Halfway down the Făgăraş, I knew I was going to die.

The Transfăgăraşan Highway's sleek, deadly turns mesmerizing, I missed my app fool me there's a shorter path to the nearest town, Arefu, until it was too late. My rented electric car beeped ungodly red, spoke in tongues, and lost its power and died first between the shades of dark trees.

Staying inside wouldn't have been too bad if not for the skies deepening and my phone following the car's fate. Calm down. You could still see the Transfăgăraşan. I walked to the road. A vehicle passed, and another. It must be my face, my hair... or my simple white dress and knitted corset that no one dared to look at me. Hope died as the dark evening swallows the valley whole, and cold mists from the peaks trickled, stretching their ghastly fingers. Still on the road! I texted Mama, and it died too. By now, only the lights of the vehicles break the darkness.

So I went back into the forest; my arms keep me warm enough to walk. Shit, my medicine. I only need to get food. There were humble homes along the highway, surely there are some too in the trees. Encouraged, I went over rocks. I passed by the car. The mist soon caught up, turning into walls of vapor, white tendrils weaving the dark trees and me together. My skin blazed with ice. I parted my lips, and the cold dug in my throat viciously I coughed.

Blob! Blob!

"Rrriver!" I coughed up, my heart thudding dangerously hard for my lungs. Blob! Blob! I covered my mouth with an arm and ran. Black branches poked from the fog and grasped my hair, my dress. Rocks cut the leather of my boots. BLOB! BLOB! The land shifted up. The fog began to spin away, as if it knew not to touch the river and the land beyond. Făgăras. Cold stung my eyes. They say Făgăras was an ancient place, hidden by old spirits hoping that men would be content with the rest of the world. Dracula's first, ancestral castle, Poenari, is here, for this was where Transylvania and his Wallachia would have crossed. It was a gateway, a border.

The path of life and death, entwined, together.

The mist left, and I was back. The river's steady hum drifted, but then came a different sound. Overhead, a silver full moon glowed in her glory, shining over the mountains and me. Awooo! I ran and crossed the river. The wolves' glowing, white eyes reflect the moon as they race between trunks and branches, over rocks. I shoved my scream into my stomach, ready to throw my phone, until yellow lights shone...

A path opened.

Awooo! I followed that light behind the rugged wall of the cliffside, breathless, and met steel rails guarding travelers from a death drop. I clung, expecting a climb, but a plateau spread underneath the mountains: lined by electric lights strung on wires and fenced in by a stone gate, a medieval fortress stood with her three towers, red pointed roofs stark against the deep blue evening sky, while the other tower beyond had crumbled, leaving rocks forever at the edge of the cliff and revealing insides protected by curtains since stained by snow and time. Gargoyles grimaced atop two grand doors. There was no crest, but there was a little silver panel with green screen by one of the gateposts.

"Hello!" No wolves. "Hello!" I coughed and knelt on the road, paved too.

The screen buzzed.

Thank God.

"Attention!" A female voice whirred. "You are now trespassing in private property. Please leave by the staircase to your right and never go beyond the rail. Have a good day."

"No! No!" My body shook from the cold; I crawled. "Please! Please I need help! There are wolves! Wolves! My car is dead! I'm a tourist! Look!" Damn it. My bag was sliced open by the trees. I bit my lip to not cry as I dig for my things. Only a few bills left. My medicine bottle is safe in the pocket, but my passport was ripped—at my neck. Great. "Here!"

I plastered it on the screen.

"Eliza, Elizabeth, A. Delfin, and I came all the way from Asia. Please, I'm so far from home. My parents would be worried sick." For a moment, I regretted it all. This stupid trip. My stupid plan, thinking I was being selfless when I had been nothing but, wallowing in this instead of spending my last hours with the only people who'd care for me. "Please." I pressed my forehead on the stone. "Please help me."

A buzz.

Click!

"Miss Delfin."

A voice heavy and low.

"Those wolves were playing," he spoke in perfect English, I doubted he was Romanian. "They eat what I feed them."

"Oh? Oh... I—" Those wolves' eyes were not happy. "But—"

Another click, and the line was dead.

