15 Out of The Lores

Everything had gone eerily still.

Her body was no longer hers, but that of a frightened soul too afraid to move. There was a wave of pure terror pooling in her gut.

The hazy air grew dense.

But in the darkness of the mansion, she saw shadows shift, forming a massive creature with abyss for eyes and a grin growing wide.

She staggered out of the mansion and the creature grinned wider as the shadows spread and swallowed everything―leaving the world a black void with nothing else but her standing in the middle of nowhere.

'What is happening?' 

Her breaths were strained and heavy, echoing in the overbearing silence as a sense of dread weighed over her heart. The unbearable ache returned to her mind, and Alyssane was desperate to break free from the clutches of this nightmare.

But she couldn't.

Like a hollow marionette, she was dragged deeper inside something she could not name, something she could not comprehend. Whispers, like distant voices began to fill the void, mingling with her disoriented thoughts.

"Can you help me please?"

The voice, soft yet haunting, buried out a memory.

It was a stormy night, the winds howled like tormented beasts slamming the windows so hard they seemed to be on the verge of breaking. Alyssane tried to close them shut, but they refused her every effort.

Then, she felt someone enter the room. 

"Can you help me please?" she had asked, her voice low and trembling.

His silhouette was a mystery in the darkened room as he moved towards her. The crisp sharpness of clothes brushed against her skin when he effortlessly shut the window―abruptly silencing the storm. 

Alyssane sighed in relief.

Her hands still shaking from the struggle and the cold. She glanced at him, silent. He did not move, nor did he say anything as her eyes searched for some signs of familiarity.

'You are not from here…' 

But as the realization slowly weighed over her, Alyssane's face fell white. He was a ghost from another life, one she had forgotten long ago, one she dared not unearth.

She took a step back, tears filling her eyes.

He stiffened, trying to say something but his words failed him.

The silence stretched between them, filled only the feeble creaking of the window and the distant crying of the restless rain.

"Leave," Alyssane whispered, her voice barely above a breath yet it was too loud in the emptiness surrounding them.

He hesitated, reaching out towards her but froze she flinched, and her heart ached as she gazed into his eyes filled with regret.

"Leave!" Her voice was laced with a cold unbridled rage.

Alyssane woke up from the dream, her heart racing and her body drenched in cold sweat. She could still feel him that close to her, it sent a shuddering chill down her spine.

'Why did you have to find me, Vernon?'

She lay in the bed for a long time. Her mind was numb from the remnants of the dream. The glimpses of that strange mansion, the creature dwelling within, and him… they refused to fade away.

A small frown forms over her lips as Alyssane recalls the words of the knight who had interrupted the morning meal.

"It's about the mansion…something terrible had happened!"

He was extremely nervous and unsettled, and the news had made Kazmun's expression darken in an instant. 

In her dream, Alyssane had seen his knights near the strange mansion. 

"They are linked..." she murmured, blinking her eyes in confusion. But what would the creature of the shadows entail? There are no inhumane monsters outside the storybooks.

But slowly everything else was falling into place, overlapping with the reality she now lived.

A wave of fear and worry washed over Alyssane. Why would she suddenly remember a memory with Vernon? 

Her heart sank as a dreadful answer presented itself. "Perhaps that mansion belonged to Vernon..."

'Something might have happened to him.'

She was too afraid to find out.

One thing, however, was becoming increasingly clear.

Somehow, Alyssane was seeing through time. Was it visions or something else entirely? She could not be sure.

But it left a new unease inside her. 

'Why is it happening? Why me?'

Everything suddenly seemed stranger, as if she hardly knew the world she had lived in… something out of lores had become true for her.

'What if something worse comes to life?'

'What if it already had...?'

There were too many possibilities.

With a deep breath, Alyssane pushed herself off the bed, her legs were weak and unsteady. She hesitantly reaches out to touch her face.

Her fingers returned red.