Greetings, my dear readers. Thank you for your generous patience with this Fanfiction. The full explanation of why I had been inactive as of lately will be explained at the end of the Fanfic. As you no doubt are aware, I am in the process of re-writing this Fanfiction, as well as another. I will be making this a Horror based Fanfiction with slight romance, rather than pure smut. In essence, in order to keep such a Fanfiction from being too repetitive, I've made a few... changes.
Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion: Trial of the Heart
Chapter 1
The Old Mansion
Ever since he was a young boy, Eric McCormick had been intrigued by the mansion at the top of the mountain. It was as if something in that mansion called for him… Nobody seemed to know when or who built the mansion, just that it had been there for ages. Standing watch over the village down below. However, everyone was told to never venture up that mountain path. The elders always told wild stories about the mansion. Each story was different; some would tell fables of a spirit that walked the path, her throat slashed open, blood soaking her snow-white blouse, her skin paler than the moon itself. She would wander the road, slashing the throats of all that came across her path. One even told the local kids of a local girl about sixteen, who had wandered up the same path long ago.
She bravely went up the mountain path, and about a month later, came back down. The girl walked without clothes, and numerous deep slices adorned her bare body, leaving a trail bloodied trail down the mountain. She had torn her hair out, and gouged both of her eyes out. Black sludge dripped from both her mangled eyes and from her mouth. Yet she was smiling. Smiling as if she were enjoying a lovely sunny day. Then she collapsed. Eric never believed the story, the news would have been abuzz with something like that.
Eric looked up at the trail sign and then back to the sleepy village, it was early enough for Eric to be confident about not being spotted and he pushed all of the dark thoughts back.
'Just superstition,' He tried to reassure himself, but deep down, he had a dim feeling this would be his only chance to turn around.
Eric slung off his backpack and rummaged through the contents in one final check, food for a week, sleeping supplies and a toothbrush and toothpaste. He then nodded and zipped up the backpack as he gathered up his courage and began his ascent up the mountain trail. He continued until he reached a bridge, there was a lovely waterfall nearby and he stopped and gazed into the water below. Suddenly in the reflection he saw something move and spun around, only to find nothing. Eric continued his journey and finally reached the top of the mountain, standing underneath the shadow of the imposing mansion; he quivered. As Eric stood, gazing at the dilapidated house. He shivered, as though ice had replaced his spine. The chilly air enveloped his entire body. The multiple layer of clothing could not protect against the deathly cold. The walkway leading up to house were cracked. Weeds and dandelions poked out from these cracks. Red roses grown wildly in thick batches by the gate. The moonlight cast a ghoulish glow on the house. Vines formed a twisted maze upon the side of house, reaching their tentacles towards the roof. Eric and knocked on the door. The double doors creaked ominously open and he ventured hesitantly into the eerie mansion with a dreadful sense of foreboding. The door begrudgingly creaked open. A musty, dank order creep into my nose. The house was dead silent, except for a fee intermittent creaks and moans. With a loud screech, the doors slammed shut and Eric could not pull them apart, he turned around and froze in shock as his heart pounded within his chest.
Floating in the air near the broken but elaborate chandelier, was a young girl. She had long blue hair that seemed to sway in a gentle, unseen breeze and her skin was also tinted a slight shade of blue as well. Her feet were bare and she wore a dress that was tattered at the bottom. Eric's breath caught in fear.
'I, I'm going to die now...' he thought to himself and prepared himself for the worst amount of pain in his short life.
"Hello, I am Spooky." The ghostly girl introduced herself, and Eric sat there stunned, "And this is my home, in order for you to leave here, you must make it through one thousand rooms."
Eric looked up at her more closely and found his voice. "A thousand rooms, why?"
The ghost girl looked down to him and gave him a sly smirk; Eric was beginning to feel uneasy.
"One thousand rooms, it can't be that hard," The specter said with an odd tinge to her voice, "Can you find what lies at the end? Or is there even an end? Cuz I, don't really know..."
"What?" Eric asked, a little puzzled, it seemed the ghost girl was beginning to have trouble speaking to him and her gaze was focused somewhere else.
