Luigi's Mansion

Chapter 2 - Unexpected Company

The mansion was still.

A stale silence, broken only by the howling whispers of the wind outside, was the only thing that greeted the intruder's timid call. It was almost like a reply in itself; as if it had long been a vacant place, and visitors were coldly discouraged.

Before him lay nothing but a deep black void, initially so strong that there was no telling what it concealed. The dark and silence altogether were so complete when Luigi shut the door that he thought he might be choked in it.

Then, don't leave the door closed, a tiny voice of reason came to him. But for an unknown reason he couldn't bring himself again to comply.

Perhaps it was merely the instantaneous spell that had fallen over him the moment he'd passed the threshold; the feeling of a sudden and deep awe. The atmosphere inside was cool, and somehow a bit eerily drafty; but it was only a building. Only a building...

   Then why did taking this step feel like such a big deal? Never in all his life had he thought that a building might be so... intimidating. Perhaps it was just his old excitement; although it didn't feel very close to the excitement he remembered. Now it felt closer to nervousness... maybe even dread.

Well, this is my first time in my new perfect house... I'm finally here!

Somehow, the thought wasn't all that reassuring.

Taking a shuddering breath, Luigi quickly rubbed an arm across his eyes and focused on the darkness around him. He had to stay positive. It was just a building, after all... just a building. An empty building, at that. What was there to be nervous of?

Still, Luigi's imagination was happy to take the reins, and at first it was all he could do to tell it that all was well. Nevertheless, the darkness was like pitch; too afraid to move until his eyes adjusted, he stood there in the doorway for a long moment, casting long beams around the room with his flashlight.

As the first images and shapes began to come to him, he slowly allowed himself to breath a little. Piecing together his surroundings with his yellow beam, he soon found that it really wasn't a very big room he stood in – Luigi guessed it was the foyer. But almost right away,  before he could even think about anything else, something unusual caught his attention.

On the other side of the room only a stone's throw before him he saw another set of double doors like the ones he had entered; but at first glance it was far beyond ordinary. Instantly drawn, Luigi frowned, slowly edging forward to examine it. What on earth is that?

Both doors in their entirety were impassable, covered in strange thorny vines which wound thickly all the way around them, as if someone had been adamant about keeping someone out. But the strangest thing was the vines themselves: they didn't appear to be dead, but instead, they pulsed faintly in the darkness with an eerie purple light. What's in there, the radioactive biology lab?

Carefully, Luigi reached out a hand to try touching one of the doorknobs, but immediately thought better of it. Those vines could be poisonous, he realized. Or really sharp or... something. Still somewhat perplexed, he decided to get back to it later and take a look around.

On the left-hand side of the doors was a small chest of drawers with a lamp on top of it. Luigi seized the chance to try to turn some lights on, but it seemed to have a broken bulb. Of course, he thought satirically. So he'd have to continue on in relative darkness.

On the other side he found a strange piece of furniture; when Luigi approached it, he realized that it was a rather large wardrobe mirror covered with a big white cloth. Wonder why. Frowning, he returned to the center of the floor.