The Transcended: The Krai Facility (on hold)

Chapter 1

August 2021

~*~

Zoey opened the doors of the conservatory and stepped outside into the sunshine. She briefly closed her good eye—the right closed along with it, but while the glass eye underneath looked similar to her left, it had no real function. After taking a deep breath, relishing the sweet scent of wildflowers surrounding her, she began to walk through the garden. It had been well over a year that she'd gotten her prosthetic legs, yet every other day she still felt bittersweet about them.

Fuck you, Lucius, she thought with a sly smile. She strode through the flowers, wandering aimlessly, simply enjoying the sunlight and being alive. Hope you're not even able to have dreams down there in that underground shithole.

She was just about to sit down in a corner of the fenced property when the old mausoleum caught her eye. When they renovated the place, she had said it was okay to leave it—out of respect for the dead. She sauntered towards it, the ivy-covered pale stones giving it a fitting aesthetic that matched the rest of the garden. Without even reading the ornate letters above the entry, her mind already told her what was written there.

Lord and Lady Westwood.

She'd wondered time and time again if there ever had been an actual Lord and Lady Westwood—but she'd never bothered to look it up. She was about to turn away again when a devious thought crossed her mind.

Is it open?

In the past, she'd swatted it away, but this time it was different. This time, she had led her own cult in a mock Satanic ritual but a few months ago.

If that didn't get me any bad energies, checking out a mausoleum on what is basically my own property shouldn't either, she argued with herself.

Content with that reasoning, she checked the door. The ornate and intricate metal framework was covered with ivy, and while she needed to loosen a few strands, the door wasn't locked and swung open with a shrill protest from the hinges. The gloomy interior was barely illuminated, for the two small windows on the sides had, too, been overgrown long ago. Zoey got out her phone and used the torch to look around as she stepped inside.

The floor was littered with dried leaves that had managed to get blown inside. The walls were bare save for multiple lanterns, some of which still held stumps of old candles. There were stone benches against all three walls and marble vases in the corners, the bouquets half-dried, half-rotten away, and all covered with cobwebs and dust.

Zoey wrinkled her nose at the myriad of smells and found herself longing for the fresh air and still living flowers outside of the dusty old tomb. She moved forward and shone her light on the broad stone casket in the centre of the room.

Must be buried together, she thought and reading the inscription on the slab confirmed that.

She was about to turn away when she noticed something odd about the dirt on the floor. Frowning, she illuminated other parts of the room. The leaves were scattered all over the place, but the level of dust and grime on the floor seemed bigger in the corners and the right-side path of the casket. The left side—the side she was standing on—looked cleaner somehow.

As if it got walked on more.

Brows still furrowed, she opened a chat to Rory and typed a message to her butler and friend.

~ Hey, I'm in the mausoleum. I think there's something weird here. Can you come over?

She waited for the message to be marked received before investigating the scene further. She rounded the casket from the front to get a better look at the floor on the right side. It looked a lot less trodden on. She went back to the left side and bent down, slowly allowing the light to inch further up the path until it got to the point where she had not yet walked. There were faint markings of shoe prints in the dirt.