Huh? What happened?

Oh, I remember. I was confused. Why would I faint like that?

I walked into the hallway and went down the small staircase in hopes of entering the main hall to meet up with everyone else.

What the hell? When I walked into the downstairs room, there was no door. Instead, there was just a wall. Am I dreaming? No, everything feels too real.

I heard footsteps behind me while I was taking a closer look at the wall, so I turned around to see who it was.

“Oh, hi Alex!”

“How do y-you know my name? Are you the person who brought me here?”

Alex was noticeably afraid, but I couldn’t understand why he would be scared by the fact that I knew his name.

“What are you on about? We met like three days ago.”

“No we didn’t! I don’t know who you are!”

“Calm down, we literally met in this room!”

“No, we didn’t!”

I heard footsteps again and I assumed that Alex heard them too because he stopped shouting.

My eyes must be messing with me, how is this possible?

In front of me was Adam, who looked more confused by me than anything.

“You? You’re alive!”

Adam stayed silent and I didn’t say anything after that either. What kind of situation am I in? How did Alex forget everything and way more importantly, how is Adam here?

I wanted to ask Adam if he remembered anything, but Rose came down the stairs before I managed to do it.

“Who a-are you guys?” She asked with a calm expression even though she was shaking.

You too…

Everyone , including me, was utterly perplexed. It all went on like a dream, except everything still felt too real.

“I see everybody is here, splendid!” I heard a voice behind me, so I turned around only to be surprised by Lucia. “Since I’ve got you all here in one spot, I guess it’s only right for me to introduce myself. I am Lucia, the one that brought you here. Don’t worry, I’ll explain everything.”

“Introduce yourself?” I asked. “You already did that long ago.”

Everyone was staring at me, bewildered.

“This place might not seem like it for you guys since you’ve only seen one small section of it, but you are inside a mansion. I’ll unlock the door to the main hall and you’ll start working on your way to leave the mansion.” Lucia was saying things that we were already told long ago, even so the others were treating it like brand new information. I slowly turned around looking at the entire room one more time just in case.

The door! The door to the main hall appeared while I wasn’t paying attention. I ignored Lucia, the rest and my own confusion as I went to walk out of the room.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Lucia turned to me.

“I already know what you have to say. Find the secret, kill the traitor, I don’t fucking care!”

Lucia laughed menacingly and grabbed me, even though she was multiple steps out of reach when I was still looking at her.

“I’ll let you get away this time because of the circumstances, but if you speak to me like that again, I’ll make sure to shut you up for good.”

She let go of me and I quickly walked out. At that moment, I realized that this part of the mystery was completely up to me to figure out.

It must be one of Lucia’s abilities. I didn't want to imagine that she could turn back time, that would make her akin to a God. Even if it isn’t that major, what she has done so far isn’t anything that would point to her being human. It’s making me feel like I’m living through a horror movie.

I stood in the center of the main hall and started considering my options. Do I talk to someone? Do I enter a certain room?

After a couple of thoughts I got a genius idea. If everything’s been reverted to how it was three days ago, that would mean that Leon didn’t get time to do anything problematic. I can go on the third floor and meet the rest of the last group. I’ll do that!

I climbed up to the second floor as fast as I could and ran down the hallway that led to the staircase. I was lucky that I didn’t run into anyone from the second group, although I didn’t care about that at that moment. At the end of the staircase, Lucia suddenly appeared, her back leaned against the wall.

“Already running to the third floor?” she giggled.

“What do you want from me?” I didn’t feel the need to hide the fact that I was angry. At that moment, it was irrelevant to me that Lucia had the capabilities to end my life in a single painful second.

“Why the pissed off expression? I’m just intrigued as to how you will solve this.”

“Solve this?”

“You truly think something unusual could happen in this mansion without my knowledge?”

I sighed.

“So this is one of your tricks, huh?”

“How rude! I was forced to do this. That pest Leon is hindering the progress that I want to see, so I’ll leave you here to fix things.”

“What are you talking about?”

“If I told you precisely what task you had then this would be completely tiresome. Find everything out yourself, dummie.”

“Wait!”

As if she hadn’t heard me, Lucia vanished, like a ghost. It still freaked me out, although it was not a surprising thing to see anymore. For a moment I completely forgot why I came to the third floor, but I remembered after mere moments.

Oh yeah, I need to meet the rest of the group! Hmmm… Which door to check first?

I looked to my left and right, leaving things to my intuition since it was pretty much a gamble how good the person on the other side of any of the doors was. I knocked on one of the doors, the name where Maya was written..

Nobody responded.

I kept knocking.

“Please, no!” I heard a shaky voice. “I don’t want to die! Leave me alone!”

I didn’t want to scare her more. In her thoughts, this was probably her first day in the mansion, she had to process everything that was going on and prepare mentally for anything wrong that could happen. As much as I wanted to make her feel safer, I didn’t have the time to do that. With slight hesitation I opened the door to Maya’s room.

