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The original was posted on /r/nosleep by /u/Ink_Wielder on 2026-08-03 08:02:58+00:00.

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{Original Post} ~ {Part List}

Content Warning: Depictions of child abuse and harm.

The trap we’d set did a lot of heavy lifting on the creature of the latest cycle. A grotesque, bipedal beast with a head almost like a hammerhead shark and a jaw that unhinged all the way down its chest to its stomach. It hit the tripwire, the boards with nails rammed through them snapped inward, and in a flash, the creature was on the floor, that overlong jaw curling back to scream out a noise like a gnarled metallic creak.

Lacey stepped forward with the gun, our skulls rattled in the blast, and as the tinnitus set in, the rest of us went in for a few hacks and slashes for good measure.

About 8 seconds total. At this point, we were just as efficient as the clock itself. A part of its unwavering, endless ritual. It called out its unknown requiem, and we waited to finish the verses. There seemed to be no song too difficult for us to sing; now it was just a matter of whose voice gave out first.

The others began to scrape up the body while I moved to shut the door, peering inside. That very clock and its monsters were one of the few mysteries not answered by the journal, and while closing the door altogether was the main information we were after, their splayed, toothy jaws still gnawed at my curiosity with each one we saw.

The sisters, led by an unknown presence, were sacrificing children to create a perfect paradise. Where did horrific beings from a hellish maze fit into all of it, and why did the clock announce their arrival?

I closed the crimson barrier and started away from it. It was a mystery far on the back burner for now, just like everything else. There was a more pressing matter, and should I solve it, we might not have to worry about the monsters again at all.

I needed to find Lucy.

I followed my friends up the stairs as they lugged the body, collecting fresh, dripping, oily ichor on my boots before reaching the main floor. Looking around the space, I took a deep breath, trying to decide where to begin searching. There were holes or cracks in the manor's foundation on just about every surface, and probably thousands of moments in time tangled in each one. The past few times I’d met Lucy, it seemed like she was able to watch us from the other side, and I hoped that she was doing the same now.

Then again, I hadn’t seen the girl or any signs of her since the moment I’d revealed to Adeline that her ritual actually worked. Since I’d thrown into motion the poor princess’s own execution… She’d tried to get me to leave that room, but I hadn’t listened. Would she even trust me anymore?

I didn’t want to get into that line of thinking. I was too tired to toil with myself more over my own paranoia; I was getting enough of it between Kait and I’s battle of which one of us got to die for the cause.

Moving to a hole in the hallway wall, I stuck my hand into it.

The manor went bright as I flickered to a summer afternoon. The world outside was washed in the sunlight’s vibrant essence, and the house was at rest, basking in its warmth. Above me in the hall, the sound of steps treading about the rooms created a rhythmic beat, and nearby, Margret kept pace with some of her own as she bustled about the hall.

Several things were strewn down the corridor, dozens of pictures leaning against the wall, some lamps with their cords coiled around the bases, knick-knacks of all shapes and sizes. It was the kind of scene one would expect from somebody preparing to move, but there were no boxes in sight. Judging from the appearance of some of the objects present, I could tell I was in a more modern time, perhaps the 80s or 90s.

I quickly stepped out of Margret's way as she moved towards me, passing to the basement door and throwing it open casually while humming a tune with a faint smile on her lips. Knowing the actions these women had committed at this point, it made her indifference towards the space utterly nauseating. Then again, to her, the space downstairs was a sacred place, not a hellish one.

She began picking up a portrait from the wall and was about to step through when Natellie began coming down the steps, lugging several books in her arms. The witch paused and smiled to her sister, “Nat, are you truly bringing books of all things? You know that no information we bring from this world matters where we’re going.”

Natellie scoffed at her sister’s words, “The history of this world still makes up the history of a new one! We didn’t come from nowhere.”

“Natellie, we’re to be gods! We create the history! Did God ever talk about his origins in the scriptures of this realm? He simply was, and so shall we be!”

Adeline began down the steps above her sisters and let out a condescending snicker, “You’re one to talk, Margret, wanting to bring all of this junk along with you. You realize that anything we desire, we can simply have once the doors are open?”

Margret gave a pout, “I may not care for the history we came from, but I am the sentimental type. I wouldn’t wish to forget the memories that are dear to me. They could get easily lost in the annals of eternity.”

That word struck me like a bolt of lightning. ‘Eternity’. Given that the women were gunning to become gods of their own pocket dimension, it should have been obvious to me that immortality would be included in such a gig, but it still caught me off guard.

This whole time, I’d been operating that we’d arrived in the aftermath of whatever happened to the house, but even if the apocalypse had come and gone for their little paradise, if they had been immortal the entire time, did that mean that they could still be alive?

Somewhere beyond the maze of halls, was there more waiting than just the source of the beasts?

Adeline rolled her eyes, and she and Natellie laughed at their sister's sensitive remark as if it were the most adorable thing. Again, the way the women were so callously indifferent to the methods they used to get to this conversation made me want to try and break through the bindings of the memory. Reach into the past and wring their necks before they ever had the chance to finalize their grand plan.

The women may as well have been marble sculptures as they bumped into me, the past set in a painful, unbreakable stone. They began loading pieces down the stairs towards where the door awaited, and so I trailed along to see just how far into their project they’d gotten.

Like last time, I eyed the floor to see if I could spot any bloody sign of what transpired here at one point; any answers as to what the grand ritual of the door might be. There was nothing though. If a mess was made by the witches in their affairs, they were thorough to clean it up right after. Probably so that when the next innocent soul was lured down here, they wouldn’t suspect it was the last room they’d ever enter…

The wall was a different story. No longer was there the flat, plain, concrete with an outline of threads only alluding to what would soon be a door; No—protruding from the stone was the real deal. The celestial spools had been pulled from their outline and strung up back and forth across the space between, weaving the image of the boards and trim, crevices and cracks, knob plate and latch.

Then, like someone cutting clay with a wire, it looked like the strings had been pressed back into the concrete, slicing away the outline and sculpting it into reality. Or, maybe it was more like the door was pressing outward against the mesh. Willing itself a form with each passing weave added to the picture.

If their words upstairs hadn’t made it clear, they were close. Whenever this was, it had to have been right near the end, and I could only imagine how many more souls they needed to rip free and unspool to paint the sculpture red and make a knob appear on that plate.

As morbidly fascinating as I found the sight, however, it wasn’t what I was looking for. I wasn’t here for the door; I was here for that very ritual I was pondering, and with seemingly no children in the house, I wasn’t going to find it here.

I was about to call out for somebody to pull me out of the vision so that I could find a new entry point, but then I hesitated. The only reason I normally had to leave was because I couldn’t traverse the loom like Lucy could: pulling piles of threads loose from the wall and sifting through them. From where I currently was, however, I didn’t need to pull them loose; they were already exposed.

Gingerly, I moved across the open space to the door, dodging Margret as she passed me. Like above, she moved about with little intrigue or agency, and I wondered if they could even see the vibrant, morbid spectacle they’d brought about at all.

Hesitantly, I stopped before the threads streaking the wall and held my breath, heart beating fast as I decided which one my fingers would graze first. Knowing what they were now made their beauty all the more tragic, and I felt dirty using them to achieve a goal of mine the same way the witches had.

From so close, they hummed softly, the faint sound of laughter or tiny, excited voices echoing like something far, far away.

As if touching a hot surface, I reached up and carefully tapped my hand to one.

Instantly, my mind was assaulted with visions, but this time, they didn’t come in the form of the manor.

My eyes were no longer...

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