I know I said this was Short Story Weekly, but when inspiration strikes, many short stories can grow to overinflated their original parameters. I'm personally sorry for those who've waited for the conclusion, but unless I'm struck dead, i assure you that it will be complete by next week! Thank you for your continued support! I hope you enjoy Part 2 of The Harrowing Inhertience.
Jacob took in hand the talisman with the family insignia, it shined with a precise brightness that sparkled with God's fury with every lightning crash against the glass solarium. He nestled it closely to his heart, and felt the cool metal against his sweaty chest. Without a moment's waste, he hoisted the bag of items over his shoulder, knowing that they would surely be his only chance of survival.
He began to step out of the solarium, practically back into the hall, when he set off a snare, and was elevated upwards, trapped and staring down directly onto the mulched-covered floors. Like an annoying clock that chimes in at your love west, most embarrassing moment, the voice of Uncle Meebles roared over the loud speakers.
"Ah Jacob, my dear sweet boy, if you keep this up, you'll set off every trap from here to the basement! Oh, don't be so enthusiastic to just run down there, even if you can escape that gnarled snare, for the basement is not the end trajectory, but rather your next milestone! Think of it as the end of the lagoon, and the quarter mark of your quest. Oh but I promise, it won't be as easy as 3.14 repeating to get there! Be careful though! Something tells me you're not alone down there!"
Jacob cut himself down with the blade inside the burlap sack, and fell with a gradual thud to the ground. Therein lied his first mistake, because instead of the soft sod that seemed to be decaying everywhere, there was instead a hefty bit of stone walk lovingly placed there instead, and it nearly ruptured Jacob's spleen as he moaned out in anguish.
The second mistake was not first looking before he plummeted, as he was indeed far from being alone, as a gurgling came from his left, as he pulled himself up from pavement. The scales were hefted with spikes and razor-sharp edges full of Ecoli and bone-crushing machinery.
This was the time that Jacob realized that his Uncle Meeples was absolutely, without a shadow-of-a-doubt, batshit insane. The crocodile was lanky, undernourished it seemed for what might have been weeks. It was monstrous in form, and gallant with its mouth liberally full of crooked teeth. Jacob's thud, along with the crackly playing of the loudspeaker must've roused the creature from whatever nest of mud it was hiding under, and it looked hungry.
Jacob backed up quickly from the open maw of the beast's bite,,and kicked at the plank-shaped head, attempting to crawl towards the exit. He sliced and threatened the ancient wonder with the infantile blade, but the beast's instincts was fit on survival, and that meant feeding in Jacob's bones. With a lasting kick to the beast's face, he swiveled out of the way,closing the glass door behind him, and huffing and puffing with enthusiam and fright.
The lower corridor was brightened only by the constant, eplieptic lighting flashes, which made Jacob nearly sick to his stomach. Having almost been eaten by a crocodile didn't help to settle the stomach, either; but he was determined to survive the night. The talisman licked it's teeth with gleaming delight, the hyena laughing hysterically at him, assessing his situation, and finding hubris in theoretical outcome. Jacob wasn't going to allow for a shining medal of his lineage to play any part in his sense of absolute fear, he was going to go forward and win.
Down the stairs towards the lower garage, Jacob felt the drafty chill of the night's chaos, and the shimmering frightened child thwt was inside him yelped, but the greedy, Harrowing blood in his veins screamed for him to "keep going!", and so he moved swiftly down into the basement below the garage, following up from the message he received from the loudspeaker. Uncle Meeples knew him well enough to know that he was going to absolutely hate going through the basement.
The message said to check In the basement for his next clue. Jacob clearly remembered horrible, torturous summers of being placed down the re to catch rats, and his mother always said it was a good way to build up character, and make him stronger. His fear of basements was not because of the rats, or spiders, not even the wretched cockroaches that stay housed to the slippery cement walls, it was just the isolation, almost like a punishment, for being seen weaker than the rest of the family.
His greatest fear wa to never be accepted, and always be the weakest, daintiest member of the pack. His mother was always disapproving, as if it were his fault he was the way he was, and thwt he never truly loved her. He was also the last to ever participate in Finder's Frog. Why didn't he ever actually take the game seriously? Always off in his own world, thinking it more exciting than the world in front of him. He never had friends, not even when he went off to college, and escaped the clutches of his family. We did he come back? Cause he was desperate, and the family fortune would erase any problems he'd come across in the past ten years.
