The Encounter

You decide it's best to leave Jane's job to her so that she could do it. It is what you pay her for. You come out of the closet to find the main entrance door open. You go over to it, glance outside to see if there had been anyone outside and close it when you dont find anyone.\nA scream breaks out from the kitchen, and you rush to the dining room as fast as you can and head into the kitchen where you find Jane clutching her neck where blood had been spewing out and seeping through her grip down her chest and through the cracks of her fingers. She staggered backwards and desperately gasped for air that wouldn’t reach her lungs.\nShe stopped moving for a moment, her eyes wide with fear and desperation; Her arm long and outstretched, reaching for the precious oxygen around her. Collapsing to her knees, she stopped suffocating, relinquished her grip from her neck, and plopped face first onto the checkered black and white tiled floor.\nThe poor woman, dead at your feet. A surge of guilt showered you and you could barely hold yourself up with this fact. Where was Albert?\n\nDo you [[look for Albert]]?\n\nor\n\nDo you [[try and call 911]]?

You start making your way to the corridor that would lead you to the dining room where you were sure you would find Albert with Miss Jane cleaning up the dinner table. Strolling past the droll paintings of dead men and not having any interest in them ever since you were a child who ran up and down the halls playing made you reminisce. Now almost 30 years later, with nearly everyone you loved gone, it was you who silently roamed the halls of the manor quietly, enjoying the company of the two people who had helped raised you; Albert and Miss Jane. \nThey were now in their sixties, but so full of life still, that they acted almost like your age. Full of venture and passion about things they had loved and experienced, having a well-established understanding of life, and what it meant to be alive. They had worked for your parents long before they were dead, and as a matter of fact you were actually raised by them too. You always considered the two as older siblings rather than servants; they meant more to you than what they normally would because you loved them.\nAfter fighting your way through a maze of halls that you had yet to redesign, you found yourself in the dining room with a mess still splattered on the table. Before anything, there comes a knock at the door.\n\nDo you [[check up on Albert and Jane]]?\n\nor\n\nDo you [[answer the door yourself]]?

"No, no Albert, let me help you."\nYou stay for a moment to help clean up and it doesn't take long for the both of you to clean up the mess you made. You feel bad, but you know you did the right thing and you can tell in his eyes that he is grateful for how kind you turned out to be.\nHe cracks a smile before getting back to the stove and manages to salvage the stew before it burns. Miss Jane comes in and sees the cut on your chin and instantly goes to attend to your injury. Albert goes out to the dining hall to serve you the stew and both you and Jane follow.\nYou realize there is only one plate served, and you know its late at night.\n\nDo you [[invite them to eat with you]]?\n\nor\n\nDo you [[eat alone]]?

Where the devil is Albert and Miss Jane? Maybe you had entrusted them too much and become too dependent on them to clean up after you. You were old enough now, maybe it was best for you to finally grow up. \nA scream broke out from the kitchen before it was cut short, and a muffled suffocating could be heard. Rushing into the kitchen you find Jane clutching her neck where blood had been spewing out and seeping through her grip down her chest and through the cracks of her fingers. She staggered backwards and desperately gasped for air that wouldn’t reach her lungs.\nDamnit. Shoulda checked the reading room sooner. \nShe stopped moving for a moment, her eyes wide with fear and desperation; Her arm long and outstretched, reaching for the precious oxygen around her. Collapsing to her knees, she stopped suffocating, relinquished her grip from her neck, and plopped face first onto the checkered black and white tiled floor.\nThe poor woman, dead at your feet. A surge of guilt showered you and you could barely hold yourself up with this fact. Where was Albert? You crawl forward, stumbling, trying to get up to go find Albert when a knock came at the door.\n\nDo you [[answer the door yourself]]?\n\nor\n\nDo you [[look for Albert]]?\n

You sit down as Miss Jane begins pouring you a glass of wine while Albert serves the stew in your usual bowl. You think about inviting them to eat, but realize that they are probably tired and not hungry, or even possibly already ate with out you.\nOnce Albert finishes serving you your stew, you begin to chow down by digging the spoon deep into the liquid. You get a few scoops in before you take a sip of wine when you hear gunshots go off in the kitchen.\nYou get up from your chair and begin to head for the kitchen door when it's flung open and sends you staggering back, startled.\nAfter recovering, you realize its one of your colleagues, Niles Charr, and he's pointing a gun to you now. In the mere second that the door flops open and closed, you see Albert and Jane lifeless on the black and white tiled kitchen floor.\nHe's got tears in his eyes, yet theres an anger hidden within him that he cant manage to hide. You ask what this is about and he looks to, tries smiling before crying and saying that it's because you put him out of a job.\nIt doesnt hit you at first, but then you remember that you had to fire Niles for supposed embezzlement. You try explaining that you had no other option but he isnt having any of it. He starts yelling, blaming you for the death of his wife, explaining that he wouldve put the money back eventually.\nYou mutter a quiet apology to him, but he shakes his head, disapproving and unaccepting of your apology.\nYou hear a bang go off, and a blinding light hits you and the last thing you realize is the smell of smoke and burning flesh as you fall back and lay lifeless on the ground.

