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He woke up in a coffin.

There was nothing strange about that, being a vampire. It wasn't like he slept every night in a coffin, he preferred his huge comfortable bed, but sometimes he did. Sometimes it had its uses.

What truly caught his attention, what was troubling, was the hunger he felt.

As if he had been wandering for a long time in the desert, his body consuming itself to keep going due to lack of food and water. He could feel it in his bones, that hunger. He could feel his bones, scraping against his skin.

How long had he been sleeping?

What had happened to him to end up in this state? He couldn't remember, and he couldn't think with this hunger, as if his body was on fire. He would have to find the answers himself, check them with his own eyes.

He put his hands on the coffin slab and pushed, felt a momentary panic when he discovered that it wasn't so easy to move it aside. If he were claustrophobic he wouldn't sleep in coffins, vampires or not. It was panic at the humiliating thought of being forced to wait until one of his servants got him out of here. He had an image to maintain.

But he was able.

Although slowly, he pulled back the lid of the coffin. Damn, he was hungry. He crawled out of the coffin, weak as a sick man, as a mere human.

The realization hit him like a hammer as soon as he looked around.

This was not his castle.

It wasn't even his coffin.

What's going on here, he thought, an enemy? No, nonsense. If some enemy had had him at his mercy, as much as the mere idea offended him he couldn't deny that he had been at someone's mercy, then he would be dead.

Perhaps he had ordered this. Maybe something had happened and one of his subordinates had moved him in a coffin to save him. And, after a while, he had finally woken up. Weakened, but alive.

It made sense.

A lot of things could make sense, but he wouldn't discover the answer if he sat around, waiting. None of his minions were here or they would have appeared by now, kneeling.

So Dracula crept through the corridors of a strange castle, occasionally putting a hand on the wall for support. To keep his balance, necessarily. He didn't like requiring the help of anyone or anything. He was used to being the most powerful of all. So powerful that he rarely needed to personally face an enemy, because the monsters kneeling before him were enough to take down most threats.

To be reduced to this state was humiliating. He was almost grateful that there was no one around to see him like this. He had to eat.

Fill his throat with warm blood, and then everything would return to normal.

Dracula found his way out of this castle, but the world beyond the door was wrong. Hundreds of blinding lights and an infernal noise when he already felt like he was being ripped in half.

"What is this, how long have I been asleep?"

A massive amount of people, larger than the population of any town or city he had ever seen, and that was only as far as he could see, which wasn't very far, blocked by buildings that stood as tall as his castle. Dracula's dreaded demonic castle.

Some were on foot, others were crossing the streets of a material he didn't recognize riding in strange carriages.

For that was what they were. Carriages, somehow they had managed to dispense with horses and not just for convenience. They weren't sacrificing speed, quite the contrary. Those carriages were faster than any horse.

Except his own, of course.

He could be a stranger to this time, but it was obvious. Dracula hadn't gotten to his position on his strength alone. He was no fool. He wasn't going to just jump in the middle of the street and expect "those infernal beasts" to pay obeisance to him, like all the others. Strong, smart, he had it all.

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It was clear he had been gone a long time, but he would learn fast and adapt.

Dracula staggered down the stairs, down to the street. Many looked at him only to look away just as quickly. It wasn't the fear he was used to, he realized. They did not recognize him, neither as Dracula nor, instinctively, as a being that wasn't human. He was too weak for that. They must have thought him a beggar. Dracula grimaced, but he would accept it. For the time being.

He stepped into an alley and had to stop for a moment to lean against the wall with one hand and take a deep breath. Tired? Already?

He had to drink. He needed blood.

Blood was everything.

But, in his state, he couldn't eat openly. Vampire hunters would fall upon him. That was why he had gone into this alley. He needed an isolated victim.

Dracula soon discovered that he wasn't the only one crawling the alleys in search of just that. Out of the darkness came a creature and not to kneel before him and bring him food. The creature directed its hostility toward him.

