The moon hung low, veiled in a gauze of drifting clouds, its pale light bathing the once-grand Manon estate in a hushed, ghostly glow. The world was silent save for the distant rustle of leaves and the occasional bark of a dog far beyond the perimeter. Dominic crouched behind the gnarled roots of the old olive tree just beyond the northeast fence line, his breath shallow, his eyes fixed on the silhouette of the house.
It had only been few hours since the funeral, the hour he'd stood in this very soil wearing sorrow like a mask. But tonight, the mask was literal. Black cloth stretched over the lower half of his face, dark hoodie drawn over his head, gloves tightened to the skin. His heart wasn't mourning now—it was calculating. Cold. Vengeful. Focused.
He moved with the silence of memory, crossing the boundary of his childhood with every step. The security lights had never been replaced. He'd known that. He'd disabled the system with childish pranks once before and now used that knowledge to slip through the garden's side trellis, into the forgotten hedges, then finally through the maintenance hatch beneath the west wing's greenhouse.
A loose tile. A rusted hinge. He slipped inside.
The air inside the house smelled wrong. It wasn't rot or mildew—it was sterilization. The scent of ammonia and cover-up. Someone had cleaned this place. Thoroughly. Too thoroughly.
Dominic crept through the hall like a shadow, his footsteps brushing against the faded carpet with trained care. The house was too pristine. The dining room, once frozen in bloodied horror, now gleamed with restored elegance. The furniture had been reset. Not replaced—reset.
And that was disturbing.
He stepped toward the long mahogany table, letting his gloved fingers glide across its surface. No scratches, no dried blood, no sign of the horror that had unfolded here. But something else caught his eye. A shift in the air. A whisper of wind from a crack in the windowpane. It stirred a delicate object lodged between floorboards beneath the high window.
A feather.
He knelt.
A sparrow feather—soft gray and black, fragile. Out of place.
—should be brown, but it isn't
He turned it over in his palm, brows furrowing. It had drifted into the deepest corner of the room, caught in a place no breeze should've reached. Had it been here during the massacre? Had it arrived after? Or had someone left it deliberately? He tucked it into a zippered pouch on his belt. A feather was meaningless… unless it wasn't.
He moved on.
Every room he passed made his skin crawl. Some family photos were gone. Others… altered. One showed him at age ten, his arm wrapped around his sisters—but her image had been slightly blurred, almost smudged, like someone had handled the print too much. Another photo had his father's eyes scratched faintly, almost imperceptibly, but Dominic saw it. He saw everything now. He had to.
The study was next. His father's sanctuary. A room always locked, always sacred.
He approached the oak door and pressed lightly. It gave in. Unlocked. That alone was a red flag.
The room inside was immaculate—more than what it should've been. But not everything was erased. Behind the desk, set into the floor, was a drawer, a drawer Dominic remembered only because he once tried—and failed—to pick it open as a child.
Now, strangely, it was still sealed. It hadn't been touched.
He pulled a lockpick from a narrow pouch and worked in silence. After a few tense minutes, the mechanism clicked.
The drawer slid open with a metallic sigh. Inside, preserved by miracle or design, were three items: a half-burned journal page; a family photo—scorched, the face of one figure scratched beyond recognition; and a brittle floorplan, yellowed and crumbling at the edges.
Dominic unfolded the floorplan and froze.
The estate's blueprint sprawled across the old paper, detailing wings and rooms long familiar. But one room—just off the east corridor—was marked in faded ink, circled twice, labeled only with the word "Sable."
There was no such room anymore.
He stuffed the paper, the photo, and the page into his backpack, barely giving himself time to scan the half-burned words: "…If they reach the vault, all is…"
Then, a sound.
A click. A whir. The low hum of activation.
Dominic spun.
The security system. Not the usual silent alarm. This was slower, more deliberate. Manual. Delayed. Controlled. Someone had left it dormant—then triggered it.
Wait—
They knew he might come back.
His pulse surged. No time.
Escape—
He bolted from the study, cutting through the drawing room. He saw motion outside—a figure near the south gate.
He didn't stop to look.
He couldn't
His breath fogged behind the mask. Think. Think. Think
They were watching. He couldn't let them think it was him. He can't
He ducked into the hallway closet and dragged out an old linen bag. In a flash of inspiration—pure desperation—he began acting like a thief. He knocked over a vase, emptied a drawer of silverware into the bag, scattered a few books, kicked a chair. All while careful to make it 'look' sloppy.
Then he wiped where he could. The doorframe. The desk. The handle of the drawer. He used a piece of cloth to wipe his own bootprints on the tiled entrance.
Still, it wasn't perfect.
As he slipped out through the same greenhouse hatch, he knew he'd left signs—traces of his presence he couldn't scrub in time. But maybe… maybe that was good. A scared thief, startled mid-looting, would leave in haste. The signs pointed to desperation, not deliberation.
He sprinted across the lawn, ducked behind the outer wall, and vanished into the thickets.
But before he escaped entirely, he looked back.
At the edge of the estate grounds, silhouetted in the moonlight, stood a figure. Not moving. Not chasing. Watching.
A chill climbed Dominic's spine.
He didn't linger.
Twenty minutes later, he was safely hidden in his temporary hideout above an abandoned mechanic's garage on the city's edge, he spread the salvaged items before him.
The feather.
The photo.
The journal scrap.
And the floorplan.
He stared at the circled room. "Sable."
There had never been a "Sable Room." At least, not in his memory.
His fingers traced the faded ink.
"Before they erase you entirely…" he whispered.
The mystery was no longer just "what" had happened to his family—but "why". And who had gone to such meticulous lengths to clean the truth away…
Dominic's jaw tightened.
They missed one thing.
Him.
And they might soon come for him...
[End of Chapter Five]