The Haunted Mansion

Unfortunately, the closer you get to Litora, the more monitored the cities become. That means, to get to their next stop, Angelina, they’d have to travel through complete wilderness.

For three days.

In the rain.

It had started pouring early the first day of the trip and hadn’t stopped.

It was impossible to set up a tent and even if they could get the tent up, it’d fill with water anyway. So, after failing at making a camp, instead of sleeping they all decided to keep walking.

If you aren’t going to sleep either way, may as well make progress while you’re at it. However, if they’d drive south for two hours, the warm, heavily monitored city of Bane was right there.

Sure, they didn’t have any money left after the accident and they’d be arrested at some point, and also executed, probably, but in comparison to this, a warm prison cell sounds pretty good. Hell, he’d hazard a guess that death is warmer, which would make execution pretty good, too…

I never thought I’d fantasize about getting executed in Litora. Asa thinks. But… If they executed me, that’d also mean they have the Key, and millions of people would suffer for a long time after I was embraced by the cozy fires of Hell…

Why am I thinking so morbid today? Oh yeah, it’s because if we stay out here much longer, we’re literally going to die.

“Look!” Cries Luna, voice cracking with hope. She points at a town sign that says “Lacking”.

“This place wasn’t on the map…” Says Asa, feeling like he’s in the Twilight Zone. Luna and Mint, too excited by the idea of heat, don’t listen and run straight in. Asa wants to stop them for exactly half a second, before being completely overcome by excitement himself and doing the same.

Through the roar of the pouring rain, he hears a whisper. At least, he thought he did. There it is, the same whisper. It’s definitely real.

“Hey!” Says the voice. He walks in its direction.

“Heeyy!!” As he gets closer, he realizes it isn’t a whisper. It’s a man in a poncho yelling at the top of his lungs. He sits on the porch of a rundown shack and smiles, showing a mouth of missing teeth.

“Hey! I’m Old Tommy! I’m the one who greets travelers when they visit!”

“When was the last time they did that?! Cause this place isn’t on any maps! I’m not actually sure if this place is real or a hallucination!” Asa yells back.

“...” Old Tommy pauses.

“Six years ago!”

“...” Asa also pauses. “Do you know any places we could stay here?! Preferably free ones?!”

“Uh…! Not many! The people around here hate outsiders!”

“Like…?! They think they’re annoying?!”

“No!” He pauses. “Like…! They like killing them!”

“...”

“But, don’t worry! There’s one guy who really likes them! Get your friends and I can show you to his house!”

“How did you know I have friends?! You can’t see anything out here!”

“...”

“I have really good eyesight!”

☼

Asa’s gotten Luna and Mint, and they all follow Old Tommy. Now that he’s closer, he notices that he only has one eye and it also has a cataract.

They come to another beat up shack, but this one’s nicer. Old Tommy bangs on the door. “Pablo?! It’s me! Tommy!”

Pablo opens the door. He’s a short, rotund man with sunglasses that block out both his eyes and eyebrows, as well as a thin, bushy mustache that covers his entire mouth, making it virtually impossible to tell what he’s emoting.

Despite having been inside, he is already wearing a rain poncho. It is dry. “This is my friend Pablo! He loves to help broke, stranded city folk! He’s so nice to them that they never leave his house!”

“Didn’t you say the last visitor came here six years ago?!” Asks Asa, non-confrontationally.

Old Tommy holds his chin and thinks. “Hmm…”

He smiles. “Yup!”

“Asa? I need to talk with you.” Says Luna.

“Yeah?” She pulls him aside, then gets in his face.

“We need to get out of here!” She whisper-screams.

“Are you sure? It’s so cold out there that we’ll die.”

“If given the choice between dying of hypothermia and being tortured for six years, I choose the hypothermia!”

“Hmm… You’re right… I kind of don’t like being tortured.” Asa admits. “But I had been really looking forward to the warm…”

He pouts disappointedly. Luna grabs his face with her frigid hands. “No! Don’t think that! Just think about how much you don’t want to be put in an iron boot!”

“I don’t think they have that… I don’t want to be tortured, though…” He pouts.

“Right!” She nods vehemently, smiling. With her hands on his shoulders, she marches Asa up to Pablo and Old Tommy.

“So sorry ~ .” She says, in a musical voice. “We have to leave now ~ . Bye Bye!”

“Bye, you folks!” Shouts Old Tommy, waving. Pablo says nothing.

Luna holds Mint’s hand. “C’mon, Mint ~ ~ ~ !”

Then she walks them out of town so fast that it looks like she’s been fast forwarded x2, a polite smile on her face the whole time.

Old Tommy yells after them. “By the way! Don’t go in the abandoned mansion! People who go in don’t come out!”

