A Year of Happiness
A year passed—one Marion would never have thought possible.
A year without running. Without monsters. Without blood.
A year with Tamara.
They walked through the academy gardens as the sun sank behind the battlements. They held hands, slipped into alcoves to steal secret kisses while the world outside carried on in noise and motion. Evenings were spent by the dormitory window, watching the academy lights flicker in the dark, talking about exams, about dreams, about a future Marion had never dared to imagine.
It was the most beautiful year of his life. For the first time, he felt he belonged. No one's plaything. No victim. No nobody. Just—Tamara's boyfriend.
Of course, there was whispering, giggling behind cupped hands. Some envied him. Some mocked him. But it didn't matter. She stood by him, and that was enough.
Exams came and went. Festivals were celebrated. Time flowed faster than he wanted it to. Marion felt as though it could go on forever—as though he had finally found a place that was truly his.
Tears in the Night
The dormitory lay in darkness, pale moonlight spilling through the tall windows. Marion sat over his notes, the quill slipping from his fingers, when a faint creak made him look up.
The door opened.
Tamara stood in the doorway. Her face was streaked with tears, her eyes swollen, tears still running down her cheeks and dripping onto the simple dress she wore. Her lips trembled as if she were trying to speak, but the words would not come.
"Tamara…?" Marion jumped to his feet, his heart stumbling. "What happened?"
She stepped inside slowly, unsteadily, as if her legs had lost their strength. Her eyes met his—full of pain, full of accusation.
Then her voice came, broken, barely a whisper:
"You knew…"
Marion froze. The words struck him like a blow.
"What…?" He stepped toward her, hands lifting helplessly. "What did I know?"
She didn't answer at once. Her lips pressed tight, tears flowing without restraint. The silence between them was so thick he could hear his own heartbeat.
Panic rose inside him. Everything about her felt wrong—the tears, the pain, the accusation—as if the happiness of the past year had only been a fragile façade now cracking apart.
"Tamara… please," he whispered. "Tell me."
The Confession
Tamara stood before him, trembling, her face marked by tears. Marion wanted to touch her, to hold her—but she stepped back, shaking her head, as if he must not come near.
Then it burst out of her, her voice breaking through sobs:
"A year ago… a vampire lady came to me."
Marion blinked, confused, his thoughts stumbling. "What…?"
"She promised to spare my family," Tamara continued, barely able to force the words out. "But only… if I entered into a relationship with you."
The words cut into Marion like blades. His chest tightened, his throat went dry. Everything he had believed to be love over the past year—every kiss, every touch—suddenly stood revealed as a bargain. A deception.
"No…" he whispered, staggering back. "No, that… that can't…"
"But it is!" Tamara cried, tears pouring endlessly. "I did what she wanted. It was just a deal—a filthy deal with a monster! And I still fell in love with you. That's what I'm most ashamed of!"
Marion struggled for breath, the floor seeming to sway beneath him. All a lie. All just another move in the vampires' game.
"And now…" Tamara's voice broke. She covered her face with her hands. "Now they're dead! Dead—all of them! My entire family!"
She collapsed to her knees, sobbing, her whole body shaking. Marion stood there, paralyzed, unable to move. His world crumbled—the year of happiness, the only love he had ever known, exposed as a calculated move in Tessa's game.
He could not even cry. Only stand there in silence while everything inside him fell apart.
The Attack
Marion still stood frozen, her words echoing inside him like a cruel refrain.
Everything… just Tessa. Every kiss, every embrace—a bargain with Tessa.
Tamara sobbed, clutching the fabric of her dress, her shoulders trembling.
Marion opened his mouth but could not speak. Only emptiness, pain—and a dull roaring in his head.
Then something flashed in the candlelight.
A knife.
Tamara held it in her trembling hand, the blade quivering in the flicker. Her eyes were red, hollow from weeping, her voice breaking:
"They're all dead! My parents, my siblings—all of them! All for nothing!"
"Tamara…" Marion's voice was barely audible. "Please, put it down."
But she shook her head and stepped toward him. "She betrayed me… for nothing! For absolutely nothing! Why are you still alive when everyone else is dead?!"
Then she lunged.
The blade drove forward, tearing through his clothes, cutting into flesh. Marion stumbled back, crashing into the table. Blood splattered across his notes.
"Tamara!" he gasped, grabbing her arms—but he could not bring himself to push her away. Her tears fell onto his chest as she stabbed again and again, desperate, furious, shattered.
"Die!" she screamed hoarsely. "I'm so sorry, Marion!"
