Out of Control
Iburst through the side door and into a narrow corridor. The air bites cold against my skin, stone walls weeping thick, sour moisture that coats my tongue. The passageways twist and claw at my memory. I halt, my chest heaving, fingers clawing at the ripped parchment map.
I’m a fool. I traded safety for a whispered phantom in a fever dream, and now I’m a livestock wandering an abattoir.
Behind me, the stone floor groans. The Masters stalk. Slow. Patient. Absolutely certain that I have nowhere to hide. Every frantic breath I draw merely seasons the air for their palate.
I round another corner and nearly plow into a servant. She gasps, her eyes rolling back in terror, stumbling against the masonry. I wrench past her. I can’t stop. My muscles burn, screaming with every violent propulsion forward.
The corridor vomits me into a wide, arched passageway. Through jagged, leaded windows, the gardens writhe, drowning in a suffocating morning mist. Beyond them, the north wing looms, a monolithic slab of dark architecture brooding against the gray sky.
I’m close. The invisible hum beneath my skin vibrates violently, dragging me toward this maw.
I slam into a heavy oak door bound with iron bands. Locked. I hurl my entire weight against it once, twice. It scoffs at my desperation, completely unyielding.
Footsteps scrape the flagstones behind me. Closer. The rhythmic, measured cadence of executioners.
My eyes dart wildly. There—a narrow servant’s entry, half-swallowed by a shroud of velvet-heavy dust. I rip it open and plunge into pitch blackness.
The passage closes its jaws around me. The walls press in, suffocatingly tight, smelling of dry rot and centuries of forgotten servitude. I run blindly, one hand raking raw against the rough stone to guide my flight.
The heat between my thighs throbs like an exposed nerve. It feels like a beacon broadcasting my exact coordinates, a wet pulse calling them to feast.
What am I doing? Searching for a dead man’s myth because a stranger with midnight eyes whispered instructions into my slumbering mind. I’m losing my goddamn mind. I’m trading my life for ghost tales.
A heavy wooden door blocks my path. I throw my shoulder into it, and it groans open, spilling me out into a vast, forgotten space.
A cemetery.
Tombstones loom in crooked, drunken rows, their chiseled inscriptions worn down to smooth, toothless slates by the passing eons.
Weeping willows droop over sunken graves like mourning ghosts.
Thick moss and clutching ivy strangle everything they touch.
And in the center, nestled among the rot, an elaborate chapel of blackened stone rises from the earth.
I sprint toward it, tearing around its perimeter until I find the crypt entrance. The stone lintel bears a well-carved name in deep crimson letters:
Oliver Blake Harold Byron
Count of Rochester
My heart shatters against my ribs. My veins instantly flash to ice water, but the gravity pulling me inward is too absolute to resist. I lunge at the iron gate. It slides open with a agonizing, grinding shriek.
The stone bites cold beneath my fingertips. I shove the crypt door wide and stumble inside.
The interior is dark, lit only by thin slivers of light filtering through cracked stained glass. My legs tremble so hard I can’t barely takes another step.
Dust motes dance in the chilled air. An altar stands at the far end. His tomb.. My legs tremble so violently I can barely anchor my weight.
It is a masterpiece of opulence. The sarcophagus is crusted with shiny diamond gems etched into grotesque, mesmerizing symbols and arcane sigils. Gold plates and heavy bullion spill across the base.
Climbing the altar like a living, breathing parasite, a twisted rose plant bleeds in tones of deep crimson, until the blossoms blooming near his resting place curdle into absolute, light-devouring black roses.
He guided me here. The realization drops like a lead weight in my gut. He wanted me to find him.
I force my eyes down to the sarcophagus.
He lies within, glowing with an unholy, violet luminescence.
It looks less like a corpse and more like a body suspended in a predatory spell—strangely, terrifyingly alive.
The black rose vines twist around his stone bier, their thorny roots visibly drinking in the heavy darkness radiating from his skin.
I blink hard, praying this is a hallucination. Wake up. Wake up right now.
My feet carry me forward against my will. My hands shake so badly my fingernails click against the stone.
Uncut gemstones catch the fractured light, spitting back a thousand cruel colors. Rubies, emeralds, sapphires. Riches beyond imagination carpet the floor.
My fingers dive into the pile. I claw at a single gemstone—a deep, blood-red ruby the size of my thumb. It burns my palm. It is warm. Alive.
This is enough. Take it and run.
A scraping sound freezes my blood. The scrape of heavy boots on stone at the crypt entrance. The low, rumbling, predatory growl of hunters who have finally cornered their prey.
Panic detonates. I shove the ruby deep into my pocket. I grab a fistful of heavy gold coins, stuffing them desperately into the fabric of my bodice. I snatch another gemstone, and another, fingers slick with cold sweat.
The crypt doors blow inward with a deafening crash.
Thomas fills the stone frame. His eyes blaze with a terrifying, inner fire, his lips peeling back from his gums to reveal the lethal, elongated white points of his fangs. Behind him, the other three masters loom in the shadows like starving wolves closing the circle.
“Found you,” he purrs, his voice dripping with feral, devouring hunger.
A dense, choking cloud of dark smoke explodes from the altar, swallowing the entrance and blinding the Masters in the dim haze.
I pivot away from them, sprinting toward the apse, where a stone spiral staircase carved into the ancient masonry awaits.
I tear upward, my lungs burning, feet scrambling against the steps worn hollow by centuries of time.
I burst straight into the bell tower, the cramped space dominated by the massive bronze bell suspended between heavy timber beams, with nowhere left to run.