The Castle of Forgotten Souls

An (Un)Forgettable Night

It had been an hour, and Anna was slowly becoming increasingly frustrated. They had searched the whole bottom floor for Leah. There had not been a single sign.

They had turned over sheets. They looked in the cupboards. They had pressed their hands against the brick walls. Apart from discovering this house had more secrets than politicians, they had found nothing. Not a whimper, not a strand of hair.

Chloe was wracked with guilt and kept murmuring apologies into the air. Anna was trying her hardest to not snap at her. She had knocked her leg off of various surfaces while trailing it behind her, and each time, pain like her leg had been cut off and stitched back on, only to be smashed underneath a jackhammer seared through her.

Her hand tingled and burned. She was careful not to touch anything, but that was hard to do in a search and rescue. She still could not find Leah.

There had been close calls where they would have seen a bone or two, a jar of hair and the two would stop and stare. Hoping and praying it wasn't the friend. There had been a necklace decorated with small, fragile finger bones. Dainty, not unlike Leahs. They were still white.

Anna could still taste her vomit from where she threw up in the dying potted plant beside her. Chloe had nearly fainted.

There was no denying it had been a rough hour for her. And for Chloe. She did not want to make it worse. So she kept quiet. She did not utter a single complaint as her dead leg hit step after step up the stairs. When Chloe's mutter suddenly turned into a shout. Not even when it made the already on-edge Anna jump. Not even when that jump resulted in her hand and leg getting knocked off against something.

'The guilt is eating at her, Anna. You cannot murder her,' Anna told herself, and when that did not work, 'You would not do well in prison,' was what Anna chanted instead.

But who was she kidding? She would do fantastic in prison.

On they went, up the creaky stairs. Where the creaks bounced off the walls and seemed to grow every step. Where they seemed to be loud enough to draw the hunchback out of his lair before she could get her friends home safely. Anna whisper-hissed Leah's name as they climbed. She hoped the girl would hear and answer. Anna was not sure how much farther her leg could go.

When they reached the landing, Anna turned around and whispered to Chloe, "We do not split up. I can't afford to lose you too. We're in, and we're out of each room."

Chloe looked at her with her lips pressed thinly together. She glances down at Anna's leg. It was trembling faster and harder than an earthquake. The skin that could be seen from the tear revealed that it was a worrying shade of red, slowly turning blue. Chloe opened her mouth, her eyebrows furrowing in concern.

"I'm fine," Anna snapped before Chloe could get a word out. "Or at least I will be when we find Leah, and we're outta here."

Chloe looked doubtful but did not say anything. Anna was grateful.

She leaned against the wall behind her, taking some pressure off her leg. She let out a sigh of relief as the throbbing eased a little. She motioned to the door beside her.

"Let's start with this one."

It was the carbon copy of all the other doors in the hours. A double, polished, oak door with a gold doorknob with a twisted pattern. Unlike all the other doors in the manor, it let out an ear-piercing shriek when Chloe nudged it open.

Both girls looked around frantically, bodies tense for the hunchback. They let out an inaudible sigh of relief when the stench of carrion did not invade the hallways. When the hunchback's skin-crawling laugh did not bound off the peeling wallpaper walls.