Page 76 of An Inheritance of Monsters

I wondered if that was what had happened to Ruby.

She had gone to the Void… and all that was left of her was rumor. No one had really even investigated her disappearance.

If I remained here, would all traces of me eventually vanish from the real world?

There was a relief in that idea… along with a sharp pain that anyone I’d ever liked, or who had liked me in return, would cease to remember me entirely.

I went to my room and stood near the window, watching lightning flicker ominously overhead, and moved my phone around until I had enough bars to pull up YouVid.

Our first episode ofSpirit Squad, covering Ravencrest Asylum, began to load. I hit play as soon as it had buffered.

My stomach twisted as the intro began.

“In the deepest, darkest part of the forest, there is a place where rumors abound and the mysteries run deep.”

My voice flickered in and out, as though coming through bursts of static, but it was the image that disturbed me.

“Welcome to Ravencrest Asylum.” The video was perfect, except for me. I was faded, almost ghostly against the background of the burned asylum ruins. “Known for incarcerating patients and subjecting them to various torture techniques, with a death toll in the hundreds, Ravencrest has never outlived its most popular rumor: that it was the home of vampires who fed on the inmates.”

The younger me on screen gestured to the ruins, and her hand flickered out of existence.

I closed the video and shoved my phone back in my pocket, my heart pounding.

I really was disappearing from the world.

Chapter22

Juno

Lightning cracked overhead and I flinched, the sky lighting up a vivid violet.

If I was going to vanish from the real world… then I might as well get to the bottom of this one.

Rain began sheeting down as I pulled on a hoodie and dug in my backpack for one of the powerful flashlights our crew carried to every location.

We’d learned a hard lesson about the power of back-up batteries while investigating an abandoned hospital for our third episode.

Getting lost in the dark wasnotsomething I wanted to do again.

I shoved the replacement battery in my pocket and headed out, retracing my steps downstairs and past the greenhouse to the door Mrs. Marsh had shown me.

I passed Eloise in the parlor, talking to Porter, and Carson and Jack trooped by on the stairs with cameras, both of them watching me through narrow eyes… but no one followed me.

Even so, I waited a solid minute before unlocking the door and closing it behind me, flicking on the flashlight.

The narrow but powerful beam illuminated a stone-walled stairwell, with creaky wooden steps descending into the pitch black.

Years of exploring creepy places had essentially inured me to the fear of the unknown, so my only hesitation in going down the stairs was how old they were. The last thing I wanted was to sit in the cold tunnel with a broken ankle while screaming for help.

But they didn’t break underfoot, and soon I stood on a smooth stone floor. The tunnel swung northwards, devoid of any decoration or markings. The entire thing was very utilitarian.

As I walked, I imagined how it must have been when the lighthouse was operational; it was easy to envision gas lamps flickering along the walls in this seemingly endless darkness.

As straight as the tunnel was, it only took me twenty minutes at a brisk pace to reach another set of stairs.

These ones were chiseled from the stone, leading upwards in a spiral… and as I ascended, I realized I hadn’t seen any doors leading into the lighthouse proper, although I was surely above ground level.

I finally reached another wooden door, this one polished and worn, and pushed it open to the bright flash of lightning.

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