Sinerman mansion - Basement

"Uuu..."

"Sob... sob... huuuu..."

"Mum... Dad..."

"Sob... help... huhuuu..."

Desmond's mind emerged from the darkness. The sound of crying and the taste of fear mixed with despair brought her back to a state of wakefulness.

She opened her unearthly glowing eyes, which lacked irises. Her eyes were probably the most compelling thing about Desmond. The whites of her eyes were utterly dark, but her eyes, the color of glowing cyanide, lightly illuminated the darkness of the whites.

Her dominant eyes were set in the handsome face of a woman before thirty, but her skin was dark grey and her long ebony black hair was unkempt. Her entire figure was wrapped in a light greyish cloak that hugged her insubstantial body and looked more like a loosened cocoon of cobwebs.

But no one could see that. Desmond was a ghost, a phantom, a dead creature, a spirit, and she herself didn't really know what she was. She just knew she was someone who didn't belong in the world of the living.

It was much easier for Des to wake up now than when it first happened. And that happened who knows how long ago. 

At first, she just didn't exist, and then she did. It was like someone suddenly realizing and feeling their fingernails or suddenly feeling their ears. They were there; you never even thought about it, and then suddenly you felt them. 

Des felt the same way; she was just suddenly there, and there was nothing unnatural about it.

Her mind was very confused and primitive at first; she only remembered fragments of the time she knew she was flying around the mansion, and then her mind came into focus. Her afterlife form haunted the abandoned mansion. 

It was almost strange because the mansion was large with three floors; she didn't count the attic and basement, but still, no one lived there. It was neglected, but still grand, and with a little love, could easily and comfortably be lived in.

Yet every time Des woke from her eternal slumber, no one was there. So, for once, she could see signs that someone had tried. Visibly, some rooms had undergone repairs and more forgotten items had appeared, but most likely it had all happened while Des was resting and missed the human residents.

Desmond wasn't just confined to the house; she was able to access the mansion's vast grounds. Several times she wandered up to the boundary of the mansion and looked down on the village. 

The mansion stood on a hill that seemed to look down on the village below. As much as she wanted to go further, she couldn't. It was as if some invisible boundary was stopping her.

Several times she hovered near the border and looked out over the village. Each time it looked a little different: more buildings, new buildings, more people. The village had become a small town; torches had been replaced by electric lamps, horse-drawn carts had been replaced by machines that drove themselves.

At one time, Des even noticed strange moving lights in the sky, and sometimes there was an eerie sound that drove Des back to the mansion. Over time, she got used to it and understood that time was passing and the world was changing.

Occasionally, she met people, mostly adventurous teenagers who came to the mansion out of curiosity. Desmond watched them and learned many things. Like that the mansion was called the Sinerman Mansion, but the locals called it the Haunted Mansion.

Des could only scoff. "Of course it's the Haunted Mansion. After all, I haunt this place. But I couldn't remember ever haunting one."

Desmond came fully awake and looked around the dungeon. There wasn't much light in here; the only light was coming from small windows high up with the ground level, so judging by the light coming in, it was just sunset.

"Huuhuu..." Des turned her head in the direction she heard the crying coming from. She was naturally curious, as it was rare that anyone alive would dare to come all the way inside the Sinerman Mansion. 

She began to float in that direction, and it didn't take her long to find the young girl.

The girl was young, between fifteen and seventeen years old. She was a pretty girl with short brown hair with orange highlights. Her eyes were blue to grey, but now all puffy from crying, and she was wearing a nice dress, though now a little dirty and wrinkled. It was a color combination of blue, white, and gold; it had lots of embellishments, and some sort of emblem that reminded Des of the family crest was embroidered on the shoulders.

Desmond took a good look at it and noticed that her wrists and ankles were bound, raising an eyebrow at that. Could she have been a victim of kidnapping? 

