CHAPTER 1 — The House at Blackwood Hill
The old mansion had stood abandoned for twenty-seven years.
Everyone in the small town avoided Blackwood Hill after sunset. Windows shattered long ago. Ivy swallowed the walls. The porch sagged like it was ready to collapse. Local teenagers dared each other to spend one night inside, but nobody ever lasted until dawn.
Some claimed they heard footsteps upstairs.
Others swore they saw lights moving behind broken curtains.
The police dismissed every report.
"It's just an old house," they always said.
But nobody could explain why pets refused to go near it.
Or why every owner who tried to renovate it abandoned the project within days.
Thirty-two-year-old investigative journalist Ethan Carter didn't believe in ghosts.
He believed in lies.
And abandoned places always hid someone's secrets.
His editor laughed when Ethan pitched the story.
"You're really going to waste a week chasing ghost stories?"
Ethan smiled.
"I'm not chasing ghosts."
"I'm chasing whoever wants everyone to believe there are ghosts."
That afternoon, he drove toward Blackwood Hill.
Rain clouds gathered above the enormous Victorian mansion.
Even from the road, something felt... wrong.
The air suddenly became colder.
The birds stopped singing.
Not a single insect made a sound.
Silence wrapped around the house like a living thing.
Ethan stepped through the rusted iron gate.
It creaked open by itself.
He never touched it.
He froze.
The wind?
Maybe.
He laughed nervously and kept walking.
Inside, everything was frozen in time.
Dust covered antique furniture.
Family portraits stared down from cracked walls.
A grandfather clock stood motionless at exactly 8:17.
The same time, according to local legend, the family had disappeared.
Every room looked abandoned...
Except one.
At the end of the hallway...
Someone had recently lit a candle.
The wax was still warm.
Ethan's heartbeat quickened.
Someone had been here.
He followed muddy footprints upstairs.
They ended outside a locked bedroom.
As he reached for the doorknob...
A tiny voice whispered behind him.
"Please..."
He spun around.
Nobody.
Then again.
Soft.
Barely audible.
"Don't open that door..."
Ethan's blood ran cold.
The voice sounded like a little girl.
He searched every room.
Nothing.
When he returned...
The bedroom door was already open.
Slowly...
It creaked wider.
Inside stood a small wooden rocking chair.
Rocking.
By itself.
And sitting on the chair...
Was a faded photograph.
It showed a smiling family standing in front of this very house.
But someone had scratched every face away...
Except one.
A little girl.
On the back of the photo, written in fresh black ink, were six chilling words:
May you like
"She's been waiting for you, Ethan."
How did they know his name?
