We trudged through the forest, with its grotesque trees, their branches gnarled and twisted like menacing fingers out to strangle us as we brushed past them. Suddenly, we stumbled out of the forest and into a clearing. We looked up and gasped in amazement.

There, before us, loomed a forbidding castle. It was bathed in pale moonlight. Its turrets and towers were cloaked in a swirling mist. We trod gingerly through the overgrown grass, past the rusty gates and the crumbling ivy-covered walls.

As if on cue, the front door creaked open, and we found ourselves staring at a cavernous hall dimly lit by a single flickering candle. On the floor was a thick carpet of dust. Our noses were assaulted by the musty smell of years and years of abandonment and neglect.

"Hello? Anybody there?" I asked in a quivering voice. A figure lurked in the shadows that played hide and seek on the walls. The spectral figure floated towards us.

"Welcome to our castle..." he began, his voice a sort of rasping whisper. I looked up to see a gaunt, wizened old man with sunken cheeks. There was a glazed look in his eyes. Then, from somewhere in the depths of the castle came a heart-rending wail. "My master wishes to see you now!" he cackled as he pointed to a skeletal finger at an open doorway...