On the red wallpaper, my status was Captured. It was probably true about all of us, but Carousel didn't clue us in until we had actually seen why.
I ran as fast as I could, with the elk-like creature on my tail for quite a few minutes. If it was trying to catch and kill , it could have, but it seed much more interested in intimidating , making its blood-curdling cry, and smashing its antlers against any object it saw.
When I finally felt like I was getting so distance on it, my radio crackled to life.
"Riley, slow down. You're running blind," Marcus said in a calm voice.
"Well, I gotta run sohow," I said. "That thing is behind . Where are you?"
"Still here, partner," he said.
I continued moving forward, and as I did, I realized that the rooms I was entering were bigger and bigger. They were poorly furnished, less finished.
I finally found a place to catch my breath once the sound of the Wapasha faded into the distance. I had been On-Screen so of the ti, as Carousel cut between all of us.
"Marcus, I'm getting so funny ideas about what's going on here," I said. "Either you're not really dead, or I am, right? How else am I hearing you right now?"
"You’re not dead," Marcus said after a beat. “I’m—"
I looked around the room for a bit, waiting for him to continue. We had gone Off-Screen. Sothing must have been happening sowhere else because it sounded like he was in the middle of saying sothing.
I looked back the way I had co, and the path was completely different from the way it had been. Sohow, I never heard the wood move.
A mont later, I was back On-Screen, and Marcus continued just where he left off. "I'm soplace better, but you're not supposed to be here."
I tried to give the right performance. If anyone knew what it felt like to end up in so version of the afterlife a little early, it should be a player at the ga at Carousel. And yet, it was still hard to play it right. As far as existential questions went, it was hard to surprise at that point. How should I have been acting? Scared? Reverent?
"Where the hell am I?" I asked finally.
"A crossing place," Marcus said. "I couldn't believe it when I heard you were coming. This is a fine place to walk, this forest, but it's not a good place to stay. We have to get you out of here."
I looked from left to right at the paths the house had left for .
"This way," Marcus said, but this ti he wasn't speaking into my radio. I just heard his voice down one of the hallways nearby, and I followed.
As I walked, I would occasionally hear snippets of attempted communication on my walkie-talkie, Molly’s voice, Nicole’s, Camden’s, all distorted, all a million miles away, talking about the stairs, talking about the room changing, occasionally even saying my na, but I couldn't quite make out what they wanted.
I went Off-Screen for a ti and then back On-Screen. It was only then that I realized that Second Blood had passed.
This was certainly an oddball story. Nothing was really trying to kill aside from the elk, which had been content just to scare . Ti was passing by, and soon the finale would end, and if we didn't escape, that would be it.
What a bumr.
My fans in the Manifest Consortium would be so disappointed if I got defeated by a story like this one.
Of course, we wouldn't let that happen. If it ca down to it, we could always burn our way out. We didn't have to succeed on the first try, but we would still do our best.
The static and voices on my radio continued for a while until I was finally On-Screen, and Marcus acknowledged again.
I could see flashes of him as a person, just a regular dude, but when my eyes looked in that direction and focused, all I would see was a figure faded into the wood, with eyes and a mouth made of nothing but patterns in the grain, a fignt of my imagination, almost.
"Ignore the voices," Marcus said. "Everyone is safe. They're just scared. No one knows what to expect until they get here. I sure didn't."
Ah. We were having a character mont.
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"I'm sorry about that," I said. "I should have done sothing. I should have called in a robbery sowhere in the distance to get all the black-and-whites out of the area. I've been thinking about it, and that's what I should have done."
There was a pause as Marcus seed to consider what I said.
"Nah, that's a load of crap," he said. "It was my own damn fault. You told to leave, and I got greedy. This place gives you peace about those kinds of things, well, mostly."
Sohow, the fake relationship that I had with this character I had barely t was still striking a chord for . I was familiar with the emotional toll of not being able to get the people you love out of danger in ti.
Of course, the fact that we were straight-up criminals in this storyline tamped down the emotional connection a bit.
"Did you see what we ca here for?" I asked, laughing. "Red Jack Bellanti’s secret treasure?"
"No, I didn’t see that," Marcus said. "But I might have seen Bellanti. I just didn’t realize it was him. He’s not having a happy ti right now. The folks waiting here for him have been waiting a while, haven’t they? And they are happy to chase him through the forest. Poor guy. You need to turn to the right up here. One of your people is up ahead. Is that Dina Cano I see up there, and little Sean? Right this way."
