Suddenly, the eternal darkness lit up his vision. Before him appeared a golden cane, clutched in one of his tentacles. He did not understand who he was or where he had come from. Looking around, he saw a long-forgotten room, covered in cobwebs and wrapped in a faint mist.
Looking back, he saw how his coat, woven from living ink, was devouring an old TV set and a cassette labeled LOST MEMORIES / THE SQUID. The fabric of the coat resembled a living shadow, like a biomaterial wrapping itself around their reality.
He took the cane in his hands and began to move, leaning on it, for his tentacles were his legs and were not meant for walking on land. The cane looked like a golden tentacle twisted into a spiral. It felt as if someone had prepared it in advance for his comfort in this world.
He went downstairs. The building trembled slightly. The walls, coated with centuries of dust, felt like a place where people once lived. Walking farther, he encountered a being he had never seen before.
The Squid looked at him intently. The man, in a trembling voice, said,
"I'm seeing a creature like you for the first time… Could it be that you are the Dracula from the prophecy, from the book the former ruler held?"
"Yes, perhaps. I don't know what you mean, but maybe I am that Dracula," he leaned on the cane. The coat that had enveloped the walls began to contract until it took the shape of an ordinary long cloak.
"Come," said the scientist. "Have a look around. Or do you already know where you are?"
"It feels like I've been here. I suppose I should look around," The Squid nodded.
Through the misty castle he moved along objects hidden beneath protective domes. The scientist explained,
"This used to be Dracula's castle. Then it became a museum. But everything fell into ruin. Dracula vanished, and the government hid it. Alucard renounced power and disappeared too. The castle stood empty. By chance I found a laboratory in the basement. There was a coffin in which our missing Dracula lay. He was dead, with a face twisted by fear… or surprise. In his hands was a book in a language unknown to me. There were illustrations… in some of them it looked like you. One said that ink is capable of creating a vaccine because it can devour objects, including our virus. The rest of the pages seemed erased, as if the information had not yet been lived."
"Why didn't you tell anyone?" asked The Squid.
"This was the only place I could work. If I had told, they would have taken me away and locked me up. I decided to stay silent because I didn't want to risk myself."
The Squid watched him closely, especially his expressions, voice, and gestures. He felt the scientist was sincere.
"You can help me develop all this," he said, extending his cane.
They approached a window. A crowd had gathered at the foot of the castle, shouting, "The new Dracula has come!" The moon grew larger and froze in the sky, time slowed. And someone nearby looked on with distrust. Massive tentacles, like a squid's, held the castle in the air. From the rift flew out greenish beings with a green glow, as if they were someone's souls.
"I was conducting an experiment in the basement," the scientist continued. "A terrible shaking began, followed by a dreadful roar. I decided to run. The coffin in which Dracula lay with the book collapsed into the rift. After that the castle itself rose into the sky. And then you appeared."
"It's time to go out to the people," said the scientist. "But I won't go, otherwise they'll suspect me of all this. Since you seem to be Dracula, you should go out and introduce yourself."
The Squid descended the ancient stairs. With his ink he flung open the huge iron doors of the castle. He stepped out and saw the people and the city before him. That was how a new era began in OctoCity.
In time, the people accepted him and grew used to the fact that he was a different kind of being. They called him Dracula and ruler of the new city. In his honor the city was renamed OctoCity.
The city, once partial ruins, became a megapolis where neon lights replaced the sun. He preferred to rule from the castle, rarely showing himself, teleporting instead through his cloak.
Edward and The Squid, together with other specialists, first decided that the souls flying from under the castle could be brought back to life. They built prototypes of bodies, trying to implant these glowing clusters. But each time they encountered emptiness, for the souls did not awaken. There was no spark of consciousness, no energy that makes a being alive. They were only clusters of untamed power. After dozens of attempts they abandoned the idea and a new one was born. This was the TurboGhost project, the souls were used as fuel. Useless for life, but endlessly powerful for mechanics.
The rift, from which huge tentacles stretched, was made of a black-and-white zone like TV static. This place became a rift-portal, linking them with other worlds. Over time, a new type of interdimensional internet appeared. But no one dared enter it. Once, a specialist sent a colleague down into it with a protective harness. He carefully began to descend, but the strap broke when he jumped inside. After that they decided to stop studying the rift. The Squid suspected that this place was like a boundary between foreign worlds, and could not be entered directly, but could be used for other purposes.
With his ideas and other specialists, they created OctoCoin, a new digital currency working even in other worlds thanks to the interdimensional network.
Edward was given laboratories for his research. His life's mission was to create a vaccine for vampirism. The Squid's ink was alive. His gene was similar to the vampire gene, but different, because it also contained another gene. The ink biomass absorbed everything that entered it. Edward believed the ink could heal by devouring the DNA of the virus. The Squid knew this was a delusion. But he allowed it to begin. Until they walked their path and understood the price of their choice.
One day, The Squid, sitting in his castle after work, pulled out the TV, the player, and the cassette once devoured by his cloak. The tape inside was made of ink like his own. He did not understand why this artifact was in the castle attic. Examining the TV, suddenly his shadow came alive. It took a form like his, but with features closer to vampires or humans of the past. In the shadow's hands was a bag. From it, the shadow took out an empty cassette and from his ink drew out film, gesturing for The Squid to roll it into a reel and place it inside. Then the shadow put the cassette into the player. The shadow connected tubes to the TV. Neon green liquid flowed through them, and from the TV fell… a red phone.
On it was a message,
"My name is Shadow. I travel through worlds and I must help you here, because I am your guide."
