"My God...this is my fault. I should've protected her."

"What if she's hurt...or worse?"

These words haunted Ash's mind as they raced through the darkened corridor. He should've been stronger, at least for Nitaliyah's sake. A sudden thick nausea swept through his stomach. The sickness had the power to bring him to his knees; it was a miracle that he could stand, let alone run. He closed his eyes in a pathetic attempt to block out the reality of the situation.

"It's just a dream." he thought, clenching his eyes tighter as he felt tears stream down his face. "This is all just a bad dream..."

He tried blocking out the sounds of Nitaliyah's screaming, and the image of her desperately clawing at her decomposing captors. That was the first time he had ever seen fear in her eyes.

"This is all just a bad dream. A shitty, truly fucked up dream."

Upon opening his eyes, Ash expected to scream and bolt upright in his bed in his equally shitty apartment in Michigan. Not ninteenth-century Transylvania, being chased by an undead madman.

Ash's eyes flickered open, and to his dismay, he was wrong. Dreadfully wrong. This was all real. From the dank, musty air he breathed in to the dim torches illuminating the dungeon every twenty feet or so. As much as he hated to face it, this was reality. The sounds of screeching crows mingled with their hurried footsteps, creating a confused chorus of wet splashes, shrieks, and curses mostly growled between clenched teeth.

"FASTER, you degenerate piece of shit!" Gabriel barked.

Ash silently obeyed, and pushed his legs a fast as they would allow him. At this point, he didn't even have to look at the old man to know that he was pissed. Then again, what father in his right mind wouldn't be? His daughter had just been kidnapped by the same bloodthirsty murderer who had slaughtered most of his family.

The beads of sweat forming on the back of Ash's neck cooled as they came to a sudden stop. Before them was a heavy wooden door that stood in the middle of the corridor. The imposing door was worn, and its handle had rusted through. The faint smell of dried blood emanated from the slight crack in the door. Gabriel pressed his lips together tightly and looked back at Ash in a knowing glare. Ash took the unspoken hint, and both men felt their fingers clench around their weaons.

"I've been here before." Gabriel said, his mind retreating back to the incident with the creature and the soul orb that operated upon its death.

"If we travel through here, we can go back through the ballroom and down the grand staircase into the main foyer. From there, we'll go through the cellar."

Ash shook his head. Like every other plan that had been suggested since the three of them set foot in this God-forsaken place, this plan sounded simple. Too simple.

"I have a feeling that's gonna be easier said than done, Pops." he muttered, the nausea once again ripping through him.

With a brutal kick, Gabriel forced the door open. The faint traces of blood they smelled from the other side had now mutated into the full-blown stench of death. Ash looked around and was immediately sickened to his stomach. The dimly-lit room was decorated with corpses sewn together in a macabre pattern everywhere, from the walls to the ceiling. The bodies were well-preserved, as if fresh, but smelled as if they had been left to decompose in the hot sun for weeks. A greasy odor polluted the air in the large room, and though Ash and Gabriel thought themselves to be immune to this, it took all they could to keep themselves from vomiting. The one thing that caught Ash's gaze was the sight of a disfigured man, no, creature, lying in the center of the room. Dark blood oozed from every one of the monster's orifices and into weird drains built into the floor. He wanted to question Gabriel about it, but there were more pressing matters at hand.

Instinctively, Gabriel cupped his arm over the lower half of his face and began to look around. He spied a bright light across the room, and his eyes widened. It was an open door.

"THERE!" he yelled, grabbing Ash by the collar and pointing towards the open doorway. "There it is!"

Within a few seconds, both men were racing across the room, the bottoms of their shoes squishing and crunching the remnants of things they wouldn't care to identify. As the hot, foul air rushed into his face and stung the insides of his lungs, Ash began to think of Nitaliyah. He thought of all the trouble they had gone through. He thought of what kind of bargaining chip she was to Dracula, and how valuable she was in the process of getting old man van Helsing to read sacred passages of the Necronomicon. He also affirmed the possibility that there was no way in hell Dracula would make it this easy for them.

Turns out he was right.

Before they reached the doorway, both doors slammed shut. The tiny clicking noise that followed soonafter confirmed the fact that they were trapped. A thin creaking sound emanated from one side of the room, and both their heads turned to see a blinding bright red light. The soul orb fixed between the corpse child's ribs had taken an odd crimson color, and dark wisps of smoke violently swirled in the glass ball. The creaking sound resumed briefly, and a dull thud opened the child's skeletal jaw. After a few eerie seconds of silence, an ear-shattering scream escaped the child's mouth, nearly shaking the room in the process. Both men screamed and dropped to their knees, covering their ears in a pathetic attempt to block out the horrendous screams. This was definetly not good.

"WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!" Gabriel bellowed, his voice taking on an even more enraged tone.

At the end of his question, the screaming suddenly ceased, and the eerie silence returned. The scarlet light had also gone out, bringing the room back to its usual dimness. As both men removed their hands from their ears, it became clear that some otherworldly force was fucking with them.

"This, my dears..." a female voice cooed through the darkness. "is a game."

Gabriel stood up at once and unsheathed his sword.

"Show yourself, coward!" he screamed maniacally. Gabriel felt his blood boiling with rage, and declined to think of what his daughter could've been goung through right about now.

"SHOW YOURSELF!" he repeated, tears of pure hatred seeping from the corners of his eyes.

Ash could feel his blood curdle, and as he rose to his feet, he could almost feel a cruel smile in the mysterious voice. A loud cackle rang out.

"Very well then, boys..."