Prompt #130: When you step out of the car the humidity and sweltering heat cause you to gasp for air
Mansion
A large dip in the road shook all the occupants of the car, jolting the blond in the passenger's seat into consciousness with a grunt. "The fuck?" said blond groaned as he attempted to discreetly wipe the drool from the side of his mouth. His hair was a mess, but that wasn't unusual. It was styled like that on purpose. How they even let him be on camera looking like that was the only "mystery" worth solving.
"Pothole," the driver mumbled as he took a pull from his cigarette. "My bad."
"You so did that on purpose," the blond glared.
"Oh yeah, I just hit a pothole dead on and put my own tires at risk just to play one measly prank on poor little Demyx. Grow up. The world isn't out to get you."
"Not the world, just you. I don't know what your problem with me is but—"
The silver haired man in the back seat dragged his hands down the sides of his face as they argued. "I really don't get paid enough for this."
The second, much shorter blond in the back snorted as he scrolled through his social media page, tweeting fans about how excited he was to be filming the next episode of "Spirit Sesh" and retweeting their responses. An awful name for an awful TV show. Almost everything about it was a lie. The spirits, saying that Demyx had completed college, let alone attended in the first place, the fact that Axel's real name wasn't even Axel. The four of them got paid to do one thing, and that was lie their asses off on national television.
Lying to about fifty-nine percent of lazy, gullible Twilight Town residents had its perks. "Axel" got the fame and publicity he so desperately wanted, Demyx's music had been topping the charts ever since the show had aired two years ago, Roxas got to travel like he had always wanted to, and Zexion…he actually didn't audition to be on the show like the other three. The producers thought that if the son of a world renowned scientist joined the show, then more people would be inclined to believe that it was real. In return for using his son, they agreed to air commercials of his show throughout the program. It was a win-win situation for his father, but Zexion himself couldn't have cared less. He was getting paid and that was that.
Axel's car, along with five other vehicles, pulled up to a large iron gate that held a nice looking mansion inside of it. It looked warm and inviting, despite being covered in a couple layers of fluffy white snow. There were a few working lights scattered here and there, casting an orange hue over the front of it. The place looked much better in person than it did on the Polaroid photo they had been shown. How could anybody believe a place like this was actually haunted?
The redheaded driver smirked as he turned the car off. "Looks real haunted to me."
"I don't know, sometimes the things that look the most attractive on the outside are actually really ugly and full of shit on the inside. All that glitters is not gold and whatnot. I'm sure you know a lot about that, Ariel."
Axel's smirk melted into an ugly sneer as he looked back at his fellow actor, who smiled sweetly. Out of all of them, Zexion was undoubtedly the most condescending one. That was what the viewers loved about him. "If the fans didn't like you so much you'd be off my show."
"Your show?" Demyx laughed.
"Yes, my show. Now get the hell out of the car so we can film this bullshit."
Axel pushed the door open and stepped out of the car. Although his heavy boot crunched a bit of snow as he stepped down, a wave of unbearable heat nearly knocked him off of his feet. According to the weather report they'd seen earlier that day, it was supposed to be in the single digits. Axel himself had doubled his clothing because of his hatred for the cold, but this was just too hot. It felt like summer in Destiny Islands.
"Jesus Christ," he gasped as he pulled the scarf from around his neck and tossed it on the ground. The next to go was his jacket and his second shirt. The other three actors did the same as the exited the vehicle. It was a struggle just to breathe, and the lack of heavy clothing didn't help a single bit. What all four men found odd was that even though they had immediately begun to sweat, they could still see their breaths curl away from them in thin clouds as they exhaled.
While they continued to gasp and fan themselves with their hands, one of the crew members approached them with a large camera sitting on his shoulder. "How's the weather, boys?"
"Why does it feel like the pit of Hell out here?" Demyx moaned, attempting to fan himself with Axel's car door. He stopped once he received a particularly nasty glare from the redhead. "My bad…"
Zexion frowned, wiping the sweat of his brow on the sleeve of his maroon thermal. "I don't understand. There has to be an explanation as to why it feels like a furnace while there's snow out here."
