Aelfric woke up late in the middle of the night, from his nightmare, sweaty, wet, and uncomfortable. Embarrassed, he realized he wet the bed again, and Papa would be angry. He was always telling him he was too old to wet the bed, and that he couldn’t sleep with him and Mama anymore.

He was embarrassed, but he needed to change his sheets. He decided to tell Mint. She never was mean to him, and she always smelled like baked something.

Slowly he made his way out of the large bed.

Aelfric loved his large bed with lots of space but found it hard to walk down the elevated platform the California-sized bed was on top of. He made a walk of shame across the marble floor and struggled to open the chamber doors.

The doors wouldn’t open, as much as he tried. Aelfric pushed, and pushed, and after a few minutes, he realized he was wasting his time. He could just teleport to the other side of the door!

His abilities were newfound, and he couldn’t teleport very far, but he knew he could at least make it to the other side of the door. He closed his eyes and imagined the other side of the door, in the hallway. The only limits to his powers were that he could only teleport through what he called “tunnels."

Some tunnels were longer than others, some short. Sometimes he had to go through many tunnels to get to his destination.

As Aelfric emerged through one of his portals, he found a ton of objects crammed up against the door to his chambers. Pictures, decorations, and tables were all pushed up against the door. He thought that someone was trying to keep him inside, and worried that his father had pushed up all the furniture so he wouldn’t come bothering him in the middle of the night again.

As he walked down the dimly lit hallway Aelfric became uneasy. It was strangely quiet. Even at night, he could hear the sounds of people throughout the castle. Most of the nobility had left for another campaign on the war front, and very few people were left in the castle.

His mother had left along with them, and Aelfric missed her dearly. She and his father were the only ones who were nice to him. His brothers and sisters were too busy to play with him, or too old.

The air around him started to smell sour, and he pinched his nose as he walked down the dark halls. There were no lights on at the end of the hallway, and he couldn’t find the switch. Suddenly, Aelfric slipped on the floor, his entire body now covered in something wet again.

He tried to get up, but every time he did, he slipped back down. He felt something in his way as he crawled on the floor. Stumbling through the dark, he finally stood up and found the light switch for the hallway.

Once light flooded the hallway, Aelfric regretted it.

Bodies of servants littered the hallway.

Blood streaked the walls.

What he had bumped into and crawled over was the body of one of the doormen, Mr. Nolds. His pajamas were covered in blood, as were his face and hands. Suddenly Aelfric’s pajamas felt wet and warm again, and he realized that he peed his pants again.

“Oh…no…."

That was when Aelfric knew that the objects up against his door weren’t to keep him from leaving, but to stop someone from coming in.

Aelfric decided that he had to go.

He just didn’t know where to go.

Papa told him that if the castle was ever attacked that he should make his way to the servant’s quarters, where there was a tunnel that would lead outside the walls. Aelfric didn’t want to go, but he knew that if he couldn’t find a way past the doors, then whatever hurt the others would eventually find him.

Aelfric closed his eyes, trying to find out how many portals it took to get there, but it was five, and at most he could only make it through three before getting tired. So he instead decided to walk there and hoped nobody would find him.

He teleported past the blocked door and the bodies and decided to make his way to the servant's quarters. To get there, he had to walk all the way down to the main staircase, through the general hall, and past the kitchens and dining hall.

Fear gripped him as he walked down the hallway, and he closed his eyes, holding onto the star pendant that his mother gave him.

“If I close my eyes, I won’t have to see it,” he whispered.

He knew of course that he eventually would have to open his eyes if he made his way down to the main stairwell. Suddenly, he fell face-front into the ground, breaking his nose. More blood covered his body, as he realized that he had come upon another group of corpses.

Their bodies contorted and twisted into various positions.

Limbs were torn from their sockets, and eyes were crushed against the wall, leaving trails of blood and cornea as it slid down. Aelfric crawled through the bodies, keeping his eyes on the ground so he could avoid more of them, and so he wouldn’t slip on the blood.

When he finally made his way to another hallway free of horror, he started walking. Aelfric felt so tired, even though he hadn’t gone very far. Faintly, he heard voices in the distance and knew he must be close to the main stairwell because he passed the portrait of Sir Teller and his family.

Aelfric ran towards the voices. He knew someone had to be there to help him.

Breathing hard and covered in urine and blood, Aelfric stood at the top of the main stairwell. At the bottom was his father, and the twins, Godiva and Leofric. His father was on the ground, badly wounded. Godiva held a long, ornate staff, and Leofric had a dark crown on his head.

