My main thread: here
TW: mentions of death
Oh man, this took several hours and a lot of nail-biting to write... But I had fun with it.
This probably could use editing, but I don't have time for that tonight ahaha.
⸻
It was not really a dark and stormy night when they arrived at the house; more of a dim and cloudy evening.
They’d been debating the existence of ghosts. While no one (besides maybe Scorpia) believed Sea Hawk’s tale of a harrowing encounter with a ghost ship, it was Entrapta who launched into an explanation of how there was no scientific evidence for ghosts. Sea Hawk insisted they were real, and that he would prove it.
The Best Friend Squad chose not to come; Glimmer, Adora, Bow, and Swift Wind felt their trip to Alwyn was all the ghost-hunting they needed. But Sea Hawk took Entrapta, Scorpia, Mermista, Perfuma, and Frosta to Darcliffe Manor.
The manor stood on the cliffs over a lonely stretch of coastline, miles from the nearest village. It once belonged to a wealthy family, but had sat abandoned for decades, if not—as Sea Hawk said—over a century.
“Why they left, no one knows,” Sea Hawk told the group. “Some say the place was cursed. Three of their children met untimely deaths there, and the father mysteriously vanished. Everyone who has tried to stay there since has fled in terror. Ghostly whispers, footsteps with no one to make them, mysterious orbs of glowing light. And that’s according to those lucky enough to make it out alive…”
“Hang on,” Mermista interrupted. “Uh, how do you know this? Like, you ‘know’ that these children ‘met untimely deaths,’ but you don’t, like, know any of these people’s names?”
Sea Hawk frowned.
“Yes,” said Entrapta, “where is this information coming from? Do you have any sources? Who are the witnesses? Of course, eyewitness accounts are notoriously unreliable-”
“That’s assuming he didn’t just make the whole thing up,” said Mermista. “Who knows if anyone saw anything at all.”
“Of course I know their names,” Sea Hawk said indignantly. “It’s Darcliffe Manor; they were the Darcliffe family.”
“Uh-huh.” Mermista and Entrapta looked unimpressed.
“And it is haunted,” Sea Hawk continued, “as you’ll see.”
Dubious as Sea Hawk’s claims may have been, the manor did cut a foreboding figure. While nothing compared to the princesses’ palaces, it stood tall for a mere two and a half stories, and the large porch with ornate pillars and the turret on one side gave it an air of grandeur. And with the weatherbeaten walls and crooked shutters, it certainly looked like it could be haunted.
As they stepped onto the porch, Perfuma said with an uncomfortable smile, “Um, are you sure this is a good idea? Even if the stories are true… Should we really be disturbing these people’s home—what might be their final resting place?”
“They’re dead,” said Mermista. “It’s not like they mind.”
“It just seems… disrespectful…”
Sea Hawk was already opening the door, which was apparently unlocked. “Onward! Adventure!” And he stepped inside.
Entrapta walked inside after him, and with a shrug, Mermista followed. Perfuma, Scorpia, and Frosta exchanged nervous glances, then entered as well.
It was dark inside; most of what little light the setting moons provided couldn’t get through the grimy windows. Sea Hawk lit a torch, and Entrapta turned on a headlamp.
Entrapta pulled out her recorder. “Ghost hunting log, hour one. House appears in a state of disrepair. Probably abandoned for some time…”
The door slammed shut behind Scorpia, and everyone startled.
They stood in a dusty entryway. To their right was a closed door, to the left, an empty doorway. in front of them was a stairwell, and next to the stairwell a dark hall.
Frosta looked around anxiously. “Is everyone sure about this? Because… maybe we could turn back now…”
“What, are you scared?” Mermista smirked.
“No!” said Frosta. “Of course not. I don’t believe in ghosts, remember?”
Scorpia swallowed. “Are you sure? ‘Cause, uh, I don’t know…” She turned to Sea Hawk. “Hey, didn’t you say something about people not making it out of here?”
The house creaked ominously.
Mermista eyed the ceiling. “Forget about ghosts; are you sure this place won’t, like, collapse on us at any second?”
Entrapta shone her headlamp on the floor. “There appear to be footprints in the dust here.”
“Ghost footprints?” asked Scorpia.
“Ghosts are generally described as incorporeal, and may not have the physical presence necessary to leave tracks… The simple explanation is that they come from a person.”
“But… I thought no one had been here in here in years,” said Frosta.
“This would make a pretty good hideout for like a serial killer,” Mermista mused.
Perfuma gulped. “Or maybe it’s a perfectly nice person just looking for somewhere to stay!”
An eerie moan sounded from somewhere above them. Scorpia yelped, Mermista tensed, and Perfuma, Frosta, and Sea Hawk gasped—Sea Hawk most dramatically.
