The daily life of a ghost in Oletus manor

Chapter 9

The recently unfolded events in the manor were quite... confusing for Aesop, to say at least.

Even though he has been in this place for a few months now, he still didn't get used to the others. There were so many of them. He had a hard time pairing the faces with the names, making his job as a survivor much harder than it could have been. Because how was he supposed to work together with them if he couldn't even remember their names properly? Teamwork was an essential part of this game, and to be completely honest, Aesop wasn't any good at it. Communicating with them, helping them, decoding with them... hell, even having them around made him an anxious, trembling mess.

So, Aesop's greatest challenge with this game wasn't the fact that they were being chased around, hurt, or even getting temporally murdered by some merciless killer. No. His greatest, biggest problem laid with the survivors.

He couldn't understand them, couldn't work together with them. He was physically unable to do that. Aesop tried, really. He tried to be a good teammate. But...

He simply just wasn't meant to be one.

It also didn't help his case, that on his first few matches, he basically sought the hunters out, desperately wanting to experience death. He wanted to grasp the feeling; he wanted to understand it so much, he just forgot about everything else.

Which, of course, drove his teammates mad. They started to call him "suicidal Embalmer".

So, it wasn't surprising at all that no one wanted to have him in their team. It was okay, though. In their position, he would also hate to be forced into putting up with himself.
He wasn't a very pleasant person after all.

At least, those matches didn't happen too often, so he had a little time preparing himself mentally for the inevitable pain they would cause him. Normally, there would be two matches each day, the first one usually around midday, sometimes a few hours past that, with the last one starting exactly at 7 pm, never sooner, nor later. The people that had to participate in those matches received an invitation letter, bought to them by Miss Nightingale, whose role in the manor was something similar to a caretaker. She was the one connecting the survivors and the hunters to the owner of the manor, bringing them their letters, their new costumes, the items that the others were calling accessories, and of course, she was the one to introduce the new people to their faction.

Aesop himself was also welcomed and introduced by her, which was a huge surprise when he arrived first. He didn't expect to see someone like her. Hell, he didn't even know that after stepping a foot inside this cursed place, he would never be able to leave, bound to the manor, forced to play this twisted game of hide and seek. Forever.

Or so he was told.

And wasn't it funny? Every person in this place was here for one reason or another. Most of the survivors were promised that if they won the game, their wishes would come true.

It was all a lie. A trick to get them coming here. It was all clear to Aesop, who at this point, was so used to such trickery, he could recognize one anywhere.

And there was no way for them to win, anyway. Even if they managed to win a round, to escape from the hunter, they would just get teleported back here right after they stepped outside of that gate. And everything would start anew, again and again. It was an endless circle, one that you could never escape. It didn't really matter whether you won or lose.

It didn't matter how many times you bleed out, or how many times you were sent away on one of those rocket chairs. Everything would remain the same.

Aesop would know. Before the changes made to his abilities, he was used to being left for dead, bleeding out slowly on the cold, dirty ground. He didn't blame the hunters, though. It was always him seeking them out, making their job easier. He let them catch up to him; he didn't even try to get away.