Eldermire Crest — The Forgotten Echo House

The House That Watches

Mist clung to the cliffside as I approached Eldermire Crest, an abandoned Victorian mansion whose silhouette rose like a memory refusing to fade. Inside, the faint scent of wet timber and forgotten dreams lingered in the hall. Dusty beams of pale light cut through the gloom, pooling around furniture that seemed paused mid-gesture, as if the house itself held its breath. Every creak of the floorboards felt deliberate—an old structure taking careful note of its first visitor in decades.

The mansion carried a strange warmth beneath its decay, as though it recognized the sound of footsteps returning. I could almost imagine the inhabitants drifting just out of sight, unwilling to fully release their claim on this forgotten place.

The Clockmaker’s Silent Workshop

The Crest once belonged to Horatio Lorne, a master Clockmaker renowned for pieces that chimed like whispered poetry. His workshop still hums with anticipation; gears rest where his hands last placed them, blueprints remain pinned in perfect alignment, and a half-finished pocket watch lies open as if awaiting a final breath. Though the air is still, I swear I hear tiny ticks behind the walls—movements too soft to belong to wind or settling wood.

Lorne’s journals, brittle and ink-stained, reveal an obsession with capturing “the sound of moments that should never be lost.” Perhaps that desire consumed more than it preserved. Some pages end mid-sentence, abruptly abandoned, as though time itself interrupted him.

The Ballroom of Unfinished Hours

Deeper inside, the ballroom stretches like an echo of vanished celebrations. Here, Horatio once tested the acoustics of his most intricate clocks, letting their melodies drift through gatherings the town long whispered about. Today, the piano sits out of tune, its keys yellowed and soft under layers of dust. A single page of Lorne’s composition remains on the stand—notes written with hurried brilliance, ending abruptly at a slanted bar.

A portrait on the wall depicts him staring outward, eyes too lifelike, as though measuring passing seconds even now. The house cradles his presence tenderly, reluctant to let time erase him completely.

And as the fog presses against the windows, the Crest feels awake—listening, remembering, waiting for another hour to begin.

Alt text: interior of abandoned Victorian mansion workshop featuring gears and tools tied to the abandoned Victorian mansion.