by Stuart Keane
He always does.
Cipher – On.
Nod your head to begin.
Welcome.
I’m standing in a long hallway. The narrow space is shrouded in limited darkness, and the rusted wall lamp ahead to the left flickers like a windblown candle. Elongated shadows dance and meander up the walls and along the stretching ceilings. The increased infuriation and the minimal dread summoned from the instability of the light is beginning to grate on my fractured nerves.
I should move forward.
The wallpaper is awful. Floral, withered and brown, cracked with age. The furniture is deep-rooted in another era, dusty with neglect, past its prime. The once-glorious carpets are now faded and threadbare, almost invisible in the gloom. I can smell the muskiness of the décor, the damp that resides deep in the ancient walls of this giant mansion.
Wait, I actually can.
Surely not.
It’s a trick of the nervous mind.
I sniff and I can actually smell it.
The cloying scent surrounds me, tickles my nostrils. The essence has a life of its own, an eerie presence beyond the norm. I can sense it seeping beneath the brick. Alive.
I feel like it’s trying to consume me.
Just like the graphics.
Remember, this is just a video game.
I walk forward, my footsteps crunching on the carpet. Sticky and brittle? Not a good sign. As I move down the hallway my feet feel leaden, impeded, as if moving further into the mysterious mansion is forbidden or a real threat to my very existence. Is this some kind of a warning?
I turn and see nothing but darkness behind me. No front door, no alternate path. I gaze at the ancient paintings that adorn the endless walls, several of which are lopsided, and I wonder why I am here. I’m clearly out of my depth; this house drips with a culture and sophistication I will never understand.
Shouldn’t I have some back story?
Why the lack of an introduction?
Does the house have a name? A history? A family residing within?
Unless…
I’ve just been thrown in the deep end.
I need to figure it out myself.
I need to use my skills.
Awesome.
I reach out to the wall and I see my hand breach the precipice of my view. My trembling fingertips, jaundiced by the weak beams of the damaged lamp, caress the wallpaper with a gentle curiosity. It crackles beneath my touch, like hardened tissue paper. The vibrations reverberate through my body, trickle deep to my very soul. It’s like I’m feeling the house around me, touching its throbbing pulse, and becoming one with the gigantic structure that is now my temporary residence.
Jamie removed the Cipher headset and gasped. His smooth forehead was slick with sweat, his body trembling with the comedown of adrenaline. Soggy hair fingered the nape of his neck. He sagged back onto his sofa and let out a deep groan. As he wiped his face, a smile crossed his lips.
“Damn. Immersive isn’t the word.”
Jamie shook his head. He could still smell the damp, still feel the chill of that hallway.
It’s just in my mind, he thought. The sweat cooling down. A shiver seized his skin.
He sniffed. The smell was gone.
Told you.
But something was off. He raised his left hand and glanced at the fingertips. Two brown streaks slicked the skin there, stretching across all four digits. He rubbed them together, felt the tackiness of a sticky substance, and frowned. He looked around his living room, searching for the source of the strange residue. What had he touched during his gameplay? He saw nothing, and then chuckled as it became clear. “It’s chocolate. A Creme Egg, probably,” he said aloud, as if the utterance of the words would calm him. He wiped his fingers on his jeans and lifted the Cipher headset once more.
I don’t remember eating one.
I must be more caught up in the game than I first thought.
Jamie shook his head. He recognised the familiar feeling, the forceful pull, and the primitive urge that was scorching his brain. He glanced at the TV, remembered the assured quality of the game’s graphics, and smiled. Video games had a way of enticing him.
“Time to go back in,” he said, breathing out and slipping the device onto his head.
As he wrestled with Cipher, he didn’t notice the unopened chocolate by his side. The five Creme Eggs remained untouched.
Cipher – On.
Nod your head to continue.
Welcome.
And I’m back in the hallway.
The claustrophobic darkness, the damp smell, the uneasy feel. It’s all still here. The light flickers, the shadows move and stretch across anything in their path. My footsteps still feel heavy. Nothing has changed.
Except one thing.
I’m further along, I’ve moved a few steps forward, somehow. The unstable light is now beside me, not before me. It continues to taunt me, prickle at my increasing … anger.
Anger, or is it fear?
I’m unsure, this feeling is completely new to me. The light’s reluctance to provide basic support and sight in this unfiltered darkness is nothing short of incompetent. The manufacturers should be ashamed of themselves.
Move on. Forget the light.
Forget the light.
Darkness is your friend.
Finally, I take my first proper steps into the game. I move deeper into the gloom, tiptoeing along the seemingly unending hallway. Unsure and aware at the same time, my wide eyes flick left and right, assessing and scanning for any imminent threat. I find none. My senses are on jagged tenterhooks as I expect everything and nothing of the horrific variety to come my way.
After a moment, it becomes crystal clear.
This game is here to spook me, it seems.
The scares are in the uneasy atmosphere, the unsettled imagination.
For the first time, I notice a gradual bend in the hallway. The browned walls and faded carpet curve off to the right, disappearing to an unseen location. What lies around the bend? Since I have nowhere else to go, and my path seems destined, I breathe in and continue on.
