The question still lingered in the air, thick as the dust that floated in the beam of the faint light. Why did I come back?
Phantom—no, Everan, as they once called him here—stood in front of the cold hearth like a man who'd stepped into a mausoleum built from his own memories.
The silence in the room was unnatural—not peaceful, just unusual.
Everything about the manor had the scent of old times. Wallpaper peeled from the corners, the furniture was eaten by moths, books melted into piles of paper pulp by damp.
The hearth remained black and cold. A crow had nested in the rafters above—he could smell its feathers and hear it shift.
He took a step forward and the floor groaned beneath his boots. The manor had once been full of life, of sound, laughter, fury, plots.
As he paced the room, his gloved fingers traced the edge of a mantelpiece that had once displayed heads of wolves. Now, it was empty.
He stopped as soon as he heard a sound.
Tap! Tap! Tap!
He crouched low, his fingers pressed against the warped wood. He closed his eyes, searching for something—anything.
There, beneath the floorboards, a slight echo and the faint scent of aged iron. It was blood.
Everan stood up slowly, his eyes sharpening. He was sure he hadn't been followed—and yet something had found its way back here before him.
He tested each floorboard with care until his heel struck one that shifted unnaturally. A loose panel, hiding in place.
He knelt down and pried the plank free. Beneath it, dust, fragments of cloth, and an envelope.
It was sealed—not with wax but with blood, dried, flaked with age.
He reached for it carefully, bringing it close to him. The scent was ancient and intimate, like he had known this blood once.
He broke the seal with his thumb and opened the folded letter inside. It was a single sentence, written in dark ink that had begun to blur:
You left something beneath the floorboards
— V.
"V?" he muttered as he stared at the letter. The initials didn't feel possible. The person who wrote this should be long dead, but the letter was fresh enough to be less than a week old. The blood on the seal still held the scent of a week-old blood.
He folded the letter slowly and pocketed it, then stood up.
He knew where he would be headed next. The eastern side of the manor—the drawing room.
He moved through the halls like a ghost gliding over pavement. Every corner held echoes. The stairs sighed under his weight.
Portraits stared with hollow eyes. As he passed a mirror in the corridor, it showed his reflection and in a split second, he looked like a faded painting.
He entered the drawing room and ripped aside a rug half-eaten by moths. Beneath it, a seam in the floorboards. He pressed his palm against it.
Click!
The trapdoor rose, revealing a hidden compartment. A box waited inside, simple wood, oiled against rot.
He lifted it gently, brought it to a dust-caked table, and opened it. Inside was a mirror.
A small, silver-framed mirror, cracked through the middle. The instant his eyes met its surface, his body tensed.
His reflection was warped, flickering at the edges like a candle burning under glass. His eyes glowed faintly—not the dull silver of age, but sharp, wolf-like and hungry.
There was no blood on his face, no warmth. And then—behind him a silhouette, a figure standing still.
"Huh?" He quickly turned around, but the room was empty. Then he turned back to the mirror, and his reflection smirked.
A slow, knowing grin across its face. Something behind the glass was playing with him.
"This isn't normal." He slammed the box shut, his heart beating slightly despite being more than a decade-old vampire.
The scent of blood thickened. Then he staggered back from the table, clenching his jaw.
His fangs ached again, deep and sharp, as if responding to the tension in the environment.
The manor was no longer quiet. The air felt heavy, like a thousand needles prickling his throat.
You left something beneath the floorboards.
But what had he left, exactly? It seemed like a secret, and someone had come looking for it, or had never left.
He descended into the lower halls, back toward the wine cellars and servant corridors, following a scent he didn't realize he missed.
It was his blood. The scent was laced in the stones. He ran his fingers over the old scratch marks—ones he didn't remember making.
In the deepest corner of the cellar, behind a hidden panel, he found what he didn't know he was looking for: a second box.
Buried in the brick, the bricks had been clawed away by something desperate, something strong and inside the box he saw more letters, unsigned, all written by him.
"How is this possible?" he questioned, his voice laced with confusion and a bit of fear.
He saw dozens of them, all with his handwriting. One read:
"If I ever return, I must not forget what waits here"
"Do not trust the mirror"
"He is inside me, watching"
Everan stared at them, his heart silent inside his chest. These weren't just memories. They were messages—from a version of himself that had already walked this path before, suffered, and left breadcrumbs behind.
The question that filled his head now was:
Why had he forgotten? What had he forgotten?
He took another letter and unfolded it slowly:
"The hunger is not mine anymore. It listens to him—to the voice in the chapel. The Crimson Throne is real. If you feel the thirst for it again… run!"
For the first time since he was a child, his hands trembled. He turned and climbed out of the cellar.
The letter from V was in his pocket and it mentioned something was coming, or maybe something had already arrived.
And whatever part of him that had stayed behind in this house... it had been waiting.
Patiently—for his return.