CHAPTER 1: Whispers in the Dark Part 1

Giggles are heard in a blurry corridor, walls lit with candles, a little girl running through them with her floral dress leaving a trail, and her white pumps echoing through the walls of the mansion. 

“Evelyn, stop running, you will fall.” A woman’s voice is heard following right behind the running girl as she giggles and continues to run, and she ends up in a dark corridor. Her steps pause and she starts to move back. The moments she does, a door a head of her starts to pulse like a vessel, with different colors changing at the edge of the door the more it pulses. It prompts her to move closer to see the colors that pulse through the door.

She moves closer, and she lifts her little fingers up to touch the door, which seems to pull her without her knowledge. As she gets closer, a hand from behind holds her mouth so that she does not make noise. As she turns, it is her father holding her and makes a sign for her not to make any noise.

He lifts her up and they step away from the door. They move quietly and get out of the corridor. He takes her straight to her room, and to her bed.

“Evelyn, you know you are not supposed to go to that wing. You promised.” He says with a lot of concern as he looks into her eyes. She looks down at her feet with a sorry face.

“I’m sorry papa, I just found myself there. I didn’t intend to.” Her father sighs and pats her head to keep her calm.

“Remember dear, some things are best left unknown. I know you are very intelligent and… and discover a lot of things. You seek answers to everything you don’t understand.” He looks at her as she nods her head. He stands and walks away as little Evelyn looks on, and it all becomes blurry.

“Miss, Miss, wake up” a voice is heard and Evelyn opens her eyes slowly. Her eyes land on the flight attendant telling her she has arrived.

She looks around and it seems she is the only one left in the plain. She unlocks her seat belt and stands up.

“Thank you” she says as she walks away. “Why that memory?” she asks herself in a lot of thought. “Why now?” she exits the plain and proceeds to pick her bags. She looks at the place like it was the worst place she ever lived in. “This is going to be a very long work trip.” 

Evelyn has spent years trying to escape the memory of Blackwood, a town hidden away from the rest of the world and a mansion her parents left her. This is her worst nightmare, she is here for work, but she feels she will have to face all that is hidden beyond it. She has been telling herself that she that she will never step foot in Blackwood. But here she is again, for work, for a project, to reclaim a piece of the missing stone. But deep down, she knows it is more than that. She cannot outrun the nightmares that she has had all these years, the shadows that linger in her mind, and something within her feels compelled to uncover the truth that lay in Blackwood and all its shadows.

Before Evelyn even reaches the edge of the town, her eyes are drawn to the imposing silhouette on the hill. The Blackwood mansion, that looms like a forgotten sentinel, its decayed wooden frame blackened with time and rot. Its crumbling spires pierce the overcast sky, shrouded by an unnatural stillness that weighs on the air like a held breath.

 Her heart pounds at the sight, but it’s her home, her inheritance that she outran. She tried to go far away, to change her life, but it was all for nothing. It has brought her right back to the same place she swore to never return.

She proceeds to enter the town of Blackwood, the road twists through fields of skeletal trees, their bare branches clawing at the leaden sky like bony fingers reaching for something just out of grasp. A heavy fog clings to the landscape, casting an otherworldly glow on the wet, glistening ground. 

Her eyes drift off to the hill again; now clear like as though she is close to it, but not. From the hill, the mansion casts a shadow that seems to stretch far beyond its reach, enveloping the road Evelyn travels. Evelyn squints through the windshield, the droning sound of her car tires muffle by the thick mist that blankets the world around her. It’s a chilling sight that is unshakable. The house itself is alive yet trapped and frozen in a moment of agony from a past it refuses to relinquish.

The further she drives, the more the outside world seems to fade, as if the town itself were an island cut off from reality, a place where time moves differently, sluggishly, refusing to catch up with the present. The surrounding vegetable, once vibrant, seems cursed by proximity. The trees twist unnaturally, their skeletal branches clawing towards the mansion as though pleading for release.

