Inheritance Chapter 6

[eiahmon]

Title: Inheritance
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Amnesia: The Dark Descent and its settings and characters belong to Frictional Games. I’m only borrowing them for a while.
Summary: AU When Alexander Kesler gets a letter, which claims that she is the only descendant of Alexander of Brennenburg, she is compelled to go investigate. She soon wishes that she hadn’t.

6.
A Loss

I stumbled backwards and fell down onto the chair that was in front of the desk, staring at the portrait the entire time. Needless to say, I really, really did not relish the idea that I had been led around by someone that was for all intents and purposes a serial murderer. As soon as that thought crossed my mind, a gust of wind roared through the closed room, which reminded me of the other times such a thing had happened.

"Didn't like to hear the truth?" I said out loud. I knew I was treading on thin ice - I had heard tales of violent ghosts that could attack the living, and I had no idea if Alexander was one of those types. Of course a murderer in life would have no problems with being one in death.

Enough of that! Alexander snapped angrily You know nothing of which you speak!

I snorted. "Enlighten me then. No wait, better yet, don't enlighten me. If you're like every other murderer out there, you have a perfectly good excuse for what you did. So what is yours? Did your mommy tell you that you couldn't have any dessert after supper, or did Daddy ignore you? Better yet, did your wife leave you for another man? C'mon, which is it?"

You know nothing! he snarled quietly, and I stood up.

"It doesn't matter anyway." I said as I walked through the door to the larger room and began to remove the barricade I had piled up in front of the other door. "I'm leaving, and once I'm out of this God accursed place, I'm going to have it razed to the ground. Then I'll sell the property to some developer and go home."

No, you can't! Strangely, he sounded a little frantic, and I wondered why for a brief moment before I decided that that it didn't matter.

"Watch me." I said as I walked down the hall back towards the back hall. I was going to find a nice place to hide, hopefully someplace behind those wards that that diary entry or whatever it was mentioned, and wait for the storm to pass. Once it was gone, I could walk to the nearby village, and from there it would be a car to the law office that had called me. I was getting the hell out of Brennenburg as soon as possible.

I reached the metal door that led to the back hall, and I pressed my ear against it for a moment. Hearing nothing, I eased it open and peaked out. The hall appeared deserted, so I cautiously stepped out -

Please, Alexandra.

- and crept down the landing towards the door that led into the hallway that led back to my rooms and, eventually, to the front entrance. The door was standing open, but just before I reached it, it slammed shut. The sound echoed loudly in the high ceilinged room, and I didn't dare attempt to open it. A part of me did think that it could have been Alexander that had closed it, but it could have been one of his little friends as well. I walked down the stairs with the intention of heading down into the storage area to find a place to hide. For some reason, I just didn't like the idea of going into the guest room, nor did I was to go down the hallway leading back to Alexander's rooms. It had been infested with those eldritch abominations before, and I had no reason to believe that they were gone. Other than the storage and the door from the cellar archives that I had come from, there were no other exits from the hall, and I did not want to go through the archives again. I walked across the hall, passed the fountain, and to the flight of steps that led down to the door that opened into storage, and then I snarled in frustration when I heard a growl from the other side of the door, and something body slammed against it. I turned back to go back upstairs into the guest room, bad feelings be damned, when I looked up and spotted a few more of those things standing up there looking down at me. I expected them to rush at me, but to my surprise they did not. Instead they simply began shambling calmly down the staircase by the storage entrance towards me.

I backed away from them slowly, unwilling to take my eyes off of them, even as it made my mind (Not to mention my lower jaw. Yeouch!) screech in pain to look at them. I vaguely thought that I was going to need to scrub out my skull with brain bleach and mental floss by the time I was free of this place, and I had to clamp down on the hysterical laughter that wanted to boil up at the idea. The teleporting closet monster squad just casually shambled (Is that even possible? I wondered.) down towards me, and before I knew it, I felt my back hit the wall at the bottom of the staircase on the study side of the hall. Or rather, I hit a banner that was hanging on the wall, and I came to the obvious yet so very nasty realization that they had me trapped. There was no where to go.

Unless...

The note that I had read in Alexander’s rooms had mentioned a way to the Prison from the back hall, which meant that there was another exit somewhere. I knew where the other doors led, so that left the wall I was standing against. I stretched out a hand and started to feel around, and soon my left hand encountered what felt like a door handle under the heavy material of the banner. Deciding that opening the door was more important than keeping my eyes on the things in the with me, I turned around, pushed the banner aside, spotted the door, and flung it open. It opened into a large room, with many tall columns leading down to a single opening in the far wall that was flanked by twin lion statues. I spotted another door on the left wall, but it was heavily barred, so it was definitely not an option. I heard the monsters snarling and growling in anger behind me, so I sprinted towards the door at the other end. Behind me, I heard a tearing sound which I figured was them pulling the banner down, followed by them running after me.

