Chapter 8

Author's Note: So I am so, so very sorry, but I had to slightly alter the name of this story. Someone kindly pointed out to me that a story with the name "Existence" already, well, existed. I hadn't read it, because I'm only on this site. My mistake! And my apologies to the other author, who has full authority to come over and smack me in the face for that one. This is now simply "Existing".

Also, I'm considering moving these over to AO3 in duplicate, along with my Orphan Black Fics (check out of if you have a Cophine heart in need of a swift kickstart). I'm not sure about that big SwanQueen one I did though; it's long and a lot of edits happened on this site…maybe. We'll see, when I have time to sit down and learn another site.


"Carmilla, STOP." Laura said, while they were outside, with the vampire attempting to pull Laura away from the tavern in a huff. They had stopped upstairs to grab their sparse belongings, the whole time with Carmilla refusing to explain what was going on.

"We're leaving."

"No, we're not." Laura held her ground, no longer allowing the stronger woman to pull her along like a dog on a leash.

"Laura, let's go."

"No." Laura sat down on the ground. They were behind the tavern in a grassy area under the artificial stars. "I need you to talk to me."

"Can we talk when we're somewhere else? Preferably another country?"

"Carm, I want to know who this Michaeletta woman is, and why we need to leave. We just got here! And your puppet-master friends seem…nice." Laura looked up with her innocent doe eyes, pleading not to be dragged around anymore.

Carmilla huffed, sitting next to Laura on the grass. A pair of what looked like husky pups went running into the field together, leaping higher than dogs normally can, and moving fast as they played with each other, tails wagging. Laura watched as one of the puppies seemed to jump ten feet in the air grabbing a branch off of a tree before the pair took off together.

"Werewolves." Carmilla said casually.

"I knew that." Laura said, less than convincingly. "Talk to me, Karnstein." Laura took Carmilla's hand in her own, pulling it into her lap. Carmilla sighed, knowing it was easier to give in to Laura in most instances. In fact, giving in to Laura generally worked out in her favor, minus trying to move on from the broken heart.

"Michaeletta is on of the Oldest. They are the vampires that are over a thousand years old, and very rare. They—she is very powerful. And by the last time I had seen her, she had gone completely evil."

Laura took the information in, letting Carmilla pause for a moment, trying not to fidget with her hand and distract her.

"Okay, you definitely have my attention."

"You probably won't ever meet any of the Oldest. There are only a few who make it that far along, and I want to make sure you never meet this one."

"Is she the one who turned—um, re-birthed you?" Laura asked, wondering how Carmilla got mixed up with one of these ancient, all-powerful vamps.

"Ha! No. That story is much less exciting. I asked to be made this way, but that's a discussion for another time. No. Mick and I…" Carmilla trailed off, giving Laura confirmation of her second worst-case scenario. Carmilla toyed nervously with the hand holding her own.

"We were lovers. I knew she was bad new back then, but I didn't know how bad it could get."

"So we're running away from your ex-girlfriend?"

"Make no mistake, Laura, this isn't just 'I don't want to run into my ex' and we leave the bar and move on to another. The Oldest are the most powerful in a terrifying way. There are reasons vampires tend not to carry on for thousands of years."

"What does that mean?" Laura asked, staring intently now at Carmilla. She was less than pleased at the prospect of ever running into someone Carmilla had previously taken to bed, but now she was starting to feel scared. It unnerved her further when she noticed how shaken up Carmilla was.

"Well, if we don't end up hunted down and burned at the stake, after a few hundred years, most vampires choose to off themselves."

Laura didn't like the direction of this conversation at all. She took Carmilla's hand out of her lap, guiding it to wrap around her body and rest on her side, moving closer.

"So you were what, just dating this all powerful vampire woman? Did you feel like that?" Laura asked genuinely.

