I’ve been itching to write a vampire fic for a while, but never really got the inspiration to do it. This is just the product of boredom, and playing WAY too much Devil May Cry. At like one a.m. I was thinking about how cool Dante’s sword was (haha) and I couldn’t sleep so I just began to write. Did you know it took me an hour to write a page and a half of this? Ah! I am so pitiful!

Right, so… I could say that I’m not sure if I’m going to continue this or not, but I always do anyway, so I won’t bore you with it. Instead I’ll tell you that I don’t really know how I feel about this fic yet (in the first stage, I never know) and that YOU MUST REVIEW. You are obligated by law to review after you’ve read this. I’m not kidding. I’m watching you.

Gideon peered up the stairway, his eyes adjusting to the dimness easily. There was something up there, that much he knew; and around him, he could feel the massive house breathing. He knew that if he were to look upwards, the ceiling would be expanding and contracting like lungs. The walls were warm to the touch and soft. The carpet gave way under his feet like flesh. But the head – the heart, actually. The heart of the house, its vulnerable spot, was up in the attic. Surrounded by hissing guardians, offended by his trespassing.

He padded soundlessly up the plush, red-carpeted steps, listening to the rhythm of the old structure’s breath. He could feel a weight against his back – a weapon? – but when he reached behind him to grasp it, the weight dissipated as if it had never been.

Within some depth of his mind, Gideon was aware that this was nothing but a dream. Occasionally and rarely, he was plagued with visions – views of horrible reality that should not have been real, but were – but this was too bizarre. Visions of demons were relatively commonplace, as were the paranormal, supernatural, and surreal. But a breathing house told Gideon that his imagination had taken over.

The steps opened into a vast, draughty ballroom with a grimy floor and chandeliers that hung at an angle. Everything was streaked with dirt and dust and crumbling in disrepair. In the center of the ballroom stood two double doors that opened to nowhere – they leaned against nothing, balancing with no support. The wood was splintered brutally, but nearer to the base of the door, the varnish was simply marred with nail marks. Briefly, the image of a skinny child knelt before the door and scratched at the surface and wailed pitifully. Its mother was on the other side of the door. It wanted its mother. Something terrible was happening in the room beyond the door that stood alone. Blood trickled from beneath the bottom of the door and seeped into the sobbing infant’s clothes, and then the image was gone. Gideon shivered and swallowed the urge to retch.

The house was breathing harder now; Gideon could hear it and feel it. The floor rose and fell slightly beneath his feet, giving him a feeling of vertigo. Every once in a while, a high keening whine would seep from the walls. It was dying, or at least in terrible pain. Something was hurting it. Gideon’s presence, perhaps: the presence of its demise.

Other than the tattered door in the center of the room, which Gideon was making his way to, and the doorway from which Gideon had come, there was no other portal. The handle of the door was wet, oddly enough, and he wiped his hand on his shirtfront, cringing. The door swung inwards with a quiet slap. From where he stood, he could only see the warped far wall of the ballroom. But through the door, there was a thin coating of blood painted over the floor and walls. Gideon blinked and stepped back, looking over the doorframe instead. The floor was a muted, oaken yellow, dirtied by nothing other than dust, as were the walls.

He shivered and stepped through.

But the dream shattered.

The thick quiet of the library was driving Gideon crazy. He sighed, raking his hands through his mop of dark hair, and glared down at the tiny text running in lines across the pages of his book. Dry and badly written. Too many words, too little substance. How was he supposed to craft a twenty- page paper from this crap? It was impossible.

“Hey, Gideon.â€