Inheritance Chapter 2

[eiahmon]

Title: Inheritance
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Amnesia: The Dark Descent and it’s settings and characters belong to Frictional Games. I’m only borrowing them for a while.
Summary: When Alexander Kesler gets a letter, which claims that she is the only descendant of Alexander of Brennenburg, she is compelled to go investigate. She soon wishes that she hadn’t.

2.
A Journey

I disembarked from my plane at Berlin-Tegel Airport, groggy, tired, and stiff. I half walked, half staggered into the terminal, to see a short, clean shaven, sandy haired man with gray blue eyes, holding a sign that had my name written neatly in big block letters on it. I walked up to him as I slung my carry on over my shoulder and his eyes lit up.

"Ms Kessler?" he asked in a thick German accent, and I nodded, too tired to speak. He must have noticed because he quickly took my bag from me and led me away from the gate to the luggage pick up, where he took my suitcase as well and led me out of the bustling airport. There was a car parked not far from the main entrance and despite how tired I was, I was shocked. I'm no car expert, but the sleek, black 1950's Mercedes-Benz limo waiting screamed Money! to all in sight of it. I was shocked still further when Walther walked right up to it and opened the door for me.

That thing is mine? was my only thought as I walked across the sidewalk and stepped in. If Alexander had been missing for nearly a century and a half, where in the hell had the moolah necessary to buy such an expensive car come from? Unless, he really was that damned loaded in life and some of it really was left?

I dozed during the hour and a half long drive to the castle. I had flown from JFK at two in the afternoon, eastern time, and it was a eight and a half hour flight from there to Berlin. It was 6:30am in Berlin, 11:30pm my time.

I hate jet lag.

I forced my eyes open when I felt the car come to a stop and heard Walther open the door. I stepped out and looked up, and my jaw just fell open.

The castle in front of me was massive. I had never before seen such a enormous building. The walls rose up in front of me like sheer cliffs of dark rock, and they were so smooth that they would have been impossible to climb. I heard Walther chuckle behind me at my reaction as he removed my luggage from the trunk, and he walked ahead of me up the stairs to the massive entrance doors. They seemingly opened of their own accord as he reached them, and I hurried up the steps after him.We stepped into the cool shadow of an entrance hall, lined with heavy wooden bookcases on one wall and tall windows on the other. The hall was dimly lit by the sunlight filtering through the grimy windows and from dim electric lights hanging from the ceiling above us. I followed Walther down the hall where it opened up into a large room with a ceiling that was higher than the roof of my house. A doorway on each end let off to places unknown while twin stone staircases rose to an upper landing. A stone inlay of the stylized Black Eagle marked the center of the floor, and behind it was another staircase leading down. I was curious about where it led, but Walther proceeded go up the stairs to the upper level, and I hastened to follow him. At the top of the stairs he immediately turned left for another door and led me down a long corridor. That corridor led to another corridor, which led to a flight of stairs, which led to another corridor. By the time we stopped in front of one of the heavy wooden doors that the castle seemed to be full of I was hopelessly lost. Walther opened the door and carried my luggage inside, and I followed him.

We stepped into the sitting room of a multi room bedroom suite. When most people think of castles, they think stone walls and floors with heavy wooden beams everywhere. While the beams were present, supporting the ceiling above, the floor and ceiling were made up of wooden planks that gleamed in the light from the lamps that were mounted on the paneled walls. Richly woven rugs dotted the floor, and tapestries and portraits covered the walls, and one entire wall was dominated by a large brick fireplace. There was also a heavy wooden desk, and several bookshelves, as well as two doors.

Walther carried my luggage through one of those doors into another room, so I followed him to have a look-see. We stepped into a large bedroom, which had the biggest bed I had ever seen as its centerpiece. There was another fireplace on one wall, flanked by large windows with heavy brocade curtains. A few comfy looking chairs, a clothes cupboard, a tall floor mirror over by the bed and two end tables made up the rest of the room's furniture. There was another door across from the door I had come in, and Walther walked through it and set my luggage down in what was obviously a dressing room of some kind. I curiously stuck my head through the door, to see what was essentially a walk in closet that was about the same size as my room back home. I backed up into the bedroom as Walther straightened up and looked at me.

