You are just exploring around one day, walking down a relatively unpopulated section of a road on the fringes of a small, backwater town, on your way to the city, say, to buy yourself some armor or a new sword or whatever. All around you is the lovely sound of wildlife - birds chirping and flying around in the thick, lively forest that surrounds you and seems to extend for miles in every direction. Soaring high above your head, the trees are thick enough to form a canopy, blocking out some of the sunlight, and dotting the ground with bright spots where the sun breaks through the leaves and strikes the ground.
All of a sudden, you notice that the forest has darkened, probably from a cloud covering the sun. Then, you hear some strange, muffled noises coming from around the bend of the road. You also notice that the birds have stopped chirping and flying altogether. Slightly uneasy and gripping your sword in its sheath, you cautiously approach the bend to discover a small house situated next to a large boulder amidst a small clearing in the trees.
The house looks slightly dilapidated; With a few smashed windows, a sagging, moss-covered roof, and vines crawling up the walls and around the window frames, it seems to you like it has been long abandoned. It is two stories, and it looks like it has an attic also. It must have been home to a large family at some point, and you passingly wonder what happened to them. The strange noises seem to be coming from within. Cursing your curiosity, you slowly draw nearer, and the noises turn into mumbling, and the mumbling into muffled speech. As you get closer, you begin to make out the faint voices of probably three or four people, all of whom seem to be slowly saying something melodically, as if they were singing a slow, steady song. The door's window is smashed in the corner near the handle, and is slightly ajar. Clearly whoever it is doesn't own the place.
Quietly as you can, you step inside, and you find yourself on one end of a long corridor, with a staircase leading up directly to your left parallel to the hall, and a series of doors, four of them, two on each side at equal intervals, and one door at the end of the hall. All of the doors are shut, save two on the right being wide open, and the one at the end of the hall being slightly ajar. Listening, you discern that the singing is coming from upstairs, and it must be behind a closed door because it is very faint even though you are inside. You decide that before interrupting whomever is occupying this place, it would be wise to make sure they don't have any companions making sure that someone like you doesn't interrupt their merrymaking.
Ever so slowly, you make your way down the hall, your sword tightly gripped in your left hand, with your right hand lightly bracing yourself against the dusty wall as you creep towards the first open door on your left, all the while the singing continues - nobody seems to have notice your entrance just yet.
Your adrenaline beginning to pump as your mind begins to anticipate the worst, you slowly peek around the corner of the doorway. The room is clear of any signs of life, and you breathe a quiet sigh of relief. From the looks of it, it's a bedroom, complete with a bed, dresser, and a sword rack, which is of course empty. In fact, the room itself is trashed - the drawers of the dresser seemed like they had been thrown around the room as if someone was trying to frantically look for something, and then toppled the dresser itself over out of the frustration of failure. All over in fact there are signs that many a looter has been here and picked the place clean. As you turn to continue down the hallway, you begin to wonder why these men are even here. Perhaps they just need shelter, as they certainly seem to have the mead. They're still singing...
Peering into the next room, you see that it is yet another bedroom, except this one is more bare - there is a single bed in the corner and a grimy mirror that is mostly in-tact, with only a few cracks on the corners, mounted on the wall opposite the bed. Still no signs of anyone in the room. Looking over at the end of the hallway, you stare down the door. It's slightly ajar, and somewhere in the back of your mind an alarm begins to sound off telling you that you probably don't want to open that door, because almost nothing good ever comes out of a door that is slightly ajar. Especially when it's at the end of a hallway. The singing still continues. It sounds like they keep singing the same verse over and over -- they must be very drunk, which is probably why they haven't noticed you yet.
Slowly approaching the door, you gently push it open, with your sword trained on the opening, ready to stab anything that may be on the other side. Swinging the door open, you discover a medium-sized kitchen, with a wood stove, some counter space, a few cabinets, and a counter island in the middle of the room with a rack above it that looks like it might have once been used to dry herbs or hang pots and pans. The wooden floor is dried, splintered, and stained with what looks eerily like blood. You are suddenly compelled to leave the room. Turning to face the door you entered, your heart skips a beat as you notice that it is closed -- but you don't remember closing it. Surely the wind must have blown it shut... But why didn't you hear it? The incessant droning of the men's singing is certainly not helping to dismiss the creepy atmosphere of this place. You start to feel a little claustrophobic...