"According to the rumors, it always feels unbearably hot outside of the mansion, but you feel an "unnatural chill" once you're inside. Maybe the place really is haunted," the camera man chuckled.
"Or maybe the snow is fake and the heat inside the mansion has been cranked up to nine hundred," Roxas murmured as he grabbed his coat. "We don't have time to waste. Let's get in and get out."
The four men, along with the crew following closely behind them, approached the mansion in silence. One of them would have to go back and do a voiceover, telling the viewers about how unnatural and eerie their surroundings felt. For dramatic effect, of course. Besides the suffocating heat, it was actually very peaceful. The large wooden doors groaned loudly as Axel and Demyx worked together to get them open. The two of them had been "friends since diapers" and did everything together, so the audience would probably love that.
"Okay, I'm gonna go over the story one more time," a tall woman with short blonde hair and electric green eyes called ad she pushed her way to the front of the crew. "People claim that this mansion has been haunted by several spirits for several years, but the main ones you guys need to worry about will be Dr. Ansem Wise, Naminé, Vanitas, and The Seeker of Darkness; Axel, you'll be hearing things from Ansem, Roxas will be hearing from Naminé, Demyx will be hearing from SOD, and Zexion will be hearing from the Vanitas. Now, people say that Ansem Wise was the original owner of the mansion from the time it was built, but he was caught up in a lot of black magic shit. He was searching for something called DTD— Door To Darkness —when he instead found the SOD. He died in this house, and the SOD apparently made him kill anyone who entered the house. Naminé is supposed to be a young girl who once lived here with her family, who was killed by SOD…or Ansem, I don't fucking know. So she killed herself, binding her soul to this mansion so she could help anyone who wandered in here. Vanitas was just a naturally evil guy who wanted to see if the rumor was true, but he wound up dying here. There's not much to tell about him. Questions, comments, concerns?"
The brief silence that had followed her speech was interrupted by side-splitting laughter from the four faux ghost hunters. The woman gave them a fair amount of time to calm down before barking at them to get their acts together. "We've all studied our scripts, yes? We need to be rolling."
"Yes, yes, we know our lines," Roxas assured her with a pleasant smile and a dismissing wave. "All you need to worry about is making sure they get a good shot of us going up the Stairs of Darkness."
Axel snorted, nudging his co-host playfully. "And then after we're done, we can spend the night here and have one huge Sleepover of Darkness."
"I can even bring my Guitar of Darkness!"
"I'll bring popcorn."
"Of darkness?"
"No, I ran out of that flavor just last week."
The men snickered amongst themselves as the woman rolled her eyes. "All right, assholes. We're rolling in three, two…!"
The moment the camera lights came on, all of the men's amusement dried up. It was time to earn their paychecks.
-.-
A couple hours into recording absolutely nothing and faking reactions to sounds they didn't hear and things they didn't feel— Did you hear that? Dude, I totally felt this weird energy right around here. —they took a break. Axel went to the bathroom, Roxas went downstairs for food, Demyx decided to take a well earned twenty minute nap, and Zexion visited the very impressive library that still remained in the house.
The books that he'd found were amazing. To him, anyway. He had accidentally found lost copies to books he, along with several others, had put in at least five plus years trying to search for them. For an introverted bookworm like himself, he had found heaven. Maybe he could tell his father to pull some strings and get the crew to film another episode here in the future because that library was to die for.
As he carefully climbed down the ladder with several large books in his arms, he wondered why all of the books were still there and hadn't been taken away from the house. Or if anyone else knew about their whereabouts, but left them there because they genuinely thought this place was haunted. Fools.
He wiped the dust off one of the leather covers and sighed contentedly as he spread them out on a small round table. Even if he only got to read a few sentences of it, he would be happy to know that he'd at least found them. Probably before anyone else.
