My Immortal

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About the Image

Featured in today’s post is Serena’s… wait, make that Sabine’s gorgeous Gothic gown! Our favorite photographer has traded her camera for a taste of immortality, and she’s certainly dressed for the occasion. The Salencia Gown is a stunning new release from Just BECAUSE for the current round of FaMESHed, and it’s the perfect choice for Halloween, vampire adventures, or a dark Gothic romance. Salencia is wonderfully versatile, with an extensive texture HUD that lets you customize nearly every part of the gown to create your own unique look. You can also wear it with or without the beautiful lace collar. And let’s face it, nobody in SL does lace quite like Just BECAUSE. The delicate detailing on this gown is absolutely exquisite. Stop by FaMESHed to pick up a demo and see Salencia for yourself.

Also setting the mood for this dark romance is Extra’s wonderfully eerie Amor Aeternus couples pose. This romantically terrifying pose is a new release for the Spooky Sugar Mainstore Crawl 2026 and includes a mirrored version and optional facial expressions to help you capture just the right combination of fear and desire. The event runs through 1 November, and both Amor Aeternus and another single pose will be 50% off for the duration of the event. It’s a great opportunity to add a little supernatural romance to your pose collection!

A few other items worth mentioning:

Sabine’s skin is from the new Ethereal Idol Spectral Bloom collection by Glam Affair. She’s wearing the new Lumina face skin and matching body skin, both in tone P001. I wish I’d had time to capture a better close-up of her face (pesky RL work always getting in the way!), because the detailing really deserves a closer look. Fortunately, you can try demos of both the face and body skins at the current round of Kustom9.

Sabine’s elegant updo is Darla, a new release from S-CLUB for the current round of ACCESS. The fatpack includes some delightfully creepy-cute hair accessories, including flowers, a spider, and even a tiny crown-wearing skull. These fun little extras make the hairstyle especially appealing for Halloween, but it’s elegant enough to wear long after the spooky season has passed.

Gabriel’s dashing Gothic outfit was released for the previous round of The Engine Room. Unfortunately, it hasn’t made its way to the mainstore as of this writing, although I’m hoping it will appear soon. In the meantime, the store has several similarly styled outfits, including a new release for Equal10, that would make excellent alternatives for your own mysterious vampire gentleman.

The wonderfully creepy setting for Sabine and Gabriel’s story is the Moon & Ivy Restaurant {360} Backdrop by Synnergy.Tavis. Its atmospheric architecture and haunting ambiance provide the perfect backdrop for a romantic encounter with a decidedly sinister twist. After all, what’s a Gothic vampire romance without a suitably spooky setting?

Complete credits are below the story. Store and event SLurls are available on the Store & Event Links page.

The Story

New Orleans, Louisiana — October 1888

The gas lamps along Esplanade Avenue flickered in the evening mist, casting long shadows across the cobblestones. Somewhere beyond the wrought-iron gates of a secluded garden, a violin played a mournful waltz. The air was heavy with the scent of jasmine and damp earth, and the last traces of a crimson sunset lingered over the Mississippi River.

Sabine Delacroix had always loved New Orleans after dark. Tonight, however, the city she knew so well had become something strange and frightening.

She stood beneath a canopy of ancient oaks, her burgundy silk gown trembling around her ankles. One hand rested against her throat, where two small punctures lay hidden beneath the black lace of her collar. The wounds no longer hurt, but she could still feel them. Worse, she could still remember the exquisite, terrible sensation of the man who had made them.

Gabriel Vauclair stood a few paces away, watching her with an expression she could not decipher. He was impossibly handsome, with dark hair, pale skin, and eyes that seemed to hold secrets older than the city itself. She had met him only three evenings before at a masquerade ball in the French Quarter. Three evenings that had changed everything.

“You promised you would explain,” Sabine whispered, her voice unsteady. “You said I would understand.”

“And you will,” Gabriel replied gently. “But first, you must stop fighting what is happening to you.”

“Stop fighting?” She gave a bitter laugh. “I cannot bear the sunlight. I can hear the heartbeat of a woman walking on the other side of the garden wall. And this morning, I looked into my dressing mirror and saw…” Her voice broke. “I saw nothing.”

Gabriel lowered his eyes.

“You have taken my life from me,” she continued. “My family, my future, everything I was meant to become.”

“I know.”

“Then why?” she demanded. “Why would you do such a monstrous thing?”

For a long moment, he said nothing. A breeze stirred the Spanish moss overhead, and the distant violin fell silent.

“Because you were dying, Sabine.”

She stared at him.

“The fever had already reached your heart. The physician told your father you would not survive the night. I heard him myself.” Gabriel took a cautious step toward her. “I could have allowed nature to take its course. Perhaps I should have. But I had watched you laugh at the masquerade, watched you dance as though the world held nothing but wonderful possibilities. I could not bear the thought of that light disappearing forever.”

Sabine remembered the fever. The burning sheets, the physician’s worried face, her mother’s prayers drifting through the darkness. And then Gabriel, seated beside her bed, his cool hand against her cheek.