The garage door opened, and welcomed Jacob into the giant underground hanger that housed almost every car ever owned by the family since the Model A. It was a marvel of architectural achievement, and if he wasn't terrified out of his mind, Jacob would've been able to admire the automobiles of nearly every caliber. He wasn't a gearhead, but he could appreciate a good make and model.
The door to the basement was in front of him,,and with a great deal of hesitance, he laid his palm on the icy cold doorknob, and began to lightly turn it, until he heard the click, and let the door practically open on it's own. Like clockwork, the scratchy noise of the loudspeaker playing the phonograph recording kicked on, and it was followed by a great deal of loud static. It was ear-piercing to the point that Jacob had to cover his ears, in-hopes they'd not bleed from the miasma of painful noise.
"Sorry about that Jacob, it appears the sound mixer decided to go and die on me in the studio, well, it didn't help that I've placed a penknife through his boorish heart! Ha! So I'll be doing the rest of my recordings from here-on-out. A pity he wasn't more cooperative, he would've been paied handsomely, but now he's just bleeding out, and will most likely not seeing tomorrow. So by now you've opened the basement door, I'm sure thwt must be chock full of horrible memories for you, but have no fear! There will be no crocodiles, or rats, well, there weren't any by the time I set this up, so don't quote me now! And I'm certain their will be no other horrible deadly things to await you, unlike Finder. Remember what happened to Finder at the edge of the lagoon? He was sitting by the last basin, and it was dark, and deep with the painful sorrow of those lost sons who went off to adventure? The tears of mothers flowed greatly turning but a puddle of spit into the deepest hole of the lagoon. The Sogoths called it the Infinite Pity Basin. Do you recall what Finder had to do, before his adventure truly began? Do you think my sister cried tears for you on her deathbed, knowing she would leave this world and still have you be the wretched coward you are? Does she cry for her lost soul, or a son lost since birth? Go through the door, Jscob, and receive your redemption!"
The voice clicked off, and Jacob remembered the tale as if it was told yesterday, as he heard the salty voice of his grandfather from the past come forth:
"Ah, but you see, Finder was not just embarking on a quest to return his friend, he had to pass by the Infinite Pity Basin, a pit of sorrow and tears. The women of the tribe who had lost sons, husbands, fathers, and brothers who had set out to find adventure, or glory for the tribe, were memorials with this mythological pit of tears shed by the sisters, mothers, and daughters of the tribe. The pit was at the edge of the lagoon, on the outskirts of the village, and was a living monument, and a caution to the weary adventurer to heed, as they went toward the unknown. Something was out there, and it was far more dangerous than Slartibarts, or Ghastlys, and other folklore told to children to scare them. There was something out beyond the lagoons, passed the bogs, something terrible thwt took the brave young souls of the lagoon, and trapped them away well beyond the Black Forests.
"Finder remembered thwt before he could go past the lagoon, and head out to retrieve his best friend, Vrog, he had to pay his respects to the infinite Pity Basin, in-hopes of gaining the blessing of the Crying a mothers, and the protection of the lost Sons. He did so by giving up the most precious commodity he had, and that was-"
Shit! Jacob forgot exactly what it was, but he wasn't even sure if that was word-for-word, a few things seemed out-of-place in the story, but his grandfather knew spun that yarn better than any family member. He made the game fun, and the rewards were always better when he had control of the game. With little hesitation, Jacob stepped through the darkened basement doorway, and heard what he expected, but it still unsettled him: rushing, splashing water. The basement was flooded to the point it was decaying the cement foundation. It was up to his waist, and frigid cold.
It was darker than he remembered, but he understood now that if there were any rats in the basement, they had made their way through the walls to seek refuge in other parts of the mansion. The water was far from the cleanest, and it seemed to be moving more like insects than water, like cold, zombified milipedes all over his body.
Hjscob stepped on something rather squishy and disgusting, and he was afraid to even guess what it was, as he slipped backwards into the wall. He felt a sharp pain, as a sharp object hit is vertebrae, and then clicked into the wall. The speaker, which he had come to,loathe pricked up in clarification, as Jacob's uncle sport again through the muffled phonograph recording on e again.
