Another night at the mansion of little horrors went by without a hitch and I spent most of it at the bottom of a dried up well. Why did I spend the night at the bottom of a well? My harmless little love tap obviously did not go unpunished and the vampire decided some time in a well was the perfect punishment for the crime. Quite honestly, I expected much worse so I really couldn't complain. It was cold and lonely, sure, but it beat the hell out of spending five days somewhere in a closed off hole deep underground. She didn't say how long I had to stay in this well so this night could be the first of many nights to come with only the birds above as company.
The only thing that really bothered me about my current predicament was how I got here in the first place. I wasn't thrown in or anything. I simply appeared here out of nowhere after the vampire read off my sentence. These sudden teleportations into other rooms is beginning to piss me off. At first I thought it was just because I hadn't exactly been healthy in the head lately, but now I'm beginning to wonder.
So, I spent the night just sitting at the bottom of the well, contemplating how I was going to survive in the bizarre world I had been dragged into. No real answer came to me at any point during the night so I had to settle with trying to ride the wave and hope for the best. I understood that I was going to be stuck in the Devil's mansion for a while. If there was any fun to be had while being the bitch slave of some pompous little vampire then I was going to take it and just be happy with what I get. Dancing around that wench's whims was what was going to be the major obstacle for me.
At some point during the night I had dozed off. The morning light of the rising sun was what nudged me awake. Groaning irritably as my peaceful sleep came to an end, I took notice of the small amount of light on the ground then looked up. The sky was dark blue, but it slowly grew in brightness.
That is when it hit me – the sunlight. I was trapped in a hole outside with nowhere to run while the sun's murderous rays of light slowly grew in intensity. It didn't take long for me to stand up and start panicking.
Gazing at the sky, I tried to figure out how long it would take for the sun to come directly over the well and scorch my ass to cinders. I figured I had a few hours until it was close to noon. Now it was just a matter of figuring out how to get the hell out of this death trap within that time frame.
And the minutes came and went, slowly turning into hours. The amount of progress I made in escaping a sunny death? Zero. I had made no amount of progress whatsoever in all of that time. Needless to say, I was downright screwed. So, with sweat rolling off of me like a pig at a slaughterhouse while the sun crawled its way further into the sky, I made a last ditch effort to save myself and started screaming like a madman.
"Heeey! Hey, is anyone up there?! I'm in dire need of assistance, thank you very much!" I shouted towards the sky, hoping my voice would reach someone's ears. "Come on, someone's gotta be up there!"
No answer. I got no answer from anyone or anything. I wanted to think that the vampire wouldn't leave me out here until I was nothing more than a pile of ash even after what I did. If she really wanted me dead then she would have done it herself. I'm sure of that. She may have simply forgotten about me, but if that was the case then surely Sakuya would have came and bailed me out by now. Whatever the reason may be, I needed to continue yelling until I couldn't yell no more and that is what I did.
No one was coming and the sun was inching closer. My skin was actually beginning to burn at this point.
"Oh God, oh God…" I uttered in distress. "Shit! Shiiit!"
My life as some inhuman creature was about to be cut short by the very thing that gives the Earth life and I had that accursed vampire to thank. With my doom approaching with every passing second, I used the last moments of my second life to curse out the vile witch. I didn't get far in my mental fit of anger and rage before an angel appeared with some hope to gift me.
"Umm… A-Are you okay down there?!" came the voice of the angel.
I looked up to see someone peering over the well and down at me. Her face was shadowed over so I couldn't tell if it was anyone that I had seen before. Not that it mattered. All that mattered was that I had someone to get my sorry ass out of the well of doom.
Smiling graciously, I waved franticly at the girl. "Hey! I'm stuck down here and need help and fast! Please!" I shouted.
"Huh? You're stuck, you say?!" the girl asked.
Oh, for fuck's sake. Are you deaf, girl?
"Yes! And I need to get out of here as quick as possible so if you can get me out, I will owe you big time!"
"You don't look stuck!" the apparently blind girl said.
"Are you fucking kidding me?" I grumbled under my breath then yelled, "Yes! Yes, I am so if you would please just-!"
"Why don't you just climb out?!"
"What?! Are you being serious right now?!" I shouted, angered with the ridiculous suggestion.
