What remains of the Covenants

Curse of The Undying One

Aaron Jr. was rowing a small boat. He had necessary supplies loaded up in a leather bag. More than supplies, he was loaded up with a plethora of thoughts. He was excited and scared at the same time. Knowing what has happened to his family and how Pattrick Galloway had to deal with his family curse was boiling his blood in rage. He tried to concentrate towards rowing through the still waters of the river around the Irish islands.

Appearance-wise, he was lean and had red hairs like his father Aaron Covenant Sr. His hair, red like his father, was perfectly combed. He had a thin yet athletic physique, eyes searching for solace. He had heard from his mother about a curse his fathers family was succumbed to. His father had to die twice, if he had to believe the stories. Once by Aaron’s twin sister Bethany and then by Pattrick in his hellraiser form.

Aaron Jr had just heard about these stories of affecting the whole Covenant family affected by a curse and then the story of the Irishman coming on request by Uncle Jeremiah to obliriate or instead ‘take care’ of the ghostly activities happening in and around the Covenant manor. He was thinking about his mother and a brief affair between Aaron Covenant and her, who was just a barkeep. She heard the news of Aaron Covenant’s mysterious disappearance. Given the controversial nature of the family, she decided to keep his son away from the family for as long as she can. Aaron Jr was 7 years old then. But he never heard about who his father was.

It was only November of 1923, when he heard about Pattrick Galloway, who came to help Jeremiah to get rid of ‘strange occurring’ happening around the manor. The maid in the manor was a friend of his mother. After his mother went terminally ill about a couple of years ago, she helped Aaron Jr. ( known as Aaron only earlier). He heard more stories of a ‘specialist’ coming to take care of Covenant family issues. His mother also confessed about the father of his and told about curses longing around the family. Thus she wanted to keep him away from the manor as much as possible. But now, Aaron was curious. Aaron anchored the boat outside the empty manor, where waves are almost touching the stairs leading to the gate of manor.

The manor was now completely empty, the servants and keepers have left it after they learned about Jeremiah being killed by the effects of the curse. Of course, what actually happened was far from worse, but it was easier for the lower-salaried servants to just take this as an excuse to getaway. However, he spotted a Gardner, just watering the plants for the final time. His bag and equipment were assembled in the middle of the garden. As soon as he is done, he had the intention to leave this haunted place.

Aaron Jr. Stepped to him and greeted, “Hello, has everyone left the manor already?”

He got a curt reply, while the Gardner wasn’t event looking at him, “Dead mostly, and I will be too if I don’t go out soon. Why are you here? Do you want to be dead too?” When he looked at the guest, he started shivering, “Holy crap! Don’t kill me please, I have always served your family with honor and respect”.

Aaron Jr. was surprised for a minute. He replied, “Hey, nothing to be afraid of, I am neither a ghost or a monster. I am just human like you.”

“But you look just like him. Before Bethany mutilated his body and tortured the soul.”, the gardner was shivering with fear. His first instinct was to run, but he was clutching the trowel very tightly, ready to defend himself the last time.

Aaron has to calm the guy once again. He explained that he had just landed on the mansion for the first time ever in his life. And after the encounter with the Gardner, his curiosity was piqued. He wanted to see how close he resembled his father to spook the poor guy. “Well! I’ll leave you at it. I am going in to have a round of my mansion.” He gave a soft chuckle. The gardener was terrified, he didn’t stop him. Aaron now took out a torch and had his left hand on the gun pouch to be ready for anything.

Creeeeeeeek!!!!

A deafening sound came when he pushed the doors. It was dark inside. Darker than the midnight, some might say. It would have been impossible to see inside if not for the torch. The wind was whistling a harmonious sound. The sound could haunt you, or even hunt you if you get too lost in the dark space. There was an eerie mix of wind, a distant howling, and someone rustling, perhaps on the upper floors. Aaron had an intuition that he might not be alone. Given the stories he had heard recently about the mansion, he was sure it might not be a human after all.

He was curious yet alert. His grip getting tighter on the torch and he had pulled the flap open, ready to draw his gun at the first instant. He could see some shadows moving across on the stairways ahead. It might be his imagination or something ethereal, there wasn’t any way to tell. He carefully went up to the stairs and took a turn. There was a long hallway with many windows. The moonlight was shining though the gaps of Windows. There were constant yet slow sounds coming from the far end of the corner. Aaron pushed in the big door in front of him instead. That looked like someone’s personal library. He jumped as he heard something rustling through the floor just behind him. It was a big mole, the size of two palms at least. He went back and started to look into various books. Many have captured the family history and had lots of portraits of family members. Three of the family members straight away caught his attention. His father Aaron, of whom he was looking a replica at a young age. Jeremiah, who had a bizarre look, as if it wants to come out of the portrait. And Lizbeth, he had never seen a beauty with such elegance and grace in his life. He had heard in his village about the tragic death of the youngest of Covenants. She died of some strange illness and was buried later in the mausoleum of the manor.

