The attic was cold despite the summer night, its air thick with the scent of mold and ancient wood. Four girls sat cross-legged on the dusty floor, their flashlights cutting jagged paths of light through the darkened space. The manuscript lay in the center of their circle like a forbidden relic, its cracked leather cover marred by strange, geometric etchings. Symbols that seemed to writhe and shift under the flashlight beams.
“This is insane,” whispered Claire, the oldest of the group, her auburn hair casting a fiery glow in the dim light. She hesitated, her fingers hovering over the binding. “You know what they said about him. Great-Grandfather Elias was—”
“Mad,” supplied Sophia, her voice low and conspiratorial. “Mad, cursed, or a genius. Depends who you ask.”
“They called him a sorcerer,” Hannah chimed in, her glasses sliding down her nose as she squinted at the strange sigils. “And they found his lab empty, remember? Just a smear of blood on the floor. He vanished.”
“That’s why we’re doing this!” interjected Lily, the youngest, her eyes bright with morbid curiosity. “We’re uncovering the truth. Or… the curse.”
With a theatrical gasp, she shoved the manuscript closer to Claire. “Open it. Unless you’re scared.”
The manuscript opened with a creak, its parchment pages brittle yet surprisingly smooth to the touch. The ink, dark and viscous, gleamed like fresh blood under their flashlights. Words unfurled before their eyes, mad and hurried, scrawled in a hand that seemed to tremble with desperation.
---
“October 1, 1923
They will not understand me. The priests, the scientists, the fools who cling to their gods and their reason. They fear what I have uncovered. They fear me. Perhaps they are right to fear.”
“The curse is real. It is woven into the sinew of mankind, scrawled in the marrow of our bones. Death stalks us, inevitable and absolute. For centuries, I believed it was the natural order of things. I was wrong. Death is not natural. It is inflicted.”
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“I have studied the myths. The creatures who defy death do so at the steepest of costs. The vampire drinks of life but is condemned to eternal thirst. The lich clings to its soul, locking it in a phylactery, but it decays with every passing century. The werewolf is enslaved to the moon, its immortality shackled to the tides of its feral rage. Even the gods are not truly immortal; they fade when their worship wanes.”
“And yet, these things are not accidents. They are laws. I have seen them etched into the skin of the world, in texts older than memory. In the Book of Enoch, the fallen angels cursed humanity. In the Bible, Yahweh decreed: ‘My Spirit shall not abide in mortals forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred and twenty years.’ In the Zend Avesta, Ahura Mazda set the limit of human life to ensure balance.”
“Every culture tells the same story: Man was meant for eternity but was cursed to die.”
---
The words took on a feverish pace, the ink becoming erratic, smudged, as if written in blood or tears.
---
“October 13, 1923
*They laughed at me when I began. Called me an alchemist, a magician, a blasphemer. But alchemy is no art—it is a science, and I have mastered it. I have discovered the truth within the lies.
The Philosopher’s Stone? A trick. The Elixir of Life? A fable. Immortality exists, but only as a broken thing. A cruel, cosmic jest. The cells of the human body are capable of regenerating themselves, but only for a limited number of cycles. The Hayflick Limit, I call it—a hundred and twenty, a mockery of the biblical decree. After that, the body crumbles.
But there is a way. A terrible way. The myths point to it.”*
“Immortality requires sacrifice. The blood of the innocent. The soul of the pure. These are no metaphors. They are equations, written in flesh and fire.”
---
The girls exchanged uneasy glances, the room suddenly feeling colder. Claire flipped the page with trembling fingers, the next entry beginning with jagged symbols that seemed to pulse.
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“October 31, 1923
It is no accident that immortality is always tied to blood. Blood is the vessel, the key. It carries life, memory, even time itself. I have experimented with the blood of animals—wolves, bats, serpents—but they are tainted, their cycles finite. Human blood is no different. But the blood of Lilith...”
“Yes, Lilith. The first wife of Adam, cast out of Eden, untouched by the curse of mortality. Her bloodline persists, hidden in the shadows of history. They sing her song even now, though they do not know it. A nursery rhyme:
‘Rose red, rose red,
Petals of blood where angels tread.
White as bone, black as sin,
Immortality lies within.’
It is her. I know it is her. The one who was never cursed by God nor man. The unbroken.”
“Tonight, I will find her. I will claim her blood and with it, escape this wretched curse. They call me mad. Let them. The madman will outlive them all.”
---
The entry ended abruptly, the ink trailing off into chaotic scribbles. But beneath it, faint and barely legible, was a final line:
“She sang to me, in the dark: ‘Rose red, rose red.’”
---
The attic was silent. Even the air seemed to hold its breath.
“What the hell was that?” Sophia finally whispered, her voice trembling.
Claire closed the manuscript with a snap, her face pale. “I don’t know. But if he really believed this…”
“Believed it?” Lily whispered, glancing toward the shadows in the attic. “Hmm, What if it’s true?”
Somewhere, far below them, a door creaked. The sound was faint, almost imperceptible. But it sent a chill through all of them.
And faintly, like a song carried on the wind, they thought they heard it.
“Rose red, rose red...”
