Before...

What roamed there so often had already become a landmark, but only for the owners of that place...

1.

          What roamed there so often had already become a landmark�"but only to the owners of that place. Whenever it appeared, the guard struggled against a desperate wish to die of a heart attack, just to avoid witnessing this “something” on its eerie walk.

          Her soft yet deep sobs could chill the man’s blood in an instant. From that moment on, every pulse through his arteries and veins filled him with incredible pain. 

Everything inside him clenched as the “something” breathed deeply around him, as though it struggled to draw breath. He felt with every cell in his body the way her nostrils flared, inhaling the cold air mixed with his animal terror.

          He was certain it fed on his fear, but he was powerless to stop himself from feeling it. The terror, which grew frantic at the appearance of this “no-thing,” was compounded by his utter immobility in its presence. He was completely restrained by the “no-thing’s” presence.

          The guard tried to recite a prayer, but his lips wouldn’t move, and his mind stalled after “Our Father, who art in heaven.” After an hour and a half, everything stopped. But each night, the man grew greyer and greyer.

                   “What is this world coming to?!”

          “Repeat the request. Incorrect phrase,” the machine replied in a grating, mechanical voice. The guard waved it off and walked away, hoping to lose himself in the park. He just wanted to sit quietly under the shade of a broad tree and stop thinking altogether. A stream of cool summer air washed over him, exactly what he needed in the oppressive heat.

          With an automatic gesture, he tucked back a strand of his coal-black, slightly overgrown hair, unnaturally streaked with grey, and looked around for a vacant bench. There were none. Then he fixed his gaze on the nearest one, where a man sat, staring at a crumpled newspaper.

          “May I?” the man nodded toward the empty part of the old, lacquered, reupholstered bench.

          “Oh, of course. Have a seat. It’s not my property. Please, sit down,” the stranger rambled, returning to his newspaper. But not for long.

          “It’s you, isn’t it?” the stranger said, jabbing a finger at a photograph of a barely conscious guard sitting on some steps, surrounded by police.

          “No, that’s not me,” the man replied heavily, turning his gaze to a leaf on the pavement.

          The stranger squinted, looking from the photo to the man’s face. Despite the poor quality of the image, their profiles matched. The stranger seemed certain, and the man could feel his stare but tried to ignore it, to keep himself from boiling over.

          “It’s you!” the stranger finally shouted, drawing glances from a few passersby. “It is definitely you. I’m sure of it,” he added in a half-whisper.

          “And what?” the man gritted his teeth.

          “Nothing…”

          “Exactly.”

          “I’m just curious: how does it feel to talk to a skeleton?”

          “There was no skeleton. Leave me alone,” the man said with a faint grin, standing up abruptly.

          Across the path, a girl was spinning in circles, her arms spread wide. Her dress seemed to “smell” of the eighteenth century, her brown hair disheveled yet retaining hints of an elaborate hairstyle.

          The girl smiled at the sun, laughing as she tried to catch a small butterfly in her palm. But when she noticed the man, her expression changed. Joy vanished, replaced by pain and anger, twisting her delicate, almost childlike features.

          The girl let out a fierce howl, clawing at her own skin and hair. Her nails left red marks on her exposed skin, as though she were being torn by claws from within. In the next instant, she blurred into the air like melting wax, leaving no trace.

          The man wiped his face with his hands and looked around. Children, adults, dogs, squirrels… no one seemed to have noticed what he’d seen. Suddenly dizzy, he sat back down on the bench.

          “Are you not feeling well?” the stranger asked.

          “I’m fine,” the man replied quietly, nausea twisting in his stomach. Talking to the intrusive stranger was the last thing he wanted. He sat, focusing on a distant point, breathing slowly through his mouth. After a few minutes, he felt better and licked his dry lips.

          “My name is Seth,” the stranger extended a hand.

          “Mark,” the man replied, shaking it reluctantly. The warm, firm handshake grounded him a little. Trying to forget the vision of the girl, he calmed himself.

          “What happened to you, Mark?” Seth nodded at the paper in his hand. “What made you turn so grey at thirty? I read that you’d seen… ghosts.”

          “Another paper claimed I’d been in contact with the Devil,” Mark smiled faintly.

