Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right? Or so you tell yourself, swallowing nervousness as you step away from the stairs, and instead look to the doors at the end of the hall. You are here to get answers, and if nothing else, you're confident that going back downstairs now would be wasting this opportunity. With your mind made up, you creep past the bathroom door, listening intently in in case the sister reappears. When you are instead greeted by the sound of water through pipes and the resultant hiss of a shower turning on, you relax ever-so-slightly and scurry the rest of the way down the hall.
One door is already open, so you try that one first. Taking a quick peek into the office, you find nothing but abject darkness, outside of the dim strip of light from the door revealing just a chair and an unlit computer screen. Off to the side, you see a thin rectangle glowing a dull orange around the edges, and deduce it to be a shuttered window looking out over the alleyway you passed through just earlier. You feel for a lightswitch, finger hovering over the pad, but pause in thought.
If that woman was speaking another language, would it extend to keeping all their records like that too? You're sure you would be unable to read any of it; stealing it to translate elsewhere would be noticed, and you don't have the means to easily make a copy either. Glancing back at the darkened screen, you realize there may be other obstacles to contend with as well. Part of you wants to stay and figure this out, but at face value it just seems like a waste of time.
Time that you are not sure you have, glancing back the way you came. How long until the sister is done with her shower? Or until the others' distraction efforts end and the brother comes upstairs? The muffled sounds of arguing drifting from below doesn't fill you with confidence.
Instead, you withdraw from the office and turn your attention to the last remaining door. An experimental jimmying of the handle shows it to be unlocked, and shoving down sudden anxiety, you waste no time in pulling it open and sliding in. Closing the door as quickly-yet-silently as you can once you're through, you turn to take in their living space.
At first glance, it seems to be a fairly standard apartment, all things considered. A couch flanked by bookshelves on one wall, a television stand with a stereo system and no television on the other, and a coffee table in the middle littered with fashion magazines and random knick-knacks. A small desk with its own tall stool are pushed up next to the door to the hall, while on the far wall you see a bar counter leading to what seems to be a kitchen space around the corner, and another pair of doors. It's all almost disappointingly normal, at least at first. But as you examine further, several things suddenly stand out to you.
The first thing that strikes you is the atmosphere, smelling cloying and sweet and tangy, like the tastes of citrus and mint mixing on your tongue. The air isn't any more warm or humid than outside, but it just feels heavier somehow, like wading through a muggy summer day without any of the dampness and sweat. It's quieter, too, aside from the rustling of leaves that whispers at the edge of your consciousness. Somehow, you sense an intent to the noise, more than just meaningless sound.
Secondly, nearly every surface is covered in plants. Aside from the kitchen area counters and the coffee table, there are dozens of pots and troughs of dirt of all sizes scattered on the stand, along the bookshelves, on the desk, even several just placed out of the way on the floor. In the corners of the room, particularly large urns host saplings that stretch to the ceiling, wrapped in red string lights. (Though you also notice they look rather sickly and dead compared to the rest, with a scattering of shriveled leaves on otherwise barren branches.) You could almost mistake this place for a greenhouse, if not for the other furnishings.
Finally, the third thing you take notice of is the lighting. You'd seen it under the door before, but it's only now that you realize how eerie it is, the back of your neck prickling as you struggle to process what you're seeing. The lightswitch is off, the ceiling fixtures unlit, yet the room is permeated by a strange glowing, more like the blacklights you remember from a science class last semester than a normal color. Rather than looking faintly purple like those, however, this is both a watery green and vivid magenta, the colors overlapping without blending somehow. You blink in a futile gesture to force away the cognitive dissonance, but the paradox persists.
You have a gut feeling this isn't something you would have been able to detect before becoming a ghost.
Even if it does not come from the ceiling fixtures, though, the light is not sourceless. Instead, you realize it seems to be coming from all of the plants scattered about, and this leads you to examine them all more closely. What you first dismissed as just an excess of flora turns out to be unsettlingly strange.
The tall saplings, the only ones that seem to be perfectly normal if unhealthy, turn out not to be wrapped in lights at all. From the dirt around them grow creeping vines that wind their way up the trunk and branches, wreathing the struggling trees in a latticework of red ivy and draping from its branches. It is the stems of these that seem to be the source of the magenta glow in here, particularly concentrated in small buds growing along their length that you'd previously mistaken for bulbs.
Drifting over to one of the bookshelves, you find a wide assortment of smaller shrubs and weeds, with a respectable amount of actual books wedged in between. (You note the spines, some written in japanese, while others have clearly western characters, but you don't stop to read any of the former, let alone try to parse the latter.) Glancing at each briefly before moving on, you only linger long enough to get the impression that most of them loosely resemble different types of succulents that you don't know much about, just that they shouldn't be quite like this. Small flowering segmented cacti that divide and form into elaborate maze-like structures; a few of what you can only describe as a Venus Flytrap but worse; and one that resembles a tight bundle of Aloe that almost seems to bend space, spiraling infinitely inward to a center you can never see now matter how deeply you get drawn in. You have to make an effort to tear your gaze away from that last one, and resolve not to get trapped again, lest it be for good.
