The Marvelous Misadventures of Walter Guilman: The Witch House

Miskatonic

Guilman had chosen a class for people getting their doctorate in theoretical physics, and he was only a freshman. He felt intimidated, since he would be in a room full of old scholars for several hours, but these anxieties left him when he entered the fabulous classroom. The lecture hall had five tiers of seats that got progressively shorter in length as they got higher, with a steep staircase leading up through the middle. At the bottom of the stairs was a level floor with red carpeting, a lectern sitting on the right side of the room, and a massive chalk board covered in strange mathematical figures. The chairs were spaced quite far apart, and were made of an odd kind of dark wood, with red cushions sewn onto their backs and seats. They each had a small table extending from one side and curving so they would encompass the user, like an expensive high school desk. And, to top off the expensive and extravagant beauty of the place, a massive copper chandelier hung in the center of the high ceiling, casting a warm orange glow over the whole room. Because he had walked in early, Guilman took the seat on the bottom tier, nearest the doors. He tried to go over all his materials one more time, just to make sure he knew everything he needed to, but he couldn't concentrate. Try as he might, but he couldn't stop thinking about the pentagonal shaft, or the mechanical planet of his vision, and the aesthetic of the lecture hall had only served as a temporary distraction. The more he tried to concentrate, the more these images butted their ugly heads. He was granted mercy from this however when he saw a sassy-looking middle-aged man take his place at the lectern. He wore a white button-up shirt with a black vest and pants, and a dazzling violet tie. He also wore polished dress shoes, one of which was there to help hide a wooden leg. At first, Guilman assumed that was why the man was carrying a black wooden cane with a silver tip, but based on his confidant stride, he clearly didn't need it. He cleared his throat. "Good morning" he said. He somehow sounded both exited an miserable to be there. "My name is Nathaniel Peaslee, and i will be your professor in this class on..." he took in a deep breath. "The Physical Interactions of Theoretical Particles in Higher Dimensions and How Those Interactions Would Be Seen to a Human Observer." he said loudly. "Or TPHDHTIWBSHO, as I like to call it." he remarked, saying the acronym as if it were a word in a strange language. The rest of the class laughed, but Guilman didn't. He couldn't get the image of the violet void out of his head. The professor climbed the ladder on the chalk board. When he reached the top, he gripped the top corner of the board and gave it a shove. it spun around 180 degrees and stopped, showing a more refined version of Guilman's illustration of a tesseract. "Lets begin by going over the basics." he began. "This is a Hypercube, or Tesseract as it is more commonly known. It is a cube, which exists in three dimensions, projected at right angles to itself on a fourth dimension." Guilman was trying his hardest to concentrate, but he kept seeing that black expanse of pure chaos looming ahead of him. "As you have likely already learned from high school algebra," the professor continued. "Our three dimensions are called X, Y, and Z. But, this theoretical fourth dimension is labeled W." He began labeling the dimensions of the cube. As Guilman watched, he saw something out of the corner of his eye that nearly killed him with pure fright. When he turned to look, he saw an old woman glaring intently at him. She had a prominent hunch, wore brown rags, and leaned on a crooked wooden cane. It was not the sight of the woman that scared him, rather, it was the violet aura that surrounded her. The light almost filled the hall, and cast long shadows on all the objects in it. Professor Peaslee continued to teach, as if he hadn't noticed. Guilman was troubled by this, but when he looked around at the other students, he had a horrible realization. No one saw her. "I'm hallucinating," he thought. "That dream just had more affect on me than I thought." Then he heard a snicker come from the beldame. When Guilman tuned back to look, he saw one of the most horrible creatures he had ever seen. It was sitting on the old woman's shoulder, and was no bigger than a rat. It had dark brown fur and a worm-like tail that was almost the length of its body. But in the place of paws, there were tiny human hands, and instead of a snout the was a horrible bearded face, with massive, razor sharp front teeth that could bite off someones finger. "Foolish boy!" the thing tittered mockingly at him. "Brown Jenkin will show him we are quite real!". At that, the foul creature jumped to the floor, and Guilman watched in wide-eyed horror at it scurried along the carpet over to him. It paused for a moment, then began to nuzzle his ankle with the side of it's terrible face. Guilman was close to vomiting, but he was doing everything he could to not seem suspicious. Then the half human-half rat creature sunk its massive front teeth into his ankle. Guilman screamed and lapsed into a faint as he watch the blood spurt out of his leg, falling out of his seat and onto the carpeted floor.