The last few streaks of light pushing through the large glass windows were barely anything in the man's eyes. A house so large, but so empty; endless halls to make his way through, without anything else to do except wonder what had become of his sweetheart, the only thought that kept his heart moving onward on that trail of black and white.
Dancing with his love had been the first step to this downfall, he acknowledged. He was able to look into her eyes, the eyes that were home to the nicest soul he'd ever acquainted. And when he had first heard her say his name... She had twisted the dull image of life he had had into something extraordinary. But his skin was now a hard, wrinkled coat of paint on his broken skeleton that even the warmth of remembering better days couldn't heal. His last colored memory was one of deep dark sorrow, watching love hopelessly slip from his fingers on a train out of town. Now, his sight was monochrome.
Then there was the ballroom, where once upon a time, candles were lit - a token of serenade towards the late Duke, his father. He strolled through the empty dinner hall, his fingers catching the cobwebs that were forming on the table cloth. Why was this still here? He inhaled faint traces of smoke, only to exhale them out seconds later. Like him, there was little reason to it's existence anymore. No one lit candles or ate dinners with a supposedly notorious vampire. It only reminded him of a much happier time that he may never have grasped again.
But the most powerful trap his youthful self had foolishly stumbled upon...was her.
Even now she was deceased - oh, how he hated to admit it - her image still grew alongside him in his mind, with the same great distance he had experienced from himself for 50 long years. She was elderly and happy, as if fate had twisted in their favour. He reached his withering fingers out to grasp the hallucination of her; to inject it into his lungs, to feel it rush through his seemingly lifeless together what he knew about happiness was hard, but he knew she looked the very picture of it in the dress he'd especially made for her on their day of engagement. But then, the full picture came into view, which showed the silhouette of another man putting the ring on to her finger. Anton's nails tore at the peeling wallpaper once more.
He could have let go right there, right then. The temptation to tear his own skin - to release the butterflies from the wakes in his rib cage, watch them be free from their chains as he wished to be - was strong and alluring. That image was beyond his comprehension. He opened his mouth to scream. Nothing. He felt so foolish to continue, with every breath feeling like a thousand. He had so much left to say, but his throat was dry and rusting.
Why had she left, and taken the parts that made him up with her? Was she sharing the hope he had had in portions with a family of her own? Why had love left him so empty?
If oxygen still filled his lungs, it was slowly decreasing, as he dragged what felt like a lifeless body across the halls of Herzen Castle. He wished that from this crooked spine of his, new wings could sprout...
Old bones were better suited for Sophia.
Source: 矢後 (pixiv)