Chapter Text
Let there be night
And day be gone
Let there be night
The mass of dark has begun
Let there be night
And damn the sun
-Powerwolf, Let There Be Night
There was something missing in your life.
To be more specific, there were memories missing in your life: there was a gap where memories ought to be, but weren’t. It spanned almost a full eighteen months you simply couldn’t remember, no matter how hard you tried. And there was a lot of hazy fog over the recent memories you had managed to cling onto; it was like every time you tried to think about them, your thoughts had to swim though quicksand first. These memories were completely mundane, too - you remembered doing a lot of dishes, for example, but precious little else.
You’d even had to buy a new phone, since your old one had gone missing without a trace. Who knew what pieces of your lost memories might have been recorded on it? Pieces you would apparently never get back, now - you tried not to think about it, because you really didn’t want to entertain the thought of what would happen to you if you never got those memories back. No, surely you would. You had to.
Well, for one thing you remembered sleeping a lot during the day, which might have suggested that you’d simply had a nighttime job - but the nighttime hours, too, were a big blur in your memories. So what had you done, just slept through the entire year and a half? That would explain your amnesia, but it also didn’t make much sense, so you scratched it from your list of theories.
The trouble was, your list of theories that made logical sense soon whittled down to exactly zero. There was always something that felt off, a little too eerie to fit any of the explanations your brain supplied. It was like someone had carefully and systematically excised all memory of something from your mind, although you had no idea what that something could be. It was simply as though eighteen months of your life had been wiped away.
And it wasn’t clear exactly when this memory loss had occurred, either - it didn’t seem to have been gradual, with bits and pieces falling away over time. Rather, you had the hazy sort of feeling that it had happened almost overnight, in the blink of an eye. Not that you could put your finger on the exact moment. The worst part was, you couldn’t even remember why you didn’t remember anything! It was the sort of cyclical issue that got very frustrating, and did so very quickly.
That was why you were currently sitting on the floor in the attic of your small Wellington flat, surrounded by the contents of your life. That is, if the contents of your life could be summed up in the small collection of boxes you’d trawled out from the depths uncharted. These boxes had been emptied and their cargo scattered around you - papers, pictures, anything that might help you remember what you’d forgotten.
But nothing was jogging any deeply-buried memories, at least not as far as you could tell. You weren’t really sure what you’d been expecting, but you supposed something along the lines of all your memories flooding back at once at the sight of a nondescript piece of paper might, strictly speaking, have been a bit too fanciful a notion. All the papers were as mundane as ever, and you had no pictures from the last year and a half either, not even of the few events you did remember going to (you’d been pretty sure you had taken some snapshots at them, but now they were nowhere to be found). It was distressing, and it was confusing, and it was frustrating.
In one of the boxes, though, you did find one anomaly: a soft knitted scarf you couldn’t remember buying. It was buried deep at the bottom of the box, sandwiched between a dusty book and an old photo album - it seemed as though someone had crammed it there in a hurry. If you hadn’t known better, you would have said the scarf had been hidden there.
It was just a simple scarf, light green with some golden accents woven through it, but you felt a strange attachment to it. There were no store labels on it, no price tags; it looked handmade, although you didn’t think you knew anyone who knitted, and if it had been a gift it had been a very thoughtful one you really should have remembered. Just another one of the ceaseless mysteries that now made up your life, you supposed, but instead of putting the scarf back where you’d found it you just bundled it around your neck. You resisted the strong urge to press your face into the soft fabric. Even still, you could tell that the scarf had a smell. A rather pleasant one - like wool, obviously, but there was a hint of something that reminded you a bit of leather, and something old (wood, perhaps). It made you feel a little warm and fuzzy inside, although that could have easily been because of the thick woolen scarf itself. And that was it for the boxes, there was nothing else of note; the search hadn’t really helped, except now you had a rather striking new fashion accessory.
It went without saying: There were things you didn’t remember. There were a lot of things you didn’t remember, actually, but one of the things you did know with complete certainty was that vampires existed. Precisely how you knew this fact was another thing you didn’t remember, but it was there, an immutable fact. And it was totally infuriating, not knowing how you knew something so sensational - but of course, you’d sound a little bit crazy if you went around telling people that vampires were very real creatures, so you didn’t.
Instead you busied yourself vampire-proofing your flat, with bunches of garlic draped over the doorframes and even dangling over your bed like some bizarre mobile. Crucifixes and holy water were easily within arm’s reach anywhere in the house, even in the bathroom. Yes, you knew it was probably just a bit obsessive, but it made you feel a little safer - and with such huge gaps in your memories, feeling safe was a precious commodity.
Not only did you know that vampires existed, but you knew a fair bit about them, too - which powers were real and which were pure fantasy; how one became a vampire; and perhaps most importantly, which parts of Wellington vampires favoured as their “haunts.” Hotspots. From what you could tell, it would be pretty easy for you to strategically avoid any unsavory encounters of the vampiric sort, but you could never be too careful.
Especially when you took into consideration the dreams you’d been having. Well, “dreams” didn’t really cover it - they were nightmares. Recurring nightmares that had you waking up night after night in a cold panic, with the sheets tangled around your legs from thrashing. Nightmares of green eyes glowing bright, and fangs at your throat, so close that you could almost feel their sharp tips pricking against your skin. So, it was really no wonder that you’d been so meticulous in protecting your flat from the creatures. (Nevermind that you’d never actually seen one. To the best of your knowledge, of course.)
