Day 15

Naomi told us to rest for a day last night. No investigating, nothing. We did as she asked because we all needed a break. It might prolong our stay here, but it’s necessary.

I spent most of my day hanging out with everyone, getting to know them better. I talked to Blake first since I didn’t know much about him, he was pretty quiet all this time and he also spent a couple of days stuck in bed due to his sickness. From what I know about him now, he’s pretty nice. He seems to always look out for others, he’s constantly apologizing for being “useless”. I assured him that everything was alright and that we were simply glad that he was feeling better, and that was that. We talked about life and such. There was nothing really unordinary about him, but not in a bad way. I think he’ll probably help a lot in the upcoming days, I can already see the determination in his eyes.

In the evening Blake brought us around three packs of beer that he had found in the storage room. I rarely drink since I’m underage, but everyone except Dante wanted to, so I joined them. We had a fun night and the only person who acted crazy was Leon, but I’m pretty sure he was completely sober.

To end this journal entry I want to mention that while I do feel better and safer now, I’m certain that when I get out of this mansion, everything will still haunt me. All the deaths, all the stress. I want to be positive, but it’s not easy and I just feel the need to bring that up because, when family or friends see me again, they might think that everything can just return to normal, though things might never be the same ever again.

Day 16

We began investigating again, now without the restriction of only one guy outside at a time. With all of us outside our rooms, working on getting out, I quickly realized how many people died. There are only six people including me, only half of the total twelve that we were here in the beginning. I can’t believe it, how did all of that happen in only two weeks, I’m at a complete loss for words!

For something positive, I found a new clue myself while checking out the right wing of the second floor. I knew that something would be inside that room because of all the trash scattered around.

I found blueprints for something. A small machine shaped like an eye. I’m not sure what it does or if we could somehow make it, but it’s a clue nonetheless. The blueprints showed that one of the parts is a small stone in the middle of the machine, I’m assuming that that’s what makes it do whatever it does. I’ll keep my eye out for any weird looking rocks, because if I find it and manage to make this metallic eye with the help of others here, we’ll make a lot of progress. Who knows, maybe this eye is the secret itself, I have to take that into account.

Dante also managed to find something. A religious text written by two members of the Divinitas family. It doesn’t mean much to me since it’s just reinforcing what we already know about our ancestors being here.

I still took a peek at the writing to see what it was about. It mainly talked about the two Gods that the Divinitas family worshiped. Sentin, the God of protection and Volaret, God of the sky. Dante gave me more details about the two Gods and I listened closely even if it didn’t care too much, to be honest. From what he told me, Volaret is the creator of everything and also has control of everything while Sentin is the God who protects Volaret’s creations. He told me way more than that, but I thought I’d write this down to make him happier.

Day 17

We didn’t find anything new today, although we didn’t put in much effort into looking either. Fortunately, nothing bad has happened yet and Lucia still hasn’t shown herself, although I do feel like I’m being watched.

Other than that, Blake told me how he was planning to confront Lucia if she tried to do something to us. Of course, I warned him not to do anything because both of us knew that she would kill him without breaking a sweat. He wants to protect us now that he can, but he’s not thinking straight.

I heard the sound of my door opening, so I stopped writing and turned around.

“Follow me.” Naomi said and quickly took off. What does she need? I ran after her, interested in what she was planning.

We went into the main hall and then immediately through the other door on the first floor’s right wing and up the stairs where everyone else was.

“Oh, there’s buff bitch!”

“What’s going on?” I was confused. It’s the room where Alex and Rose found a piece of rope. Other than that, every time I investigated here, I found nothing. Did I miss something important?

“Watch and be amazed.” Evelyn seemed excited. She proceeded to push a statue depicting a Roman emperor forward, only making it move slightly, but revealing a ladder leading into some sort of basement. It makes sense! This room has a staircase between two areas, so fitting another room below the second one wouldn’t be too hard.

“I will go first.” Naomi stated and fearlessly climbed down. Dante soon followed, then me, then Blake, then Leon and last but not least, Evelyn.

I turned around and saw a bunch of monitors, each displaying one of the rooms. Cameras! That’s how Lucia is keeping track of us, but that’s obvious! But wait, I’ve never seen these cameras. I paid attention to my surroundings, I doubt that I would miss them.

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“Did any of you notice these cameras while you were going through the mansion?” Blake asked the question that was looming in my mind.

Everyone except Leon said no, Leon just laughed.

“Lemme see.” Leon came closer to the monitors and grabbed a small remote that was in front of them. “I want to see what this does.” He pressed one of the three buttons on the remote and every single camera angle changed. Each monitor still showed the same room, just at a completely different angle. Leon pressed the other two buttons and they did the same thing. Each button was made to show one specific angle of every room.

“Alright, I got this!” Blake started climbing up the ladder. “Look at the camera that’s watching over the room above, I’ll try to find it and you tell me if the monitor is accurate.”

