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 glowing reviews on her phone—phrases like "the real black swan," "Celina Vale commands the stage like no other," and "a triumph of grace, rivaling legends" blurred together. It should have made her feel proud. Instead, the praise felt distant, unreal, like it had happened to someone else.
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—finding out he'd cheated on her, again, after swearing he'd changed. It wasn't rage that drove her out. It was exhaustion.
She locked herself inside her room the moment the driver rolled past the steel gates, past the armed guards posted at the perimeter. They barely blinked, she was expected eventually, even if no one said so aloud. 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.
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.
The staff quarters were empty too. She checked.
That's when she heard it again.
Downstairs.
Rattling. Slow. Dragged.
Her spine stiffened. She turned towards the stairwell, and the house felt suddenly colder. Like something had passed through the walls.
Celina's fingers trembled slightly as she pulled her phone from the robe pocket, flashlight on. The hallway stretched like a tunnel. 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.
The noise was clearer now at the bottom of the stairs. Her eyes locked on the old door where the sound had grown louder, sharper. Unmistakable.
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 cellar 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 forward, each breath shallower than the last. The sound had stopped. Completely.
She froze.
Then—breathing.
Not hers.
A slow, raspy inhale. Another.
Her knees nearly buckled. Her mind spun. What if it lunged? What if it was already behind her?
She held her breath.
A long beat of stillness.
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. From down there. Chains."
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. "Chains. And someone breathing."
Mr. Halworth gave 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 understood. Not by everyone."
Still shaken, she let him guide her slowly up the stairs, her fingers clenched around his arm. Her steps were hesitant, every creak of the floorboards like a warning she couldn't name.
But as they walked, she kept glancing over her shoulder.
The basement door remained ajar.
Then she saw it. A hand.
Pale. Shackled. Moving.
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.