Buch lesen: «Vanished»

The author's word

This work is done in the style of "a story with a choice of actions". Although there are "blocks" of text in it, you are free to choose your path according to the choices provided and go to the chapters that are named accordingly.

The author sincerely hopes that you will not neglect this advice and will not read the text completely and immediately – because then the whole essence of the uniqueness of this work will be lost.

Part 1 >| introduction |<

You climb over the fence and get into the garden of the mansion. Although you understand that all this is illegal, but you do not have the authority of a policeman, and even those will not help you.

Involuntarily you look around. You are surrounded by trees and shrubs, but their appearance, considering that it is not autumn, is completely strange: the foliage on them has turned yellow and has completely fallen off on some. It would seem that it could be the fault of the servants who overlooked, however, even a superficial knowledge about plants to understand – the problem here is something else. These can be found in almost every garden and on the street, but their appearance is now significantly dissimilar. You can't help thinking that the problem may be in the infected land, but you need to move on.

As you know from the rumors: the owner of this mansion disappeared a few days ago, but what you see in front of you suggests that no one has lived here for several years.

Trying to move carefully so as not to catch the eye of random witnesses once again, you walked on through the garden. Eventually, you noticed a path that led, perhaps, further to the house.

– get closer to the mansion

– inspect the backyard

– bypass the mansion

– inspect the trees

Part 2 >| inspect the trees |<

You approached one of the trees, wanting to understand what could have affected such a strong plant. A simple bad weather did not affect them so much. However, the bark of the tree looked completely normal. You are becoming more and more confirmed in your guesses that the problem is in the soil. With the toe of your shoe, you push the leaves aside: the grass under them has turned into a liquefied something, a pleasant home for worms, but you can't remember a single toxic substance that could create such a thing.

– get closer to the mansion

– inspect the backyard

– bypass the mansion

Part 3 >| get closer to the mansion |<

You went on, presumably in the direction of the house. At some point, you actually notice a two-story mansion. Even at first glance, you notice: the building is relatively old, but you would never call it dilapidated. With its gloominess, the house did not stand out from the general atmosphere of desolation. Only when you get closer, you see that its doors are boarded up, and a cross is carved on one of them. It all seems strange to you, but you continue the inspection.

The path led towards the exit, where the porch and the gate, and then – bypassing the mansion. Not far from the door you notice an empty bowl, but even traces of any animal you did not notice.

In any case, right now it is difficult for you to open the doors of the mansion – it would be worth finding something with which to break down the doors or a workaround.

– inspect the backyard

– bypass the mansion

Part 4 >| inspect the backyard |<

Heading to the left side along the path, you came out into the backyard of the mansion. The same sickly appearance of the trees instilled in you a depressing feeling of losing something beautiful. In fact: if you only wanted to, you could imagine the former beauty of the garden. Although now it smells of death and desolation, yet you notice an elegantly executed gazebo made of white marble. Its thin columns were wrapped around withered branches of an ornamental plant, and you could hardly see the benches – under layers of fallen leaves.

In general, in this place you could not notice something more or less necessary for the case: the forgotten and abandoned things of the former owner and servants lay almost everywhere. From what there was a desire to leave this place as soon as possible.

For a moment you freeze when it seems to you that you saw a shadow at one of the columns, but after a moment you think about it: could it have just seemed to you? In any case, there are clearly no things that can help you get into the house – it's worth continuing the inspection further.

– get closer to the mansion

– bypass the mansion

Part 5 >| bypass the mansion |<

After some time you came to the most inconspicuous part of the garden. There was nothing interesting here, except a pile of tools, a rake and a broken scythe. The hatch cover leading down somewhere stood out a little. However, nothing more. The plants here looked no better than in other places. It all seemed extremely depressing, gloomy and completely lifeless. If you hadn't read the reports, you would have decided that this mansion was abandoned several generations ago.

After thinking, you examined the pile of tools. In addition to the broken ones, there was a crowbar – you could easily break down the boards with it, as well as the doors. When you approached the hatch and tried to push it aside, you were surprised to find that it was completely unlocked. Whether someone tried to escape from home or they just forgot to lock him up – you couldn't say for sure. However, you need to go somewhere to continue the inspection of the house.

– go back and break the doors

– go down to the basement

Part 6 >| go back and break the doors |<

Approaching the tools, you pulled a scrap from the general pile. Unfortunately for you, he touched something and a white bone appeared in the light. You didn't touch it, just carefully examined it. Obviously, this is a bone of a fairly large animal, possibly legs. Completely gnawed, as if specially prepared by someone to intimidate guests. You wouldn't have given it much thought if it weren't for the furrows of strange cuts. It seemed that someone was wielding a knife on her, but could not sketch a decent pattern.

In any case, you preferred to leave everything as it is for now, and return to the door.

With an effort, you break into the boarded-up doors. You only need one more strong blow to open them. You understand that these actions are increasingly leading you towards too unpleasant events, but you intend to go further – after all, this is the only way you can understand what really happened here.

– entrance to the lobby

Part 7 >| go down to the basement |<

You opened the hatch with an effort, but only froze for a moment when you noticed a barely discernible dark spot. You tried to touch it, but it felt like a tree. The spot itself stretched from the hatch cover, along the edges of the entrance, slowly slipping away somewhere into the darkness. Still determined, you confidently step on the steps that lead down, although the fact of the strange spot still alerted you.

For a few moments you heard only the confident sound of your boots, until you went down to the basement, pausing somewhere in the middle of the stairs. You were strongly alerted by a barely discernible putrid smell of some kind of decomposition. You could call it sweet, but there were no exact examples with which you could associate it. Maybe it's a dead animal, maybe the waste of a strange substance that poisoned the soil in the garden, maybe something in between these facts, only in this darkness you could hardly distinguish the last steps and the floor. Everything that turned out to be on the sides of the basement is simply hidden in darkness.

The very last steps of the descent turned out to be uncertain for you – you had an extremely vague idea of where to go next and only guessed that the entry to the mansion itself would be somewhere ahead.

Almost blindly you had to move on. More than once you stumbled over something on the floor, but whether by the will of luck, but you kept your balance. In the end, you stopped when your shoulder brushed another staircase that led up. You went upstairs without hesitation, and only at the moment when your eyes began to distinguish objects again, do you realize that you have entered the warehouse. A completely small room where there was a free exit, presumably to the kitchen or dining room – the furniture indicated this, as did the kitchen items. The second exit was closed by an ordinary door. You didn't see the lock on it.

After a quick look around, you noticed that there are a lot of boxes here – on the shelves, as well as on the floor, which could have contained anything, but now they are opened and empty.

– entrance to the kitchen

– open the door to the writing room