I was barely halfway across when I noticed that the doorway led only to a tiny space barely four feet square. By the time my brain processed the information that it was a dead end, I ran into it and had to throw the hand that wasn’t holding my lamp up to keep from slamming face first into the back wall. I spun around just in time to see Mr. Flappyface slam the gates closed over the doorway, trapping me inside. I looked around the tiny room for any kind of escape, and I spotted the lever sticking up from the floor. With a shaking hand, I reached out and pulled the lever down. With a hiss of steam and a jarring that shook the entire car, the elevator that I was standing in began to descend.

Speed wise, it couldn't hope to contend with the express elevators in Taipei 101, but it suited me just fine. I sagged against the corner as it descended past three or four floors and then past a solid rock face. I sank to the floor, closed my eyes, and allowed myself to relax for a moment, glad that I was away from those unspeakable baddies.

Wait a minute.

Didn't the note say that the elevator connected the back hall to the prison?

Damn it.

I groaned as the elevator came to a stop, and I looked through the gates to see a large room with stone walls and a stone floor that was dimly lit by a few candle stands. I thought about taking the elevator back up, but then I realized that those things were likely waiting for me upstairs, so I got to my feet with a sigh and pushed the gates open and stepped out. I picked my way across the debris littered floor to metal gate that was in surprisingly good condition. A wall mounted torch provided flickering light, but beyond that the hallway was swallowed by total blackness.

"Are there any more of your friends in here, Alexander?" I asked out loud "Should I be worried about being disemboweled once I step around the corner?" I felt a sense of anger and irritation, and then he responded:

No. On no commands of mine do they roam this castle.

“So all those stories got it completely wrong? It was just a coincidence that all those people vanished on your watch?”

You know nothing, foolish child. he all but snarled, and I snorted in derision as I stepped through the gate into the hallway beyond.

“Then enlighten me, damn it, instead of speaking in riddles.” I replied as I lit my lamp. He didn’t respond to that, so I cautiously edged down the corridor, listening for anything else that may be in the area with me. At first I didn’t hear anything, so I crept down the hall and followed it when it turned left. I shivered as I walked; the atmosphere was very oppressive, and the very walls seemed to ooze misery and despair. I had only been in there for a few minutes, but I couldn't wait to get out. The place just made my skin crawl.

I walked down the hall, and when I passed a second hallway that led off to the right someplace, I began to hear faint sounds, though at first I couldn't identify them. I passed another hallway, this one leading off to the left, went up a flight of stairs, and it was then that I realized that the sounds sounded human. Despite my best judgment I followed the sounds to the right, down a short flight of steps and to a heavy wooden door with a small barred window. On the other side was a hallway extending down a short ways to a T intersection. A torch on the wall at the intersection was lit, which allowed me a clear view of the deserted hallway. The door was unlocked, so I cautiously opened it and headed down the hall. I passed a door on my right, and when I reached the intersection, I saw a flight of steps leading to a door on the right and a hallway that went down and turned a corner on the left. I opted to go right for now, so I went up the stairs and grabbed the door handle. I gave the door a quick rattling shake to see if there was anything on the other side. When nothing went "Rawr!" in response to the noise, I carefully eased the door open and peeked inside. My brief look revealed a large open room with no sign of any unfriendlies, so I opened the door all the way and stepped in.

I walked into what appeared to be a kitchen of sorts, though modern appliances were no where in sight. There was an open fire pit to the left, complete with fire crackling away under a hook and spit. There were also a few tables and shelves with crockery and rotting rations. Beyond that were two stone half walls which sectioned off a storage area, and beyond that two more storage areas, which to judge by the buzzing flies, held something rotten. There was a pathway leading straight back to the back of the room, and I could see a metal drum of some kind lying on the floor back there, heavily corroded and full of holes. Not seeing anything of use, except for a small jar of oil and a tinderbox that were sitting on a shelf by the door, which I quickly picked up, I turned and walked out of the room and down the hall. I passed by the hallway I had come from and past a boarded up hole in the wall before the hallway ended in a staircase going up and to the right. At the top the hallway turned right and went down to another T intersection, though the path straight ahead was blocked off my a cave in, leaving me with no other option but to go left.

I hadn't gone far down the now dark hall - the last lit torch had been at the intersection before the kitchen - when I came across yet another T intersection. I took the left turn, and followed it down and around a corner to another three way. I turned left down the branching hall, and before too long I came across two doors, one on each side of the hallway. The door on the right was dark, but the one on the left had the flicker light of a candle shining through, so I peeked through the barred window and got a surprise.

