Jenkins and the professor found themselves in what looked like the living room of a high-end apartnt. Unlike the dilapidated, decaying, and filthy locations of previous Mysterious Realms, this setting was remarkably 'civilized'—so much so that it was almost impossible to tell they were in one.
The curtains were drawn tight, leaving them clueless about the world outside. Illumination ca from a gas lamp on the wall, but its design was unlike any contemporary fixture. It wasn't the sa as the lamp from the 'future,' which seed constructed from a latticework of fine gears; this one simply displayed a superior level of chanical craftsmanship.
The living room was utterly silent, save for the steady tick-tock of a clock on the mantelpiece. Not another sound could be heard.
"Hello, you two. Welco."
A voice like fingernails scraping across glass echoed from behind them. Jenkins and the professor spun around to face the clock. It showed exactly twelve o'clock, its hour, minute, and second hands perfectly aligned.
The clock face was shaped like a human face, with a well-defined nose, eyes, and mouth, though it lacked ears. It was, of course, the source of the voice.
"In 60 seconds, the apocalypse will begin. You must survive in the basent for 24 hours. If you're still alive when the ti is up, you can leave safely. During those twenty-four hours, you will face countless troubles and challenges. So, in the 60 seconds before it all starts, find everything you can in this house to help you survive. Good luck~"
It suddenly let out a cackle, a sound so jarring it made both Jenkins and the professor feel dizzy. When the professor regained his senses, he saw Jenkins already sprinting upstairs, cat in his arms. After a mont's hesitation, he turned to search the living room.
The clock's second hand began to move, its tick-tock audible from every corner of the house. Reaching the second floor, Jenkins saw a layout of rooms similar to his own ho. He knew sixty seconds wasn't enough ti to grab much—certainly not enough for two trips. He had to get as much as he could in one go.
"But what will be useful?"
Jenkins glanced at the doors lining the hallway, then said to his cat:
"Chocolate, head down to the basent! I saw the entrance—it's behind the stairs!"
He set his cat on the floor and, without a backward glance, bolted for the bedroom at the end of the hall. The cat tilted its head, watching Jenkins disappear through the doorway, then casually sauntered off toward the other side of the corridor.
"Oh, God~"
The mont he burst into the room, Jenkins recoiled at the sight of a desiccated corpse lying on the bed. Its head was lolled toward the doorway, its vacant eyes eting his just as he pushed the door open.
Fear sent Jenkins's heart hamring against his ribs, but his legs carried him into the room without pause. A mont later, his Eye of Reality revealed the room was awash in a black spiritual glow.
Jenkins had, in fact, noticed long ago that every corner of the Mysterious Realms held a black spiritual aura. It was usually so faint, however, that it was nearly invisible to him at his level. But here, the glow emanated from almost every object in the room. In other words, this place was filled with Cursed Items.
"Fuck."
It was rare for Jenkins to use such foul language. The word ca from the original Jenkins's mories, sothing he had overheard as a child from a sailor who frequented the Williams family store. Young Jenkins had repeated it to Robert and Mary after dinner, and from that day forward, Robert never brought Jenkins or his brothers to the store again.
"A trap from the very start! This Mysterious Realm is just too strange!"
Usually, the start of a Mysterious Realm was a period of absolute safety, especially for one with such a complex setting and rules. And while these realms always contained unspeakably terrifying items and creatures, Jenkins had never seen so many all at once.
"Sothing must have gone wrong!"
He, the professor, and Chocolate had been to Mysterious Realms more than once; the problem couldn't be with them. So, the issue most likely stemd from the two dead bodies back in the living room. For so reason, Jenkins’s thoughts turned to the bottle in his robe pocket.
"Could the appearance of this Mysterious Realm be related to that umbilical cord?"
But he had no ti to ponder. Seeing the room filled with Cursed Items, he steeled his resolve and darted inside anyway.
Instantly, a cascade of horrors began. Countless human hands reached out from every corner of the room. Two distorted faces materialized in the flickering fla of the gas lamp. The corpse on the bed began to twitch. With a creak, the wardrobe in the corner opened a sliver. On the windowsill, two dead plants twisted into snakelike vines and slithered to the floor. The malford figures in a child's chalk drawing on the wall started weeping tears of blood. A grimy tentacle erged from a teacup on the desk. On the cover of an overturned book, the title *Book of the Dead* slowly bled to black. An amorphous, fleshy mass began to squirm out from the shadows beneath the bed. And from the mattress under the corpse, overlapping sheets of human skin peeled away, drifting into the air...
Jenkins couldn't process it all. He took a single step, his body shifting into its fire elental form. He spotted the only object not glowing with a cursed aura: a fountain pen on the desk. Fighting against the insidious whispers in his ears and the black shadows clawing at his form, he managed to snatch the pen before leaping back out of the room.
It seed the Cursed Items had an awakening process, unlike their real-world counterparts which activated instantly. That was why, even under the influence of dozens of them, Jenkins had managed a difficult escape. The mont he cleared the threshold, the door slamd shut behind him with a loud bang. He collapsed in the hallway, disheveled and panting for breath.
"ow~"
Chocolate erged from a room at the other end of the hall. The beautiful cat tilted its head, looking at him. It held a white feather in its mouth—one identical to the C-01-5-8222, the Angel's Resurrection Feather, that Jenkins already possessed.
"Nineteen seconds. I can still check two more rooms!"
Jenkins struggled to his feet, put his pocket watch and the fountain pen away, then threw himself against the door across the hall, bursting it open.
It was a study. Here, too, the curtains were drawn tight, the only light source a candelabra on an impressive desk. The instant he pushed the door open, all the books—each glowing with a black, cursed aura—began to tremble in unison.
Jenkins scanned the room with wide eyes, desperately searching for anything that wasn't cursed. Just as before, he lunged forward, grabbing a small statue of a woman with a broken arm from the desk and a black chess piece from its corner, before stumbling back out into the hall.
In the instant before the door swung shut on its own, he caught a glimpse of a terrifying humanoid figure made of swirling book pages, its hand reaching for him.
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