AN : I do not own any original Van Helsing Characters!!

Sorry this took so long to update, I didn't get any time at camp to update this, which I thought was odd, but I am back now, and I shall update as much as I can (without blowing myself apart). So...IM BACK!!

Lilacskissgoodbye

The first glimpses of light that came to Anna were blinding. For the second time that day...or was it night? She had been beaten until unconsciousness. This time, however, she noted painfully, I am not on the comfortable bed.

Anna gingerly picked herself up and with the most agonizing headache imaginable, she crawled slowly to the bed where she lay down, staring at the now-depleted fire.

I wonder what time it is...and if Dracula is still here... she thought bleakly.

Gathering all the strength that her afflicted limbs could muster, she picked herself up once more and set about exploring the castle. The possibility of escape was still prevalent in her mind, pushing back the darker desire that had haunted her footsteps for weeks.

Would it indeed be better to escape?

Through the musty, dirty, cob-web-filled passage ways she wandered, each staircase and ornate doorway running together with the previous to form a stone and steel blur in her mind.

As she was about to try to find her way back to the room in which Dracula had left her, she saw another door, most unlike the others in design.

It rose, huge, to the vaulted ceiling, and the ornate carving seemed as if it was straight out of Michelangelo's ideas for the Sistine Chapel with Cherubim and Seraphim praising God with mouths open in song and small instruments in hand. Earth came next on this door, with the human race strewn between animals, pitiful expressions on all of their faces, but half were looking upwards to God, half looking downwards towards the next level. Hell in all it's horrible glory. Human bodies with scaled wings and animal heads danced around flames in the background, their leader on a fixated throne in the middle. Satan himself, though, was not the creature on the throne. It was Dracula himself.

Anna let out an audible gasp, filled with terror to the brim of her being, but she knew that she could not turn back now. Checking the slim windows created in the stone turrets of the castle for sunlight left and finding that she had a few hours until the sun sunk beneath the horizon, she decided to see what was behind the horrible door.

Soundlessly, the door opened, though it took of all Anna's subdued strength to do so. What she saw before her caught the breath in her throat. While the door frightened her and caused her to turn away and run for her very life, the sight before her created such a startling contrast that she almost wept with the sheer beauty of it.

Icicles hung from the ceiling and when the light from the skylight at the top of the turret cascaded in, rainbow-colored prisms glittered around the room. In the center, a very old statue of a beautiful woman stood, child in arms, stony tears softly caressing her weathered cheek.

Anna fell down upon the floor suddenly, remembering her own mother, now dead, and her own fresh tears welled up in her eyes. The thoughts of her childhood, safe and innocent in her mother's arms enveloped her as she sat upon that forever-icy floor. Hours passed that she did not recognize, and she could not even back away, so exhausted from her own sobs as strong arms closed about her and lifted her up like a child, cradling her against a lean but well-muscled chest.

...you have no heartbeat... She thought as she slipped into comfortable slumber.

Hey, sorry this was so late in coming, but I have it up. I know its not as...descriptive (?) as my other chapters, but I am writing it as I take Defensive Driving for a ticket, so I hope you all understand. Well, Ill see you next time!!

Thanks for reviewing!!

Lilacskissgoodbye