The Past

"Fucking P.T…" He grumbled, remembering this exact situation in a game he had played long ago.

Sighing in resignation, Jacob made his way down the hallway once again, checking for any differences between this loop and the original.

One thing he noted was that the corridor appeared… brighter.

Not more well-lit, but the spiral green wallpaper was more vibrant, and the general atmosphere no longer felt unnaturally still, but instead radiated a more… lifelike feeling.

Next, he noticed that the first of the paintings was now significantly different.

The first painting now showed an image of the two children playing together in what appeared to be the back garden. The mother and father were watching over them with a vastly different attitude than the other portraits suggested.

Rather than the esteemed and distant expressions that Jacob had believed to be the default, they wore a more serene and joyful look.

In addition, the butler stood at the parent's side, offering tea, while the maids were setting up a small picnic in the background.

What was odd was that the centre of the painting seemed to focus mainly on the chef, who was enthusiastically playing guitar for the family.

Inspecting the painting led to no intriguing results, so he quickly continued down the hallway, hoping the cabinet would hold more answers.

The cabinet remained the same in appearance. It was still a simple but elegant wooden cabinet containing 6 drawers of unknown contents.

The main difference was that now the top left drawer could be opened.

Now, as far as Jacob was aware, there was no set method for opening cabinets in a haunted and very dangerous mansion filled to the brim with supernatural beings.

So, Jacob assumed the best way to go about it was to grab the cabinet handle loosely, pull quickly, and jump backward on the off chance that something might leap out at him.

Luckily no such thing happened.

Unluckily he tripped due to his injured leg and wound up sitting on his arse. He then wondered why he could formulate a do-or-die plan one second and fail to move his leg with any sense of urgency in the next.

Getting back on his feet, he peered into the now open cabinet drawer only to find…

A piece of paper.

To be more specific, it was paper constructed as a circle, bordering the edges was a single word repeated over and over again.

GAUDIUM.

Of course, this meant pretty much nothing to Jacob.

Neither did the weird runic symbol placed in the middle of the paper.

He tried to think of it from a different angle. Maybe the word was an anacronym?

But if that was the case, it was a long one.

Maybe the word was scrambled and needed to be unscrambled?

Unfortunately, he couldn't come up with any meaningful results with that either.

Seeming to hit a dead end, Jacob headed for the end of the hallway.

He opened the door.

Again he entered the same corridor, but there was a noticeable difference this time.

For one, the once well-lit hallway seemed a little dimmer. The colourful wallpaper was less vibrant, and the air seemed staler, not to mention the creepy stillness that infected the rest of the house seemed to be making its way in.

"Yeah, that's always a good sign" Jacob mumbled as he made his way down the hall.

Once again, the paintings had changed. This time the second one was different, while the first still showed the children playing.

The group portraits also seemed slightly off, although he couldn't put his finger on how.

This time the change in the painting was much more distinct.

Its entire colour pallet was a paler hue, it reminded him of the light blue of a frosty winter sky.

It depicted the mother from the other paintings inside what he could only assume was the freezer.

What disturbed Jacob was the state the mother was in, it depicted her cold, lifeless corpse lying on its back as the father knelt over it, and the chef looked from the entrance in horror.

Jacob's best guess was that the mother was somehow trapped in the freezer and froze to death, only to be found by her husband after it was too late.

He was unsure how she could have gotten stuck in the freezer, whether it was done purposefully by a murderer or a complete accident. 

That was when he realised what had changed in the other paintings. All the group portraits no longer included the mother.

Taking this information in, he again headed past the corner and towards the cabinet.

The cabinet had also adopted some subtle changes. For one, the place that originally contained the first drawer was now smooth wood.

As if there had never been a drawer in the first place.

That was the more noticeable change.

The other was the wood. It was… older.

More weathered than before. Like several years had passed despite the rest of the room not aging at all.

Shaking his head and once again storing this knowledge for later, he tried the other drawers finding that the top right drawer now opened with ease revealing yet another circular piece of paper.

This one had the same scrawled text surrounding its edges and a weird runic symbol in the middle.

Luckily, he vaguely recognised the symbol.

It reminded him of the Omega symbol from the Greek alphabet, but it was slightly different in that the gap at the bottom was wider apart.

Once again, the letters were written poorly but at least legible.

MORS.

Another word he didn't recognise, at least this one had some potential to be an anacronym.

Unable to figure out what this word meant, he moved on to open the door again.

Only to notice something new.

The door had a large straight black line going diagonally from the upper middle of the door to the bottom right.

Fortunately, it did nothing to obstruct his path, as he could still open the door without issue.

So, he once again entered the same hallway.

Finding that the atmosphere had further fallen, he noticed that the colour had drained significantly from the hallway, appearing practically lifeless.

The exception was the first painting on the wall, but even its vibrancy was fading somewhat.

Once again, the next painting in line had changed, showing a different scene from the mansion's past.

This painting showed a view of what appeared to be an office in which the butler was attending to the father, who was shown hiding away, cowering beneath his desk.

The view showed the door to the office was slightly open, and the children were peeking inside.

The butler's face was hidden, but the father was grieving, while the children had a look combining sadness and concern.

The entire painting reeked of despair, an absolute lack of joy and colour.

Just like the hallway now did.

What was more eye-catching was that the chef, who was once a source of joy, was now missing from the group portrait.

Moving on, he thought about what he'd seen so far. It seemed like a typical story.

A happy family brought down by a sudden death leading to a period of mourning.

He was sure that there would be more to the story. Otherwise, it would be impossible for the mansion to have changed so drastically.

Making his way to the cabinet, he opened the next drawer and grabbed the paper.

This one appeared to have the same symbol as the last, but the word was different.

VITA.

'Isn't this Latin?' Jacob thought to himself as he vaguely recognised the word for life, vitality, or something similar in Latin.

This was an extremely helpful connection as there was a good chance that the rest of the text was also Latin.

Jacob had no real understanding of the language, but like any well-read individual, he did have a little knowledge and knew a couple of words.

A commonly known Latin word was mortem, which means death, dead, or dying. The word mors, in the context of Latin, could very quickly be related to death.

This would also explain the omega symbol because of its relation to war and conflict.

From that, he could figure out that the symbol wasn't the same on both the 'life' and 'death' symbols, but instead was most likely meant to be upside down.

He couldn't tell before because the papers had no clear top or bottom.

So, in order, he had collected Gaudium, mors (death), and vita (life).

At the moment he was unsure of the meaning of these symbols or how they would help him escape the hallway, but the fact that he was one step closer to solving the puzzle was greatly appreciated.

Making his way to the door, he found a new line attached to the bottom of the old one. This line made its way from the point at the bottom right to an area slightly down and to the left of the upper end of the original line.

Unable to decipher this, he moved on through the door.

Only to find a rather disturbing scene, the once well-lit hallway was now lit only by the overhead bulbs, just like the rest of the mansion.

The wallpaper was the same dull tone he had grown used to, and the unnatural stillness was out in all its disturbing glory.

But what he found profoundly disturbing was the painting.

The latest entry showed the father, who appeared to be conducting a ritual.