Where the Food Comes From

At that moment, the story about Hanako drawing weird animals when she was young came to my mind.

Maybe this is the place where they hide those animals?

Maybe this place is like a normal basement? Where people would store their memories and valuables in here, and it was just too embarrassing that Victoria and Hanako didn’t want me to see.

I tried to stay as optimistic as possible, but the fear still got a hold of me, as I got closer and closer.

Eventually, I reached the lower floor.

To my dismay, this floor looked exactly the same as the top floor, aside from the fact that the oil on the floor, the walls, and the ceiling were wetter, fresher, and this floor smelled even worse.

I started exploring the floor right away. I fully expected to come across someone else while in here, hopefully, they would be more helpful than that stupid spider.

If I remember correctly, there should be a dining room on this floor, so I started walking in that direction first.

And not too long after, I came across the dining room door, and a toilet door very close to it.

Which is weird to me, since I remember that in the mansion, the two doors were much further away from each other, and the rooms themselves were a lot further from the spiral staircase as well. How peculiar?

I pried the door of the dining room open slightly, and see the familiar dining room, only this time, every chairs was occupied by the oil monsters.

They were feasting on some kind of liquid; it was crystal clear.

The way the liquid behaved when the oil monsters drank them led me to believe that it was linseed oil, which is the oil that is used to dilute oil paints and to keep the paints from drying.

They were so busy that didn’t notice me at the door, so I slowly stepped away.

I really need to find food soon. I don’t want to starve to death down here.

As I closed the door and move closer to the toilet, I smelled the scent of delicious food.

It’s the smell of the dining room in the mansion…

At first, I thought that there might be a secret door, or something to the real dining room, so I just stumbled around the walls for a bit, trying to find the entrance.

While I was doing that, my flashlight started flickering, then the light started to dim, then it disappeared completely.

It seemed like this flashlight has run out of battery.

I still couldn’t find the entrance, so as a last resort, I opened the toilet door to see what’s in there.

There was…

Food?

In here?

Why would there be food in the toilet?

I walked up to the dishes, which were all lying on the floor. The food was already cold, but I didn’t care.

I closed the toilet door and started to eat the food myself. I wasn’t even that hungry, but I was so glad that there was still food down here.

Right before I was about to be done, I heard the toilet door squeaked open. I quickly hid in one of the stalls.

The person who opened the door was one of the oil monsters. It walked into the toilet, then more of them started to come in as well.

After a while, the toilet was filled with the oil monsters.

They each picked up the plates that were lying on the floor, and pour the content onto them onto the floor.

Then disturbingly, they started to vomit something out of their mouth, it was the same food that I just ate.

I could see the smoke coming out of the food too, they were piping hot.

I almost threw up myself as well, but I could manage to hold it in.

But does this mean that the food we’ve been eating…

…were created by the oil monsters?

They started to leave the toilet after they're done, but then the new group of monsters would walk in right after, and continued doing the same thing.

That few minutes that I hid in the stool felt like hours, but eventually, they all left, and the last monster had finally closed the door.

I opened my stool door and inspected the food closer.

Yes… This looked exactly like the food from the dining room in the mansion.

Out of curiosity, I tried tasting the food.

The food was delicious…

Tears started raining down my cheeks as I realized that this whole time, I’ve only been eating the vomit of these monsters.

Did Hanako and Victoria know about this?

They either didn’t know at all or know but were forced to eat this food, since there’s nothing else to eat.

Regardless, it seemed like I would have to continue stomaching this food somehow. Just the thought of it disturbed me to no end.

I sat on the toilet floor for a while after to come to terms with these foods, then I pried the toilet door open a little, and the oil monsters have all gone now, so I walked out.

I figured that a safe place to sleep would be the top floor of the basement, so I headed back there in complete darkness.

Fortunately, I didn’t encounter any oil monsters on the way there.

When I got there, I saw something weird hanging from the ceiling.

It looked like some kind of tree branch. At the end, there was a lilac that glowed, similar to how it was back in the Garden, and there was a letter hanging from the branch as well.

I quickly approached the lilac, as I got closer the lilac and the letter fell down to me.

I opened up the letter, and use the illuminating lilac to see the content of the letter.

