Savannah Gore

"Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality."—Edgar Allan Poe

It is said that madness is no stranger to the human mind, and when awakened, it is the most terrifying manifestation of all. Its vivid nature embodies an inherent turpitude, one that cannot be measured solely by the irrepressible acts of human depravity.

We cannot truly comprehend the magnitude of its lethal grip or the depth of its influence. There is nothing more disturbing than the deceptive pattern it weaves. A mind consumed by madness knows no boundary, no limitation. It cannot be easily deterred or destroyed—it spreads like wildfire, a contagion that scorches all reason in its path.

Time bears witness to its reign and, ultimately, its end. But none can say when that end will come. The madness of Savannah Gore was never meant to be understood. It is enough that it existed—and that its terror knew no surcease. What you are about to read is a harrowing tale, a reflection of one man's descent into the abyss. His name was Joshua Tucker.

It was on a memorable April day in 1890 that I, traveling alone on horseback, arrived at the solitary house beyond the central plains. I could never have imagined—even in the most grotesque corners of my nightmares—that I would one day come to know the name Savannah Gore, or that it would become synonymous with death.

Kansas had always been a distant place to me, known only through tales of infamous outlaws and the native tribes who roamed the buffalo-laden plains. I had passed through many times before. But this time...this time was different.

I had intended to start a new life—somewhere far from Saint Louis, Missouri. It was time for a fresh beginning. Yet all of that would pale in comparison to the brutality of the woman whose name was Savannah Gore.

I had come to Kansas with a genuine interest in the wheat and corn industries. Topeka was my intended destination. Back in Missouri, I had heard how the local farmers harnessed horsepower and wheeled machinery for their milling and grain storage. The promise of opportunity was enough to lure me toward what I hoped would be a prosperous future.

I was aware of the 1889 bubble burst and how many investors had been financially ruined. This did not dissuade me. I was unmarried, without children, and unburdened by family obligations. I was free—free to chase prosperity on my own terms. Life had treated me fairly, though I had not yet anchored myself long enough in any one place to establish a reputation of worth. This weighed heavily on my mind.

The rural stretches of Kansas had already begun to enchant me. As I journeyed through the open plains, I found myself surrounded by quiet beauty—an unspoiled landscape with few houses in sight. Its idyllic stillness was unlike anything I had experienced before. And yet, I could not ignore the present danger of the Indians who still dwelled across these lands.

At that point in time, I had grown weary. My body ached from travel, and my horse needed rest. Unfortunate for me, I had also become lost—vulnerable and alone, at risk of being robbed, or worse.

From afar, I saw a shadowy gathering—what appeared to be crows. But these sable creatures were not merely perched; they were feeding on the carcass of a dead buffalo. The gruesome image startled me. I must confess, I had never before seen such a ghastly sight.

The beauty of the plains was often shadowed by the ugliness of death. I passed the scene without allowing myself to linger or react with more than a glance. There were old folk tales and superstitions that claimed crows were harbingers of death—and in that moment, I believed it.

Ahead of me stood a lone house—dull, gray, and wooden. It seemed the ideal place to stop and ask for directions. I hoped the owner might be kind enough to guide me toward Topeka.

Once I reached the house, I dismounted and walked to the front door. I knocked politely, but no one answered. Perhaps the owner hadn’t heard me. I knocked again, a bit louder this time. Still, there was no response.

Was it possible that no one was home? That the house, like the land around it, had been abandoned to silence? I had no idea where the nearest town was located. My uncertainty grew heavier by the minute.

From my vantage point, I could see no sign of life nearby. I hesitated—should I linger or press on toward Topeka? As I turned to leave, a figure emerged at the edge of the porch: an attractive woman in her thirties, her raven-black hair loose around her shoulders. In her hands gleamed the austere barrel of a rifle, leveled squarely at me.

Startled by her fierce posture, I raised a hand and introduced myself, stating my peaceful intentions. Her penetrating, ebony eyes betrayed suspicion as she demanded to know the purpose of my visit. I told her of my journey from Missouri to Kansas and my plan to settle in Topeka. When I mentioned the city by name, she asked sharply, “For what business?” I repeated my simple aim—to begin anew.

Her rifle wavered. Though still guarded, she studied me more closely. To my surprise, she lowered the weapon and motioned me inside. “You look hungry,” she said, stepping back. She offered bread and water, her tone softening even as caution lingered in her glance.

