"Don't you know there ain't no devil? There's only God when He's drunk."
Chatter began to fill the gigantic living room, as we waited for what seems like an eternity, for the long forgotten further instruction. The butler Dan would come around here and there, offering food and mostly wine. As for me, they have juices which are not my favorite things to drink. I'd rather drink tea instead of juices.
A usual, I hate gatherings of all kinds. Especially pointless ones like this. But I didn't have the urge to leave yet, for I am anxious to find out what I can about Lanmia.
"Sebastian"
"Yes Young Mistress?"
"I want you to observe this place, in case there's anything strange"
Sebastian smiles, "I've already did"
"Then tell me, have you noticed anything?"
"Most certainly. There are currently fourteen people in this living room. They are Dan, the butler of this manor and the thirteen guests including you and me. Among them, the ones we knew about are Detective Baerch and Grayhem, Mr. Fitzenburg, and Miss Marlene Street"
"And Gaspard Lowe"
"You know him?"
"Yeah, he's like me, one of the experiments of Lanmia. I've come across him a few times at the lab"
"Hm, interesting… then there is Iris Del Lerons"
"Who is she?"
"She is a prostitute… who claimed that her son got kidnapped by Ian Randolph. It's all in the news"
"Demons read news?"
"Hm, why not?" Sebastian shrugs. "The identity of all the other five guests is still unknown"
The front door to the living room opens again as the maids step inside.
"We will call you one by one. The one whose name was called will follow us into one of the doors. The first name will be Grayhem" And so Grayhem stands up and follows the maids into one of the doors to the right of the living room.
"What's the most bizarre," Sebastian continues, "are this whole manor and this living room"
"What do you mean?"
"On our way to the living room, we are just walking in a long hallway that leads straight from the entrance. The hallway is too narrow for most manors, only enough to fit one person in front of the other.
In the hallway, there is nothing but walls and a door straight ahead as if it was intended to lead you straight into the living room where it's the most important"
"In most rich manors, they would at least have a window or pictures to show off its wealth. But… there was nothing"
"Not only that, but the whole manor seems abnormally large and twisted.
The living room of course, is certainly strange"
I glance around, "now that you mentioned it, this room really is weird. There are five doors this living room. There's the one at the back that leads from the entrance, three at the right side of the wall, and one at the left next to an abnormally large painting.
Not only that, the large balcony window in the middle of the wall in front is just too… noticeable"
"Impressive," Sebastian claps his hands, "indeed"
The maids come in and out, calling each names of the guests as they disappear one by one. Soon, there is no one left but Sebastian and I. Then Melroy comes in.
It is obvious that the next one will be me.
"Miss Dolorie, you will be called after Sebastian"
"Wait, what?"
"I'm sorry but, I must stay with Young Mistress at all times," said Sebastian.
Melroy shakes her head as her short red curls swings back and forth, "I'm afraid that cannot happen" the room is silent for a brief moment.
Then finally, I answer, "fine. Take him" Melroy nods as Sebastian stands up.
Before he leaves, he lowers his face next to my ear and whispers, "if Young Mistress ever needs me"
Then he slightly brushes past my eye patch as I feel my heart skips a beat. How foolish. Stop with the foolishness Faustine! With that, he left with Melroy.
Few minutes later, as I sat alone on the couch in this giant living room, the butler comes in from one of the doors, pushing a cart of food served on a silver platter and some wine.
He stops next to my couch and offers me some pastries which I refuse, since nothing ever tastes as good ever since Sebastian started to prepare all three meals for me, including the desserts. The butler covers his platter.
"Then," he says, "It is now time for you to go in"
"But the maids aren't here yet," I said, feeling panicked.
I was very confident before, that I will be the one who will crush this Randolph guy and maybe force some information out of him. But that was before Sebastian left with the maids. Now that he isn't here, it feels as if a protective barrier was lifted from around me, making me feel vulnerable. I think I may have relied on him just a bit too much.
"That doesn't matter, since I'll be the one escorting you" The butler smiles and reaches out a gloved hand for me to take. I remain on the couch, motionless.
"If Miss Dolorie refuses to participate, you may never leave this place. In worse conditions, your life may be at stake."
How can this butler manage to say such a thing in such a less horrible way? But I bet Sebastian does that all the time.
"So either way," I say, as I stand up from my couch, ignoring Dan's gloved hand, "I'll be killed"
Dan seems to be amused by my bluntness.
"Please, follow me," he says as we walk to the one and only wooden door on the left side of the living room, next to the gigantic self portrait. He takes out a key from his pocket and opens the door. "The game will start right after you step into this room. Once you do, you can never turn back since I'll be locking this door behind you"
I can't hesitate anymore. This will be the path I take.
"I don't care, hurry up and get on with this"
"Gladly" With that, Dan steps away from the door as I walk into the surprisingly small room.
