Being Used To Remaining Alone

The place where Ciemnosc found himself right now was like a bridge hallway that allowed one to move from the mansion to a detached cottage right outside to the right of the mansion. The cottage itself just looked to be for the use of several families that could be within the cottage as visitors or anything else. But now, it had a completely plastered body of Hidden 2 on its bridge hallway.

And ahead of that corpse that was somehow still alive, a trapdoor was also in the middle of said bridge hallway that seemed to not have been there, but that somehow was always there. At the same time, there was an unknown level of coldness around that could just not be well explained; only that was because it was within this mansion that it had those effects and strangeness.

Step step step; thomp…creaaaak~.

Ciemnosc went over to the trapdoor and waited for nothing, crouching already over as he could sense a ‘little’ someone rushing towards him as crazily as before through the long hallway with his Spirit Sense. Then he grabbed the trapdoor. which was heavily made of wood and thick in appearance as well. the moment he did, he felt not just heavy but as if many other ‘things’ on the other side of the trapdoor below were pulling it down instead so that it wouldn’t be seen.

So that it wouldn’t be seen, so that it wouldn’t be heard so that it wouldn’t be known…

After beginning to open it and with the candle-like monster just a few dozen meters remaining, almost around the corner as well, Ciemnosc raised his right hand opening the trapdoor, and directly investigated with his head as he extended it down and into the trapdoor’s hole right away to check for anything.

Besides the simple one image of a dried up, darkest of grays and small, childish body appearing in the middle with life-like but slightly enlarged eyes vertically, which were also the only thing in its childish body seemingly alive but that disappeared from Ciemnosc’s view as soon as the child ‘looked back’ at Ciemnosc peeking down, just mere inches between them - it startled Ciemnosc to the point that his skin numbed and he felt crawling on his skin.

But right after it disappeared, like it was never there, below the trapdoor’s barely visible stairs, all Ciemnosc could see was pitch-black darkness he was not able to see. The candle-like monster was already turning around the corner and about to spot Ciemnosc. Ciemnosc closed his eyes and concentrated his Spirit Sense into 2 straight lines, which were channeled from her eyes and powerfully boosted them to concentrate both his capabilities and his Spirit Sense before he opened them.

“...” Now, Ciemnosc’s hair all over his skin stood on their end, if Ciemnosc felt the sensation of being glared at when he even just held the trapdoor without even trying to open it and which it only served to increase as time passed and he was now even peeking his head down. Then he now felt that being right could not always be ‘good’, he saw that there were multiple ordinary humans with their bodies well dressed and even bodies as good as living but with their eyes…shining bright white.

They looked up at him as if waiting for him to enter, while a candle-like monster was already looming over Ciemnosc’s back with its lid wide open. Ciemnosc entered the trapdoor with an expressionless face with his hands touching the steps first and his back slouching slightly, the eyes never leaving him as they seemed to grow bigger the more Ciemnosc looked.

Creak~! Thud! …-GRUWOOOOWWLLLL…crush, bite bite, cruuuoowwshh…

With the trapdoor closed, and with his Spirit Sense back to normal. Ciemnosc was now amidst a darkness that wasn’t just darkness. One where every step he took, the light would present itself for him to see all around his body to see whatever was the nearest to him. But the bright eyes from before were still there, shining better than ever during the pitch black.

Ciemnosc stood up and walked down the stairs normally, while hearing noises of a dried up meat-like substance being chewed on with rage and as if the candle-like thingie had stopped to eat grumpily on the floor right before the trapdoor. He sure as hell couldn’t get out now, but he wasn’t planning to, as he made his way down for as long as it was needed.

While taking the bright eyes into consideration, Ciemnosc also looked below at the handrail and the steps he was stepping on. He stepped on and was about to step on altogether. Those he was stepping on seemed to have either very black, ashen hands looking to grab his shoes, always missing as he wasn’t willing to try, and see if they could touch him.

Their wrists weren’t visible, nor were their uniform or clothes fully since they came from the pitch blackness, but they were intelligent. It just seemed that they couldn’t, for some reason, stretch deeper into the holes of the handrails and grab Ciemnosc fully. All of these hands on the step he was on were adult ones.

There were also others who had small spoons, forks, and knives; they were using them to try and get Ciemnosc’s body taste or part of his clothes and shoes, with some of them scooping with any of said cutlery. And Ciemnosc was able to feel that they were damn real. As for seeing once more with his focused Spirit Sense whether there were people behind the pitch blackness at these moments, he was once again not deathly curious to find out what would happen if he saw again.

On the steps he stepped on, there were hands of the same color and substance, and intelligence as well as life-like sensation. It was just that they were being silent as they waved at Ciemnosc. It was a very kind wave, and it seemed to contain gratefulness. But they would all disappear the moment Ciemnosc took another step; they were mostly adult ones - but also children’s hands.

