Day 038

[allthekeys]

|| Day 038: GENERAL Day rushes over the house disconcertingly fast, light flooding into all the darker corners. The ghosts of the night vanish with it, as if never there to begin with, and the stranger effects start to ease one by one. Curiously, all the scissors in the houses are missing. The dripping in the First House appears to finally stopped, but in the Blue Kitchen it seems to have taken its toll -- the sink has filled. The plug hole is blocked by something foul-smelling, and it seems as if the stale water has overflowed at some point. The floor of the kitchen is entirely slick, and even if mopped it seems to flood once more. In the Ballroom feet have left a trail all across the polished hardwood. Bloody footprints criss-cross in patterns, some smudged and some clear, as if dancers have been weaving through way here for hours until it's a myriad of overlapping red marks. If someone looks close enough, one or two sets are clearly not human. In the Study a noose has been hung from the ceiling. It dangles over the centre of the room, just above the heads of the houseguests, next to a toppled over chair. Anyone who touches the room will find it peculiarly warm and, stranger still, heavy with an invisible weight. The bloody scene in the Basement has hardly been touched at all. The corpses of the Nurses have been left out to stew and rot, and only the barest amount of care has been taken to clean up the gore-covered mess left in their wake. Large sections of the wing, however, are left roped off, not impossible to cross but clearly discouraged. One sole woman in a nurse’s uniform sits alone in the farthest corner of the Recovery Ward. She wears a dark veil and stares at a syringe in her hands, the needle trembling in unsteady fingers. She refuses to speak to anyone, though she seems aware of any who address her. The Second House has returned to normal, although the lights occasionally flicker ominously. The unnatural darkness in the catacombs has eased, but the existing sconces and light sources within remain out, although light brought into them from outside will work normally. Those passing through the Chapel will hear faint voices, a continual low agitated murmur; the voices vary, male, female, young and old, but remain too quiet to make out anything being said, and they seem oblivious to the presence of the guests. In the Third house, the hallways seem surprisingly empty. It’s a feeling moreso than an observation. The dizzying smell that originated from the Scented Bathroom is gone. Instead, someone has lit some of the incense that was in the room and throughout the day it gets replaced as soon it burns out. The feeling of lightness in the Hedonist Bedroom lingers, and anyone spending any significant time in the room might find themselves laughing, sometimes for no reason at all. Come morning, there’s faint whimpering heard all through the Fifth house. The voice is indistinct but sounds very young, and any parent in the house will quickly recognize the sounds as coming from a scared child, despite there being some oddness to the crying: it seems muted somehow. At first it’s easy to miss and sounds very distant but as the day goes on, the wailing grows louder and more frantic and desperate. As the volume of the noise increases a direction becomes clearer – whoever is crying seems to be on the first floor somewhere, but searching for the baby will yield nothing. On the path near the Outside door, the guests might find small drops of blood.