Seated by the hearth, I could not help but ask if she lived here alone. She paused, then confessed that she was a widow: her husband slain by the Sioux, her two children lost to a fever. Her words hung in the air, heavy with sorrow—but her expression remained composed, as though she had long since learned to weather lingering grief without tears.

In that dimly lit room, I sensed both her resilience and a deep, unspoken isolation—qualities I would come to understand all too well.

I could only attempt to imagine what life must have been like for her—childless and widowed, left to endure the brutal solitude of the plains. She told me that nearly eight years had passed since those tragedies had occurred. In her voice, I heard the weight of endurance, the necessity of depending solely on herself to survive in such a harsh and unforgiving land.

Especially as a woman.

We soon shifted the conversation, and she inquired about my own circumstances. I explained that I was unmarried, with no children of my own. She found it curious—a man of my age, yet unwed and without heirs. In those days, such a thing was indeed uncommon. Still, there was no offense in her curiosity, just as she had not taken offense at mine. A quiet rapport had begun to form between us, a connection forged in the silence between strangers.

The meal she served—beef stew with vegetables—was unexpectedly delicious. I hadn’t tasted food so hearty and comforting in a long time. Yet, there was something about her—beyond her composed demeanor—that struck me as curiously secretive. Despite her openness in speaking of past sorrows, I sensed that something deeper lingered unspoken, held back in shadow.

When I asked about the danger of living alone among the threat of Indian raids, she responded calmly that she did not fear them. “I am always protected,” she said.

When I pressed her to explain, she smiled faintly. “I have a special relationship with the crows,” she said.

That was when I told her of what I had seen earlier—that unsettling flock of crows feeding on a buffalo carcass. Her smile deepened, almost knowingly. “The crows must feed as well,” she replied.

After we had eaten and exchanged conversation, my intention was to depart and resume my journey toward Topeka. When I inquired if she knew of anyone nearby who could help guide me, she told me that she herself could take me the next morning.

That meant I would have to wait. But I had little choice—being lost and in need of her assistance. She informed me that the closest dwelling in the vicinity was a former sanctuary for freed slaves, one that also served as a church.

Unbeknownst to me, an approaching storm would soon derail those plans. Come morning, the skies would darken and the roads turn to muck, preventing any travel. Yet that would be the least of my concerns. For what would occur during my stay in that house—a house cloaked in quiet dread—would forever haunt my memory and kindle within me a deep abhorrence for the evil I would come to witness there.

That day, I busied myself with helping Mrs. Gore, as I had come to know her, with routine chores around the property. She had arranged for me to sleep in the barn. Fortunately, the weather was mild, and I could endure the night without discomfort. There were no signs of livestock beyond a single horse—the same one I had seen upon my arrival, presumably used for travel. No dogs barked. No cattle lowed. There was a stark, pervasive stillness about the place.

And still, the sense of mystery that surrounded her remained—like a curtain never fully drawn back.

She had told me the nearest town was roughly twenty miles off, a daunting distance when surrounded by nothing but open plain. I had lived most of my life in the city, unfamiliar with such rural solitude. I could only speculate on the hardships she must have faced day after day, alone in that isolated homestead.
From a distance, I could still see a few buffalo roaming the central plains. Once vast in number and formidable in stature, their presence had dwindled to a handful of bold survivors. It was a sorrowful sight—this silent testament to a vanishing era. America, in its relentless march toward progress, had collided headlong with the ways of farmers and the ancestral lives of the Indians. Though there remained untouched pockets of land where the wild still breathed, I could not help but wonder—for how long?

During my time in Kansas, I had grown to appreciate its sweeping landscape. The few souls I encountered along my journey had been, without exception, warm and welcoming. What I did not yet realize was that such a place, with all its quiet beauty, could just as easily veil a madness too deep to name.

The crows were the first to stir my unease.

They had gathered on the rooftops of the house and barn—watchful, as if in sentinel formation. Their sharp black eyes gleamed with a strange awareness, and their shrill caws echoed through the otherwise silent plains. I had seen many crows back in Missouri, but never in such numbers. Perhaps I was letting my imagination run, but there was something undeniably unnatural in their assembly.

Unlike the gentler birds I admired—sparrows, cardinals, finches—these sable creatures embodied a darkness, both in color and in presence. Their wings, their beaks, their forms were shrouded in that same singular hue. They were like harbingers sent from the edge of some old world, their cries etched with a dread I could not name.

Not far from the barn, I noticed a curious mound of earth—freshly turned and oddly deliberate. It rose out of the ground like an unspeaking monument. Was it a burial site? A grave for some departed soul or animal? Or was it merely a pile of soil left behind for some mundane purpose? I could not tell, but its presence clung to me like a whisper half-heard, waiting for nightfall to speak its truth.

