There was a time long ago when we were feared.
A glorious time when we were known among humans until the Dasklovy dynasty decided that our existence and our world will be forgotten by humanity.
I am the daughter and heir of the lord of these lands. Lord Dasklovy is not the kind of vampire who knows how to forgive. He doesn't tolerate betrayals. The year 984 brought a bloody battle between the most comparable vampire species. Laws were raised. And in the small town of Debelt, in eastern Bulgaria, I saw my family face bloody conflicts in search of wealth and power. There are manananggals. Old mystical creatures in the Philippines separate from their lower body and fangs and give a vampire appearance.
The aswangs were the most feared. Despite being wild monsters that live in the forests and on the outskirts of the city, they manage to dominate and contain the wildness and the fierce and monstrous nature. They are evil creatures by nature and the worst among us. In ancient India, baitals were known as metals.
They are creatures that hang upside down in cemeteries while causing bodies to be buried and putrefying bodies to inhabit them. And they aren't ordinary vampires like most blood-feeders. They feed on vital energy. My cousins' favourite pastime is going crazy like people who end up committing suicide. They are souls who are between the limits of life and death and condemned to wander forever in darkness. It is a big family.
And the ekiminus comes from Assyria. They are spirits, half ghosts and half vampires. They are invisible and able to dominate and possess someone's body. And as for the Dhampirs... That's where our story, my story begins. Vampire-human hybrids have long been banished from our world for their ability to hunt down their peers without mercy. Our world is full of ancient legends that humans don't even suspect are real.
Sometimes a careless relative leaves them in doubt about our real existence. We have no natural predecessors. We are the predators. But some other constant careful exclusion. It's never good to find a werewolf alone. We are natural enemies. And only warlords bring more trouble than wolves.
My name is Nina Dasklovy.
I am my father's only living heir, the oldest vampire among us who has survived the holy wars that nearly led to our ruin and extermination. The world is changing. Discoveries are daily and will end our lifestyle if we do not know how to evolve and leave old clothes forgotten in the past.
Eternity is long enough to learn from our mistakes. And what good is eternity without someone to love by your side? I want the right to choose. I want a new life, live far from the Balkans and grow old like any human being.
-Nina! Nina, my beautiful... I hear the familiar voice and the smile touch my lips, away from the cold and oppressive climate of Castle Dasklovy.
Boris Dragomir still manages to surprise me even in the worst of times like now. I know my family will never understand, but I'm young and hopelessly in love and full of dreams...
Author's Note:
The war is coming between us...
At the beginning of time, when terror spread through humanity because of the existence of vampires, the elders needed to delimit provinces so that the seven different species of the race could survive without attracting the attention of hunters, sorcerers and werewolves.
The oldest legend among them tells of the birth of an undead child who would be able to select Pandora's Box forever and ultimately destroy the Reapers, uniting rival species of vampires in the final fight against the White Order. Half-vampire, half sorcerer, half-demon, the criterion of defying time, interfering with the fate marked by Hecate that determines the end of a cursed race
In creation, a small object of enormous value was entrusted to the care of Pandora, the first woman created by Hephaestus and Athena at the request of Zeus. In this box, the gods kept all the misfortunes of the world like war, hatred and disease alongside Hope. And when the box was opened despite all the warnings, humanity was punished.
The battle between the Reapers and Borzysławs went on for centuries until an extreme decision was taken. The box must be sealed for eternity. And over time, their biggest battle was fought to decide the fate of an entire race. Reapers and Sentinels fought that nature would never allow the unnatural to exist in the shadow world. The existence of the Nomads and the seal of the box started a war that crossed the limits of time, defying all the laws we know.
The punishment of the great goddess who roamed the Earth at night was to release her procession of ghosts.
Spirits were so wicked and demonic that they fed on human blood with their fangs. They weren't vampires. They were devils with sharp claws, a mixture of a woman with fiery hair and legs disproportionate to her body that metamorphosed into beautiful young women to entice their victims and thus feed. Thus, the blood was diluted and gave rise to the previous creatures as the undead.
Hoping to exterminate the vampires, the sorcerers banded together through the White Order so that a box could imprison these dark creatures again. The order to keep the distance of coexistence with humanity was violated several times with the creation of mestizos. Until the genetic generation awakens and becomes dominant, children, offspring of vampire children, live like any other human without the need or limitations of their parents.
The long lifespan of this species brought about the natural evolution of the breed and the development of skills that were used to combat members of the White Order, known as Reapers. Over the centuries, the sentinels of the shadow world were summoned to ensure that Pandora's box remained closed. To fight the reapers, the most skilled vampires were chosen, regardless of species, as long as they possessed fantastic abilities that set them apart from the rest. A brotherhood, the Borzysławs, emerged as guardians of the cursed box by the foruse gods to watch over eternity.
Only the most valuable are chosen after completing 350 years of creation. And among them, the one with the most power was able to manipulate spacetime, allowing the Borzysławs to step back into the past to prevent the apocalypse over Vesna from ending it all.