The Mansion

Part Four

Falling. Falling was the only thing the man could think about. It was the only thing he could comprehend, the only thing he could understand. Falling was everything. Falling was nothing. But yet falling was something, for he was doing it.

It then came as a great surprise to the man when he suddenly was enveloped—or he thought he was enveloped—in a strangely familiar, cold, and largely unexplainable essence. It suddenly felt to him that the perpetual falling had slowed down, and was getting increasingly slower. His brain began to function again. From the murky depths of his mind, he came to realize that the strange essence that he was feeling all around him was quite like the material that he had felt when he passed through the wall in the entry hall. He suddenly got a grasp of what was happening now, and his memories began to resurface.

The man recalled that he walked through a door into a space of seemingly endless darkness. He still couldn't see, however. He hardly felt like he was falling anymore. The cold, clammy aura around him began to lift, but he was still clueless as to where he was, and he still wasn't gaining any vision. His senses were completely turned off, it seemed, and the only reason he thought that he existed was because he was thinking.

It crossed his mind at once that perhaps he was dead. He contemplated whether he was in the afterlife or not. Of course, there was no way of telling, no way of figuring it out.

All of this thoughts evaporated in a single instant, as he plopped onto what seemed to be a wooden floor. His senses slowly flowed back into him, and once again—just as he had done in the very beginning—he felt his body against the cold wood, and could see a faint light just above his eyelids.

The man repeated the whole process that he did when he woke up the first time, but more quickly. This time, however, his eyes darted from object to object, cautiously analyzing every part of it and taking it all in. This setting was very much like the one he woke up in the first time, but this time it was a different room. A small fire crackled softly in a small, stone fireplace positioned in front of a few dusty and a small, wooden table.

After all that happened already, the man found that this new room looked surprisingly welcoming. But he knew not to let his hopes rise, for he was certain that something bad was going to happen. Nothing was as it seemed in that place, the man had enough experience inside the wretched place to know that.

He made his way to the couches, inch by inch, cautious about all the posible things that could go wrong. Out of nowhere, the room seemed to become slightly green. The man stopped in his tracks, not making a sound, and noticed that the fire had turned green. He blinked for just a split second, and as if nothing had happened, the fire was its normal color once again, crackling on as if nothing had happened.

His hands pressed upon his face, the man muffled a horrible scream. Quite simply, the man didn't know what to do. He was in a place he had never been before. Things that should not have been possible happened, and nothing made sense. He concluded that there were only two possibilities: his mind was playing tricks on him, or the place itself was playing tricks on him. There were no other possibilities. His hands still covering his face, he thought he heard a faint whispering behind him. He yanked his hands away from his face and swung his body around to find nothing but a wall with an antique painting on it.

The man nearly gave up hope and wept. He stood and wept for a very long time. He wept for confusion. He wept for fear. He wept for sorrow. His tears violently streaming down his face, he made his way over to the couches and sat down in the nearest one. His whole body exploded with a burning sensation, and he felt like he was melting. It was a burning worse than fire, worse than any pain possibly imaginable. He couldn't feel his body anymore. He only felt the burning. He tried his best to stand up, and even though he couldn't see or feel, he immediately found himself standing up right in front of the couch he sat down in, and the pain was gone.

Tears were still left on his face, and he still wept silently. His whole body felt like it was simply going to fall over and stop working forever. Wherever he was, he knew that it was draining him, both physically and mentally.

Finally, he couldn't stand it anymore. He finally broke. He didn't care what would happen to him. A fresh wave of hot, burning hate came into him and gave him more energy than he thought was possible to have. At that point, he wanted nothing more than to absolutely and utterly raze the place that had done so much harm to him. He wanted it to be over.

His face contorted with rage, he ran to the nearest wall, tore the gas lamp off of it, and threw it with all of his might into the fireplace, shattering and causing an explosion that rocked the walls. Everything was consumed by fire. The man, who suddenly stopped crying and screaming, stood silently at the blaze, more serene than he had ever been since entering the horrible place. Now, he was certain that it would finally be over. He stared into the infinite vortex of red, orange, and yellow as it enveloped everything around him.

And, as the world around the man began to fade away into oblivion, the magnificent blaze consumed him.

Complete and utter darkness. Nothing could be seen. Nothing could be heard. The silence was deafening. And then he awoke. His senses flowed back into him as if the dam of a mighty river had been destroyed. A faint light could be seen behind his eyelids.

He opened them slowly, but was forced to slam them shut as the light rays peeked through. They were blinding. And then he fully woke. His eyes gradually adjusted to the cruel rays of light coming from above. He heard a light tapping sound outside.

He was in a bedroom. As he looked out the window, he noticed it was drizzling lightly outside. He felt extremely happy to be in his room looking out the window, and yet he didn't know why. Why would it be odd that he would be in his bedroom? He let out a light yawn and prepared to get out of bed. He turned his head away from the window and observed the rest of his bedroom.

But where the door should have been, there was a blank wall.

THE END