Aaron stumbled upward the steeping slope, the moon steadily blocked out by the thickening clouds overhead. Thunder rumbling in the distance as droplets began to trickle down almost on cue as the boy walked toward an isolated property.
The jagged walkway leading to the gothic Victorian manor was plagued with weeds, overgrowth, and assorted items and garbage. The house partially lit in the front facing windows, the iron wrought fence and gnarled and bent with the gate blown off the hinges. Though there was a hand painted sign with the advertisement for candy, ‘Free Candy Prize in Haunted Maze’, already a red flag. Though with the rain starting to pick up and his thin cloth sheet starting to cling to his naked body, he hurried up the path.
He’d climb the front steps and shiver on the splintering patio, cursing his bound hands preventing him from undergoing any self-care. The air a few degrees colder standing in the open doorway, the warm candescent lighting swings lightly in the wind blowing inward.
Aaron shuffles inward though his instincts were telling him otherwise, standing in the foyer in the eerily quiet house. There were faint voices in other rooms, followed by a shriek and giggles even as if it were actually a functional haunted maze setup. There was a CRT TV that flickered on, a dvd on loop. The owner in a white labcoat with his frayed gray hair in disarray, showcasing some intricate device straight out of a Frankenstein story. The audio cuts in and out with the poor cut together footage, “-and thus by midnight I will prove that spiritual energies can be harnessed and maintained-” “-the phenomena at its greatest on spiritual days-” “-anchoring the spiritual field and entangling it with-”, it continues on in the same gibberish.
There was no specified route, the floor plan open to explore.