Ghost of a Chance

The Bloodstained Labyrinth (Part 3)

"..." Mai looked around in astonishment as she explored the strange mansion with Bou-san and Yasuhara-san. "... Wow." There was a random set of steps mounted on a wall directly under the ceiling. "Wow—" There was also a low door that was made to look as though it cut off halfway where it met the floor. "Wow..." There were even doors on the ceiling in a couple of places. And this was all just in one hallway. "This is so surreal..." Mai said, sweat-dropping. Why put a door there?

"It feels like we're in a painting," Yasuhara said.

"Hey, that's it!" Bou-san said, looking up as he continued walking. "The owner's father and grandfather must have been artists." 

"Ah! Bou-san!" Mai gasped when she spotted danger. "Watch your—"

"Huh—Wha—!?" Bou-san cried out in alarm as he tripped over a large beam that had been built in across part of the floor.

"Uh... You okay!?" Mai asked, sweat-dropping, as she checked on him to make sure he wasn't injured.

"..." Bou-san said, mortified that he had taken such an embarrassing spill. Fortunately, the only thing wounded was his pride.

"What's this beam doing here? Ahaha, how naïve. Cheer up, Takigawa-san... you're so tense on the job," Yasuhara said brightly.

"It's because you're the president's stand-in," Bou-san retorted, chagrined. "How can you be so cheerful in a place like this...?"

"He's even weirder than Naru..." Mai remarked wryly.

"Shall we start in that room just ahead of us?" Yasuhara suggested cheerfully with a smile, seeming completely unfazed by their strange surroundings.

Meanwhile, Hitomi was investigating another part of the house with John and Ayako while Masako rested in the base, to give her a chance to adjust to the unpleasant atmosphere, with Naru and Lin. The two groups had spread out to explore opposite sides of the mansion.

"What's with this house?" Ayako said with a frown. The way this place was built was really confusing. "All of the rooms feel so surreal..."

"Yes, it's like one of Escher's works," John agreed, taking the room's temperature. "I can see how it would be easy to get lost." There was no sense of order.

"It also feels like we're in an RPG with all the twists, turns, and dead ends," Hitomi agreed wryly when she opened a door and found a closet within closet. She made note of that in the binder she was holding. "This place reminds me of the Winchester Mystery House."

"The what?" Ayako asked.

"Ah, the one built by the widow of the gun magnate in America?" John said.

"Yes," Hitomi answered, nodding. "That house was also repeatedly built onto. It's a Queen Anne style Victorian mansion that's renowned for its size, its architectural curiosities, and its lack of any master building plan. She didn't use an architect and added on to the building in a haphazard fashion, so the home contains numerous oddities such as doors and stairs that go nowhere, windows overlooking other rooms and stairs with odd-sized risers. Many accounts attribute these oddities to her belief in ghosts." 

"Why would she do that?" Ayako asked dubiously. Wasn't one house like this enough?

"Well, tabloids from the time claimed that some point after her infant daughter and husband's death a Boston medium told her, while supposedly channeling her late husband, that she should leave her home in New Haven and travel West, where she must continuously build a home for herself and the spirits of people who had fallen victim to Winchester rifles. So, Sarah left New Haven and headed for California," Hitomi explained. "Though it's possible she was simply seeking a change of location and a hobby during her lengthy depression, other sources claim that Winchester came to believe her family and fortune were haunted by ghosts, and that only by moving West and continuously building them a house could she appease these spirits. I wonder if something similar happened here...?"