Not long now.

She breathes hard inside the confined space, flinching with every sound she hears. There is the sound of what seems like chains above her but it’s hard to be sure, even with her abilities. Occasionally a loud bang startles her and it’s everything she can do to stop herself crying out. She tightens her hands into fists, nails digging into bloody palms as again, noises far too close for comfort, follow one after another.

It won’t be long now.

She waits as patiently as she is able as she struggles to picture the scene above her. There appears to be more present above her than at first assumed. They talk to each other in insistent tones, noises and scrapings and rumbling, a cacophony of indistinguishable sounds, bookending each spat sentence like responses. She grinds her teeth together in an effort to contain the scream building within her, ignoring the pleasurable warm sensation of iron filling her mouth, overflowing her trembling lips.

He won’t be long now.

How long has it been since he left? She tried to count the hours but quickly became confused. His return. That’s all she’s had to cling to for as long she can remember. He promised he would return and she had no reason to ever doubt the sincerity of his words. He’d never lied. Not to her.

Motion now rocks her suddenly and a gasp escapes her bloody lips.

She feels movement starting down at her feet, a straining sensation pulling her legs heavenwards. She braces her feet against the wood beneath her soles, willing her body downwards, away from the irrepressible pull. It feels futile. She feels the blood rush to her head as her legs ascend then suddenly her upper body follows suit as the pull evens out, the same force lifting her up, unwilling to be denied it’s prize. She is aware that her body is once again level yet in motion, heading up to meet whatever awaits her upon the surface.

He’s not coming.

With the thought, a bloody tear escapes her eyelashes and streaks down her muddied cheek. If he ever had any intention to return now, it’s irrelevant for he’ll be too late.

The inevitability of what is to follow frightens her beyond rational thought. Shame fills her heart as for the first time she confronts the true depth of her cowardice. This was not how it was supposed to end. All dreams of a noble death seem to sluice from her mind’s eye. Not even the threat of pain would have caused the unbearable anguish of a disrespectful retiring, the impending sensation that she feels now. If it was love, if it was true and absolute love, as he had promised her existed between them, would he have allowed her to be expired in this way?

The voices are clear now. Some are shouting, others are laughing as the pull seems to speed up. It halts momentarily and she can feel her body rocking suddenly from side to side before slamming down still once more, as if they have deposited her back from where they found her, but her heart knows different. Her body leaps upwards from the jolt, her head hitting the wood in front of her, the pain slashing jagged stars across her field of vision. The grain of the wood in front of her swims in and out of focus and she shakes her head in order to clear it.

She is moving again, sideways this time. There is more laughter, words she recognises as mortal curses and occasionally a bang, though not as hard as previous, punctuate each curse. She is sobbing now despite the shame that has engulfed her love soaked heart. Her hands have moved upwards in the small coffin and taken hold of her face, her own touch the last comfort she is ever to know.

Chains, heavy chains thud down upon the lid outside as her movement sideways ceases and again, she is swaying from side to side. There is one voice now, speaking with a clear and judgemental tone, he seems to be preaching, punishing, yet she hardly hears the words, so loud now are her sobs. She cries for an interminable amount of time to pause briefly, suddenly, to realise there is only silence now. No talking, no anger, no preaching, no noise of any kind…and the pull releases at this given movement.

A sudden sensation of falling overwhelms her and she screams loud and true inside her wooden casket, her fangs bared for no one to see ever again, not her victims, certainly not her immortal lover who has forsaken her in her final hour of need. The drop is short and the hard waiting watery arms of the pacific ocean catch her with as much gentility as it has shown the many destroyed and discarded remnants of vessels that litter the shoreline. She will now join their number, a vessel set sail into the murky waters against it’s will to be eternally forgotten, buried in a watery grave.

She wonders how long her death will take, recalling the many horror stories her immortal sire and lover had told by a fire on many nights. She wonders why even though she has no capacity nor need to breathe why it has suddenly grown stiflingly claustrophobic within her once beloved coffin. She wonders what her lover will imagine has occurred when he happens upon her empty grave. She wonders if the fear she feels could be anything like what she has put her hundreds of victims through before her lover taught her there were other ways to exist.

She wonders if it was love she ever truly felt at all.