The old mansion had been abandoned for decades, its grandeur and beauty slowly being consumed by the passing of time and the whispers of the dead.
Rumours said cries are heard at midnight. Cries of the dead... no one dares reach the mansion's gate.
The wind howled through the empty halls, its mournful sighs echoing the whispers of the townsfolk, who spoke of the mansion's dark history and the family that had once dwelled within its walls, their fate a gruesome and unsolved mystery.
No one knows what happened, but what they do know is the story behind the family is dark and uninviting...
The family's patriarch, Malcolm, was a reclusive and sinister figure, obsessed with the occult and forbidden knowledge, who had made a pact with a malevolent force to ensure his family's prosperity, but at a terrible cost, which was said to be revealed in the eerie, flickering candles that lit the mansion's windows on certain nights.
Malcolm was said to possess powers of the devil, and it got over him. He slaughtered his family.
And as the townsfolk whispered, on that fateful night, Malcolm's wife, Elizabeth, had tried to flee with their children, but he had caught them in the grand ballroom, where he had summoned an unholy entity, and in a rage of demonic possession, he had butchered them all, their screams echoing through the halls, their blood staining the chandelier that still hung, eerily swaying, as if haunted by the vengeful spirits of the slain family.
It was long, long ago, and since then, no one knows what happened.
But the locals claim that on certain nights, when the moon is full and the wind is just right, the sound of eerie music and maniacal laughter can be heard echoing from the abandoned mansion, as if Malcolm's ghostly form still hosts a twisted, otherworldly ball, reliving the horrors of that fateful night, and beckoning in the unwary with an unsettling, ethereal waltz...
As I stepped out of the car and onto the crumbling driveway, the music grew louder, the laughter more maniacal. I felt an icy presence watching me, drawing me in. And then, I saw it: the grand ballroom window, open wide, beckoning me to enter...
To be continued...
