The golden sun sank into the sea, and in the coastal town of Luctus, this was just the start of revelry for the drunk partygoers. For creatures of the night, wine was just as an adequate replacement for unciousness as sleep. The entire town was decorated in lanterns strung above the plaza, dancers swallowing swords of fire as they pose on the fountain. There is music too, strings, drums, and rhythmic clapping pulling curious children from their beds to look out their windows much to their mothers’ dismay.

Farther from the ocean, cobbled towers rose above the village with metal points jutting out imposingly from the top. Here a tall and thin man could hear the music faintly from his antechamber, looking out an imposing gothic window pinned with blackout curtains he had pushed aside once the sun had finally set.

The man had skin paler than alabaster, and hair like spun gold with a matching set of irises that gazed longingly at the shadows of people talking and dancing, cast upon walls in alleys and closed shops. It has been 100 years since he had put a form to these shadows, and now they were all he could hold onto. Aurel was an observer, trapped inside Plato’s cave declarated like a castle.

Once Aurel was the center of such revelry, the king of the people. Oh how he would kill to live that story again. But in times of famine he made a deal with demons so his cup was always filled with red wine, and his banquet full of the finest food. The food was rich but left him hollow. The wine went smoothly down his throat, and was poison to his bones.

The king soon craved blood more wine in his cup, and his kingdom was ran into ruin.

Only when he was no longer drunk on bloodlust, his mind finally cleared, he could see the destruction he had became the conduit of.

“Look at them, dancing and laughing..”

Aurel scoffed.

“Having fun.. without me.. again.

The man’s ebony poet blouse hung loosely off his frame, a slender hand feeling the cold skin between his ribs. His shoulders hunched over in a pang of fierce biting hunger. Hunger for life.

Aurel did not need much to eat.

Only a cup of blood every decade.

But people had stopped wandering by his castle to seek shelter from storms, or adventure its halls as reckless youth. Why?

“I know why.. The shadows told me. The people have gotten smarter? No. The stories have just evolved.”

There was a lower tower, crept up on the edge of the hill overlooking the coast. It used to be a barrack of sorts. From the balcony, he can see shadows of a puppet show.

These were his favorite. There was love, betrayal, battle, and monsters. Dragons, fairies, and then one day- vampires. He admired the workmanship of the castle puppet they crafted, though they made him look much too gaudy.

“My story has expired, but I may was well enjoy it being told,”

Aurel fastened the buttons on his doublet and descending upon the town from his stone tower, down the hilltop, in the small form of a bat. He sat atop the perch of a balcony, then drifted into an alleyway, transforming into his human form.

Bowing graciously to a confused woman with a half empty glass, he invited her to a dance.

Her dress was the same scarlet of wine and blood, hair blacker than night. The warmth of her skin killed the coldness in his heart, and reignited a hunger to live life amongst the people. The way he used to. Not as an observer of the story but a participant in the frame. Even if he was the evil king at least then he had something to offer the puppeteers and bards. The warmth of lights above the dancers taunted him, teased him of the glory of the sun.

So he danced until the golden sun rose high in the sky, and at it’s peak the man the woman had danced with faded into ashen grey petals that dusted the cobblestone roads, swept away by the morning cleaners wind that drifted it into the whispering sea.