Shaking off the old memories of his first night as undead, he shoves the coffin lid aside, sending it tumbling to the marble floor of the crypt with a crash which reverberates around the confined space for what seems like a small eternity. How long has he been hibernating in that coffin? Judging by the thick layer of dust on the coffin lid, multiple decades, if not more, might have passed. His throat is as dry as a desert in a sandstorm, and he is far thirstier than he was waking up in his room that night he was turned. One by one, he scales the narrow granite steps of the staircase leading up from the crypt, his old bones creaking like a pair of arthritic knees. He seriously needs to feed to regain his former vitality. Avoid sunlight at all costs. His master’s admonition echoes in his mind as he starts removing the barricades from the door leading out of the mausoleum. Barricades installed by himself decades ago as a safety measure against future grave robbers. If the sun is out, he will be scorched, quite possibly beyond repair given his weakened physical condition. It doesn’t matter. After losing Elizabeth, his raison d’être really took a hit, and it is an open question whether he can ever be mentally revitalized and regain a purpose in life.

Inelegantly, he exits the mausoleum by tearing off the remains of a decrepit old door completely overgrown by ivy on the outside. Probably this has been the main reason his tomb has been left alone in all these years. It has almost become one with the woodlands surrounding it, gradually obscured and forgotten, eventually slipping completely out of existence. Underneath his short-sleeved midnight blue tunic, he is wearing a white shirt. Looking at the hands protruding from the long white shirt sleeves makes him cringe. The moonlight reveals skin which is not only pale but also as shriveled as an albino prune. Even if there were a mirror around, he would not want to look at himself in it. Revisiting the hazy memory of his interment, he recalls that the mausoleum is located some 10-15 kilometers from Lübeck, not far from the forest and the cottage where Elizabeth and her family used to live.

In his weakened physical state, Stefan is unable to simply take to the night skies and fly to the city, so he embarks on a long and painstaking walk along the main road leading to Lübeck. Were he only in possession of his former strength, it would be a trivial matter to detect and sneak up on a deer in the forest to quench his thirst and revitalize his powers. Yet, how is he going to feed on anything in his current state? At least the road appears to have been widened and paved in his long absence. What was formerly nothing more than a dirt track is now a far more comfortable traveling experience. After a long and arduous walk, Stefan comes across an old tavern. He is met by a strange sight in the courtyard facing the road, namely a big wooden frame, exquisitely carved and resting on four wheels, apparently pulled by the four horses currently resting in front of it. While Stefan admires this newfangled piece of machinery which he concludes must be a means of transportation, an old man opens the door to the tavern and staggers into the darkness, yelling something about the steep price of beer. This is your chance, Stefan! The old man is clearly a drunkard, incapable of defending himself against a surprise attack from a nocturnal blood-sucking creature such as himself. Despite his comparative physical frailness, he can easily pick up the scent of the man, and he follows him around the back of the building, creeping up on him as the drunkard is busy relieving himself all over the prodigious kitchen midden piling up against the half-timbered structure of the tavern. Tapping the man on his shoulder, he stealthily moves around him, causing the drunkard to turn his head and belch into thin air.

“Hey! I’ll… burp… pay for your… overpriced beer later!”

With his neck exposed and looking in the opposite direction, the drunkard is completely unprepared for what is coming. Stefan sinks his fangs into his throat and while covering up the mouth of the old man with his shriveled hand to avoid alerting any tavern guests, he starts draining the warm alcohol-saturated blood of his poor victim in several large gulps. He does not like killing humans, and when circumstances have forced him to do so, he always feeds on the old, infirm, or outright dying people he comes across. Objectively speaking, the blood of this old boozer is not as delicious as that of a younger person but to his parched lips and throat, it is ecstasy in liquid form. Like a dried-up garden yearning for moisture and finally getting soaked in rainwater, they receive the flow of blood and spring back to life. With every draught of this invigorating warm liquid, his heart rate quickens, and his senses are heightened. Conversely, his victim suffers a cardiac arrest, gasping for air and staring at his unnatural assailant with eyes wide open while shuddering with the last spasms of life. As the drunkard drops to the ground with a thud, Stefan can practically see the shriveled skin on his hands heal up and regain its firmness and elasticity. The light of the full moon is reflected by a small metallic object on the ground next to the corpse of the old man. It must have fallen out of the old drunkard’s pocket. Picking it up and examining it more closely, Stefan eyes go wide. What is this strange contraption? Fiddling around with the perfectly circular object which is cool and polished to the feel and engraved with what looks like an intricate coat of arms, he manages to open it by unlocking a hinge on the bottom of the case using his long yellow fingernails. Underneath a glass surface, a disc with numbers and two metal pointers reveals itself. Ah, it is a portable clock! Human ingenuity knows no bounds. Thinking it might come in handy, he slips the pocket watch into a hidden compartment in his tunic. How long he must have slept in that crypt. What other clever inventions might his former brethren not have conjured up in the meantime?

Reenergized and revitalized, Stefan transforms into a bat and flutters away from the dimly lit tavern and as he gains height, he quickly finds his bearings. On the horizon, a bright patch in the night sky indicates the direction of Lübeck. Even from this distance, the city lights appear far brighter than they used to, and he is excited to see how much his birthplace has changed while he has been entombed. Flying past the forest with the spires of Lübeck growing ever larger on the horizon, Stefan cannot help but scan the ground for the small cottage which was Elizabeth’s home eons ago. Amazingly, the house is still there, appearing to be inhabited and in decent condition. Ah, there is the edge of the forest where they secretly met time and again. Bittersweet and powerful memories assail him, disrupting his flight and forcing him to land on the soft grass a few yards from the sylvan domain which had been the scene of many a happy encounter with his first love. Enveloped by the mists of time, he is transported back to a long-lost but to him unforgettable age. Might that grand oak still be there? It had become the silent and motionless bystander to innumerable nocturnal trysts, witnessing their declarations of undying affection, yet never once stirring like an Ent in Fangorn Forest and offering its own pearls of wisdom. He vividly remembers carving their names into it. Surely, that physical manifestation of their love would long have been erased by the inexorable passage of time, but a wave of nostalgia prompts him to seek out the old oak tree.

“It saddens me that we can never enjoy the rays of a beautiful sunrise together, let alone bask in the warm sun or go for a swim in the stream.”

Elizabeth’s wistful voice and melancholy face come back to haunt him as he stumbles over a few branches, trying to get his bearings and clear a path through the dense undergrowth. Despite the full moon and his heightened senses, the forest is as dark as a dungeon where he is standing.

He had gazed into her soulful eyes and tried to cheer her up.

“My sweet Elizabeth, we can bask in the silvery moonlight, and nothing prevents us from going skinny-dipping around midnight.”

“Haha! You would like that wouldn’t you? But that would make me as cold as you, and I don’t have your resilience. I would end up dying from pneumonia in your arms.”

Her chuckles had instantly penetrated his expressionless and icy demeanor, achieving the rare effect of warming his vampiric heart.