After letting out a pained shout, Isaac hopped around on his leg in the manor’s living room. “Ouch, ouch, ouch.”

The flames of the fireplace cast a silly dancing shadow to the wall behind him. When nobody looked, it came to life, detached from his body, and crept across the wall into the halls. This living shadow had no head though. The fisheyes of a dead king’s painting moved, following Isaac’s position. A candle Abdul lit in the corner of the room gave off a loud ambient buzz like electrostatic.

You had to be alone in this place for its eerie liminality to unsettle you. It existed between every concept. Loud yet silent, dustless yet antique, frozen in time yet ever-changing. Countless strange phenomena took place right under the party’s noses from the second they entered the manor. Nobody ever noticed until it was too late.

Simon peeked around the corner in apprehension. “You scared me. Did you injure yourself?”

“I’m fine. Just stubbed my toe hard against this table leg getting up.” Isaac chuckled. “Surprised that didn’t have Elise running, as frantic as she can be. You came from the way they went. Run into them?”

Simon looked back down the candlelit wing toward the bathhouse. Confusion rattled him. He rubbed his eyes. “What are you talking about? I’ve been perched up in this hall and have seen no one. I last located them here with you.”

“No, they headed that way in search of a bathhouse.”

“I’m diligent, Isaac. There is no way that I’m wrong. Are you tired? Where is Lady Sasha?”

The level of doubt in the air left both bewildered. Isaac joined him, eerily gazing down the halls. Sunrise had just arrived. Ever-so-soft white and blue light came in through the curtains.

“Now you’ve got me doubting myself too. They can’t be far,” Isaac said.

“Help me search. What if Lady Sasha gets lost in here?”

“Fine. You don’t have to tell me twice. Cut the ‘Lady Sasha’ thing though. It’s cheesy, and that’s coming from me of all people.”

“I was just trying to be respectful.” Simon scratched his head.

The two stumbled around that servant wing of the manor. Between checking empty rooms and calling the names of the girls, Isaac looked in plain spots like behind decorative suits of armor. An army of them stood in the halls against the windows, evenly spaced.

He opened the visor of one feminine brass suit’s helmet, peering inside. Its cuirass had breast indents. “Hello?” His voice echoed into it.

Simon muttered under his breath. “Dumbass.” He then knelt and picked up the corner of the red rug they stood on to check underneath.

Taken aback, Isaac raised his voice at him. “And that’s any better? How’re they gonna fit under there? How, Sam?!”

“It’s Simon! How can you forget my name after knowing me for so long?! And a trapdoor! I’m looking for a trapdoor, you imbecile!”

“We’re complete strangers! Don’t act like you’ve been with us the entire time!”

“I have been. Do you not remember us being introduced together in chapter six?”

“Like hell we were! That was my first chapter!” Isaac let out a dramatic, growly sigh. “Whatever! This mansion is making me go crazy.”

Their search continued just as horribly until Isaac turned back where they came and let out a blurt of a yell. His hand resting on one of his daggers, he gazed off. “What in Ailmor…”

Simon turned too, startled by his ruckus. “What are you crying about no—,” he yelled too, even louder.

Almost every suit of armor had moved. Most didn’t show extreme changes; just slight movements, shifts of pose, and helmets turned as if watching the two. Others were unbelievable. Two suits sat playing a Zaiban board game like chess on a table that appeared from thin air. Their match was near its end.

Where did the table and chairs come from? How did they play so long without being noticed? How did this all happen without a single sound?

Simon approached and observed everything, nodding. “Doing all this behind my back is impressive, Isaac. You scared me. If only you put all that effort into our search.”

“I didn’t do shit, man. Real funny.”

“Eh?”

Nearing footsteps spooked shrill shrieks from both. Falling into impromptu combat poses, they faced Abdul who approached with a wisp of flame resting upon his fingertip. He looked like a cat awoken early from a nap.

With a resting bitch face, he questioned them, eyeing the odd armors. “What are you two bickering about this early in the morning? Playing… dolls?”

Simon glared at Isaac who returned daggered eyed. “He lost Sasha, and now he’s fucking with me.”

Isaac butted heads with him. “No, no, no! He lost my woman, and he’s doing the fucking!”

Abdul looked done with it all. This was supposed to be their rest night. “Why do I have to fix everything? They can’t be far. Try the bathhouse?”