"Do you feel that sense of doom? Do you feel the tears of your whole family,,embarrassed by you, whirling around your waste, squeezing and choking you with regret? The Infinite Pity Basin, as asinine a name as ever labeled, is a big part of high society. We all are regrettably disappointed in the next generation, especially you, but you are all that's left Jacob.
"So will you conquer this storm of emotion? Will you fix the problems that ail us ghosts? Doubtful! You worthless slime, I'd rather see the world fall stop your shoulders, and crush your miserable form, than ever receive the prize worthy of only a true Harrowing! Yet, if you must press forward, do so now, the end is nigh. Your next several clues will come once you finish the obstacles in front of you, one cena only record for so long."
The eerie clicking and crackling of the record finished as the defeating ringing from the cacophonic lamenting stuck to Jacob's ear drums. This was replaced by the sloshing of putrid water that didn't much smell, as it felt like it should reek more than it did, as it smelt much like seawater and turpentine. Disgusted, and covered from back to front in sludgy, frozen water, Jscob removed his satchel from his Shoulder, and fiddled around inside to search for whatever he could find to use to gain access of the next piece of the puzzle. This night was insane, but having been in the thick of it, and almost certain he would be killed if he left the house before dawn, sticking with the game was smarter than walking of into an unknown situation, and being murdered. His uncle was already dead, nobody would be indicted on account of him being murderred tonight, there was no culprit, it was truly the most perfect of crimes.
Why did he answer the call? Jacob thought to himself as he trudged through the sludge-filled water, pulling out a small emblem from the bag. It was lodged deep down in the satchel, and he nearly cut his fingers off from the knife, as he pulled It up on out of the bag, squinting to see just what it was. It was like a minature figurine, in the shape of a tiki man, something exotic, and ancient-looking, from worlds' past. He was certain this was the piece to the puzzle, as nothing else seemed to be in the basement with him. He knew the talisman was for later, it was a part of the story few ever forgot, but this piece was unfamiliar, almost as new a discovery as his uncle's newfound bloodlust in death. Jacob consciously held his breath, and with a great deal of mental restraint, apologetically submerged into the murky mess of the basement, as he looked beneath for someplace to stick the figurine. So far, things were relatively easy,if you didn't count the absurdity of this whole game, let-alone the potential for dying at every corner, but he was a smart man, and he could always see a few moves ahead.
"-And that was the shrine of Togo-Kempo, a statue of the God of Lost Travelers. for a culture such as the Yogsogoths, the desire of a deity for lost souls is as prevalent as a deity who brings forth rain during drought."
As he plunges into the murky waters, his grandfather's words come back, and so do a rush of memories, which are so powerful, Jacob nearly loses his breath, and clambers for the surface, but it seems miles away. The water is as frozen as tundra, and keeps him paralyzed at the bottom of the flooded baseman floor. It felt impossible to move, feeling the loss of oxygen depleting from his ice-crushed lungs.
It was there in those last disheartening moments though, that he saw the clearest tint of blue in the concave of water, and found a small, almost nonexistent drain. With a jolt of life back to his system, Jacob made his move, and although Diogenes Harrowing found nothing but enjoyment in these tortuous rooms in his death, Jacob found opportunity, and confidence, as he made his way over to the drain, and a newfound courage,along with a bursting pain in his chest; inspired him to move quickly. He sought the holes, and saw they wre locked tight. He tried to pull, and pull, but to no avail. He then saw he was right all along, and noticed a little notch that fit the tiki-like figurine perfectly. He pressed it in, securing it title to the drainage holes, and twisted quickly, but firmly, as the drain opened up, and the water instantly began to pour out into the sewage system.
Jacob breathed a sigh of relief as the last of the water drained, and he was left in the dank basement again, alone with his thoughts, like troubling old times however, he had a newly discovered confidence to this horrid place of childhood nightmares, and he smiled, realizing he had tempted Desth twice already, and had come back from the misadventure unscathed: so far. He remembered thwt the next few clues would not come from his dearest psychotic uncle, but rather be discovered in the base tn, and wherever else he had to play the game. He may not have have been the quintessential Harrowing they desired him to be, but Jacob was showcasing skills he knew most Harrowings have never before been challenged to demonstrate.
