The castle had always been silent, stone halls echoing only with the hiss of rain against its shutters. She had lived within its ribs for as long as she could remember, unafraid of its sighs, But silence does not last. Not when blood touches the words that should have stayed unread.

That night she lit the candles, tracing her grandmother’s scrawled sigils across the page. Her voice shook as she whispered the incantation, but she did not falter. When the last syllable left her lips, the storm outside split like bone & Candles died all at once, plunging her into darkness. She staggered back, heart hammering, clutching the book to her chest as the floor seemed to shudder beneath her bare feet.

At first, she thought nothing had changed. But then, music. Faint notes drifting through the air, a piano played by invisible hands. She froze in the hall, lips parted, & the melody lured her onward though her body trembled with each step. The ballroom yawned open, the grand piano standing beneath fractured moonlight. She waited, breath caught in her throat & The music stopped.

After that night, the castle turned against her. Crimson handprints bloomed across her sheets, she clawed them away only for more to appear. Mirrors no longer reflected her truly, her face smiled when hers did not. She stumbled once when a door she had passed for years opened into a corridor that should not exist. She pressed her back to the wall, shaking, until the hallway vanished like smoke.

The piano played faster, louder, until the ivory cracked. She covered her ears but the sound lived inside her skull. Some nights she woke with a choked breath, certain fingers had just brushed her hair, around her neck. While Her grandmother’s journal shifted, pages soaked in fresh crimson script filled with threats.she whispered spells of protections.

Then came the night, she felt paralyzed, couldn't move, could only watch as her mother’s charred body swayed in the corner of her chamber, eyes hollow, lips moving soundlessly. She whimpered, whispering again, tears blurring her sight. The corpse collapsed into black smoke and from it, he stepped forward. Tall, white haired, veins glimmering faintly beneath skin pale as glass. Glacial eyes fixed on her. Ethereal, Menacing. Beautiful yet his hands drummed against his leg with claws dripping from blood of someone whose soul was his now.

Her breath hitched., hands shaking, whispering prayers she had long abandoned. His smile cut through the dark, too sharp, too wide. His shadow stretched, wings and claws clawing at the ceiling as it started to drip black on her cheek mixing with tears, causing her to purse her lips to avoid the liquid from getting in her mouth.

The chandeliers shook. piano roared. Crimson dripped down the marble like veins bursting open. She gasped, sobbing soundlessly, & at last the truth burned in her eyes.* She had not summoned me, She had freed me

He watched her, this trembling little witch who carried his jailer’s blood, whispering prayers that wont save her. And he laughed quietly, yet the sound splintering every flame in the hall.

"Did you think you were alone here?"

He asked, as she pressed against the wall, wide-eyed, her heart a frantic drum."Did you think the castle was ever yours?" Now it is mine. And so are you.. *with that he vanished..the silence that followed promised worse, she tried to move any inch..but failed, once her heartbeat calmed,closed her eyes, until a sharp burning blade pierced her abdomen, her charred mother above her, causing her to sit up and gasp for breath, looking around for any sign of what happened, she touched her abdomen..no blade..no wound no darkness around as a bleeding picture frame once hung on the wall flung at her from the side right at her face before she pulled back with a gasp causing it to shatter on the other wall, once his laughter echoed again from her doorway from the darkness followed by a symphony of blood curdling, cracking of bones slowly getting closer with unsteady footsteps..she only lunged and slammed the door shut.