Crystallized Truth

Chapter 22 - Icy Flames

"Stay here. It'll be better if I talk alone. I know how to handle this." Ethan said.

They all were standing in front of the burnt mansion. It looked a waste of blasted robot under the moonless sky. An experiment gone wrong, costing the entire lab to the scientist.

Poor scientist. Ah, she meant Azaad family.

Rubbing her hands, Amelia watched the fog forming in front of her mouth. The cream that she had used to counter cold, seemed to stop working in this part of city.

Absolutely cold.

But this seemed adventurous. She wondered if she would be able to get some nice shot in the mansion. Or would it be just as horrible as it was from outside.

Ethan jogged towards them.

"Its done. We must be careful and silent. No one should think some ghost is wandering here." Ethan warned.

"Ghost? Like those old movies?" Amelia asked with amused look. This seemed interesting. Haunted pictures could be a theme of her new album. Something new and interesting.

"Well its popular here. Haunted things." Ethan shrugged.

"Makes sense." Ashley muttered looking down.

Amelia frowned. Ashley was acting weird nowadays. Not that he was better before but he was acting weirder now and she wasn't able to understand his mood due to his unusual silence. Not complete silence but he wasn't that regular in throwing tantrums anymore.

Sneaking to the back door, they opened their respective high quality torches.

The world was full of black and white. The air choked of dust and tasted of ashes. It took her a moment to adjust in the years old suffocating stillness of the mansion.

The debris covered every inch of the hall. The walls and pillars crumbled here and there, cobwebs stretched endlessly over the layers and layers of dust. Mostly everything was ashes.

Despite the terrible state of the mansion, no rat scurried past her feet or any bat flew over her. At least, she was saved from such debacle. She couldn't stand those living things.

"I'll check the south wing upstairs." Amelia offered, her voice had no echo, surprisingly and weirdly in the decades old abandoned building.

Gaining a mindless nods from her companions, she made her way to stairs. The grime covering the railing, the stairs seemed stable however. Progressing further she found the upper portion in better position than the lower one.

"I'll check the north wing upstairs." Ava spoke downstairs, her voice clear in the stillness.

"Of course." Ethan answer boomed.
"Ashley, why don't you go upstairs and check if there's anything of interest. I feel upper area gots lot of area to check than this."

Amelia stopped on hearing Ethan.

What was Ethan doing? It felt odd to hear Ethan ordering Ashley. He would surely blast at him. Amelia shook her head. Ethan never knew when to speak and when not.

"I think you're right." Ashley answer surprised her further.

Ashley was listening to Ethan. Why? And how?

She had reached the corridor by now and the silence was reigning the mansion again so she turned her attention in observing the mansion.

Dust laid in eternal sleep over every inch and her footsteps leaving imprints. The grotesque fire of decades back, however, seemed to not reach this area. It gave the impression as if no fire ever devoured this crumbling mansion or the mysterious residents.