Today has been a long and unlucky day for Nora Ostern.
She is running, following a winding path, weaving through ferns and bushes. The searing pain in her shoulder is slowing her down. She has no choice but to press forward.
She's reached the quieter outskirts of Vienna now, it feels like stepping from warm sunlight into cold shadows—A relief for a creature like her.
She knows she'd have to take these last few steps alone. No one would stop her, and no one can help her.
Nora: Damn it!
Bad luck just keeps coming. Her burn injury flared up last night. Then, after returning home to rest, she realized she had locked her burn cream in her drawer and had to break the lock, only for a stranger to burst in and stab her in the shoulder.
And now, only a minute ago, a dart out of nowhere strikes that wound again.
She can barely feel her arm anymore, only the warm blood seeping from the wound, telling her that her barely healed skin has torn open again.
The sunlight flickers in the air like a heartbeat, the sun morphing into a golden heart in her eyes, pulsing and radiating heat.
For centuries, she has tried to capture that sunlight but has never succeeded.
???: Nora, if you stare into the sun, it will burn your eyes.
???: You must avoid the sun. That is our curse.
???: Your grandmother tried to escape it, but it followed her across the Danube.
???: I swore I would never let you follow the same path. I thought I would succeed, but …
???: I'm so sorry, Nora.
The sky darkens, and a chill brushes her face. Nora freezes, a figure stands before her, wreathed in sunlight.
But no reflection is cast on the lake below.
Semmelweis: There's nowhere left for you to go.
The figure closes the distance, knocking the mask off her face. A loud cracking noise echoes as Nora is brought down to her knees, her hands clawing at her face.
Nora: Ah ... no—don't—ahhhh …
Her face is covered in large, scabbed burn wounds, the surrounding skin red and inflamed. She gasps for air, and through the pain returns to a fierce anger.
Semmelweis: It hurts, doesn't it? Especially around the tenth to fourteenth day of recovery, I know.
Semmelweis: My doctor told me that even though our bodies recover quickly, we shouldn't scratch sunburned wounds, or they will struggle to heal. I suggest you avoid that as well.
Nora: What would you know?!
Semmelweis: I know it was Elena Hall and Martina Keim who did this to you. That's why you wanted revenge, am I correct?
Nora: ...
Nora: They discovered my true nature.
Nora: It was a simple slip, falling down the stairs to the Guild Hall. I just didn't want to get hurt, I transformed, only for a second. But that was all they needed to see.
Nora: If I had been more careful. If I had remembered my mother's words. I was careless.
She had hoped perhaps they would not hold it against her, but when she was appointed the lead designer for the Easter festival, her former friends turned on her. They attacked her in her studio, pulling open the curtains, and slamming her face against the window.
She tried to squeeze her eyes shut, but they twisted her arm behind her back and forced her eyes open, making her stare up at the sun.
Nora: No! Stop ... please, stop!
That window. Her mother used to play a song on the piano that lay before it, a song about someone who was blinded by fire but still wanted to dance in the sunlight.
Her father would joke, "Dear, you've blocked our only view of the Danube."
And she'd rest her elbows on the dining table, hands clasped like in prayer. She knew her mother would explain the song's meaning again and again until she understood the connection.
On the night she was burned, she thought of her grandmother's, mother's, and father's funerals, and of her mother's tender prayer.
???: Nora, you know, God is our only fortress.
Nora had hated blood; it was someone else who loved it, the demon that lived in her veins.
But at some point, the lines blurred and she and it became the same creature.
Nora: Maybe it was hereditary, but I've always loved playing with colors. Since I was a child, I've loved painting on those old walls.
Nora: I grew up with the old streets of Vienna. In the house that belonged to the Artists' Guild. It was always well-maintained, and our community lived in peace and harmony.
Nora: My mother inherited my grandmother's skills and became an egg decorator. So did I.
Nora: My mother even changed our last name to Ostern as a homage to the Easter holiday. I took pride in that name.
Semmelweis: You come from a great lineage of artists.
Nora: Yes, as vampires, we learn to master the balance between light and shadow.
Nora: Maybe it was the sun, or perhaps it's the beast within my blood that rules me now.
Nora: One day, you'll understand that feeling too. That's why you must carve out your own place in this world.
Semmelweis: I don't need to carve out anything.
Semmelweis: It makes no difference, whether you carve out your own place or fall in line. They'll come after you just the same, the only choice you make is who stands by you.
Nora gazes into the red glow in Semmelweis' eyes.
Nora: How long has it been since you last fed?
