After a long journey through desolate roads in search of the origins of vampires, I finally arrived at a small town in Romania, according to legend, in this same place, but centuries ago, a mad prince murdered thousands of people based on the power of the red dragon, a mythical animal that according to his visions should feed on human blood and in return endowed it with supernatural powers. It may be that this same story was the one that with the passage through different cultures endorsed the vampires, giving even refined manners and some romanticism in the pen of literary geniuses.
However, what is experienced today is very different, this distant place is nothing more than a settlement in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by dry grape fields, where the only imposing thing is the ruins of an old black stone castle, which stands like a silent guardian on the highest hill. Frankly, I was hoping to find something more exciting that would give sustenance to the thousands of tales that furrow the globe, spreading the rumor of vampires.
At least the food is very good, homemade, and fresh, just as I like it, that's why I enjoyed this breakfast to the fullest, having as a companion a strange coffee, whose aroma has a particular touch, similar to something metallic, plus its thick texture like red wine, I don't know how many cups of coffee I consumed in the scarce three hours I was at the inn, but I was able to notice how the locals looked at me suspiciously, wondering why someone could drink so much coffee in such a short time, or at least that's what I thought.
According to what the owner of the place told me, this coffee, native to the area, has in its preparation some aromatic herbs, seeds, and other ingredients that make it a perfect and very strong mixture, so it is uncommon for someone to drink more than one cup.
Ignoring the old man's comment, I took my backpack and began to walk up the steep path that leads to the castle, for some reason, the villagers do not cross beyond a certain point, so my journey to the fortress was marked by silence, desolation, and physical fatigue, which was getting stronger and stronger.
In my inner thoughts, I did not understand why this coffee was so famous, the truth is that the rusty taste that it leaves in your mouth is not pleasant, and as a mood lifter it is not very good either, I still feel sleepy and slow, something that does not happen to me in the cities with good machine coffee.
The cold in the area is really strong, my hands soon began to crack from the frigid air that does not give even a hint of kindness to foreigners, despite the drop in temperature, the castle was not hidden for a moment in fog as it would be normal, on the contrary, showed that even the clouds were afraid to approach that place.
After an hour of walking, some strange effects began to manifest themselves in my body, my vision became more and more watery, although it seems incredible, my weakened eyesight due to so much work on the computer, at times seemed to become perfect, almost to the point of looking in high definition. A loud fluttering stunned my head by surprise, but then I discovered that I was listening to a small bee in a flower more than a kilometer away, I don't know how they could know that, but my senses were sharpened to the extreme, I could smell, look and feel things like never before and also know how far away they were as if my brain was some kind of radar.
Vitality began to surge in my legs, added to a pressing desire that darkened my heart, entering into desperation to run away at full speed, reaching limits that far exceeded the fastest car. It was then that I discovered that in my mouth two fangs sharp as needles began to sprout, it was such a bewilderment to think that I had been poisoned with the morning coffee that I went into a panic attack, unable to breathe I looked at how the whole world around me was spinning and darkened, until I lost consciousness in that abandoned place at the gates of the castle.
I do not know how much time passed, but I woke up in a giant bed where a gloomy man told me that he found me in the morning fainted and almost dead, he told me that I was in the fortress of Wallachia and that I was the victim of a virus that had affected the coffee, which prevented its immediate effects.
Apparently, everything was concentrated in my organism and suddenly exploded, producing a crisis when I thought that I was transformed into a vampire, logic told me that I should believe the explanation, but perhaps logic did not apply in this case, because the old man was exactly the same as the Count who was painted in a painting at least 300 years old.
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Original creation text in Spanish, translated and corrected into English using www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version) and https://app.grammarly.com/