She wondered who had thought to hide her here. Des dropped down to the girl's level, eyes wide and slowly bringing her face closer. She was going to get a good look at the person; it had been a long time since she had seen one.

She brought her face close to the girl's, slowly, only stopping when her nose was almost touching the girl's cheek, staring at her. 

The girl suddenly froze, then began to shiver. Des saw the girl's eyes begin to flutter and the pleasant smell of fear grew stronger. The girl suddenly turned her head sharply in her direction and her eyes darted back and forth, but she couldn't see Desmond.

Click

Des and the girl both turned their heads quickly at the sound. Someone at the top of the stairs had opened the door, and from the sound of the creaking boards, was coming down the stairs.

Desmond drifted away from the girl and began to watch again. She could feel the girl's fear intensify, and she was very interested in what was going to happen next.

A handsome young man appeared in the darkness of the cellar. He couldn't have been more than twenty years old. He had short light blue hair and red eyes. His physique was well-built for someone who often worked out or did physical labor.

He was wearing a black shirt with some red print that made Des look a bit like a rabbit; over that, he wore a short black leather jacket with many pockets, and like the girl, he had a crest on his shoulders that resembled the family crest but looked different from the one the girl had.

The leather pants he wore were tight with straps and hugged his slim hips; the short shirt even revealed a bit of his muscular stomach. He wore heavy, high boots on his feet and fingerless gloves on his hands. 

Des also couldn't help but notice that his left arm was covered in an intricate tattoo, but she couldn't make it out because it was mostly covered by the sleeve of his jacket.

Des vaguely remembered that only slaves had once worn tattoos. But a lot had changed since then.

"Aren Silvernort!" The girl suddenly shouted in a voice full of disdain but also fear.

The young man named Aren paused, then raised his hand and ran a hand through his blue hair, looking cocky. "Yes?" He replied. His voice was still youthful, but a rougher, manly tone was already sneaking into it.

The girl flinched and pointed at him with her cuffed hands. "What's that supposed to mean? What do you think you're doing? You're not going to get away with this! Release me now!" She demanded.

Des was surprised because the girl seemed rather fragile. She actually seemed to have a fiery temper.

Aren ignored her request and instead glanced up at the windows, where some light was filtering in, before looking at the bound girl.

A cheeky grin appeared on his face. "You're wrong, Velica," he replied. "I've gotten away with it. It's been two days, and despite everyone looking for you, no one has even thought to look here."

The girl named Velica flicked her eyes around. "Where are we?" she asked because she didn't remember how she got here, so all she had seen in all this time was this basement.

A big smile spread across Aren's face, and he spread his arms dramatically. "Sinerman Mansion."

Velica dropped her chin and looked around quickly, then remembered how she thought she saw two eyes staring at her out of the corner of her eye and shivered even more. "You're crazy! This place is cursed!" she exclaimed.

Aren waved his hand in amusement and annoyance at that. "Just a rumor. A mere urban legend. Well, it's convenient for me. No one ever comes here."

Velica couldn't stop looking in one direction, deeper into the basement, and a nervous sweat trickled down her back, but Aren's words made her focus on him again. "What... what are you planning? Certainly nothing good, as one would expect from someone of the Silvernort family," she snorted as she put on a brave face.

Aren stopped smirking and grew serious, his gaze turning cold as he moved closer to Velica. "Right. Nothing good, but for you. Definitely good for me." He held up his left hand, the tattoo on it suddenly glowing red, much to Des' surprise. The air around Aren's feet began to swirl a little, and Des felt a strange flow of energy in the air.

Velica pulled away from him, and her eyes widened in surprise. "W-what are you doing!?"

"Taking your spiritual power, Velica Stragos," Aren announced. "You can only blame your bloodline and affinity," Aren replied calmly, but there was a slight hesitation in his eyes.

"You can't do that! That's against the law! You will be executed!" Velica screamed and began to flail her bonds, but she knew it was futile. She had tried several times.