It was conspicuous—and bizarre. What struck me as most peculiar was the absence of any tombstones for Mrs. Gore’s deceased husband or children. Were they buried elsewhere, perhaps in a cemetery I had not seen? There was no trace of one along the path that led to her home, yet I could not entirely dismiss the possibility of one nearby.

I did recall glimpsing the silhouette of a church before reaching her property. I suspected that the cemetery, if it existed, might be tucked away behind its modest grounds. Still, Mrs. Gore did not strike me as a particularly religious woman. But who was I to judge her beliefs, or presume to understand the depths of her grief?

What was equally unsettling was the complete absence of visitors throughout that day. No neighbors came calling, not even from afar. It seemed unlikely that a soul living in such isolation would go unnoticed by others, even if the nearest homestead was miles away. Was she regarded as unfriendly? Or had she chosen seclusion as a way of life, too guarded—or perhaps too wounded—to welcome company?

The thought of living alone on the open plains stirred my curiosity anew. She was still young, still striking in appearance, with an inner strength shaped by sorrow. Surely, she could remarry if she wished. She did not seem the kind to surrender entirely to bitterness.

As the hours passed, I sensed a softening in her manner. She began to speak more freely, to regard me with a kind of warm familiarity. A bond was forming—tentative, yet real. Whether it was born of necessity, loneliness, or something deeper, I could not say. But in her subtle glances and gestures, there was a growing sense of trust…perhaps even a touch of affection.

I was not certain whether her affection stemmed from a true proclivity or merely from a woman’s necessity for a man’s presence. More likely, I suspected, it was loneliness—an ache I understood all too well. Mrs. Gore had stepped away at some point without a word, and I was never told where she went. Nor would I ever come to know.

While she was gone, I noticed the crows again. They never strayed far. Always close, always watching. A strange impulse took hold of me then—an unshakable compulsion to enter the house. Something within whispered that the mystery surrounding her past might leave its trace in some overlooked detail, waiting to be discovered.

Inside, I searched quietly, uncertain of what I hoped to find. There were no photographs, no portraits of children smiling from dusty frames, no relics of a husband once present. Not even a locket or a letter remained to suggest the lives that had once filled these rooms. Perhaps she had purged it all, unwilling to bear the constant reminder of loss. That, I could understand. Some memories are too painful to preserve.

But then I noticed a door—partly concealed within an adjacent room used for storage. It looked as though it led to a cellar. I approached it slowly, drawn by a smell I could not place. It was faint but distinct, and oddly pungent. I had not noticed it earlier when I first entered the house. The odor seemed to emanate from beneath the wooden planks that lined the floor above the hidden space.

Whatever lay beneath that door, it was something she had never mentioned. Something she had, perhaps, gone to great lengths to keep secret. Time, I thought, would unveil it—whether I wished it or not.

The rest of the house was modest: two small bedrooms, a compact kitchen, and a general sense of sparse habitation. It was a dwelling suited for solitude. But in the kitchen, one detail struck me as particularly unusual. There were more knives than forks or spoons in the drawers—dozens of them, arranged with peculiar care. Several butcher knives rested prominently near the cutting board, their blades recently sharpened.

It was then that a shiver crawled down my spine.

The silence of the house no longer felt serene—it felt expectant. I suspected that the knives were likely used for the slaughter of chickens. I had seen the pen nearby, and surely, life on the plains demanded such pragmatism. Rural life was never easy, especially for a woman living alone—a widow with no one to aid her in the daily burdens of survival.

I decided it was best to wait outside for her return, so as not to appear too intrusive. When I saw her again, something in her demeanor had shifted. She seemed livelier, her manner warmer, her eyes more engaged. I had no inkling what had stirred this change in her expression, but I felt it, nonetheless.

I pondered it quietly.

By then, my journey to Topeka had evolved into something else entirely—an experience that would imprint itself on my memory with a vividness I would never escape. Not for sentiment, but for the horror that would follow.

That evening, we shared a modest supper at the table. Our conversation turned again to the trip, and she seemed increasingly invested in the idea. As I sat across from her, I observed her gestures more closely—the way her eyes lingered a moment longer than before, the tilt of her head as she listened. Yet beneath the surface of her smile, I sensed she was weighing something. What that was, I could not discern.

Her gaze was not indecent, nor was it dispassionate. It bore the softness of feminine intrigue, but also something deeper—something guarded.

