Choices & Chains

Inside A Novel

When she opened her eyes again, she was no longer in the empty stone-walled room, but in a rather large gorgeous lounge with extravagant carpets, curtains, and ornaments with some oil paintings decorating the walls. It was also dimly lit. 

Kath ran to the nearest window and pulled away the curtain. Through the golden swirls of the frame, it wasn't the sight of Yokohama that she glimpsed, but the extreme darkness of the night, interrupted only by the white snowflakes dancing brutally with the wailing wind.

Kath took a step back. They were inside the book. That was the mansion Poe was talking about.

Her eyes caught her reflection on the glass and her hands reached up to her face as though to make sure it was really her. Her hair was curly, half held up in buns with red ribbons. Her black cap was gone, and her shorts, t-shirt, and vest were replaced with a red and white dress with a white collar and puffed sleeves, black leggings underneath it. To top it off, she was wearing doll dress shoes.

Before she could mourn her appearance and curse at the sky, demanding Poe to return her clothes, a rush of footsteps caught her attention. From the other end of the lounge came Yosano, running.

" Kath!"

" You too!" Yosano's outfit at least didn't seem to differ much from her original. White yellowish shirt, long skirt, grey not black though. She was wearing a white lab coat and sported metal-framed glasses.

" Let's not dawdle here. Let's find Rampo!" Yosano grabbed Kath's wrist and pulled her through the lounge. It was that swift movement that allowed Kath to realize the difference in her weight.

" Bloody hell! My backpack!"

They were trapped inside a detective novel with a murderer, and with no defense seeing as how Yosano wasn't hauling her bag full of saws and hatchets.

Before them, they could see a gathering of people in front of a widely open double door. Yosano, being the doctor she is, quickly shouldered through them and made for the fallen victim.

That was no real man there, he was only a character from a story. A set of words and sentences. Yosano should have known, but still, she hurried to him.

The man pointed at a side door and then went cold. Rampo quickly ran to it and pulled it open, but it was bricked up, with the words ' welcome to locked room' painted in a dark color akin to blood along with a doodle of what Kath thought was a single-eyed cat.

" He said it was a serial killer. Which means we need to find the murderer, or we'll be killed, too." Rampo was the most serious Kath had ever heard him.

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The storm continued to rage on outside, the wind wailing through the creeves of the windows. Kath sat down on the couch, looking down at her hand. Her ability was gone. She could by no means conjure the smallest wisp, let alone a thread. It felt as though she had lost a sixth sense, but it didn't feel that much of a loss. One doesn't need a sixth sense to survive. It didn't hit hard as if not being able to see or hear.

On the other hand, there was someone who wasn't faring well with the loss of his gift, or precisely his glasses. Rampo sulked on the sofa, busying himself with studying the room and lights just as Yosano sat down beside her. She leaned tiredly back on the sofa.

" The victim is the caretaker of this mansion. Cause of death is the hemorrhagic shock."

" The weapon is the knife impaled in him. The way it was positioned, we definitely can roll out suicide. So it's clearly a murder, which by extension means we have a culprit. But I doubt a serial killer would leave fingerprints on the weapon." Kath tapped her chin.