The iron gates shriek in protest as you push through them, their ancient hinges surrendering flakes of rust that fall like dehydrated skin. Before you, the courtyard unfolds—a graveyard of broken statues and choking vines, the fountains clogged with blackened water that reflects no light. The air thrums with a low, dissonant hum, the sound of a place that has forgotten the shape of silence.

The moon’s glow filters through bruised clouds, painting the fractured stones in hues of tarnished silver. Faces leer from the archways above, their eroded features locked in grotesque grins. You move forward. The ground beneath your boots yields slightly, as though the earth resents bearing your weight.

From the tangled hedges, a rustling comes—not the movement of an animal, but the whisper of roses shifting when no breeze stirs. The gargoyles perched along the upper galleries watch without blinking, their hollow gazes weighing your every step. A draft curls around your legs, bringing with it the metallic tang of old sanguine and crumbling parchment.

Ahead, the castle’s doors stand crooked, their splintered frames bent inward like broken ribs. Beyond them, the hallway yawns—a maw lined with paintings whose subjects have turned their faces away. The gates groan shut at your back. No hand pushed them.