Aren was silent for a moment before he looked up at her. "Only if someone finds out. And that's not going to happen."

Velica cried out in panic when she heard that. That meant he was going to kill her! Terror gripped her as she watched the tattoo on Aren's arm begin to slide downwards and start to emerge from his fists.

His spirit weapon began to appear in the form of a blood-red, slightly curved, jagged sword that resembled the shape of a mantis leg. A red spiritual energy surged around the weapon, giving her goosebumps.

She wished that the restraining bonds would allow her to use her spirit energy, but Aren was well-prepared for it, and somehow he had managed to get hold of the bonds that the Peacekeepers used to restrain Spirit Channeling.

Valica looked at Aren again and realized he was serious. "Don't! I swear I won't tell anyone! Please!" She began to promise in an attempt to save herself. Absorbing someone's Spirit Energy was forbidden and severely punished.

Such an act would make one person stronger, but it would cripple another, cause a mental breakdown, and most of the time, no one would recover.

But it was not so easy to do. In order for an individual not to poison themselves with alien Spiritual energy, it was necessary that the victim have the same kind of Spiritual energy and affinity for the element. 

If one or the other was wrong, the criminal would harm themselves, which is why most Spiritualists kept their affinity a secret.

Velica was no different, so how could Aren know about her affinity?

"Nothing personal, Velica. I just have to do it," Aren said as he advanced towards her with his weapon as well.

Desmond watched this with interest, rubbing her chin as this was really the first time she had seen anything like this. 

She didn't know that humans could do something like this. The young man was using some kind of energy that looked like flowing energy in other people's eyes, but Des saw something else.

She saw rifts in space open up around Aren, from where transparent arms or something similar began to reach out and connect to Aren's body. He didn't react to it in any way, and Des assumed he probably didn't see it.

Des flew closer and peered into one of the rifts. It looked like more faces were squeezing in. But after a moment, Desmond realized it wasn't more faces, but a single face with several eyes, noses, and mouths. The strange distorted creature fixed many eyes on her in surprise.

Curious, Desmond brought her face close to the rift, and the creature quickly flinched as if startled, and the rift closed. 

Desmond straightened up, confused by the creature's sudden escape, and tried to look into the other. There was what looked like writhing flesh, and it looked pretty disgusting.

Des wasted no time and quickly stuck her hand into the rift and grabbed a piece of meat, surprised and pleased that she was able to grasp it. She felt the meat tear, but didn't care too much.

As she pulled her hand out, the rift closed as well, and Des looked down at her palm. She furrowed her eyebrows in disappointment as she saw that the red flesh had quickly turned gray and crumbled to dust.

She tried looking into the next crack.

While Des played with the rifts, Aren had to stop and felt the unnatural fluctuations of spiritual energy. It felt like he was losing Spiritual energy bit by bit. He didn't understand what was happening. It had never happened to him. The only thing he could think of was that his hesitation was to blame.

He hadn't really wanted to hurt Velica, but he didn't have many options left to make himself stronger. He had reached his limit of making contracts with spirit beasts, and while they weren't exactly weak beasts, they weren't very strong either.

If he drained Velica's strength, he could get three or four more contract slots, and his chances of getting a strong spirit beast were much higher. And even though he had never considered himself a very good person, he never thought that circumstances would ever drive him to murder.

Aren took a breath and steeled his resolve, taking a quick step towards Velica to end this quickly. Velica snarled and raised her hands to protect herself.

Bang!

They both froze in mid-motion. Aren quickly glanced back at the door he knew he had left open, but it suddenly slammed loudly. Aren was startled that someone had come in, but when he looked hard, he didn't see anyone on the stairs.

Des noticed that the situation in the basement was starting to escalate. So she stopped playing with the cracks and waved her hand. The door at the top of the stairs slammed open on its own with a bang, disturbing the two living things in the basement.

She should probably resolve this situation to her satisfaction.