All characters and settings are the property of lots of people, none of whom is me. No infringement of those rights is intended. This fanfiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. The original characters, situations, and story are the property of the author. This story may not be posted elsewhere without the consent of the author. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is (shockingly!) coincidental.
Hollow.
Even in my dreams I can't save her.
I see her run towards me, hair streaming, and leap at me. Fury fills me and roars out of my throat. A pain slices through my arm and I know that she caused it. I haul her away and my claws slice through her jerkin like butter as she slams into the loveseat. My blood pounds through me like a tide pulled by moon. The moon…I look up and the radiant sliver light and a sense of deep primordial power fills me…until…
Pain. The sliver power has turned into molten sliver agony. My chest shudders in giant rasps as I collapse to the floor unable to move. The dark thoughts of matted fur and blood fade away in the molten agony that courses through me. My nightmare within a nightmare and I lash out in pain and fury. A howl fills me and the darkness bubbles up through my blood, my skin, and echoes through the room. It happened again as it happened the first time. As it has happened every time in every dream. Bones and tendons struggle against each other and against the force pulling them back to be something else. Some thing less monstrous. Or, to be honest, perhaps something more monstrous.
Feeling returns as I kneel shaking on that filthy floor. I know what I hold in my arms. Who I hold in my arms. This time I fight against the dream, so I won't open my eyes to see, to know with that horrible finality what I had done.
But I can't. Like the condemned man who walks the long, dusty road to the hangman's noose and knows each unavoidable step he takes, my eyes open as I know they must and focus again on her face.
Dear God, her face.
Perfect, quiet and serene. Black ringlets brush against the white satin for her cheek. Her weight fills my arms and her scent fills my mind as I bury my face in her hair. Gone. Dead. And once again by my hand. The pain twists in my gullet, arcing into a sense of raging loss. Again I lift my head, and from the depths of my bones I howl.
The low fire smouldered as he awoke with a gasp. Memories fought with reality as he tried to remember just where the hell he was. A soft curtain of snow that had begun to fall, blanketing the nearly elm trees that whispered gently in the cool night. The moon was high and it was at least four hours until dawn. The creak of the trees in the gentle wind-blown snow whispered of lost longings and indistinct dreams. He knew, of course, that he was still affected by the last wisps of the dream.
The coarse wool of the blanket rasped against his hand as he sat up, checking unconsciously that all was well in the campsite. Nothing moved in the still, white world, except the shadows of souls that lingered behind the trunks and in his conscience. He reached for the last pieces of firewood beside the campfire and began to stoke the fire. It wouldn't remove the darkness that still lay across his heart, but perhaps it would push his dream away from reality. Maybe.
A large bundle across from him stirred, "Van Helsing, is something wrong?" Clouded blue eyes looked at him with concern from under a ragged blonde fringe.
"No Carl, go back to sleep. Everything's fine."
As his companion settled back down, Van Helsing doubted that would ever be the case.