A Penny Dreadful Style Tale
The abandoned wing of the academy loomed before Miss Evilene Wraithsyde, its once-grand visage now marred by the creeping hands of decay and the weight of a sorrowful past. The moon, a silent sentinel in the heavens, cast an otherworldly light upon the forsaken annex, its pallor reflecting off the broken windows and casting shadows that danced like wraiths upon the walls.
Evilene’s breath formed clouds of vapor in the chill air as she ascended the creaking staircase, each step a mournful note in the symphony of the night. The ancient tome lay heavy in her arms, its pages fluttering as if agitated by the proximity to the unrestful spirits it spoke of.
At the top of the stairs, a corridor stretched into darkness, its end lost to shadow. The whispers of the dead were more pronounced here, a tapestry of tragedy woven from their unending laments. The air was thick with the electricity of unseen energies, and the hairs upon Evilene’s nape stood on end, as though charged by the anticipation of the specters.
Summoning her courage, Evilene ventured forth, her own supernatural essence responding to the call of the spirits. The mark upon her skin, a sigil of her ancient lineage, glowed with a light not of this world, a beacon in the oppressive dark.
The rooms she passed were like mouths of the abyss, gaping and silent, save for the occasional skitter of a rat or the flutter of a disturbed bat’s wings. Evilene’s destination was the heart of the wing, the Founder’s Study, where the pact had been struck and the curse had been born.
As she entered the study, the air grew colder, her breath now a frost that lingered before her lips. The room was a mausoleum of knowledge, with books and scrolls scattered haphazardly, a testament to the chaos that had reigned at the curse’s inception.
In the center of the room stood a desk, its surface a map of arcane etchings and alchemical symbols. Above it hung a portrait, the founder of the academy, his visage twisted into a smirk that bordered on the malevolent. Evilene felt the eyes of the portrait upon her, as if the founder himself were watching from beyond the grave, mocking her efforts to undo what he had wrought.
With the ancient tome as her guide, Evilene began the ritual. She spoke words of power that seemed to resonate with the very walls of the room, the language arcane and otherworldly. The sigil upon her flesh blazed brighter, casting the study into a realm of half-light, where the boundaries of time and space became blurred.
The spirits, drawn to the ritual, began to manifest. They were phantoms of every shape and hue, some clothed in the garb of teachers long passed, others the uniforms of students whose laughter had long since been silenced. They encircled Evilene, a vortex of the damned, their eyes pleading for the release they had been denied for centuries.
As the ritual reached its zenith, a tempest of supernatural force filled the room. The portrait of the founder writhed as if in agony, and a scream that was not of this earth shook the very foundations of the academy. Evilene stood firm, her voice unwavering as she completed the incantation.
And then, silence.
The spirits, one by one, began to dissipate, their forms becoming motes of light that drifted upwards, passing through the ceiling and into the night sky. The mark upon Evilene’s skin dimmed, its purpose fulfilled.
As dawn broke over the academy, the sun’s rays pierced the darkness of the abandoned wing. The oppressive atmosphere had lifted, and the air was filled with the sounds of life once more.
Evilene Wraithsyde, her strength waning, descended the staircase of the shadowed wing, her heart lightened by the knowledge that she had freed the souls bound to the academy. Yet the portrait of the founder, with its twisted smirk, remained a sentinel over the study, a reminder that some secrets are never fully unraveled, and some shadows never fully banished. The Hauntening had been quelled, but the tale of Evilene Wraithsyde and the cursed academy would live on, whispered in the annals of penny dreadfuls for generations to come. For in the world of gothic horror, the end is never truly the end, and the specter of the past can always rise once more.
The End (for now)
MADD FICTIONAL 