The endless tapping of liquid echoed in the musky, dark prison. One could hardly see in the dank and cramped dungeon, even with the few torches on the sconces by the one and only door. The odor was rancid with the thick, metallic, infected scent of blood. It was so enveloping that the air seemed to stick to the back of the prisoner's throats as they moaned and called out in their endless misery.

On a bed of straw soaked in his own waste and tufts of his own hair, a frail Dunmer remained hunched over himself, half-naked clutching at the infected wounds in his sides. His iron-dark skin was bruised, discolored, and pale with malaise. His once-long black hair was chopped and hacked short, and cuts littered his scalp and crusted over with blood and pus. His hair was hacked short by a shiv he managed to swipe, and where his beard used to be was a patchy stubble from being hacked off in the same rushed manner. The Dunmer was shaking and swallowing the little moisture in his mouth, and now and then he tenderly rubbed at his head, where cuts leaking with blood and pus littered his scalp, evidence of his attempts to keep his hair short. It was harder to grab that way.

He was beginning to wrap his injured feet in linen that he swiped from the sick Argonian on the other side of his cell. The lizard was worse off than he was, so close to death that Breval began swiping from him to better his own chances of survival.

All manner of gashes, slashes, bite marks and cuts lay across his body. His neck, inner thighs, and arms were all pierced with vampiric fangs as the monsters fed from him. The flesh of his back was slashed open and torn apart, as well as his calves and the backs of his ankles. Most of them were unclean and beginning to fester. The pain was excruciating, but none topped the bitter guilt and shame he felt.

As soon as he sold out, he became a bloodbag to them... No further purpose other than to fill their bellies and satiate their unholy love of pain.

It was becoming so hard to move. The Dunmer was slouched over his own knees and breathing so lightly... When he attempted to move, it was followed by a pained groan and the baring of his teeth. Worthless, worthless body, he kept thinking to himself. That's all he could think of now was the pain and how worthless he was.

It was all anyone ever told him, from Windhelm to Castle Dawnguard, and then here in this filthy, rotten castle of vile creatures. "You're worthless, boy. Go back to your filthy slum," the Nords of the ancient city would say. Then when Raylin died, his first love, that was all he would tell himself.

"You're worthless, Breval. You couldn't even save the one person who saved you a thousand times over."

Then... Castle Dawnguard.

Isran made him a courier for the Dawnguard at first, taking one look at the pitiful Dunmer and deciding it was less risky to send a simple courier to Jarls than his esteemed warriors. Then Breval was stuck delivering orders, permits, and warnings to all manner of folk in Skyrim. The Dawnguard warriors, who he'd always envied and hated, would poke fun at him and his clumsiness, his weight, his anxieties and awkwardness. It was ruthless. Breval wanted to beat their teeth in every day.

However, the constant travelling helped him back into physical shape, and only then did Isran finally give in to Breval's pleas to become a Dawnguard spellsword. It felt like the best day he'd had in years, it gave him that inkling of hope that he clenched to with desperate fists.

Now Breval regretted every moment of it. He would not have been here, dying alone in a cell, if only he had just given up as they wanted him to. Now look at him. Every inch of his body didn't feel like his anymore. Those damned vampires stole every part of it, leaving nothing unscathed or defiled. They'd even taken him in the name of Molag Bal, branding him as a thing to be claimed in the Prince's name.

He'd given out every piece of information about the Dawnguard that they milked him for just to make all the pain and the torture stop. Breval betrayed every single one of them with that vile act. All those people he envied and admired since day one. His friends that were killed that night almost a month prior now. Gods, Grel and Armodr would have died instead of selling out. Knowing that cut Breval to his core.

Everything everyone had said to him was true. Their words echoed in his mind, a way to punish those who failed the dead.

Worthless.

Worthless.

Worthless.

Now he lie here, in his own piss and blood. He was starving, dehydrated, in pain, and weak beyond his own comprehension. He felt as if the end was coming near. And Breval could not have been more right.

As the hours passed, Breval fell from his slumped position onto his sides, miserably clinging to himself in agony. He stayed like this for an hour, his breath rasping and his eyes losing focus. His body fell silent, his last mortal breath leaving his lips...

Two days later

Breval's head pressed against the cold stone floor of which he had become familiar with. The scent of blood drew him mad, he knew he could not feed off the living prisoners or else he would be punished by his captors. The Argonian he had been trapped with had long since died, and bite marks from Breval were lined across his neck and arms. The Dark Elf knew the Argonian was sick, but its blood was his only chance for survival. No matter how clotted or foul.

But it did nothing to satiate the torment of a new vampire.

