Of Eternal Debt and Insanity
A hysterical cackle echoed throughout the asylum, it’s origin from a lone cell that’s bars were just large enough for someone to stick an arm through. Inside was a young woman with shoulder-length wild blonde hair and a frantic look in her eyes. She wore a twisted smile on her face as she clung to the bars, staring out at the refined woman who accompanied the doctor of the building. “He’s coming for you, he’s coming for you. My master is coming for you.” The demented lady taunted giddily, her voice light and elevated.
Then, her voice and features changing to one of immense sorrow, she whimpered, “Please, you must leave! Quickly, don’t stay…you must flee from these men whom you hold dear. Oh please, please…” Just as suddenly as that mood had come, it had changed again, this time to one of anger as she threw her body violently against the back wall and then up to furiously claw and pound the wooden frame of the cell. “Leave! Leave at once! I pray to God that I shall never see your face again!”
All at once, the chaos subsided, and she hung her head, her grip still iron on the bars. The room lapsed into silence. “May the Lord bless and keep you…” She whispered with a mix of bitterness and earnestness. The woman, shocked, was quickly led away by the doctor, leaving the insane woman alone. The blonde sank onto her knees, her grip on the bars relinquishing. Sobbing to herself, she wailed, “Master! Master! What is this cruel punishment? You promised me eternal life! Me! And yet you give it to this woman? This pretty woman! Why? Why!” Pushing herself back onto her two feet, she stumbled backwards for a moment before running up to the door of her cage and pulling desperately at the lock.
“Doctor!” She shrieked, “I am no lunatic! I am sane—saner than all of you wretches here! Can’t you see that I’m fighting for my soul? Let me out! Let me out of this place! I am in danger!” Darting her eyes about nervously, she backed up, hugging herself.
Outside of the cell, a tall, cloaked man gracefully strode out of the shadows. “Renfield…” He bellowed in his smooth, silky voice, “You have betrayed me.”
She gasped, her gaze immediately swinging towards the stranger. “Master!” She squealed, falling to her knees, “No! No! I serve you master! I serve only you! I…” Her begging, however, was cut off as the man raised a marble hand from the cloak, his long fingers reaching out to her before squeezing shut. The blonde made a choking sound before falling over, motionless. Renfield was dead. Wordlessly, her master turned and strode away into the shadows once more.
As the lights faded into complete darkness, the crowd burst into applause at the wonderfully performed scene. In the darkness, the girl playing Renfield grinned and silently retreated backstage before the lights came on yet again. “Great work, Amelia!” The stagehands and side characters congratulated once they were far enough behind the large theatre’s stage to talk without being overheard.
“Yeah,” One piped up with a cheerful voice, “When you were chosen to play Renfield, I really had doubts. I mean…Renfield is originally a male role. You really pulled if off, though! You were fantastic! I can’t imagine anyone else playing him, now.”
Someone else added, “It makes me wonder if you really are fully sane, sometimes.”
At that comment, everyone burst into laughter. Amelia smiled, “Well, thank Beauregard. He’s the one who suggested I try out in the first place!” What she wasn’t going to add was the fact that she really wasn’t a stranger in the realm of insanity, and that was why Beauregard, the one playing Dracula, had recommended her for the part. It didn’t matter, anyway. Those days of incoherent muttering and groping around in the dark were long ago. She hadn’t been lost and confused for a while, now. A few centuries, in fact.
Retiring to her dressing room until it was time for curtain call, Amelia sighed. How long had it been since Beauregard had found her? As she sat in front of her vanity and gazed into the mirror, which revealed no reflection of the woman sitting in front of it, she retreated into the vast pool of her thoughts. Three hundred fourteen years ago: the year of sixteen hundred ninety three was when the paths of Amelia Scarlet Hearting and Beauregard Boyce Edric Revelin collided. She could remember the day as if it were simply yesterday…
The night sky was eerily black that thirty-first of October. If there had ever been festivities to honor the dead on this night, these past two years in Salem had had none. Blood on her hands and blood flowing from her pearly teeth, Amelia had run. She didn’t know how it had happened, but somehow, when she had awoken just after the sun had set, she felt as if she were a new person. During the past week in this time, she had been getting sicker and sicker. She’d wake up with dreams of the burning of witches, the hanging of witches, people being hissed, mocked, pelted mercilessly with stones, and the flowing of blood lingering in her mind. After just a few days, she had been consumed by these twisted thoughts. Unknown to her, the villagers had already been planning on running her out of the village or killing her before she had fled.
Now, the situation was different. She had killed the love of her life, fed upon his blood, and disgusted with herself, ran. Now, far and safe, she could see the faint glow of fire in the distance. Later he discovered that after finding the body in her house, they had burnt it to the ground. Amelia, blood soaked and sobbing with wide eyes and disheveled hair, sat on her knees, slumped over and pitiful. Her life was over; she had nothing left to live for…and yet, she couldn’t die. Her heart had stopped beating and her skin was as cold as ice. Amelia was already dead. It was at this time that Beauregard found the confused fledgling.
