May 9 - Taliyah's room

by **Calvin Strong** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 1:55 am

This time... there was no knock on the door. Just in Taliyah's head.

Code: Select all: Cyberboy: Knock knock.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:30 am

Code: Select all: Lightshow: Who's there?

by **Calvin Strong** » Fri Jan 07, 2011 3:34 am

Code: Select all: Cyberboy: I can't tell you. I'm undercover. If I told you who I am, I might have to kill you or do other unspeakable things to you.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 1:53 am

Code: Select all: Lightshow: Promises, promises.

by **Calvin Strong** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 1:55 am

Code: Select all: Cyberboy: And you know I'm not all talk. Cyberboy: In the meantime, want to help me test a program? It'll be fun...

by **Taliyah Malik** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 2:16 am

Code: Select all: Lightshow: Sure.

by **Calvin Strong** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 2:20 am

Code: Select all: Cyberboy: Here ya go... just accept and run it. Receiving file: mansionofhorror.exe

by **Taliyah Malik** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 2:40 am

Taliyah runs the program without question or reservation.

by **Calvin Strong** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 2:43 am

And instantly, she would find herself in a car.

Now, she would very easily be able to tell that this was just the program running in her mind, that actually, she was still in her room, relaxing in whatever pose she'd been in. However, it was very easy to get lost in this program and let its sensory input overlay her natural input.

More accurately, she was in a car that had just broken down, and was outside the gates to a rather large estate.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 2:48 am

With a bit of a smile, Taliyah gets out of the car, looking up at the gates.

by **Calvin Strong** » Sat Jan 08, 2011 2:53 am

The gates, rusted as they were, were hanging open, easily allowing her access up to the front door, which was ajar.

An impressive line of shrubs lined the way up to the door so thickly that one couldn't push through them to get around the house... or to get to the gate any way other than through the front door.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:49 pm

Taliyah walked up to the doors with a smile on her face, knocking loudly.

by **Calvin Strong** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 9:56 pm

The knocks echoed hollowly inside the house, and the door nudged open a little farther with each knock. The door was unlocked and very slightly opened. The house was dark inside, and no one immediately answered the knocks. She could, of course, just go in and find somebody.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:07 pm

Taliyah frowned. Of course, going inside would be the worst idea in the world.

Summoning a globe of light into one hand she stepped inside with a grin.

by **Calvin Strong** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:14 pm

Instead of a globe of light, though, a flashlight appeared in her hand.

A sticky note was stuck on it.

Sorry, did I mention no mutant powers? No making this too easy, scarey stories don't have superheroes!

Inside, the house looked like it was disused. Dust on everything, it looked like it'd been decorated around 1900, give or take a decade or two. She was in an entry room, with three doors leading out of it.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Wed Jan 12, 2011 10:25 pm

Taliyah chose the door to her left and attempted to open it.

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:21 am

Taliyah would quickly find that this story wasn't big on locked doors. Behind that door was a staircase that, like the rest of the place so far, looked old and unused, but not dangerous or degraded in any way.

The stairs took her up and around, putting her out on the second floor close to directly above where she'd started. She as in a hall, with another door directly across from her, and two more similarly matched sets down the hall.

The hall itself, in its day, probably was richly decorated. Now it was tattered with age and neglect. The only notable things to see were a broken table by the first door on the right side of the hall, and the door hanging off the hinge in the far doorway on the left side of the hall.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:23 am

Taliyah headed towards the broken doorway. It seemed as good a place to start as any.

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:33 am

The door fell off as she went to open it, but it looked like it'd been on the verge of doing that for a while, so no harm there. The room opened onto a run-down study that, in its day, like the rest of the house would have been very impressive looking. Now there was just run-down furniture, including a sofa, a bookcase holding the ruined remains of books, and a desk.

And at the desk was a girl, about Taliyah's own age, rifling through the drawers hurriedly, seated with her back to the door.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:34 am

"Ummm...hello?" Taliyah asks, "My car broke down outside..."

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:44 am

The girl seemed normal, going through her routine, digging through the desk drawer, an act she'd probably been doing for ages. The first word Taliyah spoke, though, seemed to snap that routine. The girl stood and turned... losing any semblance of reality in the process.