He felt his strength leaving him, the room blurring. He barely fought back—couldn't.
I love her. Even now.
The world went dark. The last thing he felt was the heat of her breath, the burning of the blade—and the thought that he was dying once more.
This time by the hand of the woman he loved.
Cold
The first thing Marion felt was the cold stone floor beneath his body. He sucked in air as if dragged up from deep water. Sweat ran down his forehead, but his shirt clung to him, sticky with blood.
Slowly he pushed himself upright. The room swayed. A sharp pain tore through his chest—the memory of the blade, of Tamara's desperate screams.
His gaze fell to the floor.
Bloodstains. Dark smears stretching across the boards toward the door.
The knife still lay there, carelessly dropped, its blade dulled by dried red.
"Tamara…" His voice broke, barely a whisper.
He staggered to the door, bracing himself against the frame. The corridor outside was empty, lit only by the faint flicker of torches. No trace of her. No trace of anyone.
She was gone.
Marion sank back against the table and buried his face in his hands. Pain. Grief. Emptiness—they crashed over him.
For a year I believed I had finally arrived. A year of happiness. And it was all… all just a game of Tessa's.
His fingers clenched into the fabric.
And now she's gone. The only one who ever loved me—or whom I believed did.
A bitter smile flickered across his lips as his eyes burned with tears.
"I loved her… and yet it was all just a game of the vampires."
The candle by the window flickered as a gust of wind swept through the room. Marion sat there alone, between blood and silence—and knew that his world had shattered.
The Morning After
The morning after that night was gray. Fog clung to the academy's towers, and the murmur of voices in the corridors reached Marion as if through thick walls. Every step, every sound was dull, muffled—like the world had kept moving without taking him along.
He sat in class, the parchment in front of him blank, the quill untouched. His hands trembled slightly, but he barely noticed. In his head, the images ran in an endless loop: Tamara's tear-streaked face, the words he would never forget—"A year ago, a vampire lady came to me…"—and then the knife, the blade plunging into his chest again and again, accompanied by her sobbing.
And his death.
Another one.
But this time it had felt different. More bitter. More final.
The voices in the room only reached him faintly. Teacher, classmates—it was all distant. He stared at the desk as if he might find answers in the wood. Instead, he found only the quiet pounding in his chest, reminding him that he had risen again. That he was alive while she had vanished.
At the edge of the room sat Xin, between Jenny and Vania. They spoke quietly about something, Jenny gesturing with her hands, Vania nodding eagerly. But again and again Xin's gaze flicked to Marion. Her eyes—usually curious or childishly confused—looked heavy now, sorrowful. As if she could feel that something inside him had broken.
Marion avoided her gaze. He couldn't bear it. Not now.
He felt numb, trapped inside himself. Around him some students laughed, others whispered as if everything were normal. Only he carried the silence of last night within him—like an invisible wound no one could see.
Someone behind him shoved a chair back noisily; someone else scratched too loudly with a quill on parchment. Tiny things—and yet they thundered in his head.
He wanted to jump up, run out, scream. But he stayed seated. Rigid, pale—a ghost among the living.
And as the lesson began, the only thing he felt was a burning hole in his chest. A hole he would never be able to fill again.
The Rumors
Class dragged on like an endless shadow. Marion still sat motionless, as if nailed to his seat. He heard the teacher's words, saw his hand gestures, but understood nothing. Everything was dull, far away.
Until a whisper slid through the classroom.
Katie leaned toward her friend; they were seated only two rows in front of him. Their voices were quiet, but in the heavy silence they carried like arrows.
"Did you hear?" Katie tilted her head, her eyes flashing. "Tamara's family… wiped out."
Her friend swallowed audibly. "Wiped out?"
Katie nodded gravely. "All of them. Dead. No one survived."
A giggle from the back row died instantly. Heads turned as if someone had opened a door into nothingness.
"How…?" the friend asked, uncertain, almost whispering.
"The estate," Katie said, her voice edged with horror. "Burned down. Everything looted. There's nothing left."
The word nothing landed heavily in the room, like a stone dropped into water.
Marion's heart tightened. Dead. All dead.
The whispering spread. It slipped from bench to bench like smoke in a closed room. First only Katie's friend murmured, then a student turned and whispered to his neighbor. Within minutes the whole class was filled with hushed voices, broken sentences, startled looks.
"Burned to the ground."
"All of them…?"
"No one survived."
"How can something like that happen…?"
The teacher kept talking as if trying to ignore it, but even his voice began to crack.
