💯 STORY CHALLENGE (7/100)

Dracula Greets the Sun | Flash Fiction

Faced with the challenges of modernity, Dracula reflects on his eternal existence in a letter to his arch-nemesis van Helsing.

London, 26 May 2022, Ascension Day.

An older man with a hunched back and drooping shoulders sits at a desk in his study, brooding in dim light over ancient half-rotten texts. Slowly, he turns an envelope in his wrinkled hands. It is of fine vintage paper that is not produced these days anymore. Only five words are written on the envelope:

To Professor Abraham van Helsing

The vampire hunter immediately recognises the flourishing script of Count Dracula, his archnemesis. Unexpectedly, the once-famous polymath and parapsychologist feels excited and thrilled. After the debacle in Whitby over a century ago, his academic peers shunned him, and he has lived reclusively ever since.

He eagerly opens the letter from the monster he had sworn to destroy, but that had eluded him all his life.

To the honourable Prof van Helsing,

My dear Abraham,

I write this letter out of my most profound admiration for you.

We have played a cat-and-mouse game for almost one-and-a-half centuries, frequently switching the roles. I often wondered how you felt when the hunter became the prey? Where you frightened to the bone? Did you get high on adrenaline?

Your righteous quest, please forgive my honesty, to slay me has long since grown into an obsession. I am sorry to tell you our nocturnal dance will end tonight!

You have hunted me for more than two lifetimes of an average man. The power needed to accomplish that feat does not come freely. Ask yourself, was humanity worth your sacrifices? Can you look into the mirror and justify your compromises for the “greater good”?

Having been unable to look at my tortured self in a mirror for centuries I write this letter as a symbolical reflection of my life and unlife ….

Van Helsing pauses. Red droplets smear the writing. Their unusually dark colour indicates the powerful blood of a vampire. Something cold grips his heart as anxiety and confusion spread. Fighting back his hesitation, he continues the letter.

Yes, my beloved nemesis, these are not the signs of a fresh kill but my tears of blood. Saying farewell — to eternal and mortal life alike — probably never is easy.

My glory days are over. I am but an ancient, useless, and empty fairytale. Forgive my harsh words. I am little more than a half-forgotten anachronism like you.

Eternal life! How adventurous, thrilling, and promising that sounded back in my lifetime. Although I have to admit that you rightfully called me a monster, I always did look forward to seeing humanity thrive.

What has humanity learned in the last 150 years? Hatred, bigotry and greed seem as rampant as ever today. Can we genuinely say that society has evolved?

Again, the Professor pauses. His face a painful grimace, he turns towards a chest close by. He caresses the old leather wrapping before unlocking and slowly opening the lid.

Inside are various tools and weapons he used in a long career as a vampire hunter. Stakes, bottles of holy water, crucifixes, and the like. He shuns all of them. Instead, his arthritic hands grab an old bottle of Scotch.

“I bought this in 1897 after you escaped in Whitby,” he says and fills a glass, “I wanted to open it when I finally destroy you.”

The old man laughs bitterly. Carefully, he takes the letter into his hands again, leaving the glass untouched.

Yes, my dear Abraham, the middle ages were a cruel time, even by my standards. The nobility was constantly obsessed with warfare and fighting. Has that changed much, I ask you?

As a man and a vampire, I was known as one of the cruellest in warfare. I staked my enemies and displayed them to warn any fool who dared challenge me. But there was honest brutality in that primal fight, sword against the sword.

Since then, humanity has developed the cruellest and deadliest weapons. I could not have imagined such destruction. Even I fear the atomic bomb. Today, not far from my castle, a war wages that eludes my understanding.

Humanity has survived the pest — several times. I dreaded those days. Every night, I long for the blood of a virgin. But again, I live off the blood of rats and vermin because I fear the new afflictions humans carry in their blood.

The Victorian Age was the time of my prime. I was evil incarnate, the most potent being between time and space. Nobility — both woman and man — begged for the honour to offer me their necks. They did anything for the thrill and ecstasy of my kiss, longing for eternal life’s beautiful, forbidden fruit.

Those days are long gone. There is no space left in this world for relics like us. I have lived in the dark of the night for centuries, but now I live in the darkest shadows, fearing what the world has become.

Nearing the end of my existence, I want to satisfy a longing refused to me for centuries. Today, I shall greet the sun.

Forgive me for ending our nocturnal dance. I gift you your freedom and hope you will let go of your obsession and live a human life for the time left to you.

I must end this letter now as I see the first red on the horizon. It is beautiful. Farewell and goodbye, beloved enemy. May you find peace, old friend.

Yours

Dracula

Van Helsing slowly puts the letter down; his hands shake, and tears run down his cheeks. He sighs deeply and takes hold of the glass on his table, lifting it in a salute.

“I shall not raise this glass to my enemy but to the friend I have lost. To the monster,” he says, “that understood the monster I have become.”

Professor Abraham van Helsing was found weeks later with a priceless vintage Scotch bottle by his side. The coroner’s report read, “self-inflicted shot to the head with an antique pistol.”

© Jay C Wells 2022

💯 Story Challenge (7/100)

Thank you for supporting my creative journey! Please check out my other weird, wicked and witty fiction stories on Medium if you enjoyed this tale. Support my writing journey by subscribing to my email list or joining as a medium member with my referral link.

The song “Der Graf” (The Count) by German punk rock band Die Ärzte (The Physicians) inspired this story. I wrote it in response to a writing prompt by Zane Dickens.

Are you interested in the 💯 Story Challenge? Check this story by Zane Dickens in Microcosm to learn more.

Like always, I finish by leading you to a personal pick from the 💯 Story Challenge. This time, it is a very evocative story by Zane Dickens.