Stories I Never Finished

Vampire

Castle walls of fading black, evil dripping as though washed with darkness, rose high above the ground of matched marble. The walls were made of coloured stone, chilled and cold to the touch as a gentle hand glided along their ridges, quiet steps somehow echoing like thunder through the barren home; hundreds of rooms to roam and yet freedom was a fleeting idea beyond the grey clouds of storms above, rolling through the skies like waves to the ocean.

Ashton wandered aimlessly through empty corridors, the dull heels of his black shoes thudding against worn carpet lining in strips through the home. Dressed in black from long sleeved shirt to the cuffs of his pants, Ashton felt he could merge into the very walls of his forgotten home; maybe he could hide forever like a camouflaged spider, never to bare his neck again to the man who owned him.

His wanderings didn't last forever, eventually taking him to where he knew he must be; slipping into his bedroom he closed the door with a gentle click. The room was peculiar in its sense of grandeur, blood red silk falling from the lifted poles around his bed and black fabric blanketing his mattress in expensive cotton. Each piece of furniture was of the finest of wood, painted pitch black as though everything in his owner's world was solemn and barren of life.

With a front garden filled by rotting roses, and a back yard that stretched into the deadened woods running for miles and miles of cluttered land, Ashton supposed his assumption of death versus life would be far beyond correct.
His master had never struck him as a man who took pity on the living, rather he was a lonesome soul wandering his castle walls with little need to travel any further.

Ashton sat himself down on the edge of his bed and waited patiently for his master to show, knowing that as night fell the man would eventually emerge from his chamber, sliding the lid of his coffin off with a thud and stepping out into the chilled halls of his grand ancient castle.

Most days, Ashton regretted ever wandering so far from his home; his curiosity had done nothing more than trap him like a dog on a leash to his master's side, the looming threat of death on his mind more than anything could ever be.

It wasn't long until Louis arrived, pushing open Ashton's bedroom door and sashaying into the room in his cloak of blood and black. Eyes as cold as a winter's night, he set their blue gaze upon the waiting human who peered back at him with little life left in his once sparkling hazel eyes.

"Have you eaten?" Louis's voice was like a haunting tune whistled through dense forestland. It was calm yet bold and captivating; not an ounce of it leaving room for defeat.

"Not yet..." Ashton felt insignificant under Louis's gaze. Over a thousand years on earth's mortal soil and now Louis stood before him like a god, so full of knowledge he never uttered a word to share.

Louis beckoned Ashton to stand, a silent demand for him to follow the vampire's footsteps as the creature began to leave; leading Ashton through corridors until they reached the kitchen.
Ashton stood like a lost child in the midst of technology, turning around to face the creature now standing in the open archway they had stepped through.

"Make yourself something to eat." Louis instructed, cold. "Then meet me by the library fireplace. I have something to tell you."

Ashton waited until the vampire had gone before he started his attempt at working such fine steel machines of heat and cold; he knew how they worked, a short explanation having been given to him upon his first few days of captivity despite him having known long before he had wandered into madness and gotten lost. It was the castle's ancient ways he truly didn't understand, having left his modern world behind.
Louis often left the housework to him, forcing days of life to be wasted upon cleaning hundreds of rooms free of dust and grime as though the growing vines on the outside of the castle didn't exist to expose how old the palace truly was.