Those were the days. Back when he used to play, run in the streets of London. His dad would call him back into the house during the evenings when he came home from those busy days of work as a locksmith. He remembered running to his dad. His childhood memories. The memories of Eddie Fincher. Well that was when his dad was around, before he died in a freak accident. It’d been 5 years since the tragedy left him and his mom all alone, with no man to lead the household.

Now all he could feel was the cool fog floating around his face as he and his mom sat in the carriage, moving north to their new home, with their relatives; the warm memories of the past had all but evaporated, vanished into thin air.
They had run into too many financial problems to continue living in London; his mom could not support the both of them. Now they were traveling across the map, into an environment they had never before experienced, far different from the urban atmosphere of London. They were moving near the forest, the eerie woods, the type of place where Eddie had heard tons of horror stories about, a mansion near a foggy lake.
By the way, his relatives were descendents of the ancient Romanov dynasty from Scotland. Or at least they claimed to be. Eddie doubted their story.
After a grueling ride, they finally came into a green patch; huge green trees surrounded them from left and right as they traveled into the grounds of the mansion. Oh boy, it was a true mansion, with a pale gray texture and immense plain windows. The fog shrouded the air as they entered the grounds and the details of the mansion came into the foreground.
It was the most isolated thing Eddie had ever seen in his life. So far away from the hustle and bustle of the city. So much different. The feeling made him long for his father even more. It made the hair on the back of his neck stand up, as if he was being held at gunpoint.
The carriage came to a halt, and Eddie and his mother stepped down onto the unfamiliar turf. Eddie looked over at his mom; she seemed unusually nervous. He just tried to picture the entire scene in his head. The isolation would tear him apart. He hoped this was not permanent, that he would be back in his home, but Eddie he feared that this was the end of the road. His mom seemed as if she really needed a break from everything that had gone on in the city.
Claude Johan greeted them as soon as they got off their carriage. He was white skinned, almost pale, the color of death but Eddie wasn’t sure; it may have just been the light; either way, Eddie thought that Claude figure and his persona seemed familiar.
“Greetings Ms. Fincher, Eddie. Welcome to our manor.”
“Hello,” Eddie murmured.
“Hello Claude,” Ms. Fincher replied. “Thank you so much for letting us stay here.”
“My pleasure,” Claude smiled.
Eddie felt as if he knew Claude long before they met, like they had some kind of connection in the past.
As Claude took them on a tour through the house, Eddie noticed a few things that were interesting. One thing that really stood out to Eddie was the lake in the back; it seemed amazing and spooky at the same time with its green surroundings and its pale blue water. Another thing that stood out to Eddie was the amount of bookrooms in the house. It seemed that a lot of items were being stored in this house. Also, Claude had looked at a door with a lock and a chain around it for an unusually long time. Anyways, as it was getting dark, Claude showed Eddie his guestroom that he would be sleeping in, and Eddie went inside to freshen up and get to bed. As thoughts about his new home ran amuck in his head, Eddie fell asleep.
Eddie suddenly jolted up from his bed. A force compelled him to move out of the guest room; it moved him right in front of a closed door in the corridor. Eddie looked closely at the door and saw the faint outline of a cube on it. Eddie had to open the door. There was something behind it. Something important. Something special. Something horrific. Something secret.
Eddie walked to that door, and tried to open it. It would not budge. But he felt something heavy in the pocket of his pajamas. He removed it. Suddenly, the corners of the door lit up and glowed a soft blue. The chains on it collapsed, as if by a mystical force. Eddie shuddered, expecting a loud rattling sound when the lock fell, but the lock and chains only made a suppressed thud. The door opened, and a bright light shone onto Eddie’s face, blinding him.
And then Eddie woke up, panting heavily. He felt his face. It was wet and freezing, as if someone had plunged him into a pool of ice water. But the dream had felt so real. The dream evoked a mixture of curiosity and fear in Eddie; he could not stand thinking about the sacred secrets that might lie in this mansion.
