Carmilla used to be loved by everyone in her kingdom. The soon-to-be queen was caring and kind, didn't know how to hate, how to judge, only how to love and help. Not only that, but she used to be beautiful and cherished outside of her kingdom. Those were just some reasons why no one could figure out why everyone suddenly vanished from within the kingdom's walls.
There was not a single soul left, not a single footstep could be heard on the street in the middle of the day; no animals were seen laying on the grass during the sunset. In the blink of an eye, everything vanished, but Carmilla felt everything. Every soul that evaporated into thin air felt like a burn on her skin; every voice fading into air felt like a strong pull on her hair, and every moment of silence felt like a punch in the gut.
She was alone in her kingdom; she had been alone for years now, centuries even. That day remained engraved in her memory as the day everything changed. An all-knowing witch had cursed her and sentenced her for solitude for the rest of eternity. Her skin grew pale and sensitive to the sun; teeth sharpened like razors; her hair hung long but fried at the ends. Her body shrank as she couldn't nourish herself enough to maintain her health, especially now that she was a completly different person. The witch turned her into a vampire, and the lack of food made her unable to shapeshift or run away from the kingdom's tall, thick walls.
Carmilla was so loved and adored, she did no wrong in her life and yet she knew why she was cursed and sentenced to such cruel punishment. Just a few day prior, she had turned down a prince because she didn't feel that special bond between them. She rejected them in the most polite and respectful way, grateful for his honesty, yet unwilling to let him suffer in a one.way relationship. The witch said that if she couldn't love him, she didn't need to love anyone in her life either, as the prince was her grandson.
Now she could just float around her castle, hide in her room during the day, try to shapeshift during the night or climb up the walls, but nothing ever changed. She was wondering when the eternity could end, how she could waste her time or make it go by faster, until somebody did her a favor.
A sound of the old, rusty doors creaking open at the entrance to the kingdom shook the air and woke Carmilla up before the sun could set behind the horizon. Afraid of going outside and and burning her skin in the sunlight, but curious enough to check what was going on, she grabbed an old candelabrum dripping in old wax and small, burnt-out candles on top. Every step she took down the stairs towards the front of the castle echoed in the lonely hallways. She stepped in front of the entrance and waited, with her mind racing with every possible scenario. That's when the front door opened.
In front of her stood a human body, alive and real. The arms were braced against the door and held it open when those two eyes met Carmilla's. The candelabrum now looked useless as there seemed no danger to be defended from, no suspicious in her right mind to question. Carmilla took a sudden step closer, her nose picking up a human's scent for the first time in centuries, her eyes scanning every pore on the face and every limb hanging off the torso. Her fingertips gently caressed the exposed skin on the forearms and neck. The neck seemed to be the body part that drew most of Carmilla's attention before she looked up at the human, deeply into the two eyes that looked back with the same amount of shock and curiosity.
The two girls looked at each other, one as shocked as the other; the other as speechless as the first one. Carmilla was frozen in place, yet she wanted to touch her face, feel a human's skin under her fingertips again. She wanted to run her fingers through the locks of hair that fell over the girl's shoulders, to hear a human voice in her ears. The only thing she could hear was her was her lifeless heart thumping from within her ribcage and the heavy breaths that escaped her lips. The two pairs of eyes shinned inside the dark, abandoned and dusty castle as they fought for dominance until the girl in front of Carmilla reached up and just brushed her fingers against her cheek, cupping it in her palm. Carmilla's weak muscles tensed for just a second before her shoulders slowly dropped, unable to process seeing an alive human being, let alone being touched. She was starving for touch. She was starving for touch, starving for blood, and starving for that girl.
Thumping, footstep sounds could be heard from outside, getting closer to the castle and unlike the curous Carmilla, this girl pushed her inside and closed the door behind her. She took out a flashlight from her back pocket and lit up the room with just a simple press of her thumb on the button. Her hand found Carmilla's wrist and puller her, making her follow behind as the girl looked around the castle, as if she wanted to hide. Her legs led her around the hallways, going back to the same spot multiple times as they kept going in circles, but Carmilla was in such a deep trance that she didn't bother correcting her. She just stared at the girlm trying to memorize every bump on her face, every feature and every fold of her skin around her limbs. She savoured the feeling of her hand around her wrist and just followed behind her quietly.