Notions of vampires aside, the next oddity in your life was instantly noticeable whenever you walked around the neighbourhood. There was a particular road you were drawn to, a quiet little one where you could just walk in peace and try to let your confused jumble of thoughts sort themselves out. And one of the houses on that road struck you as incredibly familiar. Far more familiar than any of the others on that same street, so it couldn’t just be that you’d been past it dozens of times. In the light of day the house was eerily still and silent, and even at night you noticed little more than the occasional light left on in the window. You might have wondered if anyone even lived there full-time, if you hadn’t somehow known that they did. The thing was, you knew things about that house, things logic dictated you absolutely should not know. Even if you had no way to confirm those things.
Sometimes when you walked home, you’d lose yourself in your own head, thinking about everything and nothing at the same time; in these moments your feet carried you almost of their own volition. You’d often find yourself stalled in front of that same house, with its inexplicably familiar creeping ivy and wrought-iron gate. The house as a whole was almost ominous, with a darker and somehow spookier feel than the whole rest of the street, but it never bothered you. Instead, you’d wonder how the flowers in the back garden were doing. (Which was odd, really, because how were you to know there were flowers in the back garden?)
Of course, you’d never been in the back garden, but you just knew, innately, that someone had spent a long time trying to get peonies to grow in the shadow of a large weeping willow. And you knew that same someone had gotten frustrated when another, more inconsiderate person had stomped all over the poor little shoots in their heavy boots. Of course, it had to all be in your mind; what else could it be? It wasn’t like you’d ever been there before. (You figured you must just be overworked - your overactive imagination ascribing backstories to a house you found visually interesting - but on some subconscious level you knew it was more than that. This house, in some way, held the key to all your questions.)
Usually, you only allowed yourself to stand outside the house for a few moments before you continued the walk home. This time you must have lingered by the gate a little too long, though; you realized with a jolt that a tall figure was peering out at you from between lacy curtains, forming an eerie shadow against the window. You were acting kind of creepy, when you thought about it - you were just sort of standing out in the empty street and staring at this person’s house, and you had done so on multiple separate occasions just that week. You might have worried you were unintentionally stalking the house, but could it really be called stalking when you had no idea who even lived there? … Probably. Criminal lurking, or something of that nature. You’d better go anyway.
But before you could leave, the figure vanished from behind the drapery in a flash, and another opened the door. This one was too short to have been the same thin, lanky silhouette you’d seen shaded against the window, and even from this distance it seemed to be glaring at you.
It marched down the steps and over to you, and now you could see that it was a man. A man who looked achingly, devastatingly familiar, although you were equally sure that you’d never seen him before in your life. But his eyes you definitely did recognize - they were exactly the same shade of alluring green you’d seen time after time in your nightmares. Unfortunately you didn’t have time to focus on this fact for long, because he was very, very angry, and this led to no small amount of yelling.
“What are you doing here?! This is - this is the private properties, you cannot be here! What is wrong with you! Piss off!”
You frowned. Something told you he posed no real threat to you, but that didn’t mean you weren’t a little insulted by how rude he was being. It was a bit of an overreaction, in your opinion. (And technically you weren’t even on his property, you were just standing in front of it.)
The man’s eyes widened when he glanced down and caught sight of the green scarf around your neck, and then a strange expression passed over his face - perhaps anger, or perhaps bewildered frustration, it was difficult to tell. He reached out; whether he intended to rip the scarf off of you or caress the wool gently, you couldn’t be sure, but he quickly dropped his hand back down to his side, and you never found out.
As if he suddenly remembered he was supposed to be angry at you, he glowered in a manner that was probably meant to be intimidating. It wasn’t that effective, in all honesty, considering he wasn’t particularly tall. And he was wearing what looked like a cape on top of a military-style jacket - and those rings were certainly a choice. The entire result was nearly comedic.
To be honest he looked rather a lot like what you’d expect a vampire to look like, although you didn’t want to assume. (He was handsome, too, but that was neither here nor there.) Just because you knew vampires existed didn’t mean every man who wore outdated clothes and looked like he’d just crawled out of a coffin was one. They were probably pretty rare, anyway, and if he was a vampire there was a good chance you would already be dead by now.
“Go away from here! Now!”
This man, who - let’s be clear here - you’d never remembered seeing before in your LIFE, was now waving his arms wildly, and even though there was nobody else around to witness it you felt your face flush with embarrassment at the scene he was making. One wild movement narrowly missed smacking you in the face, and for a second he faltered, looking almost concerned; you didn’t really know what to make of that, so you just took a step back to avoid any other possible gesticulations.
“Don’t you see you are not welcome here?! You are not invited, you must leave! Go on, shoo!” As if to reinforce this, he waved his hands in a way that was clearly dismissive.
Okay, you could take a hint. (Even if it wasn’t so much hinted as quite rudely yelled down the street.) You muttered a quick apology, not wanting to make the man even angrier - and turned on your heel, and left. You could feel his gaze silently boring into your back all the way down the road, until you rounded the corner that would lead you home.
You were still thinking about those familiar eyes when you got home and sat down at the kitchen table, absentmindedly folding the end of the scarf over in your hands. And you kept on thinking about them, often at inopportune times, almost as if you were haunted by them.
There was something about the man that kept him in your mind, where he’d occasionally play unwanted visitor into your thoughts. And it was inexplicable, because he’d been a major asshole to you for the entire duration of your two-minute interaction - but that didn’t make it untrue. You were still drawn to him. You were drawn to those clear green eyes, most of all. Just like those in your nightmare. Rudeness aside, you knew he too must be key to something in your life, something you couldn’t quite remember. (It was like you were grabbing at fistfuls of keys, except you could never quite find the corresponding locks.)
What did those green eyes have to do with your missing memories?