Many of these seem to be the source of the green light, but another plant catches your attention, that like the vines produces more of the magenta glow instead. At first glance it appears to be a fern, but rather than fronds, each blade is lined with long, rigid needles akin to those of a fir or spruce tree. More surprisingly, it's bearing fruit. Halfway along the shafts of some of the leaves, a branching stem hangs down and carries an oddly-shaped spheroid, looking as if someone rolled one of the blades up and bent the needles inward. With some amusement, you think it almost looks like the ten-sided dice from your ill-fated tabletop games, just comprised of a bicycle wheel's spokes with thin glowing membrane stretched between.
A thumping sound reverberates through the floor, reminding you that you can't afford to dawdle. What is even happening downstairs? Biting your lip, you fight the urge to retreat, and make another sweeping glance around the place to see what else you can find.
In the bright yet dim glow, the shadows look deeper and more dangerous, and you find yourself glaring suspiciously at random objects, wondering what secrets they may hold. A stray hairbrush, an unmarked wooden box, a tiny Eiffel Tower miniature, a discarded instant coffee packet, all get stared into submission before you realize you may just be getting silly with this now.
Your gaze finally alights on the other doors, along the back wall. Bedrooms, perhaps? Peeking in the first one, you're greeted with a sight similar to the office - pitch darkness, and the outline of a window that must look out over the main road, were it not also shuttered. Moving on to the second, you find more of the same exotic flora on shelves in here, particularly the needled ferns and another pot of red ivy, though these vines are wrapped around a traditional gardening trellis instead of something else alive. In the unlight cast by these, you see a mostly ordinary bedroom, save for one other oddity.
Rather than a futon laid out on the tatami mat floor like usual, or even a western-style raised bed, the only sleeping arrangement you can see is what appears to be a strange mixture of a hammock and a sleeping bag, hanging from a pair of heavy-looking hooks bolted into the ceiling near one corner. You blink, rub your eyes, look again, but still it hangs there. Somehow, after everything else you've found, this is what befuddles you the most, and you can't help but wander closer in curiosity.
Up close, the resemblance to a sleeping bag is more apparent, with a perfectly ordinary zipper running along the edge. However, unlike the heavily-padded ones you've gone camping in before, this seems much lighter, the bottom side cushioned against the ropes that hold it aloft, but the top cover being a soft, translucent silk-like material that slips through your fingers like water, with holes near the top for breathing. For there is a top end, the ropes set so the whole thing hangs at a shallow diagonal angle. Between that odd arrangement and the beautiful but abstract celled pattern of the silk, the whole thing is starting to remind you of something else. Perhaps a co-
Your rumination is cut off with a startled jolt, as you hear footsteps approaching. Whirling around, you see the door out to the hallway open, and the sister step through. Still dripping from her brief shower, she's wearing a fluffy red bathrobe and slippers, drying off her hair before carelessly tossing the towel onto the couch. You shrink back into the room despite yourself, peering around the edge of the doorframe to watch, wondering if she'll notice your presence.
Thankfully, she has not done so yet, carefree and comfortable as she moves about the living room. Humming some unfamiliar tune, she picks up a pair of clippers from the coffee table and snips a fruit from one of the fern-like plants. Taking that to the kitchenette, she drags a blender out from a remote corner of the countertop, and drops the fruit in, before adding something else from the fridge.
Just as you're about to instinctively cover your ears to block out the impending noise, another thump from below catches her attention. Turning away from the blender, she gazes around warily. "Qu'est-ce que cet idiot prépare?"
Still lurking in the door to the bedroom, you shrink back as her gaze passes over you. She clearly cannot see you, but still an uneasy feeling sits in your gut, especially when her head cocks to the side as if to hear something better, and especially when she suddenly grabs a large chef's knife out of the sink and holds it out threateningly.
You notice the rustling noises from earlier have gotten louder, and the plants are visibly trembling.
Staring around the space with a grim suspicion, she raises the weapon off to your right. "Ce bâtard de Seelie t'a envoyé?" A moment later, she adds in Japanese, "I know you're in here somewhere. Show yourself!" To your surprise and confusion, she shrugs her shoulders, letting her bathrobe slip down to her elbows and bust; were the situation not so tense you might look away, but right now your eyes are too fixated on her knife. She is stepping closer all the while; you have to think fast.
What To Do?
> Conceal! (Retreat into the back of the bedroom here, maybe the closet. Lay low until her guard lowers or she leaves, then make your escape.)
> Confound! (Take advantage of your invisibility to throw her off-balance, then try to knock her out peacefully.)
> Flee! (Forget subtlety; get out to the hallway and down to the shop, even if it means she sees you opening the door to get out.)
> Fight! (Transform and try to subdue her; even if she has something else up her sleeve, you know now how to use your powers.)
