Читати книгу - "Secrets of the Ancient Estate, Kyuriym"

But as Sam stood there, clutching the book in his hands, something strange began to happen. The room seemed to shift, the walls warping and distorting as though he were looking at them through a haze. The air grew thick, and a low hum filled his ears, like the distant sound of chanting.

And then he saw them—figures, shadowy and indistinct, moving through the library. They whispered his name, their voices soft but insistent, calling to him from the darkness.

Sam stumbled back, his breath coming in short, panicked gasps. He blinked, and the figures were gone. But the feeling remained—a sense of being watched, of something ancient and malevolent lurking just beyond the edge of his vision.

He had to get out of there.

Sam left the library in a hurry, the book still clutched in his hands. As he made his way back to his room, the house seemed to close in around him, the shadows growing longer and darker. The air was thick with fear, and Sam couldn’t shake the feeling that something was coming for him—something he couldn’t escape.

The Coltons had unleashed a darkness on their family, and now it was reaching for him.

And Sam wasn’t sure he could stop it.

End of Chapter 3.

Chapter 4: The First Clue

The afternoon sun, weak and pale behind a veil of clouds, cast long shadows through the dusty windows of the Colton estate. The oppressive weight of the history Sam had uncovered weighed on his shoulders, and the strange occurrences that had haunted him since his arrival were beginning to gnaw at his resolve. He couldn’t shake the feeling that the walls were watching him, listening to his every move.

He had spent the better part of the morning trying to piece together the tangled web of the Colton family’s past—the occult rituals, the mysterious deaths, and the eerie journal entries that hinted at something dark lurking just beneath the surface. But it wasn’t enough. He needed more. He needed something concrete, something that could explain what had happened to Lord Andrew.

His investigation had taken him through much of the estate, but there was one place he had yet to explore: the abandoned wing. Doyle had mentioned it in passing, warning him that the wing had been closed off for decades after a fire had gutted several of the rooms. Lord Andrew’s father had never bothered to restore it, and the wing had fallen into disuse, left to rot in the years that followed.

But something told Sam that the answers he was looking for might be hidden in those forgotten halls. He grabbed his flashlight and a small notebook from his desk and made his way through the darkened corridors of the estate. The air grew colder as he approached the sealed-off section of the mansion, the temperature dropping as if the very stones of the building were steeped in the chill of the past.

He reached the large wooden door that separated the main house from the abandoned wing. The door creaked loudly as he pushed it open, revealing a narrow, dust-covered hallway that led deeper into the forgotten part of the estate. The walls here were different, blackened from the fire that had ravaged the wing decades earlier. Paint peeled from the plaster, and cobwebs clung to the corners of the ceiling.

Sam’s footsteps echoed through the empty hall as he moved cautiously, his flashlight beam cutting through the dimness. The air was thick with the smell of decay, and the faint sound of creaking wood sent shivers down his spine.

The hallway led to a series of rooms, each more dilapidated than the last. Old furniture lay in disarray, covered in dust and forgotten relics of a bygone era. Faded paintings hung crooked on the walls, their subjects staring out at him with lifeless eyes. The fire had left its mark here, charring the walls and leaving the air heavy with the scent of burnt wood and time.

Sam moved through the rooms slowly, careful to note anything that seemed out of place. But so far, there was nothing—just the remnants of a forgotten past. He was beginning to think the abandoned wing might be a dead end when he entered what appeared to be an old sitting room.

The room was larger than the others, with tall windows that had once looked out onto the estate grounds, though now they were so grimy and covered with ivy that they let in little light. A large fireplace dominated one wall, its stone mantel cracked and crumbling. Several pieces of furniture were scattered about—an overturned chair, a broken table, and a moth-eaten chaise lounge.

But it wasn’t the decay of the room that caught Sam’s attention—it was the feeling that something was different here. The dust, which coated everything else in a thick layer, was thinner on the floor, as though someone had walked through recently. And on the far side of the room, near one of the windows, there was a large painting that had been partially moved away from the wall.