The mansion entrance came to life as we fed our tickets into a slot at the entrance.
What we saw when we got inside were walls covered in faded wallpaper, decorated with intricate floral patterns that had long since lost their original colors. Ornate wooden moldings framed the ceiling, while antique furniture sat arranged throughout the entrance hall.
A chandelier hung overhead, its crystals coated in a thick layer of dust.
Portraits lined the walls, depicting stern-faced members of the Grandchester family dressed in the formal attire of their era.
After a few steps, we heard the faint crackling of a speaker as the fully voiced automated tour began.
But at the same time, I noticed a small figure standing next to a railing at the top of the stairs.
She turned and disappeared through a door. It happened so fast that anyone else might have missed it. A childish laugh faded into silence.
The speaker began telling the story of the mansion as I raised my Cerber-Wear and started inspecting the surroundings.
[The story of the Grandchester Mystery Mansion begins with Morticia and Hannibal Grandchester. Morticia nearly dies giving birth to their only child, Lucy. Hannibal never wanted a child and resents the young girl for the near death of his wife. Please proceed to the next room. No shoving or pushing. Disruptive behavior will result in being removed from the Grandchester Mystery Mansion.]
"Um, Dad..." Elizabeth, affected by the atmosphere, clung to me.
I patted her head to comfort her as we moved to the next room.
The tour continued as we entered each room. Sensors activated as we entered, prompting the next segment to play over the speakers.
The story told of how the little girl, Lucy, grew up in a lonely household and developed creepy tendencies, like killing small animals and acting all around spooky.
Her parents, thinking she was possessed, tried everything from arranging furniture on the ceiling and making fake doors to confuse the spirit to hiring some fraudster psychic.
But nothing seemed to work as the girl's behavior became increasingly unhinged.
As we went, I didn't spot the ghost again, but I kept hearing her giggling and the pitter-patter of footsteps here and there.
"Sir... those are just effects, right?"
Even Lady had gotten so spooked that she clung to my other arm, causing me to smirk at the two frightened girls.
"No. This place has definitely got some paranormal activity going on."
I raised my Cerber-Wear and switched the camera to thermal imaging.
Along the floor was a series of cold spots that were the size and shape of a child's footprints. I moved the camera, following the trail until it ended and a cold, blue silhouette of a girl appeared at the end of the hallway.
"Ahhhhh!"
The girls shrieked as they both jumped behind me while I stared at the spot on the screen. The figure moved through a door and vanished again.
"Wow. Spooky," I said nonchalantly. "So it can be picked up on thermal imaging, and weirdly enough, there was a short burst of sound frequency."
I played what I had recorded, and all I heard was crackling white noise.
"And if I search for patterns in the sound waves and then filter out the background... Oh, look, girls! We can hear what she said."
I adjusted the sound until only a faint voice remained.
'Come play with me.'
Both girls shivered and began shaking their heads as if saying, 'No! We don't want to know that! And we definitely don't want to play!'
I laughed at how scared they were.
"Would you both calm down? It's a ghost! It's way less dangerous than that radscorpion from earlier. As long as you don't fear it, it has no power over you."
...Of course, I'm lying out of my ass since I don't actually know what it could be capable of. But they don't need to know that.
We proceeded further into the tour until we had heard the full story and reached the end, where a door leading to the last room was located.
The tour's story ended by explaining how the little girl had offed her parents and then, later, herself.
[After impaling his foot on a rusty spike that was mysteriously driven into his shoe, Hannibal came to Lucy's room to punish her for the prank. We'll never know for sure how it happened, but he was found with a pair of scissors driven through his eye and into his brain.
Lucy claimed she was holding them in self-defense as he tried to beat her with his cane. She said he tripped and fell onto the scissors. When asked why his fingers had all been cut off, she replied that it was so he couldn't hold the cane again.
Lucy's mother was found dead in the master bedroom with a cloth doll stuffed in her mouth. Her wrists had rope burns, but no ropes were ever found. Lucy insisted that the doll was solely responsible because Morticia wouldn't give her a kiss goodnight.
Lucy was committed to an asylum. On her eighteenth birthday, she escaped. Nine days later, she was found hanging in the attic, dead from an apparent suicide.]
"What a crazy little child. Princess, you wouldn't ever stab Dad in the eye, would you?"
I asked the frightened little girl, who heard me and frantically shook her head.
"No! I'd never!" she yelled out, but then quickly switched gears. "Can we go now, though? I'm... hungry. Yeah! That's right. I'm hungry, so please, can we go?"
She looked up at me, begging with puppy-dog eyes.
I looked over at Lady and saw her subtly nodding in approval of the idea.
Sigh.
I ran my fingers through my hair.
"We can go soon, but I want to check the attic first. You can wait outside for me."
I then turned around and started walking toward the door.
Elizabeth and Lady looked at each other and then back at me, hesitant about whether to leave on their own or follow after me.
I smirked as I watched them choose to follow me.
*Bang!*
I blew the lock off the wooden door with an explosive shot and then kicked it in, giving me access to the stairwell leading up.
Lady and Elizabeth followed cautiously behind me, looking in every direction.
'Hehehe!'
The laughter of a little girl echoed through the room as we reached the attic.
"Eek!"
Both girls jumped in fright before freezing as a ghostly girl crossed the room and vanished through a door.
I watched through my Cerber-Wear, capturing it on camera as I tried to analyze exactly what we had seen.
I moved the camera and jumped as I found the ghost again.
This time, I didn't see a physical manifestation with my own eyes, but the camera picked up a cold spot swinging from the rafters.
It was no longer in the form of a child, but rather a young woman, perhaps eighteen years old, just as the story had said she was when she died by suicide.
I raised my hand and concentrated.
"D-Dad, what are you doing?"
"Master, we should go... What are you—"
I activated my Telekinesis and enveloped the mass with my mental energy, trying to get a feel for it and understand more.
I felt a cold sensation through the mental connection before suddenly experiencing a spike of feedback.
It was like being plunged into an ice bath, an unnatural cold seeping through my very being as darkness began filling my vision.
"Dad!"
"Master!"
I heard the girls scream before I was swallowed into the darkness...