This, Constant Readers, is what I get for recommending an RPG Maker game to a friend of mine. Seriously, Theboblinator, I only recommended it 'cause I think it's a great game, I didn't mean to emotionally scar you! And now here I am practically being forced into writing a story I had no real intention of doing. I'm going to put the usual amount of effort into it, don't get me wrong, but I'm certainly not as enthused about it as I normally am.

There's not really much I can tell you about this story here without spoiling things for you, so you'll have to put up with the info you get in the story itself. Well … I can tell you that everyone's been aged up by about three years in order to suit my usual writing style. So welcome to What an Impractical Place to Live!

(Now, Theboblinator, I talk directly to you. How about a little game, my friend? For every chapter of From Demon to Fairy or From Demon to Pirate (either one works for me) you post, I'll post a chapter of this. That should get your ass in gear to update something consistently, right? What d'you say?)

Let's begin.

This Place is Creepy

Waking up was a bitch. I didn't know why, for I had never woken up with such a splitting headache before in my entire life, but as I woke up on that grass, my head felt like there were monkeys pounding on it from the inside.

Wait … grass? I thought as my senses returned to me. I blinked the sleep from my eyes and found myself in a clearing in the middle of the woods. What the hell am I doing out in the woods? That was the question that made itself most prominent in my mind. I didn't remember coming out here; Christ, I didn't remember waking up to come out here. Sleepwalking, maybe? I don't think so … I've never done that before …

"Isaac … are you all right?" came a welcome familiar voice.

"Viola?" I said, unsure of whether or not I was imagining it. But when I turned and saw her, a relieved smile crossed my face. "Hey. What are we doing out here?"

Viola, my girlfriend of about two years at this point, had fair skin and a slender frame. She had blonde hair tied into two small braids with a lot of unkempt bangs that hung about her face. She had pretty green eyes which usually looked melancholic but now had a strangely cheerful look about them. She wore a navy blue dress with a white apron over the top and a big white bow tied at the back, and a pair of brown leather boots. She, like me, was sixteen years of age. We'd known each other since childhood but have been seeing each other since we were fourteen.

My name is Isaac Bryn, by the way.

"I don't remember," said Viola with a dazed look about her. "I just woke up here a few minutes ago."

"Not exactly the cheeriest place to wake up," I noted, glancing off at a large, dead-looking tree nearby, and taking note of the chopped-down remains of another tree to my right. "Any idea where we are?"

She nodded. "We're near my friend's house," she said. "You remember how I told you about Ellen, right?"

"Oh, yeah. You said you'd take me to meet her tomorrow … well, today, I guess." I hummed thoughtfully. "Maybe that's why we're out here? Doesn't really explain why we passed out, though."

"Well, maybe we should head to Ellen's place, then," Viola suggested. "We might be able to figure things out better with a roof over our heads."

"Good idea," I said. "Which way?"

"This way." She started walking, and I followed.

"You two are up and at 'em, eh?" said a new voice suddenly.

I looked down in the direction of the voice and saw … a cat. "There's a talking cat out here?" I asked, more myself than the cat. "What the hell?"

"Yeah, I can talk," said the black cat. "And now, if you'll excuse me, I need to lick my testicles."

"… Well, all right, then."

What in the fuck just happened? I asked mentally as I walked behind Viola. Despite the situation and how much it had me confused, I couldn't help but glance down at her ass. Very nice, as always … No! Stop it, Isaac! That can wait until after you've sorted this shit out!

"I don't remember this being here," said Viola suddenly. I looked just ahead of her and saw a patch of roses that was a hell of a lot taller than it really needed to be. It shouldn't have been much of a problem, but there were a lot of thorns on that thing, and some of them were quite sizeable. In short: it was an obstacle. We would need to find a way to be rid of it if we were to travel forward.

"Maybe we should find some way to cut it down," I suggested.

"Good plan," she said. "You look around back the way we came, and I'll look over here. Okay?"

"Super."

As I walked back the way we came, walking past the cat that was indecently licking itself on a tree stump, I had to note how abnormal it was that a big-ass rose bush had apparently grown in the path from the time Viola last visited this place and now. It wasn't the sort of thing one usually comes across, you know? There was something less than normal about this part of the woods, and I was starting to get a bad feeling. It only got worse when I found a rusty old machete tucked away amidst the trees.

Who would've brought this out here? I couldn't help but wonder. It can't be for the animals. There's nothing out here that really constitutes a threat, and even if there were, I doubt something that requires being so close would do any good. I doubt it's for hunting, either … What the hell is going on?

This situation was rather baffling, as I'm sure you can imagine.

I made my way back to the rose bush – briefly noting that the cat had abandoned its post and gone elsewhere – and found Viola there waiting.

"Here we go, love," I said, holding the machete out in front of me. "This should hack through those damned roses."

"Brilliant," said Viola. "You want to put that magnificently long weapon of yours to good use?"

"Don't mind if I do," I said. I started to hack away at the rose bush, which turned out to be a bit of a job. "You're in a bit of a playful mood today. What's the occasion?"

"Oh, you know," she said, placing her hands on my back and rubbing up toward my shoulders. "Just you and me, alone, surrounded by nature … Who knows what natural urges might have awakened within me? You never know, I might end up attacking you."

"I don't think I'd mind all that much." I hacked up the last bit of the rose bush with a slight grunt. There were far easier ways I could have done this, but they weren't methods I currently had access to. I threw aside the now-broken machete and picked up one of the only intact roses I saw and turned around, holding it out for Viola to take. "For you, my fair lady."

"Why, thank you, good sir," she said, taking it and slipping the stem into her pocket so the rose was on display.

