The mystery surrounding the gothic Houska Castle, perched on a steep, rocky cliff shrouded by deep forests less than fifty kilometers from my home town Prague, spun into fairy tales to scare naughty children, then adapted into a spooky legend making teenagers huddle close together at bonfires and sleepovers, was a tale I had heard hundreds of times.

However, for some reason, I had never tired of it, of hearing it told again and again in its infinite variations. It was strange, the feeling I got every time the story started to unfold one more time in the words of a new storyteller, my imagination supplying my mind promptly with images so clear... as though I had seen them at some point of my life, not this, but some life I had lived long ago, as if... I had taken a part in a version of that tale myself.

It was silly, and yet it wasn't, because... What if...?

I didn't realise I was grinning until Milan pulled at my ponytail teasingly, to wake me up from my daydream. He had been driving for nearly an hour now, navigating the car first through Prague's morning rush hour traffic, then along tranquil roads of small towns and villages, and finally into the deep, lush forests; the abandoned road finally dwindling into an unpaved, winding trail.

It was still hard to believe that I was about to visit the place at last, after years of sending letters to the town hall of the townlet responsible for the ancient, haunted ruin, left to decay out of superstition rather than anything else. Only I, an aspiring photographer, and my friend, the editor of the university newspaper and a future journalist, were allowed to spend twenty-four hours in the castle, or better, what was left of it. Milan would write an article about our experience, and I would supply him with pictures.

"Ready to meet the demons?" He smiled at me, making me roll my eyes.

He had done his research as a true journalist, and now he knew all the legends surrounding the castle as well as I did. This one was my favourite, the story of the castle having been built above a bottomless pit, one of the gateways to hell, to prevent the demons from reaching our world.

I wasn't convinced that it was true, but there was definitely something strange about this fortress built in the second half of the thirteenth century, in an area of forest and swamp, with no external fortifications and all the defenses facing inside, no source of water apart from a cistern to collect rainwater, no kitchen, no proper roads leading to it and no occupants at its time of completion...

I shuddered involuntarily, noticing how bad the road unfolding beyond the windscreen had become-- soon we would have to leave the car somewhere and walk the rest of the way. I patted Milan encouragingly and thankfully on the shoulder, well aware that he was doing this for me, as I let my mind stroll again.

There were other stories surrounding the mysterious ruin, even more spooky as they were confirmed by historical records. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, criminals would have their sentences reduced if they volunteered to be lowered into the pit under the chapel and describe what they saw. None reached the bottom, and all of the convicts were driven insane by the experience. Then, in the nineteen-thirties and during World War II, the Nazis conducted occult experiments in the castle. Years later, upon its renovation, skeletons of several Nazi officers were discovered.

But even long before these 'proved' events took place, people used to disappear from the closest villages, and ghosts used to be seen in the surrounding forests-- a giant bulldog, a headless black horse, a woman clad in an ancient dress... They appeared still, the last sighting had been reported only a few weeks ago, the short, unclear footage becoming viral on the social media.

I sighed as Milan pulled up by the edge of the road, my eyes darting into the thick undergrowth. The place was making me feel strange, as if... I belonged here... I shook my head to clear it, earning myself a grin from my companion.

"Have you changed your mind, fearless ghost hunter? Shall I take you back home?" he teased.

"No way," I said, smiling at him. "Let us grab our bags and go. It's nearly ten, the best light to take my first pictures."

He followed me out of the car, opened the trunk, and helped me to shoulder my backpack-- with my equipment, food, spare clothes, sleeping bag, and blankets, it was nearly as big as myself. Milan lifted his own bag with much less difficulty, then grabbed his laptop from the back seat and locked the car.

"Which way, Lizzie?"

I rolled my eyes in his direction-- he knew well how I disliked that name-- before I pulled the phone from my pocket to confirm that any kind of network and connection was non-existent in this place. So that wasn't a myth...

We couldn't see the ruin through the trees from where we stood, but I recalled the pictures I had seen easily. "It's hiding right in front of us somewhere. We shouldn't be too far. Let's start walking and see how long it will take us to reach it. Just be careful to keep to the trail, remember the swamps..."

I led the way for a while, my eyes skipping into the woods at every sound. The place was giving me all sorts of unusual and unexpected emotions. It was making me feel a little scared, extremely melancholic, and feeling at home... it was making me wish I could stay here forever.

