Hi. My name is Nyxie Ross. For as long as I can remember, I've always wondered about the mansion that sits derilict atop the mountain, casting a dark shadow on my town below. Not even the oldest of the elders can recall a time before its existence. There are rumors that whoever goes up there never comes back. But I'm going to change that. I'm going to go up to the mansion on the mountain, explore it to my heart's content, and return alive and in one piece to tell the tale.

My friends, my neighbors, every last one of them, laughed at me when I told them my plan. They said I was crazy. An idiot. An overly curious moron with a death-wish. I'm going to prove them all wrong.

As I left home to begin my journey, a crowd of the townsfolk began to follow me. My closest friend, Sally McGuffler, jogged up to me, looking worried. "Hey, Nyxie, you're not serious about going up to that old place, are you?" she asked, her green eyes full of concern.

Valid question, I guess. "Of course I am," I replied. "You know me, Sally. I'm not the kind of girl to change my mind once it's made up."

Sally sighed in slight annoyance as the wind tugged at her platinum-blond ponytail. "I know, but... a lot of people have gone missing in that place. You're my best friend. I don't want you to go missing too.'

"I won't." I said with full certainty, the kind of certainty only the young and hopeful have. "I've got enough food for a week. I doubt it'll take me that long."

"Nyxie..."

"Sally, don't worry about me," I said, starting to feel annoyed. "I understand why you're worried about me, but I'll be fine. Just because a bunch of other people went up there and were never seen again doesn't mean I'll never bee seen again either. I'm doing this, whether you support it or not." And with that, I turned away from her. I was at the edge of town now, the mountain path before me wrapping around that massive land-mass like a snake. I glanced back at her one last time, my purple eyes locking with hers. "See ya in a week, Sally," I said, then put one foot in front of the other and crossed the town border.

I was five steps out of town when the first heckler spoke up. "You'll never get out of there alive, ya crazy idiot!" That was Jimmy, one of the bullies in school.

"Might as well get started on your tombstone, not that there'll be a body to bury or a grave to mark." That was Old Man McGraddy, the town nay-sayer.

"Go home, kid!" I didn't know that voice. "While you still have the chance!"

I didn't listen. I kept my eyes on the mansion, kept my chin up and kept walking. I'd show them. I'd show them all!

It took a few hours to get all the way up there on foot, but being young and healthy helped a lot. Finally, I'd reached the decrepit mansion. Straightening my back and bracing myself for whatever lay beyond the threshold, I threw wide the front door and strolled in like I owned the place.

I found myself in a large, spacious foyer, pretty much what I expected. When the door closed behind me, I noticed a shadow hovering over the door on the opposite wall. "Hello," a girl's voice said. "I am Spooky." A ghostly little girl about my age appeared. "And this is my home. Can you, humble player, make it through 1,000 rooms? Can you find, what lies at the end?" She asked. "Or is there even an end? Cuz I don't really know. Anyway, just... just go." And with that she floated through the ceiling.

I stood there for a second after she vanished. Okay, so the place was obviously haunted. 1,000 rooms? Ha, I could do that in a heartbeat. While a small voice of caution in my head told me this was probably a bad idea, I didn't care. I was taking Spooky's challenge. I'd make it through the 1,000 rooms. I'd find what lies at the end. And I'd come home to tell the tale.

I boldly crossed the room and opened the door, plunging into the unknown. Now... my journey truly began.

There wasn't much to the first room, if it could be called that. It was more like a hallway. Same with the second one, and the third. The fourth was actually a room, with a crate and a table with a single candle and a red-and-gold rug on the floor. I kept going, counting the rooms in my head. Room 6 was purple. Why it was purple, I had no idea. Seven was just a normal little hallway. Room 8 was an actual room with a table and a creepy-looking painting on the wall. 9 just had the same painting. Ten broke off in two directions. Trusting a gut instinct, I went to the left, where the door was visible. Room 11 looked the same, but after I walked past the first door, a little blue cardboard ghost popped out from the wall, startling me with the sudden loud noise it made. "Huh. Well that happened." I said, and continued through another door.

It continued on like this, going through rooms, hallways, and strange chambers that seemed to be completely randomized. Nothing really terrifying, but I could feel a strange sense of foreboding. It was in room 25 that I found the first note:

"At first I thought 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..."

Why would it be romantic? I wondered. Though that part about having been there for days gave me a moment's pause. And being watched? Something was up. And I was gonna find out what. With that I took off again, checking for notes as I went. More rooms, and more of those cardboard jumpscares popping out randomly. The whole place gave off an eerie, menacing feeling, and now and again I'd hear sounds that let me know I wasn't alone. By now I'd not yet done 35 rooms, and my silvery hair (dyed that color) was standing on end.

It was in room 40 that I found the second note:

"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 some progress and

Moving toward some destination.

I just hope I don't run out of ink.

I am dreadfully thirsty..."

"I hope he doesn't try to drink the ink." I said to myself, before continuing on. He was right about one thing: there was definitely something following me. The sense of dread was getting ever-stronger. Every sudden loud noise had me sprinting at full tilt, to the point I was running on all fours like an animal. I was jumpscared by two more cardboard cutouts and their ridiculously loud noises before I reached... and elevator? And elevator was room 50? There was a cute poster of a cat in a box on one wall, and beneath that, a table. And on said table was the third note:

"Ink...

