mortal blood / Kirk Hammett

01.

Friday October 13th, 1986.

I got a camera for my birthday, an actual camera, my mom took notice I liked to take pictures of everything. It fits in my backpack, i like that.

After years (5 to be exact) of looking for the so called "spirit mansion" near the cemetery woods, i managed to plan my break in. I liked abandoned places, stuck in time. I don't think anyone had ever gotten close to the mansion, it was a supposed hazard, but i badly wanted to know what was hidden behind those grapevines and years of dust.

It was time to go, i decided. I checked my backpack, having packed everything that i needed for my exploring and in case of emergency. I put on my leather boots, i wore them everywhere anyway, i got some thick hard to penetrate clothes on and left the house, I had to take a bus to the cemetery and then walk through the forest.

It probably took me an hour to get there. I looked up, the structure looking bigger and more terrifying up close. It was gothic, victorian, old. I tried not to force the door to keep its beauty, a few pushes but it seemed locked. I looked around, a window opened. People died here, or so it was told.I stepped in, my boots making a creaking noise on the deteriorating wood.

As soon as I set foot on the old wooden floor of the abandoned mansion, I felt a shiver run through my body. The atmosphere inside was dark and heavy, like a thick veil settled over everything. I walked carefully through the main room, which looked a little better than the exterior, perhaps because it had less exposure to the elements. There were some old couches and chairs covered with dust, spiderwebs spread all around. The ceiling was tall and covered with intricate carvings on the wooden beams, but they were now just barely distinguishable, covered in layers of grime and mold. It looked so beautiful. Maybe it was prettier during the day, where sunlight sneaked in through the broken skylights of the inside.

I took my flashlight out, illuminating what intrigued me, everything seemed to have red details, i saw some jewelry on the living room table, it was surprisingly not rusty at all. It was odd how these delicate trinkets had survived so well compared to the decayed surroundings. The floor creaked again, i felt like someone was watching me.

I continued to explore through the mansion, passing through different rooms that seemed to have been the bedrooms of the previous tenants of that place. The rooms had simple beds, some with rotten and moth-eaten fabrics, and old pieces of clothing spread everywhere. Sadness hit me, a place like this had been abandoned over night, and it was gorgeous. My eyes caught a gleam in the other room, a violoncello. Surprisingly clean, next to a violin and what seemed to be an organ. I had only seen these in churches. Perhaps there was something or someone actually here, that could explain the broken window and rings on the table. But if there was something here, it would've made itself known. And that wasn't the case.

I could see a trail of dust and spiderwebs leading to a spiral staircase, the wooden steps creaking with each step I took. As I reached the top of the stairs, I noticed a slightly opened door leading to what appeared to be the master bedroom. The room was massive, with high ceilings and a slightly broken chandelier hanging from above. The most noticeable part of the room was a large coffin in the center, closed with a bronze latch and covered with cobwebs. The air became even heavier and colder, making your breath fog up as I approached the coffin.

It was open. I wasn't scared, yet i felt some hesitance to look into it. I expected some huge spider, maybe the corpse of a cat. But i wasn't ready for what I saw. I went pale, colder than how I already was.

Upon opening the coffin, my gaze could only be on the magnificent, seemingly alive, corpse inside it. It seemed to be a man, with long, wavy dark hair that fell like a curtain around his white vampire-like skin, His facial features were so perfect that it was as if he was a sculpture, created with the utmost care, from his porcelain skin, his high cheekbones and his red and wine lips, to his pale eyes that seemed to observe me through the eyelids. His face was pale and gaunt, almost skeletal, with sunken eyes and hollow cheeks. His skin was cold to the touch, feeling like marble. He certainly looked dead.

What was strangest of all was that he didn't seem to be decomposing, which would have made sense given the lack of food for his corpse. His skin was cold but preserved. He wore old Victorian clothing, a long black velvet tailcoat, and a white ruffle shirt decorated with lace.