𝐎𝐑𝐏𝐇𝐈𝐂 | (adj.) "Otherworldly."
In an alternate version of present-day Britain, ghosts who are deadly to the touch have been rising from their graves for the past fifty years. Adults cannot sense the ghosts, but children can, so teenagers hav...
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𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐍 𝐂𝐎𝐔𝐋𝐃 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐅𝐈𝐃𝐄𝐍𝐓𝐋𝐘 𝐒𝐀𝐘 that she had never been anywhere that would require her to be dressed too nice for a jacket. However, as she stood in the gallery of Combe Carey Hall, her ears open to all of the sounds that those who had passed before left behind, she realized she was someplace where generally, that was the case.
Eyes closed, she let herself be consumed by the noise around her. Beneath the laughter and clinking of champagne flutes was a wonderfully soft piano ballad. The conversation flowed effortlessly, though she wasn't able to catch any one specific word of it—she just knew that it was happening.
And then it all ended in chaos. The champagne flutes were thrown to the ground, evidenced by the smashing of glass. Men and women alike let out screams of terror that echoed and pinballed around her skull. Again, she couldn't be sure if they were simply screaming unintelligibly or if they were actually articulating, but she knew one thing—the emotions attached to the room were horrid.
She wasn't sure how long she stood there, the repeated symphony of screaming and glass smashing playing over and over in her head. Her stomach filled with the deepest and most sincere form of dread. The feeling that told her she should just go home. But she couldn't and she knew that. She had to help work to pay the debt that grew out of something that she singlehandedly caused.
There couldn't be any turning back now.
Erin tuned out of the room and opened her eyes just in time to hear the thermometer on George's belt let out of beep. The sun had officially gone down, painting the room steely stone blue. But it wasn't only the lack of sunlight providing the newfound chill that swept over the room. It gripped Erin's bones, rooting her in her place and burned the exposed skin of her hands, her neck, her face.
"This whole place is freezing up," George muttered as he checked the thermometer. The floorplans were still in his hands, though they were fairly useless. Nothing was exactly as it had said it would be and that was worrisome to them. "And it's hard to map a Source because the rooms don't fit together properly. I think there's something old that's hidden away." George turned around to face Erin. She had her fists tightly clenched together and she could feel her nails digging into the skin of her palms. Anthony was somewhere around the gallery—Erin could hear him rooting around. "It feels like we're going in blind. Are we sure we want to do this?"
Erin rolled her top lip over her bottom one as she shook her head. "I don't know," she admitted. She felt she couldn't call the shots on this one, so she turned around, in the direction of the rustling and called out, "Lockwood?"
He didn't answer or appear right away, prompting George to call out, "Lockwood, what are you doing?"
"Just a . . . spot of fishing," Anthony replied as his footfalls were heard walking back toward the gallery.
