"Oh hum. What a wonderful night to have a curse." Cassandra said as she watched black tar seep from the walls of the box she stood in, feeling the motions while dark ichor lapped at her heels. There was a distant sound of a bell as the door opened. She hummed softly while she hefted the bag over her shoulders. The light within the hallway was washed in deep red while little things chirped and snarled away just out of her vision. She had seen it all one to many times. How was someone suppose to fear what they existed in?

It didn't matter, her footsteps were met with whispers, pleads and outright mockery from the audience only she could see. They were always with her, watching her moments of shame and glory, taking them and seeing failure and undeserving of a street rat like herself.

"Keep laughing. It keeps the others dancing with joy." She said while a door opened before her. Or did she do it? She never bothered to answer that question before. She made her ascent, her progress slowed by the lashing tendrils from deep blow the stairwell, but they did not do enough to force her way. Another door opened and she was standing on the roof of her childes birthplace, the sky shaded in the brilliance of purple and orange twilight.

There was a distance caw, one now familiar to the Ventrue as her ghoul landed by her feet. She smiled and beckoned it to hop onto her arm. She felt its talons dig into her cold, dead flesh. "Sweet little omen...Keeping me company for too little time." she stroked it head softly, a almost content look in her face...

...Until that same hand grabbed hold of its tiny neck. Black feathers streamed from its wings as it struggled, only to turn into green leeches in her minds eyes. There was a small pocket knife her her hands now. How did it get there? Why question everything when blood now leaks from the screaming shape in her hands and snakes slither out of its gut. She didn't ask, why should you?

She cast the forgotten thing from her hands, hearing a sicking crunch as it tumbled against the hard concrete. She slipped the back from her shoulders and pulled out a cheap hammer from a hardware store and a old hunk of wood.

She placed the stake over her chest.

"Now, you see-

Thunk

"-...I am Ventrue. And-"

Thunk

Blood started to stream from the wound, the hunk of wood caught in her ribcage.

"You know...what that means? It-

Thunk

"...It means...this one...can....not..."
Crack

The pain was greater than she imagined, her eyes wide while the world started to fall away, like burning stips of a painting torn away from its frame. There was only her, and a mocking smile on her face.

"Not...Lose."

She never felt the sun above her. Only a vague sense of the end in her torpid dreams. Her child away and asleep, soon to continue the legacy she wanted to fulfill. So much left to do, but others can do it for her. If they won, so did she. To win was to be of clan Venture, even if they think you lost.

Did she know what laid beyond for the damned?

No.

Did she care?

Why would she? For her, it was a wonderful night to end a curse.