Page 25 of My Carmilla

I inched towards the window. My fingers brushed the cool glass. Just as I reached for the latch, a tug pulled at my sleeve. I turned around.

De Lafontaine stood there, looking frail and lost in her nightgown. "Laura," her voice was barely a whisper, "you shouldn't."

"Please," I pleaded, "If Carmilla dies, I don't know how I shall live."

"You love her, don't you?"

Shakily, I nodded.

A melancholic smile touched her lips. "I fell in love once. A few years ago, before I became a governess. We were kindred spirits. I always thought we'd be together, but an arranged marriage tore us apart. She married a man for her family, and I became a governess. Not a day goes by that I don't think about how differently life could have been if we had both been braver."

She took my hand. "Warn her, Laura. Be braver than I was."

“Thank you,” I whispered.

She pulled me into her arms. It was a long embrace, almost as if she knew it might be the last. Stepping back, she gave me a resolute nod. "Go now, child. May fate be kinder to you than it was to me."

Pulling away, I took one last look at my governess, her face etched with regret and understanding. With her tear-stained confession echoing in my heart, I clambered out the window. The gnarled branch awaited, offering a precarious path to freedom - and perhaps, redemption.

Chapter 12:

I stood dwarfed by the ruins, their immensity pressing down on me like a suffocating weight. Each crumbling archway seemed a gaping maw, poised to devour me whole. A whisper of something ancient and terrible stirred within their decaying stones. The air hung thick with the scent of damp earth and something else, something primal and unsettling.

I tore through the desolate halls of Karnstein, my feet echoing. “Carmilla…Carmilla!”

Each crumbling archway, each shadowed alcove, fueled my growing panic. And then a flicker of movement in the distance.

Carmilla.

Relief flooded me, a wave so powerful it briefly stole my breath. I surged forward, the rough flagstones protesting beneath my pounding feet. I threw my arms around Carmilla in a desperate embrace. The familiar scent of jasmine and something deeper, wilder, washed over me, an anchor in the storm of fear.

"What are you doing here?" Carmilla's voice, a low whisper.

"It's not safe here anymore," I breathed out, the words tumbling over each other in haste. "They're coming. The general…my father…they want to kill you. We have to leave. Now, before it's too late."

A heavy silence descended upon us, broken only by the ragged gasps of my breath. Then, a sound that sent a jolt of terror through me. The thud of heavy boots echoing off the crumbling stones. Carmilla stiffened in my arms, her voice dropping to a venomous hiss.

"Damn them," she cursed.

General Spieldorf and my father burst into the chambers.

"Get away from her!" The General’s voice was a thunderclap in the cavernous ruins.

I froze. Moonlight cast flickering shadows that danced across Carmilla’s shifting form. Smoke and darkness swirled around her, devouring what little light there was. The shadows coalesced into a thing born from nightmares, a grotesque outline of a monstrous feline. Its eyes burned with an unholy light, the same spark of fury I had often seen flare in Carmilla's eyes.

The creature snarled at the general.

“I’ll put an end to you, you miserable beast.” The man brandished his sword, the polished metal glinting momentarily in the moonlight before being swallowed by the swirling darkness that surrounded Carmilla.

I started toward her, and a vise-like grip took hold of my arms, pinning them behind my shoulders. I thrashed against my father’s grasp, a wild animal trapped in a cage.

“It’s for your own good, Laura.”

“Carmilla, run!”

Carmilla wore a smile as sharp as a broken shard of glass. Her monstrous cat-like form lunged for the general, unleashing the fury of a goddess scorned. Her attacks came like bolts of lightning, sudden and sharp.The General moved with surprising agility despite his age. He parried Carmilla's lunges, the clang of metal echoing through the ruins. Carmilla staggered, her foot catching on a loose stone. She quickly recovered, but not fast enough. The general landed a glancing blow on Carmilla.

“Don’t hurt Carmilla,” I pleaded. “Please.”