I had always known my son, Kaius, to be different. He was quiet for his age, often lost in his thoughts, and far too perceptive for a boy of ten. But recently, something had changed in him, something that sent chills up my spine. At first, I chalked it up to the stress of everything—moving into the Vancourt mansion, the looming inheritance, the growing tension with Ryker and the family—but it wasn't just that. No, this was something far darker, something I couldn't explain.
It started with his sleep. At first, it was just murmurs, soft and barely audible, like he was dreaming in a language I couldn't understand. But over time, it grew more distinct—words, syllables, a strange rhythm to the speech that didn't sound human. It was unnerving. Every night, I'd lie awake in the dark, listening to his whispers, the foreign words swirling around the room like an incantation.
I had heard stories, heard whispers from locals and Imara about the curse that gripped the Vancourt family. They had said it was a dark, insidious thing, spreading its tendrils to anyone who stayed too long in the mansion. But to see it happening to Kaius, to feel it, made everything far more real than I was prepared for.
I had hoped it was just stress. But then, the drawings started.
At first, it was just doodles—abstract sketches of people, faces that seemed distorted and incomplete. I didn't think much of it. But then, I found one of his drawings on the kitchen table, a picture of a figure with hollow eyes, its mouth open in a silent scream. The figure was surrounded by other shadowy shapes, some of them kneeling, others standing as if in worship. I stared at it, unable to breathe for a moment.
I felt a cold hand wrap around my heart. The figure in the drawing, the eyes, the posture—it was familiar. Too familiar. It looked like one of the people in the photographs from the hidden room—one of the Vancourts.
I ran to his room, heart hammering in my chest, my mind racing. Kaius was sitting at his desk, hunched over a fresh piece of paper, his pencil moving furiously as he sketched something else. He didn't notice me as I stepped in, his focus entirely on the page.
"Kaius," I whispered, my voice shaking. "What are you drawing?"
He didn't answer at first. His hand paused, but only for a split second, before continuing its motion. "I'm drawing the spirits," he said softly, his voice distant, as if he wasn't fully aware of what he was saying. "They're all around us. Trapped."
I felt a sickening twist in my gut. "What do you mean, trapped?"
He looked up at me then, his eyes wide, unblinking, and for a moment, I could see something in them—something old, something that didn't belong to a child. "They can't leave," he said, his voice distant. "They're waiting for something. For someone."
A chill ran down my spine. The words, the way he spoke—they weren't his. It was like he was channeling something else, something far older than any child should be able to understand.
I wanted to reach out, to shake him, to make him stop. But my hands were frozen by fear. What had happened to my son? What was happening to him? Was he becoming part of the curse?
That night, after he finally fell into a deep, dreamless sleep, I searched through his drawings again, turning page after page. There were more of them—disturbing images of faces, bodies twisted into unnatural shapes, and symbols I recognized from the forbidden books in the hidden room. The more I looked, the more my fear grew. Kaius was being affected by this place, by the curse that had haunted the Vancourt family for generations.
But what terrified me most wasn't just that he was drawing these things. It was that he seemed to understand them. He wasn't just drawing what he had seen; he was channeling something. The curse was slowly taking hold of him, infecting his mind, his soul, in ways I couldn't control.
I sat down on the edge of his bed, watching him sleep, feeling utterly powerless. The mansion itself seemed to pulse around us, its walls breathing with a life of their own. The deeper we got into the Vancourt estate, the more the dark presence seemed to press in. I couldn't ignore it any longer. The curse wasn't just a family burden. It wasn't just something that affected the Vancourts. It was something that latched onto anyone who entered this house. It infected anyone who stayed too long, who allowed themselves to be drawn into its grasp.
I thought about Thalia's warning, her words echoing in my mind: No one can escape.
As I sat in the darkness, the weight of the curse pressing down on us, I realized that we were no longer just guests in this mansion. We were part of it. Part of its twisted history, part of its unrelenting darkness.
And worse still, Kaius was being pulled into the very thing I had come to destroy.
I had to find a way to stop this. To protect him. To protect Amari. I couldn't let them become victims of a curse that had already claimed too many lives.
But as I sat there, watching Kaius sleep, I couldn't shake the unsettling thought that maybe, just maybe, it was already too late.