Marion stared at his hands. He felt his fingers cramp. Images shot before his eyes: Tamara running toward him across the courtyard, laughing. Tamara looking at him through tears that evening. Tamara drawing the knife.
Now he pictured her family. Their home, their world—gone. Nothing but ash.
He bit his lip so hard he tasted blood.
The murmur swelled, a chorus of pity, fear, and secret hunger for sensation.
"The whole estate…"
"Dead. All of them."
"Looters."
"Maybe vampires…"
Marion wanted to jump up and tell them to shut up. But he couldn't. His legs felt like stone, his throat locked tight. All that remained was the weight dragging him down—deeper than he could breathe.
Xin turned briefly to look at him. She said nothing, but her eyes were wide and still, as if she had felt the full weight of his pain.
He looked away.
And the whispering went on.
The murmuring in the classroom wouldn't stop. Like a gust of wind it swept from bench to bench, hid in the corners, returned—and grew louder whenever the teacher turned his back.
"…burned down…"
"…no inheritance anymore…"
"…the whole family dead…"
Marion sat numb, face pale, fingers dug into the edge of the desk. Every whispered word was like a stab under the skin that would not end.
Then a voice rose—not whispering, but cool and matter-of-fact. Selina, Adrian's girlfriend, straightened in her seat. She sat near the front, posture perfect as always. Her voice cut through the room, sober and clear, as if delivering a verdict.
"Then her title is gone too."
Some students fell silent; the teacher half turned, about to say something, but Selina continued without pause.
"No family, no inheritance, no land. She's a nobody now."
The words fell like stones into a still lake. No one laughed, no one contradicted her. Everyone looked at Selina—some open-mouthed, others shivering.
Marion heard it and blood roared in his ears. A nobody.
Selina leaned back as if she had merely stated a fact, nothing more. Adrian beside her said nothing, but his gaze slid briefly across the room, serious and almost embarrassed.
The whispering started again, colored differently now. No longer only rumor, but the weight of truth.
"Nothing left for her."
Marion's chest tightened. In his mind he saw Tamara again: how she smiled when he stumbled; how she pressed close to him when he gave her that gift; how she whispered that she loved him.
And then the knife.
Her tears.
He wanted to leap up, to scream at Selina that Tamara was still someone—that she was more than title and land. But the words stuck in his throat, heavy as stones.
The class fell silent again for a moment, as if everyone realized something final had just been spoken aloud.
Selina took a sip of water, calm as if she had explained something trivial. For her it was a fact, not a fate.
For Marion it was a sentence passed on the heart he still carried in his chest.
He lowered his gaze, clenched his teeth. She may be a nobody… and still everything to me.
Tamara's Disappearance
Selina's words still hung in the air like a cold judgment when the class slipped into an uneasy silence. No one dared speak loudly—and yet the whispering continued, soft and probing, like raindrops on stone.
A student—a younger one who usually barely stood out—raised her hand hesitantly. Her voice was little more than a tremble, but in the silence it sounded loud:
"And… Tamara herself?"
Heads turned—some with pity, some with cold curiosity. No one answered at once. The question hung heavy in the room.
Finally it was a boy from the back row who broke the silence. "They say… she's disappeared."
A ripple of murmurs ran through the class.
"Disappeared?" someone asked, disbelieving.
"Since yesterday," the boy added quietly. "No one's seen her."
The words spread like a dark stain on water. Since yesterday… no one has seen her.
Jenny drew her brows together and whispered to Katie, "That can't be true… can it?"
Katie pressed her lips tight. "We'd know if she'd come back. It's true."
Another student dared, even softer: "Maybe… the vampires took her."
Silence. No one laughed.
Marion sat there, every syllable like a stab. Disappeared. He saw her again: standing in his room, tear-streaked, the knife in her hand, her desperate screaming. He remembered the blood trail leading to the door, the knife left behind. The emptiness he had found when he woke again.
Now it was official. She was gone.
Not just for him. For everyone.
"They say she fled," someone murmured.
"Maybe… she isn't even alive anymore."
The voices piled up, each rumor darker than the last. Marion wanted to cover his ears, but he knew it wouldn't change anything. The words were inside him now. They would stay.
Xin watched him from the side, eyes wide, questioning, but she said nothing. Jenny glanced toward him, worried, as if she wanted to comfort him, but she stayed quiet.
And Marion sat there, unable to do anything. Gone.
His fingers cramped around the wooden bench. He felt as though he were standing on the edge of an abyss, unable to step forward—or back.