Those who Linger in the Twilight

Chapter 1

Remilia

As the last rays of the sun faded from the waking world, crimson eyes opened. A yawn, a stretch of her arms and wings, and the petite vampire rose. She paused for a moment at the edge of her bed, unwilling to fully leave its comfort as she reached for the cup of tea that had been placed upon her nightstand. Her hand met empty air. There was nothing there. Sure, she had overslept a bit, but Sakuya always left a cup to help wake her up for dinner.

This was odd, and worrying. Perhaps her servant and friend was simply behind schedule and had lost track of time. Remilia cracked a smile at the thought, as if one who controls time could simply lose track of it. If she had, it was her right to ridicule her friend for the next few decades about her slip up. A giggle bubbled up and escaped her, it sounded high-pitched and grating on her ears in the gloom of her darkened bedroom before silence returned.

The smile fell off her face. It was silent. She sat a moment more on the edge of her bed and strained her enhanced senses.

Nothing.

No rustle of wind in the hall as a fairy maid passed.

No echoing footsteps as someone walked down the corridor.

No hum of distant conversation between her employees.

No barely perceivable laughter as her beloved sister amused herself in the basement.

No rustle of paper from the library.

Nothing.

Wait, no, there was a faint sound from above. A low tone, barely a whisper could be made out, but it was merely the wind passing over the building. Strange that she could hear the wind passing by the spires on the roof but not through the leaves of the vines that artfully covered the back of the house. Strange, and unsettling.

She shivered. There was an odd chill in the air despite the season and despite the fact that as a vampire temperature had little effect on her. Rising, she dressed quickly while humming to herself. Perhaps this was some sort of prank being played on her by those three fairies by the shrine- they had done similar things in the past and had been punished for it, but fairies never did learn. Grinning to herself, she strode towards the door with the thought of righteous retribution on her mind.

Her hand paused before door handle, a sense of trepidation running through her like an electric current. A nagging sense at the back of her mind that something was wrong but maybe if she ignored it and went back to sleep that everything would be as it should be when she woke. How stupid! She was a vampire, terror of the night, daughter of Dracula himself! She did not, could not, fear! That was an emotion for humans, not her.

Her hand moved forward, closed on the handle, and opened the door. It opened smoothly with a suitably dramatic and ominous creak, just right to terrify any foolish humans who thought to explore her 'haunted mansion' when she still resided in the outside world. The corridor was empty. She tried again, slower this time causing the eerie noise to echo down the empty corridor. Still no Sakuya.

She stepped into the hall. It was completely dark and empty. This didn't bother her as a vampire, but none of the lamps had been lit. Sakuya was really slacking off today! Another shiver traveled down her spine.

"Sakuya?" She called. The echoes that returned to her from down the darkened corridor sounded hesitant; almost scared. It sounded like a lost little girl, not her. Still her maid did not appear. The corridor remained empty.

'Obviously', the little vampire thought, 'she must be out on an errand. I will be magnanimous and forgive her absence when she returns.'

Turning, she went down the corridor towards the library. Just because she couldn't hear anything from her room didn't mean that Patchouli wasn't there. Her sickly friend had probably fallen asleep while reading again.

Suddenly something clattered on the stone floor and Remilia froze. Looking down she saw that she had kicked an odd crystal. While stooping down to pick it up she spied two more further down the hall. Collecting them she found they were warm to the touch and seemed to faintly radiate some sort of energy. While she had no idea what they were, Patche would surely know- she was the smartest person she knew!

With renewed determination she continued on her way, still encountering nothing but dark and empty corridors. She soon reached the great library and found it well-lit in contrast to the rest of the building. Passing through the great bookshelves she approached Patchouli's corner- a comfortable nook at the edge of the library. Massive tomes were open upon her desk and notes were strewn about. Her pen lay atop a sheet of paper and had spattered it with ink. Remilia flinched; her friend would be most displeased about that. Strangely the writing appeared to end in the middle of a sentence, the middle of a word even, as if she had dropped her pen and run off to do something mid thought. Maybe Marisa has invaded again and tried to make off with a few more volumes. But Patche had not returned.