You wander the halls, looking for Albert through all of the rooms but you can't seem to find him anywhere. You make your way back to the reading room, and looked around before you find the book you read countless of times. You walk on over and pull the book over and instead of it coming out, it downs down like a lever, and the bookshelf slides open. You step into the cave and make the long walk down into the batcave.\nYou suit up and smile as you go through the endless amount of songs in your ipod before you play your favorite song.\nThe Batman Song.\n\n<<loop "Old Batman TV Show Theme Song.mp3">>

You start for the sink and when you go to wash your face, you hear a gasp before you feel a sharp sting in your back. You turn around and find a knife sticking out of back and a ninja standing there before reaching over and knocking the stunned Albert over to the ground.

All cases should lead to your death except one where you end up living.

You gave in when knowing you could no longer stand the freakiness of what was going on and dashed for the door. You pull the door closed behind you, with strained breathing and focused eyes on the door knob. Now slowing down your breathing, you step away from the door and find your way back to the fireplace. You cross your arms rubbing them up and down remembering how cold it actually was, feeling the goose bumps that lined the surface of your skin.\nThe last of the firewood was burning and slowly the fire was dying down as the embers crackled as they danced around and floated up and into the chimney. If there was someone in the house, at least they would have the pleasure of being warm for a few moments before committing any heinous acts against you or your home. They had warmth and a shroud of darkness on their side, while you had anxiety and clumsiness. Even so, you always did love living in the dark despite being able to flip a switch and have light when you wanted or needed it. \nMaybe it was a folly of yours, and maybe it was just a passion you had of enveloping yourself in a cloak of shadows. You casually saunter over to the Egyptian crate and pick up your mug of half drunken coffee before tossing the fluids into the fire. The embers faded, and the light of the room died down and it became just dim enough to barely make out the room.\n\nDo you go to the dining room and [[check up on Albert and Jane]]?\n\nor\n\nDo you just [[go and eat like nothing]]?

You go over to the bookcase and start to replace the books that had fallen off the shelf. Something was in here, trying to freak you out, and the question came down to you.\n Were you going to let it freak you out? \nYou tidy up the room finally and recall that there was a book you had wanted to read for a while now but had never had the time to get it before.\nYou start scanning the vast collection of novels and anthropologies and books that you have shelved in the room until you find just what you were looking for.\n The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury \nWhen you start to head for the door satisfied that you found just the book you had been dying to read for a while, you hear a click and you stop.\nYou glance to a corner of the room, and stepping from the shadows comes a man, with a pistol aimed right towards you. You refuse to move knowing the slightest motion might provoke the man and just stand there, looking at him blankly.\nAs you begin to utter a word to him, a bang goes off, and a blinding light hits you and the last thing you realize is the smell of smoke and burning flesh as you fall back and lay lifeless on the ground.

Kneeling down, you unscrew the broken bulb, and pick up the small remains of the bulbs corpse. Getting off your knees, you bring the lamp to its feet and straighten the shade before walking to the trash bin off to the side and dumping the broken light bulb when you notice a slight jump in shadows by the bookcase. It wasn’t any big human shaped shadow, but it was big enough to startle you and give you reason to check out what was going on.\nSuddenly another jump in shadows, this time in the moonlight that highlighted the frame of the window. You stop dead in your tracks to glance over quickly to the windows and find nothing, which, of course, you had expected. There was an eerie quietness to the whole house, particularly to the reading room.\nBooks started falling off the shelves, and you were starting to realize that you were feeling scared about whatever was roaming in the room. Slithering up your legs, you feel the cold slippery touch of anxiety returning again, and the more it kept slithering up, the warmer it started getting. Boards were creaking and in the air you could hear a quiet murmur slowly creeping its way through the nook beneath the door.\n\nDo you [[stay]] a bit longer?\n\nor\n\nDo you [[get the hell out of there]]?

