Night at the Mansion
A plain, gloomy ceiling makes itself the first thing your eyes see when they open. Your mind feels fuzzy, as if a dozen drunken martial artists had danced upon it with their tramping feet. It looks like you are in someone’s bedroom. A single candle is the only thing that shines in this place. There are windows, but it appears to be dark outside. The air is deathly still; there is no breeze to speak of, nor are there any insects singing their nocturnal song. Suddenly, a great flash of light illuminates the entire room. The thunder arrives just a beat behind, loud enough to rattle the wooden frames of the windows. Then, the silence of the night is abruptly disturbed by a torrent of rain, pouring down from the heavens without end as if Yu Shi desired to flood the world.
How did you get here? Your memories are still faint, but you vaguely recall meeting the Taoist Zhong Hai while sheltering from another thunderstorm with Xiahou Yu. The both of you had opted to follow him on an exorcism. After that, you had reached a village – you do not recall how long it took you to get there – where the elder had provided Zhong Hai with more details about his mission. It seems that ghosts had been kidnapping their young men, swooping down in the middle of the night and spiriting them away. The elder claimed that these men had been taken to an abandoned mansion up in the hills. You remember little after that, only that you had reached the mansion without any obstacles. There had been something off about the courtyard as you marched towards the entrance… horses? You recall seeing four horses, and wondering why there would be any. Then, you had stepped across the threshold of the main doors.
The next thing you knew, you were in this room.
You sit up on the admittedly comfortable bed and close your eyes. As you focus, the sound of the raindrops become sharper, each patter a distinct note to your ears. You breathe in, sensing the humid air and the slight breeze that has sprung up. The room is very dusty, rewarding you with an irritated nose. You sneeze. The temperature is cold – any colder and your breath would create puffs. You do not, however, hear any living thing.
Opening your eyes again, you get up from the bed. There is no other furniture here besides the bed and the table upon which the candle is set. From the dust, it does not seem like anyone has been in here for quite some time. You check your possessions; the talismans that Zhong Hai gave you are still there, folded up safely in your clothes. Plucking the candle from the table, you hold it out in front of you to light your way. You fumble for the door, pushing at it. It is locked, barred from within. You look around you again – there is no place for anyone to hide, not even under the small bed. The windows too are barred from the inside. How strange. It would be spooky, if not for the fact that Master Zhang once told you of a master assassin who could contort himself through the smallest spaces. Sadly, he found himself in a box one day, having been tricked by his mark, and ended up in several boxes soon after. This is not anything you would need to resort to ghosts to explain… you think.
Shrugging, you unbar the door and let yourself out.
The corridor outside is dimly lit, with little white lanterns lining the walls at far intervals. Here and there long strips of tattered cloth sway gently, hanging down from the ceiling to about the top of your head. They must have been decorations once, but they are too moth-eaten now for you to be sure. Some of the cloth strips are stained with rusty brown spatters, others tied into loops that you could probably fit a head through. A dyeing process gone wrong? The artistic tastes of the mansion’s inhabitants? You will never know, you suppose.
Looking to your left and right, the corridor seems to recede into infinite darkness. There seems to be no difference as to which way you pick. You decide to just step forward on a whim, your candle jutting out in front of you. The floorboards creak as you walk, almost in rhythm to the pouring rain and rumbling thunder. Here and there you try to see through the windows, but between the storm and the darkness you cannot make out a single thing outside of the mansion.
A slight chill runs through you for no reason, and you stop.
There appears to be a faint melody in the air – someone is humming a tune. There appears to be a door to your left that you have not noticed before. The lanterns in front of you seem to have gone dark – for some reason you do not quite understand, you feel goosebumps whenever you stare into the black void ahead. You turn around – it looks like the path you came from has also been swallowed up by darkness. Perhaps the lanterns have been blown out by a sudden gust of wind? Turning your attention to the room, you see that it is well-lit; you can see the glow of light through the windows. The pleasant voice is coming from somewhere within. It seems to be that of a girl, and the tune is strangely familiar to you; though you do not remember where you have heard it before, it must have been before you left the palace.
You hear the sound of water splashing unlike that of the rain outside. Whoever is inside is probably bathing…
***
A. You peek. You cannot call yourself a man if you don’t. Besides, there are very legitimate reasons for this, such as… reconnaissance. Yes, that is it. You need to find out who else is here besides you, Xiahou Yu and Zhong Hai. There were horses in the courtyard. There must be some living people here – why would ghosts need horses? If you do not look, you will not find out. Ergo, you must p… reconnoitre.
B. You do not peek. You are a gentleman. Such actions are very impolite. Of course you aren’t scared of possibly attracting the attention whatever is bathing within, it is just the rudeness of poking a hole through the paper and peering inside that you are against. Nothing to do with fear of the supernatural at all… nothing at all. In fact, to prove your gentlemanly guts, you will knock on the door and attempt to engage the bather in conversation. Politely.
C. You ignore the bather, opting to tread forward into the darkness alone despite the faint warning of your instincts.
Then why are you even bothering to argue against people's choices?
contradictory bullshit is just business as usual.
Problem? 