"Every gift from the dead comes with a cost."
The Secret Music Room Discovery
Lila's fingers traced the ballroom's wainscoting, the wood unnaturally warm beneath her touch. The blueprints had indicated a door here somewhere but the panels were seamless, the only clue a faint outline of a treble clef carved into the oak.
She pressed her palm against it.
Nothing.
Then a whisper against her neck, Theo's breathless voice: "Play it properly this time."
Lila turned, but the room was empty. The grand piano waited, its lid raised like an invitation.
Her hands hovered over the keys. She'd practiced "Our Song" for hours, memorizing the precise pressure of each note, the way Theo had played it in her visions.
The first chord rang out, too loud in the silent house.
A click echoed from the walls.
The wainscoting split open, revealing a narrow door with a lock shaped like a miniature piano. Its keys were tarnished ivory, the black ones worn down from use.
Lila played the melody again, her fingers trembling.
The lock's keys depressed in unison, and the door swung inward with a groan.
Interior Reveal
The air inside was thick with the scent of rosin and old perfume.
Lila stepped into a perfectly preserved 1920s music studio. A gramophone sat in the corner, its brass horn gleaming. A crystal chandelier hung frozen in time, cobwebs glittering like lace.
But it was the sheet music on the piano that stole her breath.
"Symphony for Eleanor" Theo's unfinished masterpiece. The notes were frantic near the end, the paper splattered with brownish stains. Blood.
Her gaze drifted to the far wall a floor-to-ceiling mirror, its surface rippling like water.
As she approached, her reflection didn't move.
Instead, it showed Eleanor Hart, dressed in flapper silk, her hands pressed against the glass from the other side.
"You found me," the reflection mouthed.
Vincent's PossessionVessel Choice
The crash came from downstairs shattering glass, a choked scream.
Lila sprinted back to the foyer, where Mr. Holloway twitched on the floor, his fingers clawing at his throat.
"Holloway?!" She dropped to his side.
His eyes snapped open no longer milky blue, but emerald-green. Vincent's eyes.
"Hello, Eleanor," he croaked, his voice splintering between his own rasp and Vincent's smooth baritone.
Lila recoiled. "Get out of him."
Holloway's body jerked upright, his spine cracking as he rose. His lips peeled back in a grin too wide for his face.
"Why would I?
Vincent (in Holloway's body) pinned her against the wall, his grip crushing.
"You still don't understand, do you?" His breath reeked of decayed roses. "Theo didn't just die here. He made a deal."
Lila struggled. "What deal?"
"His music for your soul." Vincent laughed, the sound warping Holloway's vocal cords. "The house traded his genius to bring you back. But it took my soul too as collateral."
His grip tightened. "Now it's collecting."
Lila's vision blurred as she gasped for air, her fingers brushing the pocket watch in her pocket.
Theo's voice echoed in her mind: "The symphony is a map. Find where it ends."
She remembered the bloodstained final bars of Theo's composition not random splatters, but dots marking a location.
"Under... the house," she realized.
Vincent's grip faltered for a second just enough.
Lila kneed him in the stomach and wrenched free.
"Theo's body was never buried," she panted. "If I find it...."
"The house collapses," Vincent finished, his green eyes glowing. "And we all go down with it."
She ran back to the music room, Vincent's laughter chasing her.
The piano waited.
Lila slammed her hands onto the keys, playing "Our Song" with desperate, discordant fury.
The walls shuddered, the mirror cracking down the middle.
He lunged, piano wire coiled around his fingers.
"You don't get to leave!"
The wire looped around her throat....
Lila rammed the lion cufflink into Holloway's chest.
Vincent screamed, his spirit tearing free in a whirl of emerald smoke.
The floor split open, revealing a shallow grave.
Theo's skeleton lay inside, clutching a pearl necklace. Eleanor's.
As the house crumbled around her, something rose from the ruins....
A faceless figure, its mouth a gaping maw of piano keys.
"You've only paid the first installment," it whispered.
Then the ceiling caved in...
Lila's fingers trembled as she traced the bloodstains on Theo's unfinished symphony. The droplets weren't random,they formed a constellation of secrets, each one a step closer to the truth.
"It's a map," she whispered.
The final notes curved sharply downward, the stains pooling at the base of the page like an arrow pointing beneath the piano.
Theo's voice echoed in the silence, his words woven into the very walls:
"Break the watch, Lila. My bones are the foundation. My love was the lock."
Her breath hitched. The pocket watch in her hand pulsed hot, its cracked face reflecting not the present, but 1927 Theo's last moments, his hands clawing at the wire around his throat, his eyes locked on Eleanor's portrait.
Shatter the watch, bury Theo's bones, and collapse the house.
Or let the house stand, and become Vincent's forever.
Lila's Decision
The piano waited, its keys yellowed with age and memory. Lila sat, her fingers hovering.
"Our Song" began softly, her touch hesitant. But as the melody swelled, the walls shuddered in response, the air thickening with the scent of roses and rust.
The house remembered.
Time split open.
To her left, 1927: Theo, alive and laughing, his fingers dancing across the keys.
To her right, Now: The same piano, the same room, but crumbling, rotting, dying.
Vincent's voice slithered through the chaos:
"You can't have both, Eleanor."
Vincent's Attack
Holloway's body lunged, his emerald eyes glowing with venom. The piano wire cut into Lila's throat before she could scream.
"The house always collects," he hissed.
Theo's ghost materialized in a burst of shattered glass, his hands closing around Vincent's wrists.
"Let. Her. Go."
Lila rammed the lion cufflink into Holloway's chest.
Vincent howled, his spirit tearing free in a vortex of emerald smoke. Holloway collapsed, gasping.
The floor split apart, the ground yawning wide to reveal a shallow grave.
There lay Theo's skeleton, still clad in his ruined tuxedo, his bony fingers curled around Eleanor's pearl necklace.
Lila reached for it....
The house screamed in protest, the walls peeling back like burning skin.
As the manor imploded, something uncoiled from the wreckage,
A figure, tall and shapeless, its face a void except for a mouth of piano keys.
It clicked its teeth at her, the sound mimicking the opening notes of "Our Song."
"You've only paid the first installment," it whispered.
Then the ceiling caved in, and the world went black.
Epilogue: The Debt Remains
Silence.
Then a heartbeat.
Lila's eyes flew open. She lay in the ruins, dust and blood in her mouth.
The pocket watch ticked in her palm, its shattered face whole again.
And from the shadows, the piano-mouthed thing laughed.
"Shall we discuss the rest of your debt?
But...
The watch shouldn't have fixed itself."...