He led them to antique double doors. Nobody responded to their knocks. They opened it up to find a forlorn, dark room filled with moldy towels and cobwebs. Marble steps descended into a massive empty pool long dried up.

Abdul observed. “No telling how long this place’s been out of service. Just where could they be? And what about the owners? How could anyone even live here?”

Simon shook his head. “I’m unsure. What do you think, Isaac?”

When Isaac didn’t answer, they looked to where he stood a moment ago. He’d vanished. One second, he stood in their peripheral vision. The next, he didn’t. Abdul peeked out into the hallways to see nothing at all, calling with an unsure voice. “Isaac? You there?”

He and Simon stood speechless in the hall. They sat on the ground, staring unblinking at one another. Abdul questioned him. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

“If we stay here within each other’s sight, we should be safe, right? People only disappear when we can’t see them. That’s my hypothesis, at least.”

“On the money.”

Simon blinked and Adul disappeared too. He scrambled up to his feet. “No! We were wrong! What the hell is going on?!”

Light, pitter-pattering footsteps scurried up behind him. It was too late.

Simon came to his senses, heartbeat sprinting, in a snowscape amid a forest of dead trees. A wooden cabin stood in the distance. It gave off chimney smoke. Flocks of predatory scavenger birds circled overhead. He trudged onwards through the snow towards warmth. Unknown to him, a twitching man with an owl’s head stalked him from the distance.

Simon made his way up to the cabin, stopping outside a glass window to peer inside. The frost blurred his view, but after rubbing the glass with his sleeve, he spotted himself within. His clone sat in this toasty, cozy home with a resting smile and low fireplace fending off the outside chill.

A brunette woman with a single emerald earring was next to him at the table. She looked familiar, but he couldn’t pinpoint her identity. They ate some sort of creamy chicken stew.

The low cries of an infant across the room interrupted their meal. The woman got up to go calm it, but the clone stopped her and went instead. He rocked the child in his arms with a dutiful look, muttering to it. No matter what he did, it failed though. The crying only grew louder.

His partner finished up her meal and joined his side to help. She tickled the baby, made some funny faces, and when all else failed played peekaboo with it. This just made everything worse. The baby gave them all hell. After the woman sighed, frustrated, the clone leaned his head up against hers and mouthed something Simon guessed to be “It’ll be okay. She could be hungry.”

At the window, Simon felt melancholic, rattled by both bitterness and hope. A good life. A calm life. Something genuine. His inner, most existential desires manifested in front of him here. To him, though, they were unrealistic and unreachable. A man like him would never obtain such happiness. A man like him would never deserve it.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Knocking sounded at the cabin’s front door. Both Simon and his clone stared at its jittering knob with cold animosity. The knocking escalated to intense slamming within moments. Someone beat the door off its hinges. It shook the entire building. It shook the sky, the infant, and Simon too.

The baby’s crying transformed into bloodcurdling screaming that raged both in the cabin and in Simon’s head. Death wails. His face twisting in utter devastation, he gritted his teeth, fell to his knees, and fought back against the orchestra of terror with his own begging yells. “Stop! Just stop! Please! I’m sorry!”

All noise ceased as soon as he commanded it. Now there was nothing except white noise and doom. There he kneeled, fists full of his own ripped out hair, with drool hanging from his lips. He collected himself from the ground and entered the cabin. The front door had been beaten down and lay in pieces. His family’s home was filled with utter darkness and emptiness. The woman and infant were gone.

The silhouette of his clone hung from an overhead noose. Simon stared down from the noose at the monstrous owl looking up at him.

***

Isaac wandered through a battlefield that mirrored the coldest reaches of Yellen. He was fifteen again and wore a set of plate armor riddled with dents and blood spatter. The blades of Dio rested at their hilts on his waist. “Guys?” He called, stepping over spilled guts.

A sea of infinite fog and corpses stretched out before him. The sky? Crimson. Not too far away, a man stood motionless in an exhausted stance, ivory crown upon his head. The shards of The Itblade, Lovecraft, lay scattered at his feet.

Isaac approached him. Waves of shivers went up his spine after recognizing the face. His father petrified into a statue of goldish metal. This was the final harmony between a man and god having pushed themselves beyond their limits. It was the consequence of his father's final God Aspect.

This was the most important battle of Isaac’s life. The one he ran from.

