I woke up one day, after the second world war, near the well close to my Master’s summer house. I was all bloody and thirsty, and my clothes patches and ruined. It was unmistakable the burning that forced me to jump down the well. I was mad. And thirsty. As if without another drop of water, I would scratch myself to death. Instead of quenching my thirst, I was left in a worse condition, yearning for something more, drinking from the dried blood on my clothes, now washed and dirty.

I almost cried in misery when I realised what I had become – after draining five sheeps of their blood and still craving for more. I had my first kill not long after, when I stumbled back into the house, now almost empty, except for a few old servants left in charge. Summer had long turned to fall, and with the leaves piling on the ground, Master left this summer house to his mansion elsewhere. “I need more blood…” By then, I was strong enough to regain my full consciousness, but not my complete sanity, especially when the formerly bitter iron now tasted like the finest type of wine, quenching all my thirst, washing all the pain.

“Murderer!” was his very last whisper, weak and drowsy. It strike me hard in the gut that I would turn to be the sort of creature that was feared and hated by own kin. Bathed in blood for days, I stumbled around the mansion, now secluded from the outer world and oblivious that the war had long been gone. Though there was no peace that unified the countries together and instead, broken them to many factions, at least the lives lived were much better than before.

This summer house was close to the river, and was all beautiful and magnificent. It was close to a lake in Northern England, with its backyard against a small hill. During summer, it was full of breeze and coloured in spring. During winter, it was bitingly chilling. I waited there for a year for my Master to come back, but he never did. Now abandoned and shunned by the outer world, I was lost in this solitary confinement. I didn’t know who turned me, and what their purpose was. My last memory as a human was hazy and unsure.

So days turned to months, and months became years. I wasted my days waiting and wondering if anyone would ever come to pick me up again. If this freedom was something I had really asked for.

I counted the time. By 1970s, some group of people had finally visited this place, but they were all human. Driven by greed and curiosity, I saw that their intention of coming was to refurnish this house and market it with a high-price. The antique design didn’t appeal to them no more, as they discussed – quite loudly, on top of that – how this summer house that held many memories to me, was old and dirty. I never really knew what they meant by then, because when I appeared with blood-coloured eyes and messy hair, they were struck with fear and ran away quickly on their feet.

This house was really no place for dwelling. I never bothered to clean the dried bloods or the dusts that piled up to inches. I never thought of taking care of myself better. I simply wanted to stand still in the hands of time and never let anything disturb my momentary peace. Another decade passed by. Another silent treatment from God. By then, I had grown contented being what I was and having what I had, and chose to indulge myself in nature. I would take long walks around the lake, swam when the water was cold, and watched each sunset during summer.

The Lake District was unspeakably beautiful during autumn, when the leaves and branches turned yellow and brown and the stony path was filled with fallen ones. I enjoyed hunting wild animals, though there weren’t that many, and drank from the rain. Although water never quenched my thirst again, I could taste the humanity I had left behind through the bitter taste of rain. It was in 1999, if my memory still served me right, that I remembered someone else stepping their feet to this ground.

“I said, you should go first!” It was a disturbing sound that ruined my afternoon nap. The sun was almost set on the horizon, and during night time, this place looked even more haunted than it had ever been. But this sweet scent of humans couldn’t possibly deceive me. I knew it all too well, having had not tasted it for ages.

“I’m not sure if we could, Jay. This place is really unnerving,” Another boy spoke. A tall, lanky boy who had too long of a limb that made him seem like a Frankenstein with the gut of a mouse. His friend, the very first boy with very arrogant manner and unpleasant face, snorted. His skin pale, his eyes brown, and he was clearly the leader of this group. There were three more men behind the two, all laughing but one. One was a Caucasian boy who resembled this blonde entertainer I had seen in my early days – not the drop-dead-gorgeous sort, but enough to make a living by his face and body.

“That’s the whole point, see? I heard from my grandfather that this place is haunted by some kind of female ghost before,” Jay replied. Now I saw the resemblance from the first group who came here. Human and their never-ending curiosity. I chuckled quietly and continued observing them in silence. Jay walked around the ground area with confidence, “Grandpa initially thought this would be a good investment as a guest house. I think he was scared off by that ghost. I don’t really believe him. I think he is just making up excuses.”

“Watch your mouth, Jay,” Another boy had spoken. He was awfully fair, like his skin was that white due to isolation from the sun for his whole life. He was the shortest of the group, with the sharpest gaze as well. The Caucasian boy must be his relative because they had strong resemblance to each other. I smiled and decided to play a prank on them, simply because I could and I had too much time to waste. If they believed me to be a ghost, then so shall I be.