They somehow found themselves in a hallway that lead up the castle's southeast tower. The girl carefully dragged carmilla behind her, slowly getting used to her just hanging from her grip as she followed like there wa nothing wrong or controversial about what was happening. Every step, every breath, every move of their limbs echoes down the long, circular staircase that seemed endless when looking up. Every time carmilla would feel the girl's grip loosen; she would purposefully push her wrist against the palm, not wanting the warm and tender feeling to be gone off her skin. Carmilla was lost in her thoughts, as she almost even forgot to feel the numbing pain in her legs as they continued climbing the staircase. Her muscled tensed, her legs shook, but she kept looking up at the figure like she was her one-way ticket to heaven, an escape from this lonely and disgusting hellhole.
Once they finally reached the top of the tower, they stopped in front of the door which was soon opened by the girl. The tower was so high up, you couldn't hear a thing happening at the foundation of the castle. No animals, no bugs, only fresh air blowing through their hair, their thoughts and... well... them.
"Who are you..." Carmilla spoke, her voice shaky and quiet, barely above a whisper when her hand finally dropped to her side from the girl's grip. The girl didn't say anything for a moment; her head turned to look at Carmilla. Her eyes scanning the details on her face as her gaze traveled all over. Her hand reached up and gently brushed a strand of hair behind her ear before quietly speaking up; her tone as gentle as Carmilla imagined.
"Who are you?" She repeated the question, as if she was the one to ask first, but there was a good reason for it. Carmilla was alone in this old spacious castle in an abandoned kingdom; she looked sick, yet beautiful.
Carmilla was dumbfounded as she didn't get an answer, but a question back, which somewhat seemed more important than the girl's name. Her voice was carried by the wind as she spoke out her name, slowly and gently. Carmilla's eyes examined the girl's face with furrowed eyebrows while biting her lip shut. Those tiny eyes, the freckles on her cheeks and nose, alone with a mole under her lips, were all too familiar. Like she's seen a face like that... but that was centuries ago. There was one girl that Carmilla had met during one of her royal balls, who wasn'pt supposed to be there, yet she was the only one Carmillla wanted to dance with. But there was no way they were the same people; the beautiful girl vanished along with everyine else in the kingdom all those years ago, and this girl in front of Carmilla right now was human, still alive, and certainly not hundreds of years old.
Carmilla waited a moment, not expecting a reaction to her name or any comment about it. All she wanted to know whas her name, yet that was the biggest mystery in the kingdom at that moment. The girl caressed Carmilla's face, letting a subtle smirk tug on the corner of her lips as her thumb brushed Carmilla's lower lip. Instead of telling her name out loud, she kept it a secret and asked what Carmilla's favourite spot in the castle was. Ironically, it was the top of this tower where they were right now. It offered a great view over the kingdom, and the sight could spread far outside the kingdom's walls, all the way over the horizon. The girl could sense Carmilla felt uneasy when looking down at the still empty kingdom, so she pulled her away from the edge of the tower and walked with her to the other side, where the view was only fields, forests and an endless horizon, open to imagination for what might be hiding behind it.
Her hands holding onto carmilla felt like silk sheets in bed after a long day, relaxing, comforting, and just right. She glanced up at her face just once more, looking at her peachy lips, a small bump on her nose, how her eyebrows furrowed and eyes closed when wind blew against her face, brushing her hair back and giving Carmilla a view worth worth all the centuries of waiting. In that moment she felt something tight in her chest, something unknown yet old. Vintage and artistic, familiar and safe, warm and comforting. Carmilla didn't speak about it just yet, as she wasn't sure what these feelings might be, but she didn't know it's always warm before it burns.
They sat down and just started off, trying to peak over the horizon to see what they couldn't, trying to hear sounds that were too far from them. Their fingers brushed against each other, but still too cowardly to intertwine with each other. Carmilla felt her hair getting gently tugged, almost brushed and when her eyes shot to her side, she saw the girl was now playing with her hair, twirling a few strands between her short-nailed fingers with small brownish spots from spending quite a long time in nature. Her hair was being braided all of a sudden, loose at first, before the knots tightened for extra volume and the process was continued. When the braid reached the bottom of the three knotted strands, the girl twisted the braid and made a loop so specific it acted like a hair tie, yet it was just her hair, every strand twisting around the other and holding onto each other to hold the braid in place. Now that was when Carmilla knew she wasn't going insane.