The room had the same design as everyone else’s from the previous groups. Maya was standing in a corner with pure terror on her face.

“Calm down, I won’t hurt you,” I tried reassuring her.

Maya kept shaking, but she didn’t utter another word. I looked more closely at her. She wasn't wearing any unusual clothes, but her hair caught my attention. It was merely long straight black hair, but it seemed to be cut really awkwardly and unevenly. It was also visibly dirty. I wasn’t in a place to ask useless questions, so I just approached her slowly.

“Why is this happening to me?” tears slid down Maya’s face.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Please trust me, I’m only here to help.”

I heard someone coming behind me and I hastily turned around. It was that bastard again.

“You…”

“Oh, we found the traitor already,” Leon now knew about me yet again and he laughed in my face thinking he had already discovered something.

“What might your name be?” He kept laughing as he asked that.

“Petra, nice to meet you. And you are Leon.”

“I see what I have here, someone from the organization.”

“The organization?”

“Hehe, I guess you’re not the same as me yet.”

“You never mentioned any organization before, what the hell are you talking about?”

“Exactly. You took what I said as truth, woman. You do not see how naive you are!”

I sighed. Leon was obviously a complete lunatic, although what made him dangerous wasn’t merely that, it was his intelligence and charisma that mixed with the insanity.

“Listen, I don’t have the time to deal with you! Just back off for now, alright?” I couldn’t keep my cool.

“How rude! No, if I want to be here, I’ll be here.”

It was useless to argue with Leon, I finally reminded myself. I decided to ignore him despite the risks and turned back to Maya who seemed to be intimidated by Leon.

“Maya, listen, I’ll explain where I came from if it’ll help you calm down.”

“S-Sure.”

“Alright, I’m glad. So, you noticed how there was a staircase at the end, right?”

Maya nodded without saying anything.

“Well, this is the third floor of the mansion. Each floor has a group similar to the one you’re in, so I came up here to meet everyone and tell them that.”

“How interesting,” Leon quietly said behind me. Maya still seemed nervous, however she was slowly starting to calm down.

“W-Well, at least there are two people here. The traitor can’t do anything in that case, can they?”

“If you’re too scared to search for the secret, you can always lock your room and rest without anything happening to you.”

“H-How?”

“There should be a key somewhere on top of your nightstand.”

I looked at the purple nightstand next to Maya’s bed, yet the only thing on it was an old looking lamp.

“Maya, are you sure there isn’t a key somewhere around here?”

“Y-Yes.”

Out of nowhere, I felt someone tap my arm.

“Leon, what the hell do you want?”

I turned around only to see Lucia standing right in front of me and Leon out of sight.

“I see there’s a bit of confusion here that I might have to clear up. Only the group on the first floor has keys to their rooms.”

This was the first time I heard of that. The second group probably assumed that we didn’t have keys, so nobody brought up the topic.

Lucia continued talking.

“To make things more interesting, I gave every group a perk. The first group, obviously, has the key to their own room. Each member of the second group got the key to the storage and for the group here, I put something ‘sentimental’ in everyone’s drawers. Basically anything that would remind each member of home.”

Maya was hesitant to open her drawer, but eventually she opened them. There was a white box inside. It was very small, it looked like a box that would store pills.. I wanted to look at it more closely, but Maya panicked and quickly closed the drawer.

“H-How?” She started shaking even more than before.

“Maya, do you know what’s inside?” I calmly asked her.

“Get out!” she screeched at me and kept panicking, so I left the room, not knowing what else to do.

That box, there’s nothing normal that could fit inside it. There have to be pills there, and by her reaction, they must be… No, I won’t assume such things!

I tried getting my mind off of Maya and looked at the other two doors which lead to Naomi and Evelyn’s rooms.

Again, I had to trust my luck that I wouldn’t run into a lunatic, but that didn’t matter much since I couldn’t exactly get far away from them. I cautiously knocked on the door to Evelyn’s room and cautiously opened it.

Across the room, Evelyn was sitting on her bed with her legs crossed and eyes closed, she appeared to be meditating or at least doing something similar to ritual. Her hair was a very strong shade of red, long enough to even touch her bed. That color was matched with a purple coat and a black shirt under it.

“Hey! Are you Evelyn?”

“Why must you interrupt me?” Her voice was very soothing, so much so that I was actually able to notice it the first time hearing her.

“I’m just here to meet you guys."

"Then tell me who you are, I do not wish to waste more time than necessary. You truly haven't comprehended the situation we're in, meditation is necessary."

"Alright then, my name's Petra. My room's on the first floor of the mansion."

"Evelyn. Evelyn Umbra. Now, may I have my silence or is there anything else that I should assist you with?"

I thought for a second and remembered another thing I wanted to do.

"Evelyn?"

"Yes?"

"Can you please show me what you have on your nightstand or in your drawers?"

