This is a short, little 'novella' writeup of the various endings for my fake 1998 survival horror game Barnbellow's Estate- specifically, one of the bad endings. Of the planned conclusions to the 'game', its the one I've had the clearest concept for since the project's inception, and for a while was the one I considered the canon ending. It is recommended that you listen to the accompanying song whilst reading it.
I hope you enjoy~
***
Her lungs burned.
Her legs ached.
Every wound on her body throbbed.
The exhaustion was dizzying.
But the front door was just ahead.
She could see it was open.
Her way out- and end to this nightmare- was right there.
So why couldn't Yuna bring herself to just keep moving?
She'd stopped dead, mere inches from the open door, staring beyond the ruined staris and path leading up to it, far past the grass and the trees, further away then the endless expanse of inky indigo that the still-storming sky had turned as the early vestiges of dawn approached. Even was the wind and rain battered her face, soaked through her clothes, her mind had locked up.
Something else pulsed away in her chest. A raw, ephemeral soreness that caused every muscle in her body to seize up, the likes of which she'd never felt before.
As the undulating snapping and squeaking of slick tendons, rotten meat, and gut-wrenching screaming grew in volume behind her, and the smell of burned oil overtook every other scent around her, so too did this pain grow heavier and deeper. It was enough to make her feel sick.
Yuna knew why she had stopped.
“Enough.”
The noises ceased. The smell remained static. Yuna turned around. And endless expanse of bloody red sinew had completely swallowed up the entrance hall of the estate, dotted by hundreds of thousands of agonised faces glaring at her with mixed looks of misery, fury, and now confusion, as she stared back unphased.
“Let me help you.”
Every face immediately twisted into an expression of seething rage, as the screaming resumed- angrier and harsher then it initially was.
Yuna did not falter. Instead, she walked forwards, carefully and calmly.
Whips of tendons, not unlike tendrils, flayed themselves at Yuna at blistering speed, cutting through her skin and digging into her flesh. It did nothing to stop her, even as she winced and whimpered.
“Please.”
Her plea was met with louder screaming, more tendons- one of which jammed intself into her eye, deep enough to rupture it but not far enough in to damage her brain. The pain that shot through her every synapse burned hotter then fire, but all that escaped her was a groan through gritted teeth.
And yet, even as the last vestiges of her strength literally bled out of her, the vision in her remaining eye going faint and white, and her mind beginning to fade away, she moved closer and closer.
“I'm here.”
She placed a gentle hand on the beasts body.
The screaming reached a fever pitch.
The doors slammed shut.
-
“No, please...! Don't!”
The desperate begging of the girl on the ground had zero impact on her attacker- a twisted looking being donned in a tattered white nightgown, an expression of raw fury frozen on her face- as she slowly raised a rusty, bloodstained blade above her head. Although she said nothing, the gaze she affixed on her victim communicated enough.
The girl shrieked, clamping her eyes shut as she awaited the strike of the blade as the sound of it cutting through the air ripped through her eardrums-
Only to be suddenly cut off by the sound of something clamping against the blade.
Opening her eyes, the girl looked up to see a ghostly visage of another woman, her pale grey body covered in mouldy wounds and bloodstained clothes, tears streaming down her one remaining eye and blood pouring from the hole where the other once was- blocking the blade with her hands.
“No more. No more.” A voice so gentle and caring, yet so thin and pleading.
A brief scuffle errupted between the two beings- the former trying to wrestle control of the blade back, the latter trying her best to stop it. The girl on the ground took this as her chance, moaning in pain as she tried to climb back onto her wounded legs and hobble away.
This was enough to make the woman in the white nightgown double down on the struggle, successfully wrenching the blade from the ghostly figure's grasp and shoving the other being to the ground in the process.
The girl gazed back, breathing raggedly and groaning in terror, before redoubling her efforts.
The lady in the nightgown pulled the arm holding the blade back.
“No!” The one-eyed women screamed, trying to pick herself up-
But it was too late; the furious being had already thrown the blade clean across the room.
It struck the escaping girl in the back- right where her heart would be positioned- and kept cleaving through her body until it pierced through her chest, sending her to the ground with a wet, garbled shriek that only lasted a couple of seconds, but that reverberated across the ruined walls for what felt like an eternity.
She stopped moving not long after, blood pooling beneath her.
Yuna could merely watch, gritting her teeth and balling her fists, as Mary Barnbellow shuffled slowly towards her latest kill. There was no joy or relish in her eyes, no malicious glee in snuffing out a life- just that same bottomless well of hatred that had not faded even slightly in the hundreds of years that had passed.
It was the same with the rest. Reverend MacLachlan still could not see the harm he caused. Sir Greaves' wounded pride had never healed. Quadringentis' disrespect and disregard for the living was ceaseless. Each new death at their hands expanded their ranks, each and every one of them beset by emotional or mental malaise that consumed their souls after death, reshaping them into abominations that likewise sought only to maim and to kill.
And through each of them, the sad old God still cried out in anguish and despair, soul after soul consumed into its ever winding mass and consciousness. A tapestry of suffering with millions of threads.
But Yuna would keep trying.
She had to keep trying.
She will save them.
One day, she will save them all.