Thunder cracked across the sky as the black Mercedes-Benz coasted up the winding drive of the Ashcroft Estate. The windshield blurred under sheets of rain, and the once-regal iron gates groaned open as though warning the car to turn back. Elena sat in the passenger seat, her fingers clenched tightly in her lap, a nervous tremor running through her spine.
It had been years since anyone had dared return here.
Damien's knuckles were tight on the wheel, his expression unreadable, sculpted from granite. Every inch of the estate reeked of nostalgia laced with horror. The house loomed at the end of the path, an ancient behemoth cloaked in ivy and shadows. It looked less like a home and more like a mausoleum filled with secrets.
"Are you sure about this?" Elena asked, her voice barely above the growl of the storm.
"No."
That was all Damien said before stepping out into the rain.
The moment they entered, the temperature dropped. The air felt heavier, thicker, as if it were infused with grief. Memories hung from the walls like cobwebs—portraits long faded, curtains moth-eaten, furniture covered in white cloths like forgotten ghosts. But the house remembered them. It always did.
As Damien lit a candle, a burst of wind blew through the entryway, extinguishing it immediately.
"The house doesn't want us here," Elena whispered.
"Neither does anyone else," Damien muttered, relighting the candle with a flick of his silver lighter. "Which is exactly why we're staying."
They made their way through the decaying corridors, floorboards groaning beneath each step. Elena's breath came in shallow bursts as they passed the ballroom. Once the site of glittering soirees, it now stood in silence, its chandeliers broken, its windows dark and fogged.
But it was the library they were heading for.
Damien opened the heavy door and paused. The room was untouched. Exactly as he'd left it the night everything had changed. Books still sat neatly on the shelves. The grand piano stood at the corner, a fine coat of dust resting on its polished surface. But there was something else. Something off.
The fireplace was lit.
Neither of them had touched it.
"Someone's here," Elena said, voice brittle.
Damien pulled out the pistol from his coat.
From the shadows, a laugh echoed—dry, rasping, feminine.
"Still playing the prince in a haunted castle, Damien?"
Out of the shadows stepped Vivienne Ashcroft, Damien's mother. Presumed dead. Buried ten years ago.
Elena recoiled. Damien froze.
"Impossible," he murmured.
Vivienne looked untouched by time, her silver hair in elegant waves, her eyes gleaming with a sharp madness.
"Mother?"
"So you remember me," she cooed. "How sweet. I knew you'd come crawling back eventually."
"You died," Elena said.
"Did I?" Vivienne's smile widened. "Or did you simply believe what you were told?"
---
For hours they argued. Vivienne revealed the truth that had been buried with her casket: she had faked her death to escape the Ashcroft Curse, the one that claimed a soul for every heir born under its roof. Damien's father had sacrificed himself. Vivienne had fled. And Damien—he had been the next marked.
"You left me to rot," Damien whispered, his voice fractured.
"I saved myself," she snapped. "I gave you the tools to survive."
"By abandoning me?"
"By making you strong."
The fire crackled, casting grotesque shadows on her face. Elena watched them both, two broken people bonded by blood and betrayal.
That night, as the storm grew louder, Damien dreamt.
He saw the ballroom in its prime. Children laughing. His father dancing with Vivienne. But the joy turned to screams. Blood on marble. A mirror shattering.
When he woke, his reflection stared back from the cracked glass across the room. Except it wasn't his face staring back.
It was Roman's.
---
The next morning, the mansion unveiled more horrors.
Mirrors distorted their reflections. Doors they closed were found open. The piano played by itself. Whispers filtered through the halls. Elena saw a girl in white standing at the top of the stairs. When she called out, the girl vanished.
The house was alive.
And it was remembering.
But amidst the horror, secrets emerged—journals hidden behind loose bricks, letters sealed with the Ashcroft sigil. One revealed the true nature of Damien's power: he wasn't cursed by darkness. He was the darkness.
The final journal entry, written in Vivienne's hand, read:
> "To unchain him is to end us all. The boy is not my son. He is the reckoning."
Damien slammed the book shut. Elena's breath caught.
"Do you believe it?" she asked.
He looked up, his eyes hollow.
"I don't know what I am anymore."
---
That night, the house attacked.
Windows shattered. The chandelier crashed down inches from where Elena stood. Spectral forms clawed at the walls, and Vivienne stood in the midst of it all, arms outstretched, chanting in an ancient tongue.
Damien dragged Elena into the crypt beneath the house, locking the stone door.
"Why is this happening?" she cried.
"Because the past never stays buried," he replied.
And neither do ghosts.
---
Author's Notes:
Hey, my lovely readers! 💀✨
This chapter was absolutely chilling to write! The Ashcroft Mansion holds many secrets, and finally reuniting Damien with his not-so-dead mother Vivienne added a delicious twist I've been waiting to drop on you 😈 The supernatural layer is thickening, the house is practically a character of its own, and Elena? She's about to discover that not all ghosts wear chains.