Her clothes... well, they had been nothing but a black and white maid's outfit, but now they seemed to have even less color somehow, perhaps because her whole being seemed to have less substance. Her skin (if it could be called skin, when she didn't really seem solid), appeared rotted on her body as did her hair. Eyeless sockets fixed on Taliyah as the ghost rushed at her with a surprising suddenness that made it seem faster than it really was. Its bony, claw-like fingers reached for her as its jaw dropped into an inhuman snarl.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 12:50 am

Taliyah let out a squeak of surprise, falling over and quickly getting up again as she turned to run down the hall.

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:00 am

It was difficult to tell that the ghost was there... since it didn't make any footfalls to hear. It did appear to not be able to pass through walls, but minor objects in its way must not bother it, since a fallen chair passed right through its leg as it came out the door and made its way after Taliyah.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:10 am

Taliyah gets to the nearest door and attempts to open it, hoping to hide inside somehow.

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:17 am

She does manage to get into the room catercorner with the study, the middle door on the right, with the broken table next to it, before the ghost sees her.

This bedroom is in disarray. There's an upended dresser next to the door, a broken chair against the wall in a heap, and the bed is crooked, with dark stains on the wall and on the mattress at the head of the bed.

And despite that, there are two people in the bed, engaging in... rather vigorous activity when she closes the door behind her. However, as soon as the door shuts, their seeming reality is broken as quickly as it is seen, and the man turns his head, his ruined face with it shattered skull fixing on her as its mouth opened in a soundless scream of rage. The other person vanished, it seemed, as he rushed at her, the horror of him even greater with the ruin of his body visible due to his lack of clothes.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:20 am

Taliyah backs out of the room, feeling like she's going to be sick.

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:22 am

The ghost looked like it intended to follow her. Worse, the other one was still making its way down the hall toward her.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:24 am

Taliyah sprinted back to the stairs, thinking that she should get out of the house.

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:27 am

When she got to the bottom of the stairs, the door, impossibly, was locked. And either the door locked from the outside (which was just ridiculous), or you needed a key to unlock it from either side (which seemed more likely). The door across from the stairs proved to be a closet, while the door across from the front door proved to lead to another grand hall with four doors in it and a glass door leading outside in the back at the very end.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:30 am

Taliyah headed for the door that led outside.

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:38 am

The manor sat on a huge estate, though if Taliyah tried running around the house, she'd find that her way was blocked by the hedges lining the walk in, which were too thick to get through, and the wall around the estate. Both of these, it would turn out, were unclimbable.

There was a walkway running through the yard behind the house, looping past several prominent features of the estate. Namely, there was a small chapel, a rose garden with a low wall around it, a large fountain, a hedged garden, and a well.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:41 am

Taliyah headed for the chapel, in the hopes that holy ground meant something in this scenario.

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 1:50 am

Even before she started out for the chapel, Taliyah would notice that she had managed, it seemed, to lose the ghosts. For now.

Inside the chapel, she would find the candles already burning brightly, lighting the place quite adequately. On back of the door, however, different things were scrawled, almost urgently.

Bound to the place we died.

No one is innocent, only one is guilty

The dead seek that which they hold dearest and those whom they despise

The final killer holds the key

And under all of them, a panicked hand had written, in a trailing hand that dragged to the floor like the person writing it was losing strength:

Don't let them see you

And over the alter, in case she was truly wondering, the word 'sanctuary' was hovering, this part obviously not part of the world, and obviously a part of the program. Underneath it, it said 'would you like to save your progress? yes/no' and 'would you like to exit the program? yes/no'.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:06 am

"Yes to the save, no to quitting," Taliyah says, "This is rather fun."

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:13 am

The appropriate 'yes' and 'no' flashed.

Code: Select all: Cyberboy: Glad you think so. Now I'll just shut up and let you play.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:18 am

"Thank you," Taliyah says, searching the chapel for anything useful.

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:22 am

Aside from the writing on the door, the chapel didn't seem to have any secrets for her. it had collected a fair bit of dust, but was otherwise as clean as it'd been when it had been in use.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:23 am

Taliyah switched off her flashlight, considering things. It seemed safe her but she doubted that was the way to win the game.

by **Calvin Strong** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:30 am

As she turned the flashlight off, something happened.

It was like someone had flicked a switch on the world. The sky outside was suddenly comparatively bright, looking like it was late morning, though not on a particularly sunny day. The dust around the chapel was suddenly gone, and everything seemed, well, to be in much better repair now.

There was a new message on the door, replacing the others.

The light will not go out while the eyes of the dead are upon you.

by **Taliyah Malik** » Thu Jan 13, 2011 2:35 am

"Interesting," Taliyah says.

Opening the door, she stepped out of the chapel.

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