🕯️ Cursed Soul: The Shadow of DarknessBy: Diksha SinghPrologue: The Last Servant of Greywood (1892)“The girl is gone,” they whispered, as if hoping the walls wouldn’t hear. But the walls of Greywood Mansion always heard. They breathed. They remembered. And they never forgave.In a candlelit room of Greywood, the last servant of the house, Martha, scratched trembling words into her leather-bound journal.> "She was not a spirit... not then. She was a girl. Beautiful, fragile, and afraid. They buried her pain in the walls, but her screams... her screams seeped into the floorboards. May God have mercy on us all."Outside her window, the wind howled like a beast mourning the moon. That night, Martha vanished.---Chapter 1: The Mansion Beckons (1935)Anamika adjusted her scarf as the carriage jolted over the cobbled road. Greywood Mansion loomed ahead, cloaked in a fog that clung to the trees like spiderwebs. Her husband, Arjun, leaned forward eagerly, scribbling notes in his leather journal.“We’re finally here,” he said. “The place where history bleeds through stone.”Anamika glanced up at the looming structure. Greywood wasn’t just a mansion — it was a monument of decay. Vines gripped the outer walls like claws. The windows, tall and narrow, seemed to stare back.They had come from India to England under a grant — Arjun, a historian researching British colonial archives; Anamika, a novelist working on a gothic horror story. Greywood, isolated and ancient, was the perfect retreat.But the moment Anamika stepped inside, she felt it — the cold kiss of something unseen, something watching.---Chapter 2: Whispers in the WallsThe first night was restless. The fire crackled weakly as the wind whispered through cracks in the walls. Anamika awoke to the sound of faint singing — a lullaby, foreign and heart-wrenching. When she crept out to the hallway, the singing stopped.She turned. A shadow darted past.“Arjun?” she called, heart pounding.No response. Only silence. Then, the soft, unmistakable sound of a girl… weeping.---Chapter 3: The Black RoomOn the second floor, past a crooked hallway, lay a door bolted shut with iron clasps. The caretaker had called it "The Black Room" — a place never opened.But one evening, the door stood ajar.Inside, the air was thick. Dust danced in beams of dying sunlight. Anamika stepped in and found a small portrait leaning against the fireplace.A girl with lowered eyes, dark braids, and a tattered dress. Written beneath in fading ink: “Deepti”.The moment Anamika touched the frame, her mind was flooded — flashes of screams, chains, fire, and a voice echoing:“Feel what I felt. And I shall own you.”---Chapter 4: Shadows of the PastArjun began researching Deepti and the mansion’s past. In a sealed drawer, he found old letters from the 1890s — written by servants, warning of a “dark force” unleashed after a girl went missing.One letter ended with,> “They locked her in the cellar and left her to rot. Now her soul is rot itself.”Greywood’s family had fallen into ruin after Deepti’s death — madness, suicides, disappearances. It was as if the house fed on guilt.Chapter 5: The Locked CellarThey discovered a bricked-up passage in the kitchen basement. Arjun broke it open, revealing an old stone cellar — claw marks on the walls, rusted chains, and a torn cloth with dried blood.In the center lay an old locket. Inside it, a photo of Deepti — smiling, once — and a lock of her hair.That night, Anamika began sleepwalking. She spoke in a voice not her own:“Why did they leave me? Why won’t they burn with me?”Chapter 6: The First PossessionThe storm arrived without warning.Thunder roared across the sky as wind slammed against the windows of Greywood. The lights flickered and died, plunging the mansion into a choking blackness. Arjun rushed to the hallway with a lantern, only to find Anamika standing perfectly still at the top of the stairs, barefoot, eyes closed."Anamika?" he whispered, voice trembling.Her eyes snapped open. But they weren’t hers.They were sunken, hollow, and filled with an ancient grief. Her lips moved slowly.“He took everything. And now… you will give it back.”Then she collapsed.Later, as she rested, Arjun noticed scratch marks on her arms — not fresh, but old scars, as if they had always been there. She didn’t remember any of it. Not the stairs. Not the voice. Not the marks.But that night, the mirror in their bedroom cracked from the inside out.---Chapter 7: Journey to IndiaThe next morning, Arjun left for London to meet a British historian specializing in colonial hauntings. What he learned shocked him.Deepti was not born in England. She had been brought here at age 14 from Rajasthan, India, sold under false promises to serve the Greywood family.The historian showed him a brittle piece of parchment: a map of an old, ruined palace in I