"Once upon a time there lived a dead house,
" In the outskirts of a sub-village village in Abriba"
Maple tree layout,Ogozí Abriba/Mkporo
White storey house 22nd December 2013.
As Grace hastened down the hallway, the lightbulbs flickered ominously, casting eerie shadows on the walls. She ignored the blood-curdling screams and unsettling pictures that hung like specters, their macabre presence seeming to watch her every move. Her mind was consumed by the disappearance of her fiancé, whom she hadn't seen or heard from since she woke up the previous day. Her friends, too, were nowhere to be found, and the few she had seen met a brutal end, their mutilated bodies a grim testament to the horrors within.
What was meant to be her wedding day had transformed into a desperate fight for survival. Grace found herself trapped in her fiancé's house, with locked doors and windows covered in dust and iron bars, giving the place a foreboding, prison-like feel. She avoided gazing out the windows, fearful of what she might see. Every time she dared to look, a family of five stared back at her, their presence sending shivers down her spine.
The family's attire seemed frozen in time, their outdated clothes tattered and worn. The parents, if they could be called that, looked inhuman, their decaying skin jagged and twisted. The husband, dressed in a long, dirty black caftan, appeared older than his wife, who wore a dirty lacey pink dress that seemed to be disintegrating. The three children were equally unsettling. A teenage girl, clad in a dirty tank top and faded jean short skirt, wore a pair of reading glasses and held a little girl with hair styled with dried twigs and leaves in a dirty loose pink unicorn onesie. The family's jagged teeth and tightly clasped hands only added to the sense of dread that settled in the pit of Grace's stomach.
The final member of the family, a man in his thirties, wore a red polo shirt and blue jeans, appearing more vibrant than the rest of the family. However, his face was obscured by a black mask that covered his face and neck, shrouding his identity in mystery. Grace's frantic pace slowed as she entered the living room, her eyes scanning the walls adorned with ominous portraits and horrifying statues that seemed to leer at her. She shook her head in fear and disbelief, tears streaming down her face as she wondered what she had gotten herself into.
As faint footsteps echoed from the hallway, Grace's hand instinctively cupped her mouth in shock and horror. She crawled across the marble floor, seeking refuge behind the cushions in the living room. The buzzing bulbs and flickering lights only heightened her fear, causing her to squeak in terror as she contemplated the unknown fate that awaited her, just like her friends.
The footsteps eventually faded away, and Grace heaved a sigh of relief as she stood up from the floor, her body shaking with sobs. She desperately wished for a way out of the house, but deep down, she knew it was futile. Suddenly, the lights turned off and then back on, plunging Grace into a state of shock. The family from the yard stood before her, their eerie grins illuminating the dark space.
Before she could attempt to escape, they closed in around her, their screeching voices and grasping hands dragging her out of the living room. Grace's screams were drowned out by the cacophony of terror that surrounded her, as she was pulled deeper into the heart of the house, further into the clutches of the sinister family.