CHAPTER 5 || Dark Intentions

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|| EPIGRAPH ||

There is no beauty without some strangeness. 

- Edgar Allan Poe

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Cold. Gloom. Howling wind.

That is what I heard as my eyes slowly opened and I emerged from darkness. It was raining. Pelting against the windowpane. A storm, perhaps. My eyes adjusted to the light. Where am I?

"Good. You're awake," it was the voice. I'd recognize it anywhere.

I sat up quickly to decipher my company, but upon rising, my head began throbbing. I winced in pain, pressing my palm against my forehead.

"Shh..." said the voice, that unsettling hush, "There, there, now."

I blinked, my vision coming into focus. And it was then that I met the very creature that chilled me to the marrow...

The tall figure loomed above me, like a shadowy ghost. Lofty, formidable, and vaguely threatening. The walking skeleton was deathly pale, with skin so white, and waxen, and bloodless, with features so gaunt, and hollow, and sunken - the living phantom was snow and death in the flesh.

However, the longer I looked, the more pleasing it became - like a blurry silhouette taking shape... It was a man. A gorgeous, terrifying, ghostly man.

He wore a willowy frame, his physique slender and long. His posture was firm, and taut, and sophisticated. He stood with intention, but cryptic, no less. His clothes were smooth and all black, as was his hair. Dark as night and perfectly combed. He was prim and proper - pristine and unforthcoming. Suave, but his charm was overshadowed by something sinister.

There was something about him, a certain mystique, perhaps - beautiful but dangerous, like deadly nightshade. He was alluring, and strangely so. For his beauty was menacing in such an unearthly way. Inhuman almost. Handsome. Eerie. The man was ethereal and very intimidating.

And as I stared at him, he smiled. It was wide and uncanny. And a discrepancy existed between his eyes and his mouth. There was a sharp contrast between his grin and his coldness - there was no warmth in his demeanor, betraying the very nature of the gesture. It wasn't forced. But it wasn't genuine either.

He offered such a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Detached, it seemed. And I didn't like it.

The corners of his mouth stretched mechanically while the rest of his face remained stiff. His smile was rigid and dead like a corpse. I searched his eyes, but they were vacant. And while his lips curled, his face stayed eerily still, hard as stone like a mask he wore to hide whatever lurked beneath.

And it was then I noticed... his eyes were black.

The enigmatic man pierced my soul with his gaze. It was dark and didn't falter. And yet it was disarming when he uttered the words, "Hello, cousin..."

And suddenly, I felt as if I had slipped into incoherence, "I beg your pardon?"

"Ah, how rude of me. Allow me to introduce myself..." he whispered, "I'm Foster Ravenswood."

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TO BE CONTINUED

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|| Published September 13th, 2024 ||

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