It was hard to describe, but I felt like Marcus was right there with , right there in the woods, walking through it as if it were a forest trail. I could even catch glimpses where the wood panels on the walls turned to trees, and he walked behind them, wearing a red shirt that billowed in the wind, and I could never get a good look at him.
As I followed him, I walked into a room where a person was holding a flashlight at an angle, and as I shone my light at them, I realized it was, indeed, Dina, hugging her son Sean. He was just as I recognized him from the Post Traumatic storyline, well, a bit younger, probably around the age he was when he actually died.
"There," Marcus said. "Do you see her?"
"I see her," I said. "Dina," I asked. It was like she didn’t even notice I had been there. She was so happy to see her son again, as if the pain was fresh.
She looked up at and said, "He found . He found , Riley."
Unlike Marcus, Sean wasn’t hidden behind trees. Dina's tropes gave her extra privileges.
"He’s a restless little fellow," Marcus said. "Always trying to get back to the other side."
No kidding.
"Sean," I said. "You look good, kid."
What was I supposed to say?
"What's up?" he said, like he wasn't weirded out by anything that was going on.
"I missed you so much," Dina said. "Every day."
"I know, I know," Sean said as he pushed her away when she tried to kiss him. "But what are you doing here? You're here way too early."
"I have no idea," Dina said with a laugh. "I was just visiting a house, and now I'm here with you."
Sean looked confused.
"What house?" he asked.
Clearly, they saw this place differently than we did, but still, as I looked around, I was starting to get an idea of what it was they perceived.
Just as I had seen when I first entered Lark House when we were looking for the On, I was beginning to see the trees more clearly. And in the distance, I could swear I saw people, and many other things that were never people.
The giggling spirits. The giant skeletal elk grazing in the distance.
It was beautiful.
"It's all the forest, isn't it?" I asked. "Just unending?"
"It's everything," Marcus said. "It's every place. You just have to know how to look."
We were Off-Screen for a little bit, and we weren't able to talk to Marcus, but Sean still talked.
Eventually, we went back On-Screen and started walking where Marcus led us. He was taking us sowhere.
I didn't know where until we turned the corner and saw Bobby. He wasn't alone. He was talking to a wooden wall, or at least, that's what my eyes told at first, until I got a better look and saw that Jules was there, in the forest.
I had wondered what happened to Bobby's NPC companion. He had used the trope for her, but I hadn't seen any signs she existed. But there she was, standing in the forest. There were also a large number of random ghost dogs and cats around—old friends of Bobby's character.
When Bobby noticed us, he looked at and said, "Look who found ."
"Jules," I asked. "Odd place to run into you."
I had no reference for who she was playing as a character, so I was winging it.
"Riley," she said, "you still pick terrible jobs."
She was making a dig at , I imagined, probably talking about our choice of storyline.
"She was trying to show the way out," Bobby said, "but we can't find it."
"The forest wasn’t built for exits," Jules said. "Only keeping things in or letting things through. We're trying, Riley, but there's no path."
Then Marcus joined in. "She's right. This place is a boundary, a fence for the dead, not a highway. I still don't understand how you guys got in here. You go for a hike?"
"Sothing like that," I said.
"So what do we do?" Dina asked.
And like many tis before, when a question like that got asked, people looked to .
"Mom says you're really smart," Sean said. "You figure things out."
Great. Build up so I can fail more spectacularly.
First things first, we needed to gather everyone together for the scene where I lay out the plan.
"Marcus, have you seen Molly?" I asked. It made sense that he would know her, since she was one of our criminal associates.
"She's walking with so other folks," he said. "I think her grandma is trying to show her the way out, but they're lost. This way."
For the next few minutes, Marcus led us through hallways and doorways, and large rooms and small rooms, until eventually we walked into a large bedroom where Camden, Nicole, and Molly were waiting with the ghosts that had been assigned to their characters.
Camden's ghost appeared to be the thief he had hired, whose body we had found in the wall.
"So are we just going to be here forever?" Nicole asked after we had reunited and spoke for a bit. "I an, if it cos to it, can't we just burn the place down?"
"Sims tried that," Camden said. "That's what killed him."
Camden saying that On-Screen ant we were locked in. We needed a new strategy. I looked around the room, at the wood itself.
This final battle wasn’t a fight; it was just a strategy ga. And we had to co up with tactics that would let us escape. Nicole even had a trope that would empower that sort of gaplay. We had no idea how useful it might end up being.
"I think I know a way out," I said.
"There he is," Marcus said from sowhere in the forest beyond. "There he is."
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