"Walther!" I fumbled for a moment before I was able to open the simple latch that kept the door from being opened from the inside and threw it open. Walther was on the floor, apparently unconscious with chains on his wrists and ankles. I also noted the large black and bleeding knot on the side of his head.

I knelt down beside him and shook him. "Walther!" He groaned quietly before he blinked his eyes open and looked at me like he had no idea who I was for a brief moment.

"Ms. Kesler?" he asked in confusion, and I nodded.

"What are you doing down here, Walther?" I asked as I looked at the ugly bump on his head.

"I do not know." he replied with a wince, as if the sound of his own voice was painful to hear "I was in Altstadt, and I must have been ambushed from behind. I cannot remember anything else. What are you doing down here, Ms Kesler?"

I told him about the night's events, and about how Alexander was following me around and talking to me. Walther's face darkened at that.

"You mustn't trust him, Ms. Kesler." he said firmly "You mustn't pay attention to anything he says."

"I don't plan to. Not after he sicked his little friends on me multiple times. We've got to get out of here. Where in the hell is the key to these chains?"

Walther pulled himself to a sitting position and told me to pay attention. “There is a store room down here; it should have a spare key in there.”

“Where is the store room?”

“Go out of this room and go right. Go back down to the intersection and turn right again. Go down the hall, go straight and turn left when the hallway does. Follow it to another intersection and turn right a third time. Go all the way to the end and turn right again. There will be a short flight of stairs. Go down them and follow the hallway to the store room. The key should be in there, somewhere. Can you remember that?"

I nodded fervently, and I stood up.

“Ms, Kesler,” Walther said as I turned to walk out, and I turned back to look at him. “Put out your lamp.” I blinked in incomprehension. “You are safer in the dark. I don’t know what those things are, but they night vision seems to be very poor, so put your lamp out.” I swallowed heavily and nodded in understanding, and then I blew out my light source. I then walked out of the cell and closed the door behind me. I went back the way I came, but I had to use the wall to find my way, because it was pitch black without my lamp, and I could see nothing. The walls felt damp and slimy, and I kept wanting to wipe my hand off on my shirt. I kept repeating Walther’s directions in my head like a mantra, and I soon came to the hallway that led off to the right that I had come from. I went past it and continued straight, and soon the hallway turned left like Walther said it would, so I followed it down until I reached the intersection. The hallway that went off to the right was brightly lit, so I had to spend a minute letting my eyes adjust to the sudden brightness before I could move on. The corridor was a mirror on the one I had found Walther in, with two cells halfway down its length. I walked down the hall, fairly relaxed an at ease, since I had not encountered any baddies since taking the elevator down. I cruised down the hall, down the stairs, and down the short hallway to the store room. The small room was lit by a torch and three walls were lined with shelves that were cluttered with all manner of things. I had to dig around for a few minutes before I found a heavy iron key lying on a top shelf behind a box.

I stuffed the key in a pocket of my - Alexander's - coat and then cheerfully walked out of the room. With the key I would be able to free Walther, and then the two of us could get out of this damned place, and then I could have the place leveled.

Please Alexandra...

I ignored Alexander and walked down the hall back to the darkened area. I decided that since there were no monsters about, I might as well use my lamp, so I lit it and made my way back to Walther.

I had just rounded the corner at the right turn just before the intersection that branched off to where Walter was, when I heard the most spine chilling sound. It was a moan, but in no way could it be described as anything remotely human. It was long and drawn out, and I damn near dropped my lamp, and I scuttled backwards in terror and huddled down in the corner.

Put out your lamp, child! Alexander commanded, and I had just enough presence of mind to do so as I heard a voice that at first sounded nothing like Walther pleading in German. That was followed by the sounds of rattling chains and then the thing - it sure as hell wasn't the malformed monsters I had seen earlier - make something that sounded halfway between a moan and a snarl. I curled up in a ball and couldn't help the whimper that escaped, and I hid my face in my knees and cringed as I heard some kind of weapon tearing into flesh as Walther's gruesome screams echoed down the hallways. The screams ended abruptly in a gurgling sigh, and I had to bite back my own horrified scream, as the new thing moaned again. This was followed by the sound of something walking down the hall towards the other end, and the sound of something being dragged. I pressed myself as far against the wall as I could go and just waited for it to disappear.

