[ T: 4 days 13 Hours ]
La Fonte, Frank, Jose, Lucas, Johannes and several of the other members of the group, belonging to the fighting group had kept themselves holed up in one of the entrance rooms leading to the tunnel that led to the outside. It was remote from the area of the structure that the group had chosen to reside in and most likely chosen there to conduct some kind of secret business that the rest of the group had no interest in or the men wanted others to not be interested in. Either way, as the women, children, and the men who were not considered able to fight by the fighters went to sleep, the meeting had already been ongoing throughout the entire day, ever since La Fonte, Frank, Lucas and Jose had returned.
The Child in a Dress slept next to Angela, who was being spooned by her mother. The mother of the Child in a Dress further away.
“Karen”, a far away voice called towards the mother of the Child in a Dress, “Karen”. Karen grimaced in her sleep and said, “Don’t call me that name”.
“Karen. Karen”, the voice continued to call, a ghostly whisper. Karen slowly opened her eyes, leaned up and looked around. The room was foggy and hazy but Karen could see that everyone was still asleep, not bothered by the ghostly whisper. She sat up. The ghostly whisper called out her name again, the voice echoing softly from outside the room and from the hall.
Karen got up carefully, following the echoing ghostly voice. She made a left turn and entered the corridor of the structure where all the rooms were connected to. The voice continued to call her “Karen”, and she followed it, going past the room where the fighters were having a meeting, yet no one was there. She exited the structure into what should have been the long cavernous tunnel with the stream running along it, but there was no cavern. There was no tunnel. No underground stream. She had exited into a wet and foggy forest. It was no longer night. It was a foggy day, the clouds choking the light of the sun, preventing it from reaching into the forest, making it seem as if she was wading through smoke. She swam through the fog, and all the while the voice called to her, “Karen”, it called, a ghostly echo, “Karen”.
“Don’t call me that”, Karen answered back, “My name is not Karen”. The ghostly echo laughed at her mockingly, “Karen, Karen”, it taunted.
Karen exited into a small clearing, the fog less apparent, where she could clearly see a small house. It was constructed of wood, old fashioned like a 14th century home, with hay thatched over the roof. The front of the home had a fence around it, in it a small garden growing things such as pumpkins, carrots, cabbages, herbs and other items.
Karen circles around the house once looking around. There is no one outside the eerie house. She tries to open the shutters to the windows and can not open it, there seems to be a latch on the inside preventing the shutters from opening from the outside. She enters through the front, opening the gate to the fence and moves past the little garden. She goes up the little steps and knocks on the door knocker. “Hello?”, she asked, “Is anyone inside?”
No one answers the door, nor is there any indication that anyone inside heard her. She knocks again. “Hello?”, she cries louder, “I think I’m lost, is there anyone home that can help me?” She waits a bit. Again there is no answer.
She turns and walks down the steps and walks toward the fence gate. She sees the fog surrounding the home, the trees barely visible. She would prefer not to go into that again.
“Karen”. She turns to the door of the house. And she slowly starts to feel a lure. A temptation. A pull. A tug towards the door. To touch the handle of the door and pull it open. The feeling grows stronger and stronger, and Karen starts to feel like she is in a trance. She slowly walks up the wooden stairs. All she can feel is the handle of the door. She can not think. She is mesmerized. She grabs the handle and pulls on it, the door easily swinging out. And as quickly as the hypnotic desire came it vanished and all Karen could think or feel was that disconnection from her body and her mind. As if it wasn’t Karen who opened the door, it was her body that opened the door.
Karen scans her initial surroundings, her mind feeling like a haze. The room is odd, or rather she feels odd looking at the room. She can see she is looking at a fully furnished home, yet she can’t register the image of it, as if all of the house and all its furnishings is not rendering for her mind to compute. She thinks she sees a square table on her right, next to a fireplace, with two wooden chairs at each end of the table, a rug underneath them both. Hung on around the fireplace is a string of what looks to be shriveled little fingers, with two dangling shriveled raisins attached beneath each of the little fingers, too small to belong to an adult and too limp and boneless to be an actual finger. The idea of this ornament should be odd and out of place, yet she doesn’t feel that it is in fact out of place, it just feels like an intrusive thought had interjected into the room. Next to the fireplace is a full length mirror, as tall and wide as a person. She looks into it, the image of the room behind her reflected into the mirror, yet she can not see herself and it feels like the room doesn’t look like the same room as when she had first entered the house. She turns around once more scanning the house once more. She has the strangest memory that there above the fireplace a string of little fingers should be ornamenting above it, yet there is no string.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
Outside the front door she hears muffled laughter and turns toward it, finding a shut front door, where previously she was sure she had never closed it as she entered the home. She opens it to find three children, two boys and one girl, hanging on metal railings and playing on stone steps. They stop and squeal as they notice her. One of them pointing its finger at Karen. “It’s a hag”, the boy squeals and the other children giggle and laugh.