She remembered him asking whether she wished to live.

She remembered saying yes.

But she had not understood the price.

“You should have told me what you were,” she said.

“Would you have believed me?”

“No.” She swallowed. “But I might have run.”

A faint, sorrowful smile touched his lips. “Perhaps that is why I waited too long.”

Sabine turned away, struggling to steady herself. She ought to despise him. She wanted to despise him. Yet the thought of leaving him filled her with a loneliness so profound that it frightened her more than the darkness.

She had felt drawn to Gabriel from the moment they met. At the masquerade, he had approached her without the usual tedious compliments of the gentlemen who sought her attention. Instead, he had asked whether she believed a person could have more than one lifetime in which to find happiness.

She had laughed and told him that one lifetime seemed quite enough, provided it was a happy one.

Now she wondered how many lifetimes he had already endured.

“How old are you?” she asked.

Gabriel hesitated. “I was born in France in 1742.”

Sabine turned sharply. “That is impossible.”

“You have recently discovered that impossible things are rather more common than you imagined.”

Despite herself, she almost smiled.

“Have you loved before?” she asked.

“Yes.”

The answer stung more than she expected.

“And what became of her?”

Gabriel looked toward the river, where the last of the evening light was fading. “She grew old. I did not.”

Sabine studied him. For the first time, she saw something beyond his beauty and terrible power. She saw the weariness of a man who had watched the world change while he remained forever the same.

“And now you have condemned me to the same fate.”

“Yes,” he answered quietly. “And I will regret taking that choice from you for as long as I exist.”

A strange sensation stirred within her. Beneath the fear, beneath the anger, something else was awakening. She could hear the rustle of a moth’s wings high in the branches. She could distinguish individual drops of water falling from the leaves. The world seemed impossibly vivid, as though a veil had been lifted from her eyes.

And then came the hunger.

It rose suddenly, sharp and overwhelming, twisting through her body with a need she had never known. She staggered, clutching the folds of her gown.

Gabriel was beside her in an instant.

“What is happening to me?”

“The change is nearly complete.”

“I feel…” She closed her eyes. “Oh, Gabriel, I feel something dreadful.”

“I know.” He offered his hand. “Come with me. I will help you.”

She looked at his outstretched fingers. His black leather glove seemed an invitation into an abyss from which there could be no return.

“Will I become a monster?”

“That,” he said, “is a choice we must make every night.”

Sabine searched his face. She wanted to believe him. More dangerously, she wanted to trust him. The tenderness in his eyes seemed genuine, but she knew now how little she understood about the creature standing before her.

“If I go with you,” she whispered, “will I ever be free to leave?”

Gabriel’s expression softened. “You are free to leave me tonight, Sabine. I would not blame you. But I hope you will allow me to teach you how to survive.”

“And if I never forgive you?”

“Then I shall have to learn to live with that.”

She hesitated, then placed her hand in his.

At his touch, a curious warmth spread through her, though neither of them possessed the living warmth she remembered. She stepped closer, drawn by a longing she could neither explain nor resist.

“I am afraid of you,” she confessed.

“You should be.”

“And yet…” She looked up into his dark eyes. “I cannot seem to make myself walk away.”

Gabriel raised her hand to his lips and pressed a gentle kiss to her fingers.

“Then stay tonight,” he murmured. “Only tonight. Tomorrow, you may decide again.”

Above them, the clouds parted, revealing a pale moon over the sleeping city. The gas lamps glowed like distant stars, and somewhere in the French Quarter, the church bells began to toll midnight.

Sabine allowed Gabriel to lead her down the garden path, her skirts sweeping across the damp stones. She did not know whether the feeling growing inside her was love, fascination, or something darker born of the blood they now shared.

Perhaps she would never know.

At the garden gate, she stopped and looked back toward the city. Beyond those walls lay everything she had once been: a daughter, a young woman with dreams of marriage and children, a mortal soul who had believed that every story must eventually end.

“Gabriel?”

He turned.

“Will I ever see the sunrise again?”

His silence was answer enough.

For the first time that evening, Sabine wept.

Gabriel did not attempt to comfort her with promises he could not keep. He simply stood beside her until her tears were spent, holding her hand as the last remnants of her mortal life slipped away.

Then, somewhere beyond the garden wall, a human heartbeat quickened.

Sabine lifted her head.

She could hear it so clearly.

So beautifully.

And she was terribly, terribly hungry.

Gabriel felt her fingers tighten around his.

“Come, my darling,” he whispered. “You have much to learn before dawn.”

Together, they disappeared into the New Orleans night.

And somewhere in the darkness, a new immortal took her first breath of eternity.

CREDITS

Sabine

S-CLUB Darla (NEW @ ACCESS)
Angel Eyes Messy 20 Hairbase
Glam Affair Lumina Spectral Bloom (NEW @ Kustom9)
IKON Lucidity Eyes Pumpkin (group gift)
AvaWay Paulina Earrings
AvaWay Paulina Necklace
JustBECAUSE Salencia Gown (NEW @ FaMESHed)
Izzie’s Vampire Bites