It read as followed:

“Hey! Daisuke, are you okay? You’re probably in the basement, right? I’m writing this while my mom was sleeping, I hope she doesn’t find out about this. I think that the basement is an old mansion or something like that. I remember that when I was really young, my mom and dad had to rebuild the mansion, but I don’t know why. Things down there should be pretty similar to the mansion up here. I’ll try to help you as much as I can, but I won’t be able to do much, because my mom will catch me. I hope that we can meet again someday. Stay safe! - Hanako”

Hanako…

Could I actually trust her at this point?

But right now, I have no one with me here anyway.

I guess we’ll see…

I want to rest up a bit before I decided what I will do next, so I laid down on the oily floor and closed my eyes.

It was hard falling asleep when I have to sleep on the cold, hard floor, without a pillow or a blanket, and especially when the floor was oily and slippery.

As I was just about to fall asleep, I felt something soft pushing against my back. I wanted to check what it was, but I was too tired and fell asleep right there.

It probably was just a dream anyway.

I woke up to a dark and wet corridor once again.

The hallway was almost pitch black; the only light source around me was the glowing lilac that came with Hanako’s letter yesterday.

I remembered the soft thing that pushed against me last night, so I picked up the lilac and started looking for it.

But I found nothing.

Huh? That weird…

Maybe it was a dream after all.

I got up and went down the spiral staircase to the lower floor. I wasn’t that hungry, and I didn’t want to eat anything just yet, so I skipped a floor and made my way down to the lower floor.

If this basement interior parallels the mansion above, this floor should have nothing important, so I intended to skip this floor too.

When I arrived at the next floor, it was a little too dark for me to see anything, but I did notice multiple silhouettes deeper into the corridor.

They were most likely the oil monsters, and they seemed to be moving as well, so I quickly moved past this floor, continuing down the stairs.

The next floor back in the mansion should be the floor that I came here from, it is also the floor where I encounter the trapdoor.

This floor too, has a bunch of silhouettes, come to think of it, those silhouettes appeared to be wandering aimlessly.

Are they different than the butlers and the maids from the mansion?

Or is it because they couldn’t see?

Either way, I decided to press onward for now, to the lowest floor.

As I was walking down the stairs, I noticed the commotion happening behind me.

I turned around to see what was happening, and I saw the oil monsters from the floor above.

They were tumbling blindly down the stairs. When I saw them, I hastily ran down the stairs to the bottom floor and quickly moved out of their way.

While they were tumbling down the stairs, I covered my lilac under my shirt, so that the monsters couldn’t see me.

When they all fall down the stairs, they were lying on the floor, stacking on top of each other. There were about 20 of them, with some of them still stuck on the stairs.

After a while, they slowly stood up and began to walk along the corridor.

If I remember correctly, they should be heading toward the dining room.

When all of them made it to the floor, and quietly followed them. The floor was wet from the oil, and if I walked too hard, they definitely will notice me.

As I suspected, they were heading to the dining room, but they didn’t walk in just yet, instead, they just waited in front of the door.

I waited right next to them, and after a while, the door swung open, and the oil monsters started walking to the dining room, and after all of them got in, the door quickly closed.

I might be mistaken, but I’m pretty that the oil monsters didn’t open the door on their own. Someone must have opened the door for them, and someone must have prepared those clear oil for them as well.

I stood in front of the door for a while, thinking about whether or not I should open that door, then suddenly, the door opened.

I quickly ran away from the door and moved toward the toilet. I went into the toilet and hid in one of the stalls once again.

Then the toilet door opened. I peeked out of the stool to see who it was.

A man holding a lantern walked in. He was wearing an old and dirty black suit.

He put the lantern down on the floor, then he got down and started eating the cold food created by the oil monsters.

When he’s done, he swiftly left the toilet, then after a while, the oil monster started rolling into the toilet, then once again, they vomit into the dishes, and left with piping hot food all over the floor.

I walked out of the stool and started to eat the food as well, the food was disgusting, but it was also very delicious at the same time. It seemed like this is my only food source after all.

While I was eating the food on the floor, the man walked back in.

We stood still and shared a glance for a second, then I took the rock pick out of my backpack, and pointed it at him.

“Back away from me!!” I shouted at him.