"To answer the first part of your question, I was very, very stupid. The Oldest—they can use mind control if you're in close proximity. Especially on humans. They can move so fast that they wouldn't have even needed a train to take the journey we took to get here. I've even wondered if they could just fly. They can hear and smell everything at once and discern the differences from great distances. I've heard stories even of one of the Oldest controlling entire packs of animals to do their bidding. The worst part of it is that to maintain these powers they need to feed so much. They have to drain whole human bodies to survive, and do it so often they're cruel about it. If one is hungry enough and thinks he or she is going to lose power, they'll even drain another vamp."

"Sounds like you picked a real winner there, Carm. Why were you with her?"

Carmilla stopped, looking at Laura like she were thinking over an SAT question and hadn't studied.

"I-" She stopped, unsure how to make Laura understand.

No, she knew how to make Laura understand, she was just terrified to do so.

"I'll show you." Carmilla answered instead, pulling Laura to her feet.


Laura carefully stepped onto the boat after Carmilla, using the outstretched hand to steady herself before settling in, immediately taking her place at Carmilla's side, letting the vampire's arm secure back to its place around her.

"So…we're getting on the boat that you told me never, ever, ever to get on?"

"Five dollars!" The man in charge of the engine at the back said, clearly happy to have passengers. Carmilla fished some cash out of her tight pocket, selecting a five dollar bill, handing it over to the captain, who promptly started the low humming engine, the boat moving slowly forward.

"It really is a nice night for a ride." Carmilla said, trying to force herself to forget that Michaeletta's presence back in her life might become a very real, unpleasant possibility.

Laura looked around at the low lights of the city. If she weren't so afraid at the moment, letting her curiosity drive her, she would enjoy riding along the city center with Carmilla's arm around her.

She let it really sink in that everyone she saw around her was most likely not a human. They would be mostly vampires, with other Shadows, like the necromancers she had met not even an hour ago. Somehow, they all seemed happy, from the couples walking hand-in-hand to a man playing an accordion facing away from the water, towards the cobblestone street. How did this woman from Carmilla's past end up being someone who scared even Carmilla?

"I met Mickey at a very dark time in my life." Carmilla started in a low voice, knowing she would have to continue but truly not wanting to do so.

This is what you wanted. You want her to really know you so being with you is a decision, not an attraction.

"I couldn't take it anymore. I had been a vampire for nearly two hundred years, and I was not handling transitioning away from the human world well. I was tired of making friends and watching them grow old, or having feelings for someone and then having them douse me with holy water and run away screaming once they found out what I am. I was tired of watching people die. I thought about just offering myself up to be burned at the stake. I missed being human."

The boat approached a tunnel, inside of which Laura could hear something muffled, but Laura couldn't quite make it out from outside.

"Where…" Laura started, listening as they floated closer.

"These are the catacombs."

They approached the entrance to the tunnel, lit with flame torches, unlike the electricity of the rest of the city. Once they were inside, Laura could hear the sounds more clearly.

"They're crying." She said, hearing the saddest sounds she had ever been surrounded with. The melancholy hung in the air, becoming thick and smothering.

The crying and wailing notes of anguish filled the air, as they passed the upright tombs, some with names carved into nameplates on the outside, some blank. The two could hear men's and women's voices, the sounds of broken weeping beginning to affect Laura visibly, as she let Carmilla continue to hold her.

"I spent four years in one of these."

Laura looked up in horror. She didn't want to picture Carmilla ever feeling the kind of pain she was hearing from inside of the tombs, much less for four years.

Carmilla swallowed, trying not to mentally revisit the place they physically were moving through on the boat as she continued.

"Depression doesn't even begin to cover it. Despair is more accurate. Feeling completely alone is a horrible thing all on its own, but feeling alone and knowing that it could carry on literally forever, well, that's it's own special living hell."

