Cain’s story-Ghost House

*This is the last origin story under my “Ghost House” folder, but rest assured, that does mean that this is the last of the “Ghost House” lore. Gacha Club character designs are underneath my forum titled “My character designs<33”. Enjoy!*

Cain Sinclair pulled open the curtains of the old room, wrinkling his nose at the musty smell. The candle flames on the candlestick flickered. The decaying floorboards creaked under his boots.

He had been warned of the “cursed room” in his family’s mansion before. It was a room where no light ever touched, where there were stacks upon stacks upon stacks of grimoires teeter-tottering on lopsided piles, so that Cain bumped into quite a few as he walked past them. The candle brought some light, but not enough.

In any other circumstance, he would not have set foot into the cursed room. The cursed room was said to hold the corpse of his Grandpa, a man who practiced witchcraft in that very room until the day he mysteriously disappeared.

There was a rumor that his Grandpa’s corpse was buried somewhere in the room by magic because his voice could be heard in the darkness. There was yet another rumor that after years of rotting away, the magic in Grandpa’s bones had lost all of its evil and only healing magic remained.

If the rumors were true, then Cain would be able to heal his parents from their strange sickness. Doctors who came to their mansion to care for his parents thought that they were incurable, but perhaps they didn’t need regular medical attention.

It began a year ago, when he was fifteen. It started with a bit of paleness in the skin, then the blue spots came, the blue spots that resemble mold dotting the veiny surface of the pale skin. Then the eyes went bloodshot and the coughs began and then, they couldn’t move anymore. Doctors had to tend to them, Cain drifted in and out of the house.

Outside, he could hear kids his age and kids younger than him playing with each other, talking to each other. Some even sounded as though they were in love, saying sweet nothings to each other.

Cain never really connected with anyone. He never had time to. His whole life, he was homeschooled by the nanny that his parents hired. He lived most of his life in the mansion.

His heart felt tinged with sour sorrow, his head swam with all of the thoughts that he pushed down, that he tried to not acknowledge. He paused, the bothersome, awful thoughts paralyzing him.

By staying in the house, was he missing out on life? “You have everything you need right here, with us. We will help you throughout life. You don’t need to worry, because we’re here.” Mother would say. But he would watch out the window during lessons and wonder, what games did they play to make one another laugh? Nobody laughed in his house, what happiness was so great that there was laughter? That there was joy?

Cain walked on, brushing aside the thoughts. Nobody knew how the illness came about or how it spread to his parents. Nobody even knew what it was.

But he remembered mother’s stories about Grandpa. About how he wanted to learn about the many mysteries of the world, about how he wanted to dig deep and find what else was out there and then…

If Cain didn’t find his bones, then his parents would die. Then he wouldn’t have anyone.

He hoped that the rumors were true. That his Grandpa really was buried there, that his bones had healing properties, that magic was real, that-

Cain’s foot nearly tripped over something.

He grabbed hold of a wooden desk with one hand, the other holding the candlestick. When he regained his composure, he hovered the candlestick over what he tripped.

His jaw dropped as he saw that peeking out from the wooden floorboards, fused to it like they were built together, was none other than a bone arm peeking out, a bone claw reaching out…

“My god, the rumors are true.” Cain gasped, kneeling down on the ground and setting the candlestick next to him, pulling at the bone claw with both hands.

It wouldn’t budge very easily, so he kept on pulling, he kept on adding force, using all the muscles he could out of strolling around the mansion for most of his life, doing no real exercises or strenuous work, sweat beading down his forehead.

Finally, with an ear-splitting crack, the bone arm was pulled out of the ground.

Cain looked down at where the bone arm was pulled from. He could vaguely see bones forming a shape of a body underneath, but he didn’t bother with it. He had the bone arm, he could save his parents.

He picked up the candlestick and walked on, wondering just how the bone arm would heal his parents. Was he supposed to crush it for healing dust? Wave it over their heads? Simply have them lick it?

No matter. He would figure it out. If the bones existed, then so did their supposed healing properties. He just had to figure it out for himself. Certainly the books in the library might help. Maybe even the grimoires in the cursed room!

Cain felt a smile spread across his face, the sorrow melting away. He knew just what to do. All was not lost. He could still make things right, he was making progress.

If you save them, you’ll go back to your sheltered, boring life. Who wants that?

Cain stopped. The voice he heard sounded vicious and vital, inquisitive and intrusive.

“They’re my parents. I can’t just let them die.” Cain said, the unpleasant feeling creeping up on him at that moment.

You believe in magic. You’re like me. I don’t blame you, you have nothing else to entertain yourself with. Remember those fairytales? There was always such adventure. Don’t you want that? Don’t you want to live life to the fullest?

Cain shifted uncomfortably. While he believed in some form of magic to a degree and dreamed of living a life beyond the mansion, he couldn’t imagine a life without his parents. His parents loved him, his parents cared about him.

It would be cruel to not save them.