          “I haven’t read that one yet,” Seth chuckled. “So, what really happened, Mark?”

          “It’s not worth discussing.”

          “It must be difficult for you. I understand.”

          “Are you a psychologist?”

          “Partly,” Seth replied evasively, though it didn’t bother Mark. “It doesn’t matter.”

          “Seth, right?”

          “Seth Martin, to be exact.”

          “Martin? So you’re the new owner of this branch of Hell?”

          “Yes. And I’m very concerned about what happened to you in that house. I wasn’t told when I bought it, but… what happened is unsettling. I need the right ambiance for an art gallery�"no surprises. And I need to know you’re mentally stable.”

          “Then I’m sorry, Mr. Martin�"you bought a cat in a bag.”

          “I realize that, but…” Seth crumpled the newspaper and tossed it into the bin.                    “That’s not the point.”

          “What is?”

          “The question is: Can you help me?”

          “Me?”

          “You know the place and the previous owner well…”

          “No.”

          “I’ll pay.”

          “Goodbye.” Mark stood abruptly. “And don’t go in there. Better to burn the place down.”

          Mark moved briskly, eager to get out of Seth Martin’s sight. He knew one thing for certain: he would never walk through the doors of that place again. No one in the world could make him do it. 

          “Need a hand? Walk through the door of the place that had nearly taken his life and sanity again? Well, no. It’s never going to happen”. 

2.

          As the days passed after his meeting with Mr. Martin, Mark soon forgot all about their conversation. He didn't want to think about the fact that he, a jobless security guard, was being offered money to return to the house of his nightmares.

          The only thing Mark couldn’t forget was the girl in the park. That vision haunted him, lingering in his mind long after waking and seeping into his dreams. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw a face soaked in seething anger and unbearable pain.

      Waking up in the middle of the night, drenched in cold sweat, Mark tried desperately to place where he had seen that face before. He was certain he had encountered, if not this girl, then someone who looked eerily like her.

         One night, the image of the girl became startlingly vivid. She was clearer than before, as though she had stepped straight out of his fevered dreams.

            ‘Who are you?’

        His voice trembled as his hand reached out, wanting to touch her�"to prove, somehow, that she was real.

          ‘I’m just a human being,’ the girl smiled, but her expression held an odd, detached warmth.

          ‘I saw you in the park.’

        Her words seemed to shimmer in the air, soft and haunting, like the tinkling of harp strings plucked from their very souls.

          ‘I saw you too,’ the girl said, her eyes soft but distant as she absentmindedly fixed her hair in front of an invisible mirror. Her calm, almost indifferent tone alarmed Mark.

      ‘Why were you screaming? Did I scare you?’ he asked, his voice cracking with concern.

          The girl’s eyes softened as she looked at him sadly, her face so full of sadness that            Mark felt a knot tighten in his chest. Then, as if floating on the air itself, she settled onto an invisible stool that appeared out of nowhere.

Mark, unsure if his mind was playing tricks, took two hesitant steps forward. The girl’s presence seemed unreal, but her sadness was palpable.

      ‘I had a merry-go-round,’ she began, her voice trembling ever so slightly. ‘A beautiful one. I was a child then, but it was broken by a neighborhood boy.’ Her eyes lost their focus for a moment, as though remembering something far away. ‘Then I had a beautiful doll,’ she continued. ‘That too was broken by a neighborhood boy.’

          Mark felt a growing unease, the weight of her words pressing down on him like a cold wind. She seemed lost in the memories she was sharing, as if each one cut deeper than the last. ‘At school, I was an excellent student, a good girl. But...’ The girl’s voice broke, and she sobbed, her chest rising and falling with each ragged breath. ‘I… was broken by the same boy. Remember him? He introduced me to his company and their hobby.’

        Mark didn’t understand what she was saying, but her eyes were becoming more and more disturbing. With each word, they reddened, the bloodshot veins spider-webbing across her pupils. The deep black of her irises seemed to shrink, swallowed by the angry red backdrop. Soon, only the black pupil remained visible, standing out against the terrifying crimson.

         Horror gripped Mark’s chest, his throat tightening. He wanted to speak, to ask her what had happened�"but her gaze held him captive, growing more intense with each passing second. He couldn’t look away, even though everything inside him screamed to run.

