The House of Usher. Both are no more, the house asunder; the name, interred beneath. And the tarn – its still inky blackness leaves no sign that any ever owned its banks. It hides Usher as well as a widow's veil her face. It is the screw on the coffin lid, the bolt on the vaults door. But this time, not even Lady Madeline can fight her way out of the vault. They are enshrined forever and more.
And oh! What beauty is so enshrined inside that shrine. What beauty, so living on in death, yet so dead when living. Alas, Madeline! Alas to the foul sickness which did not take your life, which granted you revenge. We all reap what we sow, Madeline. And all shall pass the test of time – and all shall receive their inheritance. So woe, woe to your self-destruction of such beauty.
Roderick, old friend. Who, upon finding his Juliet, took her to be dead, and, instead of poison, sealed his suicide by sealing the dead inside her coffin. Oh, Roderick, I should have noticed then – and spared us both this agony. For the ancient and most noble House of Usher had brought my heart down with it.
My heart is split as evenly as the House – but only half lies beneath the icy waters of that dreaded, dismal tarn. Every night, Madeline, yes, the Lady Madeline, of unimaginable beauty, king to my best mate, Madeline stands at my door. She looks much the same as she did that cursèd night which feels so long ago. The same, blood stained dress, the same chilling shriek, the same grime determination. But now, she shivers as if cold, her hair hangs lank around her face, every jutting point of her figure drips that cold water of that haunting tarn. She still pauses in the doorway; she still lunges like a crazed best.
But this time, she comes for me.