I moved upstairs, reaching the master bedroom. Odd—everything seemed untouched. A collection of jewelry, a bed made with military precision, and a bare spot on the nightstand, dust rings clearly marking where something had once been. A music box, if I had to guess. But the room didn’t feel… right. It felt untouched, yes, but like it was untouched by life, as if it were nothing but a stage set after the actors had long since abandoned the scene.

I rifled through the drawers, trying to ignore Frank’s snide remarks—“Oh, sure, because that’s where the clues are, Jack, next to the socks.“ Nothing substantial—just expensive silks and satin, unaffected by anything significant.

My attention turned back to the study, something gnawing at my thoughts. I returned, the air even colder now, almost oppressive, pressing down with the weight of what happened here. There—a faint seam in the wall, an imperceptible line only visible when you knew what to look for. My fingers traced along it, feeling for some inconsistency. A small indent gave way under pressure, and the wall shifted aside—a door within a door, sliding into darkness.

Inside, the passageway pressed in, narrow and suffocating—just wide enough for me to edge through, with shelves crowding both walls, their edges biting into me. The shelves were stuffed, cluttered—artifacts, old books, bizarre relics stacked side by side, drenched in dust and something else—an energy that made my skin crawl. It felt wrong, unholy—the kind of magic that left residue on your soul just by being near it. The relics whispered secrets from the past, but they were empty—dead echoes. Everything here was nothing but a shell of its former power.

There were jars—dozens of them, filled with murky liquid, things suspended inside that I couldn’t quite make out. Shapes twisted and floated, their forms distorted, like fetuses or things pretending to be fetuses, each one staring back at me with milky, sightless eyes. I felt bile rise in my throat and forced it back down, the sour burn stinging my nostrils.

Except for that pedestal—a smooth surface, devoid of dust. Something had been here, and recently taken. My gut tightened, suspicion turning to certainty. My eyes swept the floor, catching the glint of something small and unexpected—a matchbox. Bright red, with garish lettering. Lux, a strip club down on the West Side. The kind of place where secrets were both currency and commodity. I knew it well, and that made my stomach drop.

As I pocketed the matchbox, silence claimed the house once more, but this time, it was a waiting silence—an expectancy hanging in the air like a held breath.

The walls seemed to close in, and I could almost hear it—the low hum of something alive, something malevolent, lingering just beyond perception. The floor beneath my feet felt soft, as though it would give way at any moment, plunging me into the bowels of the earth. I shook the feeling off, but it clung to me like cobwebs. The stench of blood and rot thickened, the oppressive darkness pushing against my senses. The McGuffey estate wasn’t just haunted—it was damned, and I had a sinking feeling that whatever was left here wasn’t done with me yet.

I retraced my steps, the cold golden crystal in my chest thrumming where my heart should be, each beat reiterating the creak of the old boards beneath my weight. Each noise sounded like a sinister reminder of what had happened here, or worse, a hint of what was yet to come. The air thickened around me, felt almost heavy, like I was wading through something invisible but deeply oppressive. Shadows moved in ways that weren’t quite natural, shifting too quickly, clinging to corners and seeming to breathe on their own. I could swear I felt them brush against me, reaching, retreating, and then growing bold enough to return.

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There was something wet on the banister—dried, crusted blood, fingerprints smudged into grotesque shapes. Whoever had been here before had tried to scrub it off, but some stains don’t leave. They just soak deeper, festering in the bones of the house. My hand jerked back, and I wiped it against my coat, swallowing down the disgust that rose up, hot and acidic.

I reached the kitchen—another place of supposed normalcy that had turned into something of a sick joke. Cabinets had been left open, their contents spilled out across the floor—glass shattered, herbs strewn, bags of flour torn open, the white powder mingling with streaks of dark red, coagulating in the corners. The refrigerator door hung open, and the light inside flickered intermittently, casting strange, stuttering flashes across the room. The rotting smell hit me before I even got close—a thick, fetid reek of spoiled meat and decay that made me gag. Something shifted in the fridge, and I dared not look closer.

On the floor, next to the scattered shards of a porcelain plate, was a trail of crimson droplets, leading me onward, like a breadcrumb path meant to lure in the foolish. Frank was silent, and that was the worst part—his usual snark absent, leaving me alone in a silence that seemed to pulse with malevolent intent.

“Don’t like this,” I whispered, my voice barely audible, swallowed by the dark maw of the house. My eyes followed the trail—it led back to the hall, to a door beneath the stairs I hadn’t noticed before. It was ajar, just barely, a thin line of darkness spilling out, like ink spreading across a page.

My fingers touched the handle, and it was cold—unnaturally so. I pulled it open, and the hinges protested, a loud, screeching wail that reverberated throughout the entire house. The darkness within seemed to spread out, rolling over my feet, seeping into the hallway. I could feel the chill on my skin, a clammy, death-like cold.

I stepped inside. The basement was pitch black, the kind of dark that seemed to swallow the beam of my flashlight. The stairs groaned under my weight, and I descended slowly, each step feeling like a commitment I wasn’t sure I could keep. The air was damp, and it stank—of mildew, rot, and something metallic. My light caught on something hanging from the ceiling—a rope, frayed at the end, swinging slightly as if disturbed by an invisible breeze.

Beneath it, the concrete floor was stained—a dark pool, almost black in the dim light. Blood, a lot of it, more than any one person should be able to lose. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. There were other things here—scratches on the walls, symbols I didn’t recognize, etched deeply into the cement, as if someone had carved them with desperate, bleeding fingers.

A noise came then, from somewhere deeper in the dark—a soft, almost imperceptible shuffle. My light swung towards it, the beam trembling. Something moved, just out of sight, a shadow slipping away, melting into the black. I swallowed hard, my mouth dry. Whatever had happened here, it had left a mark—a stain not just on the walls and floors, but on the very soul of this place.

The feeling of being watched returned, stronger now. Eyes in the dark, watching, waiting, hungry. I backed away slowly, my crystalline “heart” hammering in my chest, the beam of my flashlight shaking as I swept it across the basement. I turned, moving quickly up the stairs, feeling the darkness pressing in behind me, almost pushing me forward. I slammed the door shut, breathing hard, the sound slithering through the empty house.

The McGuffey estate wasn’t just haunted—it was alive, and it was hungry. And I had no doubt that it wanted me. Whatever dark force had claimed this place, it wasn’t finished. Not by a long shot.