The silence of Blackwood Manor was a heavy cloak, draped over every opulent furnishing and every dusty, forgotten corner. Flora traced the intricate pattern of the wallpaper in her assigned room, her fingertips brushing against faded velvet. She remembered nothing before arriving here, only a bewildering blankness that stretched back into the void. Elias, her supposed distant cousin and the manor's current master, had been nothing but kind, yet an unsettling unease clung to her, a persistent whisper that something was deeply wrong.

Outside, the ancient oak trees cast long, dancing shadows across the manicured, yet wild, gardens. A faint, almost imperceptible melody seemed to drift on the breeze, a tune Flora felt she should know, but couldn't place. The air within the manor, despite its grandeur, felt thin, as if holding its breath. Every creak of the floorboards, every distant rustle, seemed to carry a hidden message she couldn't quite decipher. She moved to the window, gazing out at the deepening twilight, a shiver running down her spine. The manor felt less like a refuge and more like a gilded cage.