14th of Saun, Arc 720
Soundtrack
“Rumor has it, this place is haunted by victims of torture.”
Cierne rolled her eyes at the ominous comment.
She didn’t know what she was doing. She had allowed herself to (somewhat) befriend a couple of people her age a few nights ago; she met them at a bar on one of her days off work. Sometimes drinking alone was great, but on that particular night she had been feeling rather lonesome and wanted company. On a whim, Cierne had decided to start a conversation with the group who were all sat huddled over a table.
They had seemed fun at first. Each member had something interesting about them. There was a tough looking girl with flaming red hair who was getting a degree in history somewhere far away; there was a meek boy with lanky limbs and glasses too big for his face that continuously ranted about how filthy minded his sister had been lately; there was another boy who was a bit younger than the meek one that surprisingly had a fabulously long beard and who had the most frosted blue eyes Cierne had ever seen; there were also two other girls, twins, who wouldn’t stop talking even after everyone had received their meals. Cierne had simply butt into their conversation that night and miraculously fit in like she was originally a part of the group.
Now, the group members had decided to all get together (Cierne included) at a seemingly abandoned building, tell ghost stories and guzzle a great amount of booze. Cierne hadn’t been aware of where they were going for their storytelling so upon hearing the redhead’s remark of the haunted building, Cierne was quickly filled with doubt.
It wasn’t that she was afraid. She usually did a great job blocking any uprisings of fear (often with the aid of some dark liquor). She was just skeptical of the nature of the building, if it truly was haunted. And if it was as abandoned as her newfound acquaintances had said it was.
She had been trying to be good lately, keeping out of trouble per her mentor’s orders. So if she got caught breaking into a place that actually wasn’t abandoned, there would be hell to pay for sure.
“I wonder how they died,” said one of the twins. Her voice was already wavering with fear and they hadn’t even started telling ghost stories yet. Cierne looked to the girl and found her anxiously twirling a strand of hair around her finger. Her sister was directly by her side, attached to her hip, trying to comfort her with inaudible whispers.
“I bet one of them was hanged,” replied the red head with a maniacal smirk. And here Cierne thought she was mean-spirited.
“What makes you say that?” Asked the boy with glasses.
She pointed to a piece of rope that hung from one of the wooden rafters above them.
Cierne saw the younger of the boys shiver. He didn’t seem like the type to be scared of hypotheticals.
Cierne observed the building as everyone sat down in a circle surrounding a tiny fire. The redhead had come before anyone else to start it, apparently. It was positioned in the middle of the buildings’ largest room so that nothing would catch fire if everyone got a little too drunk to think clearly.
There were several windows in the room; some had fine splinters in the panes that resembled a spider’s web, and others had been shattered completely. There were a few drapes that framed the windows, the fabric littered with holes. The group hadn’t done much exploring of other rooms, but the place seemed to be devoid of any furniture. No one seemed to have lived here in quite some time, Cierne conjectured, taking note of the barren room.
The Naer sighed. Perhaps the place really was abandoned. She began to relax with the potential of getting in trouble greatly reduced.
“Okay, okay, so my grandmother told me this one,” began the girl with flaming hair. Cierne tried to remember her name. Was it Avie? Avery? She took a sip of the alcohol she had brought for the night. The bitterness coated the back of her tongue and burned her throat as she swallowed. It seemed to burn just about as much as the fire was in front of her.
“In her old village, my grandmother grew up in a strict household. It was important in the village to never be out past the evening bell because people went missing. My grandmother was curious about what happened after the evening bell and why people were disappearing, and as a teenager, she was rebellious, especially in regards to her parents’ strict ways. So one day when the sun had just set and darkness began to grow across the plains, she snuck outside to see if she could find out the reason for all those disappearances. She didn’t get very far though before she heard some strange noises off in the distance. Scared, she began to turn back and started for home. She didn’t dare look back for fear of what she might have seen if she did. The noises only got louder with every step she took. They sounded like the gurgling of hot rocks. She heard the sound of boiling water, muffled grunts and hard material grating against something just as hard. It was a terrible sound. Finally, my grandmother made it back home. As soon as she shut the front door, she decided she was safe and was curious to see if she could see anything out the window. She should have just kept on going right up those stairs and into her room because what she saw gave her nightmares for as long as she‘s been alive.”
