The faces on the ceiling watched them with dead eyes that somehow still held malicious glee. Their mouths moved in silent laughter, and Ren could swear he heard whispers coming from above, though no sound actually reached his ears.
"Don't look up," he said again, grabbing Sarah's chin and forcing her to look at him instead. "The rule said they enjoy being noticed."
Sarah nodded, but her eyes kept trying to drift upward. The urge to look was almost impossible to resist, like trying not to scratch an itch.
The chandelier flickered again, casting dancing shadows across the room. In those shadows, the faces seemed to move, pressing closer to the surface of the ceiling as if trying to push through.
"We need to get out of this room," Sarah whispered. "Find the others."
"The rules said to stay put until dawn," Ren reminded her.
"The rules also didn't mention baby monsters that can phase through walls. I think we're past following the script."
A soft thud came from above them. Then another. The faces were trying to break through the ceiling.
"You're right. Let's move."
They gathered their gear quickly, Ren favoring his injured arm and Sarah moving stiffly from the claw marks on her back. The door frame was splintered from the infant-thing's attack, but the hallway beyond looked empty.
"Hold on," Ren said, deploying one of his tentacles. The appendage moved with surgical precision, producing a needle and thread from somewhere within its biomechanical structure. "Let me fix this."
He watched in the broken mirror's reflection as the tentacle stitched his torn arm with quick, efficient movements. The wound closed neatly, and within moments, the skin had healed completely. No scar, no trace of the injury remained.
"Your turn," he said to Sarah, the tentacle turning toward her with the needle ready.
"No," Sarah said quickly, stepping back. "I'm fine."
"You're bleeding. Those claw marks need attention."
"I said I'm fine." Her voice was sharp, final. "Keep that thing away from me."
Ren studied her face and saw something there he recognized. Revulsion. Fear. Not of the mansion's horrors, but of him. Of what he'd become.
"Alright," he said quietly, retracting the tentacle. "Your choice."
They stepped into the corridor carefully, listening for any sounds. The mansion felt different now, more alive somehow. The walls seemed to pulse with a rhythm like a heartbeat, and the green glow had taken on a reddish tint.
"Which way?" Sarah asked.
Before Ren could answer, they heard footsteps coming from their left. Quick, light steps that sounded human rather than supernatural. Both of them tensed, ready for another attack.
"Hello? Is someone there?"
The voice was familiar. Tired, scared, but human.
"Irene?" Ren called back.
She appeared around the corner, sword in hand and dried blood on her face. But she was alive, walking on her own, and her eyes were clear. Not possessed, not transformed, just exhausted and terrified.
"Nox! Sarah!" she breathed, running toward them. "Thank God you're alive. I've been wandering these halls for hours."
"How did you survive?" Sarah asked, wrapping Irene in a careful hug, mindful of her own injuries.
"I followed the rules exactly," Irene said, her voice shaking. "Every single one. Even when..." She shuddered. "Even when the woman in black lace cornered me in the dining hall. She kept asking if I was hungry. Over and over. For what felt like hours."
"What did you do?" Ren asked.
"Nothing. I just stood there and let her ask. She got angrier and angrier, but she couldn't do anything as long as I didn't answer. Finally, she just... left." Irene's hands trembled as she gripped her sword. "But her face... when she smiled, I could see all the way down her throat. There were things moving in there. Living things."
The heartbeat rhythm in the walls grew stronger. Somewhere in the distance, they could hear new sounds. Doors slamming. Glass breaking. The mansion was becoming more active as the night wore on.
"Have you seen the others?" Sarah asked.
"No sign of Henry or Old Hans. When the walls went up, we all got scattered. I found a room and barricaded myself in, but something kept trying to get through the door all night. Something that sounded like my dead sister." Her voice cracked. "It knew things about me. Private things. Things I never told anyone."
"The mansion feeds on our memories," Ren said grimly. "It pulls out our fears and uses them against us."
They moved through the hallways together, checking each room they passed. The mansion seemed larger on the inside than it had from outside, with corridors that stretched further than they should and rooms that appeared in places where there shouldn't be space for them.
The portraits on the walls had changed since they'd first walked through. Some frames were empty now, their occupants presumably walking the halls. Others showed new faces, people they didn't recognize but who watched them pass with hungry expressions.
