The Cold and the Dark

The basement was cold.

Not in the way a block of ice is cold or the feeling of cold sweat covering your body as it's batted by the wind.

It was cold, like the emptiness of space, the unknown of the ocean, like an absolute absence of life. Yet it promised something far worse than death.

The cold seeped from every crack in the wall and every shadow cast by the weak light of the lantern attached to Jacob's waist.

As Jacob descended the stonework staircase, that empty cold slowly enveloped him, like an old friend you hated but couldn't ever bring yourself to cut ties with.

Soon he reached the bottom of the staircase.

After getting into the downstairs area, he looked around the small room he had walked into, inspecting the darkened location with his recently filled lantern.

The walls of the room were made of stone but were wet, potentially with condensation from the cold…

Hopefully, with condensation from the cold.

Jacob decided to pretend that was the only reason they would be wet.

Because there was zero chance of this room being adjacent to a large body of water which could end up randomly flooding the room with him inside.

That's what he kept saying over and over in his head at least.

The next thing he noticed within the room brought him a significant amount of joy, followed by immediate despair.

It was what appeared to be a fuse box of some sort. The only words he could think of to describe it would be "old fashioned" but the design of it roughly matched a fuse box well enough for him to believe it was one.

Unfortunately, it was locked.

Even worse, there was no keyhole.

Just an absolute refusal to open despite Jacob's best attempts at negotiation, forceful negotiation via smacking and prying at it with his bare hands, to be specific.

The other items were simplistic in nature.

A wooden chair in the corner of the room and what appeared to be a sizeable old-fashioned heating system that required a fire to work. Sadly, a large iron grate adorned with wide bars blocked his access to the area where the wood should burn.

At least this grate had an obvious keyhole that could be used to open it.

In addition, a fire poker was leaning against the furnace.

Jacob, of course, picked it up.

'Finally,' He thought triumphantly, an actual weapon, kinda. Not sure how useful it'll be against an incorporeal ghost, but at least I'll be able to swing something rather than just brace for impact if I'm cornered.'

The last object was a large oil painting.

A portrait, to be specific, depicting two individuals.

The focus of the picture was a beautiful middle-aged woman. She sat on a simple chair, like the one in the room. She was adorned in a plain dress, nothing fancy, yet there was no dirt or blemish of any kind on it.

In her hands, she held a sunflower that seemed to smile at the world. Despite the lack of wealth in the image or on her person, she seemed to exude royalty, as if her presence demanded the respect that should be shown to a higher class. Not because she wanted you to, but because you knew you should.

The gentleman standing to the woman's left was clearly a servant of some sort. If his status wasn't apparent from his position slightly behind the lady or his stance of professionalism coupled with his industry smile. Then a person could tell from his clothes that he clearly had a position akin to something of a butler as he wore primarily black, functional but still clean clothing.

Jacob realised something after studying the painting for some time. He couldn't feel the cold on his hand anymore. Or rather, he couldn't feel anything from his hands anymore. They had gone numb.

Jacob had experienced this once before on a short holiday to New Zealand when he was younger. This didn't mean that the cold was gone. It meant it was now cold enough that it was messing with his nerves. If left alone, it could lead to frostbite or hypothermia.

The biggest problem was that the process should have taken much longer and been easy to notice.

Jacob quickly began shaking his hands and pacing the room to get his blood pumping and deliver some warmth to his extremities.

Fortunately, the act appeared to have some effect as he began to feel his hands once again. He was less delighted when he realised just how cold they had gotten.

Deciding that getting somewhere warmer was a priority, he quickly went back up the stairs and grabbed the door handle before pushing it open into the warm embrace of the library.

At least, he would have liked to if the door had opened.

He also realised that when he had gone downstairs, he had propped the door open with a chair.

Now the door was closed, and the chair was gone.

"Fuck" he stated calmly, in contrast to the growing panic permeating his thoughts.

Realising that whatever was messing with the temperature had also trapped him, he figured the best thing to do was go back downstairs and look for clues.

With a bit of luck, he could get out before he died of hypothermia.

As he descended the stairs, he quickly took stock of the situation from a gamer's POV.

'So, the whole thing seems to be based around temperature. That's obvious. The easiest solution I can see is to use the furnace in the room to warm up' He thought, guessing at the end goal of the puzzle.

'But how do I get through the grate, how do I light the fire, and what do I burn?'

These thoughts were followed by many others. One included burning his clothes, which he dismissed since he really didn't like the idea of running around the mansion in his boxers, or worse.

'So, I'm looking for a key to get into the grate, something that can burn, and something to start the fire…' He thought as he looked around the room.

