COUNTERTOP
A couple of items stand out in the darkness upon the countertop: The Aunt’s purse and the stainless steel pot. A cabinet above them sits wide open, revealing a slightly rusted yet sturdy-looking safe.
You quickly grab the purse and go to stuff it underneath your shirt, but you stop when the smell of mold strikes your nostrils. The purse itself appears to have aged remarkably since you last saw it, and feels damp with age. You shake the purse empty, and a book falls out:
You hold out the purse away from you to inspect it further, and as you do you hear the muffled cries of a woman behind you. You spin around to find the weeping spirit of Aunt Jane reaching towards you!
“The curse is back!”
“I’ll do whatever I can to end this misery!”
“You would imply that I had something to do with the disappearance of that precious girl? How absurd! Anyone who knows me knows I love Elsie like my own daughter! Watching yet another child disappear strikes me deeper than any of the other ghouls in attendance. You don’t know how much this pains me! Instead of flinging about accusations, why don’t you do something to end this dreaded curse?“
“It was all very disorderly! I remember trying to keep everyone calm while I waited for Vera, who had abandoned me to deal with the very irate neighbor. The neighbor was insistent on seeing Elsie, babbling about the theft of her garden stones or some trivial nonsense. Vera returned with some hot cocoa, awfully sweet if you ask me, but I was panicked by Birdie and regrettably quaffed it down too quickly! I instantly felt that something was off. I looked around, some people were missing. Virgil was gone, as was the salesman and the lodger. Come to think of it, the only people left in the room at all were myself, Vera, and the neighbor, Birdie! I saw Vera collapse to the ground, she was writhing in pain! I tried to scream for help but everything was already going dark! There was an unsavory flavor in my mouth, like metal, and a great pain started to overwhelm me. I fell back into the chair and… I saw the neighbor take off down the hall. A few moments must have passed by… I was still alive, but I couldn’t move. The last thing I remember is seeing the salesman step back into the room!”
“Of course not! I was happy that his family hadn’t suffered the same misfortunes as my own, and I was very grateful for the invitation into his home. Following my husband’s untimely death and my daughter’s disappearance, I found myself in a very, very dark place. I likely would have ended my own life had Charlie not insisted I join them here. To insinuate that I harbored some nefarious feelings towards his household just because I had lost mine is ludicrous. If anything, it felt like I had been given a second chance at a family, and I’ll never forget it.”
You take a closer look at the strange stainless steel pot. To be honest, this house and all of its contents seem to be falling apart, yet this particular pot looks like you just swiped it new off the shelf of the local supermarket! There has been a lot of talk about the victims having drank cocoa that night… could this pot have been the vessel?
You hold out the purse away from you to inspect it further, and as you do you hear the muffled cries of a woman behind you. You spin around to find the weeping spirit of Aunt Jane reaching towards you!
“The curse is back!”
“I’ll do whatever I can to end this misery!”
“You would imply that I had something to do with the disappearance of that precious girl? How absurd! Anyone who knows me knows I love Elsie like my own daughter! Watching yet another child disappear strikes me deeper than any of the other ghouls in attendance. You don’t know how much this pains me! Instead of flinging about accusations, why don’t you do something to end this dreaded curse?“
“It was all very disorderly! I remember trying to keep everyone calm while I waited for Vera, who had abandoned me to deal with the very irate neighbor. The neighbor was insistent on seeing Elsie, babbling about the theft of her garden stones or some trivial nonsense. Vera returned with some hot cocoa, awfully sweet if you ask me, but I was panicked by Birdie and regrettably quaffed it down too quickly! I instantly felt that something was off. I looked around, some people were missing. Virgil was gone, as was the salesman and the lodger. Come to think of it, the only people left in the room at all were myself, Vera, and the neighbor, Birdie! I saw Vera collapse to the ground, she was writhing in pain! I tried to scream for help but everything was already going dark! There was an unsavory flavor in my mouth, like metal, and a great pain started to overwhelm me. I fell back into the chair and… I saw the neighbor take off down the hall. A few moments must have passed by… I was still alive, but I couldn’t move. The last thing I remember is seeing the salesman step back into the room!”
“Of course not! I was happy that his family hadn’t suffered the same misfortunes as my own, and I was very grateful for the invitation into his home. Following my husband’s untimely death and my daughter’s disappearance, I found myself in a very, very dark place. I likely would have ended my own life had Charlie not insisted I join them here. To insinuate that I harbored some nefarious feelings towards his household just because I had lost mine is ludicrous. If anything, it felt like I had been given a second chance at a family, and I’ll never forget it.”
You take a closer look at the strange stainless steel pot. To be honest, this house and all of its contents seem to be falling apart, yet this particular pot looks like you just swiped it new off the shelf of the local supermarket! There has been a lot of talk about the victims having drank cocoa that night… could this pot have been the vessel?