not the same. SO, why did you two came to me today, you want to what? Bargain?”
I didn’t know what to say or what to do, I was paralyzed. Now that I was actually in front of him, he seemed way more powerful.
“I guess you came to erase me. Good luck with that guys. You really think you can just find this book? Or maybe the Little Lady here thought she could find where he was by entering my mind? That’s cute. So, I guess we’re together until tomorrow morning? Let’s play some games shall we, have a little fun…”
He started morphing like the day before, long thin arms, fingers and legs, pointy teeth, claws instead of nails, his transformation was even bigger than last time. He was at least 3 meters high, if not more, and this time, his eyes were black. Not his pupil, the entire eye was black. He looked at us with a terrifying smile, lifted one hand, and slammed it on Claire. She was thrown at the other side of the hall in a second. I started running to get to her, but he kicked me to the other side of the hall. Obviously, I wasn’t injured, but the pain was still there. I got up while he was laughing hard. He looked me starting to run to Claire again.
“Well, I know it won’t give me anything, but it doesn’t matter, it’s fun.” He said, and immediately, his neck started to lengthen, and his pointy teeth got right into my leg. I screamed of pain while falling on the ground again. He was like a snake, even with everything that happened so far, I was terrified. In a second, he was to Claire and put one of his claws right into her chest. It was horrifying to witness. He took it out. And took a few steps back while laughing loudly.
I managed to get to Claire. It was horrible. There was a large hole in her chest. It was already reforming itself, but I could see she was in pain, she couldn’t speak and her eyes were filled with fear.
“Ha ha ha, you two… You are a lot of fun, I’ll give you that. Let’s say that you do beat me, what are you doing then? You’ll have eternity, you’ll find a way to mess it up, and then you’ll live forever, with all the regrets and the guilt that you’ll have created by then. You can’t die anymore… What do you think will happen in 1000 years? You’ll go crazy. All I want to say is that, well, if you want to avoid eternal suffering, giving up to me is your only chance. So the fact that you’re even trying, well, I just think that’s stupid.”
Claire was better, the hole in her chest had disappear. That’s when something hit me about his speech.
“Well, you died.” I said.
“What?” He answered with a way more serious tone than before.
“You’re dead. So if you died, we could too.” I said.
“Do I look dead to you Mark?!”
“Well, yes, you’re desperately holding on to life by haunting this museum and turning people for centuries, but, you are dead. I don’t know how, but somehow, you died.”
He looked at me, confused, and even a little scared. Then, Claire grabbed my hand, looked at him straight in the eyes and screamed loudly.
In an instant, we were in a dark space. Just like the others, except this one was quiet, but not peaceful, this silence was deep and suffocating. I asked Claire what happened.
“I saw a door where he was for a second, so I took it with you. Be careful, I think we’re inside of his mind.” She answered.
“What do we do now? There’s nothing here.” I said.
“I’m trying to connect to him, see if I can see where the book is.”
We wandered around when I saw something in the distance, it looked like someone sitting on the floor.
“There’s something there, look.”
We approached carefully. It was just a kid. He was hiding his head in his hands, whispering the same thing over and over: “I’m not dead, I don’t want to die, I’m alive.”
I slowly approached my hand from him.
“Kid? Are you okay?”
He raised his head and looked at me, he was crying. He wiped his tears.
“Ho hello Sir, hello Miss.” He said.
He looked like he was about 8 years old, and he seemed underfed.
“Who are you buddy?” I asked.
“Well my friends call me Vesel!”
I stopped for a second. Whatever was Vesel’s story, I felt like it was way more complicated than I thought.
“Do you know where you are?” I asked him.
He looked around then back at me.
“No Sir, but I am not dead!” He said. He looked terrified.
I was going to ask him more when Claire grabbed my shoulder.
“Mark, I know where’s the book. I mean, I have an instinct, I can find it, we have to get out of here, and I’ll try to maintain a connection with him. Follow me!”
She grabbed my hand and we ran back. Behind us, the kid was trying to follow us. He was screaming: “Come back Sir, I’m worth it, I don’t die, I said I wasn’t dead, I promise!”
Suddenly, we were back to reality. Vesel was still in front of us, but he was back to his original form and was on the ground holding his head. He had a terrifying smile, but tears were running down his face. He looked in pain, he screamed to us: “Get out of here you bitch!”
Claire grabbed me and we ran where her instinct was taking her. She looked in pain too. Vesel was following us, but he looked way less powerful now, he kept on having screams of pain and despair. I followed Claire and we arrived at the collection. It was indeed gigantic, thousands of books were there. Claire kept on running. Eventually, she stopped somewhere and break the glass protecting a simple old book in the middle of the rest of them. Since we were stopped, Vesel was approaching us more and more as seconds were passing. Claire took the book, opened it at a page, and I had the time to read a few words on it: “…besides Vlad III was Vesel, only a rumor of…”.
“Lighter, Mark!” Claire shouted.
I took the lighter I had in my pocket she grabbed it and before she lit the page on fire, we could hear his last words: “Please, I am just too…” And he was gone.
The book was gone, he was gone. Everything was quiet around us. We looked at each other.
“I’m thirsty.” She said.
“Yeah, I’m too.” I answered.
“Let’s take some blood bags from the car, yes?”
I stayed silent for a second.
“Yes. Let’s go.”
We walked back to the car and drank on the parking lot in silence.
This was 2 days ago.
After some time, we decided that we’ll spend the rest of eternity together, travelling around the world, trying to find ways we could die when things will get too long. If Vesel died, we could too.
All of this happened so fast. My entire life changed in the span of a few days, that’s crazy. I’m not going to say where we are or what is our current location, but we’re following our first lead, and if this one doesn’t work, we have plenty others. I never thought I’ll meet someone like Claire one day, but now that I know her, it’s like we’ve always known each other. I’m happy I get to spend the rest of eternity finding how we could die with her, it’s going to be fun…
I’m happy, she’s happy, I hope you’ll be happy too.
Goodbye and thank you for your help.