Gothic Riddles

Chapter 2

Riddle 1

The Strange Note

My father passed away two years ago in an accident. We were devastated when we had received the news, my older brother and I were very close to our father, so It was very hard on us and perhaps it was even harder on our mother. She would not talk much and would hardly come out of her room, She would barely eat anything. We could hear her crying every day. But we could do nothing about it.

With my father gone, there was no one to support the family and the financial conditions were getting worse by the day. We were running out of all the money we had saved and We needed to do something about it. So, After discussing it one day, my brother and I decided that he would go and look for a job in the town as our mother was not in a condition to do a job. Two weeks had passed and he still couldn't find a job, and the conditions at home had gotten even worse. Looking at how things were we decided to move to our grandmother's house for some time.

Few days after moving in, my brother finally got a job at a butcher shop on the west side of the town. He would leave early in the morning and would come late at night. And every time I got worried for him, he would say that he is doing it all for the family and that everything was going to be alright soon. Every time any of us felt down he'd tell us how much he loved us and how he would do anything to protect his family, and that he would make everything alright. Few months had passed and things were looking better, they were starting to take a better turn for us. Our mother had started coming out of her room more often. She was even talking about finding a job and working. My younger sister and I had started going to school, we would go out on the weekends. It felt like everything was going to be alright again, just the way it was before. We were happy.  But it was all going to change soon.

It was Christmas eve and we had just gotten to bed after having dinner. I was lying there in my bed when my brother knocked on the door, I told him that the door was open. He came in and sat beside my pillow, he just sat there smiling and running his fingers through my hair. He told me that he loved me and he softly kissed my forehead.  I closed my eyes and after some time he left wishing me a good night.

Later that night I got abruptly woken up by a loud scream followed by a bang. It was my sister. I heard another scream and I ran downstairs to check, the sound was coming from my mother's room. I pushed open the door and I could not believe my eyes, my sister was lying lifeless on the floor covered in a pool of blood, my mother was on the bed and my brother was on top of her stabbing her in the chest with a kitchen knife. I just stood there frozen, he stabbed her again and I let out a loud scream. He looked at me, I could not believe he was my brother, he seemed like a completely different person, he seemed crazy. The look in his eyes sent shivers down my spine. As he stood up I let out another loud scream. I turned around to run but he plunged at me and pinned me against the floor. I could not move, he leaned in closer to my face and whispered in my ears, "I love you so much little sister, good night". Then he kissed my forehead and held the knife with both his hands. He was just about to hit me but my grandmother hit him on the back of his head with a vase and he passed out. We locked the room leaving him there.

My grandmother called the police, and he was taken to prison. He had a trial in the court but he did not say anything to the judge. After some time he was diagnosed with a psychotic disorder and was sent to a mental hospital. We never visited him. It's been two years since then, and life again seems to be getting better. This morning we got a weird letter from him in the mail. The postmark was yesterday, I opened it and inside, I found a strange note:

"Tonight the wind blows colder still,

All I know is darkness, never light,

This pain will break the strongest hearts,

My dreams still escape my grasp,

My heart runs free and wild,

Time, moments and memories to kill,

What shall remain is up to you still"

I read the note again and again but I couldn't make sense of it, so I went to the kitchen and gave it to my grandmother. She asked me who it was from and I told her that it was sent by my brother. As soon as she finished reading it, her face went pale and the note slipped from her fingers. I asked her what the note meant but she just rushed to the front door, and as soon as she stepped outside she started screaming. What was in the note? Why was she screaming?

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed this riddle.

Answers of the previous chapter:

Riddle 1: The librarian had pointed the narrator to the shelves that were in a corner against the wall, so there wasn't enough space for a human to fit in there. The girl was a ghost.

Riddle 2: If the boyfriend was dead, how did he manage to stop the recording and email the video to the narrator? Someone else was there in the room with the boyfriend who made him commit suicide and then they e-mailed the video to the girlfriend

Thank you and good luck for the next riddle. :)