The Velvet Throne

My name is Elias, and what I’m about to tell you is the truth, however improbable it may seem. It happened two summers ago, in the dusty attic of a defunct theater my great-aunt Maribel had owned outside of Tucson, Arizona. She was a reclusive woman, a collector of oddities, and when she passed, the task of emptying her estate fell to me.

The theater, called the Luna, had been closed for decades. The air inside was thick with the smell of mothballs and old velvet. The stage was cluttered with the detritus of forgotten performances: a crumbling harlequin costume, a shattered music box, a collection of porcelain dolls with cracked, staring eyes. My job was to catalog and clear it all before the bulldozers came.

The first day, I found a book bound in what felt like human skin, its pages filled with diagrams of celestial bodies and strange, flowing script. I dismissed it as a prop from some forgotten production. But that night, I dreamt of a stage, empty except for a single spotlight, and a voice that whispered my name.

The second day, I discovered a hidden door behind a loose panel in the dressing room wall. It led to a narrow staircase spiraling down into the earth. I didn’t descend that day, but I felt a cold draft emanating from below, carrying a faint, discordant melody.

On the third day, as I was wrapping the porcelain dolls, I heard a child’s laughter echo through the empty theater. I turned, but there was no one there. My skin prickled. I decided to explore the staircase, my heart thumping against my ribs.

The stairs led to a small, circular room. In the center stood a magnificent chair, carved from dark wood, upholstered in deep crimson velvet. It faced a wall covered in faded frescoes depicting a masked figure presiding over a court of grotesque, laughing faces. The chair seemed to call to me, a silent, seductive pull.

Against every instinct screaming at me to leave, I walked toward it. The air grew colder with each step. The melody I’d heard earlier grew clearer, a strange, lilting tune that seemed to wrap around my thoughts. I sat down.

A jolt, like electricity, shot through me. All my strength, my will, my very sense of self, drained out of me and into the chair. I tried to rise, but my limbs were heavy lead. The room spun, and the frescoes seemed to writhe. The masked figure’s painted eyes fixed on me, and a voice, not heard but felt, echoed in my skull: ‘You’re mine now.’

Darkness took me.

When I awoke, I was lying on the cold stone floor. The chair was empty, but it seemed to hum with a dark satisfaction. I felt hollow, as if a part of me had been scraped out. I stumbled back up the stairs, terrified.

I called my great-aunt’s lawyer, told him I was leaving, that the place was cursed. He just chuckled, said, ‘She found you too, did she? The Velvet Throne claims a new soul.’ I hung up.

I left Tucson the next morning, but I didn’t escape. I still see the chair in my dreams, feel its pull, hear that melody. Every now and then, I catch a glimpse of myself in a mirror and see not my reflection, but the masked figure from the fresco, smiling back at me. The chair is patient. And it always gets what it wants.