He peeled the book open to find even more dust inside, but that didn't deter him any. He eagerly flipped a couple more of the incredibly stiff pages, careful not to tear the ones that were stuck together. But they were here and they were legible. The "lost" pages of Dr. Ienzo's book. This was the man who had discovered what he called Heartless, but hid the discovery because some things just weren't meant to be seen. Zexion wanted to know more. Internet research could only take him so far, but now the truth as to what the Heartless actually were was right in front of him.
You can't call yourself a scientist until you know the difference between fact and fiction. More often than not, you are debunking a bunch of false claims for the sake of the public's sanity, and yet, some still choose to believe in the outlandish conspiracy theories and old wives tales that have been floating around for centuries.
What I am about to disclose is neither of the two.
I once studied under a man by the name of Dr. Ansem Wise. He was a charming, older fellow who was just as caring as he was stubborn.
Zexion's brow furrowed as he quickly scanned over the next few paragraphs. He had never heard of him studying under this man before. He openly spoken about Dr. Lucrecia, Dr. Michael, and several other widely known names, but never any Ansem. He all but sank into the book, flipping pages and reading random pieces that centered around this Ansem character.
Dr. Ansem was never one to raise his voice. I remember him fondly; a patient man with a passion for everything he gave even the smallest ounce of attention to. Everything He did was either perfect or a complete failure, and he was not a man who took failure lightly.
He had begun to cover his face and go by the name of DiZ near the end. Working with him was an amazing experience that I shall never forget, but it was extremely painful to watch someone you admire and care for deeply slowly lose his mind. I had idolized this man for so long, and I felt as if I would be betraying him if I left his side during his darkest time.
We were eventually forced to part ways. I had begun seeing and hearing things that didn't make sense and I feared that I had followed my idol straight down the rabbit hole. When I left him, he was at his worst. This once clean and polished man was now a disheveled, pitiful looking man who had scribbled DTD on his wall in purple marker, along with notes that didn't make a bit of sense. He begged me to stay, and cried when I took my leave. To this day, my heart still breaks from the image of him laying on the floor and curling up into a fetal position.
I can't say if it was the research, the seclusion, or the mansion itself that drove him insane, but he truly had gone off the deep end. A part of me this that if I had stayed with him, he would have lived longer. I fear that…bearing the burden of his madness alone drove him to take his own life. I cannot confirm that this is so. I am a man of science, but even scientists have to rely on their gut feelings some times.
At times, I wonder if I myself am going insane, and if it is because of his death or because of the field I chose to study.
Some things cannot be explained. I cannot explain why I feel as though that place is calling out to me.
"These books are a good find."
Zexion looked up to see a dark haired man with these…freaky yellow contacts standing in front of him and staring at the books with a small grin. He was probably with the crew, but he couldn't remember. His brain was flooded with new information that he'd yet to process properly. "Yeah. It's crazy that they're just sitting here collecting dust. I could actually do something with these. People need to know this."
The dark haired guy brushed a little more of the dust off the book as he took a seat at the table. There was this odd twinkle in his eye, but Zexion didn't think it was important. "I've heard that other people who have found these same books go missing. Something about the spirits in the house not wanting them to be found because it could unlock the secrets of the Door to Darkness." At the end of his sentence, he added a tremble in his voice as if he were telling a kid a ghost story before bed time. The two men laughed, gazes eventually drifting back to the book.
"There may not be a Door to Darkness, but there may be something else," he paused, flipping another page of the book. "I feel like it's hidden in this library. Probably in these books."
"Well…there is something. There's this switch over here that opens a wall— you gotta come see."
Zexion hesitated, but quickly decided that he wasn't going to waste any opportunity to learn more about the mansion, Dr. Ansem, Dr. Ienzo, or anyone else who may have studied under him. He was led to the back of the library and came to a shelf full of books. "See that purple one right there? Pull it."