☼

They’ve been attempting to set up the tents, repeatedly, for hours. Asa and Luna are the only ones still trying. Mint sits on a tree stump miserably playing Old Maid against Mimo.

The tent falls apart, again.

“Can’t we just go to Bane?!” Luna begs. “They can’t possibly be monitoring every single person! They wouldn’t even notice us! Hell, that weird Lacking place would be better than this!”

“You were the one who wanted to leave because we’d be tortured!” Asa snaps.

“AT LEAST IT WOULD BE WARM TORTURE!” She yells. Asa stomps away. Mint bursts into tears.

“Can’t you just let me wiiin?? Isn’t this bad enough alreadyyyy?” He wails.

“I’m sorry!” Whines Mimo, on the brink of tears. “The Old Maid program doesn’t let me do thaaaat!”

Asa stomps behind some bushes. He knows the truth. If I hadn’t separated myself I would’ve gone to Bane. Her argument was too convincing.

Then he sees something. An entire mansion in the woods! And it looks abandoned! A lightbulb goes off in his head. “Guys ~ ! I found a place to stay ~ !”

☼

By the time they reach the mansion, it’s well into the night.

“You think this place has ghosts?” Says Mint, apprehensive. Luna grabs Asa’s arm with tears in her eyes.

“Asa! Please tell me there aren’t ghosts in the mansion!”

“There aren’t!” He says, then whispers under his breath. “I think.”

Lightning strikes behind them. They scream and run inside.

☼

The place just has a bad vibe. It’s dark and there’s cobwebs everywhere. It really feels like a place a vampire would lure people to. They tread through the grand foyer carefully, Asa in front with both Luna and Mint huddled behind him.

Mint holds his hand, looking anxious and Luna peeks over his shoulder, looking downright terrified.

“Are you sure there aren’t ghosts in here?” She says.

“No, there’s not.” He whispers. Lightning strikes. The flash illuminates the figure of a woman in front of them, her face and hair a ghastly white. They all scream.

As their eyes adjust to the dark, they see her. She’s a normal woman with very pale skin and long, white hair.

Asa’s immediate thought is that she looks like the animamorph assassin who tried to steal the Key. She’s wearing Litora’s formal military uniform, but it’s the design that was retired 15 years ago. The burgundy suit with a white line sewn into the cuff.

The current one is white with a black line. The hat hasn’t changed. She wears the same one, a black beret with a decorative, striped sash sewn around its base. The jabot and brooch have stayed the same, too.

Her face is thin and elegant, but also sad. She’s slender and reserved, the definition of a willowy beauty. Her long hair cascades down her back and to her knees. Then, anger flashes across her face.

“What are you doing here?!” She demands. “Leave now!”

Asa freezes, something about her haunts him. “We needed shelter from the rain!” Luna says. “It was so cold we were going to die!”

The woman’s eyes drift to the floor, where the rain droplets falling off their bodies have formed a puddle. Her eyes soften.

“Fine… Come with me, but be quiet!” She whispers.

☼

She takes them to a guest room in a far off end of the mansion. They trickle in as she holds the door open for them.

“Yay! We get to sleep in a bed!” Cheers Luna, quietly.

“You can stay here for tonight, but under no circumstances will you leave this room. When the sun rises, leave this place immediately. Do not take any detours.” Says the woman.

The three are concerned by the rules, and disappointed that they’ll have to leave so soon, but they agree to comply. The woman leaves the room.

☼

Asa, Luna, and Mint sit on the floor awkwardly while they air dry. The door closes.

None of them heard it open. They only saw the movement as it closed. There are three fresh, folded towels carefully placed on the ground.

☼

Mint and Luna sleep peacefully. Asa opens his eyes, wide awake and with a serious look.

She’s hiding something! He pushes off his blanket and walks out the door. He can’t see anything in the hallways.

After some wandering, he reaches the grand foyer. Specifically, the top of the grand staircase. A rough, calloused hand covers his mouth and something pricks his neck.

The world fades to black.

☼

Iblisse stands under the portico, watching the rain. Her white hairs tickle her face.

She holds out her hand, hoping she’ll feel the droplets this time. Her hand disintegrates before she can.

She pulls her arm back under the portico, and her hand reforms. She feels numb.

⟡

When Asa wakes, he’s in a new room. It’s small and plain. There’s almost no furniture. Surrounding him is blue light.

He looks around and realizes he’s in some kind of pod, like a tanning bed or one of the pods full-body nanomachine therapies are done in. He’s kneeling, and his wrists are strapped down at both sides of his head.

He’s still groggy, and he gets the sense he’s been asleep for hours. In his peripheral vision, he spots a desk, and the light of what he assumes is a desk lamp.

