Inside Park Manor • SKZ horror au

Chapter 5

Chan tore his gaze away from the photos, knowing he was wasting precious time the longer he stayed. He continued down the hallway, pushing down the feeling that he was being watched through the windows on his left.

    At the end of the hallway, a mahogany door swung open to a slightly nicer living room just as the map had said. A few brown chairs and loveseats circled around a chipped coffee table that had clearly seen better days. The TV was located behind the coffee tables, the screen nothing but static.

    Behind the TV was a bar. Two stools were pulled up to the counter, an empty shot glass left abandoned on the table. He walked up to the bar, hoping that maybe, one of the others had been there at least once and could give him a clue as to where they were. Except for the shot class, the counter was completely cleared. He scanned through the rows of alcohol bottles until he found a sheet of paper, dried blood crusted at the bottom.

    Working here is hell. Father does nothing but drink. Just when you think he's reached his limit, he asks for another glass. Sometimes I just wish that the alcohol would hurry up and kill him already. I came here to find JIsung, not to serve drinks to this psycho.

    I saw Jeongin come in and hide something in the blue vase behind the tv once Father left. I would check, but Father will be back soon. Shit. Another nosebleed. Hope Father doesn't find this.

    No one left a signature, most likely in case Father found it. The handwriting looked similar to Changbin's and he had mentioned hating the children when he first moved in. Maybe that was why he had been downgraded.

    Chan reread the bottom portion of the letter. Jeongin had left something in the blue vase behind the TV. He walked around the bar counter, shaking a few cobwebs off the vase and flipping it upside down. A CD fell into his outstretched hand reading, 'help us.'

    He took the CD, hoping that the TV in the living room had a CD player. Luckily, there was one right under the display. Even though he knew he was wasting time, Changbin wouldn't have mentioned it if it wasn't important.
Watching it and learning more about the manor would be better than walking around blindly. He put the CD into the CD player and waited for it to start.

    The film began in a beige colored room with a taxidermied deer head on the wall behind them.

    "Be quiet," Jeongin said, glancing behind him before facing the camera. "Right now, we're in Grandma's room. Grandma seems like she couldn't care less about us, but I'm not sure how much longer it will last. We should leave soon."

    "Why are you recording?" A deep voice asked from behind him, clearly shaken.

    "If we die here, someone needs to know what happened to us," Jeongin said morbidly. "Anyway, I'm here with Felix and Changbin."

    He turned the camera around to show the other two who were huddled together under a desk.

    "Father comes in here sometimes, but he never checks under things," Jeongin continued. "As far as we know, Seungmin and Hyunjin are in the basement. I don't know where Jisung and Minho are. We just found out that you can't leave the way you came in. I don't know how to get out. Maybe it has to do with the horse imprint on the door."

    The film ended with a date. It had been recorded two days ago. Chances were that Jeongin, Felix, and Changbin were no longer in Grandma's room, so there was no point in going in there right now.

    Maybe going to the basement would give him some clues.