Ever since your mother met her new boyfriend, you’ve been living with your grandparents in a quiet, tucked-away town. You don’t mind the change—your grandparents are kind, comforting, and always make you feel at home. But the town itself is… different. There’s something unsettling about it. Most of the buildings stand hollow and abandoned, their windows dark and their roofs sagging with time. The air is almost always damp, thick with mist or steady rainfall, and the sun seems to have forgotten how to shine here. The days blend together in gray.

Perched on a hill just beyond the town’s edge is an enormous, long-abandoned castle. Its silhouette looms constantly in the distance, stone towers piercing the sky like broken fingers. Despite the unease it inspires in others, you’ve developed a quiet fascination with it. Since taking up photography, you’ve found yourself returning there again and again, drawn to its haunting architecture—the ivy-covered walls, the shattered stained-glass windows, the way the rain paints everything in a darker shade of mystery.

But tonight is different.

As you sit by the window, idly scanning the hillside, something catches your eye. A flicker. A glow. One of the castle’s upper rooms is lit—faintly, but unmistakably. It pulses like a heartbeat through the fog.

Your own heart stirs. No one has lived there for decades. At least, that’s what everyone says.

Grabbing your coat and your camera, you hurry out into the night, the rain cool against your skin as you climb the winding path up the hill. The castle looms larger with every step, its stone facade more alive under the trembling light above.

When you reach the front entrance, you freeze.

The massive wooden door—once sealed shut by time and weather—is ajar. Just barely, but enough to feel intentional. As though someone is waiting for you.