He jumps out of his skin when someone enters his line of sight. It’s a wide, sturdy man with thick limbs and tough, greyish skin. He’s bald and wears a lab coat.

A long scar stretches from his ear and diagonally crosses his face, going in between his eyes and around his scalp. It looks as if he performed an experimental surgery on himself.

“Oh… Awake are we?” He says with a smile. His voice is low and grumbly, like the croak of a toad. He speaks slowly and there’s a malicious look in his sunken, black rimmed eyes.

Asa glares at him. The man chuckles. “You’re not gonna be doing that for long.”

He holds up a white clicker.

“One press on this and – “ He makes a bubble popping sound with his lips. “You’re gone forever.”

He clicks the button a few times for emphasis and laughs another low, nasty chuckle. What is he talking about?

As far as Asa can tell, the man isn’t delusional. He seems very aware. How could a clicker delete him?

☼

Something brushes his wrist and he opens his eyes. Asa doesn’t remember falling asleep.

He figures that the drugs are still in his system. Someone is close to him. He can feel their breath.

He sees them, the eyes of the mysterious woman. Her expression is intense, but also detached. He can’t read it. She whispers in his ear.

“Run. As quietly as you can.” The restraints have been removed from his wrists. She pulls away.

He sits, dazed for a short while, then takes a heavy, shaky step out of the pod. The world spins, and he can’t tell where he is in the room.

All he knows is that he’s close to the desk. He thinks he catches glimpses of the man, sitting at the desk with his head down, but he isn’t sure.

It takes all of his strength to keep his heavy feet from slamming into the ground. He stumbles out of the room and into the dark hall.

⟡

Iblisse watches as the young man stumbles out of the door. She turns her eyes to Dr. Cessair, who stirs at his desk.

The man is an insomniac, always toiling on “subjects” or some kind of machine until he passes out somewhere.

The young man had run his shin into the chair, but Cessair never wakes quickly. He suddenly lifts his head, his eyes snap to the pod. He stands from his chair, then sees Iblisse’s eyes on him, intense and unreadable.

Over the past 16 years, he’s never been able to tell if she’s friend or foe. She’s become familiar to him, as familiar to him as a hammer you use everyday or a table you pass every time you enter the living room.

She was a tool, reliable and consistent, but not a friend.

“Iblisse? What is it?” He asks, backing towards the window with concern, fearing an attack from an unseen enemy. “Did the subject escape?”

She takes a step back. And another.

☼

Asa is halfway down the hall when comes to his senses. He turns around and runs back to the room, guided by the light spilling from its doorway. He stops in front of it.

The mysterious woman’s back is to him. She turns to him and mouths something.

“Protect Perona.”

She runs full speed at the man and tackles him. The window hits his back and shatters. They plummet to the ground.

Asa runs to the window, sticking his head through and almost falling out. Down below he sees her back. No, her uniform.

It deflates as the last of her body disappears. Cessair lies face down, blood dribbling from his ear.

“Perona…” He repeats to himself, committing it to memory as he stares at the body and the uniform that lies on top of it.

☼

The sun rises, painting the dawn sky yellow. Asa sits on the hardwood, staring out the window with dark circles under his eyes.

“Asa! Asaaa!” Calls Luna. She peeks her head in. “There you are! What are you doing here? I got you breakfast.”

She offers him a slice of soggy, melted bread with a bright smile. She then blushes.

“It’s not very good, but you need to keep your strength up.” She says sheepishly. Mint giggles. He already ate the gross bread, no doubt, and had been on the trip from hell, but was still finding ways to be happy.

After the night he’s had, it’s the most delicious food Asa’s ever seen. He takes it with a smile.

“Thank you, Luna.” More than anything, Mint and Luna’s smiles make him feel better.

☼

What happened last night didn’t feel real. With the rustling green trees, the sun high in the sky, and Luna and Mint’s cheerful voices, It’s like it was all just a strange dream. There’s no way this reality and that reality are the same.

This is happening and this is real. The other reality was too different from this one, so it must’ve been fake.

He had dug through the rooms of the mansion, and found a photo of the man, much younger, much happier, and much less corrupted. He had a photo, and he had a name, Dr. Albert Cessair, but maybe that was all just a dream, too.

“There it is!” Yells Mint. The city of Angelina.

After such an arduous journey, he and Luna break out into happy tears. Asa can’t help but shed a few tears, too.

☼

Old Tommy and Pablo play a card game together in Pablo’s shack. The traveler who came in six years ago, a woman with curly, brown hair, plays with them. They all have lemonade and cookies.

“It’s a shame those city folks are missing out on this.” Says Old Tommy. “You’re great, Pablo!”

“This is so much better than city life!” Adds the woman.

Pablo nods with an affirmative huff that says “Damn straight!”.