The dead branches outside the large window rustle softy in the wind, whispering softly in the pallid light.. Pale snowflakes dance their ghastly dance before they fade away on the frozen ground. Shadows move silently over the floor as the full moon travels through the heavens. A grandfather clock calls nearly inaudible from the hallway, announcing the ghost hour with a faint 'DONG'. The ancient house around you creaks and crunches as if it's stirring in some deep sleep.


Your mind barely registers your surroundings as you are sitting inside your comfortable chair. The library is almost completely engulfed by shadows, safe for the dying embers in the hearth next to you. Reading some dusty tome about knowledge which most people have already forgotten, you often forget that the house around you even exists. However, tonight you can't keep your eyes open. Nearly nodding, nearly napping you try to continue reading, but you notice you've already read the same line seven times over. With a sigh, you decide to give in and rest your eyes for a little while.


Images from long forgotten times unfold themselves in front of your mind's eye. A garden in spring time. The morning sun shimmers on the surface of a blue lake. Two swans glide side by side near the water's edge. Pebbles crunch as a beautiful woman runs towards you. Wearing a plain white dress, with a skin like...


TAP TAP TAP


You are roughly awaken by a sudden tapping at your door. Desperately you try to cling on to your memories, but they fade away like shadows before the sun. With one foot still in Morpheus' realm you wonder if the noise was merely part of your dream. With a curt shrug  you decide to return to your book, when suddenly...


RAP RAP RAP


Fear begins to wrap it's shadowy fingers around your heart. 'Tis just some visitor', you mutter to yourself, 'only this, and nothing more'. With a mind still firmly in sweet dream's grasp, but tempted by curiosity, and fear, you decide to...

You go back to sleep.

You shrug you shoulders in weary disregard: 'Tis probably the creaking and groaning of the house around me. That it is, and nothing more.' With the rapping softly fading, and the tapping soon receding you once more feel yourself falling, floating, into swift dreams' embrace.


The shadows on the floor, formless floating around the dying embers in the hearth, take on the forms of shades long since departed from this ancient house. In front of your mind's eye you find yourself in a bedroom, dimly illuminated by a roaring fire. Even though the wind is howling behind wooden shutters, you don't feel cold. Wandering around in the room, various items fleet past your eyes, too fast to focus completely, but slow enough to catch a glimpse: a dressing table, a snuff box, a bone comb, a fan, peacock feathers on a lady's hat, all fly past your mind's eye. Then, finally, your eye rests on an unexpected, intimate scene. 


In a corner of the room, drowning in a sea of pillows and blankets, lies a woman in her bed. Her pale skin and hollow eyes give her the appearance of one already dead. She feebly raises her hand towards a man sitting next to her. However, as he falls just outside the circle of light, cast by the now slowly dying fire, you are unable to make out his features. 


'Promise me. Please promise me you won't forget. Promise me you'll CAW. Promise CAW. P... CAW'


The scene before your eyes swiftly changes. The fire dies and the figures fade into darkness. The howling wind now turning even more violent as it beats and batters the cracking wooden shutters. 


CAW CAW CAW   CAW CAW CAW   CAW CAW CAW


The tempest slowly but surely begins to rage indoors as well. From within the growing darkness an icy cold grabs hold of you. You scream, but you still feel yourself getting frozen in place, icy tendrils enveloping your faltering heart. Then, with a thundering crack, the shutters in front of the window give way.

You with a jolt you break free from dream's cruel embrace...

Wildly flailing and heavily breathing, you find yourself upright in your chair. Quickly blinking, as to expel the image still lurking on your mind's eye, you manage to recompose yourself. And then you notice it: the dry, bone-chilling cold that haunted you in your dream. As snowflakes lazily drift past your eyes, you direct your gaze at the shutters in front of your windows, that are supposed to keep the dark winter outside. 


And there, on the floor, in front of the hollow framework that was once your window. You see the shattered remains of your shutters, lying broken in a pile of wood and glass. Sighing with relief you realise that that probably was the reason why your dreams turned sour. 'Ah, as even the titans of old slowly withered with age, so too this house must once fall apart. I only wish it chose a better season to do so...'


And so you get up to clear away the remains of your dying house. But when you look closer at the wooden library floor, you notice something else, drifting in the snowy winter gale: a single feather, as black as the darkest night. 


CAW CAW CAW 


Your heart misses a beat at that ominous sound. You feel your spine tingling, writhing beneath your skin, as if the cold, winter's air has penetrated your very being. The flutter of wings sound above you, shifting rapidly from corner to corner within the shadows of the ceiling's darkness. As you gaze around you, you feel a further shift in the library's atmosphere. The large bookcases, guardians of ancient wisdom, now loom towering over your feeble self. The purple curtains by your windows, now silken sadly, uncertainly rustling in the icy breeze, fill your soul with an illogical terror, the likes you've never felt before. Above the mantle, the portrait of your love, ever soothing your restless soul, now stares at you with icy eyes, never breaking their attention. 


CAW CAW CAW


That sound. That ominous, dreadful, mind-shattering sound that has been tormenting you, has returned. Even while covering your hands with your ears you cannot bar its dreadful echoes from your mind. Feeling the tendrils of madness tugging at the fringes of your soul, you despair. Why has this demon come to torment you? Is beast or devil flying around, lurking, luring you to the black abyss? 


CAW CAW CAW


There it is again, clawing at your mind. Within the iron cage of your mind's despair, you barely register yourself falling to the floor. As the fog of madness starts to cloud your vision, you catch the last fleeting sensations of your surroundings. The hardwood floor beneath your knees. Icy snowflakes now turning your hair white. The tome your were reading now lying broken, spineless beside you. And high above you, the portrait of Lenore. 


...


Lenore? 


From within the ruins of your mind, a light glimmers. That name, Lenore, wakes something within you. A longing. A deep, insationable longing, fringed with sadness and desolation. Gathering the broken remnants of your mind, you focus on that image. That ghostly, sad, and shining image of your long abandoned love. Feeling a faint shadow of strength returning to your mind, you turn to your surroundings once more. Your library, your broken sanctuary, now defiled by that dreadful shade. In the corner of your eye, you see the painting of Lenore, smiling sadly, yet looking harshly upon you in the cold, winter's light. 


CAW CAW CAW 


This time your were expecting it, this time your were prepared. And when that dreadful sound assaults your senses once more, you feel...