Game 92 - Ending: "Unfinished Business" (Epilogue)

[Vulpix]

The seven Tools float around the laboratory. The eight guests gather together looking panicked and disappointed.

"I'm sorry," Tomiko pipes up, "we-- we couldn't find the last item…"

We failed…

"What happens now?" Luigi asks in a trembling voice.

Skelly gives his head a quick shake, and turns some dials on the Ghost Engine. "That's fine. We should at least be able to help the spirits of the items we have collected, right?" A giant receptacle at one end of the machine begins humming and shaking with activity. Skelly pumps his fist in celebration that it seems to work.

With newfound trepidation, each guest (except one) takes hold of a Tool. Skelly faces them, and beckons Ball forward. On Skelly's instruction, he deposits the shovel into the receptacle nervously, and backs away. Skelly pushes a button labelled 'Go.' A cloud of smoke belches out as the machine whirs to life. Squeak. Grind. Pop! A lightbulb that seems awkwardly jammed into the Ghost Engine buzzes and glows. The living guests stare in awe as a faint white puff emerges from a nozzle. It looks like Madeline! The glow of the lightbulb grows brighter before reaching a peak. She casts an anxious glance around the room before dissipating as the bulb on the machine bursts into shards.

The living are shocked, but Skelly, as if he's been preparing for this for years, immediately calls forward Daisy. She drops the rosary necklace into the machine and scurries back to Luigi's outstretched arms. Skelly quickly replaces the lightbulb on the machine, and then hits the button again. Squeak. Grind. Pop! As the lightbulb glows, out comes the ghost of Marrion from the nozzle of the machine. She seems much calmer than Madeline as she looks around the room at each living face. They hear the crack of the lightbulb as her wispy form fades away.

Without missing a beat, Skelly replaces the bulb. Tomiko braces herself for a struggle carrying the wardrobe, but is pleasantly surprised in how it almost seems to be the one pulling her. She guides the huge piece of furniture towards the receptacle, and hesitates for a moment. She has to think about how she'll fit this thing inside… but before she can come to a solution, the wardrobe is sucked into the machine. "Must be some sort of vacuum feature," comments Skelly as he pushes the button. Squeak. Grind. Pop! Kogarashi's figure emerges, and his gaze lands on Rei in the wheelchair. He gives her a somewhat apologetic look. It dawns on Rei, then, that he must have been the ghost who threw her down the stairs! As the realization hits her, so does the crackling of the lightbulb, and the ghost is gone as quickly as it appeared.

As Skelly screws in a new lightbulb, Mao walks hazily forward, scalpel in hand. He drops it into the machine and hits the button. Skelly gives him an appreciative nod as the machine begins to rattle. Squeak. Grind. Pop! The fresh bulb shines brightly as the ghost of Yuriko enters the room. Her face, as usual, gives nothing away as she floats momentarily in the room. With the breaking lightbulb she disappears, and Skelly begins replacing it right away.

Bellamy nudges Vee forward. She puts the key in the machine and peers inside at where it went before returning to her place at the edge of the room. Skelly reaches for the button. Squeak. Grind. Pop! As the room is once again brightened by the glowing bulb, another ghost comes forth from the machine. He doesn't stay for long, and his face seems reluctant as his ghostly figure begins to fade. But this is not a choice Stanley gets to make. The bulb breaks, and his time is up.

The routine now established, Luigi comes and places the bloody knife in the machine. He presses the button with his gloved hand, just in time for Skelly to finish with the bulb. Squeak. Grind. Pop! The ghost of Battler rushes into the room with a fierce expression on his face. Instead of looking at his fellow guests, his phantasmic form dives into the brightening lightbulb. Its explosion sends shards high into the air.

Finally, Rei wheels herself forward. She picks up the sleeping bag from the pile of items on her lap and stuffs it into the ghost machine. Skelly finishes screwing in the new light bulb and gives her a nod to hit the button. Squeak. Grind. Pop! Mizuki's ghost flows from the nozzle into the room. She gives a big yawn. Mao struggles to hide his own yawn, but Mizuki notices, and seems to giggle as she fades away. The last light bulb bursts.

After a moment, Skelly shakes his head. "I'm afraid… I'm afraid I haven't been entirely honest with you. I know where the eighth item is."

Eight faces stare at the skeleton with uncertain expressions.