Laura could hear some of the tombs with tiny sobs, a light weeping, while some had cries as though the soul inside had just witnessed the murder of a loved one. The cries of sadness were becoming increasingly upsetting, but what was more troubling were the tombs with names on them with no sounds coming out. Laura wondered if these were vampires who stopped crying and might go on, like Carmilla, or if they had simply given up. She wondered if they were even still alive on the inside.

Laura exhaled forcefully, having a hard time not crying from the sadness herself.

"This is where vampires lock themselves away when they can't take the pain anymore. Some of them have finally outlived all of their families, some of them have had long, century-enduring relationships with other vampires only to have the other one killed, some are slowly going mad from living for eternity."

Carmilla let out an exhale she hadn't realized she held in once they approached the exit of the tunnel, the cries disappearing behind them as the boat took the circular route back to city center, along the opposite side of the canal.

Laura noticed Carmilla sniffle, trying to keep herself composed.

"When I let myself out of my tomb, I had decided to at least give living a little while longer a chance. I didn't know what to do with myself, and I needed to eat. I was starving. That's when I met Michaeletta."

Laura was speechless. She knew Carmilla must have seen some horrific things in her long life, but the thought of Carmilla locking herself away in depression, alone, for years broke her heart.

"I think she knew I was broken. She must have sensed it, knowing it would be easy to manipulate me into trusting her, into a relationship. Not that I'm placing the blame on her completely, I made my own choices. But that was the beginning."

Laura didn't know what to say. She couldn't say anything to console the dark-haired woman whom she knew she still loved. She moved her hands to cup Carmilla's face, forcing the pale woman with the sullen look to meet her gaze.

"I'm not going anywhere." Laura said softly, meaningfully to Carmilla.

The vampire nodded, understanding what Laura was trying to say, resting her forehead on the smaller woman's.

"I know there are things you don't want me to see. But when it's a part of you, I don't want you to hold back." Carmilla responded by leaning in, closing the gap between them to kiss this tiny, innocent human who somehow had gotten her to open up and show her things that she had shown no one before.

She kissed her while letting Laura continue holding her head in her hands, not caring that she could feel the boat docking. Neither of them cared that the boat captain was most likely still in the boat with them, or at the very least somewhere close. They didn't care of any of those passing in the street saw, staying pressed in their own intimate exchange of hands running along cheeks and sides, arms and thighs. The slight rocking of the boat encouraged them, pressing and pressing together as they moved with the slight bobbing of the water. Carmilla needed this kiss, needed to feel that Laura was still there after what she had shown.

She pressed harder with her mouth, needing to feel Laura, feel her breath across her cheek, the reciprocation of need. Joining lips with Laura was quite possibly the most human act in which she had ever engaged.

When they finally broke, Laura had so much more that she wanted to know, but didn't want to push Carmilla after the dark place she had literally just taken her to see.

"I understand if you want us to go. But if we're not in, let's say, immediately, pressing, 'someone's going to die' danger, I'd like to stay here awhile longer." Laura said, letting her hands fall to clasp behind Carmilla's neck. "With you."

Carmilla nodded. "I suppose there's no real point in running. If she truly is here and wanted her presence to be known, it would be. She would smell me, and smell me in you."

"In me?" Laura squeaked out.

"You drank my blood, remember?" Carmilla reminded gently. "It's going to be in you for awhile." Carmilla stood, stepping off of the boat, then helping Laura step onto the docks.

"So, does that mean I get any vamp-y super powers while your Karnstein healing blood is still in my system?" They both smiled; it was a smile that was much needed after the serious exchange.

"Sort of." Carmilla took Laura's hand, placing it on her heart, keeping still and pressing so Laura could feel it beating, noticing the young co-ed keep quiet. She took Laura's other hand, placing two fingers so Laura could feel her own pulse at the same time.

"They're in sync." Laura said after a moment, mouth opening in surprise.

Carmilla nodded, letting her feel their hearts pump in time for a moment longer before taking Laura's hand back in her own.

"C'mon, cutie. If we're staying, there are much better things to see than some sad, old vampires in a wall."