Remilia stood there and strained her senses once more. The only sound to be heard was the slight crackle of the enchanted flames in the lamps. She stood there for what must have been an hour, and still Patchouli did not appear. Not even her assistant Koakuma was anywhere to be seen. Remilia was getting worried.

She left the library in a rush; surely someone else was in the house! Passing by countless rooms and through dozens of halls and staircases, she navigated the labyrinth that was her home with the ease of long practice accelerating the whole time. Soon she was standing before the basement door. Even if everyone else suddenly had a reason to leave the mansion, her sister would be here. Remelia could faintly hear something like music coming from the room and sighed in relief. Here sister was there, playing her games. She opened the door.

The room was dark and seemed empty, but there was a faint flickering light coming from the bed. Her sister had become fond of a handheld game from the outside world of late and had more than once stayed up far too late playing it and woken late. Moving silently to the bed she pulled back the covers. The game was on exactly as she had anticipated. It appeared that Flandre had been in the middle of a battle when she fell asleep, but her sister was not there. Headphones, from which the music could be faintly heard, were lying on the pillow. Flan however was not anywhere in the room.

Eyes wide, Remilia rushed to the door leading to the rest of her sister's suit, or "lair" as she liked to call it, and ripped it off its hinges. She rushed through and tore the rooms apart in her haste- Flan was just playing hide and seek with her, she must be!

Nothing. There was nothing. Her sister wasn't here. With frantic energy she rushed back upstairs and proceeded to systematically check the entire estate in the hopes of finding someone, anyone, who could tell her where her sister was.

Nothing. There was no one. She was alone in the mansion.

She rushed outside, blowing the main doors off their hinges in her haste. The garden was empty. But more than that, it was less than it had been. It almost looked like someone had gone and randomly blasted bits of it out of existence, including all the vines that had been growing on the house, which was ridiculous as Meiling would never allow such a thing.

Meiling! Where was she? At the gate? No. At her cottage? No. In the garden? No. What was going on?

She was hyperventilating, she knew. A panic attack brought on by the night's strangeness. She was a vampire, she was the night, and she was death! And yet here she was having a breakdown in her garden. She felt strangely detached, as if none of this was real, as if she was wandering around a dream- a nightmare. But she couldn't control herself. She couldn't control the trembling of her body or the tears streaming down her face. Remilia screamed and sobbed, pleaded with and threatened the unseen and intangible, fired waves of crimson magic into the air filling the sky with bullets.

No one came. No one heard. No one cared.

It was nearly dawn when she finally regained control, still trembling slightly. Whatever was happening, whatever had occurred, was clearly an Incident of some sort. Reimu would know what to do, how to fix this. She had to.

She flew quickly covering miles in mere seconds. Arriving at the shrine minutes before the sun rose, she threw the shoji doors open. It was empty. But of course it was it was early and there was no way Reimu was awake yet. The vampire stalked through the shrine until she reached the door leading to Reimu's bedroom and tore it open. It was empty. The bed had not been slept in. Reimu was gone, just like her companions, her friends, her family.

Collapsing, she curled up into a ball and began to weep. Marisa found her there motionless and dead to the world hours later.

Author's Note:

Having watched Endgame a few days ago I was suddenly struck by this idea last night: what if Gensokyo was part of the MCU and affected by the Snap the same as everyone else? What would happen? How would people react? What would they do? How would this (eventually) impact Endgame? After my last exam this morning I sat down and started writing, and here we are just a few hours later with the start of a new story. I don't know how far this story is going to go, it was very spur of the moment, but I have some ideas. New chapters will be released as I deem them ready, which could mean every few days or there may be months between them (if I get very busy).

Thoughts? Comments? Ideas? Let me know in a review.

Note: I will work on my other story, it is not dead I've just had a very busy semester and it has only just ended (my last exam was this morning). I will get to it when I get to it but right now this has my attention.