Four Friends and Their Wildest Journeys

III. The possesion

The air thickened like molasses as the swirling vortex dragged them into darkness. Every shadow in the mansion seemed to laugh at their helplessness, a chorus of jeering whispers that only intensified as Karolina was yanked away, her scream fading into the void.

"Did she seriously just get sucked into a... ghost tornado?" Andżelika shouted, her voice ricocheting off the warped walls.

"Andżelika, this isn't the time for your commentary!" Kuba snapped, his hands braced against the wall as the floor shifted beneath them.

"Oh, sorry, I'll just shut up while our friend gets body-snatched by Satan's Dyson vacuum!"

Before anyone could reply, the mansion buckled like it was having a seizure, the floor tilting dramatically and throwing them all to the ground. Their screams mingled with the sound of cracking wood as the vortex swallowed them whole.

When they landed, it was with a sickening thud.

Andżelika groaned, peeling herself off the floor and shaking dust from her hair. The room they found themselves in was wrong in every sense of the word. The walls bled shadows that seemed to ripple with malicious intent, the flickering light of the torches casting grotesque, shifting forms on the stone. The air smelled damp and sour, like wet rot and regret.

"This feels like we fell into the world's worst escape room," Kuba muttered, brushing debris off his hoodie.

"Escape rooms have exits, idiot," Andżelika shot back, standing and squaring her shoulders. "This? This is a death trap."

"Guys," Martyna interrupted, her voice trembling, "where's Karolina?"

As if on cue, a soft, eerie laugh filled the room. It came from everywhere and nowhere all at once, the kind of laugh that crawled under your skin and set your nerves on fire.

"Okay, nope," Andżelika declared, spinning around. "That's a villain laugh. Someone's about to monologue, and I don't have the patience."

From the far side of the chamber, a figure stepped forward, her movements jerky and unnatural, like a marionette controlled by a drunk puppeteer.

"Karolina?" Martyna whispered.

The figure looked like Karolina—mostly. Same face, same stature, same tendency to slouch as if existence was exhausting. But her eyes... her eyes were blacker than midnight, and her grin stretched too wide, revealing rows of sharp, mismatched teeth.

"You called?" the thing purred, Karolina's voice layered with something guttural and inhuman.

"Okay, Karolina, you look like you've been possessed by Hot Topic," Andżelika said, crossing her arms. "What's the deal? This some attention-seeking emo phase, or are you actually, you know... evil now?"

The thing inside Karolina threw back its head and laughed, a sound that echoed unnaturally in the cavernous space. "Evil? Sweetheart, you couldn't begin to imagine what I am."

"Bet," Andżelika snapped.

Kuba grabbed her arm. "What are you doing? That's not Karolina anymore!"

"Yeah, no shit, Sherlock," Andżelika hissed. "But what's it gonna do? Kill me with its discount Demon Barbie act?"

The thing's grin widened as it leaned in, its voice a venomous coo. "Oh, don't worry. I won't kill you... yet."

Martyna whimpered, clinging to Kuba like he was a life raft in a sea of nightmare fuel. "This isn't real. This can't be real."

"Oh, it's real," the creature said, its head tilting at an unnatural angle as it stepped closer. "And it's about to get fun."