Despite being indoors, the cold draft of wind blows all over the place, making the place chilly even though it is summer season and the nights are warm and quite hot.
"I should've bought my jacket if I knew it could get this cold," Danny muttered to himself, but loud enough for his audience watching his livestream to hear.
As much as he wanted to see the responses of his livestream carefully, with how he is not in his comfort zone right now, he is trying to be as cautious as possible to ensure that whatever danger lurks here, he can immediately run away and escape before things get out of hand. But fortunately, it seems that the livestream is quite lively and that's enough to gain traction.
He finished checking out the kitchen and although there isn't any unusual stuff besides the locked refrigerator with the odd smell and black ooze oozing out from it, nothing else is noteworthy. All of them are typical kitchen utensils and nothing more.
"As much as I want to pry open this refrigerator, I would rather save my strength in a better point of interest."
Leaving the kitchen, he returned to the living room and glanced at the stairs that leads to the next floor. Underneath the stairs is another set of stairs that leads a dark area of the house, possibly a basement. But with how dark the area is, he isn't certain if it was indeed a basement or another set of hallways and more rooms.
For now, he ignored the dark place and focused on the second floor. If he wanted to explore the place first, he would explore the well lit area first before the dimly lit places.
Still climbing the stairs, Danny notices the splotches of dried-up liquid currently splattered all over the steps of the stairs. Curious, he examined the splotches carefully, and soon he realized what it was.
"Is this blood? Dried up blood?"
With how many splotches of dried blood is present on the steps alone, the thing that bled the blood must have suffered quite a lot for them to have this much blood lost.
"If this blood is from a human, it must be from someone who fell from the second floor down to the first floor and might have suffered a concussion. Damn, that sounds so painful."
Despite chuckling and lightly taking it easy, Danny is already having chills in his spine. The fact that blood is already present inside the mansion is not a good sign. And yet he refuses to leave just yet. He will just slow down his investigation around the house to accommodate the whole "survive until dawn" mission that threatens him. He is free to escape the mansion, sure, but with he is not willing to give up a bit of his lifespan in case those things are actually true.
Holding the railings, he slowly climb up the stairs while watching his steps, carefully avoiding the big splotches of dried blood on the steps. While it is already dry, he could still potentially slip and fall for all he know. He would rather avoid that.
Upon arriving the second floor of the mansion, the cold draft of wind is getting stronger as well. It is quite strong that the strong smell from the lower floors that he have smelt earlier have returned. This time, a lot less pungent but still pretty bad for the nose.
Due to this, Danny has to improvise and use his handkerchief to create a mask on his nose just to reduce the smell. It might not fully stop the smell, but it at least reduced the smell for quite a lot. He won't feel like he will be barfing every time the wind blows.
With the smell already covered, Danny continues to investigate the second floor. Compared to the ground floor, the second floor is full of rooms. A few doors are open but most are closed. And considering the smell, one of the open doors is surely the source of that smell. Whatever it is, he isn't going to just sit there and let the smell continue to waft around.
The first thing Danny do is approach the first open door. He peeks inside and realized it was just a small room, barely enough for someone to crouch on. Inside are full of tools for the garden. Rake, hoe, shovel and many others that are used for gardening.
"Kinda odd for gardening tools to be on the second floor. Shouldn't this be placed outside and on a shed?" Danny commented as he examines each tool.
Based on the tool's conditions, he can tell that these tools are pretty much always used. The shovel in particular is very much used a lot due to the signs of rust and dirt still present. This alone is enough for Danny to suspect something is indeed amiss.
After checking it for quite some time, he concluded that the room has no further clues aside from the frequently used shovel but aside from that, nothing else. The smell isn't coming on that room as well so he closed the door and choose another one to check on.
As he was about to enter the 2nd open door, a loud noise startled Danny and caused him to back away from the 2nd open door. It is coming from the other open door not too far from the 2nd open door. Considering the sound, he quickly backs off and head to the staircase while still observing the source of the noise. If someone is inside, he will not hesitate to bolt out of the way to ensure the one in there will not sue him for trespassing.
However, there was nothing else that followed the noise and the surroundings continues to be tranquil, making it creepy for Danny considering that it is still pretty early in the evening. He look at the chat and everyone are already talking quite fast that he is unable to read any message individually. Of course, it was due to the sudden incident that caused the audience to be so talkative. Even Danny have not seen his chat this talkative.
Looking at the view count, he already surpassed the 100 viewers mark and have already reach 200 viewers and still rising. He is happy of course, but considering the situation he is in, he decided to refrain from checking his chat further and decided to focus on the situation at hand.
"You guys hear that?"
While saying that, Danny cautiously grab the handle of the knife that he brought and readies himself as he slowly approach the 3rd door, skipping the second door entirely.
Before he can fully enter the room, the pungent smell already welcomed him and he groaned in disgust as the smell permeates straight to his nose. As much as he wanted to curse, he decided against it and instead held his breath for a bit before entering the room.
The room is a typical bedroom. There's a bed, a dresser, a full-body mirror, and some sort of splotches on the bed sheets.
"Wait...blood?!" Danny shook as he soon got hit with a realization.
He didn't notice it before, but the bed has handcuffs on each side. It would have been different if it were kinky, but Danny doesn't like it, given their situation.
Investigating the bed was his target at first but things went sour when Danny felt someone is standing right behind him. With instinct, Danny crouches and scampers away as a sharp knife was brought down to the bed, destroying the bloody bed sheet in the process.
Danny's quick thinking allowed him to survive.
"Holy sh*t!"
Dodging away from the enemy, Danny soon encountered the first entity of the mansion that lingers around the place.
A figure that seems to be a woman, wielding a knife, ready to attack him.
"F*CK, DON'T TELL ME I HAVE MET A SERIAL KILLER?! IS THIS THE REASON I WAS SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE UNTIL DAWN?!"