Ghostly tales...

Once upon a time, in a far away country, a beautiful young woman was living in her anscestors' mansion.

Nobody knew her name, nobody knew her age.

She was hiding from other people as if she feared the world around.

The only one to know her secrets was her lover.

They were rarely together but they used to feel each other's thoughts, as if their spirits connected in some way.

The young girl liked to spend the day just thinking and wandering in the lands around the castle.

She loved to think that some day, she would leave this ancient place with her loved one, and she would be free to live, free to love.

Month after month, she was waiting. Waiting for some change, waiting for her family to accept her choice.

But nothing happened.

Yet, one day, the atmosphere changed suddenly.

Everything was colder, misty. Though calm and beautiful.

As she walked in the park at night fall, she met a man. Tall, blond, mysteriously charming.

Scared by the wolf with this stranger, she ran away.

As she went back home, she saw a beautiful woman who seemed to bleed.

As she offered her help, the woman smiled at her and gave her a dark red rose, before disapearing in the night without a word.

For days from this night, the rose was the only thing she cared about. It was still beautiful, and had become black.

She didn't know who were those people she met, and if they knew each other. But she couldn't stop thinking about them. And somehow she felt they were all related.

So she went everyday to the place where she met the man with the wolf.

And kept waiting.

One day she fell asleep as she was lying down, waiting.

In her dream, all was well. No fear, no pain, no forbidden love. Never in her life she had felt so peaceful.

She was woken by some sweet taste on her lips, a warm liquid she was drinking.

As she opened her eyes, she saw the woman who gave her the rose. She was kissing her.

The blond man was close.

Watching them. His mouth bleeding.

Suddenly it was clear.

The girl stood up and faced the two strangers, frightened.

She saw the woman still on her knees, opening the mouth, refreshed. And then she realised she was drinking her blood just a few moments before.

Looking at her chest, she saw that the man must have been drinking too, as her breast was bleeding.

She ran away and locked herself in her bedroom.

She took off her clothes and threw them as if it was evil.

She fell on the floor and cried without stopping for hours.

She saw herself as someone she hated. Because she knew that this life coming to her would bring her away from her lover forever.

Her heart was tearing in her chest.

And then suddenly she saw him.

Desperate, he was making his violin crying for him.

And what a cry...

So she knew.

She knew the last thing she had to do before she became « one of them ». Before she'd belong to the night.

Just before the dawn, she took the black rose and left it where she and her lover used to meet in secret.

And then she walked. And there a lake was.

She dived.

Without thinking, without crying.

And he knew.

No tears were on his face. He was just lost in his memories. In her memories.

As she would never open her eyes again, he would never open his heart again.

For her. For them.

Of all he could have done to save her, it was the most beautiful sacrifice, and as he doomed himself to a life without love, his beloved came back to some kind of life.

Of course he would never know, but as he would think about her, she would be there and look after him.

Forever.

All copyrights to Victoria Francés. Website * HERE *