Fictional reality - Little Nightmares

The Lady's Quarters

After leaving the elevator we began heading towards a staircase, while observing the various decorations inside this part of the maw. Partially up the stairs, was a door with a slightly tarnished brass lock, meaning there was a key to look for. Great.

After climbing ip the stairs we came into room where the geisha was looking into a broken mirror. I gestured the other two to walk slowly, as to avoid creating noise that the lady might notice. We slowly walked to the other room past the lady, and found a ceramic vase in the bedroom. I peered inside and found a large silvery colored key, though I wouldn't be able to directly pull it out of the vase since it was too big.

I knew the geisha would disappear once the vase shattered, but I didn't want to take risks.
"Under the bed, both of you." I whispered, shortly before pushing the vase off the bedside table. At the same time the vase shattered, the lady's humming ceased.

"Is she still there?" I heard Six whisper.
"I don't think so, grab that key and follow me." I responded.

I peeked out of the bedroom, and confirmed that the lady was gone. My heart raced as we made our way to the locked door, I didn't understand why I was scared now when the other adults didn't scare or disturb me much.

"You ok?" Six asked as we neared the door. I could see genuine concern on her face, though it was partially covered by her bangs.
"I-I'm fine." I said with a bit of s sob. I was not fine, maybe I just needed a smoke though. I took out a cigarette, leaving only two remaining in the case.

Six opened the door revealing a hallway, and we walked through together. Seven's flashlight illuminated the dark hall, and the embers of my cigarette glowed in the dark as we walked through. It was also noticeably colder than it was outside of the previously locked door.

I had a creepy feeling that we were being watched, then I turned around to see the tall geisha with her ceramic mask, floating towards us.

"OH *cough* SHIT RUN! *cough*" I yelled, dropping my cigarette, unintentionally extinguishing it under my foot as I ran. Six and Seven snapped their heads back to look, then also began sprinting down the dark corridor, Seven's flashlight beam bounced around as he ran.

We all ducked under a cabinet at the end of the dark hallway, and into a room. It was still pretty dark but no geisha chasing us right now. I knew we'd have to face her again with a mirror, and I wondered how different it would be with 3 of us against her.

I walked out of the room into a different hallway, with my phone flashlight turned on, the beam was spread much more than Seven's flashlight so I couldn't exactly see too far. We came across a room where my light reflected back and felt blinding, since my eyes had been adjusting to the dark.

I turned my light off and looked forward to see a convenient circular light, and then found that my light was reflecting off a broken mirror. I looked up to see an intact ovular mirror on a pillow-like object on a table. Seven hopped up, grabbed the mirror, then carefully passed it down to Six before hopping off the table.

"Wait, what do we need this for?" He asked.

"That tall lady hates looking at herself," I answered, "The other mirrors here are broken."

"Huh, pretty lucky we stumbled across it then i guess." He said. I chuckled a bit, since I knew we would come across it, but then again I watched gameplay of this 3 times already.

We walked back to where we came from, to where we had just ran from the lady.

Well, time to face her again.

I popped in a cough drop so I could breathe quickly without coughing, I figured my body would demand more oxygen from my lungs in such a life threatening situation.

When we reentered the room we ran from and saw a circle of light on the ground, illuminated seemingly from above.

Well fuck I hope it's easier with three.

In the illuminated circle, we all stared in different directions to spot the lady, with Six holding the mirror.

"Right here!" I heard Seven say, and I turned to see Six turning the mirror towards the lady, blasting her with her own appearance. A somewhat bright flash came from the mirror and the lady staggered back into the darkness.

The lights would disappear and reappear in different spots, and we had to keep up with it. After a couple times, the lady would try to use fake approaches to throw us off, though we kept pointing the mirror in whichever direction we saw her in, and we had the advantage of three pairs of eyes.

At a certain point, I had lost count of how many times we flashed the lady with her own reflection, but after one last time, she let out a pained shriek and stumbled back, as the lights flicked and stopped working.

I found myself laying on the ground, and turned over to see a broken mirror in Six's hands. I raised my head up to see the lady oh her hands and knees about a dozen meters away, underneath another spotlight. Six and Seven also woke up, and saw the exact thing I did.

For once, I didn't know or have any idea of what would happen next. In the original game, Six would get hungry and eat the lady to fill her stomach, but this time, I had restored her soul, thus filling her and not making her hungry. I felt a bit panicked, as I no longer have a familiar story to follow from.

"Now what?" Six asked, then noticing my expression, "Is something wrong?"

"Nothing," I responded.

We walked over to the lady, my knife held with an icepick grip. I took a look at the lady's face, she looked back, a clear look of fear and disgust illuminated by Six's lighter.

Without a word, I plunged my knife into her neck, and slashed out her carotid arteries. The lady collapsed, and grasped at the stream of blood and black smoke spilling out. I was curious to see where the smoke would go, but this time it just lingered in the air.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a look of unease coming from Seven, presumably from slashing the woman's neck open.

We made our way to one of the Maw's dining halls, with a staircase at the end leading to an exit. I could see the door opening in the distance, the light of the evening sun spilling in. Unlike the game I remembered, Six couldn't kill any of the guests here.

"We gotta run through." I said, my voice a tad shaky.

"Sounds like suicide," he replied, "But then again, I thought the same about facing the lady."

We each took a deep breath before sprinting for the stairs at the other side. The guests groaned with glee as they saw us, and reached out to grab us as we ran by. Fortunately, they were slow and couldn't catch us before we reached the stairs.

As I began climbing up the stairs, I took a glance back to see guests struggle to get up. At this point I was panting for air, and coughing uncontrollably as I made my way up the stairs.

The warm sunlight felt pleasant on my exposed skin, and in the light I realized how filthy I was from everything I went through here. My wet shirt and skin were covered in dust and grime, and still reeked of blood and vomit.

I continued up the stairs with Six and Seven, longing to be outside of the Maw.

End of chapter.

I may have already said this previously, but expect 2-3 months of waiting between new chapter releases.