And then, with each step that Ciemnosc was going to take, little tapping noises would be heard on it, and that was because Ciemnosc could already confirm that small children’s hands would pop out from the pitch blackness fast and gesture with their fingertips at the next step. Guiding him like this, they disappeared back into the pitch blackness once his whichever foot landed on that step.

Like this, with the bright white eyes looking at him from below and in front to just in front, there was no sight of the childish figure he saw before with a whole dried up small body.

Thuffn…

Suddenly, as Ciemnosc stood in front and was mostly surrounded by the white bright eyes, shining through the pitch black, he felt his back accompanied by the presence of that dried up small child’s body but now large. Not grown up, just immeasurably large as just its index finger alone was almost as tall as Ciemnosc himself but only about half his width.

The ‘lights’ went off as the enlarged child’s body shushed at the front of Ciemnosc, its mouth much larger than possible seen, and just as Ciemnosc’s Spirit Sense went to see the child’s face, its whole 50 meters in diameter shining gray, dead eyes flashed inside his mind before he abruptly forced this image out of his mind with brutal strength.

…1 minute passed, 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 50 minutes… Within this total darkness but not darkness, one that Ciemnosc didn’t dare try anything anymore and from which he completely remained rooted on the spot, yet, for 2 hours long… It was the first time that Ciemnosc, in these kinds of strangest of situations…that he was genuinely alone in the ‘dark’.

…pftyium.

Like a television being turned on, Ciemnosc suddenly saw a change in the pitch black room. And like a bunch of images appearing like silly, little mirages that only a child could present in their own way, Ciemnosc began to see things…from the past.

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“...ohohoh, and then it was like this…” - “It’s been indeed a long time!” - “Eh, your children? Weren’t they back already?” - “Oh, dear Miss-...you’re back! Did you enjoy the last dinner? Hoh hoh.”

An overall large, wide dining table of about 40 x 6 meters was suddenly right in front of Ciemnosc in the middle of the room, perhaps. All around it were, but both the adults and the dining table were almost dream-like images, somewhat emitting a source of light and moving quizzically as they talked and interacted with others, either seen or unseen people.

Meanwhile, all around them. Ciemnosc could see paintings like images here and there all over the dining table that were showing him what was basically the surroundings of the mansion. There was light green all around, people moving and working in what seemed to be a wide 4th point of view taken from the sky to below at the ground.

Some were above the dining table, which was empty, by a lot or right above it, and some others were around others’ heads, somewhat floating and even moving a bit. Everything else was still pitch black, and for starters, it wasn’t just a mansion but this used to be quite the large village. One that could even compare to the sect’s territory.

It was filled with a few hundred families of the most humble origins. But those in the mansion itself were the richest, and also were not originally from the village but came from the outside of it instead. There were more people within the mansion’s family than the number of families in the village, which was a strange thing for Ciemnosc to be let to know.

There was also discord, silent and polite one, toward this rich family. While the whole village itself was always in harmony - it did not seem to be the case lately.

Next, the dining table suddenly materialized, squeaky clean, dustless, and with real plates on top of it and all. Ciemnosc noticed he was behind a chair, right behind it, which was the only one on one of the extremes’ smaller sides of the dining table. He took a step to the right corner, and when he passed through that one first chair on his right, the scene all around the dining table changed.

There were now people seated on each chair, important and rich people of the mansion, they were indeed all having dinner in the basement, and it was not a simulation of their times for whenever they…took ‘this’ dinner.

Another step, another step, and another step… Ciemnosc slowly but quickly still - went over to step past each chair, arriving at the other extreme of the dining table and also passing past it and making his way towards the chair he first appeared to be standing behind from before.

The dining table’s overall image kept on changing, with sounds of melody and clattering of cutlery with plates or food, and the chatter among the rich family sounded and sounded. But the melody became slightly less audible with each step he took. While chatter was being slowly replaced by the sounds of chewing with one’s mouth, letting Ciemnosc know that he might have misophonia now.

And with each other step, as well, the chatter was toned down more and more until the sounds of the cutlery became louder and louder.

There…were times that they invited some villagers over, adult ones because they mostly invited children instead and always. The more steps he took, the more the rich people changed their faces, but the more the villagers felt anxious and afraid. Ciemnosc could see the rich people having all kinds of meat in their room, sometimes lamb, pork, cow, bull, duck…sometimes human’s limbs, sometimes their skin alone with wine to accompany, sometimes it was the whole bodies of such, roasted and with condiments all around their roasted bodies.

Sometimes…it was even their own children.

Step.

“...” Ciemnosc stepped past the chair he began his walking through, his head low as he looked at the empty table once more before looking to his right, only to see the dried up body of the child who was always present to the end and never…’taken away’ to be placed on the table looking at him as if he was a monster…Ciemnosc could understand, and not necessarily deny it as well.

Step.

