FICTION | HORROR | WRITING CHALLENGE
Lament of the Damned
“I never wished them harm. I only wanted to protect them and their cherished moments. Now we’re shackled together in shadow. We’re prisoners of the evil that festers here.”
This is a spooky story in response to Idea #5 of JF Danskin’s “6 Spooky Writing Prompts.” (I’m not sure if it truly fits a LitRPG story, but I couldn’t resist the unique perspective.)
My mansion lurked atop Allen Hill with its shadow slithering over the town below like a dark specter.
Faded gray paint peeled away from my weathered boards, revealing the withered bones of my long-ago construction. My shattered windows gaped like hollow voids and jagged glass teeth ready to devour any who drew near.
My once grand halls are now reduced to dilapidation and decay.
But I can still remember when brighter days filled my halls with warmth and joy. Laughter echoed up the stairwells as children played hide and seek. The sweet aroma of baked apples and cinnamon wafted from my windowsills. The family gathered together in the parlor around the crackling fireplace, all blissful in each other’s company as they shared stories late into the night.
Mother hummed softly in the kitchen, with a tune as sweet as her pies. Father scribbled away in his study, as he gave life to fanciful tales with his pen. Little feet pattered excitedly down the halls as they sped off on some new adventure.
I cherished those sounds most of all.
But that light dimmed as the darkness gathered.
Mother’s cheerful hum withered into mournful sobs that echoed from somewhere in the kitchen. Father scratched violently with his pen as he scrawled illegible words in dark crimson ink. Little feet dragged through the halls as they left smudges of red handprints in their wake.
Darkness crept into my sanctuary and corrupted it from within.
Now phantoms stalk my lightless halls with ominous whispers floating through rooms long deserted. Ghostly screams echo up from the cellar, where floorboards now bare old horrors below. Shadows skitter across peeled wallpaper as they claw omens of misfortune and death.
They say I thirst only for fresh blood, and that my once warm rooms seethe with malicious spirits eager to do evil.
I did not choose this fate.
I yearn for the golden days of the past, for the family I sheltered beneath my eaves. Long before madness took root in my occupant’s hearts and twisted their souls. Long before their laughter soured to maniacal cackles and their faces warped into leering masks of cruelty.
I never wished them harm. I only wanted to protect them and their cherished moments. Now we’re shackled together in shadow. We’re prisoners of the evil that festers here.
I fight against the wickedness infesting my timbers and the black corruption that stains my crumbling walls and rots me from within. But it courses through me unchecked, like a malignant cancer. I’ve become its puppet.
I’m forced to lure hapless souls to their doom. Fresh blood draws them in — the curious, the foolhardy, the ones ignorant of the terrors I possess.
I’m powerless to warn them away.
Evil has made me its prisoner within my grim estate. My soul festers in the foul deeds I’m forced to spawn. No purity remains in this dark abyss. No hope of salvation in my descent to madness.
What good do I leave when my last light goes dark? All I can offer are my weeping apologies to the lost innocents I’ve destroyed.
Forgive me. Please forgive me.
No…forgiveness is not for a damned soul like mine.
So, I rot here as the decaying corpse of a once proud estate while I await oblivion’s sweet kiss. The demons of my past still haunt my empty rooms with sinister specters keeping watch over their broken host.
Perhaps, one day, the victims will bury me beneath the rubble of my collapsed walls — purged by fire. Only then will I be free from this eternal purgatory that binds me. Until that time, I remain an instrument of evil; an unwilling vessel for the wickedness that festers within.
I’m damned with no hope of salvation.
Forgive me, lost innocents.
Forgive me, please.
Forgive me.