Stretching Skies [A Collection of Short Stories]

Mansion of Whispers

Steph felt unease prickle at her skin, and proceeding with caution, she stepped into the eerily desolate yard, the dead grass crackling beneath her feet. She paused for a moment, her hair whipping through the air as she glanced back, her heart beating in a steady unease. Jerald was making gesticulations with his arms, madly waving her towards the creepy mansion that rested on the horizon, the excitement evident in his energetic movement. Steph scowled at him, and he responded with a laugh that blasted through the crisp air. However far away he was from her, it still reached her ears, and she cringed at his obnoxious measures of tone.

"Shut up!" Steph yelled back, before swiveling on her heels as her friend's vehement laughter rose even steadier into the air. Steph tightened her jacket, biting back a shiver as a breeze whisked through the air. Not wishing to hear any more of Jerald's rambunctious laughing, she advanced at a much quicker pace to the mansion, tumbling over her feet now and then as she nearly fell to the dusty ground. Leaving the gates far behind her, she grew closer to the mansion. Steph craned her neck as she looked at it, her hazel eyes rounding at the marvelous sight. It had seemed much smaller from a far distance where the road had been settled, and she felt awe overtake her as she stared at the splintered, although miraculously stable wood that made up its outer walls. Hazy windows pierced through the walls now and then, and Steph could've sworn she had seen a shadowy figure watching her from one of them, but whatever it was, it had vanished before she could properly make it out. Dead trees surrounded the mansion, sticking out of the ground as if they were twigs planted around by young children into a sandbox, however maximized to bestow the setting into what it was now. A crow cawed in the distance, and the black bird fluttered into the air momentarily, fading to a dark speck in the blue sky.

Steph shook her head. Better not keep Jerald waiting. She thought to herself, an unprovoked fear creeping into her chest. She looked back, squinting her eyes. The gateway where Jerald stayed was fogged out, nearly invisible as it reached the boundaries of as far as the eye could see. Steph wondered how long she had already taken, but brushed away the thought as she began searching along the walls for a door. She walked at an even pace, taking lengthy strides as she tried to be fast, but not too quick. Finally, she saw the door, three brick steps leading up to a small porch. An overhanging roof was settled above the front porch, stabilized by two columns that spiraled upwards and bled into the roof. They were presumably once white, but stained a murky yellow over the years it had sat there. The mansion had, for a fact, been around for hundreds of years as Steph's hometown had claimed.

Steph approached the door, a small rush of comfort rising inside of her as her feet landed against cement. It was much better than being on unkempt, dead grass. Steph rose up the steps and warily grew closer to the darkly painted door, eyeing the doorbell. After a few lingering moments, she pressed a forefinger against it, a loud ding-dong pervading through the walls. Steph stood there uncomfortably, deeply aware that nobody would be arriving anytime soon. She awkwardly peered through a window, but to no avail, for it was cloaked with a rough coating of dust. She waited for who knows how long, her feet scuffling impatiently against the bricks. She rang the doorbell again, preparing herself to leave, when the front door let out a creak as slowly, the knob twisted. Steph scrambled away from the door, a scream rising in her vocal cords as mortal terror took over her instincts. Her legs twisted over each other as she rushed to escape, and before she could catch herself, she fell from the steps, and the cement rushed towards her. The breath was knocked out of her as she landed with a thud, and she was left heaving for air for a few painstakingly long seconds.

A shadow loomed over her as leisurely footsteps followed suit, stopping to look down at Steph's pained form. She curled herself into a ball, expecting the worst to happen as pain seared through her head.