House of horrors

A Gathering

"Aah!" I scream out loud.

"You're stepping on our feet." Two voices come from behind me, one high and one low. Shocked, I turn around... "We've never seen you here before. Who are you?" Two identical faces! What surprises me even more is that they're both saying the same thing simultaneously. (Twins! They must be...)

"What's up Rae? I heard screaming." Coiseam says after leaving her room. "Bill and Billy? What are you doing here? Did something happen?"

"Coiseam, do you know her?" Bill and Billy say.

"Oh! Allow me to introduce you. This is Rae." Coiseam say to the pair of twins. "She woke up this morning and found herself stuck here with us. Anson and Saskia discoverd her and brought her to the kitchen, but you guys weren't there..."

"No one can get out of this house, yet she just shows up here? Isn't that suspicious?" The twins say.

"Now, now. Don't go around making false accusations." Coiseam says to the twins.

"None of that matters right now. I just saw a ghost!" I exclaim to them.

"A ghost?" Coiseam asks me her hand now covering her mouth.

"Yes!" I say. "The kind that wears a sheet and flies around! Right here in the hallway!"

"Oh, that." Bill and Billy say. "Is that why you're spooked? A word of advice. Everything here is weird. Don't go around screaming at every odd thing you see. Be more careful, or you'll end up dead." With that curt warning, the twins glance sharply at Coiseam then leave.

"They're always like that." Coiseam says to me. "What you saw was probably the Invisible Man."

"...Invisible Man?" I surprisingly ask her.

"Yeah. I should have introduced him to you earlier. He's a strange one." She say looking me in my eyes.

"Wait, you said invisible. Are you telling me..." I put my finger under my lip. It's hard enough to accept all the locked doors and windows and the midnight time loop, and now there's an invisible man? Coiseam nods at me as if it's the most natural thing in the world.

"The first day we woke up, we found the Invisible Man in the hall, draped in a white sheet." She says looking at the floor. "He was generous enough to show us his body, which was clearer than the cleanest glass in the world. he said he'd always lived in this house, but he wasn't the owner. He also said there hadn't been any other guests here for a long time, and that he was happy to have us."

"Are you serious?! Didn't you all wonder if he was the one keeping you here?" I ask her directly.

"Anson and the others thought so, but the Invisible Man didn't hurt us." She says to me while looking up at me again. "He even gave us a tour of the dining room and kitchen. He ate with us."

"Does he even need to eat, with a body like that?" I ask her.

"Speaking of which... I'm pretty hungry, Rae. Should we go to the dining room?" She says putting her hand on her stomach and I also press my hand to my empty stomach and sigh. I really do need to eat. All the way to the dining room, I keep looking around for the Invisible Man. It gives me the creeps, but Coiseam doesn't seem worried in the slightest. By the time we finsih our meal, the Invisible Man still hasn't appeared.

"I'm so tired..." I say to myself. After lunch, I return to my room and collapse into bed. My brain has barely had chance to catch up with all the impossible things happening in this house. Trapped... a time loop... a creepy invisible man... The words flash across my mind like lightning in the night sky... For some reason, I keep thinking about Zacharias. I remember his face in incredible detail, despite only seeing him once. "Why does he give me a feeling of déjà vu?" I'm too tired to think too much about it and soon drift off to sleep. I wake to the sound of someone knocking on the door. "Who is it?"