Echoes of her

I kept thinking where I could find her. I was standing in the middle of the hallway, still, the chill of the old manor creeping under my skin. My gaze drifted from the old portraits on the walls to the dim candlelight that was flickering by the stairs. She should have been back by now.

She shouldn't have gone anywhere. Where could she go? Why did she go alone? Did something happen to her? All the bad thoughts rushed through my mind like hungry ducks rush to the sound of their owner dropping food in their favorite bowl.

Where are you, my Love? My voice echoed again as I roared at the bottom of my lungs. I felt helpless, just the way I had felt in the dream. No- It was just a dream, I can't let anyone hurt her. Not until I'm alive.

The thoughts of her holding my– uh uh our baby- filled my eyes. A scene from a movie started playing in front of my eyes, with the characters being replaced by my wife and my kid, even though I have never seen my kid.

It was a girl. My wife- she was wearing the dress I gifted her on our 3rd anniversary. In her petite hands, was a girl, a mirror image of the woman who was holding her, her mom. They resembled so much, I guess all the good features were passed down from her mom.

The smile she had on her face was the smile for what any man in the world would give away everything they own to just catch a glimpse of it, and I was blessed to see it- even though it was just my imagination.

The whole scene brought a shiny smile on my face, but then I snapped back to reality and remembered what I was supposed to do. There was no sound nearby, except for my racing heart and my heavy breaths that took a pause when I remembered that I had asked her to search the upper floors, not disappear completely.

I had asked her to explore the rooms and hallway upstairs to find anything of interest, and said: "If you find something weird or if you get hurt, just scream and I'll be there before you blink your eyes for the second time"

And then, out of nowhere, the memory came crashing back—memory of me warning her not to step into the basement. I had no logical explanation when she asked why, I just had a feeling. A feeling so uneasy that it made the hairs on my arms stand up. A feeling that had crept up my sleeves from the moment I looked towards the basement door.

"Don't go down there," I had told her firmly. "Search upstairs. The rooms. The corridors. If there's anything odd in this place, it'll be there."

She nodded at the time. I told her that I had planned to take the basement myself, because I could not risk her getting any damage.

But now, standing there, I was filled with nothing but doubt. "What if she didn't listen? What if curiosity pulled her in?" My inner voices started playing games with my mind again

I tried to counter argue my inner voice "No. She never disobeys me, She would have stayed upstairs. She promised. Maybe she was in a soundproof room. Maybe my voice didn't reach her. Maybe, maybe she was hurt. No it can't be… Nooo"

Without wasting another second, I locked my eyes on the staircase, and with a swift motion, ran up the old wooden staircase. I tried to be as fast as I could and skipped every 2 steps. I was basically hopping at that time, but the staircase seemed to be never ending.

After what felt like an eternity of jumping the stairs, I finally defeated the stairs and reached its end. The upper floor was now right in front of my eyes, stretched far—room after room, all covered in dust and shadows. I called her name once, twice, louder each time.

But there was nothing, except for my own voices. My echoes striking my ears from one side, and my inner voices striking through the other side, constantly implanting the fear of losing my wife and my child in my mind.

My chest tightened. I checked every room, every corner. Her scarf wasn't there. No footprints in the layers upon layers of dust. No sign she'd even been up here.

"She hadn't gone upstairs. Then where could she be? Did the floor swallow her? or was she a figment of my imagination all long? Naahh stop joking man, but on a serious note What if she had not listened to me and actually went downstairs? What if curiosity got the better of her? What if there was something else that pulled her???"

My mind felt numb, a silent echo just going through my mind, the echo of her name, "Mara" Whenever I heard this name, my heart would find peace, like a baby in their mother's lap. But this time, the echoes of her name, just brought dread to my heart.

And then I heard a loud, deep and resonant thud, shaking the floor just slightly beneath my feet. My eyes snapped downward toward the staircase I'd just climbed.

