This is what you get when you think about Disney things too long.
Since I am a fan of the three Haunted Mansions (Haunted Mansion, Haunted Mansion Holiday, and Phantom Manor) I decided to write about the experience of my most favored one: Phantom Manor.
Each chapter will consists of two rooms of the Manor until a little visit to...well...I would really hate to give it all away. But after our little visit from the rest of the visit will all be one big finale chapter, and then...sadly, our tour ends.
But you can always come back.

:D

So if you're never been to Phantom Manor, then the ghosts, the Bride, and the Phantom himself welcome you into the journey of horror, macabre, and the many secrets galore of Phantom Manor.

Phantom Manor belongs to Disney.

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You enter the quiet town of Thunder Mesa as the skies never seemed more gray.Rain is on the horizon as you can care less. As you walk ahead you notice that imprinted into the ground are old horseshoe tracks leading like a path, a bit up hill. You hear the thunder roar from the skies above you as acknowledge the fact that the rain hasn't fallen yet as you continue your journey. Resuming the trail of horseshoe tracks you come to a perfectly good view of an abandoned manor ahead of you.

It stands out against the lightly darkened sky as it remains a black dot on a piece of land people call, "Boot Hill." You swear you see a strike of lightning appear behind the manor as you feel your heart jump and yet, your adventurous side hungers for more. Its looming presence sends an excited thrill through your body as your mind dances with questions and unknown answers come into play. The rustic estate calls to you in your head as its old features give a hint of what secrets of terror and macabre lie inside. It gives off a Western theme to Thunder Mesa as you notice a quaint cemetery in front of the manor. You ponder on why such a beautiful place would be built in the middle of a graveyard of tragedy and grief.

Nonetheless, you move towards the manor more.

By now there is no rain yet and you know that you can't turn back now. Your heart is going a mile a minute and the only doubt of you turning back is fear. But fear means nothing to you now as you get closer and closer. As you approach the first half of the graveyard you hear the faint howling of a hound and some ghostly moans...or is that all in your head?

As you read some of the deaths of the departed, your attention is suddenly turned to yet another sound. It's a rather enchanting sound that places you under the spell of curiosity as you long to discover what it is. You soon find yourself near a rather lovely gazebo overrun by vines and decayed flowers of all sorts but the melodious sound still beckons you to find it and soak up its twisted notes of song. At last, you find it in the center of the garden furniture, and yet something else that's there that somewhat chills your spine.

You see a lonely candle with its flame, glowing, and dancing in your eyes. For a moment it dazzles you as its eternal fire flickers, but no wind has blown by. For everything is as dead as the underworld here and you feel the hairs on the back of your neck stand. You linger around its presence for a minute before you hear something else. It's the song from the music box only this time, the box isn't playing. The voice is more human and more graceful with a forlorning accent as it hypnotizes you. Transfixes you to find the fair maiden of the vocals and call her your own as you travel more of the manor's grounds.

You stare at the manor more as you see something standing at the attic window. It appears to be a rather youthful and charming bride. Her wedding dress appears to be from the time of the Victorian style and her looks are fair like all the roses that she carries in her fragile hands of snow white. She is the owner of the angelic voice as you are still transfixed on her as she is you. You long to speak to her as she does you. You long to run your fingers through her silky light brown hair of the Earth's beauty. Her eyes undress you and steal your heart as she is pulled back into the darkness from whence she came.

You continue to climb up the road from where once a carriage of black escorted by a stallion of white rode. You've never been more thrilled in your life as you start to run a bit up the road, eager to meet the inhabitants of the manor, and all it's eternal haunting glory. And then...you hear something coming from behind you as it draw closer and closer. At first it's faint, but it grows with speed, and sound. It sounds like...horse hooves against the road. You think the impossible as it draws closer to your form. Before you believe it'll hit you, you jump out of the way in time to see...nothing there. You swore to yourself that you heard what you did as you listen intently for any other sounds.

Nothing.

Nothing at all.

You can feel your heart racing against your rib cage as you look ahead.

The manor still beckons you.

You have no choice and journey onward.

---

At last you reach the foyer of this ill-fated estate. Long, ebony curtains of blood red touch the floor that's cloaked with elegance all over. Candles light the room dimly as you feel a sense of clairvoyance in the air. You aren't sure if it's the fact that you saw another person's reflection in the mirror aside from yours' or the fact that you swear you can feel someone breathing down your neck. You know no one's behind you even though you check in case there is, and sure enough, you were right. As you notice, beauty lies beneath the dust as well as secrets, and tales beyond the grave. You search the room with your eyes looking past the decay and seeing what was once the adoration of Thunder Mesa. You are rather enchanted by how you vision the manor as it once was as you notice something. The haunting still lives even inside the manor. You hear the lightning flash as if it's a signal to let you know that it's starting to pour. The doors slam shut behind you as you feel your bones jump and your head spin. To stop your head from spinning invisibly a charming yet haunting voice bellows from the old walls that hold the past of this manor.

"Where hinges creak in doorless chambers...where strange and frightening sounds echo through the halls. Where candlelights flicker though the air is deathly still...this is Phantom Manor."

