LACUNA OBSCURA - A Horror Thriller

CHAPTER VI

Darkness enveloped Professor Sean's surroundings as consciousness returned to him slowly. His throbbing head tried piecing the blur of recent memories—walking among the dim castle corridors with the help of the flickering torchlight he had brought along,  and then descending stone steps echoing into the musty depths of the dungeon below.

It was in one of the rooms attached to the prison chambers He was going to spend the rest of the rest of the night in.

The last thing that he recalled was a chilling yet stone-hard blow near his shoulder and it was all darkness after that.

His breath was shaky, somewhat panting from the strain he seemed to have taken from that blow. Senses straining in the inky void. Not a glimmer of light pierced the oppressive gloom. His hands explored the damp stone beneath, testing they were free. They were, yet he was not.

An invisible force of some sort bound him to the walls behind him, cold and slimy as he could feel the ice-cold stones and some slippery fluid on his shirt behind, even in this summer.

"Hello?" Professor Sean croaked, wincing at his hoarse voice. Only dripping water echoed back in the abyssal silence.

A shuffling sound made his pulse spike. He pressed back frantically against the wall, eyes white saucers uselessly peering into the black.

"Who's there?" he called out again, failing to mask the tremor in his words. "Show yourself!"

Silence. Then, gently scraping claws on stone announced the approach of the person, or was it?

Professor Sean held his breath, every fibre in his body tense as a coiled spring.

The ghostly shuffle stopped somewhere near his feet. 

What in glimpse was a misshapen shadow against the absolute night, hunched as if staring right at him.

Fading light in the room Sean knew not where from, caught on elongated limbs ending not in fingers but talons.

It spoke, and the sepulchral voice slid under Sean's skin like an icy blade. "So you have awoken, my darling. 

It has been quite a tiring wait indeed..."

"Wh-what do you want with me?"

"Wh-What even are you?" Professor Sean stammered, transfixed by fear yet unable to look away from the creature's pale profile.

It cocked its head at an unnatural angle, studying him with soulless eyes that shone dimly in the dark. "All in good time. Tell me, does this place....why did you have to break my peaceful abode"

"TELL ME??" its voice shrills through the ears of the professor as its claws land a sharp cut on his forehead.

Professor Sean winced in pain and then swallowed hard. "I—I'm just a professor. Came to study the castle's history."

Its scratchy chuckle raised his gooseflesh. "History, you say? You have stopped history in the making, and you shall pay for it you little mouse!!"

Before Sean could react, it lunged forward with a hiss—and began sniffing his face intensely.

He recoiled in disgust, yet fear kept him frozen as its ragged breaths inhaled his scent.

"Yes...I see it now." Its voice dropped to a chilling caress. "The bloodline runs deep in these cursed walls. The sins of their ancestors still linger, do they not?"

Sean's mind raced. Was this thing implying somehow... about someone who descended from the castle's original occupants? Ridiculous! And yet...faded childhood tales sprung unbidden to the fore, whispered around campfire sparks by his ageing grandmother. Dark mutterings of madness, hexes and witch trials which were mass murders.