LACUNA OBSCURA - A Horror Thriller

CHAPTER III

The faded moonlight was filtering through the window blinds in Sarza's bedroom.
Her face stained with fear.
It has been nearly two whole days, there has been no sign of her daughter.

Even the local police have failed to find any trace of her.

Poor girl! she ponders, already suffering for many months now from various ailments, she laments her sudden disappearance.
She had only started thinking of how the ailments started when she heard something break shatter to pieces, in the other end of the corridor.

A cloud of sudden fear flashed before Sarza's eyes.
All things considered, she was alone in this part of the castle.
It was late into the night and Ruth stayed in the quarters attached to the prison chambers below in the dungeon.

She gets up from the bed, and slowly, one step at a time goes near the door.
On reaching she flicks the switch and turns on the dim fluorescent yellow lights.
Standing near the door, Sarza peeks from her room entrance trying to see around the corner where the passage from her room meets the hallway.

Unable to get a clear view she approaches the hallway with cautious steps.
Every second began to seem like an eternity to her, walking alone in these empty corridors.
As she reaches the corner at the end of the passage, she recovers some lost courage as her eyes get accustomed to the dim lighting all around.

And it is then, to her shock, she notices the glass of the window on the other end of the passage broken.
So this is the sound that came to her ears?
Why would the window glass shatter like that? Or did someone break it?

She hardens her jawline and with quick strides moves near the window, her hands holding up the gown she had been wearing.
Upon reaching, she scans the surroundings with her eyes.

Shattered glass lay on the floor, splintered pieces strewn around having got flunged in the distance.
She shifted her gaze towards the window.
A large gaping hole in the window glass, circled by cracks all around it.
Sarza gasps.
What could have made such a hole as it came through the window?

Sarza moves closer to the window, carefully side-stepping the broken glass that lay around it.
On reaching the window she turns the flashlight of her cell phone on and directs it towards the castle grounds and nearby fields hoping to find someone.
But alas! Not a soul seemed to be present.

Just as she turns around, clueless and puzzled at what seemed to have happened to the window and, as to who may have done it, she notices something on the floor right where she had been standing just a few minutes ago.

A stone, quite large, about the size of the fist of a man, lay with what seemed to be a short yet strong rope tied to it.

Sarza's eyes narrowed in puzzlement, not only she did not expect such a childish act of someone throwing a stone at the windows of the castle, but even more so at this time of the night.

It was then, as she looked at the end of the rope that her blood went cold.
Tied to the rope was a human finger smeared with blood. Ornameting the blood-smeared finger was a ring.
The ring of her daughter Margaret!!

Miss Sarza tumbled back in horror with trembling fingers.
"Oh lord Jesus, what the actual fuck!!" She blurted out with a shriek of absolute fear and then fell unconscious over on the pillar behind her.

☯︎

The lodging place was spacy, with large rooms of wooden interiors. There were two floors above the ground floor.

Seen from above it would have appeared to be shaped as a "U" with a long joint balcony for all the rooms which also served as a corridor and entrance to the staircase.