Confused and nervous as I was, I didn't notice the precise moment when Milan took my hand in his, and when I did, and tried to pull away, he wouldn't let go. I groaned inwardly; it wasn't like that between us. He was my best friend and I had no intention to change it-- he knew it well and respected my decision. Usually. Maybe this trip wasn't the best idea after all, maybe he saw the twenty-four hours spent alone together as a sign of... of something he wanted to see for a long time now.

Silly Elisabetta, you should have come alone, I scolded myself even as we pushed through yet another uneven row of trees and all of a sudden found ourselves under a rocky cliff on which the chapel of the castle, the only part of it miraculously undamaged by time, stood.

Milan finally let go of my hand to fish a small recorder from his pocket, switching it on, and starting to dictate his thoughts in a low voice.

I knew that the chapel guarding the 'gateway to hell' was unreachable from this spot, so I made my way around the base of the huge rock, noticing how the ancient, weather-worn walls descended gradually until they sat on the ground at the same level as our feet, around an impressive door made of massive wood.

I patted my pockets this time, pulling out a large skeleton key lent to us for the day.

"Do you want me to do it, Lizzie?" Milan asked, his arm suddenly wrapped around my waist from behind, his body too close to mine to make me feel comfortable.

I was confused enough by the alien emotions warring inside of me-- I couldn't wait to walk inside and yet something was telling me not to enter the eldritch castle-- I didn't need Milan acting like this, making my best friend turn into a stranger right now.

"Yes, please," I said, peeling his arm from my waist and dropping the key into the palm of his hand, noticing how big it looked even in his large palm.

Praying that he would come to his senses, I followed him to the door, surprised by how easily the key turned in the lock and the door slid open without a sound-- for some reason I did not expect it to give way without difficulty.

"After you, Lizzie," Milan said, opening the door wide and letting me walk in. Seeing him grin as I passed by, I was sure he noticed my fear and would tease me for it forever.

'Who wants to live forever', my favourite song and Milan's ringtone, filled the silence reigning around us even as we stepped through the arched entrance, the music there one moment, making a nearby tree explode into blackness with a scared murder of crows, then gone again before he could respond, the connection lost as fast as it had found us.

"It's really just the two of us then," he murmured, unfazed by the fact that we were perfectly unreachable.

I could see the joy in his eyes as he reached for my hand again in the semi-darkness of the Entry Hall, and it made me feel guilty.

"Look, I didn't mean this trip to..." I started to explain while he turned back to the door, locked it from inside, and slipped the key into the pocket of his jeans. His action confused me enough to make me forget what I wanted to say and ask instead, "Why did you do that?"

"You know that this place swarms with ghost hunters, but only we are allowed inside the castle. I don't want anyone disturbing us later."

I nodded, not quite sure if his logic made sense to me or not, letting him tug me through the hall, deeper inside the ruin, noticing how the scent of forest and the damp, swampy soil was replaced by the smell of mold, rotting wood... and other, older things I could not name.

The castle had been built in such a way that we had to climb a steep, uneven staircase worn by the passage of countless feet, carved directly into the rock cliff on which the building sat, before we reached a level floor with several chambers. Some were filled with old furniture, others completely empty and surrounded by crumbling walls or ceilings, but all were decorated with extensive frescoes, some better preserved than others, representing... demons, ghosts, and people haunted and driven mad by the supernatural beings.

I had set up my camera on entering the first room while Milan fumbled with his recorder, and now I took pictures of all the scary images as we walked on, from room to room, until we reached a small chamber with walls perfectly intact and a single, small window letting in very little light, where we agreed to leave our bags and sleep tonight, unless we found a more suitable place later.

We walked through the rest of the castle, exploring tower after courtyard after chamber, followed by another tower, the whole day. The building was surprisingly big. We spent hours in the chapel standing above the water-less well so deep that we could not see its bottom-- the bottomless pit leading to hell-- finding nothing particularly strange about it, apart from the wind blowing through the cracks in the walls making it seem like someone or something whispered my name from the endless darkness...

Elisabetta...

Hearing it added nothing to my already shaky courage. Milan's laughing it off, a little uneasily, as my overactive imagination didn't help. So, as soon as we reached the room where we had left our bags, deciding to eat and get a couple of hours' sleep before getting up again to take some pictures of the haunted ruin at night, I gladly accepted the drink he offered me, and one more after our simple meal of sandwiches which we had brought with us.

As Milan volunteered to prepare our sleeping bags, I walked to the only window of the room. Looking through the glass-less hole I understood that the front door which Milan had locked was the only way to enter or exit the castle, only a steep, tall cliff side and an endless expanse of too small trees growing in the depths at its foot was visible from here.

