Prologue
We walk along the twisted, dark path of nothing but overgrown weeds and dead leaves and branches, careful not to make a sound. The tree of us; Carl, Jessie and me, Alex, are walking both timidly and fast, constantly looking behind us to see if anyone was following us, though Jessie was pretty sure there was.
Finally, we reach the large, looming mansion in front of us. We have to crane our necks high just to see the first story. I take a step forward, hoping it would give the others a sign to keep moving forward but Jessie grabs my arm.
“What are you doing?” she hisses.
I pull my arm back but a bit harder than i meant to, thinking she had a fairly tight grip on me. She senses my annoyance and she steps back to leave me alone. I ease off a bit and decide to stay with the others when the moon started to come out, making the house ten times more massive than it already was
That’s when Carl started whimpering.
All of us ignored this simple sound from Carl only because he makes this sound nearly all the time so we didn’t notice that he was trying to warn us about something. I guess he realized we weren’t paying attention to his frantic whimpering so he started flailing his arms and he’s whimpering intensifies. I assume that Jessie had enough because she turned around so sharply, The air barely had time to keep up with her swift movement.
“Would you shut up alrea-” She trailed off, her eyes widening to the size of saucers.
That’s when she, too, tried to get my attention but I was too busy staring at the mansion and trying to figure out a way to get inside. Then Jessie grabbed my arm rather harshly and tried to point at something in the distance but i didn’t see anything and started to get annoyed again, but this time she didn’t back up which meant this was something serious. I tried to submerge my annoyance for just a moment to see what the big deal was.
I squinted my eyes. And that’s when I saw it.
My face is pale as I read a nearby sign and I start to panic as the stories of this place come rushing back to me as a child. I read the sign over and over, not able to comprehend it. I slowly back up and I bump into something. My heart races faster, scared it’s going to fall out of my chest, I try to hold my breath to calm it down.
I turned around slowly to see what I bumped into and what I saw made my blood curdle as hot ears fell down my face. I reach out to Jessie for her shoulder so i can stay up but my hand touches nothing but air and i start to get even more scared when i hear her voice behind me and i jump a little bit.
I’m sure she saw what I saw because I saw her slump to the ground suddenly and she started sobbing. I rush to hug her. I console her as Carl keeps muttering under his breath.
“No… It’s not possible.” He says, frozen, staring at the horrific sight.
I nod slowly and I say to Carl the exact words I don’t want to believe.
“Yes carl. Those are our parents, hanging on large hooks” I say, shaking.
We all wince at the same time as we all huddle together and cry. Our parents are dead. On large hooks, their organs slowly spilling out and the smell… Oh the smell! I wrinkle my nose and I cry harder, Stroking Jessie’s hair and then I see a shadow looming over the three of us. I let go of everyone, them noticing my discomfort right away and they sit up too, looking worriedly at the person above us.
They wear only a cloak and they only show their eyes. Oh their eyes! They were horrific as one was a scary yellow, the color of a cat’s eye and the other was mauled to death, its contents spilling out with every blink. WE all tremble as they hold out their hand and whisper in a deep, booming voice.
“Welcome to Winchester Mansion”
