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So we had some more writing tasks for Creative Writing in the Spring Semester, and I am including some of the writings in the next few journal entries. Starting off with a re-write of a free-write piece I did early on in the semester. Names have been changedto protect the innocent.
A light dusting….
This weekend was going to be a blast. The entire English Creative Writing class had arranged, without the Lux Libertas University’s approval, for a once-in-a-lifetime all weekend sleepover in the Creative Writing mansion. Patrick had managed to pool his resources and would be hosting an awesome round of Dungeons and Dragons, while Richard had not only secured the mansion for the entire weekend, but also had managed to unload from his car and set up, the giant 6020-piece building block fantasy castle display he’d single-handedly assembled, placing it in the living room.
The Friday afternoon and early evening went by rather quickly and uneventful, with everyone helping to get the mansion ready for the party. Stations were set up for different events throughout the house. The Master Bedroom, also known as Room 28 where the class normally met for lessons, was transformed into a Zen Meditation room, and the attic became host to a silly string discharge area where you could spray your classmates with various colors of silly string.
Heather and Helen had also spent a couple of hours going around the windows and doors, taping black garbage bags on the inside to black them out. This would ensure that light didn’t escape and draw attention to the event at night, given they didn’t want university police to find them within the house.
Amy meanwhile, was busy doing the finishing touches to the sound system which she’d brought in, including the table mics for the first D&D event, and had also helped put the observation chairs away in a side room ready for when that event would take place later.
“Testing, testing,” she said into the mic in the central position which would be where Patrick, as host, would be seated during the event.
Patrick reached his hand up from his current seat in the living room and gave her a thumbs up.
“Alright. Can we have everyone out into the living room” Amy said into the host mic. “We’re about to get this party started.”
As everyone made their way over, she grinned at the thought of this party finally getting underway after weeks of planning behind-the-scenes. “We’re here in the mansion, and I just want to thank you all for your assistance in throwing this party together, and especially to Richard for suggesting this party in the first place and helping to get the ball rolling, so to speak.”
Richard grinned sheepishly and innocently as everyone cheered, mouthing ‘Thank you’ in the process.
As the music began to play, though thankfully not too loudly, most of the class made their way into the kitchen to enjoy snacks and some drinks, while Patrick finished getting the last few props set up for D&D. After all, the less setting up he had to do tomorrow while potentially drunk, the better.
By around 1am, the party had pretty much died down with only Richard and Suzanne still up. He was just busy doing a final check of the doors while Suzanne was outside with her pet dog Don Juan, allowing him some time in the backyard to do his duties.
Once the two of them had returned inside, Richard locked the door once again, before calling it a night himself and going downstairs to sleep. As he got into his sleeping bag, he attached a couple of tabs to his forehead, like the ones used when you’re hooked up to an EKG monitor and turned on a machine sitting next to him. Resting his head upon the pillow, he drifted off to sleep. To dream a happy dream.
Now, much like in the beginning of the story T’was the night before Christmas, there literally were no creatures stirring, not even a mouse. Mind you, the lack of available clean spoons might have been part of the reason for that. But for the rest of the night, the outdoors became white as snow, as snow began to fall in mild quantities and the temperature dropped drastically.
Early the next morning, Suzanne was woken by Don Juan who wanted his breakfast along with more time outside. Stretching, she took him upstairs and went to open the door to the backyard. Nothing out of the ordinary so far, but upon opening the door inward, she was greeted by a wall of white snow which had compacted and went above the door frame. It was late April, for crying out loud. Why was there snow outside, let alone this much of the cold, white powder?
“Everyone… get up here quick!”
Billy was the only one who had heard Suzanne, as he was already awake. Making his way upstairs, he yawned while wondering what was so urgent.
“What is it” he asked as he reached the top step.
“Okay, please tell me that I’m not dreaming” Suzanne replied, a slight panic in her voice as she pointed at the door which was sealed on the outside by a wall of snow.
Billy struggled as he walked over and looked at the view before him in disbelief. Being used to a large volume of snow from his childhood in Minnesota, he continued to simply take in the fact that the snow was even there, let alone the sheer volume of it, while staying completely motionless and silent for a couple of minutes. His brain, still somewhat groggy, was not fully able to process what he was looking at straight away.
“Huh, now there’s something you don’t see every day.” He carefully reached out his hand, feeling the surface. “How did this even get here, and high up does it go?” He looked up at the landing. “I’m gonna check upstairs.”
Heading up, he opened the upstairs balcony door to see if he could see how high the snow was. It came up about 3 feet from the base of the floor, but that wasn’t the only thing which caught his attention. All that was to be seen, was white snow. There was no South Road, no Bell Tower, no Wilson Library, no neighboring buildings. There was absolutely nothing. It was like a void with only white snow to keep them company, along with a somewhat stale and musty smell to the frigid air. Closing the door, he rushed up to the attic and opened the door up there, curious to see if it would show anything different. Again, nothing but snow and the cold air.
