The House With No Doors

You go to sleep as usual, thinking no harm will come to you during your sleep. But suddenly you feel as if you were punched in the back very hard while you are sleeping, and when you wake up, you are no longer in your house. You seem to be in a large mansion that seems to belong to a very rich person, with paintings of unknown people lining the walls, as you have never seen before in your life. However, the strangest thing is that you seem to be partly transparent, can fly, and have lost all thirst or hunger, and you have forgotten how to breathe. You cannot feel, grab, smell, or consume anything. Whoever put you here flushed your soul out of your body and now you must find a way to escape and find out why you are here. But lucky for you, there seems to be other people who were put in this ghost-like state as well, and have no idea why they are here either. You can't open any doors, but thankfully there are no doors in this house, so you can simply fly through. However, it seems like you cannot move through the walls, and the mansion is like a maze where you can get lost anywhere. And is it just me, or are the portraits moving and are there mysterious noises coming from nowhere? Can you navigate the eerie mansion, find your body, and uncover the truth together?

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Fred went to bed after playing a quick round of Geometry Dash. (He was still stuck on the Polargeist level, AKA the third one) That day was an awful day at work, and there were so many customers, and lots of them were eighth graders (ick) who seemed to be on a trip. He was glad to have some rest after a long day. His eyes soon made his room fade to black. Suddenly, in his sleep, he felt something punch inside of him, something that knocked his breath - no, more - away. But he felt normal, so it was probably just a dream.

When he woke up, he was in...the top bunk of a bunk bed? But like, a vintage bunk bed, that was wooden and not very sturdy-looking. How did he get here? He sat up, and around him was a giant room in a huge mansion, like the kind that was definitely murder-friendly and super expensive. He looked down, and to his surprise, he saw a person sleeping on the bottom bunk? And there were many more bunk beds around him. What was going on? How did he get here?

192 words

Petrus's day had ended like any other: after a long day of work, he'd come home to his family, washed up, ate dinner, and spent some time with his sister before heading off to bed.

And he'd expected his sleep to be just the same: normal, like everything else in his life.

Until his visionless dream resulted in a kick in the back - a sensation that felt viscerally real - and everything that once felt solid felt nonexistent. No longer could he feel his own chest rise and fall with each breath, nor could he feel the air pass through his nostrils, nor could he sense the air around him. It was like all of his senses had been numbed, and what was once an existence full of life turned dull and quiet.

Alarm coursed through him. The pain, short-lasted, was the only thing he could remember feeling when he opened his eyes, but he couldn't recall how much time passed, and if he'd slept thereafter.

But opening his eyes helped him as much as it did to try and breathe again.

He wasn't in his bed. He wasn't in his room. He wasn't home.

Oh god.

Had he been kidnapped? Drugged? What--?

He froze when he saw a head peek out overhead. He was on the bottom bunk of a bunk bed, he realized too late, and a man was looking down at him. For all Petrus knew in life, the only way he could describe what he was seeing was that he was seeing a ghost.

But as he moved to sit up and caught sight of his own body, he realized in horror that he himself had the appearance of an apparition.

Oh god.

This was worse than he thought.

This was either the most vivid nightmare of his life, or he'd just died, and this was the afterlife.

Paling, he stared up at the spectre overhead in dread, at a loss for words to express the realization that struck him.

Britney

After spending the night listening to classical music by the fireplace, Britney fed her goldfish, Fred, watching him swim around his tank. Then, she went to bed.

As usual, her sleep was normal ---no dreams. But as she peacefully slept on her bed, back against the mattress and hands on her belly, she felt a firm punch on her stomach.

It was so forceful, so real, that Britney felt her entire body react, breaking apart and shifting. She even lost her breath and all the feeling in her body.

As soon as it started, it ended. Britney opened her eyes. The sensation was so visceral that she almost didn't feel like herself.

The feeling didn't pass over. She still couldn't feel like herself.

She couldn't recognize where she had just woken up in either. Britney sat up and looked around. She was on the bottom of a bunk bed, surrounded by other bunk beds. Two other people were awake too. They looked pale and grey, like they were ghosts. Then, she realized that she looked just like them.

"Hmm," she murmured, "this is strange."

Gemna hummed with a whimsical twirl as iustum polished aequitas new arrivals-three genuine, top quality painite jewels. 