But then it hit me. I was stronger than a normal human being due to some unholy blood that was providing me with this second life. It had completely slipped my mind. But that realization was only a temporary spark of hope. Giving the stone walls of the well a glance over showed that there wasn't anywhere I could get my fingers into to help me scale the blasted thing and the well was too wide for me to ascend it with my back to one side and feet pushing up against the other. I was just as screwed as I was a minute ago.
I look back up at the girl who was slowly proving to be worthless. "I can't scale the walls! I can't grip anywhere!"
"So?!" she tells me.
That's it. I'm dead.
"Just climb it like any other vampire would!" she shouted.
I didn't like being identified as one of those things my self-proclaimed master was a member of, but now was the time for me to start thinking like one if I wanted to save myself before becoming yesterday's ashtray.
I threw the laws of physics and a part of my sanity to the wind and placed the palms of my hands against the wall of the well. I had seen this done in a vampire movie before and figured since I was in a world where vampire dwarfs and ladies from outer dimensions existed then maybe… just maybe… I could climb this wall like Spiderman. It was utterly improbable, but given where I was, anything goes.
With both my hands on the wall, I raised my right foot and pushed the toe of my shoe against the wall, swallowed hard, then pushed myself up. I fell back down as expected, but I tried again, just to fail a second time.
I smacked my forehead against the wall and glared at my feet. "What possible outcome am I thinking I'll get from this?" I asked myself in bitter anger as hope waned.
"Clear your head! Don't even think about it!" the girl said.
What else could I do? Give in to my fate and die like a puss? Hell no!
I took a brief moment to try and clear my head of distractions the best I could and gave it another try. I got my foot pressed against the wall and pushed up. I fell forward onto my knees, thinking that I had fallen down again, but I didn't. I looked down and found the impossible.
I had gone up the wall a few inches. By some unexplainable force, I was able to hold my position without actually holding onto anything. It was as if I was merely crawling along the floor, except it was a vertical floor that I clinged to. I could still feel gravity as I normally did, but… it didn't seem to have any real effect on me at that moment. I wanted to find whoever wrote the rules for this world and punch his lights out, but for now I gave up on making sense of the world, said "Fuck it," and slowly made my way up the side of the well without looking back down. Not even a minute later and I was on my back spread-eagled in a bed of green grass, panting tiredly.
The girl that had helped me was standing over me, looking down at me with her aqua-colored eyes. Her long, reddish-brownish hair dangled on one side of her head. She was wearing what was something unmistakably Asian in design. The girl herself was oriental like Sakuya. Her uniform was mostly green with some white and the beret on her head was green as well with a star in the middle of it. That beret didn't stay on her head for long and it softly fell onto my face.
I sat up, the beret falling to my lap.
"Oops! Sorry about that," the girl said with a chuckle that made one's heart feel fuzzy.
I handed the beret back to its owner and went to stand up. A hand was suddenly presented to me. I smiled at the smiling girl and happily accepted the assistance. With an unexpected strong pull, she helped me back up onto my feet.
Still reeling in from the unbelievable feat I had just performed, I looked at the Asian girl, placed my hands on her shoulders, looked dead in her eyes and asked, "You saw what I just did, right?"
The girl tilted her head to the side a little. "Hmm? Well, of course I did," she replied.
"No. You didn't," I corrected her.
The girl raised an eyebrow. "I… didn't?"
"You didn't," I repeated.
"I didn't see anything?"
"You saw nothing," I confirmed and released the girl's shoulders.
"Hmm…"
The girl was understandably confused and she took a moment to think about my intentions with having her forget that I had just spider-climbed out of the well. Her eyes widened when she came to some conclusion.
She gently tapped her fist onto the palm of her other hand. "Oh! I get it! You don't want Lady Remilia to know I helped you! You're so smart! Thank you for thinking about my well-being!" she said with a glowing smile and rosy cheeks.
I raised an eyebrow. "Huh? No, I just want the both of us to forget that ever happened. The fact that I just did that freaks me out."
"Huh? Really? Oh…" the girl said then frowned. Her frown made me sad.
"Wait. What about that vampire? What's it matter if she knew you helped me out?" I asked, curious.
"Well… I'm not supposed to help you at all. Lady Remilia has strongly forbidden me from interfering with your development. But I heard you yelling and got a little worried," she said.