“Okay, calm down Billy. Let’s think this through.” Heading back downstairs, he got to the basement stairwell and yelled for everyone to wake up and come upstairs.
Slowly, everyone, save for Richard as he was still seemingly happily dreaming with a giant, beaming innocent smile upon his face downstairs, made their way upstairs and looked at him.
“You do realize that it’s only 7 in the morning, right?” Patrick asked, looking at his watch as he reached the ground floor. “I usually don’t wake up until around 10.”
Without even saying anything, Billy and Suzanne looked at each other, before Billy opened the door to the backyard so that they could all see what the issue was.
“How is Don Juan supposed to go to the bathroom outside in this?” Suzanne asked, trying to highlight the rather pressing issue, given that Don Juan was becoming more desperate. “Look at him. He doesn’t deserve this kind of torment.”
“It goes until about 3 feet up on the second floor,” Billy added.
“Uh, what’s that” Patrick replied, more out of shock than anything else.
“There’s more however.” Billy noted with some dread in his voice which the others quickly picked up on.
“What is it?” Kristine asked as she reached out her hand and pressed it against the cold, wet snow.
“There’s nothing else here.”
“How do you mean?” Patrick looked at Billy even more confused.
“I mean, there’s no university, no neighboring houses, no roads, nothing. Not even the tops of trees sticking up out of the snow.”
Alex flipped the light switch, only to discover that the lights were still coming on. “We have power, at least, even if I have no idea as to how we’re being supplied said electricity.”
However, upon having said that, there seemed to be a little static which appeared on the walls around them, after which the lights not only went out, but seemed to vanish, as if they had been erased and the holes filled in to look as if they had never been there.
“Okay, that was freaky,” Carl said while glancing around. “Are we in the Twilight Zone?”
“For now, anyway, I think we can help out Don Juan a little.” Patrick then went into the first aid kit and took out a jar of Vaseline. “If we put some on each of his paws, that will insulate him from the cold, allowing him to go out from the balcony, although we’ll need to lift him over the railing. It’s packed enough it seems, that it should be able to take his weight no problem. If he stays by the balcony, we can also get to him quickly if needed.”
“How did you know about that?”
“When I was younger, back in New England, my family’s dog didn’t like the snow and ice, but all of the dog shoes in the stores were just flimsy pieces of plastic. The vet suggested we use this instead, and then just wipe her feet when she was ready to come back inside from the cold. Ah yes, good old Hakuna, who was named after the song.”
At that moment, Amy glanced around. “Has anyone seen Richard?”
“I think he’s still sleeping” Zeus explained. “Though it was all a blur this morning as we hurried upstairs.”
“I’ll go check.” Juliet rushed down to look, while the rest of them headed either to the balcony to help Don Juan, or into the kitchen to grab something to eat.
“Ah, breakfast.” Amy smiled as she motioned to grab some food, only for that familiar static to then appear once more. Within seconds, all the food in the kitchen had seemingly vanished from existence.
“NO” she cried out. “Now the food? What’s next to vanish? The house itself?”
“Please don’t suggest that” Donald interjected. “Whatever is going on, it’s seemingly challenging and toying with us as we stay here in this house. It’s only when we invite trouble, that the house seems to be giving it to us.”
“Hey guys” Juliet said as she came back up. “He’s gone.”
“What do you mean, gone? How can he be gone?” Donald and Zeus asked in unison.
“He and his sleeping bag are both missing.”
“Well, that’s just great. Now we have a missing persons’ case on our hands in addition to everything else that’s going on here. What could possibly go wrong next?” Donald sighed as he asked this, giving a brief pause before adding “I’m probably going to regret asking that, aren’t I? You know, Murphy’s Law and all that.”
After having let Don Juan have some time outside, which he was tremendously grateful for, Suzanne, Patrick, and Samantha made their way back downstairs with Don Juan and joined everyone. As they reached the bottom, Patrick noticed a letter stuck to the railing. He glanced at it, upon which he discovered a message which read: ‘ƨbɿɒwʞɔɒd ʞniʜɈ oɈ ǝƨiw ƨi Ɉi ƨǝmiɈǝmoƧ’.
“Hey guys. Have you seen this before?” He held the letter out for everyone to read.
“What’s it say,” Kristine asked.
“Sometimes it is wise to think backwards” he replied. “It’s a basic mirror writing sentence, like those DaVinci would write.”
Suddenly, the text on the sheet changed, this time reading ‘xod ǝʜɈ ʇo ǝbiƨɈυo ʞniʜT’.