"Anyway, just... just go" The specter stammered as she floated upwards through the ceiling, leaving Eric in a stunned silence.
He looked at the single door in the room in front and walked over to it and entered the next room. He tried the door he had just entered from, but it wouldn't open again. Eric then took stock of his surroundings, he was in an empty, 50' x 50 cm room. There were two doors leading out of the room. Eric tried the door on the right, but it seemed to be stuck. He then tried the door in the front of the room and entered the next room.
"Well, at least the rooms seem small enough," Eric sighed, the next room wasn't anything special, more like a hall really, "If all the rooms are like this, I think I might make it out before I die of starvation..."
He proceeded through the next door and into the next room, and sighed. This room was much different than those before. The room was significantly bigger as well. To his right, Eric could see another room through a doorway without a door. The doorway in front of him led off into a hallway. Eric took a right. The room again was nothing special, and he tried the door to his left. No use, it wouldn't budge. He backtracked and went through the hallway, suddenly the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. With a hasty turn, Eric tried to catch the silent stalker behind him. Only to find nothing. Maybe he was imagining things? Eric sighed, and entered the next room. This one had a note on a table.
'At first this place just seemed cute, but I've been here for days now... I'm feeling quite parched now, and I keep getting this feeling like I am being watched by something. This is not romantic at all...' The note read, and Eric stared in confusion.
"Why the hell would anyone think this place is romantic?" He questioned aloud, setting down the note.
Eric exited the room, and wound up in a weird looking room. He was sure that he was inside the home, but it looked like a part of the wall seemed to be a window looking outside. That is until he touched the glass, realizing only then that the scenery had been painted on. Clever. He tried the room to his right, and found the door to be stuck, so he entered through the doorway across from where he had entered. There was another note on a table, which also had a skull on it.
'I know something is following me. But I feel like I am prancing through the same rooms over and over... Hopefully leaving notes as breadcrumbs will prove I am making progress and reaching some destination. I just hope I don't run out of ink. I am dreadfully thirsty.' The second not read.
Eric shivered, maybe he didn't imagine being stalked through the halls after all. No… He could feel a presence behind him now, there was no mistaking it. He spun around and lashed out, his fist catching nothing but air. The mansion was toying with him.
"I'm just imagining things." Eric reassured himself, placing the note down.
Eric exited the room and paused. Between the two doors on the far end of the empty room, Spooky was reclining in one of the chairs, with a grin on her face. His heart thudded in his chest. His hands shook. Spooky floated closer to Eric, and the air around him seemed to freeze.
"Well! I didn't think you'd get here so quickly!" Spooky said to him in a cheerful tone, and then pointing to the door on the left. "Anyways, that door needs a key, and there's a key somewhere here… Good luck!"
Eric's mouth hung open as Spooky rose up through the ceiling, she had such a frightful aura a moment ago, and then turned a full 180 into being sort of cute… What the heck was up with Spooky? He took the door on the left. He felt wrong the moment the door closed behind him. Not sick, not alert, just something felt off. The silence was deafening. He passed through the small little hallway and on into the next room. A group of draconic faces have been carved into the north wall, and someone had scrawled "The Wyrm Queen shall destroy magic forever when the Hydra is broken" next to them.
"Weird…" Eric commented, keeping his eyes on the faces.
Their hollow eyes seemed to follow his every movement. He hurried on out of the room. He breezed by the next room and stopped. Behind him was a worn stone statue, in front of him, the hallway split in two directions. Left or right. Eric chose to go right. The moment he turned the corner, he happened across a door. Next to the door, was an image of Spooky giving him a "thumbs up", and a message written in a dark color also read "NO DON'T!". Eric decided to leave the door alone. He walked on down the halls, there was a noticeable chill in the air now. At the end of the hallway, a solitary candle, itself half lost in darkness, was mounted upon the. A lump formed in Eric's throat. Its tapered bulbs cast shadows, transforming the candle into the visage of some dark god who mocked the light. Perhaps the dreaded deity was Lucifer himself, Eric thought to himself.
