Identity V

Orpheus

Orpheus

I closed the diary of Margaretha and decided to take a short break. I needed to think about all the things I've just read...
I stood up from the leathered chair and walked towards the door.
As I grabbed the knob and pulled it towards me I noticed that I wasn't locked up anymore.
The door squeaked loudly as I opened it, I took a look outside to see a dark and empty hallway.
It was still night, there was no spark of light shining through the curtains.
With the candle in my right hand I started to approach the entrance hall.
A long and narrow hallway surrounded my figure as I was walking around.
The survivors were right, there was no chance that all of that was a coincidence..

I just couldn't understand why someone would do that, I mean yeah the host was a total psychopath but those were innocent people! The host had no motive to do those things to them..
And that game..

I wondered if all those killers or hunters were actually evil, or if they were forced too..
Forced to play the game.

I walked the stairs up to the common room, they were rotten and unstable, making scary sounds as I stepped on them.

How has no one found this place yet? How did this disaster just disappear in the void? Did the police know about this..

Entering the room I felt a strange nostalgia.
Reading those diaries must have gotten to my head..

I observed the room with my candlelight,
it was also dirty and looked so old..

The diaries weren't that old though...
It really surprised me that the house was looking so broken even though the survivors described it as a beautiful mansion in their entries..
And their entries were only a few years old, about 10-15 years I think..
I forgot the exact date.. maybe 1889?
I couldn't remember..

Rubbing my temples harshly I tried to abandon the thought and move on.

I looked through the room once more before going downstairs again.

I wanted to leave, and I could.

The front door was right there, my car too.
I could have left if I wanted to and I did want to.
I could have just written Reichenbach a letter that there was nothing unusual in this manor and that there was no sign of his daughter. Then I could have passed the case to one of my colleagues, I was sure they wouldn't mind..

But.. I just didn't do it..

Something else was pulling me away from the exit, towards the diaries, the stories, the bookshelf..
I needed to know the whole story,
I wanted to know what happened here...

It was time to investigate.

As I entered the living room again I noticed something strange.
Emily- or.. Lydia.. died, but I read about her death from her diary? How was that possible?

..Did she survive?..
That couldn't be true.. If she would have been alive then why did her entry end so abruptly? And why wouldn't she kept have writing about the manor?
Did she escape?
I quickly looked for Emily's diary around the room. Opening one diary then another , they were all splattered around the room, laying on the floor.
It took a few minutes until I found her diary,bit I luckily found it hidden behind one of the bigger diaries. It was thinner than the others.
When I opened it I looked at her last entry...
As I read it I noticed that this last entry had nothing to do with the game she was playing nor her death.
She wrote about her day at the manor and all the weird things that happened.. But there was nothing about Freddy or her death...
As I turned to the next page I found it empty and as I leafed through the rest of the book I found nothing but empty pages..
Was my brain playing tricks on me again?
My eyes widened as I looked at the last page.

" Wake up"

Trembling breaths came out of my mouth..
Was I really just investigating at this point? Or was I included in this strange game..
That thought made my brain wander to that novelist which was named in the diaries a few times..
I must be honest and admit to myself that I actively avoided him since I found out about well.. his name..

Orpheus
I thought..
This wasn't a coincidence, this couldn't be one..
I wanted to find out more, but at the same time I also didn't. Thickening clouds of danger filled the room, was this the right choice? I wondered what would happen if I just left.
I would get up and leave this house, abandon it and step in my car without looking back. I would arrive home and drift into a dreamless sleep. The next morning I would write a letter to James Reichenbach, that I didn't find anything at the rusty villa, apart from dust and spiderwebs..
I would go on with my boring life, work everyday, eat, sleep and work again.
But could I? After finding out about all of this was I even able to leave this room, to abandon all of these diaries, making these strange souls disappear into the void?
I sighed and slowly stood up before grabbing my warm candle.
I looked at the door, which was only a few steps away from me, then I turned my head to the bookshelf again.
I sighed and put the candle down on the small coffee table next to the chair again.
Orpheus Orpheus Orpheus...

If he ( or I ??) participated then there must also be a diary written by him.

I searched and searched, books and diaries splattering around the floor, the smell of wood and paper filled my nostrils as I looked through every book to find my own name written in one of them.
Minutes passed, maybe hours..
Maybe it's not here I thought? It would make sense if you consider all of the other mysteries of the manor, of the game.. Maybe the host hid the diary on purpose?
That thought made me hold my breath..
The host..
I wondered if he was still alive, it would explain why no one found out about this tragedy yet..
I swallowed down the fear forming in my body.
Were they near? , perhaps close to me even?, Did they know about me..
I grabbed another book from the shelf, it was thin..
As I opened it I gasped.
" Orpheus"
So it was true.. The only question left to ponder was who he was..
I slowly opened the book as I sat down to read.

Orpheus Diary
"The manor was full of secrets.. It felt like being a character of my novels to be apart of this strange game. I felt like Ashlynn Birch, the protagonist of my most recent novel. She is a detective and is requested to investigate a hotel, were guests kept going missing, such as the hotel staff itself.
The novel is still in progress, I took it with me to Oletus Manor to keep writing, I suspected I'd find a bit of time to work."

I flipped a few pages and kept reading. He wrote about everything that happened so far, the vanishings, assumptions of who the host could be, that he felt a bit frightened to be forced to play the game.. He wrote about the letter, about the little to almost no conversations he had with the other guests and he wrote more about is novel..
And I knew that novel.
I knew it because it was in my house.. Rotting on my top shelf for years, untouched, unfinished.
The story of Ashlynn Birch never kept going and never will be.
That fucking draft of a book was the one of the few things I still had with me after my memory loss, after the fire...
So it was true.. Just like the guests said, everything in the manor happened for a reason, everyone who stepped one foot into it was chosen to enter..
And so was I.
I flipped the page only to find out this was the last, as I looked closely to the spine of the book I noticed that this was not the last entry, the other ones were just ripped out..
I released a heavy breath and closed my eyes.

I was chosen to enter this house, I was chosen to be here..
I wondered if the little girl I was actually looking for was even real, I wondered if James Reichenbach was real.. Maybe it was all the host.
I felt scared, no frightened..
I didn't really care about my curiosity of this endless riddle anymore, I needed to get out of here, tell the police and let them find and arrest that psychopath of a host!

I determinedly grabbed my candle and walked towards the door, fuck this place.
Big steps guided me to my escape. It was time to leave..

I grabbed the door knob and turned it.
Nothing happened.
I did it again.
Nothing.
A scream of frustration left my lips.
This couldn't be true, this couldn't be real!
" WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME!? FUCK!"
I started to crumble on the floor as tears left the corners of my eyes, dripping down to the wooden floor until they dried on it.
Why?
- - - - - - - - -