Chapter Text
“Nightmares have always haunted me.” Martin shifted on the couch, settling into the cushions as Dr. Lee began scratching notes into her ledger.
The earliest memory Martin could conjure dated back to when he was four. Perhaps it was a narrative pieced together from educational programs or library books his mother had brought home—but the details were too vivid to be the fake delusions of a child. He remembered being an old man: a man of heavy build and rough hands, living in a cabin defined by the glow of a fireplace and the scent of bitter coffee. He remembered the bite of the morning air and the repetitive swing of an axe against cedar logs. He remembered carrying the wood inside, handing the smaller kindling to his love-
“There’s a fragment I’ve forgotten,” he said, voice trailing off. “An important piece. Maybe they were my partner, my lover. I don’t know. It feels like my brain is barricading them from me. I think that’s where the nightmares come from.”
Dr. Lee nodded, her pen never pausing. “Tell me about the nightmares, Martin.”
“Darkness,” he said, swallowing hard as he averted his gaze from hers. “And regret.”
“What is it that you regret?”
“I regret letting them fall in love with me, because I ended up leaving them behind. All alone, for a long time.”
Wait. Where was this coming from? Martin caught himself, pursing his lips in shame. It had always been like this. Now at twenty-seven, the nightmares were appearing more frequently, the same ones that had visited him since he was four years old. Gulping, Martin sighed and forced his shoulders to relax.
He began by telling the new psychiatrist how his dreams always started in a void, all alone. Then a voice would arrive, pulling him upward only to throw him back down again. He had distorted visions of cabins—sometimes even lucid dreams where he was a rugged man, doing daily chores with someone following close behind. But every time Martin tried to see that person’s face, the nightmare ended or the sequence shifted.
“Dr. Michaels diagnosed you with schizophrenia, and the previous diagnosis was Complex PTSD. Do you take your medications regularly?” she questioned, setting down her ledger.
“They don’t fucking work,” Martin scoffed. “None of them ever have.”
The psychiatrist simply adjusted her glasses, her expression remaining professionally blank. "Anger is a common response when a patient feels unheard, Martin," she said, her pen hovering again over the ledger. "But these medications aren't meant to fix the dreams. They are meant to stabilize the chemical imbalances that cause them. If you aren't consistent, we can't accurately measure your progress."
Martin gave her a bitter laugh. "Progress? You call it progress when I can’t even look at a person without wondering if they’re the one following me in the woods? I’m not fucking unbalanced. I’m haunted."
She leaned forward. "That haunting is your brain trying to fill in the gaps of your trauma. If we don't manage the CPTSD or the hallucinations. You’re being another man, you're living in the cabins, they will only get louder."
Martin stood up, the couch feet even scraping harshly against the floor. The tension he had tried so hard to release was back, knotting his muscles like iron wire. "They aren't getting louder," he hissed. "They’re getting clearer. And no pill is going to make me remember that face."
Martin poured the Bourbon a colleague had gifted him last month, inhaling the sharp fragrance before swallowing the liquid in one shot. He refilled his glass over and over, until the bottle was eventually empty. Perhaps it was the result of heavy drinking since his youth, but Martin had an insane tolerance for alcohol; the Bourbon was never enough to muffle the nightmares replaying in his head. He leaned back on the couch and tugged at his black tie—it felt suffocating. On the gramophone, Frank Sinatra played, a supposed remedy for his insomnia. It didn’t work, of course. None of those alternative fixes ever fucking worked. As the alcohol finally started to take over, Martin’s head throbbed and his vision began to haze.
He closed his eyes, drifting into sleep and preparing to greet the void. Except this time, he found the warm cabin.
“I told you to stop drinking so much, my dear,” a sweet voice said from behind him. Martin looked down, noticing his own hands were rougher and dirty.
Martin laughed, and his voice sounded deeper as well. “Just a few. I managed to hit it big this week. Tell me, do you like the coat?”
The owner of the enticing voice hugged Martin from behind, resting their head on his left shoulder. They felt hauntingly cold, like a marble statue frozen in time. They laughed, slowly caressing his biceps. “I do. Thank you, dear. But a serious question, am I beautiful?”
“Of course.” Martin smiled.
“Then look at me.”
