The carriage wheels crunched over the gravel, a discordant lullaby against the silence of the journey.
A breeze whispered through a small crack in the window, carrying with it a scent that sent ice curling down my spine?—
Faint.Rotting.A breath of putrefaction on the wind.
The manor loomed ahead.
Its grandeur was long lost to time and neglect.
Ivy clawed at crumbling stone walls, clinging like desperate fingers to a ruin that refused to let go of the past.
The gardens, once vibrant, were now a tangle of withered blooms and thorny brambles.
A corpse of a house.
And inside it?—
My fate awaited.
“I’m with you.I’ll be there.Don’t worry,” Mary murmured beside me, her voice a soft reassurance against the storm of my fears.
Her hand found mine?—
A comforting squeeze.
A reminder that I was not alone?—
Even if the walls of this house had already begun to close in.
We alighted from the carriage.
The silence of the great house swallowed our footsteps whole.
And as we crossed the threshold?—
The doors closed behind us with the finality of a tomb.
The parlor was a dying room.
Once, it might have been grand—its faded opulence whispered of wealth long past—but now, it felt hollow, rotting from the inside out.
And at its center?—
Lord Winston.
A corpse draped in velvet and arrogance.
His pallid skin stretched thin over his skull, waxy and unnatural, as though death had already begun to claim him in slow, unhurried increments.
And his eyes?—
Milky.Vacant.Orbs of malice, fixing upon me with hunger, made my stomach turn.
A slow, shuddering breath left my lips, and I forced my feet forward.
The weight of his gaze clung to me like filth, something I could feel but never scrub away.
Every step was a silent war between duty and the primal instinct to flee.
