The stairs to the basement were just in the hall, located in an all-but-hidden pantry adjacent to the main kitchen. As Hanna walked from the foyer to the main hall, she could hear the musical sound of laughter drifting down from upstairs. As she neared the pantry, she could hear the clang and clatter from the kitchen, the muffled sound of Aema giving Chaos instructions and his unintelligible reply, too quiet to discern through the closed doors.
The manor wasn’t as big as some of the Nobles or Guild Leaders’, but it was still fairly large. Not as large as the manor she had come from, but she pushed those thoughts from her mind, taking a breath as she laid her hand upon the pantry door’s small knob.
As another bout of boisterous laughter came from upstairs, Hanna felt a flash of irate determination. Turning the knob, she pushed open the door, flashlight guiding her steps, and forced herself into the darkness.
The air was instantly cooler inside the basement’s door, promising further discomfort. The thin beam of light from the flashlight wasn’t enough to illuminate the entire space, leaving a level of darkness so deep and penetrating that a shiver rose up her spine.
“Hrmph,” she cleared her throat, “It’ll be fine. It’s just a stupid basement.” As she made to take her first step on the narrow stairs, a loud clap of thunder exploded, causing sudden, piercing shrieks from a terrified Soohae and Candace to rip through the armor of words and making Hanna jump backwards into the derelict shelf that only housed dust and cobwebs.
Hanna fumed, but only because she felt embarrassed by her own fear. She used the anger as fuel as she began to stomp down the stairs. “Stupid storm! Stupid screams scaring me!” She tried to rub at the pain in her shoulder blade with her free hand, but couldn’t quite reach.
Each narrow step descended further into the ever-growing darkness. The narrow walls and sloped ceiling that stopped not very far from her head, combined with the thin, hyper-focused beam of the flashlight, began to give her a feeling of growing claustrophobia.
“It’ll be fine,” she whispered. Even her voice didn’t sound so sure.
Her beam of light felt so small, and the darkness around her only seemed to grow darker, an eternal inky black, like a universe without even a single star.
Her heart began to pound as the silence of the deep became deafening. She began to breathe a little harder when she realized she could hear her own pulse in her ears. Don’t panic, she thought. Don’t panic. Each squelch and squeak of the aged, wooden stairs felt like a siren going off, beckoning every strange and terrifying thing of the night to her location. If I’m going to meet a ghost, she thought to herself, he’d better at least be hot.
Her body began to quake. “I’m just trembling because I’m cold,” she said, but her voice came out as barely a whisper.
A sudden loud clang rang out through the basement, making her nearly jump out of her skin and lose her footing on the stairs. Frozen with fear, Hanna’s legs threatened to buckle. After several moments, she dared to breathe. “S-stupid old house,” she stammered weakly, her voice a quiet squeak. Still, it took another few minutes before she could convince her legs to continue. They had nearly betrayed her. They wobbled, but they were at least moving. After what felt like an eternity, she finally made it to the final step and the cold, stone floor below.
Stolen story; please report.
Letting out a massive sigh of relief, Hanna allowed her body to drop down onto the last step, drawing her quivering legs to her chest. The bottom of the stairs was even colder, and she tried to tell herself that all of her shivering was only due to that—but even she inwardly knew that it was a lie.
She wasn’t sure why she did that. Sometimes she had no problem letting her feelings go, acting on impulse and fully embracing that wild side of her. Sometimes she became meek and apologetic, feeling like those same actions only made her a burden to others. But sometimes, like now, she felt this need to put up a strong front and protect herself. If she was only lying to herself, what was the harm? Or maybe it was the worst kind of lie. Either way, she had to at least pretend to be strong now, or she’d drop to the floor and just die.
Just as soon as her heart began to quiet and her breath evened out, a loud thump-clang beat the floor just beyond the ceiling above her, shooting Hanna to her feet, fumbling and nearly dropping her flashlight as she whipped around, trying to find the source. This is how I die, she thought in terror.
In an eternity that only lasted a second, she could hear Aema’s muffled voice calling out. “It’s okay, Chaos!” she was saying.
“Idiot,” Hanna muttered angrily. But, really, she was relieved. She could live with it being another ‘graceful’ idiot trick. It was far better than being murdered in the dark. Probably by a ghost. Or a monster. A murderer. Or a giant murderous crow, hell-bent on destroying all who inhabited the house built on what was once his field, the ancient homeland of his people.
Shaking her head to clear the thoughts before they spiraled further, Hanna turned back to the darkness. Taking a deep breath, she aimed her beam in front of her feet and set out to find the fuse box.
-
It was slow going at first. There was a surprising amount of clutter. Old dress mannequins, still adorned with half-pinned cloths that went out of style a decade or more ago were grouped together on her left, a partial wall to her right had her maneuvering around them, silently glad for having taken a moment to look around. Had she bumped into one of those things in the dark, she was sure she’d have actually had a heart attack.
Mostly, Hanna was forced to keep her flashlight trained at her feet. She wasn’t sure what the dark held, but her mind began to conjure more practical fears: big fat rats with scraggly hair, long tails and thick squishy bodies, running across her feet or—even more terrifying—attacking her en masse for their long-awaited grand feast.
Hanna felt like she’d gone pretty far by now. What did a fuse box even look like? What was she, an electrician? She took a moment to shine the light ahead and saw a bare wall to her left and boxes stacked against it up ahead. To her left were large barrels. Casks. Holy banana of Eskerine, were those wine casks? Ale? She reminded herself to make another trip down here in the daytime. With Aema. And maybe Undertaker. No, better not bring Taker. He'd be more likely to want to have a flirty chat over a glass of wine than to haul these bad boys up those stairs and into the scullery kitchen. A scullery kitchen! Hanna allowed herself a moment to wonder what rich assholes could afford a maid and, possibly, under what circumstances they could afford one for themselves. She momentarily daydreamed of being a Noblewoman when her flashlight began to flicker.
“Really?” she muttered, giving it a little shake. It flickered more. With an under-breath grunt of displeasure, Hanna shook the flashlight and beat it against her hand.
“Oh, no you don’t!” she hissed, giving it another good whack. The flashlight, however, didn’t seem to appreciate the abuse and only seemed to grow more obstinate. It flickered once. Twice. A third time and this time it stayed out, plunging Hanna into complete darkness.
She froze in place, forgetting even to breathe until her lungs began to burn, forcing her to take a breath as her hand slightly wiggled the flashlight, pressing the button on and off for several long moments.
The cold seemed to wrap around her body like a shawl, seeping in rather than keeping out. Her eyes couldn’t adjust without even so much as a pinprick of light.
“Okay,” she whispered to herself, barely audible. “I am going to kill Aema for not checking the batteries when I get out of here.” She shivered. If I get out of here.
If I don’t die first.