    Mark was starting to feel the faint ringing in his ears�"tinnitus�"from the overwhelming pressure building in his chest. Panic squeezed his heart, terror flooding his senses as the ghost before him continued testing his resolve. The weight of her gaze, the suffocating aura of her presence, pressed harder against him, and every inch of him screamed to flee. But then, unexpectedly, the girl broke her unrelenting stare and shifted her attention, once again resuming her detached narrative.

          ‘They gave me a taste of some kind of pill. After, it was good… Without it, everything was bad. Grey,’ she murmured, her voice trembling with sorrow, yet distant as though she were recounting events from another life entirely.

          The girl sobbed, her eyes becoming darker, heavier with emotion, as though each tear was weighed down by the horrors she couldn’t express.

          ‘Then there was a masquerade party at school... for the graduates. I wore a beautiful dress, made to order, in the style of the 18th century.’ Her voice dropped into a whisper, barely audible, as if she were reliving the moment in a dream.

          Suddenly, without warning, the girl leapt from her seat, and in the blink of an eye, she was standing next to Mark. The speed at which she moved made Mark freeze, his heart skipping a beat.

          ‘That’s the dress. I’m wearing it... But none of my classmates ever saw it.’ The girl’s voice had become more insistent now, desperate for recognition. She reached out as though to touch him, but stopped short, her fingers trembling.

          Then, as if unable to restrain herself any longer, the girl hissed sharply, her body twisting unnaturally as she glided around Mark, her movement snake-like and eerie. He felt a cold shiver run down his spine as she circled him.

          ‘But the boy next door saw it. And he saw me in it too,’ she spat, her voice growing colder, filled with bitterness. ‘He gave me more pills to make the masquerade better. And then he left me when I was dying from them! So, who am I?!’

          With that, the girl’s anger exploded, her hands shooting out to shove Mark hard in the chest. The force of the blow sent him flying backward, crashing into a cluster of gnarled roots, his body skidding across the ground.

          Mark struggled to regain his balance, his mind racing, but it was as if his thoughts were frozen. He couldn't grasp onto anything�"except her eyes, still burning with pain and rage. He tried desperately to remember the details, the flash of memory coming in chaotic bursts: a face, brown and gold eyes, brown hair...

          ‘K-Kate?’ Mark managed to choke out, his breath coming in ragged gasps, steam rising in the icy air around him.

          The temperature had plummeted suddenly, and Mark could feel the chill seeping into his bones, freezing him in place. The frost crept over him, coating his body in an instant as the cold tightened its grip.

          ‘Kate, Kate, Kate, Kate,’ he muttered, the name tumbling from his lips like a prayer, his body thrashing helplessly in the bed. But it wasn’t the comfort of sleep that had him trapped. His mind was ensnared by her�"by Kate. She clung to him, a ghost he couldn’t escape, a nightmare that bled into every corner of his waking thoughts. He couldn’t wake up. His body moved, but his mind was trapped in a feverish grasp. He gasped, his lungs burning, trying to gulp air like a fish stranded on dry land.

          Mark's eyes flew open. He was back in his bed. The room was dark, quiet, and painfully real.

          ‘Jesus,’ he whispered, his voice hoarse as he ran his hands over his face, trying to shake off the remnants of the vision. He blinked, wiping away the sweat that had gathered on his forehead, but it didn’t help. The coldness still clung to him. ‘God.’

          Voices could be heard outside the window. Mark hurried outside, though he didn’t care who was talking about whom. He just needed a breath of fresh air to rid himself of the remnants of the nightmare clinging to his face. But when he looked, there was no one outside. Not that it mattered. Reluctantly, he took a deep breath in, then out, trying to steady his racing heart.

         ‘Don’t be afraid. It’s okay.’

       The whisper came from the walls. Mark froze, his skin prickling. He turned sharply, his heartbeat thundering in his ears, but the room was still quiet, almost dark. Only a faint light filtered through the window, cast by a distant streetlamp.

          ‘Do you hear that? Can you feel me getting cold?’