My daughter never understood how beautiful the world really is. Such a pity, really. Sure, I died, but not without purpose. I was trying to discover secrets of the world. Isn’t that wonderful? Don’t you want the same? Your parents are doing you a disservice by keeping you here.

Cain made a step as though he were going to stride off, but found that he couldn’t move his limbs, that he was stuck like a statue.

I tried perfecting this spell for years until the day I died. I was going to use it on myself, my wife, and my daughter, but I never could. I made sure to remember how to take control and enforce the spell, because out of all the spells, this is the most important. Cain, you don’t need to save them. I’m killing them for you. You…you need to live forever in freedom.

The bone arm Cain held dissolved into dust right through the gaps of his fingers. The candle flame went out, he still couldn’t move his body.

Nothing happened for a few seconds. All was well for a few sections.

Then, Cain felt his bones crushing into his rib cage, his skin pressing against his body, choking him, bringing about such a terrible ringing in his head, as though something were screaming out at him, screeching out at him like a banshee from the fairy tales he read, his own thoughts flashing clear in his head:

Make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stop make it stop MakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopmakeitstopohGODmakeitstop

The pain stopped as quickly as it came. His body felt normal, save for the way his mouth felt like it was going to shatter into pieces at any second.

Cain dropped the candlestick and fumbled his way through the darkness, waving his hands in the air until he could feel the doorknob.

He stumbled outside, the light blinding in his eyes. The “outside” in question was just a hallway in his mansion, the sunlight streaming through.

He spent too much time in that room, to the point where his screaming hurt his mouth. To the point where the sunlight hurt his eyes. He needed to find a candlestick. He needed to look for the rest of the bones.

Cain grabbed a candlestick that he found on a small table in the hallway that had a vase of white lilies and ran right back to the cursed room, searching everywhere for the hole until he found it, until he saw…

Nothing was there. No bones. No nothing.

It could have been his imagination from being in the room too long, but deep inside, it felt too true, it felt too real, too elaborate to be made up.

Cain ran back out of the room and placed the candlestick on the table, right where he found it. As he got closer to the main hallways throughout the mansion, he took deep, slow breaths until he was calm enough to walk, until he was okay enough to brush it aside.

After a while, he made it to his parents’ room. The doctors had left for the day, there weren’t any servants in the room. It was just Cain and his mother and father, no breaths escaping their cracked lips.

No breaths…had he really failed them? Had he lost his only chance at saving them? Why, why did his mouth hurt so bad?

He needed something to drink. Something that would make him feel alive again. Something that would help him forget what happened for mere seconds. Something rich, something that he couldn’t just buy.

Blood. Red, ripe blood that flows in everyone, that probably tastes like chocolate from childhood, that might taste sweet and soft, so unlike the aftertaste of fear.

Cain shoved the unholy, inappropriate thoughts that graced his head. His parents were dead and blood crossed his mind? Nothing was right at the moment, he needed to get a hold of himself. He needed to calm himself.

But his mouth hurt so bad.

…………………………………………………………

Cain didn’t know what was going on with himself at first. He didn’t think much of what happened in the cursed room and he did his best to ignore the throbbing pain in his mouth.

Days after days after days went by where Cain tried to act like everything was normal, where he stomached the food that was served to him, where he tried pretending that he never stepped foot in that cursed room.

But it all boiled up to a point where he couldn’t eat his food anymore, where it tasted too rancid to chew and swallow. He couldn’t keep it deep inside, the pain clawed at him desperately. Everywhere all around him, the servants looked at him with concern etched in their eyes. They were servants, but they were alive. They did things around the mansion that reminded them that they were present, that their work would lead to a purpose, that their existence meant something.

They had blood inside of them that flowed in and out, that either protected them or harmed them. It was there, it was keeping them together and…and…

Cain pounced on each and every one of them, tasting the decadency that helped their hearts beat, that let them live out their days, see the world in sparkling colors, and filled the emptiness inside of him.

In that instance, the voice’s words sparked back in his brain, the words that he tried to push far, far in his soul:

You need to live forever in freedom.

When it was all over, Cain stood alone. His mouth felt alright, but two of his front teeth felt slightly longer. There was a mirror right across from him, a mirror that reflected a young boy with wild, lost eyes and red, ripe blood drying up on his pale face.

It all made sense to him right then and there. Clarity burst in his head, he couldn’t deny the bodies that lay all around him, the bodies that he so selfishly caused an end to. He couldn’t deny the peculiarity of his parents’ condition and the troubling words of the voice.

Cain sat himself down on the ground, letting all of the tears he never dared to cry seep out from his frightful eyes.

Magic was real. His Grandpa was in that room. His Grandpa had killed his parents. His Grandpa had cursed him. His Grandpa made his own body disappear.

The pain in his mouth, the hunger inside of him, it wasn’t random. No, not at all. He only read of such creatures in his stories, yet there was no other word to describe the monster he had become.

He was a vampire and he’d never be worthy to grace the light of day again.