"You've come," a soft yet cold voice echoed from behind the mist-shrouded garden.
"I knew sooner or later, your footsteps would lead you here."
A dim light from tall candles along the wooden walls of the mansion cast long shadows across the stone floor, twisting like snakes slithering in the dark. Akira Kintsudo, the young heir and sole remaining branch of the family, stood at the end of the hallway. The smile on his lips was both sweet and terrifying, offering a promise and a threat at once.
"Who's there?" a trembling voice called out from behind the crimson haze, trying to sound calm, yet growing weaker with each passing second.
Akira took a step forward. "Someone who will reveal the truth… or destroy what you think is the truth."
He gestured toward the garden, and the mist thickened as if the very air were breathing and listening.
One by one, the guests appeared in the hallway—their faces blurred in half-light. Some were afraid, some curious, and some wore smiles that were neither hope nor joy, but reflections of nightmares waiting to pounce.
"So, this is the beginning of the game," an elderly woman with gray hair and eyes more like night than human, spoke.
"A game whose rules even we, who have lived in this mansion for generations, cannot comprehend."
Akira tilted his head slightly and responded in a voice like the whisper of wind through dead trees:
"Rules? I make the rules. And anyone who thinks they can break them must first confront their own shadows."
A young man, hands clenched in an attempt at reassurance, asked,
"Shadows? What do you mean?"
Akira's smile widened, and the candlelight suddenly flared. "Shadows are what even you are unaware of… betrayal, fear, desire for power. They are alive in this mansion, waiting for their moment."
The garden beyond the tall windows was swallowed in mist. Each step the guests took brought the sound of rustling leaves, distant and near cries, and a murmur from deep below the earth. Akira passed slowly by a column, his hand brushing the cold stone, and darkness seemed to seep from him into the pillar itself.
"Akira… you…" the middle-aged man, the mansion's steward, stammered with fear. "You… you are no longer human."
Akira glanced at him briefly. "Human? Who said I ever was? Perhaps… I never was."
A heavy silence fell over everyone; only the heartbeat of the guests and the wind in the trees could be heard. Suddenly, a loud sound—a crash—echoed. Everyone turned, but nothing was there. Yet they all knew they had seen something forbidden.
Akira smiled. "Everything you see… and everything you don't… is part of the game. A game that will pull you deeper into darkness with every step."
The old woman stepped forward. "With what intention do you begin this game? Why?"
Akira paused, then said calmly,
"Why? To see who will accept the truth and who will deceive themselves… to see who deserves to live and who must be consumed by their shadow."
A short, sinister laugh came from a corner of the hallway, and the mist thickened once more. The guests, trembling and confused, realized they were not facing a mere human, but a being capable of manipulating reality itself, where life and death were merely pieces in a demonic game.
Akira moved toward the balcony, raising his hand toward the garden. "This mansion will never be as it seems. Every wall, every window, every candle… a witness to betrayal and generations of secrets… and today, everything begins."
With that, the candles went out. Absolute darkness swallowed the hall. The mist grew thicker, carrying a whisper:
"The game has begun… and no one will escape it alive…"