Then came a scream. It was high. It was piercing. It was familiar. It- was- Her

I didn't think for a moment I just ran. My feet thundered down the staircase, skipping two steps at a time. Panic surged through me like an ocean's wave during full moon. My vision blurred slightly from the adrenaline that rushed through my body. "I need to get to her. I need to make sure—"

Just as I was thinking it, The world flipped.

My foot slipped. I stumbled forward, helpless against the momentum. My body slammed against the wooden stairs. The back of my head cracked against something hard.

And then there was blackness. Pumping pain at the back of my head.

And then, there was nothing. It was not even darkness. It was just emptiness.

~(AFTER 2 HOURS)

There was pitch black everywhere, or so I thought. At first, that was all there was. A slow, heavy black that wrapped around me like thick tar. Then came the throbbing pain in the back of my head. The pain was rhythmic like a drum being played inside my head. I blinked, candlelight stabbed into my eyes from the hallway.

I was lying at the base of the staircase. My body ached, every joint sore, but nothing seemed broken. I moved slowly, struggling to remember what had happened.

Then I remembered Mara, her scream, it came from the basement.

Adrenaline jolted me fully awake. I dragged myself up, and staggered forward. The house was quiet again

I limped my way to the basement door, the air grew colder the closer I got. That damned basement.

What I saw next froze me mid-step.

The floor just behind the door was shattered. There was a massive hole that had torn through the wooden boards, as if something immense had fallen down with incredible force like a little asteroid, or something from beneath came up like a Loch Ness Monster rising from its lake, destroying the floor. There was no evidence of what had happened so my assumption was as good as Yours.

Debris was scattered around the opening. I stepped closer, my heart pounding the way the heart of a racehorse does after an intense race. I sat down on my knees and peered into the hole.

It was not very deep. The pit yawned beneath the house like an open mouth, wide and hungry. I could even see the bottom clearly. Shadows moved down there, or maybe it was my imagination that was playing all these games. I couldn't be sure anymore.

The pit was this deep that if I jumped in it, I wouldn't hurt myself, so I jumped without hesitation, not noticing that a loud thud will happen and it could notify andone, or if I may say, anything that wandered the basement.

Well, I kept my guard up for a few moments and stood where I had fallen. There was no one, nothing, so I thought I was safe. I then turned back, did a 360° and got a good look of the basement.

It was huge, not just huge, it was massive.

When I call the manor huge, it was nothing as compared to the basement. The basement stretched at least 5 times the length and width of the manor underground. It felt like this very basement is the house of every evil in the town.

I had a feeling that what I am witnessing right now isn't even a small part of this basement, it is way more massive than it seems.

The basement was uniquely illuminated by moonlight reaching there through cracks and reflecting through perfectly placed mirrors and crystals that reinforced the Moonlight to make the whole basement well lit.

Lucky for me, I didn't have to investigate the whole basement to search for my wife, I heard chants like voices coming from a nearby room and then I found there, At the far wall of the pit, almost hidden in the dark—a door.

A heavy, ancient-looking wooden door stood wedged into the side of the earth. Rust streaked down its iron hinges, and its surface was warped, like it had spent centuries under pressure. It didn't belong here. It looked… older than the house itself.

"What the hell is this?" I whispered to myself

The chants started to grow louder and It started to feel like someone was whispering them in my ears. I wanted to stay away from anything demonic, but the thought of my wife getting hurt in any way pulled me closer to that door.

The complete hall was illuminated by bluish light from the moon and in contrast, yellowish light was flickering inside the room. It was visible from the cracks on that door, it was similar to the light of candles.

I tried to peek in through the cracks in the door. The cracks were large enough to let the light in the room pass through them but so small that they didn't slide past the slightest hint of what was happening inside the room.

The last resort I had was to slowly and stealthily get inside the room and see what was happening with my own eyes

I hesitated at first. The voices in my head whispered to stop. Turn back. Go call for help. But I didn't. I couldn't.

I grabbed the handle of the door. It was cold, ghostly cold. I took my sweet time and turned the handle slowly. It creaked and I pushed it open.

Inside there was a sight that my mind couldn't comprehend, a sight that made me almost faint, a sight that made my heart beat out of my chest, a sight that horrified me the way I had never been before…