I hoped that the trip might offer her a respite, a fleeting escape from the monotonous rhythm of isolated living. I had no desire to change her life or intrude upon it; I merely wished to offer her a distraction, however brief.

But as we spoke more of Topeka, she became increasingly curious about me—not just the facts of my journey, but about my life, my thoughts, my past. I didn’t find this unusual; after all, we had grown familiar enough to allow for such candid exchanges. I revealed more than I ordinarily would, feeling that I might never see her again. There were no secrets I needed to guard.

I spoke freely, without reservation.

It wasn’t until she asked me about fidelity—about what I believed in the matter of loyalty within a relationship—that I felt the mood subtly deepen. Her question had a different weight to it. It was no longer mere curiosity; it was a probe into something personal, perhaps even symbolic.

Still, I saw no reason to withhold my thoughts. I answered honestly, unaware of the implications that honesty might soon carry.

At that moment, it felt as though we were merely two souls adrift in the middle of nowhere, sharing fragments of ourselves in the refuge of that modest wooden house. It wasn’t typical of me to speak so openly with someone I had only recently met. Despite the rapport we had managed to establish, we were, in truth, still strangers—drawn together by happenstance more than fate.

Then came the rain.

It began suddenly, pounding the roof with a relentless rhythm, as if it sought to echo the undercurrents stirring between us. I could sense the weight of the storm as the shingles trembled above, and I saw the flashes of lightning cast across the open plains, illuminating the land like fleeting apparitions. A storm was indeed approaching—loud, furious, and unrelenting.

The thought of our planned trip to Topeka lingered in my mind. If the rain continued through the night, the journey would become dangerous, perhaps even foolish to attempt. I considered this quietly and prepared myself for the possibility that we would have to delay. Still, there was a chance the skies would clear by morning, though I would soon learn the weather was not the true threat I would have to endure that night.

No—the storm outside was but a prelude.

There was a far greater tempest looming. One not born of clouds and thunder, but of something deeper…and far more sinister. A rage not of nature, but of madness—a silent, festering terror lying just beneath the surface.

When I mentioned that the night promised to be a stormy one, Mrs. Gore smiled. She appeared unbothered by the wind or the thunder that shook the plains. Her calmness in the face of it all was striking. It reaffirmed what I had already sensed—she was a woman of quiet strength, possessed of a will that would not easily bend.

But even strength, I would come to learn, can carry with it a darkness.

There was little, it seemed, that ever spooked her or rattled her nerves. She was composed—unflinchingly so. That night, she offered me a glass of whiskey. I saw no harm in sharing a drink or two with her; after all, the storm had confined us, and the mood felt strangely convivial.

As we raised our glasses, she turned to an old phonograph tucked in the corner of the room. Its mechanical song began to play—thin, warbling notes etched into a wax cylinder. I had heard of such devices back in Saint Louis, though I’d never seen one used so casually in a remote house on the plains. Then came an unexpected revelation: she told me she had once been a dancer.

Curious, I asked where she had danced. She smiled, wistful and proud, and said it was her grandmother who had taught her, long ago when she was just a child. Before I realized it, she had taken my hand, and we were dancing. Step by step. Side by side. Her movements were graceful, practiced—too elegant for such a modest setting.

She told me it had been a long time since she had danced with a man. I assumed, naturally, she meant since her husband’s passing. We smiled. We laughed. For a moment, it felt as though we had both shed the weight of solitude.

But then, something changed.

About half an hour into our dance, a strange haze began to settle over my vision. The room softened at the edges. I stumbled slightly, and the rhythm broke. My limbs grew heavy, my breath shallow. I stopped dancing and sank into a chair.

Was it the whiskey? I asked myself. But it had not felt strong enough to disarm me so completely. My head tilted, my thoughts clouded, and an inescapable drowsiness overcame me.

What I did not yet know—what I could not know—was that she had slipped something into my drink. A quiet betrayal.

As the darkness closed in around me and I drifted toward unconsciousness, the last thing I saw was her face—soft in the glow of the lamplight, unreadable, indelible.

When I awakened, I was tied to a chair.

My limbs were bound tightly, and the dull ache in my skull throbbed in rhythm with the ticking of a nearby clock. As my vision cleared, I saw her plainly—standing in the kitchen with a butcher knife in hand. She was sharpening its point slowly, methodically, as if she were preparing for a ritual.

I blinked, and a wave of disbelief washed over me. Why was I restrained? What had I done to deserve this? Had I unknowingly offended her, said something to spark suspicion or rage?