"I'm the last item. With me, we may be able to force The Narrator to move on."

Ball speaks up. "So you're saying you're a tool?"

Skelly glares at Bellamy. "I'm a humble servant. I have been so for many years. I wish I could wait till Kierra and Phoebe return, but I'm beginning to fear that they may not… I cannot wait any longer. Your lives are all still in danger."

"What-a will happen to-a you, a-Skelly?" Tears begin to well up in Luigi's enormous eyes.

The skeleton shakes his head. "I'm not sure. I imagine I'll stay here, as a ghost. Someone needs to look after the mansion, after all, so my business can't be finished."

"I'll stay, too," Vee speaks up. Her hair has been swept out of her face. "There's still so much to learn here, and… and it seems Primary Self isn't as strong in this place."

"As long as The Narrator and Skelly are gone, I think I'll stay here with you, if you wouldn't mind." Ball looks between Luigi, Daisy, and Vee. "I mean, someone has to feed the cat, right?"

"Oh-a my son!" Luigi exclaims. "I-a was hoping you would-a come live-a with a-Daisy and a-Luigi for awhile-a, but…"

"But if it's what you really want, you should stay. Your father and I will be happy to visit, now that there aren't so many… ghosts," Daisy finishes. They wrap Ball up in a warm embrace.

"I'm sorry, but we have no more time for sentiments right now. We need to do this before The Narrator returns." Skelly looks around at all eight people. "Oh, I think I'll miss you all. I'm so sorry for what you've had to go through. Goodbye!"

A few of the guests give Skelly a wave goodbye. For a moment, no one moves.

Rei reaches up and gives J@N3 a tap on the shoulder. He leans down and she whispers something in his ear.

"Oh!" J@N3 D03 shuffles stiffly over to Skelly and puts a hand on his shoulder. He feels a strange ghostly energy transfer into him. The skeleton nods as he begins to levitate, and the 'robot' lifts him into the machine; the bones are sucked up one by one.

Mao realizes that a new lightbulb still has to be screwed in. He searches around the room to find one, but it appears the box Skelly had been using has been emptied! There are no more light bulbs left inside. All eight guests see the same thing at the same time. They look up…

Tomiko, standing closest to the light switch, shuts it off. Daisy climbs nimbly atop Luigi's shoulders and searches in the dark for the lightbulb from the ceiling. The princess unscrews the bare bulb and hops to the ground. Mao guides her hand to where to screw it back in on the machine. "Got it!" Rei hits the button again.

The room begins to glow. Squeak... Grind... Pop! A dark cloud drips from the nozzle of the machine. A hulking form fills the space. The amorphous form shifts into the silhouette of a man, and it lurches forward. All the guests flinch backwards, and a low growl of a laugh rises from the ghost before them. The light shines brighter, and brighter still, so much so that the living have no choice but to shut their eyes, and then… BANG! The room is cast into abrupt darkness.

"Did it work?" manages Ball. No one is quite sure. Luigi is the first to leave the room, to go into the well-lit hallway. He is followed by Daisy, then Tomiko, and J@N3 D03, who is no longer wearing the cardboard robot head, and then comes Mao, and Vee leads Bellamy out by the hand, and finally Rei.

"I think it's finished," she says.

...

The next few hours are uncertain ones. The guests slowly peruse what's left of the Manor, checking for any remaining signs of ghost activity—they find none.

The eerie quiet of the home without its caretakers nearly drives them out of the house by itself, but they suddenly realize the front gates have yet to open. In the heat of their arguments as to what they should do next, J@N3 D03 makes a strange suggestion. He'd been half-joking, but the group decides it might just be crazy enough to work. They regroup in the workshop and gather everything they need: materials, tools, nearly every blueprint from the laboratory, and of course, a music player swiped from the display vault. Though no one in the group is the most knowledgeable about machines, between their collective brainpower, the huge collection of research and materials at their disposal, and the application of several of the Rhines' old blueprints, they eventually achieve with days of work something they never thought they'd see: a rocket-propelled wheelchair.

Hauling the messy contraption up the stairs, the guests are surprised to find the front door open for them. They roll the wheelchair—the name for which remains under review, somewhere between "rocketchair" and "suicide chariot"—out onto the front pathway. They take a pair of giant wheelbarrows from the greenhouse and hook them to the back of the wheelchair. Finally, they attach the thick metal shield they'd prepared to the front, completing their makeshift battering ram.