Carmillla remembered it all too well. A thrall named Rosalia that handmade a dress and snuck into a royal ball was sitting on top of the same tower next to carmilla and braided her hair the same way this familiar girl that was just exploring the woods, was braiding Carmilla's hair, even though that technique was ancient and forgottten a long time ago. Now not only did this girl know something Rosalia did, but she looked sickeningly similar to her. She had her scrawny arms with dry but gentle hands; her lips were cherry red and plump while her eyes were round and dark. Freckles decorated her cheecks and upturned nose while her eyebrows furrowed when paying attention to the braid. this human that appreared out of the blue was awfully similar to Carmilla's first and only true love. Rosalia was the only person she could've seen in that girl's eyes. Even when she touched her skin earlier, woke up the memoried of holding Rosalia's hands in the middle of the night while stargazing. But Rosalia was long gone after the witch cursed Carmilla; or maybe she wasn't. Maybe their love was too strong too just disapear, that Rosalia came back to life just to find Carmilla again. And that's exactly what this girl was, rosalia's reincarnation.
Her lips parted, wanting to say something, to call her by her nickname "Rose" she gave Rosalia on their first night together, yet no sound could come out before the rain started pouring from the sky. Not one of the girls moved though; they just looked into each other's eyes like they did the first time they saw each other. The thunder stroke in the distance, adding the heaviness to the atmosphere as the air around them felt thick, heavy yet tender and secure. Carmilla was catching her breath and gathering enough courage to confront the girl, to tell her she knew who she was all those years ago but just as she was about to speak, the girl had already leaned in and closed the gap between the two.
her lips brushed against Carmilla's as her hand cupped her smooth face and brushed through her soaked hair. Within seconds, Carmilla pressed her lips back and savored the kiss while it lasted. It quickly got messy, it quickly got heated as Carmilla was now laying on her back with her long-long lover right next to her, still getting soakced by the rain asa their lips danced in an already practised harmony, showing off their memories from all those years ago. the moon shined above them, lighting up the art of loce that was being drawn and painted into the night for the rest of eternity. their bodies were so close, the could almost feel their wet skin through their clothes that were sticking to their bodies, pieces of cloth and fabric dripping in rain and gripping around their figures, outlining their curves and showing off their skin through the half-transparent layers. their hands were everywhere, in each other's hair, on the back of their necks, cupping their faces, caressing the skin on their waist and hips.
They were now one, just as they were supposed to be. their DNA mixed between their lips, across their tongues, inside their mouths, all while the rain tried to wash them away. Nothing was stronger than their old and long-lasting love that they kept inside of them for centuries, not knowing they would ever feel like this again in their lives, not now, not before, not ever. But they are there now, just like they promised each other to always find each other if they ever got seperated. They promised to go together through everything, life and death.
Unfortunatelly, they were still supposed to breathe and they soon had to pull away, but only far enough to catch their breath and fill their lungs with oxygens. Carmilla's life wasn't worth living until this exact moment. The kiss, the touch, the person, everything she just experienced was everything she wanted yet she was certain she would never experience it since the day the withc threw a curse on her. The girl pulled Carmilla up to sit up straight, holding her by her wasit and the back of her neck as she wanted to kiss her again, yet the curse was still upon Carmilla.
Carmilla vinced at a sudden sharp pain in her back. Her chest clenched, trying to breathe. She couldn't, she felt her blood freeze inside her body, her heart not pumping any last bit of blood through her veins. carmilla, tried to hold onto the girl in front of her, hoping their love would save her when she fell on her back, while a crucifix-shapped scar, formed on Carmilla's back. the girl that held onto Carmilla was a vampire hunted, who ironicallly fell in love with one, and the rest of her crew must have followed them in the castle and up the tower. One of the guys that was with them, pressed a crucifix hard on carmilla0s bare back, partially paralyzing her and just stood on the side, laughing at the vampire suffering in the girl's arms. She panicked, ripping through Carmilla0s dress and turning her to the side, trying to scratch the burned mark off her skin, but was all useless. carmilla couldn't even wince, gasp or move. She could barely look to the side towards the girl, and she weakly spoke up, her voice quiet adn weak.
"Rose... join me in death..." Then her body vamporized into thin air, letting the wind blow away her ashed and leaving Rosalia heartbroken on top of the tower.