Easy as it might have sound, the test proved rather difficult for the three. One each of the destinations for the story parts were a distance away from each other and in places too scary for one to go alone. Two the time limit on the story parts was slowly but surely fading necessitating their quick and well thought decision. And lastly, they were all scared.
Up until now none of them had had a major issue with the gloomy and haunted feel of the mansion. Some chills crept up their spine but the were easily scared away by the banter amongst themselves, especially by Cilia who seemed never to stop talking when she was doing things outside her comfort zone. Karin might have put the front that she wished for her to be quiet but deep down, her and Kento, felt a sense of ease every time they heard her familiar voice.
But now they were being forced to split up. In her head Karin had tried to formulate possible ways to bypass this need but had failed. Possibly because she thought there was a higher lesson that they each needed to learn separately and by going for the parts together they would evade the intended lesson. And two she'd hate to show any feeling of fear to either one of them… that would be out of character especially for a crow from the Mihane family. As such she quicky selected the place that was less likely to have a haunting or scary being looming around and stuck to it.
On seeing this the other two quickly eyed each other and called what each would want to do. Surprisingly they each chose something different.
"…I'll take the far-right wing." Cilia said, a stammer guiding her voice to the finish.
The other two nodded in unison and agreement.
"Okay then looks like we each have a part to come back with. Let's rendezvous here after we each find out stories." Karin said making her way to the door.
And with that the three split each hoping that nothing scary or big or with many legs would pop out the dark and start chasing them.
But these were just hopes, reality tends to sway away from what we hope.
***
For as long as she could remember, Cilia was never… scratch that… Cilia was sometimes not scared of the dark. And in this case never scared of being in the forest. For one, she lived in a dark forest before she came to the fief and met the others. And to some degree the dark was a part of who she was and who her family was. But something had felt off the moment she stepped into the forest.
She couldn't place it, whether the damp smell in the air, the cracked tree barks making them look like a scary face or the day itself. Something was wrong here or somewhere in the world and she could feel it. Karin and Kento seemed fine but deep in her bunny heart she knew something was amiss.
But she could let that jeopardize the mission. It meant too much for her best friend, Karin, who had been rearing to go sense the day they got accepted into the fief.
Thus, she sucked up all that fear and worry and balled it up and hid it from the others, camouflaging it for her normal lazy and unwitty self. And a few hours later she found her self staring at a long and bending corridor that stretched to the final room she was needed in …
The Master bedroom in the far-right wing.
"Ahhh!" she panicked as she alighted the final step onto the second floor.
Her hair was currently riddled with specks of dust and cob-webs from the house but she didn't seem to notice it. Fear had blinded her sense only focusing at the path ahead that seemed to bend and stretch even more every time she looked.
The second floor was a maze of rooms aligned with respect to the main hall Cilia was currently standing in. They scaped in and out preventing any form of a mental map of the structure making one wonder how the residents even made their way across the rooms. But the mystery of the hall laid far deeper from what the eyes could see.
Even without realizing it… the story of the right-wing had started.
Still shaking in her boots Cilia stood near the staircase. The thought of running down them and just waiting for Kento to finish his part then have him come do hers, hadn't escaped her mind. It was sure to work, mainly because Kento was a kind and generous and had always helped her in times of need. But she brushed away the thought.
"This is supposed to be a team mission…" she then took a deep breath and gently let it out.
" I can do this."
One foot after the other Cilia took her first steps into the hall. Under her feet the old wooden floor creaked screeching through the air. But that didn't deter her, she had made up her mind… she could –
Suddenly, by the window to her side, a loud hoot echoed through the halls and into her ears. Her tensed mind readily misinterpreted the hoot for a threat, sending Cilia into a panic dash across the hall. Her screams, loud enough to make the broken window glass to crack some more. Cilia was scared and that meant her mind was no longer in control.
She dashed, room to room, knocking down the already broken and scratched doors to the ground and quickly parsing through the room for any signs of the story piece. She wished not to think about it, just that she need to do it fast and not savor the fear.
Her method worked actually. In a matter of seconds almost all the mazed right-wing doors were knocked down to the ground, their rooms checked for the story piece and if not found left for the dust raised from the impact to settle then onto the next. This was far much better than slowly trembling door to door, hoping that nothing is hiding behind the doors, then moving to the next with the same fear intact.
In the ruckus Cilia had forgotten one thing, her eyes were exceptionally keen.
Door to door Cilia knocked and checked. And with every check her heart sunk. With every check her fear dwindled down and horror rose from it, like ashes to a bright phoenix. Her eyes were keen on detail and detail only made the horror grow.
The rooms of the right-wing hall held something dire. Each had a bed, king sized with pillows and everything, to the side a lamp-post with its light still on. The light of the lamp illuminated onto the bed where the rooms occupants slept. By the fetid smell, Cilia knew very well that they were in a slumber that didn't have a wake. Yet she didn't stop. See the sad part was that, those who slept didn't have an age limit.
Cilia kept moving from door to door unearthing the hidden horrors of each, her pace reducing with each she opened. And so, as she opened the last two doors, she'd had already gotten the motif. In her head the she had a vague understanding of what it meant. She only needed the last two confirm it.
The second last room was different from the others. the doors she had opened before had a sullen motif. Most of the bodies in there seemed confused like they didn't know what was happening. Also their manner of clothing was completely different from the ones in the second last room. They were more refined almost noble. As for the characters in the second last room their clothes were in tatters and were no short from being called rags.
In the last room existed four bodies. None like the others these four, from what it seemed had died in a fight. The lamp in this room, was gouged into the bones of one of the bodies and as for the others each lay with a foreign object in pierced somewhere it was obviously meant for a kill. This room screamed conflict and anger and most of all domestic betrayal.
Such were the scene in the Right-wing of the old mansion. Cilia's eyes had seen enough but not enough for her story piece. That was in the room she was currently standing in front of.
The master bedroom.