Y/N POV

"Mia?!"

Still partially shrouded in the mist and fog, I could clearly make-out the silhouette of my sister. There was no mistaking it was her, but how could it be? She was dead! Ethan also voiced his shock "What?!" Mia's voice could be heard, echoing off our surroundings but still clear as day. "Ethan, Y/N! Come with me. There's something I have to tell you."

She turned to walk away and then much to my surprise, she vanished in a flash! I rubbed my eyes for a moment. Ethan asked "What's going on?" I shook my head for a moment, responding "It must have been an illusion, how clever." The last part being said with sarcastic anger.

What confused me most about this was that if this was a regular hallucination, then it was kind of strange that both me and Ethan would see the same thing. I had no idea what was going, but someone was behind it, that much was certain.

Even with what just happened in our minds, we both continued down the path. On either side of us now were iron railings, perhaps we were getting closer to our destination. We went past a gate which I briefly attempted to open however it was locked, meaning we'd just have to go straight.

As we turned back to go down the path though, there was another sudden flash and my eyes widened when I once again saw Mia standing just far enough away that her features were masked from view by the fog. This time, I saw her cradling Rose in her arms as she stated in a sombre tone. "Rose feels... different. Ethan, Y/N, you have to fix her."

Just like before though, as we got closer, she vanished. This confirmed that there was someone toying with our minds. Now that I had grasped this fact though, I was more angry than confused. I had a feeling who was responsible for this already.

Ethan muttered "This can't be real." I replied "Of course it's not. Someone's probably getting a real laugh out of us." We kept on walking, even with the strange hallucinations until at last we arrived in a clearing where my blood nearly ran cold.

In the centre of the clearing, stood in front of a grave surrounded by a large number of candles and other objects was ZOE! She looked exactly how she had three years ago. As we got closer, she slowly turned to face us, her eyes fixed on me as she sadly asked "Y/N, why did you forget about me?"

My eyes widened at this, even if I knew this was all just a hallucination, her words got to me. I tried my best to call out what was happening. "I-I know this is all a trick. You can't be here!" I couldn't help the stutter that came out as I spoke.

The hallucination of Zoe stepped closer "You just forgot about me, after everythin'." Again, I couldn't fight the stutter as I defended "I didn't forget." She didn't acknowledge what I'd said and instead asked "Why Y/N?" Just like Mia before, she vanished in a flash.

Even after she'd vanished, I remained frozen in place, shuddering lightly in shock. How the hell did these people know about Zoe?! I had no words. I'd done my best to keep in touch with her over the phone and occasional video calls, but Chris insisted we stay far away for our own safety. Did the REAL Zoe feel we'd grown apart?

Ethan came up to me and asked "Y/N, you alright?" He placed a hand on my shoulder that snapped me from my trance. I shook my head a bit, returning to my senses before quietly saying "Yeah, yeah, I'm fine."

Once I was back to normal we could finally take the time to properly get a look at this clearing. Naturally, the first point of interest was the giant headstone directly in the centre of the hill that the Zoe hallucination had been stood in front of.

The headstone looked old and worn, there was no telling how long it had been here. At the base of it was a plaque that was missing a sizable chunk of it. Because of this, we couldn't clearly make out the person's name who's grave this was. Instead we just could read '-A Beneviento."

It was safe to assume judging by the surname this person was related to Donna Beneviento, the lord the Duke mentioned. But the nature of that interaction was unknown. Or even the gender. Were they a brother? Sister? Son? Daughter? I hadn't the slightest idea, perhaps we'd find out more at House Beneviento itself.

Aside from the grave to the unknown Beneviento, there wasn't anything important to note in this place aside from at the far end of the opening was a door, it looked strange, as if it was the door to a house. Attempting to open it revealed it was locked.

Ethan muttered "Another locked door? Damn it." However I noticed something, a small slot, like what a postman would deposit the mail through. On the wall next to it was a plaque that read a simple yet cryptic phrase. 

'Give up your memories.'

I raised an eyebrow at this, completely confused as to what it could mean. Turning to Ethan, I asked "Any ideas?" Ethan thought for a moment before his eyes suddenly widened and he went on to explain.

"When we woke up at that crash, I found this photo in my pocket." He reached in and held up a photograph showing Mia, sat holding Rose. He continued "I'm not sure exactly, but maybe this was why I have it."

Image of the Family Photo:

I face-palmed and said "Ethan, that sounds really farfetched and convoluted." To that Ethan shrugged and said "Worth a go, right?" I sighed before finally caving in. "Okay, if you think it'll work. Go ahead."

Ethan reached out and carefully fed the photo into the narrow slot in the door. There was a pause for a moment, before the door finally swung open, revealing a corridor. I raised my hands and said "Seems you were right. Let's go, in case it decides to close again."

We made our way down the dark corridor until we reached the end, here we found a lift with some candles placed on a rock nearby. Stepping into the lift, we found it only had buttons to go up or down, given that we were already at the bottom, the only way was up.

Pushing the button caused the metal barred doors to swing closed. The lift began going upwards as a feeling of dread slowly swept over me, this was soon proven justified when the lights cut out for a moment before returning.

As they came back on, my eyes widened when I saw a MESSAGE seemingly scratched into the metal wall of the lift. 'Come with me.' That's all it said, a cold chill ran down my spine, I didn't know what to expect from this place, but whatever it was, I knew it couldn't be good.

The lift finally reached its stop and the doors opened up to reveal a small cave passage. Ahead we could see the light of the outside. We wasted no time heading in that direction, heading outside and rounding a corner of a cliff face, we saw IT.

A large mansion, perched on the cliffside just in front of a waterfall. It was obvious from the get-go, this was the Beneviento mansion the Duke told us about, and it looked just as eerie and ominous as he said it would.

Image of House Beneviento:

The feeling of dread remained in my mind, even so, as Ethan stepped towards the property, I followed slowly behind as we made our way along the footpath before arriving at the metal gates of the estate.

We found them already unlocked and stepped into what appeared to be a garden. It appeared to be overgrown, but not to a massive extent. It was clear that it had likely not been tended to in quite some time.

Stepping right on through it was finally came to the wooden double front doors of the house. I placed my hand on the right door, Ethan on the left. We gave it a push and just like the gate, we found the door already unlocked.

The doors swung open slowly, allowing us to finally step into a large hallway, wooden stairs leading up to the second level, corridors heading off to either side and a door at the back leading into another room. It seems we had quite the place to explore. Not as big as Castle Dimitrescu, but certainly sizable in its own right.

The real question was, what awaited us here? What terror did House Beneviento have in store?

Author's Note: And that's it for this chapter. Now, I'm not going to be able to upload another chapter for this book again until Monday, I'll be away from home all weekend and won't have Wi-Fi. Tomorrow morning I'm going to quickly upload the summary for another book I wanted to work on in the future, but this story will still be my priority. I hope you enjoy House Beneviento, I'm still torn between two ideas for this part, so hopefully I'll be able to figure that out soon. I hope you liked the chapter as well and as always, thank you for reading.