Making your way down the hall, you decide to skip the other two doors, thinking they're probably shut for a reason and that you shouldn't tempt fate at this juncture. All you want to do is get outside, fast. Nervously, you place your hand on the knob of the now shut front door and open it. It easily opens back up, and nothing scary is on the other side - just the small clearing, which you noticed was still darkened. The cloud must be pretty large, and for a moment you almost forget about your situation and gaze upward, smelling the refreshing air, examining the sky in the clearing as you wonder if it will start raining soon. Snapping yourself out of it, you realize that there is a more pressing question at hand: Should you investigate this place further, or should you just leave now and make it to the city before nightfall, or the rain -- whichever comes first. While it seems very appealing and probably a good decision to continue down the road and forget this place ever existed, that curious part of you seems attached to this place, unable to move on until you discover the source of the singing. And, with a quiet sigh, and giving the forest a final look - almost as if to say goodbye - you gather what strength and courage you have within you and walk back inside.
As quietly as you can, you ascend the staircase. At the top, you emerge into a large room which takes up about half of the second floor, and on the far end of the room, opposite the wall that the stairs are up against, are two shut doors. You listen for the singing, and it is a little clearer now. It is coming from the attic. Now that you can more clearly make out what the men are singing about, you come to the relatively startling realization that these men are not singing, but they are in fact chanting. More than that, they are chanting in some unknown tongue - or unknown to you at least.
Now your adrenaline is definitely pumping, and you can feel your heart begin to beat harder and faster. With astonishing slowness, you creep up the staircase, sword readied in your shaking hand. At the top is a closed door. Suddenly, when you get about halfway up the staircase, the chanting stops abruptly -- as if the men were interrupted. All of a sudden you are frozen in place, your mind rooting you where you stand out of fear.
After what seems like an eternity, you muster up the courage to continue up the steps. After wrestling with your mind to remember how to open a door, you confront the attic of this accursed house. At first, a small amount of relief washes over you - there is nobody in the large, open room. But this feeling is very quickly replaced by an incredibly intense feeling of terror and dread - there is nobody in the large, open room. Except you. These feelings begin to multiply when you see an altar in the center of the room, complete with an open tome and freshly blown out, smoking candles, surrounded by... body parts. Severed limbs. Suddenly, you come to the realization that now is probably a very appropriate time to leave. Quickly.
Turning around, you run down the stairs, dash through the second floor, down the next set of stairs, and hit the front door. Panicking, you frantically look for the knob, and nearly turn it out of its socket, and push. The door won't open, something is wedged on the other side. Glancing behind you, you notice that the hallway has become unnaturally dark. Not only that, but every door is now closed -- save one. The door at the end of the hall, leading to the kitchen, is wide open. Inside you can see the kitchen island, and the floor. It seems like they are covered in... blood. You can make out two men in butcher outfits chopping away at something that looks, to you at least, a bit like a human torso. Just then, a figure steps into view in the doorway. Its identity is concealed by shadows, but you can make out that it is a human. This whole time you have been frozen in place at the grotesque scene you are witnessing, but you snap out of it just in time, because the figure is now proceeding down the hallway. With your heart almost beating out of your chest, the cold rush of adrenaline racing through your veins, and the overwhelming sense of impending doom encroaching upon you, you launch yourself at the door with ferocity and strength that you never knew you had, and the door splinters and cracks and you burst through.
As you jump off the porch onto the dirt, you trip and fall on your face. Your sword flies into a bush on the other side of the road. Quickly, you stand up, and you turn to take one last look at the house. In the second-story window, you think you can make out the figure looking down at you. You decide your sword is not very important at the moment, and sprint full-speed down the road towards the city, never looking back.
You manage to make it into the city a few hours before sundown, and enjoy a nice drink at the local pub to wash away the memories of the day's events. That night, just before you go to sleep in the bed you rented at the inn at the edge of the city, you open the window, and notice that you have a view of the road you originally came down earlier today, and the dark forest behind. A chill quivers down your spine, and you look away. Just then, for a second, you think you can make out a faint noise from the forest. It almost sounds like some men singing some low, droning, ancient, yet somehow familiar, hymn. Suddenly your mind flashes back to the image of that dreaded house, and the chanting men -- well, the lack thereof. Where could they have gone? Might they have been specters? You try brush these troubling thoughts aside, finish off your mug, and attempt to get some sleep as the men in the pub down the street begin to sing something you think you've heard one too many times...