"Look at this," Irene whispered, stopping in front of one portrait.
It showed a man in a business suit, but his face was wrong. Too long, with eyes that were just black holes and a mouth that split his head nearly in half. As they watched, the figure in the painting moved slightly, turning its head to look directly at them.
"Keep walking," Ren said quickly. "Don't engage with it."
They picked up their pace, but the whispers started again. Not just from the paintings now, but from the walls themselves. Soft voices calling their names, begging for attention, promising help if they would just stop and listen.
"Ignore them," Sarah said, though her voice wavered. "Just keep moving."
They found a staircase leading down to what had to be the basement. The air grew colder as they descended, and they could smell something unpleasant wafting up from below. Something organic and rotten.
"Why are we going down there?" Irene asked.
"If the others are still alive, they might have gone deeper to avoid the things upstairs," Ren explained. "Or they might be trapped down there."
The basement was a maze of storage rooms and narrow corridors, lit by the same sickly green glow as the rest of the mansion. Old furniture covered in dust sheets sat in corners like sleeping ghosts. Crates and barrels lined the walls, their contents unknown and probably better left that way.
"This place smells like a morgue," Sarah said, covering her nose with her sleeve.
They called out softly for their missing teammates, but got no response. The only sounds were their own footsteps and the distant dripping of water somewhere in the darkness.
"Wait," Irene said, stopping suddenly. "Do you hear that?"
They listened. Underneath the ambient sounds of the mansion, there was something else. A rhythmic scraping sound, like metal against stone. It was coming from deeper in the basement.
They followed the sound through the maze of storage rooms, their weapons ready. The smell was getting stronger, and now they could identify components of it. Not just rotting meat, but chemicals. Antiseptic. The smell of a hospital mixed with the smell of death.
"This way," Ren whispered, following the scraping sound.
They turned a corner and found themselves facing a heavy wooden door, partially open. Light spilled out from the crack, but not the green glow they'd grown used to. This was harsh, white light, like surgical lamps.
Through the gap, they could see into what looked like an operating theater. Old-fashioned surgical equipment filled the room. Operating tables, instrument trays, and things that looked more like torture devices than medical tools. The walls were stained with dark spots that were definitely not rust.
And there, in the center of the room, was Old Hans.
He was alive, but strapped to one of the operating tables with thick leather restraints. His chest rose and fell rapidly, and his eyes were wide with terror. A gag covered his mouth, but they could hear muffled sounds of distress coming from him.
Around him stood three figures in bloodstained surgical gowns. Their faces were hidden behind masks, but their eyes were visible above the cloth. Eyes that gleamed with an intelligence that was both human and utterly alien.
"Fascinating specimen," one of the surgeons said without looking up from his work. His voice was cultured, educated, but there was something wrong with the way he formed words. "Such interesting magical pathways. We haven't had subjects with this level of energy in decades."
Another surgeon held up a scalpel that gleamed wickedly in the harsh light. "The bone structure is particularly intriguing. Notice how the magical energy has actually changed the density of the calcium deposits."
Hans saw them through the crack in the door and struggled against his restraints, trying to scream through the gag. His eyes pleaded with them for help.
"Should we take him?" Irene whispered, her voice barely audible.
"Three of them, three of us," Sarah said. "And we're already injured."
"We can't just leave him," Ren said.
But before they could decide, one of the surgeons looked up from his work and stared directly at the door.
"Ah, more subjects for our research," he said pleasantly. "Please, do come in. We were just discussing the fascinating intersection of magical energy and human anatomy."
The other surgeons turned toward them, and Ren could see that their faces behind the masks were wrong. Skin hung in loose flaps, and underneath he could see exposed muscle and bone. Their eyes were too bright, too aware, like they belonged to something that had been dead for a long time but refused to acknowledge it.
"We have such wonderful experiments planned," the lead surgeon continued. "The intersection of fear, pain, and magical energy produces the most remarkable results."
Hans managed to work one corner of the gag loose from his mouth.
What came out wasn't words.
It was a scream of pure terror, raw and animal, the sound of someone who had seen things that would haunt him forever. It was the scream of a man who had faced monsters for forty years, someone who thought he'd seen everything.
And he was screaming like his sanity had finally shattered.
The sound echoed through the basement corridors, and somewhere in the distance, other things began to answer with screams of their own.