       Mark’s breath hitched in his throat. He clenched his fists. He was sure he was awake, but the chill creeping into his bones told him otherwise. And the whisper... he recognized it. It was the same voice he’d heard in the mansion while he was working�"though then, he hadn’t been able to understand the words.

           ‘Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid of me.’

           Mark’s pulse quickened. ‘Who are you?!’ he demanded, trying to sound brave, but his voice betrayed him, trembling. Inside, he was shaking, his nerves frayed, every muscle screaming to flee.

          ‘You won’t run away.’

          ‘Who are you?!’ Mark shouted again, a frenzied desperation leaking into his tone.

          ‘No one will save you from you.’

          The words struck him like a physical blow. They sank deep, filling him with an icy terror he couldn’t escape. He listened closely. It wasn’t a woman’s voice. The tone was darker, rougher�"almost... malevolent.

         Mark spun around and headed for the bedroom door. It wasn’t jammed like usual, and to his surprise, it opened without the usual ominous creak. But what lay beyond that door made his stomach twist with dread.

          It was him�"Mark. A little younger, yes, but unmistakably him.

          Suddenly, the figure aged before Mark’s eyes, growing older, then older still, until his skin withered away from the bones. Then those rotten bones crumbled, falling to the marble floor with a sickening clatter.

          Mark’s eyes widened in horror, his breath catching in his throat. He wanted to step back, to escape, but as he moved, his back slammed into something�"someone.

          It was him, again. But this version of himself was in guard's clothes, with no grey hair, standing in the very mansion Mark never wanted to return to.

          ‘What’s going on here?’ Mark whispered, dumbfounded, the world spinning around him.

          His doppelganger flicked on a flashlight, pointing it at Mark with trembling hands, the light wavering unsteadily.

          ‘What are you?’ The doppelganger muttered, eyes wide with confusion.

          ‘Don’t be afraid of me. It’s okay,’ Mark said, his voice soft but trembling, his hands held out in a placating gesture as he moved closer.

          But just as Mark moved, a rustle in the corner caught his attention. Kate�"the ghost girl from the park�"was standing nearby. She folded her arms across her chest, her gaze fixed on Mark with eerie calm. Without saying a word, she took a deep breath and blew toward him.

          Immediately, frost began to coat Mark’s skin. His heart tightened, and it became harder to breathe. The cold pierced his chest, making every breath feel like a struggle.

          ‘Stop it,’ Mark begged, his voice tight with the cold, his teeth chattering as he looked into her eyes, but Kate’s gaze remained cold, unyielding.

          Then, her laughter echoed through the room. It was strange�"empty, yet triumphant, like the sound of an organ playing in a vast, forgotten cathedral. The laughter seemed endless, wrapping around him, suffocating him. Mark’s resolve shattered.

          ‘Do you hear that?!’ he shouted angrily, rubbing his stiffened hands together to warm them. ‘Can’t you feel me getting cold?! And that gives you pleasure?!’

          Kate’s eyes narrowed as she hissed. ‘I... got... cold... because... of... you!’

          ‘No one forced you to take everything at once! Stupid�"!’

          ‘You’re going to die here,’ Kate interrupted, pointing both index fingers at him, her bloodshot eyes filled with malice. ‘Or... deal with yourself.’ She gestured at the doppelganger. ‘He’s your only salvation. I’m giving you a chance. A chance at your most vulnerable moment.’

          Mark’s stomach twisted.

          Kate’s cold stare lingered on him one last time before she vanished into thin air, leaving only an empty, icy chill behind.

          ‘What are you?’ The doppelganger guard whispered, his voice quivering with panic. ‘What are you?’

          He stared at Mark, but Mark could see that the doppelganger’s vision was clouded�"he could barely make out Mark’s form. The figure he saw was distorted, a blurred, grey shape hovering above the ground, almost ghostly.

          The guard’s legs trembled, but he couldn’t move.

          ‘Don’t be afraid. Don’t be afraid of me,’ Mark repeated, trying to force the words out, but they felt hollow. His own breath came in labored gasps, his body shaking from the cold, as he stood frozen, unable to escape. ‘You won’t run away. You just have to endure it. Hear me.’

          The doppelganger whispered something, but his voice faltered. ‘Our Father, who art in heaven…’ He paused, straining.