I see windows, two of them, equal distance apart. The panes are separated by illustrious black trim, which reeks of classic Gothic lore. They stretch to the ceiling on the left-hand wall, flanked on both sides by expensive floral curtains, the dense material thick with grey dust. They are etched with a godawful pattern that somehow complements the floral design of the battered wallpaper. It baffles me that someone would have such bad taste in décor. Mind you, in a house this size, money and sense, it seems, are really no object.
I walk down the hallway, my observations of the décor becoming an afterthought, and try to ignore the sudden lightning outside, the flashing of the sky silent. I reach the bend and pause. Up ahead, the hallway splits into a T, a straight path forking my eventual route into two right-angles. A decision needs to be made. Left or right.
I glance out of the window, unsure of how to proceed. Rain patters the glass with infinite patience, trickling down the pane. On the horizon, a lightning bolt illuminates the silhouette of an unknown town. The surrounding hills and dark sky flash bright white as nature goes about its business.
I turn back to the house, amazed at the picturesque beauty outside.
And see a figure walk across my path.
For a mere instance, a split-second.
A tall figure.
A man? Probably. Giant and gangly, almost inhuman. He … it walked right to left.
I saw it for a fraction but I saw it clear enough.
Didn’t I?
My fractured psyche is playing tricks. I can still smell the damp, which seems even worse. Cloying, dense, I feel it on the surface of my taut skin and it tickles the back of my parched throat. It’s deep in the walls … no, it’s more than that, it’s behind them, residing within, using the crawlspaces as a makeshift home, like a parasite feeding off the remains of the house. It’s an entity of my active imagination, a living thing that shouldn�
�t exist but somehow does, a being that subsists to mock me, taunt me. The chill in the air has a moist edge to it; like I’ve just stepped out of a light rain shower. The damp … it sounds daft, but I feel it watching me, following me.
Wake up.
You don’t have time for such nonsense.
I wipe my face and ready myself, although I doubt I ever will be. I peel my reluctant eyes from the wallpaper - suddenly realising I was actually staring at the grotesque floral patterns once again - and return to my imminent problem.
The figure.
Giant and gangly.
A quick look at the T junction. I know what I saw.
It could be the shadows of the house working in tandem with my uneasy mind.
It could be fact.
I venture forward.
What’s the worst that could happen?
I amble down the hallway and reach the T, hesitate for a long moment, and glance left.
My stomach sinks.
The left turn leads to a dead end; a small room with a customised book nook, a battered sofa, a stacked bookshelf, and a sealed window. It reminds me of a tiny conservatory with no door or exit. A number of ancient books litter the floor, their spines snapped and their pages torn asunder. For some reason I expect the welcome scent of old books, a smell that I cherish, or the unmistakable essence of industrial cleaner, but at this point, all my senses are hindered. A welcome smell, a comforting interlude so to speak, is too much to hope for. The damp smell is stronger here, almost overpowering. I find myself covering my mouth with the back of a sweaty hand.
Beyond my findings, and more important than this recent discovery, there’s only one rational thought that bounces around my frazzled brain. I feel every synapse flare in my cerebral cortex; a low throbbing begins to pulse at the back of my skull. As I survey the tiny room before me, the question becomes of vital importance, a matter of survival.
The figure.
Where did it go?
I pause and consider my next move. After a moment, and with no other option, I duck my head and walk into the room, my actions controlled by burgeoning curiosity and the defiance of pure logic. My wobbly mind needs answers, answers to the intolerable questions that seem to multiply as I delve deeper into my unknown destination.
The room is empty.
Impossible.
I study every inch of the space - which takes me less than a full minute - and realise that I’m alone. I test the sealed window, which is when I spot the rusted nails in the ancient frame, shafts of stiff metal that prevent any opening. Just one look and I know that they’ve been there for decades. I kick aside the ancient Persian rug, which flutters the torn book pages on the floor, and try to shift the bookcase, in search of an elusive hidden doorway, but to no avail. My footsteps echo on the wooden floor as I move around, confused and dazed, searching for answers.
The figure is gone.
Impossible. I think it again.
Maybe I imagined the whole thing.
This is a vid…
Which is when I notice the figure in my peripheral vision. I turn to see the lanky being looming in the doorway of the room, his shadowy outline nothing more than a bony, menacing silhouette, his gangly appearance morphed and mutated by the lightning that currently consumes the outside world. At this moment, I’ve never been more terrified in my entire life.
How did he get there?
Behind me.
Blocking my only escape.
He must have snuck around me somehow.
I feel a weak scream rising from my pounding chest, but before I can let it rip and shatter the heavy silence in the mansion, he clutches me around the throat. With a vice-like grip, he pulls me towards him with tremendous ease, his strength immense. I feel his cold fingers on my hot flesh; they feel slimy and coarse, hairy almost. I try to swallow but his hold is too tight.
As I near the figure, his twisted features catch a ragged bolt of lightning and his visage illuminates for a fraction of time, lingering seconds that seem like unbearable days in the wake of my increasing terror. The horror is absolute, unfathomable. It’s enough to incite violent palpitations in my heart, to make me regret ever walking into this stupid mansion.