A giant smile appeared on my face. Already I liked the girl. I took her hand and shook it fervently. "Thank you! I really appreciate your help. If you need anything from me just ask," I said.
"Y-You won't tell her?"
"Fuuuuck no!" I said in joy.
"But you're her servant. Aren't you supposed to-"
"No. I will not say a damn word to her about anything. Trust me on that," I strongly assured.
The girl smiled brightly again. "Thank you! I'm so happy to know that you're a kind person."
"Likewise!"
The night spent at the bottom of a well turned out not to be that bad. This Asian girl said something about development, so I think it's safe to say that the stupid vampire had thrown me down that well anticipating that I would figure out how to get out on my own eventually. Seriously, that vampire and her retarded development project can go straight to hell. If it wasn't for this nice girl I probably would not have figured out that I had more in common with Peter Parker than I had originally thought (none!) and would still be stuck down there dreading the incoming sun.
The incoming sun.
The sun.
The sun…
"THE SUN!" I screamed in abrupt panic.
I had totally forgotten the dangers of the sun and was now in full exposure of it. I had to get out of the light before my insides started to cook. There was a tree nearby with plenty of shade to offer me so I sprinted towards it like a stoner spotting a bar of chocolate and dove under the tree's protection. With my back pushed hard against the trunk of the tree, I felt relatively safe now.
"Wow!" the girl said in astonishment as she ran up to me. "That was out of the blue. What scared you to make you run like that? I sensed no danger of any kind."
This girl knew I could climb walls, but doesn't know what the sun will do to me… I don't know what I should say to that.
"The frikn' sun," I stressfully said, panting from the sudden sprint I just did. "I could feel my skin about to burst into flames there for a second…"
"Flames? Why would it do that?" the girl innocently asked.
"Uhh… Because the sun kills things like me?" I asked rhetorically.
"Huh? Since when?"
"Since when? Since the dawn of time. How the hell should I know?" I said sullenly.
It then hit me. In my biased view of vampires, I had assumed that they burned when exposed to the sun. That vampire left me in a well she knew would be exposed to the sun. She didn't express how long my sentence would be when she tossed me in that hole. She had left me there expecting me to figure out how to get out on my own and to learn that the sun… means jack squat to a vampire… I tested that theory by holding my arm out into the sun's rays. The rays were hot on my pale skin, but they didn't set my arm on fire. The worst thing the sun could do to me was give me skin cancer.
Son of an ass monkey…
The heat rose in my face and I quickly covered it with my hands, unwilling to let anyone see how red my face just got upon the realization that I had gotten scared over nothing. And the worst part is that I'm willing to bet that the vampire knew all along that I had misinformation about vampires and the sun. I can already picture her laughing her little ass off right now…
"Umm... Are you okay?" the Asian girl asked in concern.
I let out a loud and angry sigh, uncovered my face and looked at the girl. "Can you go get me some rope?" I asked.
"What for?"
"So I can hang myself from this tree…" I said in utter disgust for myself.
The girl went sad. "Oh, please don't do that. I know you can't actually die from hanging, but it's the thought that's depressing," she said.
"I just feel really stupid right now."
"I have those moments too. After Sakuya or Lady Remilia scolds me, that is," the girl said in sympathy.
With what willpower I had, I pushed the humiliating event to the far reaches of my mind and focused on the girl in front of me. "Oh, that's right… You work here, don't ya?" I asked.
The girl smiled proudly. "That's right! My name is Hong Meiling! Protector of the Grand Gate of the Scarlet Devil Mansion!" she declared. "I also do the gardening!"
Her introduction was a bit over the top, but I liked it. Had a lot of energy to it, energy that slipped itself to me. I smiled in turn and held my hand out. "And I'm… Eh… Isaac…" I said, but not with the same amount of energy as the girl named Hong. Not even close.
Hong took my hand and we shook in greeting. "Hello, Isaac! I'm so happy I finally got to meet you!" she said in delight.
"Same here, Hong," I said with a happy nod.
"Oh! Call me, Meiling! I know we just met, but I want you to call me by my first name."
"What? I thought Hong was your first name," I said, confused.
"I know it's confusing, but Meiling is my first name. I'm a Chinese Youkai!"