“Think outside of the box? What does that mean? Also, why did it suddenly change the message?” Donald noted.
The words shifted one more time. This time however, with a more ominous message for each of them.
‘·ǝๅๅǝɥɔoꓤ- ·noʎ uᴉ pǝʇuᴉoddɐsᴉp ʎɹǝʌ ɯˌI ·sᴉɥʇ ɹoɟ ǝๅqnoɹʇ dǝǝp uᴉ ๅๅɐ ǝɹˌno⅄’
“What does it say this time?”
There was a brief pause, before Patrick replied, “You’re all in deep trouble for this. I’m very disappointed in you. -Rochelle.”
“Wait! You mean they know what we did?” Amy said in a somewhat panicked voice, suddenly realizing that the whole class faced expulsion from the university for this event.
“Just calm down. Let’s think about this logically” Patrick said. “We’ve somehow ended up in a twilight zone style world which is encased in snow, and we have Dr. Rochelle communicating to us much like a ghost writer and telling us that we’re all in deep trouble.” He paused to think for a moment. “Nope. I’ve got nothing. This must be hell.”
The static appeared once again, before the sheet of paper vanished from Patrick’s hands. In exchange however, the far wall of the living room now bore a message seemingly written in blood for all the students within the mansion. ‘Solve the mystery of this mansion, and the truth will set you free. You have but one single, solitary hour to complete this mission, or else it will all be over, and you’ll miss out on what is most important. Good luck. -R’
Beneath that message, a timer began to count down, also in blood, from 1:00:00.
“Solve the mystery? How are we supposed to do that when we don’t know where to start?” Patrick asked.
“Well, let’s look around for now. There’s got to be something around here to help.” Katherine mentioned while trying to keep everyone’s spirits up. She wasn’t keen on dying, after all, and needed everyone to help with solving this puzzle should they hope to survive. At least, she hoped that the message wasn’t just the house simply messing with them.
***
25 minutes later, everyone had searched most of the mansion, and yet they couldn’t find anything which they believed would be useful in solving this mystery, given they weren’t even sure what the entire mystery was. All they knew, was that they were in some alternate reality where it was only them and the mansion, and that the mansion was surrounded by snow as far as the eye could see. Well, that and things would vanish whenever that strange static appeared. But as far as each of them could tell, there still wasn’t anything of value to that.
“Urgh, what could we be missing,” Katherine asked as she racked her brain and tried thinking. “What have we missed?”
“If only Richard were here,” Patrick muttered. “The added mindpower of a missing classmate would potentially help.”
Katherine paused. “Wait. Richard’s missing, right?”
“Yeah, he and his sleeping bag.”
“What about his belongings?”
With a shrug, Patrick replied “Not sure.”
“Billy!” Katherine called out, to which Patrick wondered what Katherine might be thinking.
“What’s on your mind,” he asked.
“It depends whether Richard’s belongings are still here.”
Billy reached the top of the stairs. “What’s up?”
“Can you check to see if Richard’s belongings are still down there?”
“Sure. One sec.” He turned and headed back down, going over to where Richard’s sleeping bag had been. Sure enough, his belongings were still seemingly there, except for the device which Richard had attached to his forehead before going to sleep the night before.
“Huh, I could have sworn Richard had something else here,” he muttered as he grabbed the bag of personal belongings.
He took the bag upstairs and set it down on the coffee table in the living room for Katherine and Patrick to inspect.
Patrick then took the bag and opened it, searching through the clothes until something else caught his eye. It was a photograph of himself. But it wasn’t just that which caught his attention. He noted that he was standing in a rather dignified office, with a brass plaque on the wall behind him.
‘Project Innocent’
“What the- Project Innocent?” Katherine asked as she looked over Patrick’s shoulder, completely confused.
“Wait! That’s the title of the story I wrote earlier this semester, in which I wrote about someone on Earth who was falsely accused of a crime they didn’t commit, but they’d been condemned by society regardless, and ended up getting sentenced to life without parole in what I called a Hell Chamber, where you are put into a dream-like comatose state and are forced to live whatever nightmare the prison wants you to live through, until you finally die from shock as you make your brain believe that you’re dead. Much like in that sci-fi film ‘The Matrix.’”
He then looked to Billy. “But then, who is the one being wrongly punished, and why?”
Much like with the paper earlier, the photo then changed. The image would thus answer the very question which Patrick had just laid forth. Much like that of an old-school Polaroid picture as it developed, the black photo began to slowly come into a view of glorious colors. The image shocked Patrick even more than the previous image.
It was Richard, naturally. He was seemingly being declared as the innocent one.
Waffle King Richard · Wed Jun 05, 2019 @ 01:43am · 0 Comments |
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