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More games? This place, this Hellscape is just full of games. Nothing appears at face value, but it makes sense - deception would be a trait I’d expect from Hell. I feel anger starting to swell up inside me, wishing I can just face something point blank, without all the funny business. Something that will lead me directly to my mother. It's been hard to focus on these games because images of her being lost, scared, or tortured occupy all the space in the back of my mind, fighting to come to the forefront. If I'm being honest with myself, it's not the games that these demons are playing with me that get to me, it's the one I'm playing in my own head, trying to convince myself I can find my mother and escape this place.
“What game do you have in mind, Issac?”
“Oh, just a simple game of fork me not David.”
“I can’t say I'm familiar with that game.”
“David, it's simple really. Us sin eaters in training like to play a round or five. We both get a three-pronged fork. The goal is to use that fork to snag a piece of flesh from your opponent and eat it. The first one to eat wins. It doesn't matter where from the body, but it must be flesh, blood and hair doesn't count. If I eat your flesh, I'll take your gluttony sins, and then I'll take your soul. If you eat mine first, I'll let you go and tell you where you can find your mom. I’ll even give you a minute head start to hide if you feel the need to. So, are you ready to play David?”
My heart starts racing, knowing as soon as I answer him there will be no going back. Running from him will be pointless without having a plan to get the drop on him. I’m at a disadvantage because I don’t know the layout of the house, but I'm sure he did. Issac is most likely stronger and probably faster too. I'm going to have to run until I learn enough about the layout of the house to use it to my advantage. I want to ask Issac more questions about the game, but I'm concerned that it may give away my strategy. I take a deep breath to steel myself.
“I'm ready to play, Issac.” I struggle to keep my voice from cracking.
“Splendid David, let us play, oh and here is your fork.” Issac smiles, leaving me with the very distinct feeling that I may not make it out alive.
Issac tosses an unusual fork to me. It’s made of rusted iron widening out at the base of the handle. At the prong-end it narrowed, reaching about the length of my forearm. The prongs on the fork didn’t line up but spaced out to form more of a triangle. It looks like the fork is made so you have to attack aggressively to get a piece big enough you can use.
Issac has on a decent amount of clothing, only his head and neck being exposed. If I try to attack anywhere else on his body I will have to get through the clothing, but also be able to remove my fork without the flesh falling off. The good thing is I too have a decent amount of clothing on. My head and neck are exposed, as well as my forearms, I will have to keep that in mind.
“One... two... three... time's wasting, David.” Isaac grins widely.
He’s right, I need to start moving. I push my chair away from the table just as it disappears through the stone floor into an opening that appears beneath it. The stairs that appeared during our conversation along the left and right sides of the walls are near me, so I think I will go for the high ground.
“Four... five... six...” Issac continues counting.
I get a good feeling about the stairs to my left and bolt towards them. Heading up the stairs, I notice that for the house being so pitch-black when I entered, it's now so bright that there are no shadows to hide in. At the top of the stairs, I see a lobby area with a red leather couch, two marble pedestals on either side. Upon them sit Romanesque vases, dead roses draping over their sides. Behind the couch I can see a wide hallway spanning some distance. The hallway is lined with numbered doors, reminiscent of a hotel. Another red mosaic carpet flows down the center, ending just a few feet before reaching the back wall in the distance.
“Seven... eight... nine...” Issac shouts from downstairs.
I don't have much time left to explore my surroundings, so I start running down the hallway, twisting every doorknob, hoping to find one unlocked. The first four doors I try are all no-go’s. I think of just kicking one in, but Issac will be able to find me easily with a broken door marking my path. Door after door, all of them are locked.
“Twenty-one... twenty-two... twenty-three...” Issac’s voice grows louder.
I can feel the sense of panic building in my chest. Frazzled, I run to the last door on the left at the end of the hallway. It’s numbered thirteen. Odd, but then again, there’s no real order to the numbering of the doors, they’re all randomly labeled. I twist the doorknob and it gives way. I hurry in and shut the door gently behind me, trying not to give Issac any clues as to where I’m at. The room’s contents are rather plain. A queen-sized mattress sits on a metal spring frame, a dresser with marks from heavy use rests against the wall opposite the bed, and a closet with sliding glass doors catches the reflection of the whole room.
“Forty-three... forty-four... forty-five.” Issac’s voice resonates, muffled through the walls.
There’s no time to look for another place. The closet will be too easy, and the bed is low to the floor, so that will be a tight fit. There is no bathroom to hide in either, so under the bed I go. The squeeze is so tight that I have to lay my head sideways to fit. Even then, I feel the springs of the metal frame dig into my back.
