Old Victorian House
The old Victorian house stood on a hill overlooking the town, a skeletal silhouette against the bruised twilight sky. Stories of a family's disappearance, lingering grief, and the constant, unsettling silence that clung to its walls were shared by the locals. I, a freelance sound engineer named Elias Thorne, dismissed these stories as quaint folklore. The price was too good to pass up, and I needed a quiet place to work on a complex audio restoration project. Despite its age, the house had sound foundations. Dust motes danced in the fading light, illuminating the ornate, decaying furniture. The air hung heavy, thick with the scent of aged wood and something else, something metallic and faintly acrid. I set up my equipment in the grand, echoing parlor, the heart of the house, and began to work.
