Unforgiving, Inspired, Fake

Jacob woke with a start.

"Every freaking time with the waking up in random places" He growled as he rolled over to get up for what felt like the hundredth time.

Well, he tried to.

"ARRRRGHHhhh" Jacob screamed in agony before quickly stifling himself as he remembered where he was.

Once again, he was injured, but to a much more problematic degree.

His left arm was broken.

At least, that's what it felt like.

Breathing steadily, Jacob tried to think clearly through the blinding pain as he sat up once again.

A lot more carefully than the first time.

A quick look at his arm confirmed his fear. It was broken quite horrifically.

Like bone sticking out of an arm horrific.

His bone wasn't actually protruding from his arm but it was still quite a disturbing sight.

Unlike the stab wound, Jacob had no idea how to properly deal with a broken arm other than some general knowledge about how it should be set and put in a sling.

Before he could start planning his next move, the fog crawled towards him.

This also reminded Jacob of where he was, or to be more specific, what he was doing before getting knocked out.

He had jumped out the glass window, which he now realised had cut him quite badly in many places. The only reason he hadn't noticed was because the pain from his arm was masking the pain of everything else.

He knew he was outside, that much was clear from the wall of the house behind him.

Everything and everywhere else was covered in thick fog.

Nothing beyond a few meters was visible, and what's more, he could tell that the fog had gotten closer in the time he spent outside.

He could tell he wasn't supposed to be here.

Luckily, the mansion's wall had an open window, practically begging for him to go inside.

Figuring he didn't have much choice, Jacob obliged the mansion's request and painfully crawled through the open window wincing every time his broken arm moved in any way.

Finally, he managed to get inside the window, quickly closing of its own accord behind him.

'From what I've gathered, the mansion seems to have some kind of ability to think for itself, I'm not sure of its objective, but at the least, it seems to want me inside.' Jacob ran through possibilities in his head, asking himself questions he knew he didn't have the information to solve.

All to distract himself from his broken arm as he sat on the nearby bed.

Eventually, he looked up and realised that he had returned to the room he had woken up in.

The same mouldy smell, incessant ticking, and dim lighting. Compared to the other life-threatening parts of the mansion, this place was practically homely.

He knew what he had to do.

And he knew it was going to hurt like a bitch.

Before that, he looked down at the blood-soaked bandages on his leg.

Normally wounds like his would have clotted by now, stemming the flow of blood.

Normally people didn't run around like a crazy person and re-open their wounds.

Jacob tightened the makeshift bandage from his earlier wound, slowing the bleeding again.

Then he began cutting the bedsheets into more workable sizes. A gruelling task for anyone, let alone someone with nothing but a kitchen knife, no energy, and a broken arm.

He managed to fashion a makeshift sling by tying the results together and prepared himself for the worst part of his plan. Setting the bone.

Needless to say, it hurt.

A lot.

More than he ever could have imagined.

But he did it.

Eventually, he was done, and he lay down on the bed.

Jacob was once again lying down in the musty bed.

His arm in a sling, his body was coated with sweat, blood, and, if he was honest, a little urine.

Tears were streaming from his eyes and snot was running from his nose as he slowly recovered from one of the most physically painful things he had ever done.

It was much worse than the knife, as he couldn't just make one swift motion. He had to carefully force his arm into the proper position and place it into the sling.

A few minutes passed like that, probably the most peaceful minutes he had experienced since the last time he was in this room.

He could almost laugh at how carefree he had been back then, treating this as a simple dream brought about by too much gaming.

Eventually, he sat up and looked at the grandfather clock, curious to see how much time had passed since he entered the demented dimension of the mansion.

But to his surprise, the hands hadn't moved at all. They still showed the time, 1:13.

'Wait a second…' Jacob thought as he had an idea, moving towards the clock and reaching out with his remaining usable arm.

He grabbed the minute hand from the clock, finding that it came away with ease.

