Castlevania: Genesis and Revelations
Prologue
He charged over the blighted earth with the leaping footfalls of a man pursued. He was, he could feel it. The hot breath at his back, the pace equal to his own, the bleak malevolence boring a hole into his will. He could feel the other's desire to kill surround him and corrode him like acid. And...and he was starting to give out. His heart was pounding its way out of his chest. His legs could not outrun his mortal enemy. Worse, the scarlet of the sunset sky was yielding to a quickly approaching twilight, stealing away sight of the path while the ground threatened to betray him with its twisted roots and stones. The wind joined in the bloodlust, rising up and spitting dust, wailing its miseries against him.
His frenzied eyes darted around while he danced-ran over a field of cobweb-cracked earth. Where was it? It was always at his back. No matter where he looked. Suddenly his balance failed him, and he toppled over and spiraled into the dust.
Less shocked than furious, he leapt up to face his enemy whatever it was, wherever it was. He reached down to his belt and unfurled his whip with a loud crack. There, now he was ready. He waited -- but for hardly a moment, his feet suddenly flipped out from beneath him, and he again landed hard upon the unforgiving packed earth.
What the devil was this? Sorcery? Were the unholy fiends mocking him with their tricks?
Well, he wasn't about to allow them to humiliate him! For a second time he leapt to his feet, and for a second time he lost his footing.
He clenched his jaw and once more savagely bounded to his feet and started to run, whip in hand. It wasn't long before his face smashed into the earth in a familiar greeting, but this time he saw it out of the corner of his eye: his shadow. Like a wraith with a new mind of its own, his shadow had peeled itself away and tripped him. This was sorcery, but of a kind he'd never seen. It stunned him just to see it. His counterpart's arm still had a grip on his leg, and hissed laughter when its silhouetted head turned to face him.
"You are a conjuration!" he whispered fiercely. He reflexively raised his whip, prepared to strike.
"I am you," it returned in a malevolent voice as ephemeral as its form was. The dark form extended tendrils from itself, up his leg. He tried to retreat from it, but couldn't. His leg refused to obey him. His arm wildly swung the whip at it, but as with any shadow, it passed right through it. In reply it lashed on to his arm and, like fluid black ice, deadened it too -- before he could grab for the holy weapons at his side. Now, anger at last became fear. The shadow had lost any resemblance to himself, and was a spreading plague upon him. The tendrils had immobilized his legs and arms. It was going to overtake him at will and there was nothing he could do about it.
"Who sent you?" he demanded, vainly hoping to buy time.
It answered with another tendril of darkness, hovering for a second, then lashing at his mouth and then smothering it. Then his eyes went blind in the next instant.
"Stop!" he screamed.
Oh God, make it stop!
Stop.
--
Stop...
Richter Belmont snapped awake, rasping for breath, as if he were fighting for life itself. Slowly, his sight faded into normality. Nighttime... He was still in bed, bolt upright and clutching his pillow with a still white-knuckled grip. The blankets had been hurled aside. He looked down. His wife Annette was still asleep, sound asleep and curled up in blankets. So he hadn't had awoken her with some sort of a fit? A fit would've been warranted, after what was the worst nightmare he'd ever experienced. Aside from Vampir-hunting in Castlevania, that is.
Was it the worst? he asked himself. He thought a moment, listening to his own heavy breathing, feeling the sweat drip from his hair. Yes, it was. It felt so real, so real that a corner of his mind wasn't sure whether this moment was real or a desperate illusion cast by his dying mind.
Slowly, deliberately, he took in all the features of the room that he could see, feel, hear, or smell. The four walls, the ceiling and the floor, the bed and blankets, the crispness of the night air, the deep, defiantly unbreakable silence of a wilderness. Then he lit the candle next on his nightstand. He watched its dancing flame and the flickering light it cast on his beautiful wife's sleeping face.
This was reality.
--
Maria Renard awoke on the precarious edge of her bed, but a moment before she'd have crashed to the wooden floor. She quickly rolled herself back to safety. She gulped for breath, her hand clutched to her heart. Beating like a hummingbird. What a horrible dream! Being chased and then suffocated like that...horrible.
She instinctively sought out the light of the candle in a small alcove in the wall. It was almost drowning in a pool of its paraffin, but it still bravely cast a fading illumination. She smiled faintly to herself, turned to look over her bed. The strength of the wooden cross there took the edge from her fear. Mother Superior Tera would be pleased.
'It's the duty of every nun to conquer the temptations and trickery of the Devil with the peace of God,' she often said, stressing peace and eyeing Maria at the same time.
Maria's smile broadened.
Once her eyes grew accustomed to the dimness, they widened when sight fell upon her white nightgown. It was unmistakable what it was. It was a spreading angry crimson stain between her legs. How could this be, in the midst of her cycle? Was it the fear getting to her after all, she wondered, or something worse?
--
Gregor Belmont was on his feet before he'd wiped the bleariness from his eyes. His bare feet upon the cold flagstones shocked him into wakefulness -- and right after that bad dream he'd just had, too! He fumbled for his stockings next to his bed, found them, and quickly rolled them on. That helped to take away a little of the deep chill inside him, but not as much as forgetting the bad dream would've. His father had told him what it was like to face Death, and now he truly understood what he'd meant.
He was still so cold.
Ah, there. The window shutters were open, creaking in the cool October night breeze they allowed in. He quickly crossed the room lit only by the pale light of the moon. But he stopped, as his eyes were drawn skyward by the oddest thing he'd ever seen. Something that almost made him forget about the dream.
A moon the color of blood glared down upon him.