Blackthorn Manor

Part 5

It is around the same time the clock strikes 11:00 PM, you begin to regret your decision.

Up until now, you have managed to keep yourself busy. Up until now, you have read and sent emails, drafted and edited outlines. You even cleared out your spam folders and took the time to remove yourself from multiple listservs. It is around 11:00 PM though, when you begin to run out of steam.

Staring blankly out the window, you watch the storm rage. The wind is loud, a beast of its own as it howls angrily against the manor. It is enough that you shiver, pulling your blanket higher to fall back on your pillows. It is all Seokjin's fault, you decide. If he had not shown up in such a dramatic fashion, you would not be sitting here mpw, wondering if you should have left.

The situation being what it is, you cannot fall asleep and around 11:30 pm, stand up from your bed. Tea, you think, stepping into the hall. Tea will be calming, it will help you sleep – at least, this is what you imagine until your feet touch the landing. The storm is wilder outside the confines of your bedroom; violent and untamed without the walls of your blankets. The wind screams in displeasure, rain driving in rivulets to cover the ground. The house shudders under the weight of its foe and you cannot help wondering about Min Yoongi's words.

A house has a history, just like anything else.

The idea of the house being alive makes you shiver. Your feet move fast at the notion, faintly flying by the time you reach the kitchen. Paused on the threshold, one hand on the door, you slowly turn sideways to consider the length of the hall. That door at the end is the same one Seokjin entered earlier and, reconsidering the interaction, you find it strange.

It is odd, is it not? The fact that everyone keeps telling you to stay inside.

At a surface level, the advice is logical. It is a normal request to not go out in a storm – but this is precisely why the whole thing strikes you as odd. No sane, rational person would go out on a night like this. Which leads to the conclusion that either, A) you are not sane, or B) there is something else going on, something you are not supposed to see. The most troubling part about it all, you cannot decide which conclusion is worse.

Hand falling from the knob, you take a slow step in the direction of the door to outside. While you walk, the shadows seem to lengthen, stretching out fingers in a way that beckons and pulls. The effect is strangely calming, as though you are no longer the one in control. You watch it all from above; a person looking in from the outside.

Fingers reaching out, the shadows blend into night while you grasp the doorknob in one hand. Suddenly, a scream – sharp and sudden – renders the night.

Stumbling back, your spine hits the wall. The scream came from outside, you realize. Over the sounds of the storm. This makes no sense and you stare wildly at the dark while your chest rises and falls. Head buzzing, your fingers tremble pushing yourself up from the wall. The scream hurt, physically wounded and you feel as though your chest has been split, sanity spilled on the tile. It lies there twisted; bare and deformed but still, something within you makes you take another step forward.

Within seconds, the scream comes again and this time, you manage to fling open the door. The rain on the lawn is monstrous, streaming down from the manse to slide into the treeline. It tramples the flowers, making pulp of the garden but you do not look here, but beyond – to the forest, to where the noise sounds from again.

Cold fear seizes your heart, recognizing the voice to be male. Male, meaning – Yoongi. You do not pause, stumbling into the night. The rain immediately soaks you to the bone, dousing you fully but then you are off, sprinting and no longer in control. At the fourth scream, you spin, changing direction to head straight for the woods.