With a light smile the Countess looked at her reflection. She never was more beautiful. Her hair was like black obsidian, absorbing all the moonlight shining through the high golden framed windows. Her skin was as white as the snow, falling from the night sky, looking nearly transparent. Blue veins showed through her icy skin. Her eyes were gleaming like amber in the sun of a summer's day. Her lips were as red as the blood of the maidens she had murdered, red like the blood the floor was covered in, gleaming dark in the candlelight.

She leaned forward, refreshing the red on her lips. The smile never left. It was a dark, sinister smile, a smile one learned when they had to fight alone for their life. A chuckle escaped her, when she looked at the young woman behind her through the reflection. Her blood was dripping on the floor of her private chamber. She was undressed, had uncountable bite wounds all over her slim body. Chains prevented her from falling back to the ground. She breathed heavily as the pain began to consume more and more of her body, which was covered in her own warm blood. Little whining sounds escaped her and hot tears fell down her beautiful face. The Countesses smile grew wider when she heard these light sounds of pain, they were music to her ears.

"...Why..?", the maiden asked in a broken, pain overflowing voice, so high the Countess barely understood her. She chuckled again and started to check her hair in the mirror. "Because that's how I want it to be.", she answered in a calm voice. She was stunned when she heard a little laughing from the dying human. "Monster...", she said and lifted her head with all the strength she had left, "You must have been born that way..." Her head fell back onto her chest and she stopped moving altogether. The Countess looked at her through her mirror, her smile had become a little numb when she heard those last words of the woman hanging on the ceiling.

Her gaze wandered to her ungloved hands, which were coloured white, the colour of innocence. Then she looked at her black gloves, covered all in the red viscous blood of the maiden, who was now dead. She looked at her own reflection. She looked at her hair, her skin, her eyes, her lips.
Lady Dimitrescu took a deep breath and reached out for her silver necklace, laying in a wooden box lined in black silk and decorated with the family crest. She put it around her neck, stroking softly over the pearls and the cold silver, before reaching out for a pair of earrings made of pearls. When she looked at her gloves again, she felt the urge to burn them or at the very least, to wash off the blood.
She suddenly stood, grabbing the gloves and throwing them into the dancing flames of her fireplace. Her inner restlessness started to fade away as she watched the leather burn. It smelled awful, rotten. This is what it must smell like, when your sins went up in flames.

Did she regret it? Did she regret all her sins? No. She didn't. But when did she start to enjoy her sins? To enjoy torture and pain? When did she become a "monster"? Oh, this was so long ago, Lady Dimitrescu wasn't even sure if it really did happen that way. The lady chuckled lightly at the thought of her past life as a weak human. She was nothing, but a figure in the plans of the men.

She turned around, looking at the woman, the smile back on her lips. She lifted the woman's chin and caressed her cheek, brushing with her thumb over her slightly blue lips. The Lady looked into her dead blue eyes and said as if to answer her: "Oh darling, no one ever starts that way." She let go of her and went back to her mirror. "No one ever starts with death clinging to one's body like a perfume. No one ever starts with blood being their favorite type of lipstick." She looked back into her own eyes. "No one ever starts with a decaying soul."