I took a few pictures of the view, catching the setting sun disappearing beyond the horizon. Watching the twilight turn into dusk for a long while, feeling the tiredness of the long day settle onto my body as the night started to fall on the countryside, I jumped when Milan approached me from behind and spun me around, trapping me against the wall, the large camera hanging on my neck the only spot where our bodies were not touching.

This was too much. I opened my mouth to protest when his lips were suddenly on mine, his tongue invading my mouth even as he lifted my arms above my head, pressing me against the unsafe wall, making me feel helpless. I had never noticed how strong he was until now.

"Milan, stop this... What's wrong with you, I don't want this..." I said the moment his lips left mine for my neck.

I felt strangely weak, I could hear the slurred words leaving my mouth, pronounced in a voice that my ears struggled to recognise. He put something in your drink, my mind suggested, making me frown in confusion.

"You... drugged me... " I accused him, but the words came out all wrong, like a breathy whisper.

He chuckled. "I put something to make you relax in your drink, yes, but I didn't expect it to work this well. It's been so long that I've been dreaming about this moment..." he whispered in my ear, his breath landing on my neck making me shiver.

I felt his hold on my arms shift, one of his hands trapping both of mine with ease, while the other slipped under my clothes, exploring, moving towards places I never wanted him to feel. I had no idea what he was hoping this night would change between us, but even through the haze caused by the drug, I was sure that I would never be able to look at him again.

"I love you, Lizzie. But if I waited for you to take this step, we would never get here... you're so shy... so irresistibly innocent..."

Milan's voice was laced with excitement, his breath was changing, he was panting now, and I knew what was about to follow when I heard the sound of the zipper of his jeans being lowered, then his warm hand fumbling with mine, taking a few tries in its haste, finally winning the battle with the fabric standing in his way.

'Who wants to live forever' echoed in the dark chamber around us, distracting him, making him loosen the hold on my arms as he looked behind, towards our bags.

"I switched the stupid thing off..." he muttered to himself, and somehow that instant of confusion was enough for me to slip from his hold and run, or rather stagger away from him, through the dark rooms, stumbling and hitting old furniture blindly, the terror of my best friend turned into a beast stronger than the fear of the demons and ghosts haunting the castle.

I didn't realise I reached one of the wall-less chambers until my feet failed to connect with the floor, and I felt myself flying, falling into the fathomless depths.

I did not feel my body hitting the rock, the trees, or the ground, I hardly registered fear from the moment I precipitated from the castle... But I felt the pain.

Not the pain caused by my body being shattered when it hit the ground, but the excruciating pain of something cutting through the skin of my neck, followed shortly by the ache of my broken bones growing back together as my body healed.

They stood above me when I regained consciousness, gasping for air, what must have been hours later-- the first hues of sunrise brightening the sky beyond them, helping me see their faces.

"I... know you," I whispered, not trusting my voice.

My throat, or rather my neck, was the only part of my body that still ached. While the three men dressed in old-fashioned clothes exchanged glances, I brought my hand to the wound on the side of my neck-- it left like a bite to my exploring fingers.

"What happened?" I asked, feeling desperate enough to cry, surprised that no tears welled up in my eyes as I sobbed. "Where am I? How do I know you?"

I meant to stand up to face them properly, but before I could move, the youngest-looking of them was on his knees next to me, cradling me gently, lovingly to him.

"Elisabetta... You are back..." he whispered.

The way he pronounced my name, deep voice breaking with emotion, made me recognise him instantly.

Wrapping my arms around his waist as well as I could, never wanting to let go of him again, I buried my face in the folds of his cloak, whispering, "I missed you, Edward. I... love you... Where have you been?"

The two others still standing like guards above us chuckled, relief lacing the voice of the one who spoke, "Come on, carry her inside before it's too late, Edward. The sun will be out in minutes..."

I saw Edward nod in agreement as he lifted me in his arms and carried me effortlessly around the rock cliff, towards the castle's only entrance, in his friends' wake.

He followed my look that strolled towards a broken body lying under the trees as we passed, replying before I could ask, "He jumped after you fell. He's dead."

"I know I died, too," I told him, searching his stunningly blue eyes for more answers.

"Please forgive me, Elisabetta," he breathed, pulling me closer to him. You are one of us now, I changed you." His fingers brushed the wound on my neck, the small gesture making me understand better than thousands of words.

"I love you," he went on as we reached the entrance, "I couldn't let you die again."

"Does it mean that we will live together forever?" I asked just before the two... vampires closed the massive wooden door behind us, plunging our world into darkness.

"Yes..." he whispered.

"Then I don't mind. I want to live forever with you."