A Mansion of Separation

      The stench was almost too much to handle for the young creature who had just come across it. The poor thing hadn't found the source of the smell yet. She covered her gentle and small nose. It was far too used to the soft scents of perfumes imposed on her since long before birth.

      The scene she would find would be a wretched thing indeed. Blood of a dark red color would stain and grow on the three walls of the hidden room. Blood was the paint as the owner had run out of funds, but not of family. Thus, it was but a small price to pay for appropriately painted walls. It was the way of their people to sacrifice that which gives them pleasure for luxury. She would also find that the blood is not the source of the stench.

      Out of a blind curiosity, our little creature began to search for that which was the horror to her heart. She had small shoulders, a flat stomach, and a tiny waist. She would have been bigger if she did not feel guilty when satisfying her hunger. It was such a waste of beauty.

      The building she wandered was large, luxurious, and lonely. The ceiling was easily high enough to fit someone twice her size under it. It was supported by stone Greek pillars that reduced her to an insignificant ant in comparison. The floor was solid marble and polished to the point that it formed such a perfect mirror that the room seemed to double in size. The walls, seemingly made of red velvet, were home to various paintings of exquisite artistic and monetary value. They had not been properly admired since their purchase.

      The halls were grand but empty. If our daring heroine were to speak a single word, her voice would be carried throughout the mansion and back to her. “Anyone there?” She called out in ignorance of the master's dreaded condition. When her still oblivious voice returned to her, she shivered as if Death himself had replied. She continued through the house, searching for the source of the stench that she dreaded so much. She would find it, but not before discovering its reason.

      Many rooms were dark and empty. Perhaps if the master was not so lonely, then he would have had reason to fill the voids of his home. Instead, he preferred to retreating to his hidden room, where he could hide from the mirrors of art, or at least attempt to hide.

      Our heroine came across a lit and filled room at last. It was the tenth room of the seemingly infinite hallway that was engulfed in a perfectly concealing darkness. It barely held the wretched stench, but she was drawn into it regardless.

      The toys of a small girl littered the tenth room. The simple, but large nonetheless, pink walls trapped the innocence of its late inhabitant within the room. Tears came to the eyes of our heroine when she saw the princess tower that she herself had in her own childhood. This sadness was quickly turned to rage when she remembered the story of the late little girl.

She left the room in search for the master. A small toy princess was in her tight grasp as she walked into the seemingly infinite darkness of the hallway. She had not a clue where he might have been hiding, but she was determined to win that game of hide and seek. She would, in a way, but sometimes the pursuit of truth leads to dreadful discoveries.

      A great amount of time passed before she realized that the hallway had led her back into the grand room where she began. She felt discouraged by this seemingly circular goose chase, but she soon laid her eyes upon the staircase that lead into the whispering depths of the empty mansion. She descended into darkness on a mission she considered holy. But for far too long people have justified evil by claiming it was willed to happen by the eternal creator. 

      The wretched stench grew in strength with every angry step she took. She wished to exact retribution on the master for what he had done to his kin. For all the dark thoughts that ran though her mind, she could not come to conceive a reason for the atrocities that he had committed. They seemed, to her, far from her conscious mind, when truly they were good friends with it. When it came to others, her dark motives seemed to disappear. When others were at fault, she was perfect.

      She stumbled through the cold dark until she found a light source. With the click of a button, the flashlight came to life and illuminated a small area ahead of her. The electric torch fit in her hand with great ease. She attempted to know what lay in the quiet darkness, but the light kept scaring it out of sight. Grey walls were all she found, except for the deafening silence of the great reaper. Chills covered her body as the air began to cool. She hastened her steps, but knew not where to go. The smell became more unbearable as she rushed to the source. She gazed over her shoulder for just a moment. A ghostly blue aura faded from her sight. Her heart froze with fright, while her feet forgot to.

      She turned her head to see a glimpse of a grey barrier right before impact. Her nose cracked and deformed against the dry wall. She fell to the ground clutching her nose in pain. The flashlight and the princess toy rolled away and out of her reach. The light found itself shining on the girl's feet. 

      Her gentle nose, which had never known wretched smells, became broken, a shattered remnant of the illusion of goodness. Blood, fresh and almost sweet in scent, poured from it. It engulfed her hands and streamed into her open mouth. She tried to spit it all out, but she could not. She was forced to swallow some of it. She wished desperately to stop the bleeding, but all of her previous tactics were proven unbearably painful for our heroine.

