The air within Blackwood Manor was dense with a weight that Eleanor could almost reach out and slice through; an invisible pressure that weighed heavily on her chest with each shallow breath. Shadows quivered against the dingy walls as the rickety old floor groaned under the cautious tread of the party. The oppressive silence of the mansion was broken only by the far-off chime of a clock, grimly reminding everyone that time still passed in a house regions away from it.

Eleanor’s knuckles were white on the battered satchel strap as her fingers gripped it like a lifeline, eyes sharp in the dim hallway. Her thoughts spun, playing back every whispered warning Agnes Blackwood had given that afternoon: the curse worked into the very bones of the estate; names spoken in a dark time by voices long forgotten; and promises that the past never truly dies here.

Next to her, Marcus Flynn adjusted his camera with a studied indifference, skepticism only the surface for the unease she suspected drew closer underneath. “You actually believe this place has something to do with Sarah’s disappearance? he whispered, his voice hardly rippling the heavy air.

Eleanor’s gaze hardened. “If that doesn’t do it, what does? Sarah vanished inside these walls. Logic does not cover that, Marcus.

Lily Chambers, owl-eyed as always and holding tight to a small audio recorder, looked nervously up the hallway. “It’s as if the house is alive. Like it’s watching us.”

A shiver coursed through Eleanor. The teenager’s words echoed her own unvoiced concerns. But it wasn’t just the house. It’s what lurked below the surface — the echoes, the whispers, things too awful to say, but impossible not to hear.

Then Thomas Grayson emerged, from a side door as smoothly as if he held sway over the secrets of the manor. His face was inscrutable, his dark eyes shining with an unspoken understanding. “You are stepping where you shouldn’t,” he said softly, his voice rough with warning.

We still needa to know what happened to Sarah,” Eleanor said, taking a step forward. “And if what Agnes said is real and the curse is real, we solve it.”

Thomas hesitated, then nodded once. “Be ready. The past won't stay buried, and at Blackwood Manor, it hungers.

The group continued to walk on further into the bowels of the old house’s depth, here light gave way to shadows and it got even colder. And every step seemed to bring them closer somehow, some way, something restless, waiting for them to unravel its dark history.

Dr. Samuel Whitaker, who had also come the night before because ‘he was considering preparing a paper on how fear affected human behaviour in isolated settings’ whispered to Eleanor as he fussed with his notepad. “The brain can imagine horrors on the flimsiest of provocations, but here…” He drifted off disturbed. “There’s also something else going on besides fear.”

Father Callum Reid stood towards the back, subconsciously clutching the carved crucifix hanging from his neck. His eyes were ghosted and determined as he examined each shadow. He had faced darkness before — not only the kind that hid inside buildings but the one also concealed within men’s souls. But Blackwood Manor had challenged his faith in ways he never would’ve guessed.

Then, as they entered the old library—a place thick with books written by minds gone and memories cloaked in dust—the mood began to change. The soft whispers of history swirled. Eleanor’s breath caught.

A whisper twisted through the stagnant air, so faint but unmistakeable.

“Eleanor…”

A voice neither of the living nor dead spoke her name, as a cold chill ran down her back. The group here froze, eyes shooting to the shadows that quaked on the borders of their flickering candlelight.

“Did you hear that?” Lily’s voice was no more than a shiver.

“Yes,” Eleanor whispered, her heart banging against its cage of bones. “It’s her. The Shadow is calling.”

The room grew suddenly dark, as though by an unseen hand. Eleanor could feel the panic rising higher, but she made herself take a deep breath and listen beyond the stillness.

There was another voice that joined the first in the darkness, a broken song of woe and warning—it was neither this world's voice nor that which comes after.

“Awaken… remember…”

The whispers were swirling, ghost fingers touching their minds, pulling the strands, unwinding. Images spun in Eleanor’s head, her home growing up, laughter falling into screams, Sarah’s final helpless look as silence ate her.

And, by the way—an appearance of Evie Sinclair in the shadows itself—a ghostly figure whose face and eyes were hollow yet pleading. She now mouthing silently, whispers which few human ears could actually catch. Names, dates, locations she somehow couldn't remember leaked from her as if they were begging to escape the chains that held her.

Eleanor’s pulse quickened. It was Evie who held the key, a connection between planes that served as the key to freeing whatever had been imprisoned below Blackwood’s decay.

‘It’s the beast!’ suddenly Father Callum lunged forward with his crucifix held high. “In the light’s name, scatter you dark wretch!” His words rang with passion, but the shadows only appeared to shrink for a moment before regathering around him denser and more menacing than ever.

The Shadow replied by word of mouth The silence that descended seemed to press down on even the priest’s prayers. This was a malevolence taken right from the manor’s soul — an entity that hissed the names of those it had claimed and stitched their pain into an eternal lament.

Pushing his way past the lot of them, Thomas put a steadying hand on Eleanor’s shoulder. “You have to confront it,” he said firmly. “Not a victim, but the catalyst it wants to be. The past is stirring because it knows you will have to uncover the truth.”

Eleanor swallowed hard, history bearing down upon her like the suffocating weight of the heavy velvet curtains that draped every window in the manor. The time had arrived — not just to face the darkness outside but the shadows within herself.

As the soft mutterings of those long silenced voices grew to a symphony of unearthed forgotten past, Eleanor discovered that awakening memories was not just about pulling back the shroud on truth and mystery – but also releasing generations old pain, loss and the dead who craved acknowledgment in order to let go.

It was an invocation— her name reaching out of the beyond. If she wanted to live the night, she'd have to listen.

And in so doing, she might just discover the key to saving Sarah — and herself