First I opened the window on the top floor so the autumn wind could set in. Then I dropped a few leaves onto the ground. At first it was hard to notice, especially since they seemed to be much more interested in the furniture downstairs. I caught my own reflection on the window and decided to mess my hair that it was completely unrecognizable. It was good to be cheeky once in a while. After all, visitors didn’t come by very often to this abandoned house.

“Did you hear something?” Jay asked. He looked around, feeling a tad bit iffy. He might be a fresh graduate from school, but he was born to a prestigious family. If proven good, this house would certainly be a side income as a bed-and-breakfast. This trip to Lake District was an obvious disguise. He had been aiming for this house for a while. His grandfather’s tale of a female ghost wasn’t all too amusing, but the greed in his voice when he spoke about this place was unmistakable.

“Quit it, Jay,” Mel, the Caucasian boy, hissed. He was starting to feel a little frightened, but supressed it so that no one would know. After all, the sky was starting to get a little dark, and the path they treaded for hours was a little confusing for a first-time hiker like him. If anything were to happen at night time – he shuddered, thinking about all the horror movies he had watched in the past. “I think we should go back.”

The others weren’t so keen as Jay was. I could tell that he was a real troublemaker while the others were simply his followers. Everyone but the boy in blue. He looked younger, but his eyes were much more mature. So Jay became my main target as he explored to the second floor, opening the doors to each room leisurely. Those were my Master’s family rooms. His distant relatives’, his deceased parents’… Master’s. Anger bubbled up and burst. How could he touch my Master’s sacred bedroom?

“G… Ghost!!” For a man who looked down upon his grandfather for fearing me, he sure was one to talk. At least he had enough guts to run out of the room and flee away from all his friends, who followed stumbling after hearing his scream. I chased after their figures, chased them with my fiery eyes and nest-like hair and ghastly appearance. The wind was my ally. This house was my dwelling for so long I would not allow anyone to disrespect it. I had been guarding it in hope that someone would come back one day and fetch me. That dream never came true.

When they left, I was empty once again, finding meaning in my own solitary.

“You’re not a ghost, are you?”

I turned around quickly. It was that boy in blue. The handsome one, with his greyish black eyes and fair skin. He looked interested, like he had just found a new toy in me. In actuality, there wasn’t much difference in vampires and human race, except for our inhumanely beautiful appearance and blood red eyes. He looked very much like one of us. A fair one, he was. He looked no older than twenty-five.

“You should be frightened,” I smiled through my hair, my eyes peeking from the bundle. The boy came forward and examined me entirely. As he pulled away the mess away from my face, his eyes narrowed a little, and he let out a snort that was not quite mocking, and yet it wasn’t exactly right, either. We stared at each other for a moment, trying to figure out what the other’s thought was. But the way he spoke, with such ease and confidence, caught me off guard, “You are a stunner, aren’t you? Is that why you hide this face?”

“Is that what you really want to know?” I furrowed my eyebrows together in curiosity. This boy wasn’t scared of my appearance. Instead, he found me amusing. Or rather, he find the whole situation rather ridiculous. The night was fast approaching, and the sun had sunk into the horizon. This house was eerie, and yet, this boy seemed completely undisturbed. “Don’t I scare you? You should leave with your friends if you know better. This place offers no sanctuary for your kind.”

“Aren’t you here?” He smiled. “Those cowards are no friends of mine. They are simply my family’s business partners. And I’m not interested in going back with them to London anytime soon – at least, not for a long while. You, however. You are a vampire. Alone, in this haunted house, for who-knows-how-long. I’d rather be with you than with them in the wilderness.”

“A gentleman should offer his name before he speaks of anything else. And no good man would speak of such flirtatious, baseless words that hold little to no meaning at all,” I refuted. I was annoyed of the distance between us. Maybe just a tad bit shy that his eyes hadn’t left mine. They were weighing me out at the same time those mirth appeared and disappeared in the darkness of his orbs. His eyes were magnetizing, as if one look would drown me in the abyss of his soul.

“You sure talk like an old lady, despite of how you look,” He commented.

Indeed, I looked no older than nineteen or twenty – the day I turned into a vampire. I still retained some of the youthful innocence which was wasted on hard labour without seeing much sunlight back then. I looked young and old at the same time. Feeling extremely conscious of my appearance, I scowled at the boy and turned around in an attempt to ignore him. However, just as I was about to do so, his hand graced mine, forcing me to stay and look into that blindingly radiant smile. I was captured by the beauty of his face.

“I’m Taehyung. Kim Taehyung. Pleasure to meet you, m’Lady.”