“I’m not a hag”, Karen complains and the children laugh at her once more.
“Hag!”
“Fatty!”
“Blubber dripper”
“Ugly, long nose”
“Witch”
“Hag, Hag, Hag”
The children mock her. They dance and they leer and they start looking like little goblins, one second wearing clothes the next second wearing nothing but a loin cloth. They dance and they dance, and it starts feeling like they are in a frenzy, as if they are dancing a ritual dance of mockery.
“Hag, hag, hag”.
“I’m not a hag”, Karen snaps with a sharp and more aggressive anger. She looks at the ever changing shape and form of what were once three children and can not understand what she is feeling. She remembers that there is a mirror and she turns to look at it.
At first, in the reflection, there is only the room behind her. She is not reflected in the mirror. “ But I’m here”, thought Karen, “I’m here. What do I look like?” A large nose gray and bubbly with warts, the size of a cucumber comes into view. “What an ugly nose”, thought Karen. A large grinning face the shape of a crescent moon appears, its chin very pointed, the balding head holding long white hair resembling a thinning out mop. A hunchbacked body, long elongated limbs, with large swathes of fat being held by stretching skin. A giant belly as big as a pregnant woman, balanced on forwardly thrusted hips. “A Hag”, Karen slowly thought, “I’m a Hag”.
She looks back at the three little goblins, but they are no longer goblins. In fact she doesn’t know what they are anymore. The noises they are emitting are now a garble, screeching incoherently. They are no longer mocking her, but simply making noise. And the noise just gets louder and louder, Karen’s heart beating harder and harder. And she wakes up.
[ T: 3 Days 22 Hours ]
The Obsidian Skeleton has arrived at the top of the pyramid town after marching up through all the layers and all the flights of stone stairs. And now it stands in front of the pointed building. It takes a moment to take in the building and its surroundings. Just a few moments ago it had pushed through endless throngs of the undead, yet here in this lifeless town none of its former adversities stood to resist the Obsidian Skeleton. There were no endless legions of the undead to block its path, no barricades at key locations of strategic importance. Nothing. There was no logical reason why “they” would leave this place undefended. At all times they had seeked to stop the advance of the Obsidian Skeleton, at all times they had taken advantage of every and any strategic location they had at their disposal. It just didn’t make sense. Unless they had a reason for leaving this place empty, or for some reason unknown to the Obsidian Skeleton, these undead had in some way done what they were supposed to do. Either to buy time, or to lure it to this location, or even both. And if behind the great doors there was still nothing to guard this place, well then it would simply remain a mystery as to what these undead wanted to achieve.
The Obsidian Skeleton stops thinking and with a purpose strides to the great doors. It pushes past the doors and steps into a ceremony hall. And there it is. Finally. Across the nave of the building, from the entrance to the chancel are eight columns of the undead, four columns on the left and four columns on the right, separated by an old, faded, red carpet. The columns are filled with fully armored skeletons, each bearing a weapon of war. These are not the mobs of naked skeletons the Obsidian Skeleton has faced before. This is a force of profession. A force of apparent elites. All uniform in plated steel armor.
At the end of the hall is a raised pulpit, a stage for leaders to preach to the mass. On this pulpit are seven ornately armored knights, each with ornately decorated weapons. They stand tall with poise and authority, brimming with certainty and surety. As the Obsidian Skeleton starts to move forward, One of them raises its gauntlet, towards the Obsidian Skeleton in a “stop, halt and desist” hand sign.
“I would ask that you pause in your aggression, at least for this moment”, boomed a voice. “At this moment of time, the Master of our master has engaged diplomatically, with the Master of your master. And so since that is the case I would ask that you take prudence, at least until diplomacy has gone its course. After all”, the voice continued, “we have all the time in the world, do we not?”