One would imagine that being sealed in a coffin of blood for 80 years would take the cake when it came to horrific ordeals I have endured. Unable to move, unable to see, with nothing but the taste of her blood, the blood of the girl that I loved, and a mind full of guilt, fear, and despair. That should have been the worst experience of my existence, and yet, it wasn't.
Merely a few hours into the ordeal, all I could focus on was the physical. The pain as my once human body remembered to drown, to choke, to pass out. Again and again in an unrelentingly cruel cycle. I couldn't die. I was already dead, but my body didn't know that. That knowledge and power to resist the torture lay in my mind, a mind that had surrendered to hopeless masochism.
It would have been far worse had I retained an average level of consciousness. Being left with memories, thoughts, fears and crippling anxieties is a fate far worse than a coffin of blood. After all, it's only the mind that has the power to drive itself insane.
As a human, little had driven me to melancholia, and nothing had driven me to hopelessness. But my human life was characterized by its brevity, it didn't last long. I was murdered one night, at my father's annual ball, and my fate revealed itself to be a much darker one. I awoke later, numb, to the pale, sharp face of my sire, the woman who would become my Maman. All I felt was fear, confusion. I was lying in what seemed to be an open coffin. I didn't know where I was, but it wasn't Schloss Karnstein. All I had to anchor me was Maman and she calmed me. When she told me to rest, to sleep, and that she would return for me in three days, I did as she asked. She had a certain control over me then, a way of demanding my unwavering trust. She had pried apart the jaws of death to enact my rescue, and in that moment she was my savior.
When next I awoke, Maman was not there. I knew not how much time had passed, but I was sure I had awoken earlier than I should have. As I gazed with tired new eyes around me, I was met with a sudden wave of horror. I was in a dungeon. Cold stone walls surrounded me on all sides and a heavy oak door to my left. What I imagined to be my coffin lay propped against one of the stone walls and I realized that I was laid out on something else, perhaps a table, or even a bed of sheets. I felt cold, confused, violated. Where was Maman? Did she bring me here? Only when the oak door creaked open to reveal a familiar face did the full weight of the situation come crashing down upon me. It was Baron Vordenberg, an acquaintance of my father. A strange, unnerving older man who had pursued me relentlessly since I was but fifteen. He had been in attendance at the ball a few days earlier. Everything pieced itself together in my mind. What he had done to me, what he would continue to do if I did not escape. Driven by hatred, anger and disgust, I enacted my revenge on the monster that had done this to me. With my new-found strength, I destroyed the Baron and left a trail of blood and corpses as I escaped the monsters lair. Drenched in blood and death, I ran. I couldn't return home, there was no question of that. I was relieved when mother found me but a day later.
My life had become an existence. And it was not my death that had changed me so much as the circumstances of it, so much as that Vordenberg monster. I couldn't forget what had happened. It was a weight I carried every moment of my consciousness, and when I dreamed, it spilled over into the dreams and poisoned them. In the years in between my first coffin and my second, all I could do was search for distractions from my thoughts, from the horrors of my past. It didn't often work. The first true distraction came when I met Elle. She overcame everything in my mind. I could think of nothing else, and I loved it. I loved her. But Maman was jealous, upset that my priorities had changed, and so my affections for Elle led to a new defining horror. In the coffin of blood it was difficult to think clearly. And that was almost a blessing. Almost.