The silence still reigned.
Dominic stood in the grand hallway, the shadows of fear still clutching loosely at his heart.
The air tasted metallic now—faint but unmistakable. Like a storm had passed through without wind or rain, leaving only its scent behind.
He took the stairs back down, slower this time.
The unsettling disarray had evolved from eerie to suffocating. This wasn't a prank. This wasn't coincidence. Every detail felt chosen—placed with care, like someone wanted him to feel it but not understand it.
His feet carried him toward the dining hall.
At first, he wasn't thinking. He moved instinctively, pulled by the gravity of routine. Dinner should be underway. Cook would be complaining about the spice shipment delay. Thomlin might be sipping tea from his chipped porcelain cup. Mother and Father would be—
He stopped outside the dining room doors.
They were shut.
Odd.
The House Manon staff always kept the doors open before a meal. Presentation was everything. Hospitality, even in pretense, was a ritual.
Dominic hesitated.
Something deep inside whispered that he didn't want to open those doors.
But he did.
He always had to know.
The hinges groaned faintly as the doors parted.
At first glance, nothing seemed wrong.
The room was still and immaculate. The long mahogany table was set for dinner—silver cutlery in perfect alignment, porcelain gleaming beneath the chandelier, wine decanted and breathing gently in crystal flasks.
But the stillness wasn't peace.
It was paralysis.
Then he saw it.
At the far end of the table sat his father.
Lord Aurelian Manon—face half in shadow, body stiff in his high-backed chair.
Dominic froze.
"Father…?" he croaked, stepping forward.
His father didn't move.
Because he couldn't.
Dominic reached the table's head and the breath caught in his throat.
His father's eyes were open. Glassy.
His wrists were tied to the armrests with dark silk cord. Not rope—something elegant. Deliberate. His head lolled slightly to the side, and the corner of his mouth was split and swollen.
Blood.
Thin, dried lines ran beneath his fingernails. His hands were raw.
Dominic staggered back.
No.
No.
He turned—and saw more.
Lady Kaelene Manon—his mother—was seated two chairs down. Dressed immaculately, like for a dinner party. Her posture was stiffened unnaturally by invisible restraints.
Her eyes were closed.
Her mouth was sewn shut.
Black thread. Coarse. Sloppy.
Dominic let out a sound—half gasp, half choke.
The walls of the room began to ripple.
No—not the walls. His vision.
He dropped to one knee, the air thick with something unnameable.
That's when he saw the others.
Twenty-five bodies.
Three were head staff. Two—his sisters.
Thomlin. Juna. Malden the cook. Jane and June—the twins.
All seated along the table.
All tied in place.
All… altered.
Thomlin's fingers were shattered. Juna's hair had been hacked off and stuffed into her apron pocket. Malden's mouth was crammed full of onions. His eyes were propped open with toothpicks, a grotesque parody of humor.
And his sisters—
They were arranged carefully beside each other, like still having dinner.
Their heads tilted toward one another, foreheads nearly touching.
A large, cracked mirror stood behind them at the table's head, reflecting their corpses in a warped, broken way.
Their hands were bound together with ribbon—the same kind they wore as children. But tied too tightly, cutting into skin, soaked with dried blood.
Both girls bore identical throat wounds—clean, surgical.
No signs of struggle.
Drugged. Or compliant under duress.
Jane's eyes were wide open. Frozen in terror.
June's eyes were missing.
Surgically removed.
Placed on her own plate in front of her.
As if served.
Carved into the table between them, a message:
"One soul split in two. Now, united in silence after 13 years."
Beneath the table, Dominic saw scratch marks—fingernails dragged against wood. One of them had woken up.
One had struggled.
One chair was pulled slightly back.
As if someone had sat with them afterward.
Dominic trembled.
This wasn't rage.
This wasn't vengeance.
It was art.
A twisted artist's message.
He crawled toward his mother's chair.
Her hand rested palm-up on the tablecloth.
He touched it.
Cold.
No—brittle.
The skin was waxy. Too smooth.
Whoever did this had staged the scene and left time for rigor to set in.
Dominic backed away.
And nearly missed it.
On the far wall, half-hidden by a curtain—burned into the wood in a faint, spiraled etching—was a symbol.
Two concentric circles.
One broken. One whole.
A vertical line split them both—like a needle or a blade.
He stepped closer.
The pattern had depth.
Not just burned—carved.
Fresh.
Whoever etched it did so slowly. Carefully. Without scarring the outer wood.
Deliberate.
Then—footsteps.
Fast. Heavy.
Dominic turned.
Voices. Metallic clinks. The hiss of a communicator.
He bolted from the hall just as three uniformed officers burst through the estate's front door, weapons half-drawn.
"Clear the hall!"
"Room by room!"
"Seal off the exits—"
One spotted him.
"Boy! You there! Hands up!"
Dominic obeyed numbly, his mind static.
An older officer followed—grey uniform, crisp gloves, a badge too polished.
"Name?" he barked.
"Dominic Manon."
That changed everything.
The weapons lowered.
The older man waved the others off. "Secure the premises. I'll handle this."
He stepped forward. "Dominic. I'm Officer Talverin. City Watch. We received an anonymous tip—claimed there'd been a disturbance."
"A tip?" Dominic rasped. "You didn't get any alarms? No distress call?"
Talverin's eyes narrowed. "We were told your security system was down for repairs."
"That's a lie," Dominic whispered. "It auto-resets every forty-eight hours."
Talverin paused. Just long enough.
"Let's get you out of here. You're in shock."
"No." Dominic straightened. "You need to see the dining hall."
"I've already sent someone. We're documenting everything. No need to put yourself through more than necessary."
"They were murdered," Dominic said flatly.
Talverin gave a long, measured sigh. "We'll determine the cause of death, son."
"Don't call me that."
The officer's expression shifted. Barely.
"We'll be in touch."
And just like that, Dominic was being led outside.
The estate was being cordoned off. Drones buzzed overhead. White tents bloomed like tumors along the perimeter.
Dominic stood on the edge of the lawn, watching strangers trample through the ruins of his life.
That's when he saw it.
A glint in the grass.
He crouched.
A locket.
His sister's—Jane's.
He opened it.
Inside—an old photo: Dominic, June, and Jane in the crystal gardens.
Behind it—tucked, nearly invisible—a folded scrap of paper.
Dominic's fingers shook as he pulled it free.
Four words. Faint. Smudged.
"They wanted the code."
No signature. No blood. Just graphite. Half-erased. As if scrawled in the dark.
Dominic's eyes burned.
Not from tears.
From fury.
He looked back at the house. At the officers who pretended to care. At the symbol burned into the wall. At the silence being imposed on something that should never be silent.
No.
He wouldn't grieve publicly.
He would wait.
Learn.
Endure.
Until he knew everything.
And when he did…
He would never let them rest again.
But one question lingered in the wind:
How did Jane's locket get outside?
[End of Chapter Two]