Shadow taught him that different scenes could be recorded on cassettes. The TV was needed for objects. The Squid began to move like a spider weaving a web, spinning ink film into pots of thorny roses he imagined. Then he placed the film into the cassette and put it into the player. After inserting it, he looked out the window. There stood a pot with thorny roses adorning his castle.
"What do you think," he asked, "should I add some light to this gloomy castle?"
Shadow took a green flag from his bag.
"Green… does that mean you agree?"
The shadow nodded. The Squid spun ink film and signed the cassette Light Among Darkness, and placed it in the player.
The castle filled with neon light. Neon reflections sparkled in his eyes. Gazing in awe at the castle itself, spinning among the neon glow, The Squid was filled with joy. Shadow, meanwhile, disappeared into his shadow, nodding back at him. The Squid was not surprised. The world he lived in was already strange and full of wonders.
After this he looked at the TV, and through his ink emerged a cassette labeled Dracula Stories. He decided to play it, expecting the TV to show something or give him something. The Squid stared at the TV, but nothing happened.
Looking out the window, thinking something might have changed, he suddenly began seeing visions in fragments, as if he was living someone else's life. He saw several lives, including that Dracula the scientist spoke of. He saw parts of his life. Then he saw someone's war… a bloodthirsty war. The owner of that memory longed to awaken a dragon and consume the world so it would belong only to him. He was horrified by the vision, for everyone there were humans, not vampires. Then he realized this world carried a vast history. And now the responsibility for the city was his.
Life in the castle was lively. Sometimes, tired of being a ruler, he amused himself with his abilities. He would appear under someone's bed or in a closet, making strange noises, grab someone's leg and vanish back into his palace filled with colors when they screamed.
He also loved to watch how vampires lived. Once he went to a national park, hiding in the shadows of branches. Vampires sat on the grass near statues, some having picnics, some taking photos, some drinking water. His gaze fell on Dorothy and Evolis. They were riding a horse, laughing through the park. They approached his tree and broke a stick. Dorothy said,
"Imagine stretching tunnels in your ears with these sticks, in ancient times they must have had some trendy procedures."
Evolis took the stick, broke it into two parts and stuck them in his tunnels.
Dorothy, watching him, repeated the same thing.
The Squid, watching them, dropped his cane beside them.
"Isn't this The Squid's cane? It looks like our ear stretchers. Let's stretch with it!" They took his cane and started stretching their tunnels with it, laughing at each other.
The Squid realized they were strange, absurd, and brilliant at the same time. He took back the cane… and tossed them a cassette with one adventure, watching from under a branch in the form of a small tentacle with eyes hidden behind a leaf. In it their adventures would become even crazier. They, without hesitation, shoved it into the player that appeared behind them with a TV and vanished with the horse. A prank from Dracula for the pranksters. He knew they would return after passing the temporary quest, their reality only distorted for a while.
In OctoCity, The Squid also met the Plague Doctor. She flew in a ship shaped like a dirigible that was also her palace. The city had changed since her last visit — from ruins to techno-neon revolution.
She told him her story. Once a doctor in a very old era, she helped people during the plague that turned many into vampires. Her husband was a plague doctor, and so she became one as well. They had a ship-hospital. Moving the healthy aboard, they thought they could survive the plague. But her husband, who stayed on land, was eaten by vampires. She remained on the ship with children and others. Without noticing, one patient was infected and spread it. Fearing for the children, she covered them with her body, but that didn't save them, she was eaten and so were her children.
One day she awoke in her costume again, realizing the suit was now empty. Her ship lay on the ground, and there were two albino orphans who made it their home to survive among ruins. At first they feared the suit had come alive, but she began to see them as her own children. Somehow they repaired the ship and set out. From her old life she had only the dirigible-ship, her husband's red pocket watch that had stopped, and her plague costume in which she had been eaten.
She also spoke of her childhood, when there was a terrible war with the Order of the Dragon. She added that the man who fought to awaken the dragon died from a snake bite to the carotid artery. And many years later the plague came that made everyone vampires.
She supposed that virus had evolved and the hosts had adapted to it. She also said she would hide that she was a spirit in a vintage costume. The Squid replied, there is no need for that, this world is full of strange things and wonders. After meeting him, she and Edward upgraded her costume, merging it with her body.
They also restored her ship, making it once again both hospital and home. Now she could change her costumes, feel the world fully, and live peacefully protecting her new children, traveling the skies and working again as a doctor.
The Squid wondered, who are we all? Where did the virus come from? How many secrets does the world hide? Who recorded him on the cassette? But the main question always remained inside him. Where did he himself come from, where is his real biological family? Who placed the cassette with him into the castle's player? He didn't want to believe he was created from someone's tape.
Later, with Edward, they began developing a new kind of teleport. Its essence was to transfer consciousness into a cassette, which opened a portal through the rift under the castle and carried both mind and body into another world. While the cassette was in the player, the body and mind completely disappeared from this world. When the cassette returned to his hands, the mind and body returned to their reality.
The Squid knew that one day he would learn the truth about his origin. Time would show and tell him everything. Nothing is accidental, everything has its pattern.
Thus is our Dracula of OctoCity. The only one among other lands where, by rumor, only officials and cold governments rule. He is not one who inspires fear for submission, but one who teaches, observes, and deeply understands. A being born of ink, shaped as a squid through a cassette. His power is built not on pressure and tyranny, but on wisdom, observation, and the ability to correct the mistakes of past Draculas. He is convinced that everyone must walk their own path and see the truth with their own experience.