So Eddie got up. As soon as he left his room, there was a faint blue glow, the same one that Eddie saws in his dream. It was coming from a room, one of the bookrooms Claude had showed them on their tour. Hoping to find something, to uncover a dark secret, Eddie opened the door, which let out a slow but steady creak.
There was only one shelf full of books, making it seem more like an office than a library. As Eddie examined the shelves in the shining moonlight, there was one book that stood out; it had a cube, the same one he had found in his pocket, on the side binding. When Eddie removed the book from the shelf, dust flew out and Eddie coughed.
As soon as Eddie removed the book, he saw a blue light shine at a desk on the other side of the room. He moved to the desk and tried opening it. It barely moved, but as he continued to pull and pull, the drawer finally opened, and inside it there was another book, except this book was fresh, as if it had just been placed there. Was the other book a key? To Eddie’s surprise, the book also had the same faint glow on it that he had seen shine on the desk.
As he opened the book, Eddie had to look very closely to be able to decipher the words. As Eddie flipped through the pages, he realized that it, detailed a secret, a door that was in a house called the Corpsewood Manor. Funny thing was, the painting on that page, looked exactly like the one that he was in. The place used to be a mental institute, until someone in the house burned it down. Now there was nothing left, and this door lead to a place filled with infinite treasures, a place where one could experience whatever one desired. Eddie turned the page. He read about the cube, the key to unleash the chains, open the door, the missing link. It was in his guest room, right where he was sleeping. It was as if a ghost was toying with him, trying to evoke the long gone secrets, the truth about his “relatives” that he and his mom were living with.
Eddie crept back to the guest room, and lying on top of his bed was the same cube he head seen in the books and in his dream, as if it had been there all along. It was inexplicable. Had it been there all along? Had someone came and put the cube there? Anyways, it was there, real, palpable. Time to find out what lurked behind that door, what these people were hiding.
Eddie moved out of his room in quest of the door that he had seen in his dream, the one with the lock and chain on it, the one where the cube led. Turns out that the door was just around the corner; when Claude had been giving the tour, Eddie remembered that he had looked at a specific door for unusually long.
After walking down the hallway, Eddie spotted the door. After looking around the lock, he could not find a place for the cube to fit. After searching, Eddie noticed a compartment on the lock, which he pushed to open a slot for the cube to enter; he had never seen this type of technology in his life. Eddie pushed the cube into the slot, waiting for the chains to break open, unleashing the cold hard truth. And the chains softly fell to the ground and the cube fell back out of the slot, the door finally opened, giving way to a set of stairs going down. Eddie was about to discover the truth about this family, or at least a really big secret about this house.
As Eddie descended the stairs, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He could barely see where he was going; the only lights were the dim torches with flames on the sides of the stairs. As he went down the stairs, he saw a rusted door, and he saw the same blue glow he saw earlier underneath its corners. The secret lay behind that door. But just as Eddie opened the door and walked into the next room, he saw a huge barreled shotgun pointed at his face.
“I’m sorry Eddie. But this has to come to an end. You have to be corrected.” It was the head of the family that Eddie was coming to stay with, Claude Johan.
“What are you talking about,” Eddie said, shaking in fear. He felt a heated tension sweep over him.
“This cannot continue. It’s official. We gave you a last chance. You’re not who you think you are. And this isn’t a home. It never was. But apparently, you thought so. And guess what else? The blue light means nothing. Nothing at all. It’s just the moon. You wanted it to mean something. You probably came down here to discover something, but there’s nothing to discover. Yesterday was all a lie. You’re in a mental institution; it was hard to convince people to give you a second chance after you killed your own father, but your double-minded disorder took over. Something has fazed you’re views. Maybe it was something you ate, something you drank, or just a long standing envision. We were hoping it was a one-time thing, that you would be cured of your mental disorder. But the sick truth is that you’re not.”
