I really, really, really wish that I wrote this AS SOON AS I WOKE UP. Alas, it's had a day to fade from my memory...
Ahh the family reunion, what a convenient place for a survival horror.
The family has decided to rent a mansion for our reunion this year, seeing as how there are so many of us. A time to rediscover old aunts, uncles, cousins, and the departed?.. I find myself in a very large room with a high ceiling. The floor lined with benches, and the benches lined with family. I'm on the second floor looking over the balcony. My grandpa is leading our prayer to the lord, that the food be blessed, that we have a fun filled week, and that the angry spirits living in the mansion do not harm any members of our family. A younger cousin of mine sits across the room, still on the second floor with me, jotting something down in his notebook. Curious. Another cousin of mine, a few years older than myself, stands beside me. We all look up at the same time and without saying anything it becomes clear that we are to sneak off and explore the mansion.
The halls are much dimmer than the atrium was, lit only by the moonlight creeping in through boarded up windows. Everything is a dim greyish-blue color that gets darker as the halls go on. We notice a faint light at the end of one of the halls and decide to see what it is. Upon closer inspection we find it to be a wall-mounted candle, as soon as we reach the end of this particular hallway the candle goes out. A fog fills the halls and we start to lose sight of each other. A dim circle of white light appears on the floor and a spiked platform begins to rise up. Two large horns sprout from the platform, piercing one of my cousins stomachs. He starts to bleed out from his mouth, though he coughs up a rich black ink instead of blood... Then a white demon with a form much similar to Ifrit (of Final Fantasy VII) rises from the floor as well.
I turn to run, but quickly become frozen with fear. A faint side-profile of a face appears in the center of the hallway and fades away. Suddenly the ghost of a young woman in a white dress wearing a red sash appears at the other end of the hall. Her face is covered by her long black hair. She glides forward in that sketchy, jittery, motion ghosts are known for. Jumping forward meters at a time without actually stepping at all. Fading out, fading back in further ahead... Within moments she's right in front of me. The world gets fuzzy, like white noise on a television, refocuses, then becomes fuzzy again. The woman looks up and as I stare into her empty eyes the world becomes white noise once again.
When it refocuses I'm in the atrium, fifteen minutes in the past. I look across the room at my younger cousin jotting something down in his notebook. I run to look at what he's written down... He's writing down everything that just happened. As soon as he finishes he gets a blank look on his face, shakes his head, and rereads what he just wrote. It seems like this book is similar to the save system in that old Zelda game, Majora's Mask. We're to relive the following 15 minutes until we solve the mystery of the mansion, writing down our new discoveries and clues every time and going somewhere else on our next run. We decide it would be best to speak with my grandpa about the spirits, seeing as how he's very well informed on the supernatural.
He explains to us that there's an ancient artifact in the family store across town that the spirits are trying to obtain. He says that if we can get it and bring it to him, he will purify it for us to ward off the spirits and demons. We start our walk across town, down the lone gravel road, through the mist and fog. When we get to the store we spot a horn on the wall, glowing a bright green. When we take it down, my grandpa appears behind us. "Yes... Yes... This is it." He says with a grin on his face. Suddenly his teeth become large and sharp, and he begins to laugh. "That artifact was sealed to the wall by an ancestor of yours, so that no demon or spirit may ever take it down. Only someone with the family's blood coursing through their veins could break the charm and remove it." A demon bursts through my grandpa's skin, revealing itself. "I'm a demon of fear and hatred. I manifested in your grandpa's heart a long time ago. I ate at his organs, bones, and soul to grow. I've worn his skin and lived his life for years now. I've been giving you "advice" so that you could carry out my ambitions." The demon snatched the glowing horn from my hands and absorbed it into his chest... The room quickly becomes cold and grey. The demon continues to laugh. My cousin bolts forward in a feudal attempt to stop him. The demon tilts it's head forward, impaling my cousin. *Snap* My cousin is replaced by his stunt double, Samuel L. Jackson, the actor who is well known for playing the role of the first character to die.
Freeze frame. A man walks in from the edge of my vision and delivers a brief speech about hate crimes and racism. He then exits on the opposite side. Resume dream. The demon splits Samuel from his stomach to the top of his head and tosses his corps against the wall. He takes a wide swing and slices me clean in two... everything is white noise... I wake up to find myself leaning against the balcony rail on the second floor of the atrium. My cousin is jotting away in his notebook.
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