In the mountain tops of Celin lay a castle once grand. Ravaged by time and the icy storms of the northern peaks, the silver stone and pitch-black roof tiles had worn down to the fringes, leaving the estate to stand a remnant of days long past, and an era now forgotten.

Deep in the tattered rooms of the castle rested a coffin. Pristine with not a scratch on its bone-white surface, it appeared out of place in the deteriorating building.

To the unknowing mind, it did not belong. But the truth was far from that. It existed long before the castle had been erected. Its purpose lost to the hands of time, though kept safe through eons endless.

The sealed coffin rattled, countless thuds falling upon its frame from within. One, two, three, the thuds continued, growing louder as if the thing inside grew stronger with each one.

The bone casing shattered, pale fist and arm piercing through the hole and shining in the dark, marrow splinters scattering across the floor. A second fist punctured next, and then a knee, and then a foot. The entire coffin fell to pieces as the outlash from the being within continued.

When the commotion ended, He emerged.

Skin paler than the moonlight that flitted through the shattered roof above, muscles lithe and toned, rippling with his every movement as if sculpted by master artisans, hair short and messy, blacker than an empty night sky. He stood from that shattered casket with reverence, his red eyes piercing the dark of the room, looking, understanding. He wore nothing save a pair of worn, linen shorts, but even in such unstately attire the man seemed no less than royalty.

He was a vampire, after all.

He felt it then, like a stab to his unbeating heart. Hatred. So much hatred. He knew not where it was directed, to whom he seethed with murderous rage, but still it rattled him from inside.

Kill. Tear. Feast. Revenge. Murder. Revenge!

The words pounded in his head, voices like the screeches of babes torn from their mother's arms. The vampire stumbled, nearly falling to his knees.

“Stop…” he muttered.

They continued. Louder still, harsher still.

Betrayed. Unforgivable. Avenge. Destroy. Avenge!

“Stop!” he roared, voice baritone like the ocean’s depths, silky like the sheets of a king's bed.

They stopped then, sputtering off to hushed whispers in the back of his mind. Angered.

What were they? Why did they hound him? The vampire staggered through the dark in confusion.

He had no name, not one he knew of. Not a memory lived in the crevices of his mind. He stumbled like a fawn but caught himself quicker and quicker with each step, coming to an effortless stride through the gargantuan room. The massive, ornate doors at the end of the room slid open with a gentle push from his hands as if they wished to grant him passage.

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He shielded his eyes from the harsh red glow that emerged from the other side. Another room. A foyer. Stained glass shattered to the sill lined every wall of the high-ceilinged place. Had there been a chandelier or tapestries or any sign of life once before, there was none anymore. The foyer whistled with the screams of the wind, feeling all the more hollow under that chill breeze.

But to say the room was empty would be a lie of the greatest degree.

Stretching from floor to roof were crimson tendrils intertwined like yarn, flowing around a bulging center that thumped like a heart. The center glowed, dimmed, and glowed again, pulsating with light as well as whatever flowed within.

The vampire stared at the rippling stretch of flesh in both awe and comfort. It felt like home, which was strange because he couldn’t remember ever having one. He couldn’t remember anything.

In front of the tendrils stood a figure dressed in a fitted ash-gray coat that reached its knees. It wore trousers of the same hue and a pair of thick, brown leather boots. The closer the vampire came to the figure, the clearer he saw it.

It was a man, hair gray with speckles of black scattered throughout, sideburns the same but cut short and trailing into a full black beard. His skin was akin to polished mahogany and clear as an undisturbed pond. The vampire could see it then in the man’s face, in his eyes, and in the broad chest that didn’t rise regardless of how much time passed. He too was not among the living.

The tailored man bowed, one arm across his stomach.

“Welcome, master. My name is Rathburn, and I am at the service of your every need,” he said.

Rathburn’s voice was an octave lower than the vampires and full of respect. He spoke slowly, with a softness that could quiet a wailing child.

The vampire stared at the prostrated man and he knew without truly knowing what it was he looked at.

“Thrall. You carry the blood of your masters within you. Once human,” the vampire said.

Rathburn rose.

“It seems where your mind forgets, your blood remembers. Such is the way of our kin. Blood is ever-powerful if it flows through our veins. The right veins.”

“What is this place?” The vampire asked.

“What is it, or what was it? Two different answers, two different stories. We stand in Castle Veloma, a once-grand estate of the bloodline Seevin. The greatest vampires to exist, those Seevin were. These halls used to be filled with fineries and our brothers and sisters alike. It was a place even the humans dared not test. They knew what would become of them if they did. But as you can see,”—Rathburn gestured to the empty room, towards the destruction—“time has not been the kindest to it. As it has not been the kindest to us.”

The vampire understood. He could read more from Rathburn's blood than from his words, and listening to the crimson beneath his skin told the vampire a story that the dark-skinned man's words could not. “I am the last,” the vampire said. “My brethren, our kin, they’ve been wiped out, haven’t they?”

Rathburn nodded. “They have. The Conquest of Demara. Barbarically known as the Slaughter of the Vampires. The church led an assault against us with powers we’d never seen. We fell one by one until none remained; it took them only two weeks.”

“But you remain.”

A wry smile formed on Rathburn's face. The vampire couldn’t pick up the truth from his blood this time. “For now,” Rathburn said. “For now, I do. But let us not waste our time on questions you’ll learn soon enough. I ask you this, master: What is your purpose?”

The vampire raised a hand to his chest and felt the hollowness within where a heart would beat in the living. He stared at the fleshy crimson beating in the center of the room and strode towards it. He rested that raised hand on the bulging center and felt his blood squirm in the presence of it.

“I’m going to bring them back…” the vampire muttered.

“I didn’t quite catch that, my lord. May you repeat yourself?”

The vampire turned to face Rathburn, the red glow coating his body and adding a wickedness to his stare. “My brethren. Every last one of them. I’ll be bringing them back, even if I have to slaughter every single living creature to do so."