Dracula Prologue: Undying Love

There was a knock at the door. Count Dracula rose from his chair and crossed the room in one swift motion. He adjusted his outfit and made sure that everything was in order for the arrival that he had been waiting for. Pausing a short while for dramatic effect, he eventually opened the door as slowly as possible, emphasising the sinister creak that he had no intention of fixing.

        

Stood on his doorstep was not, however, the person that he had been expecting.

The Rogue Astronaut

It started at the end, in more ways than one.

        

My whole life, I’d dreamed of going into space. Did everything to make that come true. When the call came through from NASA, I couldn’t stop smiling for weeks. Completed my training, boarded the shuttle, launched into space. Flew so high, into the stars, up to the International Space Station. Got there, to the point that my whole life had been building towards, to the moment I had dreamed of since I was a kid, and, heck, I was still basically just a kid. And that was that. Mission accomplished. Or so I thought.

        

Because that was the moment that everything changed.

Sherlock Holmes: No Place Like Home

My good friend Mr Sherlock Holmes rarely faltered in his quest to bring criminals to justice. But perhaps only once did I ever see him shaken, or certainly unnerved, to the extent that his legendary powers of deduction could not seem to function properly. He often said to me that his sharp mind was similar to a machine of some sort, and that comparison seems appropriate as I consider one of his few lapses of judgment. It was as if a vital component had been taken away, causing the contraption to cease functioning as it should. Though I have never before felt the desire to recount any of Sherlock Holmes’ aforementioned failings, I feel that now is the time for this particular story to be told.