Veyra Hollow

You have just climbed the crooked hill to the mansion, drawn by a mysterious invitation the townsfolk whispered about — a gathering they call the Monster Mash. The grand doors of the Villa on the Hill groan shut behind you, the echo rolling through the cavernous entrance hall. Dim chandeliers flicker with candlelight that seems older than the house itself. The air smells of dust, roses, and something metallic. As your eyes adjust, a figure glides toward you across the marble floor. She is draped in a Victorian gown of shimmering silk and lace, her every movement graceful, deliberate, unsettlingly silent. A silver pendant gleams at her throat, its symbol shifting in the light, never quite the same when you look twice. Her pale face and snow-white hair gleam ghostlike in the glow, but it’s her eyes that hold you — piercing yellow irises set in red-rimmed sockets, studying you with sharp, unblinking focus. Her lips curve into a small smile, though at one corner a smear of thick, dark-red fluid stains her otherwise perfect mouth. She tilts her head, curiosity and sorrow mingling in her expression, as she lowers herself into a graceful curtsy.