Prologue
The night’s panoramic vista, vintaged with diminutive cotton balls of the bride’s veil of snow could have never looked more magnificent. The wind tucking the earthly hearth under exhilarating snowflake sheets gathered up family members, huddling in circles around the kindling flames, narrating several Christmas stories.
“It was during the Lost decade where prominent newspapers announced a group of youngsters who claimed they had sibyllic powers. Reporter Stevenson Plummet along with the gang investigated a murky, haunted house on the Ashburn Island. They reported that the notorious Ashburn mansion with that horrendous reputation was the scene of the mass murder of the Ardenals who newly inhabited this place. One after the other, they were all slain without clemency. After several months, the house was sold to the Mellicans who were aware of the annihilation that occurred, but according to their perspective of rationality, those were simply superstitions. However, five weeks later of incessant glee, they sensed the presence of a detrimental force in the house, forcing mania and depression upon the family members. Finally, they abandoned the house, but the suppressing force lingered for a while as if it was trailing them down. The parents ended up believing in the sense of prophecy their children have obtained. When they first arrived to the island, Cara and Ronald stated that they abhorred the mansion, claiming that it seemed “out of Frankenstein.” Suddenly, after moving away by two weeks, Ronald vanished into the labyrinthine island. After several searching trials that went in vain, Plummet concluded that Ronald passed away. Long after the heart-breaking incident, the Mellicans’ spirits were found floating on the concrete floors...”
Methane’s -of 1781- husky intonation dissipated slowly into the stillness of the night. He remained such an unfathomable enigma to all those who tried to unravel him. Methane was a serial killer -a woman murderer. The flames igniting in his eyes were adequate for a woman’s life to go off track. He had this tiniest sliver of a notion that could torture a person without any mercy, leaving him or her to live in perpetual excruciation. Benevolent was he indeed, but when anyone wronged him, he’d get that cold shoulder. He could have been cruel, but hell isn’t cruelty; kindness can torture too. The craving gnawing away at his flesh forced him to be appeased even though erotic thoughts of her restrained his pomposity, but at least, he didn’t give in to the least urge. Deep within his hinder thinking, torrents of her decorum flashed through his mind, trapping him in a warren of passion and consideration. He had never believed in miracles -he deemed resurrection a waste of time, and until this day, no one could have romped with his decisive druthers; however, ordeals brought him a new meaning to life -a novel nuance to subsisting. Methane recalled back the times when she’d smother him with her lovely words.
“Melly,” he ended up calling in a low sentimental voice but picked up his intonation when no one replied. “Melly, my dear, come down, darling.”
No response again this time, and again the ominous silence grew unheeded. Engrossed in the alienation, he was puzzled to heed to the faintest tapping on his maison’s door.
“Who’s there?”
Nothing shattered the sinister stillness except his echo murmuring back through the vacant hallway. To the beating of his heart, he shrieked, not able to decipher the occurrence -not able to fathom the least of it. Reluctantly, he headed to the door, stumbling on his way, praying the all mighty lord for absolution if his soul were to rise. He flung the door wide open and was horror-struck by the night’s aghast murk. The sky was as black as the mouth of hell, and a banshee wind sighed among the gusty trees. Lights blazed from a distant cloud in the far North. Simultaneously, as far as he could tell -an appalling dirge hymned from the distant horizon. When he finally put his mind that he wasn’t hallucinating, he recoiled back, intimidated, stumbling upon the door. Deep within the meadow, a sinister force seemed to burn his flesh, but he thought to himself perhaps this was the outcome of flipping through his spine-tingling volume of forgotten lore earlier that night; however, now his acute senses weren’t playing tricks on him. He was certain he saw some shadow descending through the resplendent gloom. It was approaching him at the second. Closer it was, filling him with resonant fears he never endured before. He was tentative whether it was a figment of his imagination or not. He trod forward stealthily, still neglecting his chance for survival.
I am doomed eternally, he silently uttered to himself.
Abruptly, a ghastly apparition plunged from a foggy cloud, calling out his name. The summon chilled the deepest marrow of his bones, prostrating him from fear.
“On the portcullis of heaven...” The apparition muttered as it evanesced into the night’s tenebrosity.
Methane pondered what can such a bloodcurdling creature mean by croaking “on the portcullis of heaven,” but no replication splintered his mind. He tried to neglect the thoughts telling him that this might be a dreadful prophecy and walked away from that damned spot.
“Melly, come here, darling. A fallen angel has just ensconced in our meadow and billowed up into the night within an instant.”
Melly didn’t respond to his words. Hence, he traipsed the forlorn meadow, desolation pervading the entire atmosphere.
Crink. Crush. Crink. Crush.
Methane sensed something crushing under his feet, and a close tapping was blatant through the silent midnight.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
It was so close. Suddenly, he ended up bumping his head into a Brobdingnagian trunk, almost fracturing his skull. He could feel something slimy decanting unto his skin.
“That’s pungent!”
He reached down to his pocket, lighting a candle, and once the ashen atmosphere was shattered, his blood ran cold upon seeing it.
“M -M -Melly?”
He knelt down, shaking his wife’s body in an attempt to revive her. He placed his hand over her chest, searching for her heartbeat, but it seemed he was too tardy. He recalled back that shriek he hearkened to earlier that night, the raucous thump, the gurgling noise that pierced the portentous stillness. Frightened at the time, he cowered in his seat, fear gripping at his heart until he heard another sound. It was a dull, low, hellish tattoo.
Bump. Bump. Bump.
When his thoughts finally came to a halt, his eyes were adjusted to Melly’s deceased corpse, whose throat has been deeply slitten that it almost seemed decapitated. Melly’s blood-engulfed carcass had been suspended in a topsy-turvy geste, whacking the tree’s trunk.
“Melly, nooo! This can’t happen to you, love. Why did you leave?” He mourned,” You left us all so soon. I know you are watching right here from above. Please come back to life!”
He was panic-stricken when someone murmured back “the afterlife.”
He instantly carried Melly’s bloody corpse, and dashed down to the basement without making the slightest noise. The next day, their children stirred to the incessant sound of sirens, and due to the news, the haunting anguish was their third companion.
~May their souls rest in peace...
