Chapter Text
Autumn – Arrival in Yharnam
Perhaps it is foolish of me to start a journal in such circumstances. I might not live long enough to fill it. Yet, so far from home, and without anyone to talk to, I feel the need to lay somewhere the rattling thoughts plaguing me. Maybe the same impulse once took my aunt Alexandra, when she came here what seems like a lifetime ago? She might not approve of me using the blank pages of her journal to write my own, but even were she still alive, she came back blind from her trip to Yharnam.
Even then, I cannot give any credit to the increasingly unhinged ramblings her journal turns into past the first few pages. Gigantic monstrous beasts? Horrid shadows stalking through the moonlit nights? Spiders watching your every step, ready to drag you into a nightmare? Evidently, her mind in her later years wasn’t quite what it used to be in her youth, a shame for a scholar. It appears illness – physical or otherwise – is the lot of my family.
Not that these colorful tales would change anything. No one seems to have any better solution to cure me. To think that I am seeking help from the Healing Church and its blood ministrations, when blood is the very thing that ails me. I suppose fate does appreciate irony...
Despite the warnings from my family, and our flight from the old castle, generations ago, Yharnam doesn’t live up to its horrific reputation. The streets are paved, coaches are still available to move around until sunset, the inhabitants are a bit rough with strangers, sure, but far from beastly. And I was able to secure an appointment in one of the city’s rather reputable clinics. Hopefully, it will help heal this blood cancer before it kills me.
Although...I must admit that the stone spires of the cathedrals and the solemn statues lining the streets do give Yharnam a rather disquieting atmosphere, when sunset comes. I can imagine how an unsettled mind, or an imagination prone to wandering might be influenced into weaving nightmares in every corner. Not that I have time to let my own mind wander, these days.
A spatter of blood stained the page as Cecilia was wracked by hacking cough, barely able to breathe, her pale, regal features twisted as she struggled against her own body, steadying herself as best she could against the small desk in her rented room. Finally, she managed to spit out the obstruction in her chest, half-collapsing, taking hurried, wheezing breath as the slight blue tinge creeping onto her face receded.
Trembling, she brushed aside a strand of black hair stuck by sweat to her face, and, shivering, lowered her gaze towards the handkerchief she used to cover her mouth...it was stained red by blood, a carmine glob of half-coagulated blood resting in her palm. Time was running short. If the treatment of the Healing Church wasn't enough...
Cecilia levelled a skeptical gaze at the wizened old man behind the counter of Iosefka’s clinic. He seemed as ancient as the roots of the city themselves, messy grey hair half-covering his face from beneath the brim of his hat, his beard having seemingly given up being ever groomed.
“Welcome, welcome, stranger...what was your name, again...?”
“Cecilia. I take it you weren’t the one who confirmed my appointment...?”
She’d deliberately omitted a last name. She didn’t expect trouble, but her family had to flee this place, a few generations ago. Better safe than on the wrong side of the Church’s Executioners.
The old man let a raspy chuckle escape him.
“Ah...well, despite the miracles that the Blood can work, my memory isn’t what it used to be. A moment, please...”
While he rummaged through the pages of his huge, leather bound ledger, she took a look at the clinic. The place was surprisingly empty. She’d been inclined to think a treatment as lauded as the Blood would make it hard to access, and with the place empty, Cecilia had trouble being at ease. She felt the pressure within her lungs, and reminded herself once more that she didn’t really have a choice anyway.
The old man finally found her, and ushered her beyond the counter, within the clinic...which was, once again, almost empty, although Cecilia could see a few patients laying on the steel transfusion tables. The clinic wasn’t very well lit, something the lack of windows and the sun setting outside wasn’t helping, which together with the dark wood of the shelves and cabinet lining the walls, creaking under the weight of innumerable bottles and vials, didn’t make for a particularly welcoming sight.
The old blood minister didn’t seem to care, leading her to one of the tables and inviting her to lay down as well. Cecilia hesitated, long enough that a new bout of wracking, bloody cough took her, leaving her even paler than usual, wiping the blood at her lips with the back of her hand. Resolve strengthened, she shed her travel coat and climbed onto the table, unable to suppress the slight shaking in her voice.
“So, how does this work?”
The old man, despite his appearance, managed an almost friendly smile.
“Oh, simple, my dear, very simple.”