I shoved my passport back in my hapless sack of a bag and embraced it to my chest. A few moments later, the grand doors opened, and a gentleman wearing a white shirt tucked in neat pants, gleaming black shoes, and with rich dark hair peer at me from atop the staircase. He gripped the golden handle. I hesitated, but with a nod, he beckoned me inside. Gripping my bag, I plodded under the stone archway and to the castle. A marble fountain with a headless gray angel stood in my way, drained of water, only ages-old moss and black vines looped about the tiers, all the way around the angel's foot and harp, his left wing broken. I turned, dimly aware my gracious host was eyeing me to get on with it. "Thank you."

"Not yet." Hazel eyes stared back at me, curious and appraising. He easily loomed above me; sharp nose taut as with the rest of his face, he was weary. "Are you alone?" His black hair fell about his face, softening his features a little, I dared hope he was an angel. "...come to Romania with someone else, Miss Delfin?"

"Oh? Oh, no, no." It was foolish, but I couldn't lie too. He only nodded, however, and took out black gloves from his pockets. Dear God. "I.... I'm staying at Airbnbs..." He wore the gloves, fitting each finger slowly. "....went to Braşov, but it's this highway I'd been planning to see. Well, not the road, I don't like driving. The mountains. I... I got lost—"

He excused himself and closed the grand doors that gave a whiny creak as they shut. "I don't know if you want to die, Miss Tourist, but no one drives down the Transfăgărasan with half a heart." He nodded. "Petru Lazăr. Buña seara, yet I doubt the night has been good to you."

He nodded at the muddy hem of my dress and slashed bag.

"Mr. Lazăr. Thanks again. Ah! M-multumesc...?"

We shook hands.

"Mulțumesc." His grip was firm, cold... must be the latex. "I assume you shall be staying the night?" We walked, and I gasped. The castle's foyer sprawled in a grand circle, with marble posts and gray slabstone for the floor. A golden chandelier with tiny electric bulbs dangles from a long rope strung high above the main tower. Mirrors along the halls were covered with black cloth, and for good reason... the LED lights surrounded the ornate Baroque arches. It wasn't Stoker's Dracula.

More like someone left behind the whole set of Coppola's Dracula.

"Wow."

"An honor to have you, Miss." He tucked his hands in his pockets. "She'll open in six month's time."

"It's a hotel?"

We turned to the east wing, but the castle groans in reply... and rumbles resound in the distance, where the moonlight could barely filter into the inky darkness of the rest of the upper floor. "My gift to the town," Mr. Lazăr explains, master key in his hand. "A way to preserve our history. It has been my quest these past... decades. A shame it must resort to this, but they convinced me."

He stopped by the third door, an empty hook for the number sign.

"Preserve... There are historical relics here?"

"Some other time."

"Oh, of course. Sorry."

"No." Mr. Lazăr straightened up. I'm pretty certain he was only five years older, his manners made me feel like I was in an old, forgotten book. "Evenings on the mountain are dangerous for travelers like you. These lands are sacred."

"I was just sightseeing. I-I meant no harm."

"Alone? In Romania, of all places." Those hazel eyes narrowed. "Girls like you go to Paris, Venice... or are you one of those looking for our legendary Voivode, Vlad Dracul?"

"I've never even read the book. But yes, like those girls, I went through a phase."

Lazăr laughed.

"I went here for... oh shit." He frowned, puzzled. I sighed. "I'm sorry. I... I didn't have food with me and I need to drink my medicine. It's timed, twice a day, and I-I already missed tonight by an hour."

"Incredible." The master of the castle took his key. "Could you miss it only for tonight?"

"No... well, I could drink it, but I'll be more sick."

He opened the door. "How sick?"

"I... I only have a couple of months left."

Mr. Lazăr tensed.

"It's my heart... too thick now to pump rightly. The meds are buying me time..." I tried, but he frowned. "I'm so sorry. I know I've been asking much, but I still want to go home."

"I will not be charging you for any of this, but you need to tell me the truth, Miss Delfin."

"Sir..." Tears pricked my eyes. "Why would anyone want to die?"

He didn't reply.

I closed my eyes.

"The mountains.... have a way..." Lazăr tapped my phone. Clink, clink. His fingernail so sharp even the glove couldn't soften it. "We have no food in the castle."