As Martin tried to turn his head, he was pulled away forcefully. The cabin vanished, replaced by the same void. The same darkness. It felt as though he were trapped inside a box, waiting to be discarded. He stared into the pitch black, gasping as his chest grew heavy and his breath turned shallow. His dry lips parted, and for a reason he couldn't explain, he called out: “My love!”
Martin jolted awake as cold water splashed across his face.
“What the fuck?!” he yelled, wiping his eyes. He looked up to find Sean Eom standing over him, looking absolutely nonchalant.
“Wake the fuck up. Your meeting is at ten,” Sean noted, crossing the room to wrench open the blinds. Sunlight flooded the empty apartment. “You didn’t answer any of my calls. I thought you were dead.”
“And the first thing you do is pour a glass of water on me? Instead of waking me up like a normal human being?” Martin huffed. He pushed himself off the couch, grabbing a handful of tissues to mop his face. The hangover wasn't terrible—just a little discomfort in his head and a slight weight in his stomach—but he was coherent enough to ignore Sean’s ranting.
He headed toward the bedroom to get ready, his mind still half-buried in the dream. I almost saw their face.
The meeting ended at noon, right at the start of the lunch break. Martin maintained a professional smile for his colleagues, but it vanished the moment he and Sean stepped into a fast food restaurant.
It was almost hilarious that Sean, his personal secretary, was the only person willing to spend time with him. At the Merrill Lynch Investment Management Division, Martin was notorious for his bad temper and his terrible tantrums. Being a senior financial advisor at just twenty-seven made him an easy target for gossip; some accused him of being a political shill, others called him a puppet or a product of nepotism, and some even whispered that he’d slept his way to the top. In reality, Martin was just a hardworking man from a middle-class family. He just happened to be lucky.
“You need to stop drinking so much. Your skin looks dull,” Sean said, biting into his burger.
Martin chuckled. “Whose skin is bright when they’re a corporate slave?”
“Shit, you’re right. My girlfriend said my skin looks awful too,” Sean replied. “Just don’t resign until I secure a better position in this company.”
Martin raised a brow. “Is it that obvious? That I’m leaving soon?”
“You won’t stop talking about finding that cabin,” Sean said. “That’s enough to know you’ll be gone sooner or later.”
Yufan had lived in solitude for over three decades in that cabin.
He survived by selling his handmade knitwear and baked goods—mostly to orphanages, nursing homes, schools, hospitals, and shelters. It was a quiet way to live, helping him avoid being noticed by the same people for too long. He had celebrated his 100th birthday last fall, just weeks before the temperature among the tall pines dropped below freezing.
Yufan hadn’t aged a day. He looked exactly as he had in 1948, back when he and Martin first started everything. The only difference now was that his hair was shorter, and he rarely smiled. After all, who was there to smile for? He lived almost entirely alone, his only companion being a chow-chow dog named Boris, who had grown too old to play fetch.
Most of his days were spent knitting, baking, skinning rabbit carcasses, drinking wine, and watching television. The world had moved on so quickly; everything was modernized and digitalized. Some of the orphanages had even told him they didn't need his sweaters anymore, suggesting he sell them online to make more money because his craftsmanship was too expert for a local market. Perhaps Yufan simply refused to keep up with the world—or perhaps he just couldn't bring himself to leave his old life behind.
“Christmas is coming,” he muttered. He stopped his slender fingers, pausing the shawl he was knitting for a local nursing home. “I wonder if the snow will be too heavy this year,” he added, setting the needles aside on the table as he rose from his armchair.
Boris barked. The dog’s white fur seemed weary from the cold now that winter was turning harsh. Noticing the bowl was empty, Yufan poured some kibble for the old dog and petted him lovingly. He then walked to the kitchen, humming a tune out of habit, and grabbed a bottle of wine.
It was a peculiar thing—how vampires could drink but never touch human food. The wine tasted pleasant, reminding him of old Mrs. Leftkowitz’s vintage. He smiled thinly at the memory as he sat down at the dining table.
It was 1963. Martin came home smelling of woodsmoke and hard liquor. He stumbled over a chair, nearly hitting the floor before catching himself and rushing toward the kitchen. Yufan was there, focused on an apple pie—a special request from the human who had been craving something sweet. The vampire gasped as Martin collided with him, wrapping his arms tightly around Yufan’s waist from behind. Martin’s warm breath grazed the back of his neck, and he began leaving a trail of messy pecks along the vampire’s nape.
