Crimson Petals: Vlad the Impaler's Gentle Echoes

Previously

…A stubborn refusal to be extinguished. Vlad, my silent guardian, my protector in the shadows, was always there. I felt his presence like a cool breeze on a fevered brow, a silent promise that I was not truly alone. He had shielded me from the worst, his spectral presence a bulwark against the encroaching darkness. He had seen the truth of me, the part of me that refused to break. And as the bus pulled into the cacophony of Portland, I clung to that knowledge, a fragile ember glowing in the vast expanse of my fear. This was not an end, I told myself. It was merely another turn of the road, another chapter in a story only Vlad and I truly understood.