The day has finally come: the chair is fuelled up. Cargo is tied down. Farewells are shared. Tears are shed. All that's left is to get it done.

Ball and Vee stand by as ground control and watch as Luigi, Daisy, J@N3, Mao, and Tomiko step into the rickety wheelbarrows, holding onto each other and the wheelchair for support. Ground control helps Rei into her seat at the "helm" and begins giving the final hopeful countdown.

Five.

Four.

Three.

Two…

One…

Liftoff.

Rei punches the giant button labelled BOOMPOW and holds on as tightly as she can while the chair and its payload careens down the rough stone pathway, desperately hoping it stays upright. It accelerates, faster and faster, the roar of the engines a deafening scream in their ears, winding to a fever pitch, until—

CRA-CLANG!

The front gate explodes open.

Rei pulls the pin tagged "in case of success" and the metal shield ejects itself from the now-airborne chair like a multistage rocket. Rei grips the armrests of the chair and clenches her teeth with terror as the entire contraption slams into the ground with a harrowing thud, but tears of relief and disbelief well up in her eyes as she sees that… that they've made it.

They're out.

They've finally escaped the hellish Rhine Manor.

Moreover, they exorcised The Narrator and ensured He could never put anyone through something like this ever again. Maybe, everyone thinks, if that's true, all the pain and death just might have been worth it.

Ball and Vee look on with a mixture of disbelief and amazement that the rocket-propelled wheelchair idea actually worked. The two of them watch as the survivors wave back at them and hurtle over the horizon, hopefully destined to find their way home.

Hopefully those new friends will come and visit someday—who knows.

---

5 years later…

Tomiko painted a collection of artworks inspired by violent crime and hauntings. The collection sold for so much that she would be able to live comfortably for the rest of her life without having to paint another picture! She of course continues to paint for the pure joy of it. In her spare time she has been enrolled in a Fortnite Dance Class.

Mao and Tomiko have remained friends, and he always accounts for at least 50% of the audience at any of her dance shows. He may or may not be awake during these attendances. He has adopted several cats, and named each one of them after a dead guest from the Rhine Manor.

J@N3 D03 revealed to the rest of the guests that he was not a robot after all. He felt relieved by how well they took the news. He went on to become a professional wrestler, and a medical marvel, as doctors examined him to find he had survived no fewer than ten concussions within the span of a week.

Rei's leg healed, and she became the world's leading metaphysical doctor. She now owns a clinic which she's dedicated to her brother and Georgie the bear, whom she still keeps in her home. She spends her weekends at the shooting range with her Remington Bolt-Action Rifle.

Luigi decided to take an early retirement after the harrowing events at the Rhine Manor. He no longer joins his brother in absurdly risky tournaments of any sort. Instead, he starred in his own title: Super Luigi Therapy Sessions. It was a roaring success.

Daisy supported her husband's decision to retire, although she continues to participate in extreme sports tournaments. Luigi watches from the bleachers and cheers for her every time. She and Luigi also regularly visit Ball in the Rhine Manor, and are pleased to report that there is almost no ghost activity there anymore.

Ball and Vee stayed behind in the Rhine Manor. They are now parents to two energetic twins named Skelly and Richie, short for Skeletor and Eldritch-Horror respectively. They are currently in the process of finalizing their wedding plans, and have extended invitations to each guest from their time under The Narrator's control. Their wedding theme will be ball pits.

Skelly's ghost, with the help of Bellamy and Vee, made all the necessary repairs to the Rhine Manor. He expects his business to finally be finished when he becomes the first undead officiant to a wedding this fall. He looks forward to when he can finally move on from his after-afterlife.

The cat still lives at the Rhine Manor, and has finally been given a name: Charles, after the first owner of the Rhine Manor, at Skelly's request. Charles enjoys napping and hiding and occasionally being harassed by the two young twins of the mansion. He never goes to the basement anymore after the events with the shark and the boiler room.

…and so ends the story of the ghosts of Rhine Manor. Eight dead, eight alive, and one left undead, for now. The Narrator has never bothered the residents of the mansion again, and no one has died there since. All has been chronicled by Vee in her new book, I Spy: Spooky Mansion.



Thank you all for contributing.