Just as he climbed back up he was visible on one of the monitors. I grabbed the remote from Leon and checked the other two angles. Everything was fine, but I noticed that Blake couldn’t see the cameras.

“Blake!” I yelled out so that he would hear me from the room above.

“Yeah?”

“Check the top left corner of the room, opposite of the stairs, that’s where the camera currently watching you is!”

“I don’t see anything there!”

I quickly went to the ladder and climbed up. Let me see for myself. It could be one of Lucia’s tricks, but if she’s capable of doing all of that, why does she need cameras?

“Over there!” After climbing up, I pointed to the corner where the camera was. “Wait, there’s nothing there?”

“That’s what I said.”

“But how? It’s not that easy to hide a camera. The video isn’t low quality either, the cameras should be big enough to be impossible to hide in plain sight.”

“I don’t know, but I’ll try to think of something. Petra, go back down and see if you can do something there, I’ll stay here.”

“Alright.” I climbed back down and started thinking.

“Please don’t overwork your tiny brain, buff bitch. Aren’t you supposed to be the muscle of the group?” Leon said.

“I guess I have to be the smart one as well, because you’re not much help in that department.”

“Haha, nice one! It’s not like I figured out who the traitor is all by myself, or the one who brought you close to him, only leaving you to do the dirty part of the work! No, no, no, you’re the smart one, hahaha. You’re lucky that I don’t really give a shit about getting credit! I just care about it being fun, and it sure was fun.”

“Leon, you truly are despicable.” Dante said, overhearing our conversation.

“Yes, I agree, I do not believe that I’ll ever comprehend your thoughts, behavior, possibly even existence.” Evelyn added.

“You really had to dig in deep, you almost made me cry. How rude of you, verbally abusing a nice young lad like me.”

I ignored Leon for the sake of my own sanity and thought of a plan.

What if we throw something at the location of a camera and see if it does anything to it? Maybe I could climb up with a stepladder and check it out up close? I’m pretty sure I could find a stepladder in the storage room.

“Can’t believe I have to do everything.” Leon sighed and reached into his pocket, pulling out two small wet rocks. “I knew these would come in handy.”

“What the hell does that have to do anything here?” I was confused.

“You can throw these at the cameras, duh. Don’t worry, I got them from the back yard, so they’re hundred percent local and natural”

“I’m not touching that! They’re wet, so who knows what you did with them.”

“You’re really rude, you know that? I offered to help and you yelled at me. Well screw you, I’m not helping anymore! Plus, that’s just spit, I like stuffing my cheeks when my mouth gets lonely.” Why can’t he just shut up?

"I believe that I have left a gemstone inside my room," Evelyn said, "I'll go get it and you may wait for me in the room above."

"Alright, thanks."

"My rocks are better." Leon mumbled while I was climbing out of the room.

I waited for a short minute until Evie came back with a beautiful blue gemstone.

"You may throw it at the corner. Do not worry, I specifically mentioned this rock because it will not be damaged by this."

I grabbed the rock from Evie's hand and aimed precisely to where the camera was before throwing it. The rock quickly flew towards the corner, but before it could reach the corner it hit something that I couldn’t see and fell to the ground. The cameras are invisible?

“I apologize.” I heard someone talking from behind, so I turned around only to see Lucia. “The camera is not that large, do not be fooled. I merely couldn’t let you break it. They’re expensive, don’t you know?”

“So they are there?” I asked her. “Why would you even need them though? I doubt that you don’t have some ability that would let you see what’s going on everywhere.”

“I do not wish to ruin your fun. Think for yourself. Just don’t throw things at my precious cameras. Trust me, you do not want to do that.” Lucia said before leaving just as fast as she arrived.

So, that's one of her limitations. She can't watch over the entire mansion at once. I must keep that in mind.

"What do we do now?" Evie asked me while she picked up her gem.

"There has to be something that we can do when it comes to these cameras… I know! Let's try to find a blind spot, somewhere where we can be sure that Lucia isn't watching us!"

We went back down to the room with the monitor to try and find a blind spot there. We checked every angle for every room, looking for any space large enough where multiple people could hide from cameras. The bathrooms are under surveillance! Did she really have to go that far?

We spent about an hour going around the mansion, just marking spots that weren’t visible on the cameras by leaving random objects there, but those locations were always either extremely small or too inconvenient in other ways and even with that, those spots were still few and far between. With all of that going on, I lost track on time, so I was surprised when the clock rang for midnight, even though it did make sense for it to be that late since we found the monitor room during the evening.

“Everybody go to sleep and continue tomorrow,” Naomi told us not a minute after the clock rang. She seemed to take a leadership role very seriously despite the fact that nobody asked her to or even wanted it, but Leon already went to sleep, so nobody was there to whine about something so unimportant.