White Manor

6. Tentacles

After two close encounters and actually losing a limb, only a madman would continue to explore this cursed house. That's what Freida kept telling herself as she used her dull blue flame of an arm to enter door number two on the right wall. The knob felt cold against her spectral palm and a rush of sea air met her when the door opened. 

   Freida knew what she was seeing wasn't possible. Even after the Stone Lady's arms tried to throttle her and after the house itself summoned a beast to attack her when she shouted. Inside door number two was a vast beach with obsidian sand, black and sparkling. The dark blue sea stretched beyond as far as Freida could see. It was endless in every direction, even behind her. The door to White Manor was gone, leaving the girl cold and alone on a black beach.

   Seabirds sang in the distance, their songs somehow distorted and wrong like the voice of the White Lady. Waves rhythmically crashed into the obsidian sands and receded. A harsh wind passed Freida as she marched to the water and she saw her ghost arm flicker gently. Her ghost arm. Freida still wasn't sure about that. She thought it must be a trick, just like this beach...It must be. But she knew deep down, especially after meeting with the White Lady, that it was real. Her ghost arm was real. Still, she had to check. She had to touch the dark water.

   The great ocean rose to meet her and then receded, time after time, and Freida crouched down to touch the icy water the color of ink. She touched it with her right hand first, her living had, the water was cool and refreshing.  Then it was time for her other hand. 

Would the fire burn out? She wondered as she gently splashed some water onto it.  No pain just flickers.

   Freida submerged her ghostly arm in the knee-deep ocean, but she could not bring it out again.  She could feel something like suction cups all over the shimmer that served as skin, cold and pulling.  Freida was stuck, and just then she spied something approaching from the sea.
   A dark shadow, larger than even Freida's father, with dozens of wiggling appendages.  It swam incredibly fast and soon was in the knee-deep of the ocean with the terrified and trapped girl.

   The thing was an octopus, Freida thought, but with far too many tentacles.  They came from every direction off a leathery balloon of a creature.  Two red eyes and a sharp beak sat in the middle of the mass of limbs.  It didn't attack, it just dragged itself along around and around Freida until she thought for sure it was going to eat her or drag her down to the bottom of the ocean.

   Instead, the octopus monster began wrapping a few of its tentacles around Freida's trapped arm, digging into the sand all around it.  Soon the trap was loosened and she could raise her arm again above the water, tentacles still attached.

   Freida wanted to thank the creature, but it still had not let go of her ghost arm, and she could feel its grip tightening.  Just then the monster snapped its beak at her face, nearly removing her nose!  Freida screamed and tried to run but the octopus was far too big and had far too many tentacles.  It wrapped up the girl's limbs quickly and she was again trapped.

   Cries frozen in her throat, Freida closed her eyes and prepared to be eaten by the giant octopus.  Its powerful limbs pulled her closer over the black sand, back into the water, when she saw a faint light in the distance, back toward land.  As she felt the creature's beak touch her ribcage she knew it was over, but then there was a loud splash and shrill cry, and all at once its grip loosened and she fell again into the water.

   Standing above the dead monster and the sputtering girl was the White Lady, a large kitchen knife in one decaying hand, her dress soaked in seawater and covered with ink and octopus blood.

   "Always the damsel in distress," the rotted woman declared, slicing tentacles off of the creature, one by one.  Freida couldn't speak.  There was only so much a young girl could take, her sanity was waning after so many horrors.  She just sat in the cold water while the White Lady butchered her would be killer.

   "There are no arms for a young lady such as yourself, Elfreida.  But I think your happy accident here has given us more than enough limbs."

And then the corpse in the white dress set about sewing a small tentacle to poor Freida's arm.