The rain poured down with vengeance, battering the gothic brick of Arrow House in a thunderous assault of a cold September torrent. Draining out the sounds of the Earth, until all that remained was that of the heaven's mighty fury.
The moon died out that night, lost in the never-ending abyss of an unrelenting ebony, its pearl toned light extinguished by the blaze of lightening that crackled far off in the distance. Illuminating the tree line in short bursts of brilliant light, it shone across the horizon line stretched for miles to come, only for the darkness to settle back in and swallow the Warwickshire countryside whole.
Autumn had dawned but it was an unsettlingly cold September rain. Droplets kissed by the winter not far off from view, as though the very ice laced breaths of a daunting December loitered in the shadows of the falling downpour.
It permeated the windowpanes, as if the race of teardrops streaking their way down the once impeccable sheet of glass, were bound to freeze straight to the surface and shatter what waited below.
The wind howled within the call of the thunder, ravaging the bones of the hauntingly forbidding house and threatening to shake the very souls that remained inside.
Goosebumps slid along the surface of your flesh, effortlessly appearing until not an inch was left unscathed by the sensitized sensation. It emboldened the chill that wrapped its embrace around the interior of the house, feeling the beginning of shakes deep down in your bones, as the weather sunk down upon your skin.
Arrow house had always been a cold manor. Brick by brick, it sealed away all signs of warmth until it was nothing more than a looming castle of haunting memories upon an isolated land. Perhaps, only when the fire burned and Tommy Shelby's arms were wrapped around you, did the house deemed your home in the years prior, ever truly feel warm.
It homed a beautiful display of wealth on the interior, tall evergreen walls and deep oak paneled floors, sky sweeping bookshelves and long winding corridors. Glittering trinkets and artwork hung, all alluding to the money accumulated over the trying years in the Shelby life.
But beyond the illusion, deep below the surface shone off to the eyes who peered to see, Arrow House had everything but the very thing a house required in order to become a home.
A soul.
Not a cold and empty vessel in which the souls of others came to haunt, but one that breathed warmth into the cursed walls and brought life tumbling down into the darkening depths of the lowest corridor. It was a lonely building, sad and forlorn. Perhaps, on nights like these, it cried out with the sky.
Your eyes watched as the rain ran down, long streaks of a glistening gloss, streaking the windowpane like the sign of tears running down cold flesh. It pounded against the gravel drive, as you peered through the bleary glass towards the shadow shrouded grounds of Arrow House. The downpour funneling into the tire marks and divots of footsteps that had upturned loose rocks of deep grey sediment.
It was hauntingly unnerving how the Earth could shake with the all-consuming break of thunder, shattering the void with strong bursts of a strength far beyond when all the while, the world fell deathly silent. A stark absence in the dark oblivion of the harsh nightfall, like your soul might endeavor to scream out into the abyss but never so much as make a sound.
It made you feel as though you danced along the hands of time itself, a precarious notion in the midst of a perpetual night.
For the hands ticked on, silently and intangibly in the shadows. The world encapsulated in an ugly and unsettling silence, like all the souls who had wandered were suddenly lost. But still, time forged on. Forgotten in the depths but realized in the light of day when it would inevitably break, it felt as if you walked that fine line as well.
