The footsteps on the stairs were an obvious sign he was not alone. He ran up the stairs to the attic door. And threw it open so he could get inside. The childish laughter following him drifted slowly through the house. He knew that he could not escape this time. He locked the door to the stairs behind him and then thrust a large wooden chest in front of it. He then pulled open the other door in the room. The door to the roof. He ran onto the roof, choosing to hide behind one of the large stone pillars that lined the roof. He glanced at the door he had just exited and realised that the childish laughter had found him and he knew that he was going to die very soon. He watched as the ghost of a small girl walked out, clutching a small bear in one hand and a blanket in the other. She looked around the roof and headed towards the stone pillar he was hiding behind. He stepped out from behind it and looked at the little girl properly. She couldn't have been more than seven or eight. She walked towards him, hands outstretched as the bear she was holding transformed into a knife. He knew it was now or never. No matter what, he had faced everything in his life with courage, and it would be no different while he faced death. He looked at the little girl and then at the edge of the roof. If he had to die, he would die in his own time. Turning his back to the girl, he stepped back and took a running jump over the edge of the roof.
The obsidian sky served as an elegant backdrop to the mansion. The light from the attic windows casting an unearthly glow upon the ravaged, overgrown ground which surrounded the house. For a second, everything was silent and still, time ceasing to exist as the world paused. From the shadows of the house, a tall figure loomed eerily. Dressed all in black, with both top hat and cane, the shade watched, the light from the window seeming to be repelled by the malevolence that this creature was radiating. Suddenly, it rushed several feet away from the house. It glared at the roof with an evil smile forming upon it's lips. It watched as a figure launched itself off of the roof, hitting the floor with a sickening crunch. The shade walked over to the crumpled figure and began to sing. Vicious, screeching notes, like the sounds of nails on a chalkboard, rang out over the grounds upon which the mansion was standing. A thick fog began to take the place in its grasp, blocking both the mansion and the shade from singing stopped as suddenly as it had started. The fog dispersing instantly. The shade was gone. It had vanished into the darkness that it had created, leaving only the body behind. Yet from the branches of a tall oak tree, another creature was watching. A raven. It had been staring at the scene since it started, not moving or giving the slightest indication of life. Yet as the fog around the house cleared and the moon became visible once more, the raven removed itself from it's perch and flew down to the body. It landed next to the head, where it let a single black feather drop, offering the body one last earthly raven flew up into the air and started hastily rushing in one direction. It travelled for several miles, until it found what it was looking for. It dropped out of he sky and landed in the tree nearest to the window. It wasn't until a slender figure appeared at the window that the raven knew it had found what it was looking for. It watched, it's gaze fixed upon the window as it was thrown open, revealing Ryan Evans. The raven smiled a wry smile and settled itself into the tree, anticipating the events to come.