“Fifty-two... fifty-three... fifty-four...” Issac’s muffled voice fluctuates, sounding impatient.
My heart racing, I try to focus. “Slow your breathing down David, and let your heart rate come down. You have no idea if his hearing is any better than a human’s so let's not make this easy for him. This is for mom. You can do this. Breathe.”
Each breath I take, the beating of my heart becomes softer, more relaxed. I start to feel my body mold to the floor, and the springs in my back don’t seem to bother me as much. Hell of a time to have some sort of weird Zen moment.
“Fifty-nine and... Sixty. Ready or not David, here I come.” Issac shouts at the top of his lungs.
I can hear Issac’s shoes rapidly clicking as he runs to the base of the stairs, followed by an encore of hollow thuds ascending upwards. He sounds so fast, or at least his shoes made him sound that way. Once at the top of the stairs, the noise from his shoes stops. I listen intently, hoping to catch a faint sound of where he could be, but all I can hear is my own heart beating.
“Is this how it's going to be David? They always hide, they always run, and they always beg for their lives. I'm so sick of playing the hunter. For once it would be nice if I had to fight back against an aggressor, to have an antagonist in my own story. Someone with backbone would be nice. So what say you David, are you a coward or hero?”
Issac sounds like he’s slowly going mad, but is it truly madness that grasps at him or is it just another silly game? After his speech, I can tell Issac is in the lobby, but again silence fell. I hold my breath to see if it will help me hear any better.
Click, creeeeek. The door to the room scrapes open.
I see Issac’s bare, hairy feet; he must have taken his shoes off to sneak up on me. Issac walks to the center of the room and starts spinning around with his arms open wide. It gave off an eerie Sound of Music vibe.
“David, I only leave two doors unlocked in this hallway so there is a fifty-fifty chance you’re in here. So, let's check the... ah ha!” Issac throws open the closet doors, shattering the glass held within their frames.
“Oh, too bad then, that leaves one other place.”
Issac jumps from the center of the room, landing right in the middle of the bed, digging the springs deeper into my back. My spine takes the full force of Issac’s weight. If Issac keeps jumping like this, he can very well break my back, and that will be a problem because I didn’t see any wheelchair ramps in the Hellscape so far. I wiggle my toes to make sure nothing too serious is damaged. I have to think fast to get out of this situation. I'm sure Issac will jump again any second, so I come up with an idea. Issac will most likely jump in the same spot again knowing he landed on my back, so I’ll scoot over slightly and place the fork prongs up where I’m sure his foot will land next.
Issac leaps up into the air pulling his knees to his chest to stomp down hard upon impact. I can feel the mattress compact above my fork right before it impales Issac through the center of his right foot. Issac screams in pain, taking the fork through the mattress as he lifts his foot. He falls off the bed and hits the floor with a loud thud. This is my chance.
I crawl out from under the bed, a winching pain in my back. I get to my feet and see Issac holding his wounded foot at the ankle. I walk up to him as he’s howling in pain.
“Yoink,” I say as I finish pulling the fork the rest of the way through Issac’s foot. It is a game of “fork me not” after all, so I needed my fork back.
“You bastard! I’ll kill you! I’ll eat you slowly, keeping you alive so you can watch until you're just a head in a damn pickle jar!” Issac is clearly not happy with my actions.
I look at my fork, covered in blood and stray hairs, but no skin or muscle. With a fleshless fork in hand, I run back out into the hallway.
“Issac, you son of a bitch,” I exclaim with disbelief.
This is not the same hallway I’d passed through before; this hallway forks in three directions. The center extends further than I can see. The left path has stairs going up to another floor, and the right has stairs heading back down to the lower floor. The mansion appears able to rearrange itself, whether by necessity or upon command isn’t clear. What’s clear is that I need to keep in mind that the mansion itself could be acting against me, possibly at the behest of Issac. What scares me the most is that the mansion rearranges itself without making a single noise.
I start to run down the central hallway and large iron rods shoot up through the floor, barring my path and nearly impaling me in the process. I turn to my left and run halfway up the stairs before they become a steep ramp, sliding me back down to the bottom.
“What’s the point of giving me options Issac, if you’re just going to choose for me?”
I can hear a laugh echo through the mansion in response. With no other choice, I head down the stairs to the main floor. As soon as I’m off of them, the stairs fold up into the ceiling like an accordion, trapping me on the first floor. I’m back where I started, in a large open room with nothing in it. I’m unsure if it’s the same room as before or just the same emptiness. I walk to the center and just stand there. I have nowhere to run, or anywhere I can hide, so I just wait. The silence overwhelms me, knowing the house may change around me in the aural nothingness. The floor could give way beneath my feet, sending me God knows where. I was almost impaled upstairs and only dodged it narrowly.