'Maybe if I find some flint or something, I can use the poker as steel or maybe-'

"Oh my god, I'm an idiot." He stated as he stared at the wooden chair in the corner of the room.

He first grabbed it and placed it so that its backrest was touching the ground along with the front end of the seat, forming a triangle shape with the ground as the bottom side.

Then he smashed his foot down on it.

It didn't break.

In fact, it hurt.

A lot.

"Which motherfucking master carpenter made this thing…" he mumbled spitefully, hopping around like a madman while nursing his bare foot.

After calming down, he attempted a slightly more thoughtful approach of using the fire poker and his body weight as leverage to break the chair apart.

This time he successfully broke the backrest off the chair and made it roughly small enough to fit in the furnace.

It was at this moment of personal triumph that two things happened.

First, the lamp went out.

Then it got colder.

Much colder.

***

Jacob stood frozen for a full 10 seconds, listening for any disturbance in the now pitch-black room. His eyes were closed, and his breathing halted as he silently used his ears to detect any presence in the room.

To his relief, he couldn't hear any movement or unusual noise of any kind. The same eerie silence as always adorned the pitch-black room along with the rest of the mansion. Nothing populated it but his steady breathing.

Turning his head slowly, he reached for what he hoped was a not-yet-empty lantern. He noticed something.

In a room without light, he noticed a small pattern on the wall

Despite his attempts to discern the surroundings, he realised that the glowing symbol gave off no light. Just the symbol itself was visible, almost like it was on the opposite side of the spectrum of light.

This, by any logical explanation, should be impossible. Anyone who's been through a basic education would know that colour and vision are just the reflections of light from objects entering an eye.

But what if there was something that worked in the same way but on the opposite principle? A colour that can only be seen when there is no light.

The very concept has no place in reality. But ghosts weren't exactly possible either sooooo….

Jacob decided to accept whatever this substance was as a clue and inspected it further. The symbol was simple: a typical padlock with three evenly spaced circles inside it.

He also determined that the location was on the painting, specifically the top right quarter, about halfway between the corner and the middle of the painting.

After feeling the symbol and looking at it from another direction to see if there was a difference, Jacob attempted to light his lantern again. He sighed in relief when it worked and relaxed his body after confirming that nothing in the room had creepily changed in the dark.

Only after relaxing did he realise that the whole room's temperature had not recovered after its return to the light.

What concerned him more was when he noticed that the previously wet walls were no longer coated in a thin sheen of condensation but were now home to a thin sheet of ice.

He was in the dark for at most a minute, and in that time, all the water in the room had frozen solid.

To make matters worse, he was entering the state of numbness that he felt previously, only on this occasion, he could no longer dispel it by moving his body.

Since he could no longer deal with the cold, Jacob decided his best option was to light the furnace as quickly as possible and warm up.

He quickly turned to the painting, moved to where the lock symbol was shown in the dark and tried to push his finger into it.

He felt the painting move like it was on an elastic sheet rather than a proper canvas.

A brief inspection revealed that this 'elastic canvas' only extended to a small area around where the symbol was. Underneath it, he could faintly feel the outline of a small intricate object, the key.

Sadly, despite his attempts, he could not tear the painting with his nails, and for some reason, even the fire poker was useless against the painting's oiled barrier of rubber.

'It's definitely back there, and there isn't anything else I can think of… What can I be missing?' He questioned solemnly as the cold once again showed itself as he noticed his sweat freezing on his body.

Suddenly inspiration struck as he grabbed the fire poker and repositioned it in his hands to mimic a lance.

Then with the confidence of an Olympic athlete, he threw it at the painting. Only to miss the area with the symbol entirely.

Jacob's inspiration was simple. He had realised that the three circles on the padlock symbol could be interpreted as a target. Hence he had to aim and throw something to achieve the result.

After his embarrassment, Jacob quickly retrieved the poker and kept throwing it at the symbol, getting closer and closer until he was basically throwing it from about 5cm away.

Finally, he hit the target, and a small rip appeared on the canvas.

'At this point, it feels like the puzzle is pitying me…' He thought listlessly, pushing his hand into the painting to search for the key.

After finding the key, he quickly grabbed it, only to realise that the cold had once again grown stronger as he pulled it out. It was strong enough that each breath was like billowing smoke as he let out hot air into the sub-zero room.

'The temperature must decrease faster the more of the puzzle I solve.' He thought.

The first thing he did was use the key to open the furnace grate. Thankfully there were no surprises with this particular action, nor a sudden chill like when he got the key in the first place.

