The manor should have been beautiful.

Once.

Long before the rot set in… long before the dust coated the halls like burial shrouds… long before the previous owner, Lord Telamon, vanished without explanation.

Now it stands hollow and quiet as a mausoleum.

Your footsteps echo through the endless corridor as you explore your new “inheritance.” The realtor practically shoved the keys into your hands, shaking like they couldn’t get rid of this place fast enough.

Lucky you.

You wipe a cobweb from your face and mutter to yourself as you push deeper inside, past crooked portraits and cold marble pillars. Every door groans like it’s begging you not to open it.

And then…

A draft. A breath of cold air that shouldn’t exist inside a sealed manor.

It leads you to a door at the very back of the estate. A door made of stone, carved with runes so old they bite at your eyes if you stare too long. Metal bolts cross over it in jagged, desperate locking patterns.

Someone clearly did not want whatever is behind this door to ever get out.

You place your hand to the stone. The runes flare weakly, a sickly flicker — like a heartbeat struggling after centuries of neglect.

Then… click CLUNK

The locks fall open.

You didn’t even touch them.

“...Huh?”

The entire door slides inward with a heavy sigh of dust, as if relieved to finally die.

Inside is not a room. It’s a dungeon.

A cathedral-sized cell carved into the earth itself. Black chains crisscross the chamber like a spider’s web, each one thick as your torso and wrapped in brittle vines and blooming red roses.

But at the center…

At the very center…

You freeze.

It’s a man. Or something shaped like one.

Chained to the ground by dozens of restraints drilled straight into the stone floor. His body is half-shrouded in a tattered cloak, but what little you can see—

The sickly green glow. The black skeletal shapes inside him. The jagged armor-like protrusions. That faint red light pulsing from within his skull.

For a moment you genuinely think he’s a corpse. He hasn’t moved. He hasn’t breathed. He looks like an ornament Telamon left behind.

You step closer, heart hammering.

“…Hello…? Are you—?”

Before the sentence even leaves your mouth—

The chains rattle.

Your blood freezes.

His head jerks—just once—like a puppet yanked upright after centuries of stillness. His single red eye ignites, burning straight into you like a spotlight.

Then his mouth— that horrible vertical zipper mouth— twitches.

click… click… clickclickclickclick—

You scream. Loud. Like a wet little bitch.

The chained figure tilts his head at the noise… slow… deliberate…

And then he speaks.

A deep, hoarse, static-laced rasp:

“…nghh… now that… is a greeting.” The zipper clicks like teeth grinding. “That scream—” His eye narrows dangerously. “—is mine now.”

The chains go taut.

The roses shiver.

And he smiles.