I think I hear a scratching noise behind me, so I spin around quickly, fork at the ready and, nothing. Is Issac’s goal to wear me down mentally, since he likely can’t run after me with that wounded foot? I need to stay sharp. What feels like forty-five minutes pass with no sound except that of my own breathing. Boredom creeps in, replacing any feelings of fear I might otherwise have felt.
An idea strikes me when I look at the fork in my hand. I can scratch my initials on a tile in every room I’ve been in and use it to keep track of where I am, even if the house shapeshifts again. I take a knee and start scratching a capital ‘D’ on the tile beneath me.
A rumble comes from underground, forcing me to step back. The tile begins to lift like a trap door, revealing a small creature underneath. An impish creature crawls out, an angry expression on its face. It stops and points at me then back at the tile speaking gibberish. It then flips the tile over to reveal a clean, unscratched surface and closes it behind him like a manhole cover.
“I see you have met the hired help David,” Issac’s voice echoes through the room.
A set of stairs formed in the corner of the room when I was distracted. Mounted to the side closest to the wall is one of those chairs you see elderly people with bad joints use to get up and down stairs. This chair is far posher than something you would see in an old folks’ home. Like the rest of the furniture, it’s overstuffed red leather. Upon the chair is Isaac, legs crossed, his bandaged foot hanging there like he’s showing it off. The chair whines, moving slowly as it works its way to the bottom. Issac the whole time looking as if he’s performing some amazing feat of magic.
“Oh, it's time to end this game, David. You got me good and now I’m going to get you well and proper. You have nowhere to run and all you have is that fork.”
Issac leaps from the base of the stairs, reaching unnatural heights, landing right on top of me and knocking the fork from my hand. He stabs at my face, but I manage to dodge his attempts, moving my head out of the way barely in time. Issac then tries to bite at my chest, but I hold him back with both hands at his throat. Issac sees an opening and plunges his fork through my forearm; when he draws it back, I find myself whaling against the sharp pain, meat dangles on the end of his fork. Issac twists the fork to try to get my dangling piece of flesh into his mouth. I grab hold of it, wrench my flesh off the prongs, and throw it across the room out of Issac’s reach. Issacs jams his pointer finger through the hole in my arm, paralyzing my arm in pain.
“Oh, I’ve got you now David. You’re helpless. Your sins and soul are mine for the taking.” Issac says, raising his hand, fork at the ready.
This is it. I have finally lost. The game is done and I have no more moves left to play. I just lay there watching Issac raise his fork, preparing to spear me with all his might and...
“Kaaahhkkk,” Issac coughs as he spits up blood all over my face.
I turn my face to avoid Issac spitting blood into my eyes and see one of the stone tiles has been lifted out of place. I turn back to see what happened to Issac. Plunged deep into the back of his neck is the fork I’d dropped and hanging off that fork is Agro. He must have gotten free and found the tunnel system that the imps have been using to move the house about.
I reach up, tear the fork out of Issac’s neck, taking a piece of his flesh with it. It’s right in front of me and all I have to do to get out of here with my mother’s soul is eat it, but it didn’t feel right. I feel like I will lower myself to his level if I do. As Issac continues spitting up blood, I jam the fork into his mouth, then punch him in the throat to make sure he swallows. Issac pulls the fork out of his mouth and stares at me with a look of horror, and awe before he falls to his side, writhing in pain.
“David, you bastard, we can't eat our own sins, it's against the rules,” Issac says, choking on his own blood.
“Tell me where my mother is Issac, because the rules are the last thing you should worry about,” I yell, fire burning within me.
“Ha ha ha. Cough, cough. Is that wrath I hear in your voice, David. It gets the best of you every time, murderer.”
“Issac, where is my mother?” I shout, while striking Issac in his face.
“I never knew, David. It... was... just a... ploy.” Issac falls limp.
His lifeless body starts to glow at the edges and drift away like embers floating away from burning paper. I managed to kill him with his own sins, at least, I think that's what happened.
I watch his body turn to ash, feeling haunted. Did I do it again? Do I belong here in this hell hole?
Agro tugs at my pant leg to get my attention, then clicks and points. A door appeared that looks like the entryway. The house begins to shake and moan as if in pain, the imps screaming within the walls. Tiles burst from the walls and floors, followed by droves of angry demonic imps. I scoop up Agro, racing through the door, and find myself back in the dormant Hellscape.