"A Chinese… Youkai?"
I knew she was Asian. That was crystal clear, but I wouldn't have guessed that she wasn't human. She looked completely normal to me. But when I took a closer look at her eyes I could see some differences to that of a normal set of eyes. The difference in the pupil was mild, but it was there if you looked hard enough. I wasn't turned off by the fact she wasn't human or anything. I was merely surprised. Besides, she had just risked angering that demon to lend me a helping hand when I needed it. There was nothing frightening about this kind girl. In addition to that, she was a very cute girl with one hell of a rack on her. They were impossible to miss. Too bad her clothe were loose fitting so I couldn't see just how round they were.
"I had heard of the rumors last week, but I didn't believe them. I never believe what the fairies say and you shouldn't either. They're liars," Meiling informed me with a serious expression.
And I said, "Oookay."
"But when Sakuya came and told me about you… I STILL couldn't believe it. I mean, Lady Remilia would never sire anyone into her family. Ever. But here you are!"
I wasn't in the mood to talk about the vampire (I never am), but I went along with the conversation anyway. "Yeah… No clue what was going on inside the mind of that runt…"
"Sakuya couldn't get anything done the day after the Mistress brought you home. We spent hours debating why she suddenly decided to sire someone," Meiling said then giggled. "You should have seen Sakuya. I've never seen her so flustered before."
That would seem to be the big mystery here – why did that vampire turn me into one of her kind? Everyone else who knows her is apparently blown away by the notion that she had transformed somebody into a night stalker. It made me want to know her reasoning even more than before.
"May I ask you something?" Meiling asked, now looking a little flustered herself for some reason.
"Sure, go ahead."
"Umm… Did you really… Did you really pants Lady Remilia?" she asked.
I couldn't help but grin when the memory of my deed flowed by my eyes. "Heh-heh… Yeeeaah," I answered truthfully.
"And you… touched her butt?"
"Spanked it like you would a misbehaving child's," I said proudly.
"That's not right. You shouldn't have done that," the girl said with a grumpy expression, but she was biting her lips together as she held back something.
"Heh. That vampire ain't out here so let it out," I said.
And Meiling did just that. She hunched over and a burst of laughter came flying out of her. She laughed herself silly for a moment before standing back up straight, now with tears in her eyes.
"Oh, that's not funny. I shouldn't be laughing," she said as she wiped a few tears from her eyes and with a few stray laughs escaping from her periodically.
"Eh, don't worry about it," I said plainly.
"No!" Meiling said as she tossed on a serious expression. She pointed at me. "What you did was wrong. Plain wrong. Bad! Bad Isaac!" she scolded me.
The scolding didn't work. The way she truly felt about what I did couldn't be hidden behind that glowing face of hers. I simply smiled. "My only regret is that I didn't get a nice firm squeeze of that booty of hers," I said then acted it out, pretending to grab a hold of the vampire's rear in cartoonish fashion.
Meiling burst out laughing once again. Her laugh brought light to my dark world. "No, no! Don't do that! I don't think she would be able to keep her cool if you did!"
"Nah, don't worry. I got my feel for a vampire's behind so I'm good for a lifetime. I don't plan on doing anything else like that. I think I was lucky getting away with it the first time and I don't feel like doubling down."
Meiling giggled. "You have no idea how lucky!"
We continued conversing with one another as she showed me around the perimeter of the mansion (the sun turned out to be nothing more than a small burden on me and an annoying one at that). I have to say that it was gorgeously maintained. Meiling did say she was a gardener so I contributed the beauty of the surrounding courtyard to her fine care. I also got to see the mansion from the outside for the very first time. It was an incredible piece of work. Looked like some kind of medieval castle just like the inside. It even had a wall of red brick circling it. I wasn't taken outside the walls, but Meiling did show me the so-called grand gate she stood guard of. It wasn't exactly grand. At least I didn't think so. It was a fancy looking gate of metal, but that was it.
Looking through the metal bars of the gate showed me a landscape of lively green and further out there was the rest of Gensokyo. The world was oddly dim despite the sun being high in the sky, but that dimness only added to the mysticism of the land.
I was still unsure how I was going to survive this world, but that didn't concern me this day. I had made a new friend and hoped it was a sign for more good things to come.