Not quite quenching my thirst.

Taste is terrible. Stains are terrible.

I don't think drinking it was

A very romantic idea."

"No, just a very stupid idea." I said to nobody in particular. I reached into my backpack and took a couple sips of the water I'd brought with me, then checked my watch. I'd been here maybe 7 minutes. How had this guy been here for days, run out of water, and had to resort to drinking ink? I shook my head and set down the note.

Across from me was another table with a purple cross on it. I touched it, and for some reason I got the feeling that if anything seriously bad happened, I'd end up here again. I was confused by that, but I couldn't afford to ponder on it right now. I walked over to the one button on the wall, labeled "DOWN" and pressed it. With a rumbling, the elevator descended through a very thick layer of dirt and/or rock until a new door was reached. Time to press on...

It seemed I'd reached a dungeon level, as rooms 51-53 were filled with cells, sparsely furnished with chairs or tables. I almost screamed when I reached room 54. There was a twisting path over a dark abyss. One wrong step, and I'd look like a girl-sized splat on the ground... if anybody ever found me. I cautiously proceeded, looking back on occasion... okay, constantly, to make sure I wasn't being followed, but it was hard to tell because it was so dark. I breathed a sigh of relief when I reached the door, and thanked whatever merciful deity was watching over me that the next room was not another dark abyss. I pressed onward, quickly reaching room 60. It was larger than many of the rooms I'd been in, and it gave me a very ominous feeling. In the middle of it was some slippery-looking greenish ooze, and I made a point ot avoid slipping in it. On a table sat another note. I hoped it was from the same weirdo who kept going on about romance or some saner weirdo, but the red ink... if it was ink, told me it probably wasn't:

"Spouting, Splashing, Soaking,

Innards, Ingest, Invoking,

Nailing, Never, stops the Choking."

"...Creepy..." I said, when the sound of choked words filled my ears. I couldn't understand it, but when I looked back to the door I'd come though, I saw this... thing, ambling toward me... MENACINGLY! "HOLY SHIT!" I blurted, bolting for the nearest door. I hoped to flee from it as quickly as possible, but I soon found there were puddles of the ooze in every hallway, clearly intended to trip me up. More often than not the halls were way too narrow to go around them, so I had to move painfully slowly to avoid taking a spill. I ran, and crept, and ran, until at last I escaped the thing. I was at room 76 now, not yet a tenth done with my quest yet. I had a feeling I'd run into more monsters the further I went, so I knew I'd have to be careful.

The "romantic" was an idiot. This place was not cute.

This was a Jumpscare Mansion.

I knew I couldn't go back the way I came, so I pressed onward, and not two rooms later, I found this... machine thing in room 78. I approached it cautiously. Maybe it could shed some light on what was happening here?

After accessing the "specimen database", I learned the cardboard cutouts were referred to as "Specimen 1", classified as docile, had only caused 4 fatalities (gee, I wonder why?), and were considered ineffective against healthy subjects.

Next, I learned the thing I had just escaped from was called "Specimen 2", classified as active, had caused 137 fatalities by physical tearing, and was deemed effective against slow, weak subjects. I thanked my lucky stars I was neither.

This seemed like a good opportunity to inform myself about what else i was up against, so I read up on Specimen 3, an arachnid-like creep that was both active and in testing, had caused 43 fatalities, and was considered adequately effective to average subjects. Specimen 4 looked like one of those spooky Japanese ghosts you see in movies like Grudge or The Ring. She was apparently active, had cause 83 deaths, and was considered effective, but not more so than previous specimens. #5 seemed to be some kind of super-deadly creature that messed with people's minds, but when I tried to access information on #6, it just gave me the error screen.

I glanced at my watch. I'd been in this place for a total of 13 minutes, I'd been startled by the cardboard jumpscares, and nearly attacked by specimen 2 in that amount of time. Surely, there had to be some kind of method to the madness in this place. And it would only be a matter of time until I figured it out.

Steeling myself for what lay ahead, I pressed on, taking the door to my right. I hurried along, trying not to look too closely at the creepy things I came across and navigating another abyss room, going faster every time I heard a sudden loud noise like the slam of a door. As I got closer to room 100, I heard the sound of Specimen 2 again, and immediately bolted. It wasn't super easy to dodge the ooze on the ground, but somehow I made it to room 100 alive and in one piece. It was another elevator.

This one had a cup of coffee on its poster, and another note from the Romantic:

"I found something today

To satisfy my unromantic thirst.

I awoke today from a brief faint,

And found before me a bottle of
Red wine!

I am not certain what brand or year,

For there is no label, all I

Gather is that it tastes strongly

Metallic."

"... I'm pretty sure that wasn't wine." I said after a pause. "Note to self: never drink unknown red liquids from unlabeled bottles in haunted mansions." I saw there was another cross on the table on the other side of the elevator and quickly touched it, feeling the strangely reassuring sense that I would return here if anything bad happened. I pressed the button on the elevator and continued downward. It was time to figure out the method of Spooky's madness.