Lena, Igor, and Patryk dare to enter the abandoned mansion at the edge of the woods, armed with a key from Lena’s grandfather. Inside, the house seems to wake up before they do.
A narrow path of white pebbles cut through the darkening glade, leading straight to an iron gate and the black outline of an old mansion beyond it. No one in the village went near the place after sunset, but Lena, Igor, and Patryk were not the kind of people who turned back because others were frightened.
They had always been pulled toward locked doors and unanswered questions. Now they stood at the gate with torches in hand, a notebook stuffed into the backpack, and a camera slung around Igor’s neck. Above the house, the moon hung low and pale, split by a thin strip of cloud, as if something had dragged a nail across its face.
"Ready?" Lena whispered.
Her fingers tightened around a small key she had found in her grandfather’s old trunk, the metal cold enough to sting.
"Already am," Patryk said, though his voice was quieter than usual.
He pushed the gate. It opened with a long, protesting screech that seemed to carry through the trees. The sound died slowly in the still air.
Inside the garden, weeds had swallowed the paths, climbing nearly to their knees. Damp earth, rot, and dust hung in the air. As they moved toward the front steps, Lena felt the strange certainty that the house had been waiting for them.
Then a yellow light flashed once from an upstairs window.
It vanished immediately.
Igor lifted his camera. "Did you see that?"
Lena did not answer. She stepped to the door, slid the key into the lock, and turned it.
The mechanism gave way.
The door opened on a breath of stale darkness, and from somewhere deep inside the mansion came the slow, heavy sound of footsteps on the stairs.