Spooky Times in the Snow

As Oda crossed the threshold, the air grew thick and damp, heavy with a scent like earth after rain, only sharper and somehow bitter. Shadows cloaked the narrow hall, thick and stubborn, swallowing any hint of light that might’ve dared to follow him inside. The young genin seemed absolutely hypnotized, his legs walking on their own as he just kept following some sort of ethereal call. Every step he took seemed muffled by the floorboards, as though they absorbed the sound with an eerie hunger. The walls were adorned with faded tapestries, patterns shifting like living things that pulsed and flowed, trickling down the walls as if they bled into the room.

The deeper Oda ventured, the more he felt watched. Not merely by eyes but by the house itself, which seemed to breathe around him, each exhale from unseen vents making the candles flicker and casting grotesque shapes on the walls. But he did not care, and just kept walking. A staircase loomed ahead, bending under its own weight, sagging downward as though it might collapse at any moment. Yet, he felt compelled to climb.
As he ascended, the steps groaned, each moan blending into the next until it seemed the house was speaking—a low, rasping voice murmuring ancient words he couldn’t understand but felt deep in his bones. Shadows stretched and contracted, moving in unnatural sync with his heartbeat, each dark form a different shape: faces, claws, twisted bodies, like memories trapped in the walls themselves.

Finally, he reached the attic. The air there was thicker, almost solid, pressing in around him like water. A single window let in a weak shaft of moonlight, despite the house being almost impervious to light, illuminating a broken mirror leaning against the wall. Yet in its cracked glass, Oda did not see his own reflection. Instead, he saw the house’s heart—a dark, writhing mass of shadows that pulsed like a living organ, twisted with roots and brambles, feeding off the decay of every memory trapped within its walls.

And from that heart, Oda could hear the ominous voice that was hypnotizing and attracting him towards there.

- Who are you? – asked Oda, still gazing upon the grotesque “heart”.

- You cannot…escape….me…I am…the… HOUSE! – the heart replied, even though having no mouth. Its voice penetrated Oda’s brain as a spear punctures flesh, echoing for a few moments inside the genin’s head in an almost painful way.

Suddenly, a dark hole opened right underneath Oda, and before he could react, the young shinobi just felt into it, falling into total and absolute darkness. Before losing his consciousness, he could see flashes of random and regular home furniture and objects: a clock on a wall in a wide living room; a bar o soap in a bathroom; a sharp cooking knife in a kitchen’s sink; and a a painting, hanging just above a double bed, in what appeared to be a bedroom. And as he felt, all he could hear was the words “SAVE ME!” echoing over and over.

Oda snapped out of his hypnotic stasis, without being able to remember exactly what and how stuff happened before. He was still inside the creepy house, but now he was standing before a wooden door. He had no idea what just occurred and how he got there, but he intuitively opened the door, just in time to witness place the lantern in a body’s chest, and how Nier “re-possessed” his own body. As he explained what happened last while he was still alive, Oda knew what the visions he had while falling into darkness meant:    

- Nier is right…there are 4 other spirits trapped by this kinjutsu inside this house… one is in the kitchen, trapped in a chef’s knife. There is one trapped into a wall clock at the living room, one trapped into a soap bar in the bathroom… and finally, one trapped into a painting at one of the bedrooms… - even though he had no evidence, Oda knew that the visions he had were about the trapped spirits, but he still had one detail to add – Actually… there is a fifth spirit, but he’s not trapped in here… I think that we are trapped inside of it… the house, the man who did all that to poor Nier, he somehow merged himself into… the house! And I think we should free the other guys in order to end the kinjutsu… - Just as Oda finished his words, the house once again emitted sounds of glass shattering deep inside of it–  And I think that it will try to stop us…

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WC: 760
TWC: 2152