La Chambre Rouge

In the depths of the Jura forest, the gothic marvel La Maison de Minuit stood perched over a deceptively stable cliff. It towered menacingly over the petite figure of Mademoiselle Léa Dumont Vorasiri. Her familiar dark eyes — héritées de sa mère thaïlandaise — shone with curiosity as she examined the manor's dwarfing presence, the air thick with the scent of damp earth and forgotten secrets.

At 26, a field reporter for Mediapart, Léa had already built herself a reputation as a relentless hunter —une chasseuse d’histoires— who found a thrill in chasing fleeting narratives that flowed into coherent, factual stories, ensnaring any who cared for investigative journalism. Fiercely independent, la jeune femme often found herself without a field partner when she was pursuing stories that proved too risqué for most. Fine by her.

And this one? This was exactly her kind of strange.

La Maison de Minuit had belonged, once, to a family that disappeared decades ago under bizarre circumstances — murdered, some claimed. Others insisted that they had abandoned the château in the dead of the night, fleeing from something unknown. Whatever the reason may have been, their absence had resulted in the manor being left to rot, swallowed by rumours and superstition.

And Léa? She was here for the truth. For a perspective so far unexplored.

The grilles rouillées groaned in protest as she pushed them open, the sound ringing with an ominous warning. The jardins abandonnés were wild and desolate. A stony path led to a fontaine massive, its stone built a victim of time, ravaged by algae and neglect. La porte principale, once a façade of grandeur, had surrendered its wooden frame to decay. Léa pushed it open with minimal effort and was met with damp darkness beyond.

She exhaled.

"Let’s see what the fuss is about."

She started with the most obvious places — les espaces évidents; the study, the library, the attic, the basement. She even checked the weirdly normal dining room and found nothing that could suggest a conspiracy. Disappointment already weighing on her, Léa wasn’t exactly eager when she approached les chambres à coucher. The rooms of the famille étrange weren’t anything special. It wasn’t until she reached the servant quarters that she felt that something was… off.

Why were the quartiers des serviteurs in the bâtiment principal?

During that time, the servants of the château would have usually lived in a separate building. A new sense of anticipation prompted her to explore the rooms a little more thoroughly.  It wasn’t long before Léa came across an old wooden door with a letter pasted on its surface, edges curling with age.

“N’ouvre pas la porte.

Do not open the door.”

Léa scoffed. She was a reporter. Fear wasn’t in her vocabulary. But as she pushed the door open, a wave of unease slithered down her spine. Inside, the air was thick with the scent of dust and something metallic. The room before her was drenched in red—walls, ceiling, even the floor. There was nothing in the room apart from the startling amount of rouge that hurt her eyes, not even furniture. She hesitated; her breath shallow. The shade was unnatural, too deep, too vivid, as if the colour itself had never faded with time. A strange pressure settled over her, the silence in the room too perfect, as if waiting. Watching. Her pulse quickened.

Suis-je tombée dans un piège ?

All that trouble for nothing. Léa laughed sharply,  half in disbelief, half in frustration. All along, she had been hoping to uncover a story that would shake la pays. Aside from the owner’s eccentric taste for le rouge, she had found… absolutely nothing.

Rien.

Her frustration won over any lingering unease, and she turned on her heel, shutting the door behind her. The sooner she left this place, the better.

Exhausted by her tumultuous emotions and a fruitless hours-long search, Léa returned home, the setting sun signalling the end of the day. The city welcomed her back with its usual noise and normalcy, yet she felt strangely disoriented. The manor, with its oppressive silence, clung to her mind like a stubborn shadow. Even as she settled back into routine, something gnawed at her, an intangible whisper of unfinished business.

Work offered a distraction. The following morning, before she could even recount her fruitless expedition, her department was called away for a week-long assignment. In the rush of packing and planning, La Maison de Minuit became a distant memory.

But some things refuse to stay forgotten.

A week later, she returned to the office, weary but content from the assignment. She was laughing at a joke Patrice made when she noticed it—a stain at the edge of her desk.

Red.

The blood had dried into a jagged stain at the edge of her desk, crusted and dark, like something darker trying to claw its way back to the surface. A clumsy occurrence, vraiment—just a superficial cut from a stray paper clip that she hadn't even bothered to disinfect. But now, returning to her office, Léa Dumont Vorasiri stared at it, something cold trickling down her spine.

It looked exactly like the walls of that maudite pièce.

Léa took a deep breath. Surely, she was imagining it. Un tour de l’esprit, her fatigue twisting reality into something more sinister. And yet, the shade, the texture, the way the stain had spread… It mirrored the unnerving rouge of the quartiers des serviteurs in La Maison de Minuit. The Proverbial Red Room and the note.

“N’ouvre pas la porte.”

She shook herself. Non. C’était absurde. Blood dried dark, almost brown, and the manor’s walls had been painted—painted—decades ago. Il n’y avait aucun lien. None. She had wasted enough time on that damned house, had exhausted every lead, and had walked away with nothing.

