The door opened and Simon sprang through, ready to maim anything that moved. He tensed and found a long room that was in disarray. There were some long tables for serving hundreds of guests, yet they were broken and strewn about. Chairs were splintered and shattered, plates where broken and chips lay everywhere. Silverware was tarnished. Curtains were torn. The moonlight that poured in through high window slits was the only break in the long black room. High above hung chandeliers that had been most likely beautiful in their day. Now they were covered in dust and soot.

His keen vision saw no undead here. He relaxed enough to think that he should have a torch or some kind of light. He walked toward a wall-mounted candleholder. As he reached out his hand, the candle spat fire and lit itself of it’s own will. Simon jumped backward. Then another not ten feet ahead did the same. Candles that lay on the ground did likewise. Now there was enough light to see that this room was most likely at one time a room of great celebration, most likely the main dining hall. Maybe a hundred years ago. The paint was chipped, the walls looked as though they had seen a struggle or two and things precious and expensive were strewn everywhere.

The first thing that went in Simon’s mind was that someone or something had to know he was here and had to light the candles for him… was this the masters’ cruel idea of a joke? He made this hell-hole seem more hospitable? He hopes that Simon actually survives long enough to meet the man? Whatever the intentions, they were not good. It really weighed heavily on his mind that no one would be surprised to see him….

Simon picked his way through the long room, filled to the brim with debris, dust and the occasional long, white, bone. With a little imagination, this room might once have been a lavishly decorated dining hall, complete with dancing floor and a fountain. All that remained now was the excess

destruction of a battle long since passed. There were visible markings of swords, scuffles, and rats whom which have explored ever inch. He could also not dodge the feeling that he was being watched the whole while.

A window burst open and slammed explosively, driven by the wind. It hit with a deafening smash, making Simon almost jump out of his skin. He lashed out with his whip and hit the large red form that was flying toward him. The whip snapped and ripped a large gash in the thing. The cracking shattered the still room silence. It took a good second or two of watching the curtain relax against the window did Simon realize that the heavy crimson cloth posed no threat. He simply curled his whip up around his shoulder, still breathing heavily with adrenaline.

Without realizing it, Simon stood there for minutes on end. He was looking out the window, not looking at anything in particular. There was the dark hillside, with a small forest at the top, the dark-blue sky and a large, pearly moon. His mind was now trying to somehow cope with his situation. As if realizing it for the first time, he truly came to grasp the total madness of his plans. His only hope was that a story he once heard was true…

Simon didn’t remember much of his childhood. Up until he turned about seven or eight, he had little memory. Now, he would estimate it was because of his lineage and supernatural powers that we slowly developing that he had no recollection of his youth. The one thing he did remember clearly was one time he had heard some of the other children talk of a man named Dracula. They spoke of him as if he were a beast and not a man. A man of impossible cruelty and hatred. Evil to his very core. He wasn’t scared of these stories, just curious as to their truth. Young Simon asked his father if what he had heard had been true or not. His father put him to bed and told him a story he had heard when he was a child.

"Now, Simon… I’m not sure what is real or not about the man. Most people don’t even think he really existed. They think of him as something like the boogey-man. But I do know that at one time he did exist and he did commit some really cruel acts." His father was very blunt with him. That was one thing he really admired about his father was that as far back as he could remember, his father spared him no detail on account of his age. He treated him like any adult. As a result, Simon matured very quickly.

"It’s really hard to tell what is true and false about the man. Some say he was a priest that just lost his faith and a wrathful god decided to punish him with eternal life so he would always be forever stuck with his compromised beliefs. Others say that he was just born evil, of a demon. Not unlike Jesus was born, the Immaculate Conception. At any rate, what I do truly believe about the man was that he lost his humanity because he lost his one true love. He wondered at God’s world where the only thing that he loves could be taken from him. So, he turned to evil. He had once known great love and so he once was human.

If a love that great could make him commit such evil, I would wager he is just really misunderstood and lashes out on account of his lust to make the world suffer for the loss of his wife. It’s his only real way to get back at God. If that much is true, maybe he could be reasoned with, or talked to. I would wager he has tried to talk to people, but they were so terrified of him, that he just got more angry. And who wouldn’t be mad at that, right?" He summed it up on a lighter note, which earned him a smile. After pulling the covers over Simon’s small body, he kissed him on the head and blew out the candle….

High-pitched howling brought Simon to his current situation, making the hairs on his neck stand on end. As his eyes re-focused, he came to see small, black shapes weaving in the forest. Dire Wolves. Another part of the folk-lore. It had long been thought that the beasts were guardians of their dark lord’s tower as he slept… Simon liked this less and less. He was experiencing first hand more of this myth than he liked. His ultimate fear would be that even half of what he had heard was true. Of who the evil one had in his services…. A prick of fear not unlike a shard of cold steel shot through his frame. Simon looked about and his surroundings seemed menacing seemed to come alive. Even the very walls of the place seemed to move slightly, like labored breathing.

The first thought that entered into his mind was that he didn’t want to be here amidst the denizens of this evil crypt. Death seemed too easily accomplished here. His wide eyes whipped back and forth, trying to make sure nothing was behind him all at once. "Why should I be here?" he said aloud. He looked down at the family sigil on his leather armor. A mental image of his poor father came into his mind. He thought of the undead surrounding him, devouring him. The icy fear within his body caught fire and his insides raged with burning hatred. Hatred at anything that would harm a kind man like his father. His towering inferno of seething anger seemed to set his will in motion and he came to understand that his purpose was to be here, it was to stop the Count. It was a grim cycle. Of Belmonts having to be born and serve no apparent purpose other than to destroy evil too great for humanity.

As little as he liked the deal, it made as much sense as anything did in Simon’s life. Since he was young, he never fit in. Even when he was just a child, adults avoided the eerie boy. There was just something unsettling in the way he spoke, in his mannerisms, the mature way the child would seem years beyond his few. Having been used to never really fitting in anywhere, Simon thought it was strange that this was his place. Of all the decent places he has been, the kind people he knew were out there, he didn’t belong. No, he belongs here, hunting a centuries-deceased vampire and his horde of the undead.

This thought made reminded Simon that as far as anyone knew, he was the only hope Transylvania had. Now those who had shunned him and loathed him would now have to swallow the fact that their very lives were now in Simon’s hands. ‘Ok’, Simon thought, ‘I’m getting ahead of myself’. He adjusted his armor and clenched the cross the young stable boy had given him tightly, as if the trinket itself would give him the solace he needed. It seemed really cold despite the fact that it was resting against his sweaty chest. He looked back around the long room, along the rows of wall-mounted candles, across the wreckage, the unseen feeling of passed joy this room once held.

An archway at the end of this miserable room waited for him beckoned him. He wrenched his gaze off the large white moon and picked his way to the door. Saying a short prayer first, he passed through feeling a strange confidence mixed with dread.