      It was with great determination that she remained silent, but she would break. Her howls of pain were enough to send chills down any human's spine, and it would have if she was not alone with the reaper. She rolled to and fro on the bloodied cement until her tear-filled eyes came across the light. She reached for it with a red hand. The air was as cold as death and when she grabbed the flashlight, a ghostly blue skeletal hand seized her outstretched arm. For a moment, it was all she could see. Then she recollected herself and tried to teat her arm free. A freezing laughter filled her mind as she struggled. It quickened her heart and threw her into a frenzy for freedom. The ghostly hand released her and faded from sight. Where was her anger now? It has gotten her so far, so close.

      As if to aid her, the spectre hand reappeared and pulled a hidden lever for the girl. She had gone far enough on her own. A mechanical sound filled the empty house as the wall she had broken nose on became a door to the hidden room. The end was near.

      With the flashlight in hand, our heroine gave light to the grave scene left behind for none to find. The walls were stained with blood and seemed to ooze it. But this was mild in comparison to what else lay in the room. From the ceiling hovered the head of a baby. It hung in the air like a light-bulb and almost seemed to serve the same purpose. The eyes had been gouged out and the blood dripped down from the sockets onto the freshly decomposed face of the once-human baby. From where the neck had been, crimson drops occasionally fell onto the hair of the little girl who stood upright. Her jaw had been violently torn off and her eyes were also taken from her. Her head was tilted to the left as if limp, unlike the rest of her body, which was in the same fresh state of decomposition as the decapitated baby head. Maggots crawled through her face and gladly occupied her eye sockets as if to replace the balls that would have been there in life.

      Her dress was tattered and torn. It seemed to be yellow in color initially, but it was near impossible to tell with all of the blood on it. It was made clear to our heroine how the corpse was remaining upright. A hook, hung from the ceiling, was punctured through the little girl's heart, preventing her from touching the ground until her skeleton fell apart.

      Perhaps the most wretched sight to our heroine was what lay beneath the children corpses. An evil smile was stretched across the master's decomposed face. He seemed together at first, which probably angered our heroine even more. But worse was to come.

      A ghostly blue aura began to fill the room. The baby's head glowed. The cry of a newborn overwhelmed the ears of our heroine. Its mouth mimicked the haunting sounds. The one with the broken nose tried to escape, but the wall closed her in the room. Childish music played slowly as the little girl's body was gradually reanimated. The right hand outstretched itself and tried to seize the trapped creature, but was unable to. Her sick and twisted voice filled the room, overpowering the cries of the baby. 

      “Why won't you play with me?”

      The little girl's jaw came into our heroine's sight and violently hopped towards her. She hit it away from her, but it, in all its decomposed beauty, would not give up its pursuit. Finally, it forced its way onto her lap and up her chest. It rubbed its maggot-filled chin against her own still lively one. Vomit rushed up to our heroine's lips. She held it back for a moment, but soon painted the master's bare legs green with her stomach contents. The detached jaw fell away from her and the little girl's body went limp again. The terrifying cry of the baby turned to an even more horrifying silence. The ghostly blue glow became a ghastly darkness. In a state of hurt and horror, our heroine waited to act. But our spectre would wait for no mortal's useless actions.

      “Welcome back, my dear.” The manly, but gentle, voice of the master echoed through the room. The glow return but formed a cloaked figure across from the living one. No face was visible, but a skeletal hand lifted itself and pointed at her. She turned and repeatedly hit on the wall as a poor attempt to escape. The wall refused to allow her out. The grave of her family will also be her own.

      The master rose to his feet and towered over our heroine. “Time for bed, my love.” He said to her, reached out for her hand. She cried out for help as her corpse husband extended his grip further and further until his hands were wrapped around her neck. He did not squeeze at first, out of love for her.

      But then she forced him to. She was sick of suffering from the knowledge of what she had done. The process was short in relation to the time since she had left her home. When it was done, her body fell limp and the ghostly blue figure put its arm through her. Death took her soul in his grasp and tore it away from her. The suffering that befell her family was now hers as well. Some would call it fair. After all, they were her victims.

-Zero