“Sound appears to emanate from somewhere upstairs,” Entrapta muttered into her recorder. “Likely from the same being as left the footprints…” She followed the tracks with the beam of her headlamp, showing that they led up the stairs. “Well, time to investigate!” And she cheerfully climbed the stairs after the footprints.
The others followed her hesitantly.
“M- Maybe we could investigate the downstairs first?” Frosta suggested.
“All signs point to something being up here; it doesn’t make sense to start anywhere else,” said Entrapta.
“Maybe whatever it is left?” said Scorpia.
“There aren’t any tracks leading back down. Unless it went out another way, it’s still up there.”
There was another moan.
Entrapta held up a tablet. “This shows two energy signatures coming from somewhere up here.” She was nearly at the top of the stairs now.
“Ghost energy?” said Scorpia.
“I knew it!” exclaimed Sea Hawk.
“Inconclusive. It could easily be from some other known entity…” Just then, the tablet’s screen went blank. Entrapta tapped at the screen, and a no battery symbol flashed across it. “Oh, shavings,” she swore. “I must’ve forgotten to charge it…”
A third moan.
“Oh dear, well, since your device is dead, I guess we’d better leave so you can charge it!” said Perfuma. “What a shame!”
“Nonsense!” said Sea Hawk. “We came here for ghosts, and ghosts we shall find!”
They heard a door slam somewhere nearby, and Sea Hawk shrieked.
“The energy signatures appeared to be coming from one of those rooms.” Entrapta gestured to some of the doors on the left hand side of the hall. “We can search them faster if we split up…”
“I’d really rather not,” said Perfuma, and Scorpia and Frosta nodded vigorously.
“Still not scared?” Mermista tried to tease Frosta, but couldn’t keep the waver out of her own voice.
Entrapta was already opening the closest door. Mermista and Scorpia peered inside.
“Looks like some kind of nursery,” said Mermista. From what they could see, there was a crib against one wall, and a shelf with children’s toys on it.
“Aw, look, there’s a doll,” said Scorpia.
Mermista frowned at the porcelain doll. “Creepy.”
Entrapta walked inside while everyone else gathered in the doorway. A floorboard creaked when she stepped on it, and Sea Hawk yelped and grabbed Mermista’s arm. (Mermista startled, then snapped, “Watch it. You’ll burn the house down.”)
After scanning the room and checking the closet, Entrapta headed back to the door. “Nope, no sign of any beings here.”
Perfuma had stepped into the room, and picked the doll up off of the shelf. “This place is… sad, isn’t it? I do feel a… a sort of energy here. The presence of whoever lived here… Why were these toys left behind? What happened to the child they belonged to?”
Frosta looked around uncomfortably. “Let’s check a different room.”
As if on cue, another moan reverberated through the house.
Entrapta was already looking in the next room down. “Well, nothing in here, either.” As another moan sounded, louder and deeper than the ones before it, she said, “It seems to be coming from the next room over.”
Everyone gathered in front of the next door, behind which, it was now clear, was the source of the now-ceaseless moan.
Sea Hawk put his hand on the doorknob. Everyone stared at the door. You could almost hear the dramatic music accompanying everyone’s bated breath.
With a sharp inhale, Sea Hawk flung the door open.
The moan paused. There, in the middle of the room, maybe six feet away from them, stood a figure.
It could loosely be described as humanoid, with a dark purple body and a head covered in a filmy blue shape. All it had for a face were two glowing blue eyes.
The figure glided slowly towards them, now emitting a low humming sound.
Someone screamed—probably several someones. The thing got closer and closer. Everyone turned and ran. Down the hall, down the stairs, out the door.
Everyone, that is, except Entrapta.
She was pulling out her recorder to take notes, when she heard stifled laughter from the corner near the bed. But she was too busy with the creature to investigate that right away. Instead, she began describing it into her recorder; as she did so, the laughter stopped.
“What are you?” she said to the creature. “You don’t resemble classic descriptions of ghosts, and you seem… strangely familiar…”
“Entrapta?” Something—someone—rose from the shadows near the bed.
Entrapta turned, shining her headlamp directly at the thing—person—who shrieked and covered her eyes.
“Catra! What are you doing here?”
Catra looked away from the blinding light, rubbing her eyes. “Watch where you point that thing.”
“We were here investigating an alleged haunting, and discovered this strange entity. Do you know anything about it?”
“You know Melog.” The entity shifted into the form of a feline, and Catra walked over and patted it; it meowed and rubbed its head against her affectionately. “And I know why you’re here.” She grinned. “Pretty good prank, huh?”
