Surren

Surren Hartgrove was born into a life of poverty and compromise. When his parents could no longer support themselves, they sent Surren off to live with his Grandfather, Silvestri Hartgrove. Silvestri was the family Butler of the Caphrius household, and took great pride in his work. He took his grandson on as his apprentice to continue working for the family once he had passed on. It was quite a boring and uneventful to be a Butler, but it came with such perks as never going hungry, having your own modest living quarters, and having a small sense of purpose in life. 

Then, somehow, one night the Caphrius House went up in a blaze. Surren enjoyed night walks, and upon returning from one discovered quite the sight. He ran to the town to get help, but it hardly mattered by that point. Once the fire was out they searched for survivors, and discovered the youngest child Noel had fallen from an upstairs window into the snow and managed to survive. Once word of the tragedy reached her, Lady Dianthe returned from her schooling abroad to be with her brother. She moved the two of them far away to an old Caphrius manor in Darkwood, somewhat near the small town of Roseheim. She would allow Surren to accompany them if he agreed to take on his Grandfather's duties as family Butler. He was a little afraid as he was unsure if he was ready, but agreed to do it. Truthfully, he had never met Lady Dianthe before as she was always away at school, and she seemed different from the other Caphrius family members he had served. However he swore to himself that he would be the most loyal and skilled servant he possibly could be to the remaining kin.

However, this proved to be quite the task. The manor in Darkwood had not been used in quite some time, and required repairs and maintenance. When working on the house, he discovered a series of secret passageways. He grabbed a torch and decided to figure where it lead, since in the event of another fire something like this could be very useful, if it lead outside. It did not lead outside. Instead, the passage ended in a rather large archaic subterranean dungeon. And even more surprising than the discovery of such a place, was the discovery that someone was already down here. Before he could even speak, they ran at him and attacked him. 

Surren awoke strapped down to a large stone table. A beautiful woman stood above him, holding a blade. He tried to speak but found he was gagged. He also then realized he wasn't wearing any clothes. She raised the blade and he winced, however she lowered it on her own arm and cut. She emptied some blood into a stone bowl, then dipped her fingers in and began painting strange designs on his body. Oddly enough it didn't feel unpleasant, if only it wasn't human blood and if only he wasn't tied down. Once she seemed satisfied with the design, she raised the dagger again and drove it down, directly on his navel. He let out a muffled scream, and wished for nothing more then to keel over and hug himself as he bleed out, but couldn't. He felt hot blood pouring out of him and over the stone table, and heard it pitter as it hit the floor. The pain faded to numbness, then the world faded to black, then white. He opened his eyes, but closed them again due to the blinding whiteness. Something pressed against his lips then, but when he opened his eyes he was once again in endless black. He reached out to feel the darkness, and realized then that he was no longer tied down. He began to walk, then run, then he sat straight up in his bed. Had it truly just been a nightmare? He reached down and felt where the blade had cut through him, and felt no open wound, but ridges of a closed one. When he held his lantern up to it, it simply looked like an old scar. It was as though he still felt the heat of the blood on his skin, though there was nothing there. Disturbed, he simply went back to sleep. Or tried to anyway, sleep was very hard to find that night.

The next few weeks were strange, he had trouble remembering things, and kept getting mixed up. And after that strange dream, he couldn't help but feel uncomfortable around Lady Dianthe. He knew she wasn't the woman from his dream, but he still felt a chill whenever she was nearby. He became tired of always having a foggy memory, and resolved to gather his courage and attempt to find the entrance to the passage from his dream. It was silly, thinking a place he found in his mind could be real, but he had to at least try. He went back to the fireplace and touched the same stone in the wall he had in the dream. And the wall moved open. Just then he felt a hand on his shoulder, it was the woman standing behind him, and she was smiling. It was then he actually allowed himself to look into her dark eyes, and suddenly he began to remember. He understood she had done something terrible to him, that night he truly had died. But she brought him back, and with him, something else  pulled from the other side into his body with him.