(Rose)
Despite travelling through an endless chain of mountains, the summer really has caught up with us. The sun warmth is drying the land and dampening us in sweat.
We crafted fortune hats to shelter ourselves slightly, feeling sticky as days go by.
Maybe because the altitude brings us in an atmosphere of lower density, but the sun hurts strongly there. It feels like we are crossing a desert almost.
Where we are, I know not. Not even the country we could be in. As long as we don't go in circles, and keep heading south, we'll meet the sea eventually.
We go by ruined cities again. Most cities we've seen in the valleys look recently abandoned, while those in the mountains look destroyed by natural causes most of the time.
Always empty of people either way.
I wonder where was the crashed plane or helicopter with a so called nuclear weapon I encountered last time.
Around here, we go by villages then that still are in rather good shape.
When houses are still standing with a roof, that's pretty good.
We scavenge a little. Mostly the growing vegetables in gardens. Most of them haven't grown wild, still making things uncanny as if the end only happened last week. It's been about nine years now... Chances of surprises with survivors are dimmer and dimmer.
I was sorting some clothes I found when Bleue noticed something by the end of this village.
Pointing outside, from the outskirts, there something making smoke in the mountain side.
As if someone was making a camp fire just like we do, just a few kilometres away from here.
Now we're curious, and we deviate from our route to investigate it.
As we climb the forest path that has gone lush, appears in the distance a medieval or renaissance castle protruding out of the forest canopy, in all its unsaturated colours and glory.
B - It's not middle-ages looking, it's more renaissance or empires even. We're probably in Hungary.
R - That's weird. I thought we were heading more south than east. Well...
It does have this mixture of influences in its architecture that you don't see on the most eastern or western countries. We'll go have a look closer inside now that we're here and know the smoke we saw came from somewhere around there.
We cross a stone bridge across a stream and follow a path leading to a rear entrance of the castle. There were no walls anymore, but some redoubts in ruins remained.
The main building has modern windows, but they are barred and shut with rusting steel plates riveted to the stones. The entire building has been sealed off quite some time ago. I guess it was abandoned? It must be costly to keep and manage.
We visit its domain looking for a way in. The smoke is nowhere to see anymore, but we can smell it faintly. The gardens and park have melted with the forest over the years. The pool has become a swamp. No mermaid inside this time. Sadly.
We reach the front gate, which is open. The front door is not sealed anymore, and left open to the winds.
We only carry one electrical torchlight still functioning, the one that works without batteries but a small wheel to turn to charge it.
Bleue goes first, and I follow her close as she holds it.
~
The hall is dirty and dusty like a cave, the walls rotting and becoming irregular. Most doors inside have fallen and turned to mud. Some small and high tables and other decorative furniture followed the same destiny here and there.
Bleue seems to hear something at times, suddenly inspecting the corner of a wall or room with the light.
We go deeper inside the castle and climb stairs spiralling around a dead elevator.
We hear rattling sounds in the attic. As if someone was pushing a piano over the wooden floor up there. That makes us a little more nervous, but what could be dangerous? The flying invisible ribbons we can notice are rather peaceful around here. It's still unsettling, but they mean there's probably nothing demonic living here. If a really bad monster had made this place its home, we would very likely have felt something by now.
The mood still is spooky however.
We go through a museum with pieces of weaponry covered with dust, behind glass even more dusty. I notice something there.
Some of the electric apparatus still function. Some small white objects on the ceilings here and there still have a tiny visible light.
I open one of the shelves from the museum. I take out two short swords for myself. I know I tend to lose them fast, so one is a spare.
In the attic, from which the door was locked, we mostly found a swamp in which the door fell as we broke its lock open.
Some sort of large octopus jumped out of its hiding spot to climb the wooden frame of the attic roof, and then crawl outside from a large opening. It basically fled as soon as it saw us barging in, whatever it was.
No piano or anything else to explain the sounds heard before. Just this animal we just spooked.
As night begins to fall, we're making our way out.
As we reach the main door from which we came in, we find it closed.
Along with what looks like a large splatter of blood all along the entryway.
How peculiar.
We step over it nonetheless to try opening the doors. They don't move an hair width.
We now begin to notice human looking remains in the corners of the hall, behind the doorway and normally hidden by the open door.
We're locked inside. Dark hallways spread out into the spooky unknown. There are corpses and blood everywhere...
B - I think we should split up.
~
Once Bleue's gorgeous suggestion dismissed, we try to look for another exit.
As we went through a corridor, we saw a door slam shut in front of us, and heard it being locked right after. It made us jumpy I admit.
So doors can move, creak and slam, thus making most of the noises expected from a haunted house worthy of its status.
The windows being sealed really tight from outside, it's hard to get out from any of them.
At least, in the worst case, we already know a way out, only it's from the broken roof.
A smell not unlike blood, or gravy sauce, lingers along the bathrooms and kitchen we go through.
In the tower, we can get outside on a balcony, breaking another old and rusty lock.
The fresh air feels nice after an hour inside that place. Night has fallen already.
A small fire is being tended to in the garden below us but on the other side of the building. Someone or something is burning something. It smells like roasting meat. We're wondering what to do.
We could probably craft a rope from what is available in the castle and go down from here.
We're not really feeling threatened or cornered so we chose to wait for the morning. So far it all felt more like a prank than the real threat.
Meanwhile, the night is nice, so we'll rest there and wait for dawn.
~
In the middle of the night, something did come scratching violently at the door. I had locked it up with one sword.
It held.
I wondered if I should pierce the thing behind through the door with the sword I held in hands.
In the end I don't, as it stops after a minute or so.
We hear a muffled scream and then a splatter.
A little concerned, Bleue and I stand watch there until dawn. We wonder, maybe a little anxious at least.
But morning comes peacefully.
We open the door to a new puddle of what looks like blood, all over the door, the walls and ceiling.
It has an odd smell and is really dark. It's sepia. I mean it's real sepia ink. As I rub a drop of it between my fingers, examining it, I begin to form a theory about what is happening here.
As we go through the castle once more, we follow the inky footsteps we've stamped everywhere last night.
The main door still is locked, but it moves.
We force it until it breaks open.
Something almost got ripped and we see it at our height, holding both parts of the door shut as best it can.
A kind of large octopus is holding onto the doors from outside, trying to keep it shut against us.
As we get to see it from the few centimetres of opening, it sprays us with ink and we let go, coughing. The door slams shut on us.
At least it's consistent with what I had guess.
Damp and dark, from head to toes, Bleue and I are almost laughing at ourselves still.
We want to get out still. And when we try it again a few minutes later, the door opens itself to the courtyard where the fire had been done during the night.
I come out, hands up, dripping but amused, saying I come in peace.
They're waiting for me outside.
And they can speak.
~