“I will go and prepare an early lunch for you, if you wish, Ms Kesler.” he said, and I nodded faintly. He walked out of the room, and I looked at the bed longingly for a moment. Its fluffy pillows and heavy blankets looked so inviting, but I knew I had to stay away and try to push through the jet lag. I forced myself to leave the bedroom and go back out into the main room, and through the only other door, to find quite a nice bathroom. I grabbed my things needed for hygiene care from my suitcase and spent several minutes freshening up. Feeling somewhat human again, I left the my rooms and stepped out into the hallway.

"Walther?" I called out, only to hear my own voice echoing back to me against the stone walls. He had said he was going to prepare lunch, so he must have disappeared off to the kitchen. I looked in either direction, and saw only a hallway with stone walls, a stone ceiling supported by the same wooden beams that were in my rooms, and a stone floor. There was also tapestries and paintings and rugs, and I remembered hearing back in grade school that such decorations were used to try and hold heat and keep out the cold as much as they were to brighten the place up.

Figuring that since that left had been the direction we had come from, then right was the logical direction to take to find the kitchens, at least I hoped so anyway. It didn’t take long before I was lost again and grumbling to myself about how I should have asked for a map or something to help me find my way. I wandered around, hoping that I would either stumble into the kitchen or that Walther would find me, and before long, I began to notice how the castle seemed to be getting.. darker. There were fewer and fewer lights and windows to light the way, and the windows that I did come across showed a storm blocking out the sun as it rolled in, making the place even darker still. I looked around and noted with some uneasiness that the electric lights were old and being so far out in the country, the power wasn’t likely the most reliable during bad weather. The thought was borne out by the large numbers of lamps, candles, and the occasional torch that I saw hanging about the place. I needed to find that damned kitchen soon; I had no desire to be lost in the place if the power went out. At precisely the moment that thought crossed my mind, I heard the wind gust outside, and the lights flickered.

Oh that's just great. I really do need to tell my brain to keep its imaginative mouth shut sometimes.

I kept wandering the rooms and corridors, and there were a couple times I heard thunder rumbling through the walls. I could see heavy clouds through the windows and smell rain, so a storm was close. I also could see the thick pine forest that surrounded the castle, and it struck me then how isolated the castle was. Granted I had dozed through the drive from the airport, but I couldn't recall hearing any city sounds once we had left Berlin.

Just how far from civilization was I?

As I wandered down on dreary looking hallway that was lined with curtained windows on one side and a couple doors on the other, I could hear the wind howling through the gaps, and it occurred to me that the place likely needed more work than my house. Drafty old castles always need something.

I walked further down the hallway, and walked through a door into a large room that looked like it was being used to store all sorts of miscellaneous junk. The curtains were closed over the windows, so the only light was from the dim electric lights hanging from the ceiling. I walked into the center of the room, and noted how the room had such good acoustics that I could hear my own breathing plain and loud as day. It didn’t dawn on me until I reached the center of the room that I wasn’t breathing heavy at all, certainly not enough to be so loud. I stopped in place and looked around, and felt the hair on the back of my neck stand up, when I realized that the breathing was coming from somewhere behind me.

“Oh Walther,” I said as I turned around “Am I -” I stopped dead in mid sentence.

There was no one there; I was alone in the room.

I spun around in a circle, looking in every which direction, hoping to see Walther behind a crate or box, grinning like the Cheshire Cat at the prank he had just pulled, but I didn’t see him, or anyone else for that matter. Right at that second, the wind howled outside, and the lights went out. I stuck my hand in my pocket for my cell phone, so I could use its screen to have a little light, but I fumbled as I pulled it out and dropped in on the stone floor. I heard it bounce off and skid away somewhere. I let out a swear word that would have gotten my mouth washed out if I had said it as a kid and decided to blindly go over to where I thought the windows were and open the curtains. Hopefully I wouldn’t kill myself tripping over everything.

But then, the breathing seemed to be coming from in front of me. I skipped back several steps, and then I heard it from behind me too. I yelped and tried to get away from it, but then it seemed like it was coming from all directions, and I was surrounded.

