Kiera sat in front of the basement door, on the bottommost step just at the mouth of the corridor that led to its heavy door. He had no idea why he went so near it, after watching his family dragged to their death as he cowered in the corner. Perhaps, he thought as he twisted a string of his white hair between thumb and forefinger, he wanted to open the door and see what had happened so long ago. So long, yet he had never went within the shadow of the corridor after that night. When thunder exploded above the house, he jumped, a reflex he could never control anymore. Standing, the boy rearranged his oversized beige shirt to fit him as well as it could, and crawled up the stairs again. Walking through the curtains that had always hung in the hallway, he went back out the door between the entrance hall’s staircases and closed it quietly. Rolling up his sleeves, he stepped forward, toward the door, but with no intention of leaving the house. He had not done so for several years.

The windows flanking the door showed a gray afternoon, slowly fading to evening as it poured a storm forth, streaming down the glass. Lightning flashed, throwing swift shadows onto the hardwood floor. A door was on either side of the entrance hall, one leading to the living room and den, and the other leading to the kitchen and dining room. When Kiera started toward the nearer door, the one to his right that led to the kitchen, it opened swiftly; Dmitri, the murderer of his family, the psychologically-deranged gardener that had been with them for many years, lumbered into the entrance hall, heavy and thick, nearly bald, his tiny black eyes glaring around him. Kiera had to suppress a gasp and stumbled back behind a column that reached the second floor, moving to the other side. Dmitri growled, most likely to himself, before stomping toward the door that Kiera had come from moments before.

Pressing close to the wide, dark gray stone of the column, sitting, then ducking low to avoid being noticed, he muttered a silent thank you for being spared another chase through the house. When the door slammed shut, he stood, much taller than what he used to be, much older. His adult form, which appeared to be at least thirty, fit the child-Kiera’s clothes much better, and before taking to the stairs, he unrolled his sleeves and pant legs. He sprinted upstairs, which dulled his footsteps for a dark purple carpet runner, going left and passing three tall doors. The thunder above the house had dulled, the evening’s storm slowly being pushed away, and in the fluttering shadow thrown from the lit sconces made eerie movements in every corner. Shuddering, Kiera went to the library, through the left door at the end of the hall. Its door locked, and he made sure it did with the heavy bolt beside the brass doorknob. With a sigh, Kiera stepped into the library and looked around.

Its carpet was a dark purple, like the runner in the hallway outside and on the staircases. The bookshelves reached to the dark ceiling, several ladders leaning against the wall to the right. Everything was lit with oil lamps, candles sitting on the window sill. He passed the first two rows of shelves and went to the fireplace, which only sported several smoldering embers that hardly lit the old, velvet-covered dark red chairs. He tried to shake the nagging feeling that something would soon be altered, reaching into his pocket and pulling a match, striking it on his thumb, and tossing it into the fireplace. As he waved the small flame with a scrap of paper, he kept glancing at the window. Nothing but the forest trees and clouds could be seen, but he felt if he looked hard enough, he would see what was coming.

When he lifted a flame high enough to be able to support itself, he sat in one of the chairs and looked at it. Something was wrong, and he could not get it out of his mind.