Again, I am in the park of our old family castle with Lucas. Again, I am four and again I have to experience this nightmare. But I don’t want to. I want to go back to the present, I want to wake! But I can’t. I don’t want to witness it again, not even in my dreams.

 Lucas tosses the ball to me, I catch it and fly it back instantly, but suddenly a stranger turns up between us, cathces the toy and pinches it in his palm so hard it breaks. Lucas dreads, his face changes to pale white from the sight of such a strenght. The unexpected visitor turns to my brother and approaches him. When the man is standing right in front of him, Lucas looks up at him, straight into the stunning gaze of the red eyes. He was just a weak little boy and afraid. In his fear he couldn’t do else, his legs just collapsed under him, instead of trying to escape.

 - Almost afraid, little boy? I thought the great Walter Van Helsing has a braver son. However, the point is that he loves you, doesn’t he? And not just a little. After all, you’re his cub, little nubbin.

 - Leave him alone! – shouts my four-year-old self, and I’m running towards the man.

 I struck him straight, but he only loses his balance a bit, while I fall right next to Lucas. The stranger almost impales me with his sharp glance, but in a moment his face changes, as he shows a fake smile and starts to examine me.

 - So you are two. Twins, right? I suppose you are the older and the braver, as you tried to protect your brother. Isn’t it sweet?

 - It’s not true! – I cry defiantly.

 I jump up, kick his shin as hard as I can, but he only hisses and tosses me back to the ground. I fell to my bottom which hurts a lot.

 - But you are the braver, though you are a…

 - Leave them alone right now! – fulminates a familiar voice from behind of the stranger.

 - Well, you are here, too, Walter? How adorable kids you have! And what a noble mode they treated me so far! They are really angels. Am I right if I say you love them so much? More than your own life?

 - Dad! – cries Lucas as he stands up and runs to him.

 - Lucas! Stop! Go inside, both of you, right now! I have an important meeting with this…this man.

 - But father, we were just playing here!

 - I know, I’ve been watching over you. But now you go, both! This doesn’t belong to neither of you. Come on, hurry! Your mother shall be worrying for you. Anyways, I think dinner is already ready. Go!

 Lucas turned back obediently and helped me up. We hurried back, but I took a glimspe one more time. The adults were quarreling about something, then my father punched the stanger so hard he fell. Though, in the next moment he was on his feet and now he hit father. I turned my head forward and ran faster. I wasn’t still hurrying any more, I was rushing to be safe sooner, in the castle, in the hugging arms of my mother.

 As the door shut behind us, mother ran towards us in a hurry, with a worried look. She takes our hands and pulls us so fast we seemed to be flying. Straight in the direction of our room. She gets slower in front of the door, opens it and pushes us in, right to the big wardrobe.

 - Hide here fast, and do not come out until your father or I come for you. Be silent, I don’t want to hear a single noise, do you understand? Be good and take my advice. I love you!

 - Right, mother! – we answer at the same time.

 The door closes on us, only a small gap remains between the two leafs. Mother knows that Lucas is afraid from the darkness. There was something strange in her. Her voice and hands were shaking, and when she said she loves us, I could see tears shining in her eyes. Maybe she had known that was the last chance for her to talk to us. Maybe she felt in advance what will hapen to her, and wanted to protect us.

 Lucas is afraid and trembling. Neither am I braver, though I want to seem like that. With my hand I try to grope where he is, then I pull him to myself and hug him tight to make him calm. With this, my fear goes away a bit, too.

 I hear my mother doing something, and as I can see through the little gap, I watch her trying to vanish all the things that suggest there are children in the castle. Suddenly something catches my eyes: when we entered, mother closed the door, but right now it cracks open a little. I freeze from the fear as the door slowly gets opened, without a noise, and a stranger comes through it. Mother doesn’t notice it, as she’s fumbling in the bedside. I would tell her, I could scream: Mother, watch out! But I can’t. She said no noise until she or father comes for us. I really could scream. I take a deep breath, my lungs expand, but before a single voice could leave my throat, a small hand sticks to my mouth. Lucas was always very obedient and every time he tried to make me like him. Of course, I did like better to rebel, disagree and go after my own head, as today I do. But at that time and place I did obey him and not scream. Not a single voice, not a single noise. Not until mother of father comes for us. Not a single noise.