"Shit just got real." I muttered as I tried to think of an escape route and came up empty. There was nowhere to go. The breathing sounds got louder and closer, and it felt as though someone had just cranked the air conditioning on, because it got cold, and I wasn't sure if the shudder that ran through me then was due to the cold or my creepy surroundings. I squeezed my eyes shut, and shuddered again.

A hand came down on my shoulder from behind, and my eyes flew open, and I shrieked as the lights flared back on. I spun around to see Walther standing behind me, eyes wide open in surprise.

"Are you alright, Ms Kesler?" he asked, and I was suddenly gasping for air as the previous warmth returned with a rush as the cold vanished as if it had never been there. The sounds of the breathing were gone, and it was just us in the room that now seemed so brightly lit compared to the total darkness a few seconds ago.

As soon as I had caught by breath, Walter gently took me by the shoulder and led me to the dining room. The heavy oak table was laden with food, and the part of me that had been raised to be frugal screeched in pain at the display, while my stomach decided to let me know, quite loudly, that it had been hours since I had eaten last. Walther pulled out a chair for me, and I gladly sat down and shoved that creepy as hell experience in that room to the back of my mind.

Walther vanished just after I sat down, only appearing again to clear the plates once I was done. He then took me on a tour of the castle. The place was massive and very beautiful in places, but it was in great need of work. It honestly seemed to me that the best thing to do was to cut my losses and let it be condemned. When I said as much to Walther, he became quite frantic and began babbling on how it would be a shame to see a place with such a rich history lost forever.

I raised an eyebrow? "What kind of rich history?"

The man seemed relieved at the question and launched into the tale. Little was known of Brennenburg before it was destroyed by fire in the late 1500s. Not long after the fire, a man named Alexander came from the Rhinelands, claimed the castle as his home, and took over the role as protector of the area. He helped the region to prosper, but very little is known about his family. The family used Alexander as a family name, and the firstborn son was always named such, though they kept their birth, marriage, and death records a closely guarded secret. The heads of the family each joined the Order of the Black Eagle and fought bravely for their king during many battles. The last Alexander of Brennenburg vanished without a trace in 1839, barely two and a half weeks after an Englishman had come to stay at the castle. There was rumors of course about what had happened, but no one knew for sure. The Englishman was also never seen again.

"Did no one look for Alexander, or try to find him?" I asked as we walked through the back hall, a large, open room that was softly lit by the lights high up on the ceiling above. There was a fountain in a recessed alcove, and I noted damage to the stone work, like someone had broken away large pieces of it, though it seemed to be intact. It was a serene place, and I could have spent hours there, though I did find the giant eagle statues a bit unnerving.

"It was a case of relief when he disappeared." Walther explained "There were many dark tales about the castle and the forest around it, and Alexander was believed to be at the heart of many of the strange happenings, so when he disappeared, most were glad that he was gone and didn't bother to search."

A gust of wind shrieked loudly through the hall then, and Walther hurried me out of the hall into the nearest corridor.

By 6:30 in the afternoon, I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer, so Walther walked me to my rooms, (after giving me a hastily drawn map of the castle for reference) and bid me good night. I took a quick shower, dried and brushed my hair, brushed my teeth, and dressed for bed. I turned the lights out and was happy to discover that the bed felt every bit as wonderful as it felt. I happily snuggled into the mattress under the blankets with a contented sigh and closed my eyes.

Foolish child. You should not have come.

The whispered words were the last things I heard before I dropped off to sleep.

******

An explosion of thunder woke me abruptly. I sat up in bed to see the room illuminated by a flash of lightning for a split second before it went dark again, leaving the outline of the furniture burned into my eyes for a brief moment. I looked around the room for a momen, listening to the rain beating against the windows, as I waited for my heart to slow down to normal after being startled awake, and I couldn't help the strangled scream that escaped when I looked at the floor mirror.

The lightning showed an old man, dressed in a red coat with white hair just past his shoulders was looking at me from the mirror. I scrambled across the bed away from him as I sucked in the breath to scream again. The figure in the mirror then smiled, actually smiled at me! and vanished as if it had never been there.

I wasn't able to sleep the rest of the night, and I stayed awake until the storm had passed and the first streaks of dawn lit the sky.

Chapter 1 -- Chapter 3
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