BROODHOLLOW: A Game of Oubliette

DOUBLE LIFE

Wadsworth is awakened by the front door creaking open, before Cadavre comes in exhausted.

"Here we are again, monsieur Zane. Good thing I found you at last."

"Thank heavens!" Wadsworth exhaled, "How did you find me?"

Cadavre turns to the outside he came from and back to the salesman. "I'm not sure, but Maddy just led me the way through the fog."

"Gosh." said Wadsworth, "Iris was right: Maddy really IS a protector." He gathers up the items and puts them into the bag before standing back up. He shrugs off from the fact about why Maddy sent him here.

"Zut! Your firearm holds more ammo than mine does?!" Cadavre exclaimed, and he pulls out an Alofs repeating break-action shotgun.

"And your gun is BIGGER than mine." Wadsworth added, "...as I don't know where you got it from."

"Tellement vrai."

Then Wadsworth shakes his head, "Yes. Let's go find the caller." And then he heads out the door.

Instead of outside, he is in a hallway of doors. Is this another apartment building? A hotel? Or... a hospital? Just a few meters away from him is a wheelchair.

"Why are we in a hospital?" Wadsworth asked.

"Aucune idée, monsieur Zane. But I have a feeling that we're not alone here." Cadavre shuddered.

They walk through the hallway (as there's no one in sight except the shadowy figures resembling doctors and nurses) and look into other empty patient rooms; all of the beds are empty. This is not a normal hospital but as Wadsworth is about to pass one of the windows, he witnesses something outside the building: a graveyard.

"Wait a second. It's Amaranth General Hospital. I've been here before."

Cadavre stops and turns around. "You have? You know this place well, non?"

Wadsworth explains, "After drinking the Switchwater, Maddy threw a lamp at me in the Hotel Umbra just for my psychiatrist and Iris to bring me here to get my head stitched up."

"Oui, I noticed that." Cadavre sympathetically nodded.

A light is coming from the doctor's office. The salesman walks towards it slowly, almost like someone or something is welcoming him in.

"Wadsworth? What're you doing?" Cadavre stammered.

Wadsworth enters the room. A whole bunch of mechanical electronics are all over the office; large ones are lined up at the wall and small radios are resting on the desk. Why the televisions? He asked. The crazy Zane's face displays.

"A hospital is not normal. The patients are gone. You're in a coma, Wadsworth."

It's almost like it knows Wadsworth's whereabouts and movements presently. Is it really talking to him? He speaks up. "Are you watching me? Who the hell are you, where are you?"

"A voice sounding like mine. I hear it. There are two of me in one place."

"How?!" Wadsworth stammered, "I'm standing right here!"

"One standing inside. One wandering outside. No telling which one is the real one."

Cadavre's shriek booms in the hallway as the skeleton rushes into the room. "There's another you, monsieur Zane! Outside the building!"

There can't be two of me, Wadsworth thought, as he heads out of the office back to the window. To his surprise, he sees himself wandering through the graveyard outside. He's inside, but he can see his face of trauma before vanishing.

Now he knows who it really is. "So there are two of me." He turns to Cadavre, "But why does the other me look so purely insane? What happened to him?"

Cadavre explains the story. "Since you gave me advice to scare you, monsieur Zane, I found a spirit transformation crystal and found you in your diving suit, and then scared you très bon. After you lost your helmet, I brought you to here for us to take good care of you. One morning, you were not in your bed, so we tried looking for you until we were split apart by the Dream Overlap, when I ran into you."

"So I'm still here?!" Wadsworth gasped, "Why am I not feeling so surprised?"

"Not sure." Cadavre sighed, "The water on the cave ceiling might be a one-way entrance."

"Gosh. Whoever that other 'me' is is up to no good." Wadsworth puzzled, "I need to find answers to why the crazy stuff is happening. I gotta go."

Wadsworth heads to the front door and exits the hospital. Here he is again, in a forest, but this time it's just regular pine trees. He starts walking through the forest (and it seems endless to his view) and keeps going.

Out into the clearing again—a white void—he sees the insane Wadsworth again. He is just standing there, while a businessman limps towards him. Mr. Planchett? Wadsworth noticed. He just entered the businessman's dream, and will he trust him again so that he can help him?

"Mr. Planchett?! Please, can you help me?!" Wadsworth called out.

Planchett didn't hear him. He stops in front of the crazy Zane and stares at him in annoyance. "Listen up, kid! I want you to tell me what is going on! If it's a crippley-croppely cruel prank, and it's not funny, I'll give you a chisel!"

Planchett is punched in the face, but the insane Wadsworth isn't doing anything but just stand and stare. Then Planchett hears harsh words at him.

"Mr. Planchett is too judgemental!"

"Don't you feel any shame for yourself?"

"You have no right to demand us your way!"

"He is so cruel!"

"No one wants to have a bossy man!"

"Silence!" Planchett screamed in terror, "All of you, stop! Stop!"

Wadsworth dashes towards the businessman and throws his arms around him.

Planchett is shocked to see two kiddos. "There's two of you now?!" The bruise mark on his cheek swells up. Wadsworth can notice that this is part of Planchett's dream, and his gut is telling him that this will wake him up. And then the bruise bursts with blood spraying out. The businessman vanishes.

Wadsworth's cheeks turn red. "Mr. Planchett, you had a nightmare too."

He digs into his bag and pulls out his gun, but his insane self is gone.