Grabbing the stick meant to open the attic and holding it like a baseball bat, Mathis slowly descended the stairs, expecting something to jump at him at any second but not even a single sound came his way.
The table of the dining room was set with two plates, one on each end of the table and tall candles were lit, there was even food that had been cooked and other dishes Mathis had definitely not prepared himself.
What caught his attention, were the people sitting all around the table, they didn't get to have plates or anything, most likely because they clearly weren't going to eat anything.
Mathis didn't recognise them at first but after a few moments, out of the ten decaying corpses seated around the table, he did recognise one and then, the rest was obvious.
The corpses of the young men that had preceded him were all there, positioned to look as if they were holding their hands, as if they were saying grace.
The two spots with plates were free of corpses, a piece of paper was dangling in the doorway, looking everywhere around him, Mathis only saw darkness and heard no sounds.
He picked up the paper, on it, someone had written with a very delicate handwriting, telling him to take a seat on one end of the table.
"Where the hell are you?!" he shouted, not feeling like listening to whoever was doing all of this, the sight of the corpses made him feel like puking everything in his stomach.
Although, the corpses emitted no putrid smell, they seemed to have no smell at all, as if they had stopped rotting at some points.
Forcing himself to inspect his surroundings before, they were all dressed in exquisite clothes, which seem to have all been custom made to suit them perfectly.
Mathis, suddenly stumbled back against the wall as a heavy thud came from right above his position.
A crumbled piece of paper suddenly hit him in the side of the head, coming from a completely different spot that the thud, he tensed up only picking it up after thirty seconds.
"Take a seat" he read aloud, the writing was still very delicate but the stomping noise that followed right after indicated that the person communicating was running out of patience.
Feeling threatened, he decided to comply and sat down, feeling like the corpses were staring him down, each of them, even through the decay, seemed to sport expressions of pure terror.
Many of the candles were suddenly blown away, extinguishing them and someone, without making a sound before, pulled the chair opposite to where Mathis was and sat down, they were completely covered in darkness, the only thing he saw of them was the very end of their fingers as the showed him another piece of paper with words written on them.
'Nice to meet you Mathis' they flipped the piece of paper.
'I heard many goods thing about you' Mathis was as stiff as the dead guests all around the table.
"This... This is property of mister Rebouteux, you can't stay here..." he stuttered, the unknown person waved their hands dismissively, they were impressively big and seemed to have dark marks on them, but they didn't appear to be injuries.
'I am no intruder, I live here' responded the person.
"Really..? Hum, who are you? The doctor didn't mention anything about you..." asked Mathis, still grasping the stick in his hand.
He wasn't thinking much about it, but if this person had been inside since the very beginning, they could have gotten to him in his sleep or by surprise anytime, there was no need for all of this if they just wanted to kill him.
'I am Aga, Pi's younger sister' the next paper said, Mathis didn't believe it, those hands didn't look like that of any woman and he lived in the countryside, women with rough hands were everywhere.
"Aah... I see, but the doctor told me you had died a long time ago... Why would he lie to me? Where you the one to take care of the flowers..?" he asked multiple questions, this maniac passing off as a dead person seemed keen on conversing, they were probably using pieces of paper because they were no girl or woman.
'Because my survival is supposed to be a secret, although it doesn't matter now that the villagers are no longer there'
'And yes, I was the one taking care of the flowers, Pi maintains a garden of flowers for me, he himself prefers to grow fruit trees and vegetables'
Mathis wasn't even hearing them write and they were pulling these papers rapidly, had they prepared all of those in advance?
"Tell me, why was the fact that you weren't dead kept a secret?" he asked, eyeing the door out of here but not knowing what to do even if he ran.
They had clearly locked every possible way out already and were either more than one or moving very fast around the manor as one moment they were above him and the next, down onto this floor, if it was the second option, they were incredibly silent too.
This was making Mathis believe that he really was talking with Aga but some sort of foul revenant or ghost but he pushed that out of his mind, such things didn't exist, at least he hoped so.
'It's a funny story really, some of the kids mocked me for my appearance, so I murdered them and set their home on fire' despite being in written form, Mathis felt like they really believed that it was a 'funny' story.
"Hum... You know, Aga, I am feeling a bit sick, why don't we... Just go take a walk in the gardens?" he suggested, since they seemed inclined to listening.
He only got the sound of hands slamming on the table as response before another crumbled ball of paper flew his way and the sound of the chair being pushed back as they stood up.
'Don't try to trick me, if you can't love me, you'll join them' Mathis felt a cold sweat on his back.
He definitely wouldn't be able to love someone who stages this sort of things, no matter how attractive they might be.