The Eternal Welcome

Another horror story I have made :)

The old mansion loomed before me, its grandeur and beauty slowly being consumed by the creeping vines and overgrown gardens that seemed to claw at the crumbling facade. I'd heard the locals whisper about the place, about the strange apparitions and unexplained occurrences that seemed to plague it. But I didn't believe them. Not until I saw it.

The thing at the window was there, watching me with an unblinking gaze that seemed to bore into my soul. I felt a shiver run down my spine as I realized it wasn't just a fleeting presence it was a constant, always lurking in the shadows, waiting for me.

I needed to know why. I needed to understand what was going on. So I gathered my courage and approached the window, the creaking of the old wooden floorboards beneath my feet echoing through the silence like a warning.

That's when I saw its face. A noseless human, void of all life, with a smile that seemed to be carved into its skin. The smile grew wider as our eyes met, and I felt a chill run down my spine as it began to whisper a single, haunting word: "Welcome."

But its lips didn't move. The voice was a cold breeze in my mind, a presence that echoed within my skull. I stood frozen, my heart pounding in my chest, as the noseless figure vanished, leaving behind only the whispered word, repeating over and over like a mantra: "Welcome... welcome... welcome..."

The air felt heavy, thick with an unsettling cold that seemed to seep into my bones. I felt my heartbeat slow, as if the very presence of life was being drained from me. The emptiness was suffocating, and I knew I wasn't alone.

As I went upstairs, the walls seemed to watch me, the portraits on the walls shifting and twisting like they were alive. Their subjects' eyes followed me, their smiles frozen in place like they were trying to hide some dark secret. I felt like I was walking into a nightmare, and I couldn't wake up.

Their smiles grew and grew, until their mouths were stretched wide in macabre grins. I saw myself in their eyes, saw the same emptiness, the same desperation. And I knew I wasn't just seeing things I was seeing the truth.

The thing was watching me. It always had been. I felt its presence envelop me, a suffocating weight that crushed the air from my lungs. The noseless face materialized behind me, its smile reflected in the mirror that hung on the wall, staring back at me with eyes that were mine.

I was the creature. The realization hit me like a punch to the gut. I saw my own reflection noseless, lifeless, and twisted into that grotesque, inhuman grin. My eyes were black as coal, and my skin was gray as the stone that entombed the living.

I looked out the same window where I had first seen the creature, and I saw myself standing outside, looking in. I was trapped in an eternal loop of horror and self-discovery, forever bound to the window, watching and waiting. The gaze that stared back at me was my own, a reminder that I was forever lost in this labyrinth of darkness.

In that moment, I knew I was doomed to haunt these halls, to watch the living with a hunger that could never be satiated. The welcome I had received was not a greeting, but a condemnation to an eternity of torment, trapped in this prison of my own making. And I knew I'd never be free.