The small puddles of putrid water, along with left-over garbage and salty debris, was scattered about the grimy floor that looked worse for wear than he remembered as a child. The sludge and trash littered everywhere; pieces of old, blackened magazine pages were stuck like origami bats to the wall. The floor had debris of all kinds, and even some old trinkets from Jacob's childhood, were what had been smashing into his legs and sides. There, amongst the trash, was something shiny. Underneath a destroyed cardboard box, was a piece of golden jewelry, unlike anything else Jacob had seen before. It was a customized piece, and it had to be placed in the basement prior to the flooding, because it was not nearly as weathered as the rest of the garbage, currently drying, and crackling against the cold basement floor.
Jacob picked up the golden trinket, which was attached to a golden chainlink. He'd not call it an actual necklace, but it was definitely different than the talisman he had received in the solarium. This was more like a round, three-dimensional jewelry piece like you would find in an ancient ziggurat, and it seemed surprisingly heavy, despite it's size. The round trinket was indecipherable, having markings on it that looked like nothing Jacob had seen before.
He fiddled around with the pendant-like jewelry, and accidentally popped open the three-dimensional circle with the obscure writing, and out popped a faded, but far-better condition paper, with script that he recognized as his uncle's handwriting.
It was scrappy,something of a mess, something even a chicken would be too proud to scratch. What makes it even the tiniest bit legible, was that he had always known to look at the loops below to determine which letters uncle Meebles really wrote within that ludicrous cursive. It wasn't anything unique, more mindless predelict language full of psychotic musing, which now seem less eccentric, and more deranged than before. Jacob was now reassessing if maybe he was the only last sane vessel in his family's bloodline.
The letter explained that the necklace with to there dimensional pendant was one very much like thwt of the ancient lore of Finder's land. It was a relic of times well before the Yogsogoths made landing at the Lagoon, and it held a great importance to Finder's people. Wherever this was going, Jacob wasn't sure, but he caught the gist of the message, and knew that it was an important piece to the end of Finder's Frog. He also knew that his next embarking was back up the stairs, onto the second floor, in another part of the Harrowing Mansion that also housed a plethora of emotion: The Coronary Room.
The Croronary Room was named as so, becaue it was a thin, narrow hallway of a room, and it was at the heart of the house. He wasn't ever allowed to go in three a as child, but out of curiosity, well. One out of spite, Jacob had done what most children of a certain age do when told to stay out of a restricted area, he visited it on multiple occasions until being caught one day at the tender age of eight. Yet what he saw in that room, was enough to fill his happy childhood with a haunting suspicions something much darker was in the family heirloom than just riches. It was full of ancient puzzles, wonders from beyond the eons, alive on shelves, so real you could reach out and touch them. The Coronary Room was not just an elongated miscalculation of architectural flaws, but it was also where Uncle Meebles kept his personal affects. It was, after-all, his bedroom.
The Coronary Room was easy to get to: traversing the stairwell was met without obstruction, as Jacob passed throughout eh widening corridor, and into the narrowing room without as much as a moth crossing his path. There he found an indent in the wall, which naturally housed the talisman with the family insignia on it. It opened up the wall with a hidden room, a widening gap lead to a severe study, housing the weird trinkets and obscure artifacts that gave his uncle so much pleasure. Some were thousands of years old, but it was without thought that so much money was spent on such an expensive hobby.
In the story, Finder came upon a temple leading from the rustling flora of the Black Forest, to the wastelands of the edge of the world. There was, in front of him, something truly terrifying. Three mummies, wrapped in royal bandages, Egyptian style, laid in front of him. They were of cats. Three mummified cats, probably worth more than the lives of the kings who once owned them. They were priceless, and yet, something was amiss, for they stuck out, not in the likes to showcase them, but rather to draw attention towards them. Everything else in the room was extravagant, even more-so than even these three corpses. Yet, it was imperative by their placement that Jacob was to pay the fullest attention to them. Upon closer inspection, Jacob saw there was an inscription below the mummies on plated gold:
Three cats to one king of fat
Each eats a batch of thirty rats
Twenty-seven lives each hold
Twelve paws combined, six pigeon-toed
If each cat has thirty rats,
One of them catches two bats,
Then how did the king
Die of plague? The answer is on his ring.