None of it made reasonable sense.

But what I had failed to realize until that moment was that I had not provoked her madness—I had simply witnessed it. It had always been there, lying dormant behind the mask of civility and charm. And now, it revealed itself fully.

From that moment on, I was no longer a guest. I was her prisoner.

I demanded to know why—why she had drugged me, why I had been tied up like some common criminal. Her reply came without hesitation, and it would echo in my mind long after the night had passed.

Her words were venomous. Her voice, unrecognizable.

That night, I met the true Mrs. Gore—not the widow on the plains, not the woman of quiet sorrow, but a scorned soul driven to the edge of depravity. Her madness was not born of grief. It was something deeper. More ancient. And far more violent.

She told me there was something beneath the house, something I had once been curious about. I had assumed it was a root cellar, perhaps a storage for winter provisions. But I had been wrong. So very wrong.

With an eerie calm, she opened the hidden door beneath the floorboards. What lay beneath was not darkness—but death.

Bones. Skulls. A mass grave hidden in the soil of her home. She reached down casually, as though retrieving a keepsake, and lifted a skull into the light.

Its hollow eyes stared back at me.

I could no longer deny it: the woman before me was not merely deranged—she was calculated, cold, and utterly consumed by her own twisted world.

Her madness had a name, and it was worse than her surname Gore.

I asked her why she had tied me up—why she had drugged my drink and left me to wake in restraints. Her reply was haunting, but it was not just in the words—it was in her eyes, in the coldness of her tone, in the subtle way her hands caressed the blade she held.

That was the moment I truly met her—not the polite widow from earlier, not the woman with a trace of sorrow in her gaze, but the scornful and depraved soul that had long since surrendered to madness.

The truth she revealed was not just unsettling—it was revolting.

Mrs. Gore had kept from me a terrible secret, one that had been buried quite literally beneath our feet. I had been curious about the floorboards, the ones that creaked strangely beneath our dance. There was something hidden there, I knew it—but I had never imagined the truth.

With no sense of hesitation, she opened a trapdoor I had not noticed before. As she descended into the darkness, she returned moments later holding a skull—its smooth dome and hollow sockets gleaming in the dim lantern light. A single skull, among many. A mass of bones. Her secret graveyard.

I had no doubt now: she was deranged—but not chaotically so. She was methodical, controlling and cunning.

She told me that I had been chosen. I was to be her next victim. Her next story. And in her twisted mind, I had earned that fate—though she offered no logic, no reason, only the certainty of her conviction.

There was something else I had been pondering since I arrived: the strange mound of dirt I had seen near the barn. When I asked her about it, her answer turned my blood to ice.

“They’re buried there,” she said with unnerving calm. “My children. My husband. That’s where they belong.”

I asked her why she hadn’t given them a proper burial. She smiled, and her eyes lit with a sick delight.

“They deserved no better,” she whispered. “They belonged with the animals.”

The indifference in her voice was more horrifying than the words themselves. Any trace of sorrow, or love, or regret—gone. Her once joyful laughter had curdled into something deranged. A maniacal, echoing cackle that filled the house like a storm wind.

And I, still bound to the chair, could do nothing but listen.

I had thought I was beginning to understand who she truly was—but I was woefully mistaken. Savannah Gore was not simply a grieving widow nor a lonely woman in a weather-beaten house. She was a cold-blooded murderess, vindictive in her hatred and ruthless in her contempt. Her words had the sting of vitriol, and her gaze, the deadliness of a viper coiled in wait. I began to wonder why fate had cursed me to cross her wicked path.

But there was more to her madness than malice—something darker, more disturbing. The crows.

They cawed and cackled in their sinister chorus, perched on the rafters and outside the windows, watching. Always watching. She was devoted to them with an unholy passion, and they to her—as though they were her black-winged priests, her servants, her familiars. That revelation chilled me to the bone. It came not through her admission, but through observation. Through the unnatural way they obeyed her voice. Through the eerie, unbroken gaze they kept on me, as though they, too, had plans.

Why hadn’t I recognized the symptoms of her madness before? Had I been blind to them, or had she simply concealed them too well? And what of the love she once had for her husband and children? Could there still be a shard of that affection buried deep within her shattered mind?

Was it grief that twisted her into this creature of rage and shadows?

Whatever the cause, it was clear now—Savannah Gore harbored a hostility so fierce, so burning, that it had razed her soul to ash. If souls were indeed real, she no longer possessed one. Her body remained—but what animated her was something darker.