Zexion, though he didn't exactly know why he had to be the one to do it, touched the top of the book and tilted it toward himself. A couple gears turned loudly as the shelf began to slide to the left, revealing a metal staircase that traveled down into seemingly mothing. It was too dark to see anything past four steps. That's when the light bulb went off; it was a library with a secret passageway. He was aware that they existed, but not in this century. Then again, there was no telling what intentions this mansion was built with. It may not have been haunted, but it was sure to have a couple of secrets stored away down there. "Is it safe to go down here?"
"If it wasn't, I wouldn't be showing it to you. Go ahead."
Letting his curiosity get the better of him, he took a couple cautious steps down. Once he was sure he heard the footsteps of the other man behind him, he continued on at a much more relaxed pace. However, his eyes never adjusted to the dark. It would have been much more exciting if he could see. "Do the lights work down here?"
"No. No they don't."
The footsteps he'd heard behind him stopped abruptly as the shelf started to slide back into place. Zexion tried to look around for the other man, but quickly ditched all efforts of finding him and ran back up the stairs. The light from the library were disappearing as the shelf closed faster than it had opened. "Shit, wait! Hey!"
His palms hit the back end of the shelf just as it had settled into place with a loud groan. Trying to pull it open didn't work, and calling for the guy that led him down there to help him didn't work. The only thing left to do, as weak as it made him feel, was to bang on the shelf and scream for help. Someone would find him. They saw him go into the library.
-.-
Larxene, the blonde woman from before, tore through the house looking for the idiots that called themselves ghost hunters. Every single one of them were late coming back from their breaks and she was pissed. Roxas was the easiest to find, as he was still glued to the buffet table they had set up earlier. "Get over here," she hissed as she pulled him away by the back of his neck and forced him back up the stairs.
"Everybody get back to your stations! This show isn't going to bullshit itself!" she roared, kicking one of the thin doors open as she let the poor blond go. "DEMYX!"
He slipped off of the bed and onto the floor, eyes still crossed from sleep. No one understood how a single person could sleep so much. "What man? I'm tired…"
"Get up so we can film this shit now. Where are the other two?"
Roxas, who was rubbing the back of his neck to ease the pain of her death grip, sighed. "Axel said something about taking a piss, and Zex is in the library."
"Get Axel," she growled as she made her way into the library. Upon entering, she saw that it was completely empty. There was nothing on the round table and everything appeared untouched. "Zexion!" Larxene walked in between each and every shelf, only finding a dusty ladder and even dustier books. There was an unnerving silence and an uncomfortable chill to the room. No Zexion.
"Oh, fuck me. He's not in here, Roxas!"
-.-
"Larxene! Larxene! Pull the purple book!"
His hands were starting to ache from banging on what felt like a cement wall for twenty, thirty, forty minutes? Once he'd heard her footsteps recede, he pressed his forehead against the wall and sank to his knees. His throat was raw and he couldn't scream anymore.
In the darkness, he felt something brush his ankle. He assumed it was a rat until it gently circled around him like a hand would. "What the—?"
All of a sudden, the pressure on his ankle tightened. A terrified scream ripped through his throat as something hidden in the darkness dragged him down the stairs.
-.-
"So nobody knows where he is?" Axel asked as he leaned back into the surprisingly comfortable couch.
"Nope. Larxene said he wasn't in the library. I don't know where else he would go. All the guy cares about is books, science, and books about science," Demyx pondered aloud, staring into the empty space in front of him.
Roxas was on his phone, tweeting about Zexion's disappearance as if it were something paranormal. People were going crazy asking him questions, tweeting and retweeting everything he posted, and tagging their friends. "Guys, Twitter is blowing up because Zexion's missing. They're asking me to go live on IG and show them the library.
"Can you at least wait until we find him? The last thing I wanna do is exploit this if it just turns out he's taking a massive shit somewhere deep in the mansion," Axel frowned.
