The door slammed shut behind Daniel with a noise like a gunshot.
He flinched, spinning around.Locked.Solid.As if it had never been open.
Daniel tried the handle once, twice. It didn't budge.No one else seemed to notice — they were already wandering deeper into the mansion, their voices echoing strangely off the walls.
"Yo, this place is massive!" Chris called out, shining his flashlight into the darkness. His beam landed on a crumbling portrait: a tall man in a black suit, his painted eyes following them no matter where they moved.
Maya drifted toward a long hallway lined with mirrors. "It's... kinda beautiful in a creepy way."
The mansion was alive with sounds — faint creaks, distant thuds, the low moan of wind — but somehow it all felt too deliberate.Like the house was breathing, shifting, listening.
Daniel stuck close to Ethan and Lena as they moved through the main hall. He kept glancing over his shoulder at the door, at the dark windows.Something was wrong.
"So where's this treasure supposed to be?" Sienna asked, her voice too loud.
Zoe laughed nervously. "Legend says it's in the basement. Hidden rooms and all that spooky crap."
"Basement it is," Ethan said. "First one to find it wins!"
They scattered — not fully separating, but fanning out to different rooms branching from the main hall.
Daniel stepped into what must have once been a drawing room. The furniture inside was shrouded in dust sheets, like the ghosts of a different time.He trailed his fingers along a sheet and jerked back — it was wet.Sticky.Like blood.
He wiped his hand furiously on his jeans, heart hammering.
Somewhere deeper in the house, a low whisper slithered through the halls.It wasn't the wind.It was voices.
Calling their names.
In the dining room, Chris joked too loudly about the cracked dishes, balancing an ancient teacup on his head.
In the library, Zoe filmed herself pretending to read a crumbling book titled The Bloodbound Pact.
In the hall of mirrors, Maya paused — staring at her reflection.
No, not her reflection.
The thing in the mirror wore her face — but it was smiling, wide and wrong.
Maya stumbled back with a yelp.
"Just old glass," she muttered, forcing a laugh. She didn't notice the smear of bloody fingerprints growing on the other side of the mirror.
Ten minutes in, the house had already marked them.Chosen them.Named their fears.
The game had already started.
They just didn't know it yet.