Part 1: The Gates of Eldergloom
It was almost nightfall when Aiden Gray first laid eyes on the village of Ravenshade. The clouds hung low like they were stitched into the rooftops, and the air was heavy with the kind of silence you don’t notice until your thoughts start echoing louder than your footsteps. The village looked like it had been left behind by time itself—stone cottages sinking into damp earth, trees twisted like mourners frozen mid-scream, and a single dirt path leading towards a dark hill.
Perched atop that hill, like a wound refusing to heal, stood Eldergloom Manor.
He didn’t come here by mistake. His sister, Lila, had vanished on her journey two months ago—her last message simply said:
“I’ve found something… something sad but alive. The villa knows things.”
No one believed her. Aiden did.
With a single bag over his shoulder, soaked from the relentless drizzle, he stepped into the village. The locals watched him. Not with fear or curiosity—but with pity. Their eyes were dull, like they’d seen too much and decided long ago not to see anymore. No one spoke. Not even a greeting.
“Excuse me,” Aiden asked an old man sitting outside a crumbling bakery, “Do you know the way to Eldergloom Manor?”
The man looked up slowly. His lips trembled, and then he whispered, “The house doesn’t sleep anymore…”
Aiden blinked. “Sorry?”
But the man said nothing more—just pointed toward the hill with a shivering hand.
---
The path to the manor was overgrown. Vines clawed at his jeans, mud sucked at his boots, and wind howled through leafless trees like it was warning him. The villa loomed closer with every step. Black stone. Broken windows. A rotting iron gate that creaked open on its own. He paused, hesitating at the threshold.
The gate bore a single plaque, rusted but readable:
> “To the ones who feel too much: Welcome Home.”
Aiden pushed the gate open.
---
Inside, the villa was both ruined and alive. Floorboards moaned under his weight. Faded portraits watched him pass. Cobwebs swayed like breathing lungs. The silence here wasn’t empty—it was full. Of things unsaid. Of thoughts unfinished.
He found an old candleholder and lit it. The flame flickered, weak but steady. Shadows danced across peeling wallpaper and old wooden stairs. Everything was soaked in a deep gray, as if the color had drained from the world long ago.
A journal lay on the table near the entrance.
“Elara Vexwood – Final Days” was etched into its leather.
He opened it.
> “The house listens now. It grieves with me. Every time I cry, the windows fog. When I scream, the walls crack. It has become me. I am not alone… but I am.”
---
Aiden shivered.
He should have left.
He didn’t.
---
He chose a room upstairs to stay the night. One with a view of the village. The rain hadn’t stopped. In fact, it fell harder now—like something out there was weeping without end.
As he unpacked, a photograph fell out of his bag—Lila, smiling on the cliffside, her hair wild in the wind.
“I’ll find you,” he whispered.
That night, the dreams began.
---
He was in the hallway of the manor—but the walls were bleeding ink. Portraits were crying. And Lila stood at the end of the corridor, motionless.
“Lila!” he called.
She didn’t move. Instead, her voice echoed through the dark:
> “You don’t find the house… the house finds you.”
A door slammed behind him. He turned, heart racing—but when he looked back, she was gone.
---
Aiden woke up in cold sweat. Candle extinguished. Room dark. Window… open.
Rain had soaked the wooden floor.
And on the fogged glass, someone had written with a finger:
> “Stay. It understands you.”
---
The next morning, he went to the village again. To ask questions. To confront someone. Anyone.
He visited the town’s library—half collapsed, but a woman named Marga still guarded its dust-covered shelves. She was old, blind in one eye, and held a cat that wouldn’t stop growling at Aiden.
“Eldergloom,” she muttered when he asked. “That house... it doesn’t kill. It feels. That’s worse.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, uneasy.
She stroked the cat, sighing. “Once, it belonged to the Vexwood family. Elara was the last. After her family died—plague, murder, no one knows—the house… changed. It became a grieving soul.”
“That’s impossible,” he said.
“You feel pain, don’t you?” she said. “That place attracts broken people. Lonely ones. Lost ones. It comforts you… until it knows you too well. Then it doesn’t let go.”
Aiden stood in silence.
“Your sister?” she asked quietly.
“Yes.”
Marga nodded slowly, as if she already knew.
“She’s in the house,” she said.
---
He returned before sundown.
The manor welcomed him. The gates didn’t creak this time. The door opened without a touch.
Inside, he found another page added to the journal:
> “There is something kind in pain. Something that holds you tightly. Don’t fight it. It just wants you to feel what it feels.”
The writing wasn’t old.
It was Lila’s.
He stared at it, fingers trembling.
She was still here.
---
That night, the house showed him more.
Not through dreams—but through memory.
The hallway changed. Became his childhood home. He heard Lila crying behind a locked door.
“Why didn’t you come sooner?” her voice echoed.
He opened the door—but instead of her, the room was filled with mirrors. Each one showed a different moment from their lives. Their fights. Her pleas for help. His silences.
“I was scared,” he whispered.
And from the walls, the house replied in her voice:
> “So was I.”
---
When he awoke again, the house had changed.
It was no longer broken. The lights worked. Curtains were drawn. Flowers bloomed on the windowsill. Everything… alive.
But only for him.
Only for now.
---
Outside, Ravenshade grew darker.
Inside, Eldergloom watched him like a mother holding a grieving child.
---
And somewhere, in the basement where the sun could never reach, a voice hummed softly.
> “Welcome home, Aiden.”
---
[To Be Continued in Part 2: Sympatry of the Forgotten]