After a silence, Eddie screamed, “YOU’RE lying. Where is my mom? I want to talk to her. Don’t act like you don’t have an evil conspiracy. It’s your fault that I ended up here. You’re trying to hide something.”
Eddie looked to his side and saw a pistol, a rusty one, lying there. As quick as a lightening bolt, he grabbed the gun and pointed it straight at Claude.
“Tell me what you’re hiding or… or… I’ll kill you.” Tears flowed down Eddie’s face.
“I’m not hiding anything Eddie. But just as I thought. That wasn’t your mom that came with you here. It was your social worker, Sarah. She brought you here; we hoped we could fix you, but there’s no possibility.”
“…This… this... can’t be happening.”
“Sorry Eddie, but this is the end.”
Eddie’s hand slightly weakened as his world began to change right before his eyes. So his whole life was a lie? Was he a part of a project? What could have happened? And then the images came back. This was where the blue light led to. It should have been a black light, because all it led to was darkness and pain.
“But… what about the blue light? What about the book? What about the secret?”
“The blue light was just the moon, shining through the dusty halls of the house. And I’m guessing that this ‘book’ was just some story you read. You wanted it to be true, you wanted to believe, you wanted to find something. I’m sorry Eddie, but it did not happen.”
“No… Are you sure?” Eddie dropped to the ground in disbelief and placed the pistol right next to him. His entire body began to vibrate. “What can I do? Can I do anything?”
“I’m sorry Eddie, but we’ve tried and we’ve tried. There’s nothing to be done,” Claude replied. “You’ve done too much Eddie. Trust me, you’ll be better off with what I am going to do to you right now.”
“Please. Just one more chance. I think I can do it right.”
“Okay fine. As you wish.”
Suddenly, Eddie got up, took the pistol in hand, and shot Claude through the chest. Boom. Boom. Boom. Eddie put three holes in Claude’s chest.
“That’s for everything that happened to me and his family. That’s for ruining the past few years for my life. This is my revenge,” Eddie said.
A few days before his move to this place, Eddie’s real mom had came to visit him; at first, Eddie thought that she was crazy, but as she explained herself, Eddie realized that everything she said made sense.
That meeting brought all of his memories back, allowed him to remember every bit and piece of his childhood and the time up to his father’s death. His mom told him that she needed to be gone quick, because if they were seen together, bad things would happen; she told him that Eddie was framed for his father’s death, and that Claude is the one who killed his father over some experiment that his dad had been working on; apparently, Claude wanted the power Eddie’s dad had created, but Eddie’s dad refused and was stabbed, and the blame fell on Eddie who was seen in his dad’s lab with a knife with blood on it in his hand. After spending a few years in a mental home for youth, Eddie was cleared as there was not enough evidence and as Eddie was taken into custody of a woman who claimed that she was his mother, and he was given something in a drink that caused him to believe everything he was told, but when he saw his real mom, his memories came flooding back. He remembered standing there holding the knife, protesting; it was not him who killed his dad, and he had remembered seeing Claude’s face when he walked into the room; that was why he looked so familiar when Eddie came to the mansion.
Eddie was the only other person who knew about the murder, so Claude was trying to kill him, but now Eddie had finally gotten his payback. But his time spent with the fake family actually had given him a psychological disorder the whole time; that’s why his dream caused him to chase the book and open the lock, but when Eddie opened the lock, he got back to reality; on his way down, he heard movement and knew it was Claude; he knew that in the basement were the papers that cleared his name and proved that Claude was the murderer; he also saw a pistol on his way down and saw that the trigger was up, that it still worked, that Claude placed it there so he could claim he killed Eddie in self defense. But that was also how Eddie knew he would get revenge and justice. Revenge and justice. That was what he wanted. Now he would go back to London and try, just try to live a normal life. But nothing would be normal again without his father and with the new disorder. Ever.










** Note to reader-
At the beginning of this story, it is told from the perspective from someone who is watching the scene and does not know that Eddie actually knows what is happen.