Avery stopped and widened her eyes. She was enjoying the cliffhanger she had left everyone with.
Meek boy with glasses and beard boy both took several swigs of their respective drinks. One of the twins had the courage to ask what happened next.
Suddenly Avery jumped up, scaring everyone in the group, including Cierne. Even the fire seemed startled, it’s flames abruptly growing larger and flickering brighter.
“There was a man with no jaw glaring at her through the window! It was like his jaw had been shot clean off; blood spurting from out the opening in his neck.”
The anxious one of the twins began to cry until beard boy offered her some of his drink.
Cierne chuckled nervously as she swallowed another mouthful of liquor.
“Okay my turn,” she announced, giving no one any time to recuperate.
All eyes turned towards her. Cierne stared into the fire as she tried to formulate how she was going to share her tale. Her mind was a little loopy from the beginning effects of the alcohol, but she was still able to focus.
“There was a man who went by the name of Gilligan Hue and he lived alone in a cabin in the middle of the woods. He liked being alone. It was quiet and gave him the peace he needed to paint. He was an artist, you see, and he spent every afternoon painting. One day he was painting a bowl of fruit when he heard a knock at his front door. After going to check to see who it was, he found that there was no one there. He figured it was just some kid playing a trick on him so he went back to his work. But the knock came again as soon as he had picked up his paint brush. Frustrated, he went to see who was there only to find there was no one. This time, he didn’t go back to his work but stayed right next to the door, certain someone would knock again. And when they did, he would open the door quickly and catch the trickster redhanded. But the knock never came. Instead, he started to hear whispers. They told him, ‘let us in’. He covered his ears to try to block out the voices, but they only got louder. ‘Let us in’, they repeated over and over again. He soon realised that the voices weren’t coming from outside his house but inside his head!”
Cierne was getting into the moment now, rushing her words and leaving out details that would have otherwise made her story easier to follow.
“He tried to get the voices to stop by yelling at them. He checked around the outside of his house to see if anyone was there, but no one was. The voices really were coming from inside his head. He was losing his mind.”
She looked around at the faces that were intently watching her. Their eyes were huge, some were biting their nails but others looked a little lost. Their reactions didn’t bother her though. She realised the story she was telling was more for her entertainment than anyone else’s.
“After an hour of the agonizing voices, he couldn’t take it anymore. He thought the only way to get the voices to stop was to not be able to hear. So he rushed to his kitchen, took a sharp knife, and drilled into both his ears.”
The twin who had cried earlier started up again, but her sister was too entranced by the story to offer her any comfort.
Cierne wanted to say more, but she had lost her train of thought. She didn’t have a decent conclusion to her story, so she thought it best to just leave it at that, kind of like how Avery had with her story.
“Whoa,” the boy with glasses breathed, guzzling down the rest of his drink.
“Not bad,” said beard boy with a purse of his lips.
“It was okay,” Avery said, clearly not amused. “It could have been scarier, though.”
Cierne rolled her eyes. She thought her story was scary enough. In fact, she had even creeped herself out. Desperate for a tale that was less menacing (a distraction so to speak), she turned to the twin who had been crying. She was wiping her eyes.
“What about you?” Cierne asked. “Do you have any stories to tell?”
The girl blanched but nodded her head. Her sister rubbed her back and told her something along the lines of, ‘you can do this’.
“Okay,” she started, clearing her throat. “This one’s about a guy who broke up with this girl… and you know, like, she could have totally done better, but that’s besides the point. And oh! She was like…”
Cierne found herself rolling her eyes again. The effects of her story had already begun to wear off. She much rather would have heard a scary story than whatever the hell this was.
It sounded like it was a good time as any to finish her drink!
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