The pity about rings,
They are such shiny things!
A cat with with an eye for gold
The answers inside he holds.
Jacob looked up at the three mummified cats with disgust, it was plainly obvious that this little game was pushing all his limits. He could handle most things, but if his deranged uncle really expected to gut open a two thousand year old cat, this may be the one thing that keeps him away from his birthright. He continued reading.
Instincts say to start digging through the cats,
But I don't recommend doing that!
One mummy holds the key
The other two, a penalty!
Oh, curiosity you must have to win
Dear Jacob, this task has a spin.
For if you choose the wrong path
You'll be awaited with a quick death.
That last two lines may not have rhymed
But never mind that you're being timed!
One is black, one orange, one yellow.
Choose the right one,,or you're a dead fellow!
Now the one with the ring is not In the middle.
The one with the ring cannot play a fiddle.
The one with the ring is not named Sally or Jack.
Sally is orange, but is Jack dressed in black?
Only the one in yellow can rectify that!
Choose wisely, or else you'll be toast!
One wrong move, and you'll join us a ghost!
Uncle Meebles was never a poet, but Jacob had to admire the set on his deranged uncle, and read over the poem multiple times, but he was left with a haunting speculation that this was all a ruse, and didn't matter. There was simply one choice to make, and he was afraid to guess what would happen if he chose wrong. After looking over the mummified cats, he could see, although it was barely present; patches of orange, yellow, and black fur. The poem really narrowed it down to the choices of either the black cat, or the yellow. Fifty-fifty seemed to be the choice. He stood therre, contemplating which one held the answer to the riddle asked early on in the poem.
The answer was obvious, the king's faithful cat kept vermin away, but it also wanted to be praised, and would leave the dead animals at the bedside of the king. So one night, it brings an infected rat in, and by morning the conumption has taken over the king, and he dies early on that afternoon. The point of the story was he was killed by the same things that were meant to protect him. The story also concludes that the king's body is devoured by his three cats, and they doo die from eating the diseased meat of their owner. The four are housed away in the same tomb, four traitors together in one room, but all loyally devoted to the other.
Finder had to solve this puzzle to open the gateway towards ten wastes, and trek what is claimed to be a thousand miles to the edges of the Dark swamp, where his ultimate fate is met. Jacob knew the puzzle well, but these cats were not originally from Finder's Frog, as it doesn't seem such a child's game to make children rip open mummified cats. Still, he was worried he'd choose the wrong one. Fifty-fifty is not such a bad odd, but when it's either life or death, the odds look as daunting as 99 to one. The grandfather clock rang three times, signaling three o'clock in the morning. The night was half over, and Jacob knew he still and much to do. As his gaze was turning away from the clock, he saw something frightenly suspicious. The hands of the clock we're spinning backwards,rather fast, almost like,a countdown. He looked over the poem, and frantically looked back to the clock. He realized that it wasn't referring to the time he had to finish, which was six am, if meant he was being timed to choose!
With a deep breath he looked over the poem again, and again,,glancing back at the clock, seeing that hands were even spikng faster than before, this was meant to be the place he truly failed. Jacob tried to rationalize his choice. Saying that a yellow cat is like gold, a gold ring, but that didn't seem to matter. What was the damn cat? He looked over each one, and all three seemed to be wired to something...explosive. Each cat looked to be wired to a small brick of plastic explosive, which would make a controlled blast and demolish the room, but keep the house in-tact. This was insane! Yet, it didn't seem to make a difference, he knew that the game was over: he was going to die in this room.
The clock was ticking, the cats were staring at him with glee, knowing his death was nearing. Almost taxing him to mess up and purposely choose the wrong mummy. He knew this was a test, and that it was either one or the other, it had to be, it was either black, or yellow, and it was his destiny to choose. What would be the outcome from the choice, would either keep the game going, or be his terminal demise. With a deep breath, he closed his eyes, and ripped into the orange mummified cat, then-
Please come back next week for the conclusion of The Harrowing Inheritence. I can assure you the end will be as spectacular as I can possibly make it, and it will be final. I personally am very excited to see this come to fruition. Thank you with sticking by me, and I'm sincerely sorry for not having it done this week, but I promise you that the story will be worth the wait, as I want it to are it the best I possibly can.
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