The Night of Massacre | ✔️

W I T C H I N G H O U R

THE WITCHING HOUR is the time when the difference between lightness and darkness is the weakest rendering the supernatural beings, along with demons and witches to be in their most powerful state.

A howling scream pierced through the menacing silence, bursting the bubble of delusion, slicing through the heat in the atmosphere into water of oblivion. The temptress of young beauty he had fetched, the moment he sought shelter under her roof, had evanesced into nothingness.

Rather, the creature that laid within his sight conferred wrinkles on her face, a mane of scratchy grey hair and the rough pads of her fingers on his skin. He stared at her baffled, clutching tightly on her necklace as she bared her stained crooked teeth at him, screaming in anguish.

Snapping out of his reverie, he grappled the candelabrum by the table and lashed it on her head, catching her off guard as she stumbled backwards. Nehan jumped in his place and scurried out of the hallways.

"Run, as faraway as you can, for I will catch you wherever you shall reside." She sneered from behind him in a minacious manner.

He grasped the necklace, the chain piercing in his skin and the amber glowing in the dark. He ran for the main entrance; instead it closed upon him and he found himself in another maze of hallways. Mumbling prayers under his breath, he stood in front of the glass windows trying to break out of them, rather his hands bled blood as if the shards of glass had pierced his skin, whereas the windows remain unscathed.

The whispers and the shadows followed him, murmuring his name, 'Nehan, Nehan, where are you off to?' And he was left horrified when the blood seeped from the walls.

The wooden walls that had stood proudly in front of him, were now in a tattered state, as blood glided on it. When he inhaled the thick metallic stench of it, his stomach turned upside down.

He didn't stop praying, his voice getting louder with every passing moment. The whispers did not cease as they had been working efficiently on delineating him insane. 'Nehan, Nehan, I know you fear me.' It growled viciously in his ears almost bursting his eardrums.

He jumped at the feel of wetness on his feet and when his eyes drifted towards it, another wave of nausea hits him. The river of blood had started engulfing him when the shadows, gripped his leg and pulled his body along the bloody pathway.

He screamed and yelled, holding the necklace firmly in his grip as it burned through his skin. His body was bathed in crimson when the shadows hurled him towards the walls of the manor. Nehan cried in torment for the shadows bawled around him, 'Nehan, Nehan, this isn't any nightmare.'

His bones cracked with the pressure he had been thrown against the bloody wooden walls. He closed his eyes and screeched for them to "STOP" and they did.

His throat hurts from all the screaming and when he opened his eyes, he was standing in an endless hallway, clean as glass with no stains and stench of blood, neither any windows nor any doors.

The necklace in his hold had stopped burning his skin. And he lifted his hand within the line of his vision. The piece of jewellery lied cold in his hold and the sparkling amber was not glimmering anymore, as it rested deadly on his hands.

Silence, eerie silence elapsed in the air enveloping one in the sense of sinister serenity, where he jumped in his place at the sound of something being carved on the wood. His eyes drifted around in search of the voices as his heart thudded fatally inside his body.

The secluded hallway with a path of no ends, stare at him ominously and the metallic stench of blood along with camphor wafted in the surrounding for his name was being carved on the wooden wall with blood drenching from it.

His body shivered coldly as a voice addressed him from behind. "Nehan Abbas," He whipped his head, all in vain, for there existed no being. "An Arab traveller." The hair on his neck and arms bristle, goose bumps covering his body, "A widow who loved his wife."

He felt her breath behind him and a chill ran down his spine, a galloping heart and sweaty palms. He wished to flee but his body refused to move, bounding his feet on the floor as if they were adhered by a certain force. 'Nehan, Nehan, Run if you can dare to.'

His limbs were masked by shivers as dread fulfilled him. He closed his eyes and fists firmly, murmuring prayers audible enough to his own ears and the sinister creation warded off. That is until, he felt himself loosen up when something grasped on the ends of his hair, pushing him along the path of the hallway.

Nehan felt as if his soul was being deterred from his body, he felt the angel of death lingering over him, his hair being detached from his scalp from the hold of the non-existent.

His clothes torn due to the force of friction against the floor and his back and elbows were scarred with rashes and burns when they dragged him. The hallway never seemed to meet any end when suddenly he was thrown from a door down the staircase.

His body toppled over the stairs, into the basement of the manor and another bone cracked when he fell with a thud on the floor. Blood soaked his tunic and bruises painted his body. He lifted his head trying to decipher the situation through the haze of his mind. His blurry gaze wavered in his surroundings as he helped himself sit up straight.

Another wave of nausea hit him when he took in the basement as he dry heaved on the floor to get rid of any contents that might still reside in his stomach. Nothing came except air and he pushed himself forward to stand up on his wobbly legs.

His body ached with every step he took in the direction of a table where numerous candles lit on it. And when he limped towards the mahogany table he noticed, not a manuscript, but a book with wilted pages consisting of a foreign language. His fingers moved on their own as he lifted page by page, trying to decode the symbols and words that he couldn't understand when he heard her speak behind him.

"And we meet again, Nehan."