His head felt as if it was constantly throbbing and hot. His ears rang in response to the slightest sounds, any light he saw made his vision pulse with red. The overload of his new senses was too much for him. With his head constantly in a phase, it made him so much more vulnerable and weak. All he could do to make the pain and the overload stop was to curl up and bury his head in his shadow, and try to stay as still as possible.

Through the fog clouding his head, he could make out quiet voices and footsteps in the dungeon. They sounded like they were coming closer, and Breval's chest tightened with fear. He heard the shrill creaking of the dungeon door followed by harsh torchlight. He slowed his breathing, hoping that whoever entered the room would leave him be. He listened closely to their voices, trying to understand why they came here.

.

"Which one is infected?" said the raspy voice of the vampire holding the torch. His companion, a female vampire, replied with a hiss.

"A little Dark Elf. One of us liked the taste of his blood a bit too much. Thought it would be better straight from the tap." The vampire ended the sentence with a long lick of her lips, her fangs gleaming in the torchlight.

Breval shielded his eyes from the light, praying to whatever God was with him that they would not find him out. What would they do? Flashes of him being forced to infect more victims, his old brothers in arms from the Dawnguard, filled his mind. He squeezed his eyes shut and felt his spine tingle as the duo grew closer.

"This one?" the torchbearer asked.

"This one," the second vampire replied.

The torchbearer gestured to Breval and the second vampire approached him, crouched down and turned his head with a rough jerk to face her. In an act of defiance, Breval kept his eyes held shut and his lips pursed. The vampire smirked and pried one of his eyes open. The Dunmer's eyes glowed with a fierce, burning red hunger, and his face morphed into one of pure hatred. The vampire chuckled and whispered, "it's this one. The Dawnguard rookie that they broke. Pathetic little thing really…" the vampire woman tightened her grip on his face when he tried to resist, digging her nails into his cheeks and using her thumb to pull up a corner of his upper lip. Breval's breath caught in his throat as she chuckled. She noticed his fangs were still just forming, the gums seeping with blood.

The torchbearer interrupted his companion's mocking of the wretch, saying, "well… I believe Harkon would not let him into the court. Neither would the rest. We cannot risk a turncoat in our court."

"So we get to have more fun with him then?"

The torchbearer thought for another moment, then smirked. "I believe so. His usefulness is now short, his blood won't nourish us anymore."

Breval shuddered hearing this, trying to squeeze his eyes and mouth shut even tighter. He prayed it was a nightmare. He prayed something would end this, anything. He couldn't go through this again. Not again.

The female vampire formed a toothy grin as she watched Breval's face contorting in fear. She loved it, the feeling of mortals trembling before her. Especially a Dawnguard. Her nails dug into his cheeks more as she gripped his face even harder and forced him to face her, the Elf still keeping his eyes and mouth shut. But she could still hear the panic in his shallow breath, and the tremors and the winces at every movement. Dawnguard rats deserved this and nothing better. No warrior of that order would live in Volkihar's grasp.

With a grin and a lick of her fangs, the vampiric woman whispered, "the sun rises soon… perhaps he should meet it. Would it not be symbolic? The final sunrise for new blood of the Order of Dawn…"

There was a venomous chuckle from both the vile creatures, and then the female vampire gripped Breval's ankles and began to drag him out of the dungeon. The rough cobblestone floor scraped against his head, and with fear beginning to possess him again, his eyes darted all around him as he struggled to look for a way out. He squirmed on his back as he attempted to flop onto his stomach and grasp the bars of the cell in protest. Breval's head throbbed, but he could hear the vampires cackle. "You'd think it would give up," the male vampire said with a shake of his head.

As he continued to be dragged, a faint glimmer appeared in the darkness, and the Dunmer's eyes were drawn to a shiv resting outside of a cell. He weakly reached out to it. His flesh stung as his old and fresh wounds were strained, but he still reached for what could be his only salvation. The two vampires were looking at the path in front of them, and did not notice that their prisoner managed to grasp the little blade. With nothing else on him but his jute pants, Breval hurriedly crammed it down them. The waistband was just tight enough to keep it from falling out as they dragged him up the stairs.

His head thud against the stone steps as they went up, making the Dark Elf's face twist and wince in pain with every hit. His captors kept going, pulling his weakened body through the butcher's room rich with the scent of blood. Breval could see the massive casks whose spigots dripped and clotted with it. He felt his skin moisten as he was dragged through a pool of blood to the door.

His ears began to ring and his eyes burnt and blurred as he was pulled to the main courtroom. Breval's mind was hazed over by the red pulsing and his head throbbing. His limbs felt too numb to move. He could vaguely hear the putrid creatures of the castle hiss and cackle at him, speaking with his tormentors as they gawked at the new monster in their midst. Weakly, the Dunmer bared his teeth at them by new instinct, and they all merely laughed.