And then it stops when you see something nearing you in the dim light.It's a floating candle of purity and sincerity. It makes you wonder what lies behind the doors ahead of you as you look to the corner of the ceiling as something catches your eye. It appears to be a mirror unlike the other ones in the room as your mind focuses on it and it alone. The voice that once spoke to you earlier appears again in all it's undaunted ways.

"Welcome curious friends you may not believe it but beauty once lived in this house...and beauty lives here still...show yourself!"

You step forward as you notice that it's a very lovely picture of a rather glorious young woman. You discover by her looks that she is the bride from earlier. Your heart aches to be with her as she gazes upon you through a portrait of ghostly detail.

"Lovely isn't she?"

Her hair is like the darkened ginger from the abandoned garden outside and her eyes are transfixed on you. She seems very gentle as her picture disappears and what should reappear but not her but a rather dark silhouette against the wall. At first you are unknown to what it is as you get a closer look to see it's a figure of a man in a suit. But yet again curiosity arouses in your mind as you wonder why the head of the man...is a skull. The bride's sweet melancholy song from earlier echoes throughout the walls as you search everywhere for the owner of the shadow and the beautiful song of sorrow. You look more as you are intent to find out who the mysterious person is, and then...it all stops. The doors ahead of you swing open and beckon you to enter the next room.

"Come, I have more beauty to show you."

Do you beckon to the mysterious voice that calls you?

Of course.

After all, you are in the manor now, and you can't go out the way you came in.

At last you enter the portrait gallery of the young lady from which you saw earlier. Her beauty is now depicted in four paintings of hidden horrors and untold secrets. Bronze gargoyles clasp two candles of burning desire in both their clawed hands of a classy nightmare. You feel the heat of the candles at your throat as you acknowledge the fact that they are on the walls. Motionless. Like old decayed corpses in a cemetery of silence...but that is for the future.

"Our tour begins here in this gallery, where you gaze upon the sweet innocence of youth."

Your favorite by far is the first one that catches your eye in which the bride is in a field of roses. For roses make any girl beautiful in your opinion, after all it is their signature flower of adornment and love. The next portrait you see her in she is with a marigold umbrella, the shade protecting her from the sun's everlasting rays of enlightenment. You ignore the possible ideas of macabre in your head as you look onward to yet another portrait. Behind her the sky is hidden beneath the evergreen trees of nature's glory. You come to the third portrait in which the bride has her hair up in a classy bun and is holding her dress up with the manor before the horror in the background. However you do notice, the home looks more radiant in this artwork than it does now. It looks neither broken or destroyed aside from the fact that lies in the distance of this painting. The fourth painting you see that she is with a rather charming young man playing a guitar with a carefree personality at hand. Of course, you see, in all the pictures she isn't a bride yet, but a single loving woman of prosperity, and heart.

But of course, since this is (you realize) a haunted estate...something ghastly and demented should happen now...right?

Right.

The portraits begin to slide up revealing the secrets of which they contain. First, your most favored portrait shows her picking the signature flowers of seduction and love...but in front of the patch, and unconscious to her...is a zombie about to strike it's revenge on her. The picture of which the bride is reclining in nature's beauty, soon shows her on a small boat about to go down a rather treacherous waterfall. Your heart jumps for a moment at the thought of what will happen to the bride and what her beauty will soon become.

"Ah but things are not always as they seem. Can it be this room actually stretching?"

Your eyes catch a glimpse at the portrait with the girl wading in the water. Beneath her feet and about to pull her down is a gruesome sea monster. She is unaware of the fact that it's there, as you try to convince yourself that she lives in the end.

"And notice this: this chamber has no windows and no doors which offers you this chilling challenge; to find a way out."

The portrait with her and the gentleman soon reveals them at a picnic with snakes, bugs, and scorpions galore heading towards them for an afternoon lunch. You just feel your bones jump at the sight of the couple's destined fate of horror. Your host's laughter sends a chill down your spine as you long to escape this madness. Surely you know that you can't climb the walls nor do you have any super power...but yet again you feel the lightning dance across the blackened sky of day as all the flames of the gargoyles' candles die out in a mere second. You feel your blood run cold as you hear the voice return.

"Of course, there's always MY way."

The distant attic appears as you look up once more to observe the horror above you. You see a hung corpse with bits of flesh and clothing hanging off its decayed skeleton. Your heart stops dead for a moment as you look above the corpse as the lightning flashes across the windows of tinted glass. And what should be there holding the noose of the dead body?

The Phantom himself.

His shilloute now a memory to haunt you throughout the night as his laughter of insanity sends shivers down your spine as you feel your breathing grow cold with the air. Your heartbeat returns only its faster and rapid like a drum pounding wildly inside of your chest. The bride returns with her singing only its filled with more horror now as she realizes her love can never return. For he's been bound to the Phantom and death and only demise alone can reunite her with him again. The dark murderer's maniac laugh resumes in the night as you feel all the weight of a nightmare come down on you as you try to scream, but nothing comes out.