'Didn't think the term 'hand' would be applied so literally. So, this is one of the hands… but which one and how does it fit with the other pieces? They can't all be clock hands because the hour and second hands can't be removed, and this is the only clock I've seen in the mansion so far.

Since he was out of places to explore, he decided to return to the library. Maybe he could find another clue as to where the other 2 hands were hidden.

Opening the door led to another revelation.

The ghosts had not given up.

The evidence was in the roaring of the knocking ghost, the fog of breath from his mouth, and the darkness quickly encroaching from the same hallway he had run from when he first arrived here.

Without further ado, he repeated history and ran towards the foyer.

Luckily, he reacted quicker than last time, and the hallway was properly lit, leading him to keep pace with the ghost's speed despite his limp.

Eventually, he got to the foyer and instantly ran to the library on the off chance that even the foyer would not be safe from the ghosts.

Soon enough, he was proven that paranoia could come in handy as the chandelier that had once bathed the foyer in light was extinguished, and the knocker ghost broke through the door.

He ran into the library, a smile made its way onto his face as he saw the change that had occurred within it. The archway was now lit with glowing symbols.

A half circle was drawn in front of it, giving about a 2-meter space.

Jacob once again made a judgment call and grabbed the candle that was still burning on the reading table that he had noticed on his first visit to the room.

He reached the doorway just in time for the library door to burst open, revealing the knocker ghost.

Seeing Jacob seemed to trigger something inside the ghost. It charged in a frenzy, revealing its horrifying splendour, the mess of flesh and limbs hidden beneath its coat.

Fortunately for Jacob, his caution had once again paid off as the creature slammed into an invisible wall just centimetres from Jacob's face.

Jacob's thinking was simple. The mansion so far had been incredibly difficult, but there was always a way to survive.

If the creatures now had the ability to move out of their 'zones' to chase him down, then there had to be some way to survive in this room other than running.

A quick guess ventured that the randomly appeared magical glowing semi-circle on the ground was a protective ward of some sort.

Jacob's smugness was short-lived as he soon noticed that the glow of the protective ward was a little dimmer after the knocker's charge.

Realising he was on a timer, he quickly attempted to observe the blocked archway. He gained both good and bad news from this.

On the one hand, the door now had what appeared to be a keyhole at the centre of a glowing circle underneath its original text.

On the other hand, there was nothing else, no additional clue on what the other 'hands' may be.

So, he made another guess. He took everything out of his pockets and placed them on the floor to study them better.

His logic was that since the mansion hadn't given him the chance to explore anywhere else, he should already have everything he needed.

He just needed to figure out how everything fit together.

Currently, he had a total of 9 items.

The remains of his lantern, the diary, an empty oil flask, A guitar pick, A kitchen knife, the paper from the hallway, a mirror, the doll hand, and the minute hand from the grandfather clock in the starting room.

He eliminated the lantern, diary, oil flask, knife, and mirror due to their size, leaving only 4 items.

No matter how he looked at it, the paper couldn't be used to make anything resembling a key other than maybe the shaft.

With that thought in mind, he had an idea and quickly started messing around with the doll hand, figuring that if one of the 'hands' was the hand of a clock, then having one be a doll hand was not much of a stretch.

To his delight, he eventually managed to slot the thumb into a hidden slot on the tip of the clock's hand.

A few seconds later he understood how to add the guitar pick.

Smiling in triumph, he fitted the guitar pick onto the other end of the key, forming a makeshift key.

The idea of how to put it together had come from the shape of the hand, which he now realised formed the teeth of a key.

After that, he realised that the only applicable item to be the 'shaft' was the clock hand, and the base he needed to turn it with was the guitar pick!

He had also understood which 'hand' corresponded to its verse in the riddle he was given.

'The unforgiving' was related to time, hence the clock hand.

'The fake' was a pretty obvious reference to the doll's hand.

'The inspired' was a little more tricky. From what he could tell it related to the inspiration required of a musician to make good music, hence the guitar pick.

He pocketed the items quickly as the light from the protective ward grew even dimmer.

He then stood up and slotted the key into its rightful place.

And turned.