Lara and The Mansion in the Woods

The Ritual

As I was near the tree, I noticed that the thing earlier looked and felt more… alive. Everything from the eyes, to the look of her clothes seemed different. It’s as if I’m facing a different soul. A different person. I don’t have the words to describe how confused I am at this moment.

“I can feel the sadness in your heart

I know how it feels when a loved one depart”

“What’s going on? I can’t understand a thing about all of this”

“Patience dear, I’ll help you understand

I’ll show you what happened, just hold my hand”

She offers her hand waiting for me to hold it. I’m hesitant, but something tells me that it might give me some answers. I reached for her hand while my hand trembled in fear. As I held her hand, it felt like ice.

Dozens of people crowded the place, chanting. I looked up and noticed an opening in the stone ceiling, the light of the moon shown through, in an almost— sinister way. Below is a circular altar with runes and symbols and sitting in the middle of it is a person. I looked around and saw that I was in a cave, stalactites clung tightly to the ceiling, stalagmites grew from the ground up. Torches lit the cave all around, stuck to the wall. The crowd wore golden masks and exquisite clothing. A man sat at the throne, in depression on the stone floor of the cave and beside him is a woman wearing a red ceremonial robe.

“Hail the Goddess of the Underworld! Ave deus mortis et resuscitatio!”,

“HAIL!”

“We should pray as much and worship!”,

“Hail!

“We should pray for the return of our ever so powerful Witch!”

“Hail the power of the Goddess of the Underworld!”

As they continued to chant, thoughts wandered in my mind. Who was this— Goddess of the underworld? Then the crowd stopped chanting at the command of a woman beside the man who sat on the throne. My trail of thought abruptly stopped, as I realized that the person sitting in the altar was actually a child. A boy. His wrists and ankles chained to the ground. shrouded in a brown robe, only his thin face shown through, sunken from having not eaten, eyes white like he had been made a prisoner.

Then, the chanter unsheathed a dagger from his belt, walked toward the center and plunged it into the prisoner's stomach. Bright red blood gushed out, pooling around him, he collapsed, dead on the cold stone floor. The chanter took a bowl and collected the spilled blood in it. He passed it to the first person in the crowd. He took it, full of glee. He drank it and passed it to the next. This continued until they gave it to me.

Soon came my turn to sip in the bowl. My heart's pounding so loud it feels like I’m going to explode. My body willingly took the bowl, then I removed my mask. Do they not notice that I'm not from here? I looked down on the bowl with fresh blood only to realize that this is not my face, and that my body is moving on its own and all the movements I do are not mine. It was her. It was Eilif. I'm seeing through Eilif's eyes. I felt teardrops in my cheeks but instead of wiping them off, she threw the bowl.

"I CAN'T ACCEPT THIS ANYMORE!"

As soon as she uttered those words, everything suddenly stopped. The altar rotted, the people stopped moving but the rot crawled as if it was alive and it ate everything that's in its way. I soon realized that I can move again and that I'm holding Eilif's hand again. We're at the fields but its rotting and everything is dying. Eilif is still siting in the swing by the tree, she's bathed in blood and worms swarm out of her eyes.

"Listen carefully, I don't have much time

Your in serious trouble, your life is in the line

From them, You have to save yourself

run towards the people who can offer you help "

"Look for a place in this house

Move like an ant, Hide like a mouse

Find the reason for the nightmares you encounter

Or like me, you’ll be stuck here forever "

"This is goodbye my dear friend

I know for once this is the end..."

I watched as she slowly turns into stone, while a strong wind blew her into ash.