After that, he quickly stuffed the remnants of the chair into the furnace, finding that they barely fit. Then he paced the room nervously, hoping the movement would ward off the cold somewhat, before going back over to the painting.

'The furnace is built into the wall, and nothing else showed up in the dark. The only thing left in this room is the painting, but I already got a key from it, so what else could there be…'

He thought back to every aspect of the room and the puzzle. He even closed his eyes to help him think more clearly, placing his hand on his chin as he lowered his head, deep in thought in the room that kept growing colder.

'Let's see… The furnace is filled, the chair is gone, there was nothing on any of the walls apart from the painting, and it's already provided a clue…' he recalled as he tried to think of an angle he had not considered for the puzzle.

A few moments later, his head snapped upwards as realisation struck him. But when he went to open his eyes, he was met with an unexpected difficulty.

It appeared his eyelids were frozen shut. Not only that, but his whole body was now numb from the cold to the point where he could only faintly feel himself when he moved to touch his own body.

Despite this, Jacob knew what he had to do. He edged slowly and cautiously towards where he remembered the painting to be, finally finding it as his outstretched arm revealed the welcome features of the painting's surface.

A grin covered his face before leaving just as quickly as he fell to his knees.

'So, I can't even walk properly anymore…' He thought despondently as he attempted to confirm his theory.

His idea was simple. Although he had found a clue in the painting, he did not find it conventionally.

His guess was that the light going out was a planned "event" to show him the location of the key since it was practically impossible to guess without the 'darklight' (as he had decided to call it) symbol.

However, that didn't mean that there wasn't another piece of the puzzle that he was meant to find before the light went out.

The only reason he hadn't had the time to search the painting earlier was due to his attempt to leave after realising the danger.

He didn't regret his decision despite it wasting time as leaving the dangerous room was the right call at the time since he had no idea he was locked in.

'Now all that's left is to find it' He thought as he ran his numb hands over the painting, looking for any anomalies.

But no matter how much he ran his hands over the oil canvas, he found nothing.

He could feel his body growing more and more sluggish.

The urgency that filled his actions before was fading as the cold lulled his numb body into a permanent sleep.

Was this where he was going to die?

Cold and alone in the boiler room of a haunted mansion.

Maybe he would wake up safely in his bed with nothing but a cold sweat as evidence of his nightmare.

Or maybe he wouldn't.

Maybe none of this was a dream, and if he drifted off here, he would never open his eyes again.

As he could feel the void calling, he made one last effort to stay upright, placing his left hand on the side of the painting to steady himself.

Then he noticed it.

A bump, almost negligible but far too sharp and protruding to be a mistake in the construction of the painting's frame.

He pressed it, and it quickly slid in, letting out a click so quiet it was almost non-existent, but to Jacob, it was as deafening as it was beautiful.

Reinvigorated, Jacob once again ran his hands over the canvas, this time finding a small square area of a wooden texture that he was certain was not originally there.

Within that area was a small item in the rough shape of a rectangular prism tied to the wood with what felt like a loosely knotted piece of string.

After taking the item, he ran his numb hands over the edges to find that one edge had an intriguing bit of terrain. From what Jacob could tell, it was like the top of a lighter.

He grasped the lighter in his numb hand so tightly that he could almost once again feel its sharp edges sticking into his skin and held it to his chest.

Turning his still kneeling body towards the furnace, he attempted to move towards it only to find that his legs had frozen to the floor. Specifically, his sweatpants that he had earlier caked in sweat had frozen somewhat and were now stuck to the originally damp floor.

Realising there was no time for dignity, he sluggishly wiggled out of his pants and crawled with his slowly freezing body towards the furnace.

It felt like eternity.

It felt like red hot needles shooting through his body every time he pulled himself through the dark.

His legs no longer working, his eyes sealed shut, and no idea how far he had gone or how far he had to go.

He simply crawled.

There was no demented humming like in his last struggle.

No adrenaline rush pumping his body with fuel to survive.

Not even his heartbeat made much noise as it slowed along with the rest of his body.

It was just him.

Alone.

In the cold and the dark.

***

And then he felt it.

As he was reaching out his hand to pull himself toward his only hope once again.

He felt something.

He reached up to find anything he could use to pull himself up and found the iron grate. He was confident that he had left the grates open, and yet one was closed, ready to be used to help him up.

So, he used it.

He forced his body into an upright position as he tried to move the hand that held the lighter toward where he knew the broken chair to be.

Only to find that he could no longer move the arm that held the lighter.

'No…. not yet.' He thought hazily as he forced his upper body into the furnace and brought his other hand to the lighter.

Then he made the only move he could in his situation.

He flicked the spark wheel.