I realized then that time was not on my side. If I did not act swiftly, she would kill me. The question was not if—but when. My only weapon now was my wit. I had to outsmart her, mislead her, and escape before her madness sealed my fate.

There—by one of the chairs at the table—rested a rifle. If I could just free myself, distract her long enough... I would have to deceive her. Trick her. Lure her into a false sense of control. Deception would be my only hope.

And in that dreadful house, with the storm howling outside and the crows screaming overhead. I had to outwit her with my acute senses.

It was the same strategy she had used so effectively against me—restraint and silence. She had tied my feet as well, rendering me utterly immobile. I couldn't move my hands or legs. My only chance to act would come when she stepped closer. I had intuited that much. While she had been busy sharpening the butcher knife with calm, methodical strokes, I worked quietly, feverishly, to unfasten the rope around my wrists. My fingers bled from the effort. But I succeeded.

I knew I would have just one moment—one fleeting chance to survive.

The storm outside raged with fury, but inside, she was the greater tempest. When she turned and began to walk toward me, butcher knife gleaming with a fresh, honed edge, her eyes held a serene madness. She stopped just a foot away and leaned in.

Then, she whispered the last thing I ever wanted to hear.

It was not an apology. It was a confession—calm, cold, and without remorse. She had murdered her two children. And her devoted husband. Her voice didn’t shake. It sang.

I stared at her in horror. How deep must the abyss of her mind be, to slaughter her own blood and feel nothing? She taunted me, pressing the butcher knife gently against my neck, teasing the inevitable. Her face contorted into a delighted sneer.

There was no doubt—she took pleasure in pain. In suffering. If there was any fragment left of the woman I had once met, it was buried far beneath the rot of madness and malice. Still, a part of me desperately hoped I could reach that fragment—stall her long enough to escape.

But there would be no bluff. Her intent was real. I was to be her fiftieth victim.

And yet, I would not die.

What happened next defies all rational description. Words falter against the force of the impossible.

As she raised the blade to slash my throat, something stopped her. Her arm trembled—then froze. Her eyes widened. A presence had entered the room. A cold, unearthly hush fell over everything, even the storm outside.

It was them. The spirits of her children.

They had awakened.

Whether summoned by justice, sorrow, or some deeper cosmic balance, I cannot say. But I felt them. I saw the shimmer of their forms. They came not only to save me—but to deliver their mother to the abyss.

She shrieked. The knife dropped. And then—the crows turned.

Those black-winged creatures, once her familiars and protectors, betrayed her. They screamed and swarmed, a flurry of wings and vengeance, driving her back, tearing through the shadows she had hidden behind.

Savannah Gore had spilled too much blood. And death—at last—had come for her.

Suddenly, the countless crows burst through the shattered window, their wings slicing through the storm-churned air. They descended upon her like a living tempest and carried her away into the black night of the plains—into oblivion. She vanished beyond the reach of the world, and she would never return.

What I witnessed that night defied all logic. Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would not dare to speak of it. But it happened. And it is burned into my memory.

Once the chaos had passed, I freed my hands and then my feet. As I stood, trembling, the spirits of her children slowly faded into the storm’s mist. Yet before they disappeared, they turned their gaze toward me—somber, mournful. Their eyes held a depth of sorrow I could scarcely bear.

Were they grieving their fate? Wandering as lost souls, forever bound to the place of their demise? Or perhaps, even after all she had done, they still carried a lingering trace of love for the woman who had given them life—and then, mercilessly, taken it away?

Their expressions were etched with a tragic melancholy, as though they were caught between realms, forsaken in their ghostly morosity. I had no children of my own, yet the weight of their silent grief fell upon me with unbearable force. A sorrow too vast to measure swept through the room, encompassing every dark corner.

One question remained, unanswered and haunting: How long would her madness have lasted, had she not been stopped?

I left that accursed house behind and vowed never to return. The horrors that transpired within its walls were unspeakable. No sane mind could fathom the depth of her fall. As I walked away, I cast one final glance at the old wooden house. The crows were gone. The barn was empty. The oppressive dread that once clung to that place had lifted, replaced by the mournful howling of the wind—a requiem for what had been.

No one else would ever know what truly happened in that house—no one but me.

I mounted my horse and rode away, never looking back. As I passed the old church and the modest home of the former slaves, I paused briefly. I said nothing of the events that had unfolded. And yet, somehow, I felt they already knew. They had never set foot in that house. And now, I understood why.

They had known all along. They had known what Savannah Gore had become.
 

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