Again, he felt as if something was terribly wrong. Yet he couldn't place it. There was a slight draft in the area, or so he hoped. Faint whispers seemed to be in the breeze.
The moment Eric took a step forwards, a skeleton cutout popped out with an ear-piercing and eerie screech.
"Holy fucking shit!" Eric cursed loudly in terror, his heart beating rapidly and his breathing heavy, "Jesus Christ that scared the hell out of me..." There was a note on the skeleton, and Eric picked it up.
'Ink... Not quite quenching my thirst. Taste is terrible, stains are terrible. I don't think drinking it was a very romantic idea.' The note read. Eric's eyes widened in surprise, a man had come into town one day looking at all the "Romantic" spots in the small village and ventured up the mountain, he was ever seen again. Eric scoffed a little, 'Romantic my ass, I just had a damn heart attack.'
"This is stupid." He growled to himself.
Something growled back. Eric took off, not wanting to meet whatever had just made that guttural growl. Eric sprinted as fast as he could, yet he knew that, eventually, he would have to stop. The beast was right behind him, and it was gaining on him, its powerful legs pumping and its bared teeth gleaming with vicious menace. A painful ache curled in his abdomen as Eric rounded a corner, every step he took it got slightly worse, until it was like a poison that was eating him up from the inside. Perhaps it was burning a hole in his stomach. Eric came to another intersection, and quickly glanced left. A door! He burst through the door and into a room. Eric instantly went through a doorway, and hid behind a wall. There was another door that went back to the same room, and Eric cautiously opened it up, waiting for his chance to pull a fast one on the monster. Snarling filled the room, but nothing had come in…
Something glinted in the corner of his eye, and Eric picked up a coin. He threw it out of the sub room he was in, and nothing happened as it clanked in the corner. Eric's gaze settled on something in the far upper corner of the room he had thrown the coin, and his eyes widened. No. No way. Eric calmly walked out of his hiding place. There was no monster. The growling had come from hidden speakers.
"Clever." Eric grunted, his heartbeat returning to normal. "Real clever."
Eric tried the door on the left. There was a note on the wall. Eric tried to make out the writing, but it had faded. There was nothing else in the room, and so he backtracked. His confidence returning, Eric let out a small smirk. This had to be some sort of test. Spooky was probably just a hologram. It made sense, since everything else seemed to be a fake. Eric passed the door with the image of Spooky, concluding that the door was fake after trying the doorknob. He proceeded forwards, and, Screeeeeech! A cardboard cutout screamed at Eric as it popped out of the wall, he jumped a mile high while cursing up a storm worthy of a sailor's mouth and his reflexes caused him to punch the offending object. The board cut up his knuckles and he stared at the light blue, teardrop shaped ghost cutout.
"..." Eric stared longer, looking down to his bloody knuckles and back up to the smiling cutout, a tic mark forming on his forehead and he twitched, the cutout kept smiling back at him, "Stop mocking me!" He yelled irritably at the cutout and stomped through the door without looking back at the cutout, fuming and embarrassed, leaving the room through the door.
The next room was connected to a hallway with a few visible dead ends, and so Eric entered the main room. A foul odor filled the south side of the room, and a charred blanket lied in the south-east corner of the room. Someone had also scrawled "You cannot kill it with magic" on the south wall. Eric turned to find a tile mosaic of ghoulish carnage covering the north wall. He wanted to vomit right then and there, the burn of bile rising in his throat. Eric tore his eyes away from the horrid imagery, sure that he would have lasting nightmares about seeing that mural, and cheese. To his right, there was a table, and on it, a silver key. Eric hastily took the key, and left the room. Something wasn't right. He froze. The broken door was now open. Acting upon morbid curiosity, Eric walked towards the door. That is until he saw the fresh blood.
Eric quickly turned the corner and went back to the main room, inserting the key and unlocking the door. He entered the next room, and heard the door re-lock. It didn't matter. He still had the… Wait… The key had vanished from Eric's hand.
"B… But how?" Eric wondered, beginning to feel uneasy. "I know I didn't drop it…"
The door behind him shuddered, and a low growl was heard on the other side. Eric hastily exited the small hallway-like room, and into the next. This room was different from the others he had previously encountered. It felt older almost, and Eric began to take a look around. He went into another room via a doorway, and found a treasure chest. In the chest was a small golden coin and a poem that read.
