The gates of Blackthorne estate groaned as they swung open, their rusted chains echoing into the night like a warning I was too stubborn to hear. The wind pressed against my back, urging me to leave, but my feet carried me forward.
The mansion loomed ahead, its towers clawing at the sky, its broken windows glinting like watchful eyes. Moonlight poured over the crumbling stone, painting it in silver and shadow. Ivy clung to the walls as if even the earth itself refused to let go of the place.
It felt alive breathing, watching yet I stepped closer.
They told me the house was cursed. That no one who stayed past midnight ever left unchanged. Some whispered about screams carried on the wind, others swore the place devoured anyone foolish enough to enter. But I wasn't afraid of curses or stories told in hushed voices.
No I was afraid of silence. The silence that had filled my life for too long. Maybe that's why I came here. Maybe that's why, even now, my heart raced with something that wasn't fear.
The heavy doors groaned as I pushed them open. Dust drifted through the air like faded ghosts, catching the pale glow of the moon that spilled through shattered glass. The air was colder here, sharper, as if the mansion itself exhaled frost.
Then it came faint, but undeniable.
A shift. A presence.
The air thickened, carrying with it a scent that didn't belong warm, intoxicating, dangerous. My pulse leapt. I wasn't alone.
My gaze swept the grand staircase at the center of the hall, and there he was.
A figure carved from darkness, standing where shadow and moonlight collided. Still. Silent. Watching. His face hidden just enough to keep me guessing, his stance unyielding as though he had always belonged to the night.
Our eyes met, and the world seemed to still.
The silence wasn't empty it pressed against me, heavy and consuming. A warning. A promise. A pull. My breath quickened, yet my body betrayed me, taking a single step forward when my mind screamed to retreat.
The wood creaked underfoot, the sound too loud in the hush of the room, and his head tilted ever so slightly as if acknowledging my choice.
Every story, every whisper, every warning told me to turn back. But there was something in his presence, something magnetic and ruinous, that rooted me in place.
And in that moment under the suffocating weight of his stare I realized the mansion wasn't haunted by the dead.
It was haunted by him.
Love me in the shadows, lose me in the light.🖤