He took an opaque glass bottle, that she could see was full of an almost clear red liquid, and hooked it up to the rubber tube closest to the table, attaching what looked like a syringe near the end.
“Very simple indeed...it’s the Paleblood, you see...for that, you’ve come to the right place. Yharnam is the home of blood ministration, after all. You need only unravel its mystery. But, where’s an outsider like yourself to begin, hmmm...?”
He smiled once again, and Cecilia shuddered. The cold metal of the table wasn’t to blame, this time. Uncaring, the man kept going.
“Easy, my dear...with a bit of Yharnam blood of your own! But first...you need a contract.”
On these words, he handed her a rolled sheet of paper, almost filled with a tight script already. Standard procedure, she only had to apply her name and signature to confirm she consented to the treatment, and the name of her next of kin, which she left blank. No need to involve her family in this. Formalities taken care of, the blood minister nodded, before stabbing the metal needle into her arm without a second of warning. Cecilia bit her lip, almost drawing blood, but the pain passed quickly.
“Good...all signed and sealed. Now let’s begin the transfusion. Oh, don’t you worry...whatever happens....you may think it all a bad dream.”
These last words rang like a sinister bell to her ears, and she attempted to rise. Her arms felt unbearably heavy, refusing to obey her. A blood-red haze fell on her vision, and even her tongue felt like led in her mouth. Her last coherent thought was that the pain finally abated. Maybe sinking into the darkness wasn’t too high a price, after all...
In a corner of her addled mind, Cecilia almost admitted to herself that the old man might have had a point. This had to be a bad dream, and in the sanguine haze, she struggled to make out the details...images flashed, a monstrous, wolf-like beast stretching vicious claws towards her, unhurried to kill helpless prey...the squirming, misty silhouettes of misshapen creatures crawling over her.
She startled awake, trembling all over from the intense feeling of panic seizing her, breath short and thoughts swirling in a chaotic maelstrom, heart beating so loud it left her head ringing.
Around her, the clinic was silent, deathly so. Not a trace of the blood minister, or any other patient, and judging by the light, the sun had to be almost set outside. Cecilia jolted, panic hitting her two beats too late. Try as she might, she found no wounds...not even a trace of the transfusion. She gingerly stepped down from the cold table.
None of this is right...
Wandering through the darkened clinic, she found a flight of stairs leading up, but what caught her eye was the door leading to the entrance. Maybe she had a way out still...She was halfway through opening it when the realization hit her.
I...can breathe. Nothing is hurting anymore.
With a nervous chuckle, she took a deep breath, feeling the air rush through her, carrying the smell of incense and...She froze. Blood. That iron tang couldn’t be mistaken for anything else. She slowed her movements, and kept going towards the hall, step by step, hoping she wouldn’t be noticed by whatever was growling and gnawing ahead. Keeping her cloak around her, she followed the wall, shadow among shadows. Hopefully.
When Cecilia realized what she was seeing, her breath sharpened, and for a moment she felt as if the cancer had returned. A monstrous creature, a wolf with gangly, too-long limbs, black and bloodstained fur, twisted into a caricature of beast, was tearing a corpse apart, splattering the wooden floor with fresh gore. Cecilia felt nausea rising, adrenaline the only thing keeping her from vomiting. The monster was occupied, perhaps...perhaps she had a chance to flee while it wasn’t paying attention. Her only chance. Creeping along the wall, hand on her mouth, she finally passed along the beast, and there was the door. A sigh of relief escaped the young woman.
The wolven beast moved quicker than Cecilia thought possible, turning towards her, yellow, gleaming eyes burning with thirst. Once more, adrenaline saved her, forcing its way through the fear and helping her jump aside when the monster leapt. She fell just as it crashed into the wall, but that didn’t stop the beast for long. Cecilia scrambled for something, anything, and her fingers closed around glass. Claws tore wood an inch from her face, and she rolled, screaming at the piercing pain of glass shards in her shoulder. The shard in her hand slashed through fur and flesh, warm blood running down her fingers. The beast howled, tearing the shard from her grasp. Kicking wildly, she tried to fend it off, fangs snapping the broken chair leg she shoved in the beast mouth, in a desperate attempt to keep them of her throat. She mused that her very last words might be an incoherent scream of fear and fury crossed her mind, something no lady of her line should suffer. Impending death really had a way of drawing to the surface the stupidest...the thought was cut short when claws rent her throat open, the last sound Cecilia heard was the dry snap of her shattered spine.