"Before Old Charon I now stand. A bushel of berries for this ferryman. The guardsman of fate expresses his guilt. For the broken promises he has spilt, forget the italics, of my brash remark, ford the wide styx, sings the deathly lark. A limerick of longing hollows my mind, the verbal flogging hardens my heart from the kind. His hand reaches out, and I give him his due, he offers me one piece of advice, each for my gold."
Eric realized that the coin was a sort-of key, and he held onto it tightly, moving on through the next doorway. His heart froze. There was a statue of Death in the far end of the room. Cloaked in a black robe, and his hand outstretched to Eric. The statue seemed to be waiting, and so Eric shakily walked up to it, lacing the coin in the statue's hand. Almost immediately, the right arm began to move, a boney finger pointing at the wall. There was an intricate diagram of a mechanical trap on the wall behind Eric. It had not been there before. Eric snapped a picture of the diagram. A hand firmly grasped his shoulder and he yelled as he was forced to turn around. He stared straight into the face of Death. His face. All faces, and nobody's face. The room had grown so cold now, that it physically hurt. It wasn't a natural chill, no, it was something much more sinister.
Death's robes glimmered with shades of cool colors, as if he was wearing a universe. His wings were grey and trailing, Eric could not move; his body would not respond. The shadows were moving on their own accord. Some shadows were like dark smoke, and others like a grey mist, thrashing around on the edge of the room as if they were desperately trying to get away from them. Eric stared at Death. Then Death opened his mouth.
"SIX SHALL COME, SIX SHALL GO. TWO SHALL LEAVE, FOUR SHALL STAY. ALL WILL COME TO ME." Death spoke to Eric.
Just listening to that voice made Eric want to keel over. He felt as if his soul were being drawn to Death. He was sure Death could just simply order him to die, and Eric's soul would have obeyed without hesitation or question. The white mist swirled around Eric, obscuring Death. Eric suddenly bolted awake while clutching his heart, panting and gasping for air. He looked around the room, his heart beating like a jackhammer and a drop of sweat trickled from his brow, dripping off his nose and onto the cool, stony ground.
"Wh-What just…" Eric stammered, staring at the statue.
He left the room, shaken, and cold. Eric entered the next room and stopped in his tracks. There was a trap here. He recognized the room's layout. It was a simple trap, but one guaranteed to work if a person didn't have any knowledge of it. This made things more complicated, he would have to search every room if given the opportunity. Eric followed the path on the picture on his phone, careful to keep on the path. The next few rooms were a breeze, yet Eric didn't let his guard down. His hopes for this mansion being some sort of test were dashed a long time ago, and he felt as if he had stepped into something far more dangerous than he had ever anticipated.
He opened a door and ended up in a subterranean elevator, inside there were a few windows where one could only really touch the rock, a table with a chair and what appeared to be a bed, there was a cute cat poster with the quote "Hang in there" on the wall which Eric deadpanned at, and a button on the far side next to an opening about as tall and wide as a door. Eric decided to rest for a bit and pulled out a bottle of water, careful on how much he needed to consume to save his supplies for the rest of his journey into the mansion. Something groaned above the elevator and Eric frantically sprinted over to the button and slammed his hand down upon the big red button repeatedly, ever so slowly did the elevator begin its descent deeper within the twisted mansion. Eric did not stop panicking until the elevator groaned to a halt and a rusty metal door was in front, he opened the door and closed it rapidly, not wanting to find out what had made the noise.
The mansion has changed, and with it, its perils. A unique twist has been given to some rooms, and soon, a more sinister twist shall be revealed. Right now, I have a literal map of each floor, and notes about certain... changes, thanks to a dungeon creator. Soon, things will become dire, and the outcome of each choice means survival, or a fate worse than death. Just what does the sinister Spooky have in store for our young protagonist? Find out next in chapter two of Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion: Trial of the Heart. Dont be a stranger, and leave a comment/review! Agent Archange, signing out.
