"Elena?"

Dad's voice shook me out of the dream and I looked around the car, disoriented. My brother was fast asleep in the seat next to mine, I looked up and caught my father's eyes in the rearview mirror.

I didn't say a word but he must already know what I had been dreaming about.

I turned my attention to the view outside, the trees were passing by us in a blur. I tried to divert myself from the thoughts that followed the nightmare. To remind myself that it was over. It was in the past.

That memory was a remainder of why I was in the car now, moving 300 miles away from home.

It was an old, haunting memory that was put away in a box in the farthest corner of my mind. But the dream made it seem fresher than ever.

Absentmindedly, I rubbed my arms, feeling the rough scars through my thin woollen sweater.

I could feel eyes on me, I smoothened the sleeve of my sweater and reached for my earphones. Placing them in my ears, I blotted out the world, like I always did, giving into the music.

Haunting piano notes began to play and I closed my eyes to the emotions playing in my head, pushing them away, once again. Concentrating on nothing but the music, allowing it to take my mind over, I drifted into a deep dreamless slumber.

It felt like I had just closed my eyes for a matter of minutes, when the car came to a stop. I could hear my parents speaking in hushed voices.

Groggily, I opened my eyes, but all I could see was a screen of fog that seemed to envelope the entire car. I could see nothing through it, the fog was so thick that I felt I would get lost from taking a single step out of the car.

A loud creak brought my attention to what lay ahead of us.

The noise sounded like dozens of old, poorly oiled windows creaking open, sending chills down my spine.

I looked at my father, an unfazed look in his eyes as he drove straight on towards the noise. I almost yelled at him to turn around and get the hell out of there but before I could act on my thoughts, the blanket of fog broke and a huge iron gate was revealed.

My eyes went wide at the sight. The gate could have been more than 20 feet high, made of thick iron bars and sharp looking spears placed on the very top.

Just the magnanimity of it would keep intruders out. Not that anyone would even try to break into a place as creepy.

On either sides of the gate, ran a great length of a brick wall, covered with moss from ages and ages. There were two pillars, from where the wall began on both sides. On top of each pillar sat a statue of an owl like creature.

One had big, sad, and thoughtful eyes while the other looked simply menacing and angry. Above the heads of these statues, written in rusty golden letters were the words:

                    "Nox nostra est"

I didn't know what those words meant, but the way they sounded on my lips made me even more hesitant to go further through the gate.

My parents looked like they were frozen stiff in their seats, staring straight ahead as if given a backward glance, the car would go right back where we came from. Their grim determination scared me.

"Mum? Dad, where are we going? This isn't gran's place."

Like I needed to state the obvious. Clearly this was where they had intended to go. From the look on their faces, going to "gran's place" was a lie.

But why would they lie about it? My brother, was still knocked out on the seat with drool dribbling down his chin. I wanted to ask more questions, but the reply to my previous ones where yet to be given. And so I kept them to myself, as I slouched in my seat.

We drove up a winding path, lined by trees on both sides. The fog was beginning to fade away, looking like wispy silhouettes floating between the trees, giving way to a slight drizzle.

The music of the pitter patter of rain drops, being the only sound heard inside the car, perhaps outside as well. It was too quiet, there wasn't even a chirp of a cricket. A dead silence. I had half a mind to ask my parents if we were making a pit stop at a graveyard.

The road seemed to get wider at one point, opening into a clearing. The dirt path widened into a pebbled driveway which ended in a stone arch fitted with a rotting, yet sturdy looking wooden door.

What lay beyond the wooden gate was what caught my attention more. Withering domes and stone towers peeked over at me above the wall and the still swirling fog accentuated the haunted look.

It was a castle. 

As I looked on, the door began to slowly open, and a figure slipped through the gap and began to walk towards our car.

Too caught up in trying to make out the face of the cloaked figure, I didn't notice that my parents had stepped out of the car.

When they opened the door to the back seat, I looked up at my mother. Tears had pooled in her guilt filled eyes. She carried my brother off of the seat and out of the car, and yet I continued to stare at her.

I'm sorry, she mouthed, before she moved away to where my dad stood, giving way to the cloaked stranger.

A strange sensation filled my gut as the person came into view, I still couldn't make out the face but I knew it was a woman. She stood there for a couple of seconds, staring right back at me, before she slowly lifted her hand, pushing the hood of her cloak back.

All I remembered after that was seeing a pair of burning coals for eyes and a voice that pierced right through my skull,

 "Sleep", it said, before I passed out. And in my dreams, I heard my mother sob.

Finally second chapter done! Please read and let me know if you like it. Vote and Comment :)