The Stranger's Inheritance
The road twisted uphill through dense fog, lined with gnarled trees that leaned in like silent sentinels. Ava Dalton sat stiffly in the back of a cab, her duffel bag beside her, and the inheritance letter clutched tightly in her hand. The paper had already begun to crumple from her grip, its bold, formal language impossible to forget:
> “You are the sole heir to the Blackthorn Estate, belonging to your late uncle, Elias Dalton.”
Only problem was, Ava had never heard of Elias Dalton.
She had no memory of this man, no stories from her mother, not even a single photograph in the family albums. The lawyer had explained everything in clipped tones: Elias had passed away a month ago. No known friends. No children. He had died in the very house she was now approaching. Natural causes, they claimed—but when she’d asked for more detail, the call had dropped. No one ever called back.
The cab slowed as the outline of the house emerged from the mist. Blackthorn Manor stood like something pulled from a forgotten gothic novel: three stories tall, its stone facade covered in ivy, with dark shutters and a spire that reached into the sky like a claw. It was silent. Lifeless.
Ava stepped out, the cold air biting her skin. The driver muttered something about the storm rolling in and didn’t wait for a tip before speeding off. Just like that, she was alone.
She stared up at the windows. Most were dark, but the top one—barely visible beneath the spire—flickered with a faint orange glow. Candlelight, maybe? Her stomach twisted, but she told herself it was probably a sensor light or the last rays of sunset.
She approached the heavy wooden door. The iron handle was cold, and the hinges groaned as she pushed it open. The smell hit her immediately—dust, old paper, and something faintly sour. The air inside was still, thick with the kind of silence that seemed to press on the eardrums.
“Hello?” she called, her voice small in the cavernous entry hall. No answer.
The door creaked shut behind her, locking out the mist. She reached for the light switch—nothing. Either the power was out, or the place hadn’t been updated since electricity was invented. She fumbled in her bag for a flashlight and clicked it on, the narrow beam slicing through the dark.
Paintings lined the walls—portraits, all of them. Men and women with the same sharp features. Dalton faces. Eyes that seemed too lifelike, too watchful.
She paused in front of one painting, her flashlight catching the plaque beneath it:
> “Elias Dalton, 1953–2024.”
Her uncle. A thin man with deep-set eyes and a tight mouth, dressed in a dark velvet coat. But it wasn’t the face that unsettled her—it was the background.
Behind Elias in the painting, barely visible, was a door. Chained shut. And painted on the wall beside it in red was a word:
DON’T.
Ava shivered.
Then, somewhere above her, a floorboard creaked.
She wasn’t alone.