He sneers at me, eye to eye, his spider-like fingers caressing my trembling cheek. I feel the hurried footsteps of a thousand arachnids crawling over my skin, beneath my shirt and jeans and across the soles of my feet. The hirsute fingers stroke my face with a methodical precision, slow and deliberate, as if enjoying the touch of my flesh. I wince as a sharp fingernail pierces the skin below my left eye. I feel hot blood trickle downwards.
I feel his laugh, a screeching sound that raises the hackles on my neck and renders my entire body rigid with goose bumps. My heart skips several beats and my lungs heave in my chest, my organs fighting against the impossibility of the horrendous sight before me. His sour breath reeks of ancient dampness, and I now know where the putrid stench was coming from.
He was following me.
Watching me.
This whole time.
And in that fraction of a second, I know I have a slight advantage.
The figure begins to speak. “The end is…”
Jamie yanked the Cipher unit off his head, collapsed to the floor, and tossed the gaming console onto the sofa. A yelp escaped his mouth as he struggled to maintain his composure. His clothes clung to his skin, drenched with sweat, and his face burned hot with exertion, a sensation that was slowly receding. He backed into the wall, his eyes steeled on the device.
“Hooo, okay … okay. What the…? Dear God.”
Jamie wiped his face and scrabbled for the delivery note on the coffee table, a piece of paper that had somehow alarmed his sensible girlfriend. She was right; no manufacturer name existed on the paperwork, and no return address was available. The box was sent by no one.
Who designed this?
Remember the beta you signed up for?
Who?
Jamie couldn’t recall.
The email, his password, the company - all of the signup information eluded him, lost in the spur of the moment sign-up process. A black website entered his mind’s eye, but the wording was blurred, the images nondescript. A house … no a mansion. Arching trees, the night sky? He shook his head, defeated. He thought about searching his internet history, but decided against it. He regularly cleared it once a week to prevent malicious viruses and cookies. Malware was the scourge of his online life and his diligence was about to cost him dearly.
He tossed the delivery note aside and winced, pain searing his face. He gently reached to his cheek and pulled away the fingertips.
Blood.
Jamie touched his face again. He was bleeding from a gash on his cheek, below the left eye. His eyes widened as he searched around his living room. Had he fallen on the coffee table? The window sill? Struck himself with the controller? No, he’d remained upright this entire time. And nothing on the walls would render such a wound. Which meant…
Impossible.
Fuck that.
There’s no way…
The figure. He did this.
In the game, but not in reality. You need your head examined.
Yes, in the game. But…
Jamie had no words to explain his unique situation.
Confused, he ran a quivering hand through his hair. A prickly burning sensation began to form at the base of his throbbing skull. Worry, fear, terror, confusion, lack of logic, or all of the above. He wiped his face with a forearm, and approached the Cipher unit with immense trepidation. Jamie paused, his eyes watching the device as if it was a ticking time-bomb. He flicked his gaze to the TV screen and saw the gaming hallway. It was empty. With trembling hands, he fingered his throat, felt the cold flesh there, and remembered the spindly fingers curling around his neck.
With curiosity getting the better of him, he lifted the device up and held it out before him.
I need to know.
For sure.
Evi
dence is king.
Charlotte stared at the house, her rueful mind unsure. She drummed her thumbs on the steering wheel, in hope that the sound would inspire her.
Maybe you should go back in there?
No point sitting out here doing nothing.
Besides, VR might be fun. Gaming usually is when you come down from the initial neglect. It’s good to let go once in a while, share his passion.
If he is sick, he’ll need you too.
Like you need him.
Charlotte smiled.
Why not? Jamie’s enthusiasm and innocent joy makes gaming worthwhile. He’s a unique character, someone whose abundance of joy is infectious.
I’ll give it a few minutes.
Maybe I should pick up dinner. I might be able to persuade him into a movie yet.
If I get a KFC, anyway…
With a grin on her face, Charlotte started the car.
Cipher – On.
Nod your head to begin.
Welcome.
Why am I here?
To prove a point.
I’m back in the hallway again, back at the beginning of the level. The flickering lamp continues to taunt and mock me, to make me miserable. The damp smell is still lingering, but not overpowering. Not yet, anyway. I wonder where the figure is; is he close or deeper inside the mansion?
Did I die? Did the figure kill me?
I remember the words. ‘The end is…’
The end is what? Here? Near? Coming?
Before we going searching for potentially fatal answers, let’s figure something out.
I walk over to a nearby display cabinet, its unseen treasures hidden beneath heavy glass and a thick layer of grime. I rub the dirt with a fingertip, marking the skin. That’ll do.
No. I need more.
More?
Something better. Something more conclusive.
I pause and take a breath.
I drive my fist against the glass. Nothing happens. The quiet hallway echoes with the dull thud of my fist crumpling against the resolute surface. I refuse to yell in pain as I clutch my aching hand; my anger is now getting the better of me, making me stubborn. Instead, I stand up and locate one of the ancient picture frames on the wall. No good, a curved frame. No sharp edges. Studying the room before me, I smile as I find what I’m looking for.