His shoulders slumped. “Sorry, Father. I promised that I’d watch your back until the end, but what did I do? I let the fear of certain death win. I ran. I'm still running. I wish I died protecting our people just like you.”

For some reason, he awaited a response from the statue. Statues didn’t speak though. A low groaning from the corpses around his feet warned him. “Flee. It’s coming.”

He clenched his fists, shaking his head. “No. Never again. I’ve changed.”

A spiritual signature got Isaac’s attention. He snapped to the left, glaring deep into the fog. There stood a twisted, monstrous King Andre thirty feet tall. The tyrant looked more canine and undead than human. He frothed at the mouth and roared out. “Welcome back, boy!”

Isaac went for his daggers but fumbled them. He paralyzed in that spot, eyes haunted, as King Andre rushed closer. The only thing that moved was his heart.

Thump.

Thump.

Thump.

Ever since that day, Prince Isaac IV lived frozen in time.

***

I’ve been here before. I return every night, but this time Primus is at my side. It is nothing new, and it is no tragedy. Laugh. This is reality. I awake unknowing yet choking. The nightmare chips away at me. I do not know how much longer I can endure living.

I hang from chains in The Red Room, three clawed blades hooking into my back, toes hovering above the ground. The culminating stench of feces and blood’s iron is alluring, and the sounds even better. Right in front of me, I stare at what will now release me from my suffering: The Apparatus. A great machine the size of a building, eternally churning and slushing.

My chained, strung-up neighbors sing until their voices break into morbid croaking. When one assumes they’re rendered incapable of melodies, their lowering into The Apparatus toes first rips out the rest of their bloodcurdling screeching. Malformed heads giggle until the lung's consumption.

With every sacrifice to be ripped from the hooks by men cloaked in white like angels, blood painting murals upon the ground, my place down the line neared until this fated day. Everyone honks and squeals like geese and swine. It is music. They are cheering my graduation.

None of it matters anymore. I have finally arrived. It is my turn. I can rest.

When they lowered me into The Apparatus, I was embraced instead of obliterated. Why me? They made such a big fuss about it. They dragged and tossed me into a prison cell. They sang and celebrated.

My bunk buddy was just another kid. An only child from a village halfway across the continent. With our language barrier, we barely understood one another, but it didn’t matter. After weeks together in that hole, we became best friends.

Jericho was enamored by the number seven and insisted that he saw it in everything. When our gods failed him, it saved him, and he saved me. He maintained his sanity by endlessly counting.

He orchestrated an escape but, on that horrible day, tripped and got dragged back into the facility’s depths. Out of fear, I turned and left. Out of fear, I abandoned him. I gave up on my brother. With that, a part of me now deeply buried. I fear remembering and acknowledging.

Do you understand me now, Claymore? Care to stop nagging me?

***

The girls held hands as they made their way deeper into the pitch-black manor in search of answers. Sasha shot her gaze back and forth between paintings and suits of armor. They all had following eyes to her. Especially the massive portrait of a little girl.

“That one looked at me, didn’t it?” she asked Elise.

Elise shook her head. “That painting is of me. I doubt it.” They stopped at an unnatural, morbid split in the halls. Before their eyes, the directions to wander branched into countless ways defying common sense and architectural convention. One such choice was a downward pit which went to who knew where?

Peering over the edge, Sasha marveled at how the suits of armor stood sideways as if unbound by the laws of gravity. And then upwards, another hallway expanded and twisted up through the ceiling. Doors swung and slammed above them, red carpets paving everything. “Where do we even go?”

Elise shrugged. “If I’m truly wanted here, then we should be shown the way.”

They chose a random path. At the end of a hall which transformed into ascending steps halfway, a black suit of armor stood at the top. They scaled stairs as if traveling to the top of a temple.

The suit awaited them. Speechless, its rattling arm pointed to a nearby antique wooden door. Red, eerie light penetrated through the cracks to shine on their faces.

It concerned Sasha. “Looks like that’s where it wants us to go. Should we though?”

Elise hesitated, holding her breath. “We have no choice.” She shook her fear off and opened the door.

Passing through felt like entering a portal to another world. They found themselves in a new mansion in daylight. Every decoration and piece of furniture here came off as brighter. They looked up at a new family portrait showcasing two young smiling parents with their arms around three children.

Intrigue and clarity fell upon Elise’s face as if she’d had an epiphany. “I get it now. This is my childhood estate. We’re in a memory.”

