The Light in the Dark
As Jacob finally reached the light, his body simply gave up and collapsed. His legs simmered down from the burning muscle pain courtesy of his underwhelming physique. His lungs greedily drank the oxygen that he could finally provide in as much quantity as he needed.
He spent at least 10 minutes like that.
Simply breathing while staring at the ceiling.
Any thoughts of taking the situation with novelty were gone, replaced with a determination to survive whatever nightmare he was in.
'No more talking to myself, at least not out loud' he thought, deciding that making a lot of noise in the haunted mansion was probably a bad idea.
'How does that candle-lit chandelier manage to light up the whole room?' He wondered as he stared at the chandelier that provided a generous helping of light to what he now realised was the mansion's foyer.
The foyer was a large one with a central staircase opposite the mansion entry leading to the second floor of the mansion. He also realised that he most likely woke up in a servant room as the bedrooms of the homeowners and guest bedrooms were typically located on the second floor of western mansions.
While he was lying down, something occurred to him. He hadn't noticed until now because he was always accompanied by it, but now that he was no longer in the "beginning room" or running for his life, he could tell.
There was silence, an absolute absence of noise.
Normally, no matter where a person is in the world, there is always some kind of noise, a creak in the floorboards, a bird in the distance, or a gust of wind on an empty plain.
But here, there was nothing, and somehow it scared him more than the music.
Forcefully putting aside his newfound revelation, he sat up and continued his observation, identifying three points of interest.
The first was that two doors on the first floor had handles meaning he could go through them. These doors were on different sides of the room, one on the opposite side from the hallway he had entered from and the other near the grand staircase. Another minor thing he noted was that in place of the mansion entrance was a simple wall, as if the architect had made a mistake and put the area for an entryway and then planned for another wall to be placed instead of a door.
The second was that despite the chandelier revealing the foyer extensively, the upper area of the staircase was shrouded in darkness. Meaning that, at least for the moment, he couldn't safely explore the second floor.
Finally, there was a large sign above one of the doorways, the one opposite the hall he had arrived from. The sign was made of wood but seemed almost magnetic. It had a presence, an authority that demanded dignity and clarity in the mansion full of the unknown.
It read, "Knowledge is Power."
Jacob's gamer sense told him that the sign was somehow meaningful, not just in its message but also in its placement. Figuring that he couldn't just wait in the foyer forever, he decided to explore the door below it first.
Standing up reminded him of his aching muscles and bruises courtesy of his 'great escape.' Once on his feet, he made his way to the door below the sign.
Tentatively opening the door, Jacob was greeted by an old friend of his, books.
The area he could see was small, and the candles were few, but they still managed to properly show several bookshelves and a vast quantity of books to be read. Clearly, the room was an in-house library.
He walked into the dimly lit room and began to search for clues.
To Jacob's dismay, opening the books seemed fruitless as the only contents the offered appeared to be in a different language. Even more dismaying was that Jacob couldn't recognise what language it was. This annoyed him greatly as he hoped to use it to find a rough estimate of his location.
Although he may not have been bi-lingual, he at least had the capacity to recognise which language he was reading based on the text. However, the book before him offered not so such insight.
The next thing he noted was that one table had a book open on it. It was just as unreadable as the rest. However, it was accompanied by a glass of water, a small plate with what appeared to be a fresh apple and a candle for extra reading light.
Deciding not to eat the weirdly fresh, random fruit that was smack-bang in the middle of the library of a haunted mansion, Jacob moved on to the next point of interest.
A door, tucked away at the edge of the area, nestled right next to the darkness.
Jacob opened it to find a stone-walled staircase leading down into the same foreboding shadow that was so prevalent in the rest of the mansion.
Upon further inspection, he saw a small shelf on the left-hand wall, which housed a candle and what appeared to be a small flask, hopefully, filled with a certain lifesaving liquid.
A quick sniff confirmed Jacob's guess as he quickly began to fill his lantern with the oil he had just found, only to realise the flask was completely emptied as the lantern was filled.
'At least now I can explore a little more freely.' He assured himself as he pocketed the now empty oil flask.
Despite his now full oil lantern, he figured it would be best to finish his search of the library before he continued with his exploration.
Returning from the staircase, he turned to the last and most interesting part of the room, which he had deliberately left to be his final investigation.
The last part of the room was what appeared to be a foreboding archway in the middle of a bookshelf. The reason he left this till last was because it was filled with the same darkness as the rest of the mansion.
However, this darkness held a subtle difference from the one that chased him through the halls.
The easiest way to describe the feeling he got was that if the hallway darkness was a wild animal hunting him for food, this was a trained hound guarding something of value. Both were the same beast, but one was natural while the other was forged by man.
The problem was that the archway that was enshrouded in this unnatural darkness also had a "pull" to it.
'Why do I feel so certain that this archway is the exit from this place.' He thought tepidly as the idea of an intuitive goal took hold in his mind.
Yes, the very same creepy darkness bookshelf archway somehow gave off the feeling of 'this is the goal.'
'All things considered, I guess it's not impossible for this to be the way out since everything here is supernatural. Maybe this is a teleporter or something' he quickly reasoned with himself.
Regardless of his speculations, one thing was for sure. He wouldn't be able to use the archway if he didn't get rid of the darkness. Luckily, he had recently found what he needed to do just that.
Lighting the oil lantern and raising it towards the archway, a smug smile adorned Jacob's lips as he praised his preparation.
This was short-lived as the lantern's effectiveness was minimal, dispelling only the outer layer of darkness.
'What's the freaking point of this thing if it doesn't even work?' Jacob mentally cursed.
In his annoyance, he turned away. Only to witness an intriguing event accidentally.
To specify, he saw the glass full of water fall over, roll to the edge of the desk, fall onto the ground, and, predictably, shatter. This was nothing too special if you take out the fact that nothing in the room should have been able to move the cup.
What was far more interesting was the pattern that shattered glass had formed on the floor. It had fallen in such an inconceivable manner that it looked like the work "Power" with an arrow pointing towards the descending stairs behind the door he found the lantern oil in earlier.
'Power… is that a reference to the sign above the door? Meaning there's helpful knowledge downstairs? Some way of warding off the dark other than the lantern? Or maybe just more oil?' Jacob's mind was full of possibilities but had decided to explore the downstairs area first since it was so helpfully pointed out to him.
With that, he lit up the lantern, propped open the door with a nearby chair, and readied himself to flee at a moment's notice before he began his descent into the dark.