He approached her and knelled down in front of her, his feet not making a single sound on the grass under them. She was startled at his sudden appearance, and lashed out with her clawed fingers, but he caught hold of her wrists fast, as if she had been swinging at him slowly. His grip was like steel, and Amelia would never forget the cold, pitiless stare of his amber eyes. The blonde was frightened, but even so, the strange man almost seemed like a comfort to her. Although he didn’t seem like the kindest of people, he was certainly not inflicting harm upon her, and there was no malice in his gaze. Her panic subsided, and once the raven-haired male seemed satisfied that she wasn’t going to try and rip the skin off of his face again, he relinquished his hold on her.
“Now,” He started, his voice even and low, “I’m going to explain to you what’s happening as simply as I can. Pay attention.” Pausing for a second, he added on a whim, “Do you understand?” The girl didn’t seem up to speed yet, so he felt that it might be necessary to check. Honestly, he wasn’t completely sure why he was taking the time of night to help the creature as of yet. When she nodded slowly, he spoke again, uttering simply:
“You are a vampire.”
She shook her head violently, seemingly about to protest with the thought of it, but when his eyes narrowed slightly in annoyance, she quieted, looking down at her shaking white hands, stained with the blood of her beloved Theodore. “It’s true then, isn’t it?” She asked, her voice the breadth of a whisper. “Does that mean that you’re…”
“Yes,” He interrupted, “I am a vampire, too.”
All at once, her emotions took over the brief control she had over her mind and shrieked, “But why? Why me? I don’t understand this! I didn’t choose this! I didn’t want this!” The rage overpowered her, and for a moment she looked like she was going to make another attempt at running away, but Beauregard stood, and in a rather dramatic flourish, turned and started walking. Panic threatened to engulf Amelia’s mind again. This man knew what she was…he could help her, he could tell her what she had to do! She didn’t want to be lost again.
“Nobody chooses this.” He said simply as he continued walking away from the hopeless fledgling. He wasn’t a babysitter; he wasn’t a father; he wasn’t going to take care of her. She was the world’s problem, and if she couldn’t figure out that she’d die when the sun came up, she would soon be nobody’s problem at all. That was when she did something he wasn’t necessarily expecting. He’d seen groveling, sniveling, begging, and other pathetic acts when foolish humans wanted something from him, but in his hundred years of life, nobody had ever stood up to him in such a resolute unwavering way.
Standing, she had grabbed onto his sleeve, and he stopped. “Help.” She said simply. She didn’t complain, ask, or even demand. She simply stated the word, as if it were a possibility: a thought in an ocean of thoughts. In situations like this, he’d usually go into a monologue about how cruel the world was, how she had no right to beg for help from him when she’d only lived a few years of the world’s torture where he had lived a century of it. However, this girl was different. Somewhat similar to him in ways that he couldn’t quite pinpoint as of yet. His sunset irises flickered upwards, and he heaved a sigh. He knew that someday he would regret this act of charity.
“My name is Beauregard Boyce Edric Revelin. From this moment onward, you are to follow me with unconditional, unwavering loyalty. I am not your creator, but I am your master. Do you understand?”
“My name is Amelia Scarlet Hearting.” She answered, and even though she hadn’t answered his question, it seemed that he took this as an acceptable reply, and on they walked, into the shadows. As they strode silently, he talked to her, explaining to her the life of a vampire, how to survive as a creature of the night, the freedom it gave, but the shackles that it came with as well. Only once more did she say something that night, a question left unanswered directly.
“Were you unaccepted?”
Beauregard gave Amelia a sideways glance as he left her in the room he had situated for her, retiring to his own as the sun began to rise over the horizon. “Typical,” He hissed to himself, “Humans, simple creatures maddened by the thought of their utopia being disrupted in any shape or form. What they never realize is how utterly flawed their little societies really are. Well, let them have their rules, their standards, and their mockery of divinity. In the end, they’re not the ones who live forever, and their existence is more worthless even than dust.”
It was even then as he ranted to himself that he realized why he and Amelia were similar: they praised the unusual aspects of the world over the perfected ones.
“Amelia, curtain call!”
The warning to get on stage brought the blonde out of her brooding state, and getting rid of the despicably distant gaze, she hurried her way directly backstage, where she joined hands with Dracula and made a dramatic entrance onto the stage. The roar of applause was deafening, but even though that was the case, Beauregard’s whisper could be heard perfectly by the blonde waving pleasantly at the audience.
“Don’t dwell on the past, it’s unlike you.”
“Teasing me? You’re just jealous because I’m stealing your limelight.”
She was right; nobody loved to be the center of attention more than Beauregard. Amelia had found out that fact quickly, and soon she came to master what he had mastered over the long years of his immortality, however in her own fashion. She didn’t want to simply be the pathetic vampire who hung onto her master’s arm for life. No. She became her own person, worthy in his eyes and worthy of his eyes. She knew that she’d never best him in anything but her charismatic personality, but she would try, for he was the most Supreme Being in her mind, and she could never stop trying to make her the only thing he saw. It was not love, no, but the result of a combination of eternal debt and a mentally unstable mind.
“I serve you master! I serve only you!” echoed Renfield’s plea. How right, indeed, she had been for the part.