"Too late. We're going live right now." Roxas paused for a few seconds, then held his phone above his head. "You guys wanted live, I'm giving you live. Axel and Demyx are here— say hey guys." They waved awkwardly with small plastic smiles. "We still haven't seen any sign of Zexion, but I swear I saw him go in and never come out. I'm about to head to the library right now and show you guys what it looks like. You guys coming?"
"You guys go. I'm really not feeling it," Axel groaned, trying ignore the weird vibe he felt.
Roxas looked to Demyx. "Well, you gotta come with me. I'm definitely not going by myself."
"Man, Rox—"
"Let's go, bro."
So the two blonds set off toward the library, the taller one uncharacteristically quiet while the other answered most of the questions that popped up on his screen. Roxas was excited to have over twenty thousand people tune in to his live stream. That was the most he'd ever had before.
"No, they didn't see him go into the library. It was just me. All of us have swept the entire library like four times and he wasn't there. We tried looking other places too, but no luck. It's kind of freaking me out knowing a whole human being can just disappear like that."
"Roxas!"
He looked back to see who had called him. It sounded like Larxene, but she hadn't stormed out of some room and grabbed him by his neck yet. "Yeah?!"
Demyx looked at him with narrowed eyes. He wasn't sure if he was acting or if he had genuinely heard something. If not, this was not the time to be dramatic. "Dude—?"
"Here, take this. I'm gonna go see what she wants." Roxas gave him the phone and stalked off towards the door on the opposite side of the hallway. He heard his name called again. It was coming from the all white room they had seen earlier.
Roxas turned the knob and slowly pushed the door open. There was a blonde girl sitting at the table, but it wasn't Larxene. "Uh, hey?"
"You can come in."
-.-
Demyx did his best to answer the questions as they came in, though he felt really awkward doing it. His worry for his fellow actor was genuine, and his stomach was beginning to twist itself into knots.
"I'm not sure. He said he was going to see what "she" wanted, but I don't have any idea who she is. Should I follow him?"
A bunch of responses flooded in. Most of the people who weren't trolling agreed that he should go find him. Except for one weird comment that he couldn't make any sense of.
Who is that behind you on the right?
-.-
"Are you with the crew?" Roxas asked as politely as he could.
The girl didn't bother to answer his question. Again. Or look at him for that matter. "Your friend is in the library. One of the shelves move, but you have to pull this purple book out to get it to open."
"How do you know that?"
"You guys aren't safe out there. You should leave before they get really mad."
As someone who was used to getting a lot of attention on social media, he couldn't stand to be ignored. Even more than that, he hated for people to look elsewhere while they were talking to him. That was just disrespectful. "Can you look at me and answer my questions? Who are you?"
The girl turned her attention to him, showing off her sparkling blue eyes and a small pout. Roxas was frozen. No, paralyzed felt like a better description. He couldn't move or speak and it was terrifying. "He's gonna get hurt."
Just seconds after the words left her lips, there was a loud, wooden crack out in the hallway. It wasn't until he heard a loud thud that he was able to move. Roxas hesitated for five long seconds before he ran out of the room. The railing on the balcony was broken and splintered…and a body lay amongst the debris several feet below. His phone screen was cracked beyond repair, but he was more concerned about the awkward angle Demyx's neck was in.
"Larxene…" he called, voice cracking as he took a few steps away from the railing. He felt the acidic burn of bile rise in his throat as he collapsed against the back wall. "Larxene!"
-.-
The police had been called. Zexion was still missing, Demyx had been rolled out in a body bag, and the last two TV personalities were thoroughly shaken. Roxas didn't even care that his phone was being confiscated by the officers. What bothered him was the white tape on the floor in the shape of his former coworker's body, and that was sectioned off by yellow police tape. He'd been shocked into silence.
Axel wasn't holding up any better. The surrounding crew members all believed that Demyx's death had sank in too fast, and blamed his behavior on that when he had exploded on the cop that was questioning him. The poor guy had gone on a violent rampage the moment he was asked, "Where were you during the alleged fall?" It had apparently sounded like an accusation to him and, well…he had to be tased into submission.
