(Update: This story won _Once_Upon 's October Contest!

DUNGEONS AND THE UNDEAD

a dark fantasy // retelling.

CAST

Ian Somerhalder as him

Lea Seydoux as her

Adapted from; SOURCES

Bluebeard and Beauty and the Beast

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HE WAS THE MOST HANDSOME and captivating man she had ever known. Tall, solemn, with a hint of danger. When he walked by her, at the chateau she had been holidaying at in Monte Carlo, she had been intrigued.

You would have been crazy not to have felt the aura-the danger, the mystery, the intrigue that smoked off him. She had followed him throughout the day, merely through her eyes, of course, until he had caught hers and it was just a moment when he did but it was enough. Enough for her to know that there would be conversations and more.

She, with her quirky blue hair, couldn't have been more correct. Here, in the delightfully lit up chateau where all the insane of the world came away to take a break from their nightmares, they met on the balcony. His eyes were steely and his skin deadly pale in the moonlight. When she would look back at how they met, she would feel a horrible sensation of dread-he ticked all the boxes for a vampire. And yet...

They talked all night, and the next, and the next, and so on. They talked of blood and bone, long-lost humanities, screams behind closed doors and horror. The moonlight diminished each night until it was a new moon. He had looked fearsome that night, his eyes glinting in the dark with a light that shone from within, a hungry fire couched in bared teeth. She had kissed him right there, his cold fingers dancing across her neck as he kissed her back, shivers lightly touching her body.

That night the chateau with its rich, sick guests with scream that threatened to tear the sky itself, had seemed darker-the thick darkness inviting her deeper and deeper. He used to call her a witch and felt that the darkness was her witchery. Little did he know, she felt bewitched by him.

When it was their time to leave, someone-she didn't remember which one of them-had suggested a week of freedom before they parted; in union there was exhilarating freedom, in separation despair and sure death. They talked all this and so much more, not really understanding where humour divulged and drowned in seriousness.

The apartment, if the little mansion tucked away in the woods could be called that, was perfect for them, who lived on the romance of the gothic. Damp walls, sudden chills, smells of decay and death-he was delighted by all of it, she was delighted by him.

"How did you even find this place?" he had asked walking up the stone stairs.

She had looked amused, "Its always been mine."

"Family heirloom?"

"I suppose, you could call it that..." she smiled.

"What's down there?" he asked, venturing towards the cellars, after going all over the house.

She lunged ahead and stopped him, "Nothing of your interest."

He quirked an eyebrow, "Really?"

She laced her fingers around his cool ones and smiled, "Just some corpses I sucked dry in my free time?"

He laughed as she walked him away, "You are one crazy woman."

"But?" she smirked.

"But I love you?" he smirked back.

Later he tried to ask her about the cellar or as he liked to call it now, "the dungeon". He talked about it all day and all night. He asked her whether the key around her neck opened the door and she had shouted at last, "There are some boundaries, some limits, some spaces that must be mine, beyond which you have no right to-"

"Fine, fine," he had backed off, laughing. And it had made her skin crawl, the mere thought that he was laughing at her.

That night she could feel the energy, the hatred flowing, pouring out of her.

Every window in the house cracked mysteriously by the time the sun rose. The loudest screams aren't even heard.

He apologized over lunch and asked how the food got cooked since he never saw anyone around. Then he wanted to explore the house and asked how many rooms were there. Outside the chateau he seemed like all the rest, so known, so crude, so utterly real.

"As many as you want," she replied to the question of the rooms.

She wanted to love him, so much. All those stories about true love and the power it contains-and here trapped in her ruined glass palace, she could see her beastliness reflected across it. All it needed was time, she told herself and she had all the time in the world.

He explored the house every day, made love to her every night and when she listened to his laboured breaths, unknown to her, he thought of the one place he couldn't explore. He could have been thinking of her heart but the string around her neck with the little blue key was were his eyes often roamed.

That night, he waited for her to fall asleep and soft as a breath, he unfastened the key from around her neck. A craze grew inside him, he swore he could hear music echoing across halls. Something told him, in heavy thuds inside his chest, that he should turn back. Now or never. His skin glittered under the dim lit passages as he ran down to the dungeon.

He had expected it to be a rusted, difficult piece of work but the key fit the lock perfectly and the well-oiled door opened.

Bare, bare were the walls, bare was the floor, except for the huge mirror that stood in the middle of the room. At first he couldn't even recognise the piece of glass on gilded silver. A thought washed ashore his mind. All this time, he had never looked into a mirror in this house.

He wondered for the merest of seconds, how long the week had seemed and then he was standing in front of the mirror, facing himself. He let out a gasp and then a scream, backing away from the mirror. Tripping over something, he fell to find himself face to face with a skull. He shrieked this time, trying to get away from the bones. The place was littered with them as he tried to shake himself out of the long and drawn nightmare.

When he finally got up on his feet, he dared to look in the mirror again. He couldn't recognise himself. He looked bloodless, veins nearly jutting to the surface of his bluish skin, a haphazard beard, torn rags for clothes, caves underneath his eyes, neck littered with bloodied punctures.

Looking around, he began to break out of the spell-for spell it surely must have been-to find walls splattered with blood, floor littered with decaying bodies and the smell engulfing his senses, reeking of horror and disaster. He crawled across the room, falling over bones that crunched and pricked, wondering how long and how much he hadn't seen before.

She stood at the door watching him with sad eyes full of an age-old tempest, "You betrayed my trust!"

He whimpered, "Please let me go."

Fear, fear stood in front of her in the body of the man who gazed at her with repulsion and plea in his eyes.

He trembled as he saw her for what she really was. A majestic and yet terrible beauty. Hair wild like Medusa, lips dry with thirst, forked tongue and sharp teeth-meant to catch and tear apart its prey. Her taut marble skin and empty eyes told him her name before he even thought of it. She was a vampire and he was her prey. He looked at death with insolent despair as he realized that there was no escape from this trap which hadn't even been laid.

To think that she had hoped.

She pursed her lips and turned away, "You were supposed to love me."

"You'll kill me," he stated.

She stopped and turned back, eyes hollow with hopelessness and indifference, "And you'll be lost to time like all the others."

For others there had been who had enchanted her but couldn't stay without her enchantment on them and now they kissed the floor of her cellar with their bones, their hearts long since torn to ribbons or nothing.

The door closed behind them as she stepped inside with a predatory smile.

The pleas followed by screams entangled with struggle and finally a heinous death, marked what seemed to be, for her quest, yet another end.

---

This is for _Once_Upon 's October Contest as well as an early Halloween treat (or trick, since its not very pleasant and all).

Usually when I write a short story, I go extremely literary about it because I really work hard on them even if its for a short period of time and a short read and I've done no less for this short story.

So, if anyone is interested, I worked through a new perspective on basically the Bluebeard and the Beauty and the Beast tales but with a darker twist with respect to the latter. As to the former, that tale is pretty dark and grotesque. I tried to give you some du Maurier's Rebecca feel too. You should check out these tales/stories if you haven't already. Plus the title is a play on Dungeons and Dragons. Lastly the ending is on two levels with very subtle ambiguity and open to interpretation so let your mind go wild ;)

As to the villainous protagonist and her being a vampire and all, I basically followed the thematic prompts from _Once_Upon (they're great, check them out!).

And its pretty late here so I gotta say goodbye. But I hoped you liked this and tell me what you think of it by voting/commenting etc?

Until next time, nox.