Aelfric remembered that Mama told him he should never touch them.

Now he would learn why.

Deep inside the house, there was a room filled with many objects, with a big, black door. Everything inside looked normal, so Aelfric never understood what there was to be afraid of. Aelfric went inside the room once, and he never wanted to return.

The objects in the room started to whisper.

The shoes and the gloves began to cackle.

Aelfric never went into that room ever again, and Aelfric knew that Godiva and Leofric took two objects from the room. They never should have. Aelfric never told Mama, because he knew Godiva and Leofric would hurt him.

“Papa," cried Aelfric. “ I’m scared!”

Leofric and Godiva turned to look at him. There was nothing but contempt in their eyes.

“Their pet monster has returned," said Leofric. “What a waste. All those foolish servants died trying to protect you, and here you are, walking right up to me.”

“Leave him alone," yelled Griffin. “ He doesn’t know anything!”

Godiva pushed her heel into her father’s body and he grunted in pain.

“Shut up," shouted Godiva. “You don’t get to tell me what to do anymore!”

Godiva struck her staff against the ground and the room turned dim.

Long dark tendrils snaked along the walls and made their way toward Griffin. They wrapped themselves around his body, as Aelfric watched in horror.

“You need to run, dear," gasped Griffin, as it choked the life out of his body.

Slowly the tendrils squeezed harder and harder until his eyes bulged, and his bones cracked. Blood poured out his mouth as his entire body went limp.

Griffin’s body slowly turned into a mushy, muscular pulp as the tendrils worked their way around his body, cracking every bone in his body.

Organs spilled out as the tendrils went down his body, constricting harder and harder, with purpose and malice. Blood spurted from whatever orifices were left on his body that could be interpreted as human remains.

Pain was in the air, and the runes etched into every part of Hearst Castle reacted, a gentle purple pulse seeping out, and Godiva shuddered, her father’s physical pain, her brother’s emotional, making her even more powerful.

“ You have mastered my power in such a short time,” groaned the staff. “ You are truly the prodigy everyone has said you are.”

“Mmm, thank you, Marth,” she gushed.

She squealed in excitement, her first triumph of the night, having finally killed the person that had separated her from the man she loved.

“Oh, that was even better than I thought it would feel,” she said.

Leofric took Godiva into his arms and kissed her deeply next to the corpse of their father. Aelfric didn’t know a lot about the world, but he knew what he saw was not quite right.

The world spun like a merry-go-round, and he struggled to stay vertical.

After whispering obscene things to each other, Leofric and Godiva turned their eyes to Aelfric. He fainted, at the top of the staircase, and they walked up to greet him, the dark hallways with a maleficent purple pulse.

Godiva wore her mother’s favorite white dress, stolen from her chambers, and Leofric wore the Heavy Crown on top of his shaggy black hair, both of them taking what they thought was theirs.

Everything.

Leofric stood over the small boy’s body, happy that he could finally get rid of the last of the monsters. Eight of them were killed, one disappeared, and Aelfric would be the last of the monsters to die.

“What should we do with the monster? No one will believe us if we tell them what he really is,” Leofric said.

“We don’t have to,” Godiva replied. “Divina had a great idea of what to do with him. She said we can make money off of him. Someone must want this weapon. As long as it's not here, it’s not our problem anymore.``

Godiva poked the unconscious monster with the back of her heel, and it didn’t react. She was upset, as it was not awake, it couldn’t cower beneath her power and grace.

“We won’t have much money since that stupid woman ended the campaign and lied to everyone,” Leofric said.

“She’s dead. We won’t have to worry about her anymore.”

Godiva picked up the monster by the back of its clothes and carried it like a heavy shopping bag as they walked down the halls, blood seeping into the bottom of her white dress, and she found it pretty, sad that she would have to bleach it out later.

They opened an old brown door that led to a windowless room with bare furniture, a room forgotten to time. She left the monster on the bed, and she paced around the room, looking for the finishing touch.

“Are you sure mom’s dead,” Godiva asked while opening many drawers of an old dresser.

In the last one, she found what she was looking for. A cute rabbit watch, with a pink band, the front label saying train your child today, the easy way!

“She’s at the bottom of a volcano, or whatever’s left of her,” Leofric scoffed. “If that woman survives she is surely demonic in nature, under our noses this entire time.”

Tearing open the plastic with her teeth, Godiva took out the corporal punishment tool disguised as a child’s watch and put it around the wrist of the monster. They left, and when Aelfric awoke, he could never leave.

Pain tore up his arm, through his shoulder, neck, and into his head, shocking his system, and there was no escape.