The sky over Blackwood town is choked with clouds, thick and low, casting the town in a dim, unnatural light. As she nears the town, Evelyn feels a chill settle into her bones, the damp air seeping through her clothes no matter how tightly she clutched her coat with one hand, the other holding the steer wheel tightly. The main street appears suddenly, emerging from the fog, lined with old buildings whose cracked facades and faded signs seemed untouched by modern hands. Every window dark, curtains drawn, giving each building the impression of a face with hollow eyes watching her arrival. The streets are unnervingly quiet, save for the occasional flicker of movement in the shadows, like phantoms darting just beyond her line of sight.

Evelyn notices how little has changed. The old butcher shop on the corner, the creaky, half-timbered houses lining the road, even the ancient lampposts—each detail seems as she remembers, preserved in eerie stillness. There are a few people scattered along the sidewalks, moving slowly, heads bowed as though weighed down by something unseen. It’s like they are sleepwalking, and the very atmosphere holds them in a trance. Evelyn shivers, wondering if it is the town itself or her memory painting the scene with such unease.

A few of them look up as she drives past, their faces pale and weary, with dark circles under their eyes. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel as a flicker of unease stirred within her. 

The suffocating air presses down, thick and unyielding, filling her lungs with every breath she takes. It feels as if the very town of Blackwood holds its breath in her presence, an invisible tension crackling beneath the surface, waiting to pounce. She has been away for so long—long enough, she had hoped, to break whatever this place holds over her. But Blackwood’s pull is like a hand reaching out from the dark, and despite the years she has spent running, she is right back where she had started.

Evelyn forces her gaze away from the figures on the street, her mind drifting back to the day she’d left. She’d been barely seventeen, clutching a small suitcase in her hand and the weight of grief in her heart. Her parents had died suddenly, leaving her alone with the creaking, ancient mansion that seemed to breathe and shift in the night. 

The towns people always whispered about curses and dark family secrets, casting fearful glances at the Blackwood name, and her young mind had been flooded with nightmares and whispers that refused to be silenced. She had left to escape it all, to rid herself of the shadows that clung to her family’s legacy.

But running hadn’t worked. The nightmares had followed her, creeping into her mind no matter how far she fled. She has been seeing it in her dreams, the darkened hallways of the mansion, the flickering candlelight casting shadows that seem to dance with a life of their own. There were nights she would wake in a cold sweat, her heart racing, the image of the mansion’s great door burned into her memory. And though she has been trying to dismiss it, the same thought has been lingering at the back of her mind, whispering that one day she will have to return, and here she is, like magic.

A part of her wants to turn the car around and drive away, but she knows it is impossible. Her team will be arriving in two days. This project is important to her, to her bosses and colleagues.  And despite the resistance clawing at her heart, she has face it.

Evelyn was only a teenager when her parents died, their deaths shrouded in mystery, and the mansion became something she feared rather than called home. Nightmares always plagued her sleep, dreams of shadows lurking just out of sight, of hands reaching for her in the dark. She remembers waking up drenched in sweat, her heart pounding, only to find herself alone in her room, staring at walls that seemed to breathe in sync with her panicked breaths.

Blackwood, and the mansion that loomed beyond it, had become her personal prison, so she left without looking back, fleeing to cities filled with life, where she could lose herself in the crowds and drown out the whispers of the past. And yet, here she is again, like the mansion wanted her too.

She stops the car and cuts off the engine; the silence that follows feels thick and heavy. She steps out, pulling her coat tighter against the chill, her gaze sweeping over the town square. The statues, built in honor of long-forgotten figures, cast dark shadows across the wet stone, from the rain that has now left drizzles. 

She notices a few townsfolk staring at her from under their umbrellas, their expressions guarded, as if they don’t welcome visitors, as though they recognized her but are not willing to speak her name aloud. 

As she walks through the square, she feels the weight of their eyes, whispers threading through the a

ir just beyond earshot, reminding her of the way the townspeople always avoided her family, the murmurs that followed them through every gathering, every market visit. “The Blackwoods’ are cursed”, they always said. Her family’s bloodline was marked by misfortune and mystery, and she had been warned to never listen to those voices. But just as they were then, they still are now.