Semmelweis shrugs.
Nora: Are you good at this, at never giving away anything?
Semmelweis: If I decide to quit something. I quit it.
Nora: So, you make a decision and then stick with it, no matter what happens?
Semmelweis: That's right.
Nora: Then we're alike. I've never harmed a human being, not even those two women, my entire life.
Nora: I've dreamed about it, fantasized even, but I've never actually gone through with it, not even now.
Semmelweis: I understand the harm I could cause others, because I've felt the same fear.
Semmelweis: There is apparently a psychological link between chasing thrills and death-seeking behavior.
Semmelweis: When that vampire bit me, I felt so much fear it was intoxicating. Then I woke up, and I realized I'd become the very thing I had hunted.
Nora: And forever craving slaughter and death?
Semmelweis: But I'm not like you.
Semmelweis: I'm learning to make peace with who I am now.
Nora: Make peace? Look at all that you've lost.
Nora: Do you really owe these humans anything? What do you think they would do if they found out who you were, would it be any different than what they did to me? Or do you feel you owe something to yourself?
Nora: Every day we fight a secret war against ourselves, barely containing the demon, only for humans to barely tolerate us.
Nora: But now, we see each other, and there is only one path left. To destroy one another.
Semmelweis: Indeed, to be a pureblood killed by a halfling. It must be exciting for you.
Nora: Then why haven't you attacked? I'm defenseless now.
Nora closes her eyes, ready, but the expected pain never comes.
Her eyes open again, Semmelweis is leaning against a tree, catching her breath with a cold sweat on her face.
Nora: You ...
Semmelweis: My mission is to rescue the hostages, not kill you. And I have no desire to learn the taste of vampire blood.
Semmelweis: Besides ...
Emil: Haha! Hahaha! Captain, over, hahaha! We've discovered, hahaha, and neutralized, haha, all the eggs! hahaha!
Semmelweis: Our top investigator has already defused your trap.
Semmelweis: But your concoction only causes uncontrollable laughter and facial spasms, nothing lethal.
Nora: ...
Semmelweis: Where are the others? Your victims?
Nora: You'll find them in the sewers under the city-center. Follow the scent of food; they're deep inside the main tunnel system.
Nora: For you, it shouldn't be too difficult.
Semmelweis: You know, you're a talented wordsmith aside from an artist. Those puzzles in your poetry—very clever.
Nora: Such accolades are not truly fitting for what I've become.
Semmelweis: So, you wanted revenge on them? I can sympathize. Really, even if you had planned on devouring them—I personally wouldn't mind.
Semmelweis: Though reporting such an outcome would certainly have caused a stir. So I'm glad you opted to keep them alive.
Semmelweis: I'm curious, though. If sunlight causes you so much pain, why do you seem to desire it in all of your work?
Nora: I suppose I hoped that the pain would fade in time. That maybe I'd become accustomed to its touch. I wanted to rage against the curse that befell my family.
Nora: And this blood within us is a curse, but still, there are things more important than life itself, aren't there?
Nora: To be noticed, to gain recognition for your art, even just causing a momentary smile ... it feels like achieving immortality.
Semmelweis: I don't see things your way.
Nora: No?
Semmelweis: I can only see how pitiful people become with even the slightest amount of success.
Semmelweis: One lucky moment and suddenly they think they're gods, "apostles," believing they can control everything and shape their destiny however they want.
Semmelweis: If you're one of those, I admit, I would look down on you.
Nora: Tell me, miss. Do you believe in God?
Semmelweis: No, I don't.
Nora: Yet you still made a vow not to drink human blood. Then you think of yourself as someone who holds their own sacred principles.
Semmelweis: Not really, no.
Nora: You don't believe in God, and you don't even believe in your vow. What do you believe in?
Semmelweis: I believe in myself.
Semmelweis: I believe that to control your own destiny, you have to stick by your own decisions.
Nora: What's your point in telling me any of this?
Semmelweis: I suppose that's for you to decide.
Nora brushes her face. Her pain vanishing, replaced by a new sensation of weightlessness, like drifting in the middle of a lake. And an overwhelming urge to sleep.
She closes her eyes, and the rays of the sun softly whisper to her, telling her of a path out from her nightmare.
Maybe when she wakes tomorrow, she will leave her house and walk into the morning sun, and her neighbors would greet her warmly.
They would say "good morning" and mean it, and not see the scars, only her smile reflecting back to them.
But tomorrow has yet to come. For now, she needs to leave, step outside, and welcome the sun's burning embrace.
