Chapter 3

**Acacia Point of View**

An extravagantly large castle stood on the top of the hill; before me.

With a touch of ghostly appearance and danger oozing out of every brick of the establishment, it puzzled me. As lavish as it may look, it looked unused. Currently, at least.

There is no sign of habitation or a breath of life in and around it. The long stretch of runway was covered with overgrown bushes and weeds. The porch looked thoroughly unattended and the fountain is filled with the plankton made of green algae.

The castle in question stood tall and proud, only, it did not give out the light of life. It looked gloomy and borderline haunted.

That moment, when I realized that the voice that was calling out for me might be as much real as a castle that stood before me, my heart sunk in dread.

The rain, the weakness in my body, the near death condition I was currently in, all was forgotten for a moment. My body started to shake not with cold but with fear.

Raw immeasurable fear!

Panic crawled its way inside me slowly as if it was playing a game with me. My eyes started to blink down tears when a sudden thought came to my mind.

Was everything that happened was to lure me here?

I knew, I knew it was rubbish thought that my over-thinking brain came up with but I also knew the probability of being it right is high as well.

No, no, this is just my mind playing tricks.

A trauma can do that to people. Of course I've seen Mrs. Lockwood's son suffering from paranoia after losing his twin in a bike accident.

This is just when I am being paranoid. That's it.

After convincing myself about my obvious condition, I turned around to leave the place and rather die in the rain when a huge bolt of lightning struck down on east side of the woods.

That made me jump and yelp in alarm. From the top of the hill where most of the island is clearly seen, the lightening caused wild fire and it is spreading at a very frightening rate.

The rain is still heavy and the woods are soaking wet so how the fire is spreading at such an alarming rate was terrifying.

Turning to the ominous castle that stood before me, I contemplated. Looking between the wild suspicious fire and ghostly castle, I knew I had to make my choice soon.

It would be either walking into the fire and become ash or taking the benefit of doubt and walk into the castle which might as well kill me.

"This is not the time to be my usual curious self but -" I mumbled to myself when the fire installed a deep painful fear inside me.

When a possible shelter was standing before me, a small spark of wanting to live suddenly beat in my heart.

So I did what I thought should not do. With every aching and protesting muscle inside me, I took small steps towards the establishment that made silent promises of something unknown.

Despite the unkempt lawn, I noticed as I walk towards the building that it was actually neat. Muddy, due to rainstorm but still it was somehow, somewhat looked maintained which doesn't make sense.

As I walked closer, I was able to see more of the castle that is becoming clear to me. It was very large, like a palace of some royalty back in tenth or eleventh centuries. One can say that it may contain hundreds of rooms seeing how far the establishment spread in the back.

Once on the porch, under the roof protecting me from the rain, I turned around and realized that there was a huge wall surrounding the premises and the gates were closed tightly. Beside the gates was a small breach on the wall enough to fit a large bulldozer like person and through which I walked in.

The main door was tall, several feet high and looked too heavy to open. With hesitant steps, I stood before the closed door, contemplating again if I'm doing the right thing or not.

If danger has a figure, then this castle can be its father.

Taking a deep breath, attempting to calm my pounding heart and wayward working mind, I placed my hands on the cold doorknob rings that hung from dragon mouth carvings.

Instead of pushing the doors open, I decided to knock the door with the heavy ring knob. With a consideration that there might still be residents in this place, I spent the next fifteen minutes in knocking the door both expecting and not expecting anyone to open it.

When I did not hear any sound from the other side and when even after knocking the door for fifteen minutes and having it unanswered, I finally heaved heavily before pushing the door to open it.

As expected, my puny human strength wasn't meant to open such metallic demonic door of such size and weight.

"Hello." I called out struggling to push the doors again. "Hello."

I called out for someone, anyone in hope to receive help. With no luck in help, I placed both my hands on one door and pushed it with a loud grunt.

And it squeaked open, a little.

Having no much energy to push the door anymore, I squeezed inside from the little opening with raging breaths.

"Hello," I called out softly in fear. I blinked when all I can see was dark and only pitch dark.

There was no light and seeing how the sky is now gowned with heavily grey clouds, the situation with light did not help me.

It was a pit of darkness.

"Hello, anybody there?" Living or dead, one can easily tell how scared I was by the shiver in my voice. I could literally feel the vice of death wanting to strangle my neck.

"I- I'm Acacia and I'm... lost." I said waiting for any sound of possible occupant. I held the metal doorknob tightly as I waited for a while to receive an answer.

When I heard none, I didn't know what to do further anymore. Because for one, there is no light to show me the path that would lead me in.

As the sky heard my thought, a roaring lightening struck illuminating what contains inside for a couple seconds. At the first lightening, I was too scared to notice anything but in the later series, I was able to catch the brief glances of basic things.

The staircase for example, I noted that the stair case is located far corner in the large hall and the castle is a seven storied one. There was a table drawer at the foot of the staircase to side on which what seemed to be a candle was standing on the candle stand.

Grasping the basic things I noticed, I slowly started to walk towards the staircase. I took every step carefully, waving my hands around to know if there was something in the way.

With every cautious step, I felt the panic wrapping my pounding heart like a vice. Several minutes of walking, my hands finally hit with the edge of the table which supposedly I was trying to find.

Touching the surface of the table, I tapped it loudly and finally found what I wanted to. Once I took hold of the candle, I felt moved my hands towards the drawers to look for matchsticks or lighter to light up the candle.

The two drawers were filled with many things expect for the things I was looking for. I felt every item stored in the drawers but nothing seemed like a lighter or a matchbox. It was only when I resumed to search again when I realized what the cylindrical stick I pushed away earlier.

It was a fire stick. A baton to light fire.

Taking it out hurriedly, I shook the fire baton. A few shakes later, it fire finally sprang up making me sigh in relief.

In did not waste my time in lighting up the candle in my hand fearing that the fire stick would soon snuff the fire out. Once the candle is lit, I snuffed the fire stick and carried the candle and the fire stick with me.

Lifting the candle, I waited till the light is shed around. The castle, the hall is so big that one candle is not enough.

"Are you sure there is no one here and I can use the building for a while?" I called out again wishing not to be a shameless intruder stupid enough to sneak into danger.

One final clarification needed that there was indeed no one using the building and I got it. There were several table by the wall around the hall and I went to light them up not wanting to die out of fear for dark.

When most of the candles in the hall were lit, the candle which was in my hand fell down when I finally took at look at how the castle looked from inside.

It looked freaking neat without even a speck of dust.

And so the already sky reached fear crossed its boundaries.

**~*~*~*~*~*~

Hello Sweeties,

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