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The door falls open on its own, creaking horribly as it does.

"Come in, come in," a soft, female voice instructs, though no such figure can be seen in the doorway. There is light inside, and the temperature is cooler than outside, but not too significantly.

The door makes the same nails-on-a-chalkboard screeching as it shuts behind the victim. And in a moment's time, the front foyer goes from moderate brightness to blindingly bright. With an echoed "clunk!", it is as if someone turned on a hundred stage lights situated in every possible space.

Everything is white..

Soft laughter croons every which way. It seems the voice has no obvious source. The lights dim very slowly.

"Does it bother you?" the woman asks, her voice pleasant and highly seductive. "Here, let me help you.."

And so the lights dim, but no comfort is given. For all around him, where the light had been, are mirrors. They stretch impossible heights, stack without appropriate help, and reflect the victim at all angles. The door is gone, all traces of it non-existant.

"April Fools?" she repeats innocently, but there remains a seductive quality to her voice. "Why, sweets, I have no idea to what you refer."

His own image in the mirrors flickers, as if it is a television signal that is being interrupted. It does this again, and for a moment, his own reflection is replaced by that of a beautiful woman, one with flowing black and red hair..

The lights dim even more as the victim's own reflection returns, consequently blurring any reflection.

Again, laughter, though this time it sounds more cruel.

"What I want is beyond your pathetic mortal capacity, sweets."

Completely black now, the noise of shuffling and scraping replaces the voice. The lights return like after an electrical surge; they flicker back to life and full capacity, though not quite as bright as before.

The mirrors have been moved into a maze. All is silent.

The maze offers many different paths to who knows what end. It is impossible, or at least seemingly so, that a maze of this size could ever be constructed in the old mansion.

The wood flooring creaks.. or is that something else? When the victim is deeper in the maze, soft but progressively multiplying clicking sounds arise from back at the beginning of the maze.

Infestation.

As if the concept of being like a mouse in a maze looking for its cheese, someone released the mutants. Thousands of tiny, skeletal things race across the floor in a sea of bodies. They resemble nothing and everything.. their flesh tearing or eaten away, and most of what's left of their heads is a skull with blank, red eyes.

It looks like a goooood situation to run from.

The creatures, whatever they are, keep up a good speed. The smaller ones are apparently faster, and actually manage to reach the victim's heels within minutes. They snap their jaws, and a surprising amount of venom is alive in their mouths. Screaming terribly, they lurch and leap at him, only ever missing by a fraction.

Even worse is the compound of what appears to be their venom, or perhaps just their saliva. Puddles of it brims off their teeth and splats on the wood floor, instantly burning through it like acid would.

And the deeper in the maze, the less light there is. Can this get any worse?

Off into the darkness, the victim runs.

The creatures dutifully attack the shadow of what once was, but with the amount that continues to spew from the narrow maze path, some do not stop. The bigger ones, in fact, continue without a second look at the shadow. Many of them remain, and, in attempt to feast, smother their victim in the acidic venom.

The larger of the hideous creatures have harder footsteps, clomping noisily on after the true victim. And in the darkness now, he is surely blind to them if they attempt to attack.. or is he?

Darkness.

Down and down... surely, under the wood there should have been concrete, more wooden beams, a skeleton structure.. anything?

After a few dazed moments, the victim's vision returns. And the setting has completely changed. A Library of magnificent potential and breathtaking architecture is the new maze, but with the threat of danger turned down a lot. Libraries are peaceful places.. aren't they?

Nearby, a silver book with light red pages rests as it has for years and years. But the only thing to set it apart from the thousands.. millions?.. of other books is the spine. It has no set markings; it swirls and shifts and changes constantly.

The book falls open easily. Its pages look like they had been soaked and dyed, rather than naturally a pale red. As a consequence, most of the ink on the pages has leaked and left only smears and shadows of words.

"Don't."