A goat demon drooling already. He thought him easy prey.

"Wretched beast," he said, glad that at least his voice hadn't decayed. It held all the power his body lacked right now, "Don't you know who I am? I am the dragon: Dracul. I am the master of all that creeps in the shadows. I am your..."

Lord, he was going to say, but actually his end. For he had dared to attack him. He dodged, albeit badly. The attack should have torn into his neck, instead it only wounded his cheek, leaving the marks of its claws.

"All right. Enough talk. Have at you."

This wretched creature should be nothing to him, even in its weakened state. It was nothing more than a small demon.

He could open the cloak and summon from the darkness within him one of his servants to tear it apart, but he decided against it. He decided he would do it with his own hands. That no one could see him like this, so making use of his servants would have to wait until he was recovered.

Until he had finally eaten.

Dracula lunged for the demon. His nails were as long as claws, sharp as the best knife. He tore a large chunk out of his enemy's shoulder with just a graze. If I had even five percent of my power, I would have swatted you like a fly.

The demon punched him.

Yes, a punch, not a kick. Or kicks. He was more human than goat, standing with claws at the ready. In any case, he wasn't able to dodge that punch either and consequently traveled to the other end of the alley in half a second. Had it not been for the wall he would have continued flying a good distance.

The impact should have been like a mosquito bite, but this time it hurt. Damn this weakness. He couldn't remember the last time he had felt so weak.

But of course, he had existed for so long that it was hard to remember many things.

The goat demon ran out after him, to finish the job. It was coming at him fearlessly. Dracula spat on the ground. He ran a hand over his lips, wiping the blood away.

He stood there. Waiting.

The demon jumped.

He morphed into a swarm of bats that engulfed him and pushed him against the ground, the alley wall, some metal contraption that was apparently a rather small dumpster, judging by the contents that spilled out.

In any case... In bat form, Dracula ran over the creature and tore it to pieces.

Hardly fast enough. He wasn't able to maintain the transformation for long. He returned to his vampire form, kneeling over the pool of blood his enemy had left behind.

All that was left of the goat demon.

He had won.

The fight had lasted longer than was reasonable. He'd wounded him in the cheek and also cut him in the chest when he'd punched him, but what mattered was that he'd won. Of course. There had been no doubt from the start.

An inferior creature like that couldn't defeat the Prince of Darkness, even if he was so weakened that he could barely walk properly.

Dracula felt stupid from the surge of victory that invaded his body.

In the first place, the conclusion had been inevitable. Secondly, that wasn't the problem he had entered the alley to solve.

He was still so hungry.

Demon blood wouldn't work, he needed a human. He needed to drink from some human until he emptied him.

"What happened here, are you all right?"

Then some humans appeared at the other end of the alley. A man, a woman and what ought to be their children. A complete family. Four targets.

There was a considerable risk that at least one of them would manage to escape long enough to alert the humans.

No vampire hunter could stand up to Lord Dracula under normal circumstances, but this was far from normal. He had yet to drink a drop of warm human blood and, judging by how much their society had changed, he must have been asleep for at least a thousand years. It couldn't be that they had come so far in a few hundred.

It was too long without feeding. If he were any other vampire, he would have died in a few years.

That was why he was in no condition to fight. He should let that family pass and look for a better target. A single target, but...

His head was clouded by the fog of hunger.

A scarlet fog.

He opened his mouth, baring his teeth, his fangs. His eyes glowed like two blood rubies in the darkness of the alley, an intense, burning glow. There were gasps of surprise. They should have screamed, but they didn't, they were too afraid for that. It was fear that sealed their throats. Something almost as delicious as fresh, hot blood, something more powerful than any scream of despair.

Dracula did not give them a chance to scream.

The Prince of Darkness Walking Down Fifth Avenue (1): END

Author's Note:

Dungeon tag is justified by my plans for Dracula's Castle, since this is (obviously) inspired by Castlevania. But he will take some time to get it back.