Netherhaven

To expand, the multiform metaphors of my epistolary rapport, and derive the succinct capsule of their fortune, would be implausible at best, but in this vestige of glomerating memory, I can adequately pen a casual designation of mutual dialect. I may avow that, from the earliest records, of the plethora, the lore of my acquaintance, would be fleshed, into something of malignance. Naive, and charmed by the slightest convenience of romantic quintessence, I had fancied, that the emancipation of his signature, which was dewed with the honey of dalliance, evinced an immortal love. I will admit, however that, as I penned my letters to him, in that empire line dress of white, burying my fingers in my slovenly hair, shrouded by the envisagement of uncommon affinity, I felt uneasy. It was a feeling of unfathomable anxiety, mingled with the childish repudiation of scrutiny. I could not tell my grandmother, of this. His motifs were morose, albeit obscenely misanthropic, but he only spoke with admiration towards me. His titular endowment, seldom dispelled from my fermenting adolescent conscious, Victor Netherhaven videlicet Fürst der Schatten. I was aware, verily that he was much older than my counterparts, but I believe the exquisite piquancy of his deviant authorship, rid me of all forlornness,

"Your words, are like the amorous warmth of virgin menses, when imbibed with the visceral disinhibition of sanguineous ardency" this, is what is left of my memory in the noetic cobwebs. From the first I received of his letter, I did not whisper to any soul, nor did I conceive even the most dimunitive prospect of the misdeed. I remember he would at times, inquire of my female counterparts claiming it was, a prerequisite that he learns, of my conversant interpersonal relations. My friend from school, Melisa was the only companion spoken of. The rudiments of her daily habit were reserved in my profession, for I worried that it would be a digression of unspoken cause. Finally, in the beginning of winter and the procession of our school term, the man no longer wrote to me, and my words unto to him, were nothing more than soliloquy. I started to feel morbidly ill during this time, and even under the solitudinous albeit efficient providence of my grandmother, I was not assured of any convalescence. The recoupment of my sinew, remained an unpunctual ordainment, and thus I was bed ridden. It was a fever, vividly ghoulish nightmares of cannibals and premature burials, ensued with vomiting. I could not bear the light, anymore than the designated stygiobiont, and my senses became acute, and sensitive, such as those of Roderick Usher. My grandmother worried of these novelties and summoned a trusted physician, but even this obscured, the most ardent disciple of the Hippocratic text, I suppose.

Soon, I heard news of Melissa's death. The article procured from the grapevine, gave an eerie summary which was that something avian had been seen egressing her chamber, in the hour of midnight, when her guardians heard, a contentious strife coming from the precinct. Upon discovering her, it was immideately apparent that she had passed. Her eyes were all grey, and her mouth had been frothing profusely. Perhaps there was some coincidence and it was a suicide, rather than any manifesting tenor of superstition methought, until I heard, that she had been troubled by the voice of a man named Victor. Good lord what misfortune! I was surprisingly healthy as an ox some nights after hearing the news. One could say rejuvenated, (pardon the sinister irony).

Enough was enough. I discovered that the postal address had been a place not so far from my abode and boarded a train, as early as dawn. Upon reaching the place, I noticed that it was an edifice of honorable echelon, newly refurbished and yet deplorably desolate. I ingressed, apprehensively, through a narrow hallway, and upon the thud of my last footfall, I at length, met the villain, who had been in an inverted position upon the roof. The morphology of my acquaintance, was humanoid, but only to a slender similtude of culture. His skin had an abundant lithic grey pigment, his physiognomy had the half inclining seeming of a gargoyle, and his altitude was an approximate seven foot. The precinct was dark from the heaving purple curtains, empty, and my very presence was rendered audible, by the resonant echoes. I gasped and gushed into tears, as I pursued the semblance of my counterpart, until I heard a sound, which made me grimace with terror. Although Victor had been slumbering, as would a Chiroptera, I heard a voice, it was in my noesis,

"I was expecting your visit my darling" the stentorian voice rung, as I gazed above,

"What have you done to Melissa!?" I shrieked, as a cadence of echoes, rustled through the curtains, with an uncanny susurrus.

"Oh but it was you who murdered her, that fateful night, do you not remember?" Responded the speaker with sinister stateliness. I was aghast, and reticent, but then he continued,

"You became mine as soon as you read my letters, and that night I used your vessel, to murder your dear friend, that is why you were ill" I held my hand upon my mouth, and sobbed, as he morphed into manifold snakes, descending and slithering into the darkness, but as he chuckled on, I recognized his venomous voice, HE WAS THE PHYSICIAN!!!!