As he was dragged through the courtroom Breval caught a glimpse of the man - if he could even be called that - behind the Volkihar vampires. Lord Harkon. Breval clenched his fists as he stared at the vampiric lord with unmistakable anger in his eyes. Harkon noticed, and merely gave the Dunmer a sneer and a chuckle showing his vicious fangs, and highlighting the evil in the man's glowing eyes. He turned his back on the mocking party of the helpless Elf, returning to his throne behind the bloody banquet table as Breval was dragged away.

The winter chilled breeze hit Breval's skin hard, which made him shudder and whimper. The fresh air was relieving from the suffocatingly metallic odor of blood emanating from inside the Castle. The throbbing in his head eased and he could breathe a little better, but even still his ears would ring and his vision remained hazed. He struggled a little more, tugging his legs against the grip this woman had on his ankle. But she turned her harsh gaze to him, snarling, "you can't even walk. Give up already." Her grip tightened and she proceeded faster. The ground of the cobble bridge scraped his skin and the back of his head, and left behind him were small smears of blood on the grey stone.

The sky was coated in thin rippling clouds, and the wind pushed them further away from each other. Through them, Breval could tell the sky was beginning to grow lighter with the coming of dawn. That terrified him. All those stories he heard of vampires shriveling up or bursting into flames in the sunlight, gods, that was going to happen to him. They were going to kill him…

His mind travelled back to the shiv down his pants, barely secured in place by the waistband and the fact that he was not standing. Breval couldn't tell where they were going to put him, but he prayed this remained the same. If they saw he had it they'd take it, and his one hope for escaping would be lost.

The vampire woman brought his frail body to the watchtower, where on top of it were a few wooden posts that were recently put in. Harkon had grown paranoid over the centuries, and for that he was putting in more ways to punish his own blood. The posts on top of the tower kept vampires in the sun as they baked and starved, and were normally too weak to resist the bonds that held them in place. The vampire woman thought no different of this one; he could barely hold his own weight up with his two legs, let alone fight much longer. If he was not dead by this night she'd be surprised.

The trip up the stairs was gruelling with pain. Breval's skin was scraped as he was dragged up, and the back of his head felt raw and bruised. The throbbing became intense again and he groaned quietly from the dull pain. He thought the spiraling steps wouldn't end, and the merciless pace the woman was dragging him at left him no time for respite from the misery. But finally, he saw the opening to the roof, and the grey sky turning lighter with the coming of dawn. Breval felt himself tremble, and for a moment a brief and quiet sob escaped his lips. He was afraid, so terribly afraid. He didn't want to die. Not like this, not now, not here. What would await him in the end, now that he was a monster of the night? What unspeakable miseries grew closer with the rising sun?

The woman dropped his legs before the pole, and then he felt him get yanked up against it by his underarms. His hands were crossed on the other side of the pole, and his wrists were cinched tight together with rope. Breval didn't fight it, he only hoped this woman would leave as soon as possible. As she walked in front of him to give him one last gawking stare, he looked her in the eyes with a hateful stare. She grinned at him, looking at the horizon to the east. The underbelly of the clouds were becoming a faint yellow. "This will be your last sunrise. Savor it," she told him, crossing her arms and giggling a little. "You'll die with the dawn, Dawnguard. We'll be sure to tell your friends what favors you did for us."

He looked away from her, down at his feet as he thought of the shiv that was lodged between his bum and the cobble ground. And then he told her with a croaking voice, "You'll die by the sun too."

She looked at this pathetic Elf with a cocked head, finding amusement in his words. "Cocky words for a dead Elf," she hissed, and with that she made her way back to the stairs. He glared at her as the vampire left, and listened intently to her bootsteps trickling away. Breval's ear twitched and his head bobbed a little from the faintness, but he shook himself awake and then turned his head to the bridge. He waited until he saw her cross it to the castle doorway, where the watchman opened it for her and she disappeared into the castle. He swallowed the lump in his throat upon realization that the guard may be a problem. Between that man and the rising sun, Breval realized his time to escape would be limited.

The sky was getting lighter. He could see the sun peeking over the horizon line, and light was pouring forth. Just looking at it made his eyes pulse red and his ears ring. Then when the light touched his skin, his skin felt unnaturally hot, and then he could feel it sizzle and blister. Breval gritted his teeth and a pained grunt escaped his lips. He had to act now or he would be nothing but ashes.