He went in awe when he saw her portrait. She had beautiful blonde hair tied to a bun. Her eyes were intense green. It would have been hard for the family to bury the youngest one. He then started to look for more details about what happened. It was then he encountered a strange round symbol on one of the big old books. The symbol had three branches coming out and going inside in a well symmetrical fashion. It was glowing golden, even under the dust. The flickering moonlight on it was making it more mesmerizing.

There seems to be a faint female voice coming from somewhere,

“It can’t die, set it free!”

Almost out of curiosity, he touched the symbol. Immediately, the symbol turned blood red, and then started to glow purple. The whispers became stronger now. It appeared to be at least two distinct female voices. There was an urgency in those callouts. They were eager now. As if it was another chance came up, another door had opened up. Aaron noticed another purple symbol on the book. It looked like a purple eye with an arrow. A heading Scrye was written with an enchantment:

“Look beyond thy being you want to,

Shine thy darker shared past of your soul into,

Scrye with thy winds of demons,

Use thee as thy summoner of summons.”

Soon as he read this, a surge of ethereal energy came out of the book and surrounded him. It lifted him up in the air and bombarded with energy balls going inside him. He almost choked on the lack of air. A minute after, when it stopped, he felt a burning feeling in his right arm. He pulled in his sleeves and saw the same symbol now on his arm. He was petrified with the short visions he had with this, like he had seen death. The scroll had some power to it, which showed him many past events, brutal and graphic in a split second. He saw some random pirates being mutilated by an strange animal, like a hybrid of Rottweiler head on the human body with wolf claws. Next moment he saw a weird monster, slowly creeping up on him. The beast had beaks like a pelican and white body. He spit out something like poison straight to him. Aaron dropped to the floor when experiencing this vision. His breath was heavy. His heartbeats coming back to normal now.

He now knew he is in hell. How deep is something he couldn’t tell. His flesh was burning, where the mark came up. Unconsciously he rubbed it. As soon as he did, his vision changed. Everything was illuminated with bright purple light. The wind started howling faster, his heartbeats were slower than usual.
Interestingly it felt calmer this time. He saw that it changed his perception of the environment. However, one thing caught his attention. It raised chills in his spine with fear and terror. The family portrait sitting on the opposite wall changed. Where there were elegant family members earlier, he could see five demon bodies, all decapitated. Apart from Lizbeth’s body, everyone was holding their heads in one hand. Aaron’s head though was without a jaw. Ambrose’s head had a green glowing scar in between his eyes. Germany’s head was 1.5 times bigger than her portrait. Her other hand had something which looked like the remaining part of Aaron’s jaw. Jeremiah’s head was half-buried on the ground, and his specs were on the floor, under Lizbeth’s legs. The sight was tormenting to him. He could not comprehend if this were a symbol of what happened or what to come. Or was it just his mind playing with him in this place.

This was there for an about a minute when the purple lights were shed, and his vision was back to normal. He saw the portrait which was now back to normal. He drank his rum from the bottle he had on his side to calm himself. But now he started to hear distant voices of a woman. He picked up his torch and stepped out of the library. He went outside in haste to get out of the haunting place. He saw that the Gardner has now left the mansion, meaning he was alone amongst the terrors he could not even anticipate. He saw that the garden gate was open. He didn’t have any other option to go out, so he started to follow the route. The sun was setting down, making the sky crimson gold. It felt like that if Armageddon is about to hit the earth. He felt his scrye mark again for comfort. As soon as he touched it, the vision changed, the garden was back with blooming flowers, instead of the withered ones. He saw a porch glowing up, indicating a passageway to somewhere. He instinctively went towards the porch and saw a heavy door. The door led him outside the manor to the family mausoleum. There he could see the gravestones of all the Covenants. It had gravestones of Joseph and Evaline covenant at the far end. Followed by Jeremiah, Ambrose, Bethany, Aaron and Lizbeth. Each of the five gravestones of the Covenant children had dents, like someone had tried to open them with sharp tools. This was the moment he realised that he wasn’t alone. He turned immediately, a massive figure was slowly walking towards him. In the dim light he couldn’t make out what it was. But soon he realised that it was a beast, with head of dog, body of man and wolf claws. Just like he saw in the vision. Only thing was, this abomination wasn’t attacking him. It was standing at a distance of couple of foots. Almost ready to launch an attack. But it seems it was waiting for an order.

Aaron screamed hard when he saw what was in the hand of the beast. It was a severed head, a head which was alive and talking.

《Contd.》

http://insatiableavi.com/2019/08/25/youngest-one-awoken/

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This is a fan fiction on Clive Barker’s Undying. All character rights are owned by the author and EA games as publisher. I do not own the rights for the characters, symbols and places.

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