She should move on. Close the chapter. Leave the manor and its stories behind. And yet, the stain lingered in her mind, like an unanswered question.

And yet, her feet remained planted. Her breath shallow. Une inquiétude s’installait en elle, tenace et intrusive. With deliberate slowness, she reached for a tissue and wiped the stain away, but even as the paper turned crimson, the ghost of the shape remained burned into her mind. She balled up the tissue and tossed it in the bin, forcing her thoughts elsewhere.

She needed coffee. And sleep.

Beaucoup de sommeil.

But as she left her office, she couldn’t shake the distinct sensation that something was watching her. Que quelque chose l’avait suivie.

L’inquiétude ne la quitta pas. At home, the shadows seemed to stretch unnaturally, the silence pressing against her ears. She couldn’t help but return to that night over and over again, convinced that something had followed her back, an indecipherable murmur insistent in her brain. When dawn finally arrived, she had made her decision.

She wanted answers.

Léa called a number she hadn’t used in months.

“Camille Fournier,” a sharp voice answered.

“Cam, c’est Léa.”

A pause. “Léa. It’s been a while.”

“Oui. I need your help. Forensics.”

Another pause. “Is this about a case?”

“Something like that.”

Within hours, Camille—a forensic scientist with the Police Judiciaire and an old university friend—was meeting her in the Jura forest, standing before the silent, decaying facade of La Maison de Minuit. Léa led her back through the abandoned halls, the floorboards groaning beneath their cautious steps. The red room was unchanged—walls, ceiling, and floor still drowning in that oppressive, suffocating crimson.

Camille crouched, running a gloved hand over the dried stains. “C’est du sang.”

Léa nodded. “Je le savais.”

With careful precision, Camille collected samples, scraping away the crusted layers into sterile containers. Her face betrayed nothing, but Léa could see the tension in her shoulders.

They left the house in silence.

A day later, Camille called her back, voice tight with unease. “Léa, je pense que tu doives t’asseoir.”

“I’m fine. Dis-moi.”

“That blood? It’s not from one person. There are too many DNA variants for that. ”

Léa’s fingers tightened around her phone. “How many?”

“A lot. Far too many to just be the family that lived there.”

A chill seeped into Léa’s bones.

“There’s something else,” Camille continued. “This blood—it’s old. Très ancien. And yet, it shows signs of preservation, as if it were meant to last.”

Léa felt the walls closing in on her. Suffocating her with the possibility of something darker taking control. “I need to go back.”

Camille exhaled. “Pas seule, tu n’y vas pas.”

Days later, back in La Maison de Minuit, the air was thick with dust and something heavier—something ancient. Léa searched the study again, her fingers skimming over rows of forgotten books. The floor creaked beneath her as she ran her hands over the spines of old tomes, whispering their titles under her breath. Histoire des Anciens Rites. Mythes et Superstitions Européennes. Les Secrets du Jura.

And then, behind a false panel, her fingers brushed against something different. Rough. Le cuir craquelé d’un livre ancien.

She pulled it free, coughing as dust erupted from its surface. The title was barely visible under years of grime, but the words sent a shiver down her spine as she wiped it clean.

Les Offrandes de Sang.

Her pulse hammered as she turned the pages. The words inside were meticulous, written in an elegant, old-fashioned script. They detailed rituals. Sacrifices. A god that demanded blood in exchange for power. Diagrams of symbols and instructions on how to prepare offerings. Incantations written in a language she did not recognise.

Her stomach churned. Ce n’était pas possible.

The family that had lived here—they hadn’t fled. They hadn’t been murdered.

They were a cult. Une secte très active.

Léa’s throat went dry. Mon Dieu… dans quoi suis-je tombée ?

A sharp gust of wind rattled the windows, making Léa jump. She clutched the book to her chest, the weight of it pressing against her ribs. Suddenly, the tome felt heavier, the spine beneath her arm stretching unnaturally. Un mauvais pressentiment s’insinua en elle. That was when she noticed something digging into her palm —something that shouldn’t be there.

A phone, wedged between the brittle pages. Not ancient. Not forgotten. A modern phone, its screen cracked, covered in dust as if someone had dropped it in a hurry. Son souffle se coupa. How did the book not deform with the presence of something so solid? Léa’s hands trembled as she turned on the screen.

The wallpaper made her breath hitch.

Camille’s face stared back at her. But the image was distorted, as if something had pressed against the screen from the inside.

Her stomach dropped. Camille never let go of her phone. Never.

Her hands trembled as she unlocked it, revealing a half-typed message in the notes app.

Léa, si tu trouves ceci, ne rest—

The screen flickered. Then died.

Léa’s pulse roared in her ears. A slow creak sounded from the hallway.

She wasn’t alone. Pas seule du tout.

Something was wrong. Terribly wrong.

And whatever it was… it had already taken notice of her.

- Shagun Gupta

La Chambre Rouge © 2025 by Shagun Gupta is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0