With a strained heave, he pressed his back hard against the pole and began kicking his pants off as he wiggled to slide them off, careful to be sure that the shiv remained inside of them. As soon as he had one ankle free, he used his toes to grasp the shiv and pull it to him, leaning down as far as he could to grab it in his teeth. Now was the trickier part for Breval, as he could easily drop the blade too far from his grasp and be screwed. He turned his head around as far as it could go, and with a calculated guess he let the shiv drop out of his mouth. He felt it roll down his inner arm and pivot around the pole, and he frantically gripped it and managed to catch the pointy end in his fingertips. Adjusting the blade in his hand, he began to try and saw the rope apart.

It was gruelling trying to angle the little blade right, the pulsing red haze in his vision and his burning skin was hard to ignore, and trying to keep a watch of the castle gate was even more stressful. Breval's lips curled in a focused frown as he tried to ignore the burning and focus on cutting this damned rope. As the blade sawed at the rope, he could hear squeaking. His head turned to see a rat poking around the edges of the platform, scratching at the dirt between the cobblestones. Breval's eyes focused on it, and a predatory urge began to overwhelm him. Warm blood from anything was all he needed. He had to get his hands on that fucking rat.

Finally, he could hear the thin twines snapping, and now and then he jerked at the bindings and tried to keep loosening them. It took a hearty few moments, but finally, he felt the rope snap through and his wrists were free. As soon as he realized he could move, he made a rapid lunge for the rat and caught it in his grip. There were frantic squeaks and the squelching of flesh as Breval bit into the warm body, devouring the blood like a ravenous wolf. He dropped its corpse after a few moments, licking the blood from his lips and his fingers. The small amount he had gotten made the burning sensations of his skin lessen, and it felt as if his aching head had stopped that god-awful throbbing.

Now realizing it was time to run, the Dark Elven man scrambled for the opening in the floor, and with the strength he now had he ran as hard as he could downwards, keeping his hands along the stone wall for balance. Breval's feet hit the final floor and he stumbled a little as he scrambled from the tower entrance, eyes darting frantically around for any medium of escape, and then he saw it.

A small boat was docked at the edge of the shore. It must have been what they used to first get him here. In a frantic run for freedom he barreled toward it and pressed his hands against the edge of the boat, digging his heels in the sand and pushing it further into the sloshing waters. And Breval kept pushing it until the freezing cold water was up to his knees, and then further and further until he had no choice but to jump in and grab the ends of the oars. He fumbled with them in his grasp for a moment, then began to row with all his might. The adrenaline and the fresh blood fueled his strength, propelling the boat far away from the island that Castle Volkihar rested on.

Breval didn't want to look back. He was keeping his eyes ahead on the black waves and the distant silhouette of Skyrim's mainland ahead. The sun's rays bathed his skin, and even though it burnt and blistered his skin, he couldn't help but laugh. He could see the sun and breathe ocean air, when he thought he'd never see either again.

As the Dunmer rowed further and further away, back in the further distant island were three figures. They stood at the edge, helpless without a boat, arguing and gnashing fangs at each other. They eventually were forced to retreat into their castle, as the harsh sunlight burned their skin as well. Before they left they gave one last hiss at the Dunmer as he floated away, and left him to die in the sun's rays. They doubted he would make it far on his own with his current condition.

As the sun rose higher, Breval finally reached the icy shores of Skyrim. As the underside of the boat pushed against sand, Breval used the oars to slide it further up the shoreline before jumping out. The freezing water shocked his senses, but he kept going. The chances of him surviving looked desolate, as he was a barely clothed man with little strength and a shiv to his name.

The most he could manage was a crawl, but knowing what monsters that were sure to follow him pushed him to keep moving. Breval managed to drag himself up to his stumbling feet, and he trudged through the deep snow the Pale was known for, the freezing and cloudy environment seemingly protecting him slightly from the sunlight. He wobbled and collapsed on his weak legs, and when he found he couldn't get up again, he just kept crawling. All that filled his head was him telling himself to keep moving.

As he pushed through the snow he saw a cave in the distance. A good place to hide from the sun, he didn't care about what lived in there. All he cared about was getting away from the sun.

Keep moving.

He dragged himself through the snow, on his elbows and his kicking legs, the cave entrance getting closer and closer.

Keep moving.

He could practically feel the cool breeze coming from the cave hitting his face.

Almost there.

His bones and muscles ached. His wounds and blisters screamed with pain. It became harder and harder to move, but he HAD to get into that blessed cave.

So close...

He was only a few steps away from the entrance, but the adrenaline finally wore off as fatigue and exhaustion consumed his mind and body. He reached weakly out to the cave, groaning out loud from the light-headedness and the heavy throbbing of his aching head. He felt his body overcome with a tingling, warm, numb sensation as his vision pulsed darker and darker red. All he saw was his frail arm pointing to the dark cavern, and his vision faded out to black.