Yufan set down his knife, the half-cut apples completely forgotten. “What are you doing, Martin Edwards?” he asked.
“Hehe. I love you. I love you so much,” Martin mumbled into his skin, tightening his grip. “I love you more than anything, my love! I really do!”
“Stop it, you’re drunk!” Yufan complained. But he couldn't hide the heat creeping into his cheeks, nor the way his heart—still so silent in his chest—seemed to ache with affection.
Martin gently turned Yufan around so they were face to face. He grinned widely. Then leaned down, capturing Yufan’s lips in a deep kiss as he pulled the vampire’s slight frame against his own radiating warmth.
“I love you more than anything in my entire life,” Martin whispered against his mouth.
Yufan finally let out a soft breath, a small smile breaking through as he buried his face in Martin’s chest. “You better.”
The snow was indeed heavy. Yufan sighed as he watched the white patches thicken across the backyard, burying the cedar logs he had meant to keep dry for the fireplace. It was December 20th—just five days before Christmas—when Yufan finally stepped out into the cold. The cabin remained unchanged, though it looked more vibrant now; he made a point to repaint the walls every few months to keep the rot at bay. A wind chime whistled in the winter breeze, offering a gentle sound that Boris always loved to bark at. With trembling hands, Yufan began shoveling, digging through the drifts to find the forgotten wood. He felt weaker than usual. Perhaps the natural end his mother had once whispered about was finally starting to show its symptoms.
He coughed as he managed to haul a small log back inside. From the kitchen, Boris barked loudly—likely a reminder that dinner was overdue. Yufan smiled at the sound of his companion. He dropped the log near the hearth, peeled off his damp gloves, and marched toward the kitchen.
“I’m coming, Boris! Wait!” Yufan called out. But the dog didn't stop; he was frantic, pacing circles around the kitchen floor.
“Hello, James.”
Yufan froze. Boris hadn't been barking for food.
Elizabeth was standing in the kitchen, watching him with an unreadable smile. Her black hair was tightly braided, framing the sharpness of her cheekbones. Her skin was the color of chocolate milk, but there was no sweetness to be found in her hollow cheeks or her piercing gaze. Yufan clenched his fists, his pulse spiking as she let out a cold laugh.
“It’s been a long time, hasn’t it? Since your lover died.”
“What do you want?” Yufan returned the question, his jaw set so tight it ached.
“Why? Can’t a sister visit her own brother?” Elizabeth asked, closing the distance between them. “I’m simply here to make sure your lover truly stays in the ground.”
“He is dead.” Yufan emphasized every syllable, his breath hitching as he locked eyes with her. She stopped only when they were inches apart, her cold aura bleeding into his space. “Thirty-seven years ago, on Christmas Day. Now leave, while I’m still asking nicely.”
“You couldn’t turn him,” Elizabeth laughed. “You’re a half-blood freak. Tell me, James, was it painful to watch the light go out of him?”
“Elizabeth, stop.”
“You’re Chinese, aren’t you? I believe the Eastern Vampires put quite a bit of faith in forces beyond their own kind. Ghosts, spirits, Buddhas,” she mused. Her long and cold fingers suddenly clamped around Yufan’s chin, forcing his head up until he had no choice but to meet her gaze. “Rebirth?”
“Leave,” he hissed through gritted teeth.
“Is Martin alive?”
“No.”
“Don’t lie to me!” Elizabeth’s voice cracked in fury, the sheer volume making the glassware in the kitchen rattle.
“Martin is dead!” Yufan yelled back, his own long-buried rage finally boiling over.
Boris barked once more before scurrying out of the kitchen, leaving the two vampires alone in the heavy silence. Elizabeth smirked, her eyes tracing the delicate features of Yufan’s face.
During their first years in the Appalachian Mountains, they had both been refugees seeking a new life. Elizabeth—or Liz, as Yufan used to call her—had escaped the bloody wake of colonization in her homeland of Zanzibar. Back then, the two were nearly inseparable, despite the language barrier and the gap in their bloodlines. Elizabeth was a pureblood, the daughter of Southern Vampires who had been slaughtered by British settlers in the early 1900s. But unlike Yufan, she had remained faithful to Neville and their pack, choosing the safety of the group over the risk of a life of her own.
Her long fingers finally slid away from Yufan’s chin, and her smirk vanished as quickly as it had appeared.
“Good,” she said at last. “I hope he stays dead.”