CHAPTER 1: THE ROOM THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN OPENED
The mansion fell into absolute silence.
Only moments ago, Serena's voice had echoed from Lily's phone.
"Victor's son must disappear before the trust activates..."
Then every chandelier exploded into darkness.
Now the emergency lights painted the endless hallways in an eerie crimson glow.
Victor tightened his grip around little Ethan.
The boy's tiny body trembled violently against his father's chest.
"Daddy..."
"I'm here."
Victor rarely showed emotion.
His business rivals called him the Ice King because nothing ever seemed to shake him.
But seeing fear in his three-year-old son's eyes awakened something far older than anger.
It awakened instinct.
He slowly scanned the hall.
Serena was gone.
No footsteps.
No broken windows.
No opening doors.
It was as if she had vanished into the walls themselves.
Lily remained kneeling on the marble floor, still clutching the phone that had just exposed Serena's secret.
"I... I didn't stop recording," she whispered.
Victor looked at her.
"What?"
"My phone is still recording everything."
Victor immediately took the device.
The screen displayed the timer.
06:14...
06:15...
The recording hadn't stopped when the lights went out.
He pressed play.
Static.
Heavy breathing.
Running footsteps.
Then...
A metallic sound.
Click.
A hidden door.
Someone whispered.
"Move before Victor reaches the west hallway."
Victor froze.
That wasn't Serena's voice.
It belonged to a man.
Another voice answered.
"The key is already waiting."
More footsteps.
Then silence.
The recording ended.
Victor stared at Lily.
"You heard this?"
She slowly nodded.
"I... I think Serena wasn't alone."
A cold realization settled over the room.
Someone inside the mansion had helped her.
Someone who knew every security blind spot.
Someone still inside.
Security guards stormed into the hall.
Their captain saluted immediately.
"Sir! Every exit has been sealed."
Victor didn't even blink.
"Did anyone leave?"
"No."
"Any cameras?"
The captain swallowed.
"They all shut down exactly thirty-two seconds before the blackout."
Victor's jaw tightened.
Professional.
Too professional.
This had been planned.
Not minutes ago.
Months ago.
Maybe years.
Then Lily noticed something glittering beneath the grand staircase.
"Sir..."
Victor followed her gaze.
A single golden key.
It rested perfectly in the center of the marble floor.
As though someone wanted it to be found.
He bent down.
The key felt unusually heavy.
Ancient.
Its handle was engraved with a family crest Victor hadn't seen since childhood.
His mother's crest.
His heartbeat slowed.
Impossible.
His mother had died twenty years earlier.
So why did this key bear her seal?
He turned it over.
One word was carved into the back.
"Elena."
His late wife's name.
Victor's blood ran cold.
"There is only one lock this fits," he whispered.
Lily looked confused.
"What lock?"
Victor didn't answer.
He simply started walking.
Fast.
Very fast.
Past endless portraits.
Past the grand library.
Past rooms nobody had entered in years.
Until they reached the oldest wing of Blackwood Manor.
Dust covered everything.
The servants never cleaned this corridor.
Victor had forbidden it.
At the very end stood a massive oak door wrapped in thick iron chains.
Lily stared.
"Why is this place locked?"
Victor didn't answer immediately.
Instead he touched the cold metal.
"It was sealed the night my wife died."
Three years earlier...
Elena had supposedly suffered a fatal accident.
Victor had been overseas during an emergency business negotiation.
By the time he returned...
She was already dead.
Police ruled it an accident.
No investigation.
No autopsy requested.
The funeral happened within forty-eight hours.
Victor buried his grief beneath work.
He never opened this room again.
Never.
Until now.
The golden key slid perfectly into the ancient lock.
Click.
The chains loosened by themselves.
One after another.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
Finally...
The heavy door creaked open.
A freezing gust of air escaped.
Lily instinctively stepped backward.
The room smelled untouched.
Like time itself had stopped.
Furniture remained exactly where it had been.
Elena's books.
Her piano.
Her favorite white roses, now dried into fragile skeletons.
Everything waited.
Exactly as she'd left it.
Victor slowly entered.
Every memory hit him like a wave.
Their wedding photograph.
A tiny knitted sweater she had made before Ethan was born.
A half-finished painting resting against the wall.
Then...
Victor noticed something strange.
The dust.
Everywhere else, thick layers covered every surface.
Except one place.
A bookshelf.
Someone had touched it recently.
Victor approached.
His fingers brushed the wood.
Fresh fingerprints.
Someone had been here.
Recently.
Very recently.
He pushed one book inward.
Nothing.
Another.
Still nothing.
Then Lily noticed a tiny brass button hidden behind an old photograph.
"Sir..."
Victor pressed it.
The bookshelf vibrated.
Slowly...
It slid sideways.
Behind it waited a narrow staircase descending into complete darkness.
Neither Victor nor Lily spoke.
Because both had realized the same terrifying truth.
There was another room beneath Elena's bedroom.
A room no blueprint of the mansion had ever shown.
Victor switched on his flashlight.
The beam disappeared into endless blackness.
One step.
Then another.
The air grew colder.
Almost impossible to breathe.
The staircase finally ended.
Below stood a steel door.
Unlike the elegant mansion above, this door looked industrial.
Military grade.
Across its surface were deep scratch marks.
As though someone had desperately tried to escape from inside.
Lily whispered,
"What kind of room is this?"
Victor had no answer.
Then he noticed something hanging beside the handle.
A hospital identification bracelet.
Yellowed with age.
He picked it up.
His hands began shaking.
The name printed on the bracelet made the blood drain from his face.
ELENA BLACKWOOD.
DATE OF ADMISSION:
Three days after her reported death.
Victor staggered backward.
"No..."
His voice cracked.
"That's impossible."
If Elena had been admitted to a hospital three days after she supposedly died...
Then whose funeral had Victor attended?
And if Elena hadn't died...
Who had been imprisoned behind this steel door?
Victor slowly reached for the handle.
Just before he could turn it...
A woman's voice echoed from inside.
Soft.
Weak.
Almost a whisper.
"Victor..."
His entire body froze.
Only one person had ever said his name that way.
His wife.
May you like
The woman who had supposedly been dead for three years.
END OF CHAPTER 1
