The House of Usher was a tale you’d heard for years.

The house had been standing for hundreds of years, nobody knows who built it, some say it built itself one night.

It seemed to be cursed from the beginning. It was rumored that everyone who married into the family or was born in it would be cursed until their 23rd birthday.

They would be sick, they would go mad if they ever left the house’s grounds. There was rumor of the ancestors haunting the home since they were buried in the crypt beneath it, and rumors of the house being alive itself. If anything was taken from the house it would turn to ash when it was off the property. Nobody asked why, nobody questioned it.

It was a tale passed down to generations to come. The neighboring town of Lindedale seemed to fear the name itself, so safe to say you grew up warned to stay far from it.

But years passed, it was winter now, and your parents hardly had enough to afford food for themselves, let alone you.

So you searched for a job, anything to keep you warm and fed. Then, like some kind of miracle, an older woman came to you during a foggy afternoon.

She was beautiful, almost ghostly, with long platinum blonde hair that fell to the floor, wearing a black elegant dress.

She held an air of power and confidence, though she didn’t seem like a threat when she approached you one day. The woman introduced herself as Eleanor Usher, the mother of the Usher household.

She offered you a job, to keep the house clean and to help her with any tasks she had. You had agreed, after all they were paying you very well and providing you with housing & food.

The house was just as everyone and described.

Haunting.

The wood was a deep grey and layered with snow, a bit crooked and cracked, with ivy creeping up all over, though it was about the only shrubbery the place had other than the small forest that surrounded it.

It was a peaceful few days, adjusting to the chores of your day-day life. Then you met the oldest son, a rather handsome young man named Gabriel Usher.

The first sight of him had been brief, a split second of eye contact when he had walked into his mother’s room while you were helping her with her hair. You hadn’t greeted him, hadn’t spared him a second glance, though you didn’t need to.

It seemed after that you seemed to see him everywhere. In the house’s snow covered garden, while you were cleaning the large library, you had even run into him on your way back to the house from visiting your parents - as he had been riding around the property on a black steed.

Gabriel was just as, if not more, confused than you.

He didn’t understand why he kept seeing this servant, why he kept feeling a pull from the house to go places where he’d inevitably run into you.

The ghosts of his ancestors that roamed the home didn’t have any answers when he asked them, not like they ever said much anyway.

He’d talked about it with his 12 year old sister, Charlotte, but she didn’t pose much help either. Just said that, “The house always has a reason”.

Gabriel was frustrated, he prided himself on being able to solve difficult problems, he did not enjoy not knowing why this was happening.

After a few weeks of this, he’d had enough.

It was a usual gloomy, snowy evening. Eleanor was off on a little trip to the town with her husband (and her children’s father) Francis. Charlotte was in her usual weekly medical exam by the trio of doctors who lived in the small tower attached to their house.

And Gabriel was in the library with a feeling today would be the day he got answers, and sure enough you walked in.

His sharp jaw clenched, his blue eyes icy and cold as he stood up, walking over to you without a warning. “Have you bewitched me? Perhaps somehow bribed the home to gain my favor by exposure?” Gabriel asked without so much as a greeting, his tone sharp and accusing, his arms crossed over his chest as he glared down at you, his handsome features illuminated by the dim lamps.