\n<h1> Welcome! </h1>\n\n\nYou, a pretty well off entrepeneur, are in your manor, on a late october night. It's been a busy week, and you just want to take the night off. You send all your workers home except for the two that have been there for you ever since you were a child, Miss Jane, and Albert.\n\nThe time is 11:08 p.m.\n\nThe night begins with you sitting in the foyer reading your favorite book while [[drinking]] coffee.\n\n

Slowly reaching out, you feel your hand getting near the door knob before your palm enveloped it in a firm grip and slowly turned it clockwise. Your right hand was still empty as it had uncurled and fell quietly behind you while you lurked forward. The creak of the door would've alerted any intruder of a suspicious home owner but you still crept in as though no sound of your presence had been made.\nSlowly shutting the door behind you as to not arouse any more warnings, you start investigating the room and seeing what had been the cause of the noise. At first glance, you could see the windows were open and that the drapes had been flying back almost like the cape of superman. A lustrous crimson red dancing in the wind, and at its feet was a floor lamp that had fallen victim to the maniacal wind blowing through the window. Howling, the wind cursed at you as you slide the window carefully shut, securing it well as to not open once more without prior approval. You turn and glance down to the broken lamp and verify your assumption that it was the light bulb that had shattered and that it wasn’t an intruder; you relax your muscles a bit, and let some of the anxiety in you drain away.\n\nDo you [[fetch]] a new lightbulb?\n\nor\n\nDo you [[leave]] it the way it is?

William Alonzo

The Encounter

\n\nStill swirling in your mug, you take a swig of your coffee trying to wake yourself up at this late hour by trying to ingest as much caffeine possible. You never really liked coffee; you hated its bitter taste, its color repulsed you, and its stench was unbearable. But it kept you awake for nights like these. It was the ideal drink to be having in the middle of autumn as the cool breeze blew by, slowly chilling the room despite the fact that you always hated coffee.\nWith your hand shaking and your head spinning, you carefully set down the mug as to avoid missing the small crate you were using as a table. You had picked it up while touring Cairo, and it served as a piece of your home. An empty wooden crate that had been used to transport the sarcophagus of some ancient Egyptian Pharaoh was now sitting in your living room, being used as a coffee table. You get up and out of the cozy red armchair you had bought at that one auction that one time and walked towards the fireplace, grasping the book that was on the table to your right.\nYou move some books on the mantle aside and return the book to its rightful place when suddenly there’s a crash from the next room. It sounded like glass had broken and there was a metal clink that sounded out as well. You feel your fingers curling up into a fist, as your eyes searched for something to use against an attacker.\n\nDo you go to the [[kitchen]] to dump your coffee? \n\nor\n\nDo you [[investigate]]?

You make your way to the door and when you find the grand main entrance, you find the door wide open and the porchlight is on for some reason.\nYou step closer to the door curious as to why it was open when you start staring out to the front lawn of the manor and find nothing and no one outside.\n So where did the knock come from? \nYou close the door gently and make sure to lock it securely as so that the door doesn't open again.\n

You leave things the way they are, thinking that you can worry about it when you get back and so you start heading for the door. There comes a creak from the floor boards in the room, but you pay no mind to it since you had just scanned the whole room.\nYou step back into the foyer closing the reading room's door behind you. You walk back over to the crate, grab your mug, and start heading down the endless amount of corridors it takes to get to the dining hall.\nYou find Miss Jane setting the table for supper and she tells you that Albert is about almost done with dinner. You nod your head in approval and smile as you set your mug down onto the table by the plate she is setting up for you and continue walking on to the supply closet in the hall that leads to the main entrance.\nYou step into the closet and start looking for a new set of lightbulbs when you hear a knock come at the door.\n\nDo you [[let jane get the door]]?\n\nor\n\nDo you [[answer the door yourself]]?

You think to yourself that you are going crazy and relinquish your concentration from trying to find a weapon you might possibly use. You walk back over to the crate, grab your mug, and start heading down the endless amount of corridors it takes to get to the dining hall.\nYou find Miss Jane setting the table for supper and she tells you that Albert is about almost done with dinner. You nod your head in approval and smile as you saunter by to go to the kitchen.\nYou find Albert by the stove, slaving away with an apron on over his jeans and white t shirt. He had gone casual, not that you cared except for the fact that you might never get used to seeing him dress like that for a while.\nOut of your own clumsiness you trip, and the mug shatters on the ground spewing the coffee everywhere. You cut your chin pretty bad when you hit the black and white tile floor, and Albert insists that you go get freshened up for dinner while he cleans up the mess.\n\nDo you get [[fixed up]]? \n\nor \n\nDo you help [[clean up]]?