Page 127 of Rage

He lets out a long breath, dropping his eyes to his hands.

He is trapped here.

Chapter Four

Steele

Without clocks—which he noticed were missing from the manor along with the mirrors—he had no concept of time but would wager nearly an hour passed before someone brought him lunch.

There was a tap on the door, but there was no evidence of who had knocked. He opened the door to a tray of stew and bread paired with a pewter mug filled with ale.

He’d inhaled the soup and swallowed the bread in one bite, and when the ale was gone, it magickally refilled itself.

He napped until dinner, then ate alone at the table fit for a castle, returning to his room for more ale.

Days—nay weeks—have passed like this, where nothing has changed.

He’d nearly been killed multiple times by different things in the manor and on the grounds.

The sentient shadows that linger in the dark corners will likely claim his sanity first. They strike when the lights are dim, suffocating, or slashing with razor-like tendrils.

The furniture is haunted. Chairs, armoires, or chandeliers spring to life when least expected, trapping or crushing anything too close.

The grand staircase subtly shifts its steps, leading him into traps or void-like falls into darkness if he isn’t too careful. Every time it happens, he wakes in bed like it was all a dream.

Portraits on the walls seem to follow him, and when provoked—or ignored too long, the figures inside claw their way into reality to attack.

Occasionally, entire rooms shift into dangerous spaces—the sitting room becomes an inferno, and a hallway grows barbed branches with a hunger for flesh.

On the grounds, thorned vines and flowering plants lure him with sweet scents and promises of freedom before snapping shut like jaws. The gardens are ever-changing, trapping him in endless loops or leading him into traps—bottomless pits, spiked hedges, or drowning bogs. Specific patches of ground liquefy without warning, pulling him into suffocating mud or icy water, and the stone gargoyles or animal figures seemingly come to life at night.

The manor shifts walls and floors, trapping him in shrinking spaces or rooms that become a place of nightmares, with ghostly apparitions of people he once loved and lost and some he’s never seen or doesn’t know.

He hasn’t seen or heard from the beast since he’s been here, though he seems to think she haunts the paintings. Sometimes, he swears she’s behind him, and then there’s no one there.

There was the one time in the middle of the night he saw her roaming the grounds from his window, Edmund on her tail, so he snuck over to her wing.

It was terrifying.

Everything in her bedchamber was clawed to bits, and large gouges scarred every surface made of wood.

He never wants to venture to that side ever again.

Today, lunch consists of cheese and crackers, and he finishes it off with five to six refills of ale before he sets out on his daily exploring.

As dangerous as the manor is and unreliable with staying the same, it’s the only thing he’s found to keep him occupied and not anxiety-ridden about spending the rest of his life here.

Maybe he should have accepted his death.

Satisfied for now—and a little buzzed—he leaves the tray on the right side of the door and stalks off down the dark hallway.

So far, in his exploring and near-death experiences, he’s found multiple bedrooms, nooks and crannies with reading chairs and tables, countless bathrooms, two storage cubbies, six stately sitting rooms, and a massive library fit for a king.

Reading is one of his favorite pastimes, and so today, he climbs the ladder to the second level and picks one. Tome in hand, he sits in the chair next to the fire and opens the book.

Books are magickal things. Black ink on dead trees spins wild hallucinations in their holders' minds.

Steele flips another page, engrossed in the tale. The warmth of the fire at his side pairs perfectly with the faint buzz of ale still coursing through him. The book in his hand—a weathered classic whose pages feel like silk beneath his fingers—pulls him deeper into its world. He runs his thumbs over a passage, marveling again at how ink on paper could create entire universes.

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