My throat dried.

"Do not go out of this room after midnight. Wait until sunrise." Lazăr darkly warned, and stopped. "Stay alive, Elisabeta."

"I—"

"Stay, this time." He left. My struggling heart unable to comprehend what got into him, alone under those white lights. Elisabeta. So natural on his lips, so right to my ears. I frowned and looked at my phone. Still dead. With a sigh, I settled into the room propped a chair against the door, and collapsed in the dark on the softest bed and blanket. My heart gently gave in. It was quiet, lonely. That final climb on the mountain was all the fight it had.

Should've stayed in the damn car.

Cold claws dance on my shoulder. Death must be a spider, but I don't remember spiders caress your hair. I could crawl... My heart pounded, aching against my ribs. 11:59. It read. Do not go out of your room after midnight.

Wait until sunrise.

Stay alive.

I cried.

And obeyed, staying inside, there on the bed, drifting in and out of sleep, still alive, I loosened the very real ribbons of the faux corset. Stay alive. The spider tugged the other and snipped the next one. Cold sweat broke out my forehead; the wind seeping through the castle's cracked walls didn't help. The darkness removed its cowl. Lazăr. I couldn't see his face, but his icy hand was on mine. 3:00. I asked him about dying, but he only gave me a kiss in and an apology for hundreds of years in between. I laughed. He must have the wrong Elizabeth.

"Your name has not been Elizabeth for a long time..." When he caressed my cheek and whispered his true name, my soul wept. No touch can never bring me back the memories he still knew as clear as day—my many faces, names, and bodies, always so frail while he remains as young and strong as he was when we went to face the Ottoman Sultan alongside Prince Vlad. He stayed in my arms while I died; gave me his phone to call my parents, but I couldn't open my eyes. I still thought I was in a delirious nightmare, and it would soon end...

It would all end.

"I can give you forever, Elisabeta."

Forever. It sounds so simple, full of promise. I can do so many things with eternity.

Everything...

But at death, forever seems like a banal gift.

Lazăr knew and touched my cheek.

"Bring me home?" I closed my eyes. "Home."

"No..."

I opened my eyes. He took me in his arms and looked outside the windows. The rosy dawn tinged Făgăras' mountains. With his nail, Lazăr slits the vein on his neck; I couldn't lift myself any longer. He came down and gave it. The thick blood, vile, slick hot over my tongue. Warming my insides. Every swallow, I was alive.

Then he pulled back, hazel eyes as black as night, what once was a young man...

"No..."

A husk of a creature looked at me, the folds on his face hiding his lonely eyes. He pressed my hand between his shriveled palms and whispered goodbye...

~*~

Today, the old bedchamber bathes in sunlight. I grasp my neck, press a hand over my heart. Then, I understand. There is no load in my head; no pressure in my chest. I turn to the pillow beside me. My phone is alive at 97%, flooded with calls and texts.

My lips. Dry. I stand up on wobbly legs and yank the covers off the mirror. My white dress, its hem still muddied, is stained across with drops of blood. Forever. I bite my lip and grab my bag, my phone, but as I turn, a slip of paper falls.

You are my forever, draga mea. Even if I had not tried to find you in this time, to spare us the pain of seeing you die, Făgăras herself brought you back to me.

"No." I ran. The ancient fortress quiet; the birds sing their songs. "Lazărescu!"

In those centuries, I did not choose you.

"Vasile! Vasile!" The mountains only stare back at me; the sun glows in their cradle. I gape and look down, by the broken fountain, underneath the angel lie his coat, his shirt... "No..."

And gray sands.

But an eternity of condemnation. No more. For on the night I said farewell to a fortress I guarded when we both lived, you returned. Away from the world and its dark forces, everything became clearer.

I cup the ashes in my trembling hands, angry at myself for not remembering, for fearing him more than ever loving him. "I never knew you..." My tears wet the ash, but the wind blows. "Never... today...."

Live the rest of this lifetime for us, Eliza.

The sun shines on my face, and Făgăras takes Vasile away from me. One last time, in his very long life.

And in the many ones of mine.

Total word count: ~2,495