Disclaimer - Unfortunately for me, I do not own Dark Shadows or its characters. I wasn't even born during its original run! I certainly wouldn't mind owning a few characters though… :)
A/N - This is a prologue of a full length story. It's is divided into two parts, one with Josette, and the other with Barnabas in 1967, shortly after his 'arrival' at Collinwood. The full story is an alternate universe'what if' concept that involves Josette coming to exist in the present time during the 1967 early Barnabas episodes. Many characters from that time frame will show up in the story. A few will have rather significant roles. Please read and review!
Death's Embrace
He called her name over the wind in an agonized voice that she would not have recognized, had it not come from the man that she loved.
The man that she was now running from.
Tears streamed down her face as she ran blindly into the darkness of the night. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and she wanted nothing more than to collapse onto the muddy ground and cry until her heavy sobs choked the torment from her heart.
But she could not stop, not while he was pursuing her, willing her to turn back, to go to him…willing her to return to welcome the horrible life that he wanted them to lead together.
A damned life that would last through all eternity.
Sobs wracked her fragile frame as the wind carried her name to her from his lips. It was the sound of desperation, of misery.
How she wanted to go to him. How she wanted to love him.
How she wanted to save him.
But her love could not save him. Nothing could save him, not now, not ever.
Her heart was bleeding, and it would continue to bleed out onto the ground and leave a trail for him to follow as he cried out for her.
Her love….
A monster.
There was no way to escape him, nowhere to go but over the cliff. There was nothing between them but the finality of death.
Her death.
A tortured scream was the last sound she heard. As she fell into nothingness, she knew that the pained wail from above would haunt her far beyond this world and into the next.
There would be no peace, no rest, for her.
Long after her heart had stilled and her skin had grown cold in death's welcoming arms, Josette DuPres would still hear the voice of Barnabas Collins as he cried her name.
A soft melody drifted through the room and ensnared his senses with its sweetness and familiarity, just as it brought an agonizing warmth into his soul and an ache into his dead heart.
Josette.
His lovely, lost Josette.
Barnabas Collins sat rigidly on the bed that had once belonged to her. Everything in the room had belonged to her, from the vanity and its contents to the enchanting music box he held in his hands.
He did not know what had compelled him to enter the room of his beautiful Josette. When dusk had come and had awakened him from his slumber, some inexplicable force had summoned him into her room, where he had remained for hours on the bed.
He had never placed himself upon her bed before. It was only for Josette - Josette, with her innocence and purity.
No, he had dared not place himself upon her bed. To do so would have been to taint it.
Before this night, he would never have committed such an act, but as he had entered the room, it had seemed to call to him, and he found he could not resist.
He only hoped that Josette could forgive him.
He thought of paying a call to his new family at Collinwood, but it was late, and Elizabeth would not be so receptive of him if he were to appear at the doors when everyone was likely to be asleep. They did not keep the hours that he did. They could sleep through the night and wake to the sunrise.
How he had wished once that he could see the sunrise.
His was an existence spent in the darkness, in the solitude of the night. He had almost forgotten the sun and how it lit up the sky. No matter how much he longed to remember, it was better forgotten.
He would never see it again.
Every evening when he rose from his coffin, he now yearned for eternal darkness so that he could roam the earth without fear of the dawn. But it was not to be, and so each morning he returned to the land of the dead.
He could already sense the approaching dawn, even as he sat motionless on his beloved's bed.
Wearily he rose, went over to the vanity, and carefully placed the music box on its surface. He closed the lid on the melody of Josette, and put out the candles that had danced a dying light on the walls of the past.
With one final gaze at the portrait above the fireplace, he left the room and Josette behind to return to his waiting coffin.
To death's embrace.