The Warning
327 Words
The mansion was beautiful, but wrong.
Too quiet.
Too cold.
Too alive.
Tuzi tried not to stare as the woman led her through the halls, but everything inside the Greenfort mansion felt like it was watching her. The chandeliers didn’t sway, yet the air moved. The portraits didn’t blink, yet she felt their eyes follow her. Even the floorboards seemed to breathe beneath her feet.
The woman walked briskly, her heels tapping sharply against the polished floor.
“No entering the east wing,” she said without looking back.
“No opening locked doors.”
“No staying after dark.”
Tuzi stopped walking.
“Why all the rules?”
The woman’s jaw tightened.
“Because he said so.”
Tuzi didn’t know who he was — until she felt the cold again.
A presence behind her.
Silent. Heavy. Wrong.
She turned slowly.
Matthias stood there, tall and still, like he had materialized from the shadows themselves. His eyes were unreadable, his expression carved from stone. He didn’t look angry, but he didn’t look human either.
“You’ll follow the rules,” he said.
Tuzi swallowed, forcing her voice to stay steady.
“Or what?”
For a moment, something flickered in his eyes — not warmth, not kindness, but something like warning. His gaze softened, barely, like he didn’t want to scare her but couldn’t help it.
“Or you won’t survive.”
The words hit her harder than she expected. Not because he sounded threatening — but because he sounded honest.
The woman cleared her throat.
“You’ll come during the day. You’ll leave before sunset. That is non‑negotiable.”
Tuzi nodded slowly, her heart thudding.
She had taken this job for the money.
She hadn’t expected rules that sounded like life‑or‑death.
As she followed the woman toward the exit, she felt Matthias’s gaze on her back — cold, heavy, and full of secrets she wasn’t ready to learn.
- Writer