Elise pointed at a distant room at the end of the hallway. Its door was left swung open. “And there’s my room. Want to see how it looked?”

Sasha looked unsure but agreed with a pensive expression. In their approach, the subdued sound of bawling came into earshot. They stood at her room’s entrance. A mother cried her heart out into the dress of a young Elise sitting bedside. Older Elise next to Sasha looked away. “So, it’s that day.”

Sasha gripped her hand tightly. “What happened?”

“My father sold me. I think he loved me, but at the end of the day, he threw me away like I was nothing.”

Sasha’s eyes widened as Elise went on. “There was this powerful merchant in our city father had a business relationship with. When that hideous man visited our estate, he’d watch me with these scary eyes. He took a liking to me. When he asked for my hand in marriage, my father handed me over to him. He knew that man’s genuine intentions. He knew and yet he—.” Elise faltered, clenching her fist. “I was so young. No girl should ever go through such a thing. This day was the last time I saw my mom.”

Little Elise was perplexed by her mother’s breakdown. The tears and snot were ruining her favorite dress. The mother begged. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

“Is something wrong? Why are you crying?” The kid’s eyes got watery. “You’re gonna make me cry too.”

Older Elise left the room, her face bleak. “There’s nothing else to see here. Let’s go.”

Sasha followed. “Right.”

In the distance, another black suit of armor came to life. It marched from its resting spot against the wall and settled in front of the two. It pointed its empty, shaky gauntlet at another door. Red, hazy fog poured through its cracks.

Elise approached the haunted armor. “Who are you?”

It returned no words. Only sad wheezing and breathing that sounded like someone struggling against choking.

Elise knocked against its chest piece and heard the hollow thud. With low energy, she spoke. “Nobody’s in there. Nothing to do but move on.”

They entered the new door. Yet another set of dark manor halls presented themselves. Elise led Sasha across scarlet red carpets. They passed under golden chandeliers, paintings of gothic gargoyles feasting on naked peasants at a dinner party, and massive windows granting moonlit views of red rose gardens.

Elise dragged to a halt, squeezing Sasha’s hand tensely. Disgust crept across her face. “Why here?”

They stared up at the portrait of an obese, slimy man in royal clothes. The three folds of fat under his chin and circular, unblinking eyes made him look more like a fish frog than human. Engraved letters under the painting read Magnus III.

Sasha looked between Elise and him in bewilderment. “We’re not at the merchant’s house, are we?”

“We are. What’s the point of all this?” Elise looked back to where they came from. That door vanished before her eyes. “Shit.”

“We just need to find another door then, right?”

They strolled onwards in search of doors giving off red light or fog. Their efforts amounted to nothing though. A bloodcurdling scream echoed from afar, accompanied by a shrill, “No! Please, no!”

Elise’s breathing increased rapidly. “I might hurl.”

Sasha watched her, panicked. She had no clue what she could do or say to help.

Elise inhaled and exhaled slowly to calm herself down. “I didn’t let him win. He never had his way with me. On this night, I stabbed him with his own bedside dagger. I stabbed him and ran away into the night. I ran far, far away, and chose homelessness over going back to my father.”

Sasha’s face tensed up as she held her own moved emotions at bay. “You’re strong.”

Another booming, repulsive voice rang out. “Augh, Gods?! Guards?! Guards! I want her head on a stake!”

The two watched young Elise’s shadow sprint across the halls. She had a long journey ahead of her.

Elise nodded, coming off as more empowered. “We’ve got something in common now.” She pointed ahead.

Against the window, that black suit of armor waited with its hands on its own throat. Next to it, another door radiating a sinister crimson glow stood. The suit’s horrifying wheezing only got louder. It gave both the girls chills.

Elise noted. “There’s our next destination.” She locked eyes with the armor as they moved on. She felt an odd connection to it. A nostalgic one.

They warped into a gargantuan throne room. Crimson red carpet trailed up a stone floor and steps to where King Andre sat limp with fierce eyes and a golden crown. A maid in a lavender dress with shoulder-length black hair knelt to his right. A personal knight flaunting gold-gilded plate armor and a halberd machina stood on the opposite side.

Down the several steps in front of them was a pale man on his knees, bowing head-to-stone in prostration. He wore a merchant’s fancy coat, feathered hat, and gloves.

Seeing the man panicked Elise. She took some steps forward, calling out. “Father?”