Prologue

A lost, grieving soul enters the jaws of an insatiable beast, where the eyes of uncannily well-preserved paintings reach for her weary, lonesome corpse like crows. This mansion has no history to be felt or heard; it's as if the rooms are hollow and ravenous, their stale tranquillity broken by irregular draughts that send shudders down her spine as oppressive as the clattering of a needle to the floor.

There lie secrets. Secrets and betrayals.

In the mirrors, familiar faces crawl out from their eternal doom to grasp her pale skin and whisper trenchant advice into her ears with a sickly tongue, hearing her heartbeat like the ticking of a clock; candles that breathe within her. Those faces have lain so long in wait among the stitches and threads of madness, waiting for her arrival.

Though the hours crawl onwards, she remains, watching and listening to the whispers of sorrow that lurk behind her at every acrimonious gust of wind howling through the mouth of the great beast. What awaits her within these halls, engulfed in oppressive, potent mists of grief? Who may she meet in the reflections of trembling malady?

Through it all, that face haunts her every step. Yellow skin and seething eyes. Ink-stained and bloody. Cackling as insidious as death. Woeful as grief.