The manor had been empty for nearly a century, but the townsfolk still crossed themselves when they walked past its broken gates. Ashford Manor sat hunched at the farthest edge of the woods like a wounded animal—silent, rotting, waiting. Its windows were shattered eyes, black and hollow, and its roof sagged inward as though the house had grown tired of holding itself up.
To most, it was nothing more than a ruin. But to Evelyn, it was a challenge.
"You won't last an hour," one of the boys from the village had sneered that afternoon, when she told them she wasn't afraid of their silly ghost stories. "Everyone knows Ashford breathes at night. People go in, they don't come back out the same."
She had smirked at their warnings. She was nineteen, restless, and tired of the dull rhythm of the small town she'd been trapped in her whole life. The boys spent their evenings smoking by the river and scaring one another with stories of shadows in the woods. Evelyn craved something real. Something that would prove she wasn't like them—timid, ordinary, chained to fear.
So, when they dared her to spend a night in the manor, she accepted.
Now, standing at the rusted iron gates, she wondered—for the first time—if the villagers' stories held more truth than she wanted to admit. The air was different here. Still and heavy, as though sound itself avoided the place. Even the crickets had fallen silent.
She tightened her grip on the lantern she had brought. Its faint yellow glow barely pushed back the thick darkness that clung to the manor. Her boots crunched over the gravel as she crossed the courtyard. Weeds had devoured what had once been gardens; statues leaned sideways, their stone faces worn smooth, features erased by time.
The front door was swollen with rot, its paint peeling in long strips. When she pushed it open, it gave a long, groaning sigh, like lungs forcing air through ruined pipes. The sound made the back of her neck prickle.
Inside, the air was colder. Damp. The faint, sharp tang of rust—or was it blood?—burned her nose. Dust clouded the lantern's glow, settling over the decayed furniture. A grand staircase rose before her, its railings wrapped in cobwebs, steps sagging like broken teeth.
She hesitated, then whispered to herself: "Just one night. That's all."
The door shut behind her.
Not slammed. Not drifted closed by the wind. It shut, slow and deliberate, sealing her in.
She froze, listening. Her heart hammered so hard it seemed to echo in her ears. After a long moment, she exhaled and forced herself to laugh softly. It's old wood, swollen by the damp. Nothing more.
She turned to explore the ground floor. Her lantern brushed over faded wallpaper, peeling to reveal dark patches underneath—patches that looked almost like stains. The deeper she went, the stranger the house seemed to feel. The silence wasn't empty; it was waiting.
Then came the first whisper.
At first, she thought it was wind sighing through cracks in the walls. A faint hiss, a trickle of sound. But as she stood still, holding her breath, she realized the sound was shaped. It wasn't random.
It was a voice.
Her name.
Evelyn.
The lantern quivered in her shaking hand. She spun, raising the light toward the staircase, the hallway, the door she had entered through. Empty. The whisper had been faint, like it came from deep inside the walls themselves.
She licked her lips, forcing down the rising panic. Old houses creak. They groan. That's all this is.
But as she stood there, in the choking stillness, the whisper came again. Stronger. Clearer.
Evelyn… come deeper.
The lantern flame sputtered, threatening to die. Shadows stretched long and sharp across the walls. For the first time since stepping inside, Evelyn wondered if she had made a mistake.
And still, she climbed the staircase.
Because something in the whisper wasn't just calling her.
It was pulling her.