A small, monotone voice commands from behind the victim. Leaning against a freestanding bookcase nearby is Petra, a girl of stone and, more recently, flesh. She blankly stares at the book in his hands, her eyes eventually moving back up to his face. She clicks her tongue in irritation.

"Nevermind," she says plainly, shifting her weight back onto both her feet. There is movement behind her, and something - a paw, by the looks of it - steps into the lesser shadows from behind said bookcase. The child stops, her eyes looking up, as if she is thinking hard about something. The paw disappears back behind the bookcase.

Petra smooths a curl of her hair behind her pointed ear and joins the victim at his side. "Your action was foolish," she critisizes, taking the book from his hands and closing it. Dust clouds the air.

Petra looks up at him with faint amusement. She heard things, almost everything, but this was new. Brushing past him, she drops the book down on the crooked table.

"Will you help me with something before you go?" she inquires without much emotion. She points toward the rear of the Library. "I locked my doll inside my father's workroom. I don't want to wake him, but I need it to sleep."

"He will just think he forgot to lock it. He does that often with the Library itself sometimes," she remarks, already walking away toward Pippin's office.

She keeps completely silent. Once, she extends her hand and drags her fingers across the spines of the books on the shelves, but does it so casually that she doesn't turn her head. Her eyes remain transfixed ahead, making her uncomfortable company, at best.

Petra laughs very oddly. It sounds like she isn't used to doing so, and probably isn't. "These books can only be opened once, sir," she says haughtily.

Slowing down to a stop, she cranes her neck to examine the door, verifying it's the right one. She made the mistake of taking the other and did not want to do that again.

"This one," she states plainly. She looks up, expectantly, at the victim, merely buying time.

The lock clicks and the door opens quite easily.

Petra touches a curl of her hair. "Thank you," she says softly, but without feeling. She ducks inside for a second, retrieving a hideously mutilated ragdoll.

"Now you can come find out why you only open books once in this Library," she says cooly with a trade of a smirk on her face.

"It's on the way," she explains without explaining. She drags the doll across the floor, and her heeled shoes click softly, but again, she is silent.

Before the bookcases end, she stops abruptly in front of the victim. "The book you opened," she explains in a low voice, "Is now your responsibility. That is why I tried to stop you. The House is without fail in creating responsibilities for its victims."

She brushes her fingers through her doll's hair before continuing. "They are waiting to meet you, sir."

In the place of the book is a lot more than the victim bargained for.

Petra steps aside to allow the man to pass and get a closer look. She already told Distrust to watch in case he tried to escape. No one ever did for Pippin, but the sad truth, she's found, is that no one believes little girls. Even if they know what they're talking about.



A boy garbed in nineteenth century clothing, tattered already, is in the very place the book used to be. The baby sits beside a mirror, transfixed with the reflection much like a kitten would be. He doesn't seem at all interested in the others until they come into view of his mirror. The mirror itself is of extremely elabourate design and structure, though the table itself caves under the weight. Nevertheless, this does nothing to break the baby boy's concentration.

Beside him, skittering alongside the mirror is his daemon-friend. She is unlike a regular creature, and quite curious at that.

Tucked underneath the skull-like backing is a red dyed piece of paper. It reads:
"The Angel of Music! I knew of him now! I saw him! It was beyond a doubt some unspeakable tenor, a good-looking jackanapes, who mouthed and simpered as he sang! Oh, what a miserable, little, insignificant, silly young man was he. Then he hissed at me. 'Ah, I frighten you do I? ... I dare say! ... Perhaps you think that I have another mask, eh, and that this ... This ... My head is a mask? Well,' he roared, 'tear it off as you did the other! Come! Your hands! Give me your hands!' And he seized my hands and dug them into his awful face. He tore his flesh with my nails, tore his terrible dead flesh with my nails! ... 'know that I am built up of death from head to foot and that it is a corpse that loves you and adores you and will never, never leave you! ..."