          But the rest of the prayer was lost to him. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember.

          Mark could feel the icy air growing heavier, choking him with each breath. His nose was filled with vapor as his lungs burned. The frost was creeping over everything�"floor, walls, furniture�"until Mark himself was encased in a thin layer of ice.

          The doppelganger guard was trembling, his body stooped, his eyes wide with terror. He saw himself, but not as Mark the guard. He was... different. He was dressed in ordinary clothes, not the uniform. He had never looked in the mirror, Mark realized. But now, that other version of himself looked like he had died in a freezer�"his hair covered in frost, eyes now a dull, silvery hue. That other Mark stared at him like a starving man, gazing at a loaf of fresh bread.

          With lips cracked and bloodied, the doppelganger whispered hoarsely, ‘Help me. She’s killing me.’

          But Mark’s voice was swallowed by the ice. He couldn’t reach him. In a final, desperate attempt, Mark screamed with every ounce of strength he had left:

          ‘You’re going to become what happened to me!’

          His words cracked the silence, the sound so powerful it made the chandelier above them tremble. But the doppelganger didn’t hear him. He only heard a piercing howl echoing through the room.

          Then, in the next instant, Mark watched as his frozen doppelganger began to crack and shatter. His body fractured with an unnatural sound, blood oozing through the cracks in his skin before freezing on contact with the air.

          Mark felt no pain. His mind flickered to the past. To the masquerade ball.

          Mark’s freezing mind drifted back to the masquerade ball, to the memory of a night that should have been celebratory but had turned into a nightmare. The glittering lights, the laughter, the music�"it all faded into the haze of pills and chaos. Kate had caught his eye then, her bright smile hiding a desperate hunger for escape. He had handed her the pills, the same ones that would twist her life and his into something unrecognizable. He watched as she eagerly consumed them, her once-vibrant spirit fading, leaving only the shell of a girl who would never be the same. It was a night of choices, of actions that could never be undone, a night that had led to this frozen moment.

          And now, twenty years later, turning into a blood-and-ice sculpture, Mark remembered everything again. He hadn’t begged for forgiveness in his final moments. He knew Kate wouldn’t forgive him, and he realized it wouldn’t change anything. Death is paid for with death.

          The next morning, Mark, the security guard, was found dead in the hallway of the old mansion outside of town. The doctors declared death by heartbreak.

Seth Martin stood at his daughter Kate’s grave, staring down at the calligraphic script on the headstone:

"Kate Martin. Beloved daughter and granddaughter."

          A soft breeze rustled the leaves around him, and a cold shiver crawled up his spine, though it wasn’t the weather. His mind drifted to the events of the night before, Kate's vengeance still fresh in his memory.

          Seth had never been the emotional type, but as he stood there now, his eyes softened with something like satisfaction. The moment Mark had stepped into the mansion, accepting the job as security guard, the game had been set. Seth had watched him, knowing that Kate's ghost had been waiting for this moment. It had been no accident that Mark had been found, and no accident that Kate had bent time itself to reach him. Mark had been a player in their long-awaited plan for revenge.

          Years ago, Mark had been just a teenager, at the school prom, offering Kate the pills that would change her life forever. Kate, naïve and trusting, had taken them without knowing how much damage they would cause. Mark never admitted it was his fault. He hid behind lies, unwilling to own up to his role in Kate’s death. That silence had haunted Seth for years, but now Kate had found a way to make him pay.

          “You were always independent,” Seth whispered to the grave, a sad smile on his lips. He placed a cherry rose gently on the stone, and the faintest glimmer of his daughter’s ghost flickered in the corner of his eye.

          A strange sense of peace settled over him. He had helped his daughter, and she had repaid him by ensuring Mark would never escape his guilt. Kate had done what needed to be done�"had gotten revenge on the boy who had caused her death, and who had never taken responsibility for it. Seth, though conflicted at times, didn’t regret any of it. They had both gotten what they needed. He was almost proud of Kate.

          Seth let out a breath and turned away from the grave. The weight of his decisions still hung heavily on him, but Kate had never needed his forgiveness. In the end, she had done exactly what she needed to - Mark’s fate was sealed by his own actions, and the burden of that guilt would die with him.