The applause still echoed in her ears, even though it had been hours since the curtain fell.
They said it was her best performance yet. The critics raved. Fans flooded the entrance, cameras flashing like lightning storms, all hoping for a glimpse of her radiant smile, her perfect pirouette frozen in their memories.
Lying in bed, she scrolled through the flood of comments on her phone.
"I've never cried during a ballet until tonight.""Celina Vale didn't just dance. She tore her heart open on stage.""That wasn't a performance, that was a breakdown in real time. Beautiful and brutal.""Real Black Swan energy. I still have goosebumps."
They were right. She had poured everything onto that stage. Every ache, every ounce of betrayal, every breath.
She found out just before the performance. He'd cheated on her again, even after swearing he'd changed. Her friends told her right before she stepped on stage. She didn't cry. Didn't even scream. She just… nodded.
Only after the applause faded did the numbness settle in, cold and quiet. It wasn't rage that filled her—it was something far heavier. Exhaustion.
Celina had left the theatre without a word, ignoring calls, ducking the press, and slipping out the back before even her manager could speak to her. Her heart was still raw from the breakup from her cheating boyfriend, Erik.
She locked herself inside her room the moment the driver rolled past the steel gates, past the armed guards posted at the perimeter. .Security cameras followed her movements as she walked up the long marble steps.
She kicked off her heels, peeled off the costume she still hadn't changed out of, and collapsed onto the cold sheets of her childhood bedroom in the ancestral estate that had watched her family grow and rot for generations.
She couldn't sleep as their fight still echoing in her mind. And that sound...
Tink. Tink.
It was faint at first. Metal scraping or maybe a shuffling clink. Her brows pinched together as she sat up in bed, heart thudding unevenly. She waited, holding her breath.
There it was again.
Metal sounds.
It was unmistakable. Not loud. Just steady enough to be real.
She set the phone aside and sat up. Only then did she notice how dark the house was too dark. The soft ambient lights that usually bathed the halls in warmth were off. Even the faint hum of life in the mansion felt... absent.
Celina grabbed the silken robe from the bedpost and padded barefoot out into the hallway. "Mr. Halworth?" she called, voice low. The butler was usually stationed nearby, even at this hour, but the hall was silent.
That's when she heard it again.
Downstairs.
Rattling. Slow. Dragged.
Her spine stiffened. She turned towards the long hallway, and the house felt suddenly colder.
Celina's fingers trembled slightly as she pulled her phone from the robe pocket, flashlight on. The hallway stretched like a tunnel toward the jarred door to the stairwell in the basement. Shadows clung to the corners while her breath sounded too loud.
She made her way down the main staircase, her light bouncing across dusty picture frames. The ancestors' eyes followed her with stern silence. One of the portraits, a grim-faced man in a three-piece suit, had once been whispered about by the maids as having turned rivals into red mist. She'd laughed it off back then. Now it didn't feel so funny.
The echo of her own footsteps sounded too loud in her ears, unnerving in the silence.
"Hello?" She said loudly and felt more scared as her voice echoed on the walls.
She stopped in front of the door, slightly ajar,where the sound was clearer now. Louder. Sharper.
She hadn't been near this place in years. Not since she was nine and dared to walk along the hallways on a dare, only to come out sobbing and pale. She'd never remembered what scared her so much. Only that her mother ordered the door to the basement sealed afterward.
Now, standing here again, her imagination betrayed her. Her heart raced, conjuring images of a headless ghost dragging chains behind him, climbing up from the basement to claim her soul. She blinked, shook her head. No. That was ridiculous. It had to be Mr. Halworth. It should be. It must be.
She pushed the door.
It creaked.
The darkness inside swallowed the flashlight's beam like a mouth. She stepped down the stairs, each breath shallower than the last. The sound had stopped. Completely.
She froze looking at the endless doors. She pushed the first door open then stopped.
Breathing.
Not hers.
A slow, raspy inhale. Another.
Her knees nearly buckled. Her mind spun. She was scared to open it fully just to see a headless ghost or something.
Then—
"Miss Celina?"
She spun around, a small gasp escaping her lips.
"Mr. Halworth," she breathed.
The butler stood at the end of the long hallway, holding a flashlight of his own. His silver hair was neatly combed back, and even at sixty, he was broad-shouldered and upright, as if carved from stone. His voice was deep and firm, like always, his expression unreadable under the flickering light.
"When did you return Miss Celina?"
Relief crashed over her in a dizzying wave. She stumbled toward him.
"Just earlier. I—I couldn't sleep. I heard something."
Mr. Halworth's brows furrowed faintly. "I heard no such thing. Come, Miss Celina. You shouldn't be wandering the halls at this hour."
He offered his arm with the kind of calm that brooked no argument.
"Why is there no power in the house?" she asked, still clinging to his arm.
"That's what we've been trying to determine," he replied calmly. "There was a disruption in the generators this evening so I went to investigate."
He glanced at her sidelong, expression unreadable. "You should have informed me if you were coming home, Miss Celina. There are protocols. Especially after the incident last month with the unwanted visitors."
"Unwanted visitors?" She didn't remember her sister ever mentioning that. "Wait, but I really did hear something," she insisted, voice trembling. "Clanking metals like... chains."
Mr. Halworth stared at her for a minute before giving a slight shake of his head, the light casting deep lines across his face. "This house is old," he said. "But it's not just age that makes it whisper. There are... things we prefer not to speak of. Best you leave certain doors closed."
She blinked at him, unsure whether to laugh or run. "You're saying it was a ghost?"
"I'm saying it wouldn't be the first time someone thought so," he said mildly. Then, after a pause, he added, "And it wouldn't be the first time you were told to walk away, either. Some things in this house aren't meant to be seen. Especially you."
She swallowed her questions cause he was right. Her fingers clenched around his arm when he offered it. Her steps were hesitant but as they walked, she can't help but glance over her shoulder.
The door remained ajar.
Then she saw it. A hand.
Chained to the wall, just barely visible beyond the reach of her light. Her mouth parted in a silent gasp. Her face contorted, stricken with horror, disbelief, and the paralyzing realization that she had truly seen something.
She didn't move. She didn't scream.
She didn't know what to do.
So she did the only thing she could, she masked it. Flattened her expression, forced her face into practiced stillness, like on stage. The horror stayed beneath her skin.
She had seen it. She hadn't imagined it.
She blinked it away, smoothing her features as if nothing had happened because, as Mr. Halworth said, some things are better left unsaid or unseen.