The absolute lack of effort required to swindle the poor man was sheer beauty, truly irony at its most elegant. He didn't even know the gems on his bracelets were painite. Just assumed that they were faux diamond. 

Iustum knew that once iustum used aequitas best persuasion tactics he'd hand over the rare minerals crystal without thinking the decision through. A prediction that proved to be so accurate iustum almost didn't have the heart. But Gemna knew aequitas wouldn't get another chance to find painite. 

Besides aequitas readings that morning had pulled along with an agonizing slowness that seemed to shred every ounce of sanity in aequitas mind.  
How many poor lost waifs could there be? Iustum wondered. Such poor pathetic souls, in need of guidance. 

Gemna grinned to ros. 

Well, that just made it easier, the more fools, the more cash.

A wave of exhaustion consumed  aequitas

''Good night my pretties,'' iustum cooed, patting the painite crystals gently, ''Sleep well and you'll make me a lot of money some day.''

With loving care Gemna tucked them into their designated jewelry box. The next few minutes passed in an a blur, exhaustion turning aequitas cognition into mushy fog, before aequitas tumbled into bed. Aequitas body practically melted into the cozey mattress, aching with relief. Gemna closed iustums eyes.

A strange sensation abruptly fired through aequitas body with a jolt, as though some pressure was sucking the breath out aequitas lungs. Panic raged through every nerve and aequitas could feel ros struggle. Then some force, kicked  aequitas hard. 

Sweating, iustum flew open aequitas eyes.

Everything seemed familiar, but foreign all at once, like a friend wearing a strangers face. Gemna lived in a mansion so the elaborate decorations didn't seem foreign. However, everything about them seemed wrong, the wrong shape, the wrong size, the wrong everything. It made the hairs on iustums neck stand up. 

Gemna could faintly see the ghostly grey shapes of others who'd ended up here. 

At least I've still got my coat, aequitas thought relieved, if iustum was going to be thrust into...who knows where and how, for who knows what reason with a bunch of...extras, aequitas at least ought to be the best looking one there. 

Wait, I haven't actually seen my coat...

Wait. Wait. Gemna could feel the neurons in iustum brain doing figure eights and zigzags as everything crashed together.

I've...I've turned into some kind of Erik horror. I didn't want to be on Phantom of the Opera tonight, or ever...

Gemna didn't want another quirk  that contradicted the persona iustum had carefully cultivated for ros. People judged aequitas enough for being descended from assassins, and aequitas eccentric choices of income. Gemna didn't want to add 'randomely turns into a ghost' to the list.

But at the same time, Gemna couldn't help but feel curious-what would this mean for aequitas? Did it give aequitas new powers? Was aequitas more powerful then the others rudely shoved into this mansion of the Opera? Or does this all mean nothing? iustum wondered.

Sally-Anna hovered gently over her bed, inspecting it for any dust that might've gathered while she was out and about during the day. It looked like things had been mostly quiet from the signs that Sally-Anna was currently seeing. No real dust besides what tends to normally accumulate across the course of a day and no stains and other such issues. So the threat of her being pranked in return for that one turning a bed into a bathtub she'd pulled yesterday continued on for another day.

She sighed softly. She'd been hoping to be able to put that one behind her by today. Oh well another day of looking over her shoulder to look forward to. It was part of the job. It wasn't like it was stressful, she'd just have to retaliate of course. It had been such a long chain at this point she wasn't entirely sure who'd even started it, but it sure was going to keep going for a good long while.

She giggled to herself and clambered into bed, burrowing under her blankets and closing her eyes, ready for her well earned rest for the day. Something felt like it had just punched her insides. She sat up instantly. Was this the prank? Had it been too well hidden for her to be able to detect? There was no way they'd just let themselves inside right?

She found herself on a bed. First of all, it was nothing like her own. This was much more... human. It was that specific breed of rich pretentious human that she tended to find a little bit disagreeable at times. She looked around a bit closer and spotted many others on this bunk bed.

Well it wasn't a prank by them from the looks of it? But it was some sort of prank. And for quite a lot of people too. This was going to be a doozy. She yawned and let out a soft sigh, moving to get up.

Why was she floating? Okay maybe this was more than just a prank.

