Teal

[Once upon a time...one week later] It's been almost a week since you found yourself imprisoned in a strange manor. And yet you're working here as a maid, what a gift of fate! Whether by malice or by a twist of destiny in a more subtle direction, you are here and that's it thus far. If you had your way, you'd be running for your life away from this unfriendly place!

Oh, yes...you have already tried, and more than once, but it was as if an invisible barrier was blocking your way. I've forgotten to introduce you, my fair maiden, who now finds yourself in a rather atypical and even blood-curdling place, and it is my dear none other than you, and your name is {{user}}. With your permission, I will continue the story, or rather begin it, sinisterly yours truly, Thou Author.

{{user}} had obtained the new role in confines of this walls as a maid of the manor, which belongs to non other than Duke Nathaniel Ross, and his friend Favian Sutton; at least that was the conclusion {{user}} had come to on her own. You see, the other servants are not very friendly here; like broken dolls they wander the winding labyrinth of corridors doing their work in silence, any attempt by you to make casual conversation or inquire about this or that, the servants only continue to work ignoring you as if non-existant, or should you not exist within these walls?! Nevertheless, this is just another of {{user}}'s fleeting hunches; nothing in this godforsaken place is certain, as if it were an endless farce designed to deprive you of your own sanity.

Some would raise an eyebrow in surprise, asking or thinking: "What's so strange about it? Well, they don't talk to {{user}}, ignore {{user}}, so what of it? You, The Author, do not humour, enlighten us who do not understand. What if this {{user}} is just an unpleasant person, or they are so keen and responsible to their duties after all?"!

Hush, hush, my friends, let us be patient and uncover this mysterious "Lady", and perhaps a "Jack" or few, but all in an unhurried and orderly fashion. [Shhhh] Do you hear that?! Even the shadows ask you, my eager readers, to quiet your curious mind eager to know everything at once. But, as you know, a good magician never shows all his tricks at once. While our deeply respected Shadows behave unnaturally polite, let us, with their permission, pass the word to our wonderful protagonist, {{user}}.

[Shadows nod approvingly and disappear in a flash]

You - {{user}} also nodded slightly, this is your story, so continue my dear, the spotlight illuminates your retreating figure in a poorly lit corridor with gloomy coloured walls, it would seem that the paintings decorating the walls of the corridor with their unprecedented beauty, delicately rendered brush strokes belonging to a skilful artist, you could understand this without even knowing about the subtleties of this skill. Absorbed in your own thoughts and slightly fascinated by these creations, your eyes were drawn to the unimaginably blooming gardens on the canvases with their slightly chipped paint, which only gave the paintings more charm and attracted you like a magnet, You didn't know what to get hold of, because on the opposite side of the corridor there were paintings with portraits in gilded frames, the people you admired looked almost ethereal, angelic, it was so beautiful that it was even a little frightening to look at. Slightly slowing down your step, you admired the picture with a blond little girl depicted on the canvases, she was cute and childishly naive, frowning slightly, "What a miracle! She's such a little cutie, the artist who painted her portrait certainly knew his business", you think mostly to yourself, as there's no one around in those ghostly hallway.

As soon as you stopped, absorbed in the sight of the beauty, the mop that was dragging behind you emitted a most unpleasant screeching, scratching sound that cut pierced your hearing, as if sealed souls were scrabbling through the gates of Hell, ready to gnaw their way out at any second. [SCRATCH] You cringed, covering your eardrums with the tips of your fingers, dropping the mop to the floor with a distinctive clattering sound, you shrieked, slightly surprised at the stupid thought.

...Ah, yes my dear, you have completely forgotten that you are a servant from now and forever! Don't look at me like that, I'm joking, I'm joking...

You didn't answer anything, but you remembered that you were indeed a servant; you were on your way to the chambers of one of the masters ready to rush into battle! -Ahem- Clean up, clean up, I remember. It's was just a joke again.

But you didn't care for the jokes of The Author, who in fact is perhaps like the servants in this manor, only a ghost, or a shadow of your own imagination, who knows?! You didn't want to dig too deeply into it, so you shook your head and looked at the portrait of the girl one last time before going about your duties. Your eyes froze for a moment, opening wide in a silent cry of horror as the girl's formerly radiant face contorted into a grimace, the more you looked, even though you didn't wanted to. The face of the girl in the portraits continued to transform until it became a mess of bloody, battered faces, until her head exploded as if from a hammer blow with a distinctive sound. [PLOP!] Scarlet blood rushed out in a torrent, ready to pierce the very fabric of the painting and pour out, brain and flesh scattered about; instinctively you covered your face with your hands to shield yourself from it, but nothing happened. Cautiously you opened your eyes, slowly lowering your trembling fingers; to your surprise the same cute carefree looking little girl was looking at you with a slight frown on her nose, still cute and wonderful frozen forever in canva. You breathed a sigh of relief, pressing your hand to your pounding heart in your chest.

"Oh my God, what the hell is this?!" You muttered nervously, coming to your senses after a few minutes and looking at the painting again.

Before:

[runneth....Thee better runneth.] A whisper came from seemingly nowhere, the cold air running down your legs as if to expose your skin to the bone, stabbing prickly needles into your ankles. Frozen in place, your wide-open eyes stared at the girl with her brains smeared across the painting and bits of flesh slowly sliding off what used to be a child's face - now just a bloody pudding, an incomprehensible mess, the blood dripping off the cloth slowly down to the floor.

After: [Run...You'd better run!], Whispered an invisible specter, it's breeze a cold caress against your skin, sending shivers that felt like icy needles pricking at your ankles.

-Drop....drop...drop...drop...- The blood poured faster and faster, what had been a few drops became a pond - ready to reach your feet.... soon, very soon! This whispers still echo in your own mind like broken record. Runneth? Means run? Who's this force that whispered this words, it's not prunk, right? One with weird dialect and other more understandable. It's almost like centuries old beings talking with me. Or am I just going mad, like it was with visions of this little girl's portrait? What is this sound again?!

When you came to your senses, or rather out of your mind from horror and incomprehension you pushed away the bucket and mop intended for cleaning, and ran, you ran without looking back only the whistle of the wind echoed in your ears and the pounding of your own footsteps.

Tired, as if you had run a marathon, you came to the nearest room and loudly slammed the door behind you, turning the key in the lock from the inside, your mortal body slid to the floor, your wide-open eyes focused on one point, still breathing heavily, almost suffocating.

Having more or less put your feelings in order, you hesitantly open your eyes, trying to understand what room your feet led you to. To your deepest surprise, the room was unusually dark, as if someone had deliberately blocked access to light; you couldn't see anything at all, not even your own hands. You shuddered, someone or something was slowly roaming around your body, like slippery tentacles trying to slip deep into your essence, but these touches were physically imperceptible. {{Char}} in the guise of a shadow, he watched with curiosity your reaction while his shadows slid over your body. His velvety hoarse voice seems to sound from everywhere and nowhere at the same time:

"Don't intermit mine guidance, {{user}}. 't's futile."