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The Mansion In Another Place

My cultural diet consists solely of Jerkcurb & King Krule music, Morgan Lost comics and The Twilight Zone. This is the inevitable result.
Of The Mansion In Our Place

On an October night somewhere in a dark forest , a dinner party is being held in an old, but still quite beautiful mansion by a lake. Hosted by the infinitely generous and caring Alexa, and her more reserved and very introspective sister, the dinner party has no special occasion. Its sole purpose is to allow the guests to, at least momentarily, forget their struggles and live in the now.

As the night progresses, these guests slowly get lost in the magic of the event, leaving behind only a shadow of their former selves. On occasion, these shadows can manifest into sentient spirits of the night, capable of sight and thought. However, this is not what we are interested in right now. Drinks, food and romance are woven into this gathering and there is no reason why it would ever end.

But then, the clock strikes twelve and the mansion goes silent, left with no one in it. Not a sound of laughter accompanied by clinking of glasses, nor a sight of disoriented people enjoying themselves. This silence remains throughout the next 20 years.


An Exposition At The Entrance

On an October night, 20 years later, Logan's troubles had reached their peak. For you see, it was in these exact same woods where the mansion still stood that he had just done something terrible. The deed itself too horrifying to describe in detail, we can only establish that it had something to do with a woman he once loved and the lake next to the mansion.

He walked for a few minutes until he could get his head together. His walking was to no avail and he knew that, but something inside his head which he could not recognize pushed him toward the now-abandoned mansion. Perhaps he was looking for a place to hide, perhaps he didn't know what he was looking for. But nevertheless, he soon found himself at the entrance of the mansion.

For twenty years, the door had remained locked. No one cared enough to go inside. Logan picked up a large rock from nearby and threw it toward the window. A break-in in a mansion abandoned for decades would be the least of his concerns if he were to be apprehended.

Inside the mansion everything was just as it was 20 years ago. All the decorations there, all the glasses of wine still full, but with no people to drink them. Logan wandered around the massive mansion, sometimes still shaking from what he had just done. Many times he felt unsettled and thought about going back outside, but every time there was something pulling him back. He wasn't sure what he was doing in the mansion, but it definitely seemed better than facing the reality outside.

Upstairs in the mansion, Logan came across a locked door. Still hoping to get away, he approached it and with a single kick the door came down and revealed a bedroom. Only two items were in this bedroom: a bed and a mirror. The bed being an ordinary one with no characteristic details, it was the mirror that initially piqued Logan's interest. But as he came closer to look at it, with just one glance he realized that what he saw was not what he wanted to see. The man he saw in that mirror was not the man he knew himself to be and not the man he wanted himself to be, but someone else entirely.

"What have you become?" - he asked himself as he found the courage to look back at the mirror.

As he said that, he began to feel a strong headache. Everything around him was spinning, as the room echoed the words he had just spoken. He tried lying down on the bed for a moment and everything went black.


Of The Mansion In Another Place

Still a bit hazy, Logan raised his head while lying on the bed. A young woman sat on the bed facing the mirror. She looked like she was lost in her own little world, unaware of her surroundings. In this case and in many others, looks can be deceiving.
"Oh.  You're back." - she said with a gentle, almost whisper-like voice.

Logan looked at her blankly. He had never seen this woman before in his entire life and she was not there when he passed out. Suddenly, he noticed that the mansion was unusually loud. He could hear glasses clinking and people talking through the walls.

"Well go on then. " - the woman told him. "You're awake now, there's no need for you to be in here. Leave me to my little chamber."

Feeling rather unsettled by the woman and her general presence, Logan jumped from the bed and went straight to the door. He got out of the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

No one seemed to be in the upstairs part of the mansion except that woman. Perhaps it was reserved for the family? As Logan went down the stairs, he could hear a very cheerful song filling up the room, of which the source was an old record player. He couldn't make out most of the words, but he could hear a couple of "love" and "lake" mentions throughout the song.

When he reached the ground floor, no one seemed to notice him. They simply continued with their fun, not paying him any attention. Logan felt thirsty. On a table in one of the first rooms he came across, he found an empty glass and picked it up. As he continued searching through the now-vibrant mansion, he stumbled upon the kitchen.

When he put his glass below the faucet and turned it, blood came rushing out into his glass. Logan, horrified, dropped the glass making a loud breaking sound. Suddenly, everything went dead silent for a few moments. Then, the record player started playing again. But the song it played was very different. It had no vocal melody, only a whisper-like voice reciting the lyrics.

When he turned around, he saw what seemed like the entire crowd of people gathered around him. No one spoke. The record kept playing in a loop. One person suddenly stepped out from the crowd in front of Logan. That person was Alexa, the host.

"We were happy here..." - she began to sob. "We did not care for what you had done to her outside, for what you did to them. Our lives were in better days, where we could get lost in the moment of this gathering. But you had to ruin it. You had to come in."

The very moment she stopped speaking, all of them simultaneously let out an agonizing scream. Their bodies started to rapidly decay around Logan, turning into lifeless skeletons. In these moments Logan realized that the man he saw in the mirror just minutes ago was truly him. For now, it was not only he who thought himself a monster, but this crowd of people too. These realizations and the horror before him were not something he could stand and think about. As quickly as he could, he pushed them all aside and went through the mansion door.

When he was outside, Logan's first steps were toward the lake. He could still hear the record player whispering back at the house, almost as if it was guiding him through what he was about to do.


The Mary In The Red Lake

"Up on the red hill..." - Logan took a deep breath as the record player whispered to him. He was ready.
"There is a red lake..." - Step by step, he went into the lake. He was determined to find peace with himself.
"Mary stands before it..." - Tears fell from his eyes. He soon reached the deep middle of the lake.
"Ever so afraid..." - As he dived into the lake, he remembered the fear in her eyes in those moments.
"The mansion ghouls watch..."  - Her screams echoed into his thoughts, haunting him even then. She did not deserve it.
"Spirits of the night..." - The anger still rushed through him. He could not forgive himself for what he had done.
"For they lived and died..."  - At the bottom of the lake, Logan found what he was looking for. With all his strength, he dragged her back to the lakeside.
"In better days passed..." - For a moment, he glanced at the mansion. Then, back at the lake. He knew there was only one way to reach redemption. All that was left now was for him to go through with it. Just as the record player was about to finish whispering, he did.

"Mary and two more
On the red hill
In the red lake
Forever put to rest"