"That? Oh, there are merely some basic art supplies inside, the actual interesting part that you’re probably looking for is behind the nightstand. Lucia did something really extraordinary, it almost gave me a sense of safety. She somehow managed to install a tap with paint of my choice coming out of it. I cannot figure out how it works, though I'll do my best to get to the bottom of it."

"A ton of paint?"

"Indeed. Now, is that all?"

"Yeah, thank you."

I walked out of Evelyn's room. My thoughts were overwhelmed. I gave myself a moment to process everything before knocking on Naomi's door. Things were now even more bizarre than they were earlier. Everyone except me somehow lost their memories of ever being here, Lucia somehow talked with all three groups which were on different floors all at the same time, Evelyn has a tap with paint coming out of it. Nothing is making any sense anymore. Nothing made sense ever since I came here, but it’s getting worse and worse.

I didn’t want to think about it anymore, so I continued my task.

One person left. I approached Naomi’s room. I did what I already did twice and opened the door. To my surprise, her room was completely empty. I guess it makes sense, my group started exploring right after Lucia left. Then again, I was the reason why we rushed with that.

The best chance of finding Naomi should be continuing down the hallway of the third floor. The first room that I checked was the library since it was the closest to me, but I had no luck. The library was completely empty and the only thing I noticed in it was the bookshelf that previously had everything on it dropped to the floor. It was now seemingly untouched.

I quickly closed the library door and walked towards the next room, the one with the weird door that was locked earlier.

I opened it and there was nothing. Not a single person, not a single shelf and not even a single piece of furniture. It was pretty large, yet completely empty. It creeped me out, so I quickly closed the door.

I kept walking towards the next room which didn’t take long to reach. Above the door, exactly like the bedrooms, there was a small sign with the word “lounge”.

Lounge? Why would a room that doesn’t belong to anyone specifically have a label? I had bigger things to worry about, so I didn’t think too much about it and opened the lounge door to see if Naomi was inside.

The room wasn’t too big, it merely consisted of two purple sofas and a table. Leon was sitting on one of the sofas, saying something. I looked at the other sofa and I saw her. It couldn’t have been anyone else, I met everyone except her. She turned her head towards me and started talking, practically erasing Leon from her mind.

“Name?”

“Petra. And you are Naomi, right?”

“Where were you during Lucia’s speech?” Her voice was calm, reminding me of Amy, but unlike Amy, Naomi’s voice was more intimidating and stern than it was peaceful.

She looked like she was ready to kill me at any moment. Her long black hair with bangs that almost made a completely straight line, her sharp eyes and her outfit which consisted of a suit and a pair of highly formal pants.

“I was on the first floor, she held a speech there too.”

“When?” she answered my questions without even taking any time to think.

“Uh, all of the speeches happened at the same time.”

“Real reason.”

“Just give it time, you’ll see what Lucia is capable of. I’m not stupid!”

“Is that a threat?”

“Wait, no! That’s not what I meant!”

“Enough talking. I have enough information.”

“What are you on about?”

“You’re already here so I guess I cannot do anything about you,” she sighed, “stay on this floor while I go through everything. I will stop the traitor with no more than one assistant.”

I started to connect the dots. I didn’t find Maya and Evelyn earlier because Naomi hid them and Leon didn’t hide because he was probably working with her.

“Of course, we will meet the rest eventually,” Leon jumped into our conversation, “but here’s the deal, Petra. If anyone comes up to this floor, say this. ‘State your business’. The other person will without a doubt ask to meet everyone or something idiotic. To that, respond with this. You’ll have to get permission from Leon for that.”

“No,” Naomi quickly interrupted him, “you do not get to make the decision.”

“Let me finish, bitch.” Leon looked at her with a face of pure rage, even though his voice was completely calm.

“Alright, speak quickly.”

Without a second of delay, his face became normal again and while pretending that nothing happened, he continued speaking.

“If the person goes to me for permission, I’ll take the measures we talked about.”

“Measures?” I asked while thinking about what his sick mind could come up with. He didn’t answer, but instead laughed, making me realize that it was merely yet another lie to throw me off.

“Anyway, let me explain everything. Whoever is informed about our plan will instead say this. ‘You meant Naomi’. That’s the sign to let them interact with the group and that they are most likely safe.”

Naomi thought about the idea for a couple of seconds before giving us her opinion.

“I approve.”

That conversation told me what I needed to know about the third group and I also got to meet everyone. I didn’t know where they were planning to hide everyone, but that didn’t matter since they now considered me a part of their group. However, I didn’t have time to stick around, as I had to hurry downstairs. I had to figure out another mystery, that being how Adam and Rose were back and how everyone forgot the days that already passed.

I turned around to leave the lounge when I saw Lucia standing at the door.

“Good job guys, everything went smoothly. We can now continue the show.” She proceeded to clap without elaborating on what she said.

I felt sick again, the same way that I felt sick when I fainted and got into this weird situation. Unlike last time, I didn’t get any time to react before I fell down. Yet again, everything turned black. Huh?