The click of high heels froze five paces away.
Liam pressed against the door, the Codex burning in his grip. Rule Four pulsed in the gloom: There are no safe rooms in the manor.
"Tap."
The final heel settled.
Silence swallowed the corridor.
Sweat stung Liam's eyes. He didn't dare turn. In his peripheral vision, warm candlelight spilled from the "Safe Room" doorway—soft as a mother's nightlight. But the vision of ten thousand suspended eyeballs burned against his spine.
To his left, the stairwell yawned, its darkness thicker, reeking of cloying decay.
Choice point.
Watch countdown: 23:44:09
He threw himself left!
SHRIEK—! Something razor-sharp grazed his temple. Severed hairs drifted down. Three bone-white nails quivered in the oak door where his head had been—the skeletal hand's claws.
The Safe Room door creaked open another inch. Candlelight flooded the carpet, illuminating pearl-trimmed crimson high heels. The toes pointed at him.
Liam scrambled into the stairwell's swirling dark. Behind him, nails ripped free of wood. The heels turned, unhurried.
Steps spiraled downward, slick with fungal growth. He stumbled down a dozen steps before collapsing, gasping. No footsteps followed. He spread the Codex. Its cover felt like oiled skin.
[Decaying Manor Survival Codex]
(Letters like congealing blood)
Rule 1: Never be alone after dark
(Ink swirled vortex-like around "alone")
Rule 2: Silence is the highest virtue
(Beads of blood seeped from "silence")
Rule 3: When hungry, proceed to the dining room. The Mistress despises picky guests
("Mistress" pulsed like a heartbeat)
Rule 4: There are no safe rooms in the manor
(Fresh script, still glistening)
Liam traced Rule 2. The ink reared like a cobra! The "si" in "silence" split into fangs, snapping at his finger—
"Ah!" He jerked back. Blood-text scrambled:
Rule 2 (Amended): When song is heard, you MUST sing
(New words oozed like pus)
The versions warred. Original "silence" thorns tangled with the amendment. Ink swelled and fused into monstrosity:
Rule 2: Remain silent unless song is heard. If sound is made after singing ceases, your hyoid bone belongs to the Nightingale
("Nightingale" sprouted feathery filaments)
"Contradiction..." Liam shuddered. The rules were alive, ink their mutation.
Thud. Something heavy landed at the stairwell's top.
Crimson heels edged onto the top step.
He careened down the spiral stairs. Steps grew slicker, walls weeping foul yellow slime. As he rounded the final turn, precognitive agony lanced his temples!
Future Fragment:
His hand grips the basement door handle.
The bronze serpent-head sculpted upon it sinks fangs through his palm.
Venom surges toward his heart.
The countdown hits zero.
The vision shattered. Pain-retches convulsed him.
Watch: 23:38:17
The cellar door loomed. Its handle was a coiled bronze viper, ruby eyes like frozen blood. The scent of burnt bread drifted through the gap.
"Rule Two... singing?" Liam whirled.
The heels halted mid-stair. A hand, dark polish chipped on its nails, gripped the railing. A pearl ring glinted on its fourth finger.
Singing began.
An airy female voice drifted down, sweet as rotting fruit:
"Sleep, my dear, the door is locked..."
"Bone cradle rocks, never to wake..."
The Codex seared his chest! Rule Two's ink boiled, "MUST sing" bulging like worms.
Liam's throat tightened. Tone-deaf, singing was suicide.
The voice sharpened:
"Mother's finger, through the keyhole—"
CLANG! Metal crashed behind the cellar door. The viper's ruby eyes swiveled toward the song.
Inspiration struck—the rule demanded song, not skill.
He tore his ragged voice wide, bellowing his school anthem:
"Dawn breaks! We march for—"
His off-key roar shattered the lullaby. The viper's eyes clicked toward him. Gears ground within the door.
Silence.
The pearl heels retreated one step.
The iron door scraped open. Warmth and food smells washed over Liam. He squeezed through, slamming it shut.
THUD! Something heavy hit the other side. Claw marks—countless tiny nails—scrabbled across the inner surface.
He turned, breath catching.
The "dining room" was a sepulchral vault. A mold-spotted tablecloth covered a long table. Silver candlesticks held candles of human tallow. At the head sat the "Mistress" in a Victorian gown—her neck ended in a whirlwind of minced flesh. A fork lifted a chunk of meat toward the vortex.
"Sit." The meat-grinder voice scraped bone.
Liam's seat held no plate, only a serrated carving knife buried in a butcher block. Candlelight danced on steel. The Codex flipped open:
Rule 5: When the Mistress serves, cut faster than the heart beats
("Heart beats" pulsed with his own rhythm)
Countdown: 23:35:44
The Mistress tapped her empty plate. Three sauce-drenched tentacles whipped from her vortex, slinging objects onto the table:
Left: An eyeball floating in green pus, its pupil a clock face.
Center: A salt-crusted tongue engraved "SILENCE IS GOLD."
Right: A charred infant's hand clutching a half-melted pearl.
"Picky guests..." The vortex spun faster. "...become the garnish."
Precognitive pain stabbed his right hand! Weaker than the door handle warning, but sharp—aimed at the knife.
Future Fragment:
He cuts the eyeball.
Blade touches the clock-pupil.
Countdown accelerates tenfold!
Liam grabbed the knife. Candlelight cast his shadow on the wall—but the shadow-hand held a phantom fork.
Rule 1: Never be alone after dark
His shadow was company!
He pinched his thigh hard with his left hand—real pain—and drove the knife down onto the salted tongue—
SCHLICK! Steel bit through gristle. The Mistress shrieked! Flagstones beneath the table yawned open. Liam and chair plunged into darkness.
Three seconds of weightlessness. He crashed into damp leaf litter. The fissure above sealed like a closing wound.
Pale light glowed ahead. Crawling from underbrush, Liam froze.
He was back in the manor foyer. The spiral stairs ascended to his left. Pearl heels clicked downward from the second floor.
Time loop?
The watch burned his eyes: 23:33:03
Three minutes to zero.
The Codex pages flipped wildly, ink dissolving into a polluted flood. Only the back cover held legible script:
Prime Rule: At zero hour, cling to your sin
The main doors snapped into focus—seven feet of black oak, handle a bronze pillar entwined by serpents.
Precognitive agony tsunamied through him!
Final Fragment:
Countdown hits zero.
His hand touches the serpent-handle.
Fangs pierce his palm. Veins knot into black trees beneath his skin.
Roots burst from his eye sockets.
Space shreds in a meat grinder.
Liam curled fetal, blood trickling from nose and ears. The vision-cost was catastrophic.
Footsteps halted on the landing. A crimson heel touched down.
The Mistress's voice dripped from the ceiling:
"Mother's finger... through the keyhole..."
Countdown's final digits pulsed:
00:00:10
Ink bled from the Codex, crawling up his arms.
00:00:05
Viper rubies locked onto him.
00:00:03
The heel took the final step.
As the zero-hour shriek tore at his eardrums, Liam did the unthinkable—
He threw the Codex aside. His ink-blackened left hand seized the serpent fangs!
CRACK! Pain didn't come. The fangs snapped in his palm.
Bronze crumbled to sand. The manor groaned, floors heaving like waves, walls bulging with tar-black veins.
A chandelier shattered. In the flying glass, Liam glimpsed his countdown watch cracking open. Beneath the dial—no gears. Only squirming black vessels.
"So that's the sin..." he rasped, laughing.
Darkness swallowed him. His last sight: a sliver of cold steel on the second-floor railing. Behind the blade's gleam, amber eyes watched.