The Portal at Hill House 2

Solo Play Part 2

I watched Jaws tonight, so I only got through one more room. Life happens. Here’s part one. Also, here’s the link to the game.

Yup, same map.

Room 2 - Kitchen

Cards Drawn: 8 of Hearts, 5 of Clubs, Jack of Diamonds

Ambience: Luminescent, Brilliant.

Objects in Location: A drawer full of receipts.

Condition of Location: Drafty, a wind blows.

I lose my balance crossing the threshold from carpet to linoleum, from living room to kitchen. The atmosphere shifts. The living room was filled with a dim, grungy light even after the lamp in the corner flickered to some semblance of life. The kitchen is bright. Sunlight shines through front windows that were covered in grime just moments ago—the same sunlight rapidly fading with sunset at the rear of the house. It is wrong. I don’t know what is happening, but it is wrong.

The cloying dankness of the living room disappears on a cool breeze that flutter the lace curtains above the sink. When I step closer for a better look, certain my eyes deceived me in the distance, I find that the windows are firmly closed and intact. I question whether I have slipped to some moment of the past. And why not? Logic has no hold here.

I search drawers and cabinets, hoping that I would find something that would make my brain itch in the same way the candles did. I find flatware, dishes, pots, pans, and an entire cabinet of mismatched Tupperware threatening to bury me in a plastic avalanche. The drawer next to the fridge, the last one to comb through, is filled to the brim with receipts so old that only bits and pieces of print can be read.

I dare not look in the fridge. I fear that whatever timeless spell holds this room in its grip might end as soon as I do, leaving me swaddled in the rotting stench of whatever was left in there when this place was abandoned.

Nothing found, I move on.