I remained huddled against the wall in the corner for I don't know how long, and when I finally mustered the nerve to pick myself up, I shakily reached into a pocket to get my cell phone. But my hands were shaking to hard to keep a hold of such a small object, and it slipped through my fingers to bounced off the floor. It skittered off into the darkness, and I moaned myself when I heard the distinct sound of something within it breaking when it landed. I couldn't see it - I couldn't even see the wall I was standing by - and after what I had just heard I wasn't about to light my lamp to look for it. I had no choice but to leave it wherever it was and move on. I took a deep breath and walked on, leaving my last hope of contact with the outside world lying broken on the floor somewhere behind me.

When I came to the intersection, I didn't want to go back down towards where Walther had been, but I had to check on him, even as I knew what I was going to find. The candle in the cell was still lit, so it allowed a little light to see by as I made my towards the door. It also made me visible to anything that may have been lurking, so I was a nervous wreck by the time I reached the cell.

The door was open, and I nervously peeked around the doorframe to see a blood splattered cell, but no sign of Walther. There was blood everywhere; on the walls, floor, and the ceiling, and I knew that no one could have lived through losing so much blood. I sagged against the door frame and stared at the macabre scene in front of me.

"How could you, Alexander?" I whispered, but he was silent and did not answer. Rage boiled up at his silence. "How could you!"

Be silent, child! he snapped, which only made me angrier.

"He was innocent! What did he do to piss you off? Was it because he was going to lead me out of here? I guess you aren't going to be happy until I'm dead too! Is that it, Alexander, you murderer!

Alexandra!

"No, you don't have the right to speak my name! I don't want to hear your voice, so just shut up!"

Alexandra!

"Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP! I don't want to hear -"

Another inhuman moan interrupted my tirade, and this time, instinct took over before I had a chance to engage my brain. I ran down the dark hall, back towards the three way, but it was so dark that I could see where I was going, but it didn't matter. I was so desperate to get away from the source of that chilling sound that I ran without thinking. By the time my mind was able to reassert control over my body, I had no idea where I was. I was at the end of a long dark corridor, up against a door that led into another hallway. I through about going through the door, but the shiny new padlock on it put an end to that thought quickly. I was between the door and small stack of wooden crates, so I crouched down for a moment while I decided what to do. I had no idea where in the prison I was, or even if I was still in the prison. I didn't think I had left it during my panicked run, but one never knew.

I shifted a bit, and I heard the key that I had picked up jingling in my pocket. They key! Maybe it would open the door! Grinning with excitement, I fished the key out of my pocket and inserted it into the lock, but to my disappointment, it went in, but it wouldn't turn. I tried a few times before I gave it up as a bad job. Figuring that I would never get out of here if I just huddled in the dark, I stood up, stuffed the key back in my pocket, took up my lamp (All the while being amazed that it hadn't been dropped or broken during my run.) and went down the hallway towards who knows where. I reached another three way, and this time I went right, down a short corridor to a gate. This one was locked with a heavy iron padlock, and I tried the key in pocket again and this time met with success. The gate swung open on silent hinges, and I walked through it and down a short distance to another metal door.

I walked through the door and sighed in relief as light flooded my sight, even as I winched in pain at the sudden brightness. I was in a large brick lined structure, that made me think of a well, though it was much, much larger than that. I guessed that it was about five or so stories tall, and a grate opened to the outside at the top, which made me wish I could climb walls like a spider. I was standing at one end of a stone bridge, or rather, what had once been a stone bridge. The center of it had collapsed at some point, and instead a wooden ladder had been put in it's place, which allowed me to climb down to the floor one level below. There were two doors on the same level that I had started on, but there was no way to reach them. The stairs leading up to them had fallen down as well, and only the rusted remains of chains hanging from the sloped walls hinted that there may have been bridges at one time. That left me with only one other option, so I climbed over the rubble of the collapsed bridge and walked through a doorway and down a short hall to a set of stone U shaped stairs. I followed them down and they eventually led to another metal door. As I opened it and walked through it, I began to wonder just how far underground I was.

I stepped through the door and was immediately hit by the smell of water. I was in a small room with a gate at the other end, and when I opened it and walked through I was greeted by a ladder which led down into water that looked to be about knee deep. Stuffing my lamp as best as I could in a pocket, I carefully climbed down the ladder and stepped off into the water, unable to contain a yelp at the water's frigid temperature. I walked just a few feet forward when I heard that dreaded moan again. This time I just barely managed to clamp down on the primal terror that surged up from somewhere in my psyche, and I darted over to the left and crouched down in the water next to a support pillar as the clanking of metal combined with the splashing of something walking through the water let m know that something was coming. And this time, the area was too brightly lit to hide in the shadows. I squeezed my eyes shut, pressed myself as close as I could to the wall and hoped for the best as whatever it was moved closer.

Chapter 5 -- Chapter 7
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