Cassidy hated high school. The girls were total... what was the current term for it? Ah, yes, total snobs. The boys were mentally unhinged. And the teachers, oh, they were so regressing to child education. That limited educational containment they forced adolescents to mold into was absolutely infuriating. Thank goodness the day was over, and Cali could once more return to her comfortable abode.

All these grumblings were flying through Cassidy's head as she entered her house. The door creaked open. Drip!

A small water droplet plopped on her head and rolled vexatiously down her cheek. She glared at the thoroghly worn roof with annoyance. Father was in the kitchen, pacing back and forth and muttering some unkind words into his phone. Cali waved at him as she passed, he didn't notice her. Typical. She kicked off her shoes and bounded towards her room in anticipation. Cassidy hopped onto the rickety bed, it making that familiar shrieking sound as if complaining. Pulling out her notebook, she flipped through the used pages, finally arriving at a blank one. The last page. She desperately needed to get a new writing device. She twirled the pencil, that she had just retrieved from her pocket, in her fingers.

After a while of sitting in idleness, a fully formed idea seeped into Cali's head. Her hand went racing across the page, her mind swept away along with the movements of her pencil. She transported into a completely new universe. One of her own. One that made more sense than the technicalities of reality. Most people would never deem Cassidy Peralta as creative, but she had an inner innovation most people were completely ignorant of.

It wasn't long until the whole paper was cluttered with words. That was it. The end of the notebook. She sighed and closed it, placing it neatly on her desk. She looked out her window. The evening was still young, but Cali did not have the patience or energy to confront her dad for supper. Perhaps she would enter a state of rest early. Yes, she would do that.

And so, she was whisked away into her dreams. Or more, into her nightmares. One of which she may never wake up... or escape.

CARTER

Carter banged his fist on his desk in anger. He was tired of hearing the same thing over and over again. They kept telling him about his “incompetence” and his “lack of commitment” like he didn’t know it already. Like he didn’t think about it every waking moment. He held his head in his hands, fighting the throbbing pain in his chest. He cringed inwardly when he remembered his cocky behaviour while he was in the principle’s office.

He took a deep breath and tried to calm his whirlwind of emotions. What was he feeling right now? Anger? Shame? Self disgust? There was a time when he had felt he was meant for something more. There was a time when he had believed in destiny. Now those feelings were gone, replaced by a horrible cold hopelessness that left him numb and torn. Maybe everyone who was nothing had dreamed of being something at least once in their lives. His soft breathing resounded through the room as finally, sleep took him, and his head fell forward onto the desk. He had to be dreaming, this couldn’t be real.

He twitched once or twice in his sleep. A stubborn strand of hair tickled his face. He lifted his hand to tuck it away. Cold. He suddenly felt like he had been submerged in a bucket of icy cold water. His eyes opened, and his heartbeat quickened. He panicked. Where was he? What were all these things around him? They were blue, but also transparent. Almost like… ghosts. Carter froze, his heart thumping wildly. He looked down, he was in a bunk bed. He could see the old mattress through his legs.

Wait.

What?!

Carter screamed. All the other ghosts were staring at him but he didn’t care. All the other ghosts. Because he was one of them.

"Oh my god," Petrus murmured to himself, looking down at his transparent hands. "I'm dead. And I'm a ghost."

Britney hummed, blinking down at her body. She clenched her hands. She could feel the motion of her fingers, but at the same time, she didn't feel anything. She turned to see a young man, probably a teenager, screaming. There was another older man on her right, muttering to himself.

"Are you two okay?" she asked blankly.

"Whoa ghosts is a strong assumption to jump to, don't ya think?" Sally-Anna tried to cut through with a calmer voice. Not that she wasn't panicked but someone had to try and be calm.

“If we aren’t dead right now what other possible explanation could there be?” Petrus asked. “And— why are we here? What is this place?”

"I mean when you put it that way, its tough to figure out what could cause this if not death." Sally-Anna shrugged. "But then why would we end up in... whatever here happens to be."

"Maybe we're in the in-between," Britney said. She stood up, feeling like she was floating despite standing on the ground. "Not alive, but not dead either."

She blinked slowly. "I don't know why we're here either."

''Maybe we're all mad,'' Gemna suggested a mad gleam in her eye, ''Forgive me, but you all don't appear to be...the brightest knife in the box. Not that I know anymore then you, but at least I'm not wasting time freaking out.''