 Mother is still packing, without noticing the unknown man, who, meanwhile, is getting closer and closer to her. In the meantime another man enters the room. The first seizes my mother from behind and holds her so tight she cannot move. He was really strong and looking at mother’s neck enchanted. Disgusting. The second man steps towards them and from a small sheath he pulls out a small, silvery dagger. I just watch helplessly as my mother screams and flails, but she can’t escape. The man holding her tightens his arms so much my mother now really cannot move. The other stranger rips up the front of her dress with the blade, I can hear the soft silk splitting.

 I feel the small hand flabbily falling from my face, a thump in the other half of the wardrobe. It was the head of my brother, as he had fainted. The strangers turn their heads in our direction, but my mother starts to scream, but this time much louder, in order to divert the men’s attention. She knows we’re here and may feel what happened, but she can never imagine, not in her worst dreams that I can see everything so perfectly from here. Much better, than I should.

 Now mother is not screaming, she’s just groaning quietly as the dagger rips not only her robe, but also leaves a vermilion line on her snow white skin.

 She’s not flailing, just trembling, her face is full white, altough she doesn’t faint and give up that easily. Mother is brave. Mother protects us. The sunset’s last rays are glittering through the window and shine back from the silvery blade, which makes further cuts on my mother’s chest and belly. More and more blood flow as deeper and deeper wounds are made. The man holding my mother suddenly grunts and then bites in her neck. The other figure bursts out in rage, throws the dagger, which flies straight towards me and hits through the thin wood, slightly over my head. The throwing one punches his companion, who, from the enormous hit, unleashes my mother and falls to the ground.

 - You idiod, haven’t I told you to wait for your turn? The right for the first bite is mine, because I have higher dignity!

 - But Paul, I thought…

 - No, there’s no objection! Don’t think anything, you just do what you are told to do, clear? Our task is to kill everybody inside, whilst our master fights the hunter!

 - Understand.

 The man named Paul now turns to mother, who’s lieing on my bed, half-fainted, crawls almost fully on top of her and takes a bite from her neck on the intact side. Mother lets out a deafening, horrific scream, then she stretches out. As her blood flows drop by drop tears start trickling down my face as well. Paul is eager to drink and absorb more and more of the red, almost hot fluid, draining it to the last drops of life from the alreadly lifeless body.

 I cannot watch it anymore, I turn my head and bury my face in the clocthes of the still fainted Lucas. The very next moment I hear the door bursting open with a loud crash, then a deep voice roars like a beast. Furniture cracks, bodies thud and bones break, then only the sound of crying and whining are audible. Sounds of struggle, pain and death. I tremble with fear, while the clothes on my brother’s shoulder are soaking from my tears whose’s salty taste I can still feel in my dry mouth.

 Finally everything grows quiet, I only can hear silent snuffling, panting and weeping. Lucas is snuffling, I am weeping, but who is panting, I do not know. The only thing I know about him is that – probably the only – survivor of the fight. Yet.

 I don’t know who just rushed in, I don’t know who could possibly win, or who is the one still living outside of the wardrobe, but I know that I am afraid. So much that nothing counts, neither that I am alive, nor that I am dead, because I just witnessed the death of my mother and as her killers said, somebody down there tried to assassin my father, too. Nothing counts, as I became orphaned. I do not have anybody anymore, just my brother, who’s lieing next to me, fainted, not knowing anything about what a massacre took place here just a moment ago. Perhaps, it is better for him. Perhaps it would be better for him never to find out that now we will have to die. We stood alone.

  At the end my bitterness gets over me, I cry out loudly. Then something bursts into my mind: probably I should not have done it, as somebody outside is still alive, and no one knows, friend or foe. However, it does not count any more. I can hear him moving outside, getting closer to the wardrobe. The pierced blade slips out then somebody opens the door and finds us. Now it is sure that we die, too. After our dearest mother…