Larxene paced back and forth, frowning deeper than what the crew considered usual and answering all questions quickly. The air around her was dangerously electric and those who dared get close to her found themselves choking on their words almost instantly.
An officer by the name of Cid approached the nearly catatonic blond on the bottom of the stairs, taking the thoroughly chewed toothpick out of his mouth to speak. "You all right, kid?"
Roxas remained silent, wide eyes fixed on the floor.
He sighed heavily, disturbing the phlegm in the back of his throat. "Still not talking, huh? Look, if you just tell me where you were during the time of this guy's fall, I could at least find you less suspicious."
Nothing. Not even a small grunt, or any indication that he had even heard him. It wasn't that he didn't want to talk. He just couldn't find any words. Everything everyone said absorbed into his brain, but the part of his brain that was able to produce coherent responses had apparently shut down. So many things were going through his head. Why didn't he go with Zexion to the library? Why did he have to go live and bring Demyx with him? Damn it, he should have stayed with him. But then there was that girl.
You need to get out of here.
Roxas slowly lifted his eyes to see a tall blond with a horrifyingly familiar hairstyle. His eyes widened even more, if possible, as his mouth tried to find words. How could he be standing there? What the hell kind of sick prank was this?
Get out.
Everyone stopped what they were doing to look at the small blond, who seemed even smaller as he let out a blood curdling scream and curled in on himself. The screaming slowly died down into sobs as the officer tried in vain to get an explanation out of him.
Larxene threaded her fingers through her own hair and pulled hard. Her patience had officially run out, she was sick to her stomach, and she just couldn't take it anymore. "My team, let's go! Pack it up and move it out!"
"Ma'am, you can't leave. We still have to—"
She reached out and grabbed the collar of the officer that spoke, twisting the material until he could barely breathe. Her face had finally dropped into an expression one could only describe as emotionless stone as she spoke it a deep, calm voice. "I have had it up to here," she motioned to the empty space above her head, "With this fucking house. One of my stars is missing, one of them is dead, one has been tased, one has probably lost his mind, and I am seeing shit that doesn't make sense. I said to pack it up and move it out, so my team is going to pack it up and move. It. Out. Is that understood?"
Upon agreement, she released him and stormed out of the house.
The "ghost hunting crew" left. A couple hours later, the police left after one officer began to behave strangely. He'd started calling himself the Seeker of Darkness, and had suddenly adopted a strange accent. After watching Roxas' live video on his Instagram account, they decided that he had indeed fallen and ruled his death as accidental. Zexion had not been found, despite mumblings from the sobbing blond about a purple book.
Roxas had been checked into a mental institution a month after their failed filming. He had been deemed a danger to society when he'd trashed a public library, claiming to know where Zexion was, and engaged with the staff who had tried to stop him. Axel had moved on to another fake ghost hunting show, but immediately quit when they caught a real EVP telling him to go back to the mansion. He had gone on to act in several movies, but could never shake the feeling that something was always watching him.
Larxene never talked about what she had seen in the mansion. She had gone completely off the grid, and no one from the crew had ever seen her again.
All of their lives were changed forever. No matter how hard they tried to suppress the memories, both of the remaining men felt like there was this magnetic pull on them…and that it would eventually drag them right back to that mansion.
-.-
This isn't how I expected this to go. It was supposed to be much funnier and sort of cute, but I never any good at making cute things. But hey, this prompt got done just in time for Halloween! Ah, my second Halloween on this site. It feels really good, man. I didn't think I'd still be here for a lot of reasons, but here we are. Feel free to drop a review and tell me what you liked and where I could improve. (I know this is kind of ass but I'm trying real fucking hard yo.)
Even if you don't, thanks for reading up to this point. You really didn't have to, but you did it anyway and I'm grateful. I might do a sequel next year, but I'm not sure. Maybe it's good like it is?