The door closes, follow by the sound of the key locking the door. This room is… small. It's like a small narrow rectangle, with no windows but a rug, covering the wooden floor. There is also a small fireplace on the left that was lit with burning fire and in front of the fireplace is a rocking chair.
At the far end of the room, you might expect that a door would be there. But there is no door… instead, there's a single book shelf full of books, attached to the dull red wall.
"That guy… was he planning on locking me in here?" I walk around, tracing my fingers along the perfect red wall paper. This room… shouldn't be this small.
The left of the living room outside was large enough to hang a picture, as tall as the wall itself and yet, there is only one door. But that one door leads to such a tiny room which doesn't make any sense. I knock on the wall three times… just as I thought, the wall sounds hollow. There must be space on the other sides of the walls.
I wonder if there is any code, or a secret button that gets me to the other side. I look around the room for anything suspicious or usually, "out of place." I take a look at the fireplace and realize that there's a small flame thrower, keeping the fire from burning out. I guess it's so that the person who was trapped inside wouldn't be able to climb out from the fireplace.
But the bookshelf is attached to the wall. It must be those kinds where it can flip itself when you take out a certain book. How will I know which book to take? I look up and found that there is a clock on the wall over the book shelf.
Heh, how cruel, the clock must be there to tell the trapped person how long they've been trapped. Wait a minute… the clock! In some mystery novels I've read, that the clock always tells something other than the time. The seconds hand on the clock isn't even moving. It always points to twelve a clock.
I walk over and climb up the book shelf, straining my arms. Damn, I'm not a very athletic person… if Sebastian was here he would've… no, stop relying on that demon! He is a demon who cannot be a whole heartedly trusted. I open the glass case that covers the clock and start turning the big hands.
In most mystery novels, if the hands were to go all the way around the clock, it would activate a trap door of some sort. Finally the big hand goes around the clock twelve times making it twelve a clock again. Then, there is a sudden rumbling sound from behind the wall. Instead of the bookshelf, the whole part of the wall flips over while I am still clinging on to the bookshelf.
I hop off the book shelf and down on to a blue carpeted floor. Behind the walls of the tiny room with a fireplace, is actually a long dark hallway with the only source of light from the full moon outside a large balcony window on the left side of the hallway. Then there are three doors on the left and another three doors at the far end. The walls are just plain white, making this room look sort of… blue.
I walk over to the balcony window and look outside just to see more of Mr. Randolph's graveyards with more graves crowding around right outside the window. Most grave stones don't even have names. But even for a man as rich as Randolph, this amount of graves is just too much! The bare grounds seem so motionless and still, compare to the dark feathered raven fluttering around, squawking and screaming.
Somehow, I start to feel an intense pressure in my chest, making it pretty hard to breath. I let out a breath as I lean on to the window, suddenly gasping for air. What is happening? My shoulders feel so heavy.
Then I start to hyperventilate while receiving no air at all, images… horrible images flashes through my head!
Wh- what is this? People screaming… blood… splattered everywhere in this same blue hallway like a long red box. Images of torn limbs… blood stained axes…
No stop. Stop it…
"Stop it!" I screamed, and then everything is over. Everything is quiet again… too quiet. Except, I have a very disturbing feeling of being watched.
There is a feeling, a presence, behind me.
Somewhere at the back of my mind, a voice keeps telling me, "run away! Don't look behind you… Don't" Before I could react to anything… BANG.
A giant ax lands right on the wall next to my head.
I gasp and stumble on to the floor. There, standing before me, in the darkness is nothing but a hooded figure holding an ax. It's the same ax as the blood stained ones in the images just now.
"Ah…" I shakily crawl backwards as the figure starts to advance towards me.
Then it raises the ax and swings it down at me barely missing my legs. I quickly stand back up and run or pretty much stumble, for my legs feel so much like jelly. The figure grabs on to my hair and slams my face down on to the ground. Then once again it raises the ax.
"Se…bastian" I whispered his name. No. I'm not going to die like this. I'll live.
I kick my foot up and hit him in the chest as I hear a low grunt. His hands loosen and I struggle to turn around and face the figure. I'll live… I'll make him pay. I'll make all those who humiliated me pay. I grab on to its neck and there comes the sizzling sound of a rotting corps, followed by its wail.
"Gaaa!" With that, I roll away and out from under the figure. Then I stand up and dash down the hallway and into the middle door at the end. Inside the middle room, is another strange room… with a smaller room in the middle, or more like a small closet.
I notice a dark liquid at the bottom of the door to the room in the middle. Could it be blood? I slowly walk over to the door and hesitantly turn its knob and open the door…
Inside the room is a hideous corps. It is one of the guests whose limbs had been separated, just like the images. The image makes me feel nauseous in the stomach. I feel like I'm going to throw up. I don't know what to do but to back up and close the door.
This game… is called 'hunt.' Except we're not hunting anything, instead, I think they are hunting us…