The storm raged across the sky as though the heavens themselves wanted to tear the earth apart. Thunder cracked, lightning illuminated the tall Victorian house on the edge of Blackwood Hill, and rain battered the windows like impatient fists demanding entry.

Inside, a young man gasped for breath. His shirt was stained with blood, his trembling hand pressed against a wound that should have killed him hours ago. But it wasn't the wound keeping him there. It was something else. Something darker.

You won't escape me, a shadowy voice hissed from the staircase.

The man staggered backward, eyes wide with terror. He wasn't afraid of dying. No his fear was that his soul would never leave this house. That he would remain, bound by hatred, trapped by betrayal, cursed to watch centuries pass without ever touching the world again.

The final flash of lightning illuminated his face handsome, tormented, eyes burning with despair.

Then came the silence.

The house swallowed him whole.