The Mansion and the Visitor

Sarah had been walking through shrubbery for a short while. There is a mansion at the end of her trail, one that she intends to explore. A mansion that is part of an abandoned of town that was now overgrown with wildlife. Where the bodies of buildings once were, now only skeletons remain, the rest of now crumbled on the floor into a mixture of soil, drywall, and concrete. But the old mansion still stood, its body still stands in one piece, though not without a few scratches. It stands there, waiting for someone to give it energy and life again. As Sarah saw the silhouette of the structure become a mansion, she stopped.

Sarah stood there, as if frozen. She couldn’t breathe. Why couldn’t she breathe? She felt cold, but her body began to sweat, her stomach clenched, and she felt a jitter in her feet as if she wanted to run. She wanted to run, to move, to breath, to do something, anything, but her body was frozen. Her body was frozen, but her mind raced with turmoil. Only for a second. The moment was so quick she questioned whether it happened at all, or why she would even want to run. And yet, she still remembered the dread she felt in that very moment, the fear the pumped through her, but why would she feel that way? In place of the fear that once ate her, now a frustrating curiosity gnawed. She wanted to know the causation of the harrowing feeling.  If she found out what it was, she could avoid it or overcome it. Her mind, her body grew hunger for answers, and yet she couldn’t help but feel like a small pray entering the mouth of a predator as she walked into the building.

The moment she passed those doors she was devoured by the walls of the mansion, swallowed by the hallways and distorted antique decor. She was surrounded by the walls of another time, the wallpaper peeled and wrinkled with age, the furniture was antique and rotting, the dust was thick and all consuming, and yet the house still somehow felt alive. There was no doubt that the mansion was designed to have a body both beautiful and complex, that after so many years it still looks alive, but it was still hungry to be lived in. She stood at the entrance and took it all in for a moment. The mansion was so grand and lavished that it would make a vampire, from those old cheesy movies, jealous. After the initial surprise digested through her body, she continued on her venture. She decided to go through one of the hallways. There were two of them, but seeing as one of the was blocked by a piece of furniture, she decided to go through the easier one. As she entered she noticed that there was a sort of varnish that lined the walls, it was old cracked, and dry. And yet it still held its purpose holding together what was left of the wallpaper making it easier for Sarah to move through the structure as if being further swallowed by its complex beauty. As she wandered down the hall, she took note of the various extremities of halls that connected to this one. She continued wandering to the very end of the hallway, where she found the next organ of the house; it was guarded by a door.

The hall lead her hear to the door, pushing her and guiding her to this forgotten part of the house. The door was lined with paint, some spots having been peeled off revealing previous layers of paint, layered upon themselves to protect the now rotting wood of the door. The doors seemed to grow as she got closer to them, the details now much more visible. She could see the different colors the door once was, and how the door almost seemed to be squeezed by the hallway, closing off the next organ of the house. Her hand rested on the door, some of the paint crumbling off, as she pushed the door open it let out a loud squeak from it’s degrading hinges. As Sarah peered passed the door she found a bed room. The room was decorated not unlike the others, however the room called her. Looking around she noticed there was less dust in the room, unlike the others it didn’t seem abandoned, it was gruesomely clean compared to the others. As she looked around, she strode over to the vanity and admired its ornate beauty, the glass of the mirror was faded, and no longer as reflective as it once was, but it was still clean enough to see the blurry shape of herself. Her eyes drifted to a different part of the mirror, looking at something behind her, a large silhouette of the bed. She turned her body to look at it; it was nicer than some of the other items in the room. In fact, it almost seemed new, it was still antique, but it looked better kept, as if someone had just recently placed the sheets on just for her. Her eyes pointed to her feet as she thought about how long it had taken her to get to the mansion, and how much walking she had done through the mangled branches of trees and shrubbery. She looked back at the bed, maybe she should rest for a little bit, she deserved for making the trek, and she would have to do it again on the way back anyway, so she might as well.

She walked over to the edge of the bed, her hand finding its way to the edge of the covers, gently pulling them back. Her body slipped between the sheets, engulfing her body apart from her head. Her head rested on a pillow, tastefully stuffed for comfort. It wasn’t long after she had pulled the thick sheets over her body that she began to fall asleep. The blankets warmed her body swallowing her with comfort. As her eyes closed, she noticed details of the house that she hadn’t seen before the room seemed smaller than she though, and the detail on the wall almost seeming to move in her haziness, the blankets seemed heavier than before holding her in place. She liked it, she hadn’t been able to appreciate the house as much before, but now she quite like them, and s much so that it seemed to swallow her further into the house. Her eyes closed, and her body relaxed, she allowed it to be engulfed by her surroundings. Digested and absorbed by the mansion, becoming part of it, bringing it back to life, giving it a little more energy, making it less hungry for life than it was before she entered its mouth, allowing it to remain standing there longer, allowing it to live until its next visitor.