But he wasn’t regretful, or feeling second chances, he was himself and not anybody else. The child’s body was enormous, much more than the entire mansion in terms of height and about 40 meters wide despite having such a slender and bony figure. It looked like it was right in front of Ciemnosc but, when he stepped forwards once, it became a tad smaller.

Step, step, step, step, step, step, step…

Ciemnosc continued to step towards the child, each one making the child smaller, who still moved around like he was alive. And Ciemnosc could see its head trembling whenever it came out of its arms and looked at Ciemnosc; just another monster.

This made Ciemnosc think that whoever tried to run away…may be looking at a much larger image, contrary to his current situation, and…possibly be eaten? Ciemnosc just couldn’t tell by now; nor did he care.

With another step, Ciemnosc came to stand right before the child. It had a dried up body, darkest gray, and an enlarged head vertically - just like its eyes. It buried its head once more within his arms and thighs and looked to be against a corner of the room - right before Ciemnosc took the last step towards it as it now had its real body size showing before him.

From behind, Ciemnosc felt hundreds of glares filled with greed, lust, and hatred - venomous, putrid, and malodorous. But he ignored them, despite their emotions wanting to take over him and do the unthinkable. It was less than a walk in the park for him.

Crouching down, Ciemnosc looked at the child’s burnt body by who knows what, and with his arms extended to the lower sides of its arms, the child seemed to become totally stiff with daylight returning to Ciemnosc’s retinas almost instantly and smoothly like a 20x fast forwarded footage.

Crack, fwooosh…

Ciemnosc stood up with the child’s body in his hands, grabbed below the armpits. As he stood up, the morning sunlight reached the ‘windows’ of the basement, but Ciemnosc’s attention was focused on the stiff, burnt-coal body of the child with his head between his knees and arms; he could feel guilty, hurting and sobbing sadness from its hundreds to thousands of years old corpse.

Now looking up, Ciemnosc noticed the open terrain between the dirt itself and the wood of the mansion. He could see he was under a cottage right now, where a burnt bridge was connecting the mansion and the cottage with a small river passing down the large bridge. As well as everything around the basement being…burnt, but not extended, for as the river that was passing under the bridge seemed much smaller than in the images shown before.

“...” Looked up outside the cottage’s basement once more before looking down at the child’s corpse. He kept it with him and made his way out of there without looking back at the hill of ashes where a dining table should’ve been at, that was some respect - for the child.

Getting out of there from one of the windows, Ciemnosc looked at the bridge and saw that it was somehow still there, but only the side of the cottage was burnt out. Hopping onto it above the small river, carrying the child’s body careful to not break it to ashes of the past, Ciemnosc walked his way back to the mansion.

As soon as he entered from the western south of the mansion into its long hall, Ciemnosc saw Hidden 2’s 2d body’s remains surrounded by broken ceramic, top notch quality but that had a foul smell - one that remained Ciemnosc of the food the rich people had taken at the last steps.

Passing over it, Ciemnosc saw the corner of the long hallway from far away, so he went over there to take a look. As soon as he turned around the corner, he saw the small room with interconnection to many hallways fully blocked by skinned bodies of villagers; they were kept there for long periods of time in ways unknown to ordinary people - but they somehow suddenly appeared here now as if it was done just yesterday. But Ciemnosc’s eyes dulled.

Looking at the stairs, Ciemnosc thought for half a second before stepping into them, just to see if there was anyone up there since he wasn’t in the mood to read with his Spirit Sense. Going upstairs, Ciemnosc directly saw many heads on the roof from where the 2nd floor began as if stuck while facing down though no longer bleeding out.

After getting to the 2nd floor, Ciemnosc saw…a 40 meters big pair of shoes…he could only imagine what kind of deaths many suffered there. And it was in a large room that was as large as the entire mansion, looking like an attic with only a few rooms here and there used like either strange storerooms or ‘prisons’.

Entering them, Ciemnosc immediately saw Hidden 8’s body almost fully eaten. There were 3 rooms connected, side by side, at the top left corner of the gigantic room. In the one to the leftmost, Ciemnosc came across a corpse with blood coming from its orifices, not just its 7 ones from its head but also from its poopy hole, pee hole, nails, navel, and pores from a certain part of its entire body. Its head was facing the opposite direction from where Hidden 8’s eaten corpse was lying on.

He could already see what happened; both Hidden 8 and this believer from the Moribund Yearning Cult had met out of nowhere while keeping themselves safe from anything around them when they met and the rivalry of enemies blazed in their interlocked eyes. However, it went away the moment they understood they were to stay alive, together if needed.

Then, Hidden 8 was surprised by one of those ‘things’ being right behind him, feeling as if his neck was being lightly gripped before turning his head and looking at the face of whatever managed to grab a few bites of his torso in just a few seconds to make 78% of his body disappear. Only Hidden 8’s totally stiff face and shoulders were left wide open, rectangular mouth and eyeballs have gone blue somehow.

…