We stood smiling at each other for a few moments, then I raised a hand and stroked her left cheek. I dropped the machete, and she stepped closer, practically pressing against me. She leaned forward and pressed her lips against mine. I raised both hands to her head and pulled her in for a deeper kiss. She wrapped her arms around my neck. I brought my hand down away from her head and wrapped them around her waist.

The kiss was … different, somehow, to the ones we usually shared. More intense, at any rate. I couldn't help but associate it with the fact that we were completely alone, isolated, for the first time, and it was giving me ideas, too.

I slipped my tongue into her mouth and groaned as she rubbed her own tongue against mine, moaning. She lowered her hands and started rubbing up and down my chest. I lowered my hands from her waist and cupped her soft ass-cheeks through her dress. She released a moan and pushed herself closer against me.

I removed my lips from hers and almost instinctively moved down to her neck, placing a lingering kiss on the side of her throat. I felt her hands on the back of my head, encouraging me to go on. But I knew I couldn't.

"What would you say if I asked you to push me against a tree and have your way with me?" Viola asked in a husky voice.

I was more than a little startled by this request and I showed it by stopping what I was doing and pushing her away by the shoulders, holding her at arm's length. "Okay," I said, "that's not like you. Are you feeling all right?"

"I'm just excited," she very nearly purred. "We're alone, Isaac. And we've been a couple for the last two years. You have no idea how much I want this."

"I think I do," I said. "But wouldn't you rather be inside when we take that plunge? I don't want our first time to be some … some … some rut in the middle of the woods."

"… I suppose you're right."

I didn't let it show, but I took notice of the split-second look of disappointment and something else that twisted her face from its normally lovely visage into something else entirely. I thought it would be best, for the time being, to brush it off as just the after-effects of whatever had rendered us unconscious before. But that didn't mean I wasn't concerned. Viola was acting differently to usual and it had me worried.

We walked through the path I had opened up with the machete and the warning bells in my mind picked up in volume very fucking quickly. Ellen's house was … big and intimidating would be the best words to use. It was built out of old grey stone with cracks in it. The place looked quite a lot like the typical haunted mansion you hear a lot about in stories.

"She lives in Dracula's house, your friend," I commented as I looked on the, quite frankly, creepy place.

"I like it, actually," said Viola. "It's got quite a lot of character to it."

"I suppose that's one way of looking at it."

That cat from before was sitting on a tree stump just beside the dirt path we were walking along. He looked at us as we approached, and, while it was difficult to read an animal's facial expression, he looked curious and confused to me.

"… Huh?" he asked as we got to him. "What is it? I thought you would've left."

"The way's all blocked up by a big rose bush," said Viola.

"Hmm," hummed the cat. "So the way's blocked off by roses?"

"That's what she said," I said.

There was a small, ominous creak noise as the wooden door, which was disproportionately small compared to the rest of the house, slowly opened to reveal the darkness within. A chill ran down my spine. I was starting to get the feeling that this was no ordinary house.

"You gonna go in?" asked the cat.

"Hell yeah," I said sarcastically.

The cat bristled at me. "You might as well if you can't leave," he said.

"He's right, Isaac," said Viola. "Let's just go in. I told Ellen we were coming, she's expecting us."

I looked at her for a few moments, thinking about a few things. I made sure not to think too long, though. "All right, let's head in," I said.

Viola and I walked into the darkness of the house, the cat watching us with its sickly green eyes the entire time, and the door closed behind us. I could see much better now that I was actually inside. We had entered into a small chamber of sorts, with a red carpet right in front of the door, I suppose to act as some sort of welcome mat. There was a section of floor past the carpet that was just made up of grey cobblestone. About halfway up the room, the floor gave way to red carpet again, only this carpet went right from one wall to the other, as opposed to the one by the door which, as I said, just looked like a fancy welcome mat. There were candles on the wall on either side of the wooden door that lay directly ahead of us.

Viola and I walked across the room and through the door. As we passed by the candles on the way through, I noticed that they seemed to be swaying in some non-existent breeze.

The next room was remarkably bare. The grey cobblestone of the floor was uncovered and the grey stone of the walls was cracked in various places. By all rights, this house should have been falling apart. Then I noticed two things: a small sign on the wall on the far side of the room and a small red square on the floor between us and that wall. The red square rose slightly from the ground, but not enough for the untrained eye to notice.

"That's a trap if I ever saw one," I commented dryly.

"Huh?" Viola looked at the ground and saw the red square. She spoke in a tone that sounded almost embarrassed. "Oh, wow. That is pretty obvious."

I walked around the blatant pressure pad without any real fuss. Viola followed closely behind me. I had to get close to the small sign on the wall before I could read it, but when I did read it, I couldn't help but feel just a little unsettled. It said:

COME TO MY ROOM

"Didn't even have the basic decency to leave us instructions," I said with a sarcastic tut. In truth, I was getting the chills a little. If what we had seen so far was any indication, the time we spent in this house was going to be something right out of a horror novel. I looked at Viola with a raised eyebrow. "Your friend has a few issues, doesn't she?"

Viola shrugged. "She's dying," she said simply. "I think a few eccentricities can be forgiven, don't you?"

"I suppose that's fair enough."

I looked around and found that the only door in the room was the one we had come in through. We walked out of the room, taking great care not to step on the pressure pad as we passed it. It was when we walked out the door that I fully realised that this wasn't going to be the most normal of days for me.

The room was completely different to the way it had been a few moments ago. The candles were still in their position on the wall, but the wall itself looked whiter, more pristine. The previously plain red carpets were now patterned and fancy-looking. The front door of the house was in front of us, just as it had been, but now, on the left and right sides of the room, where there had once been nothing but a wall, were two more doors. And, just to the right of us, was the talking cat.

"Decided I'd follow you for laughs," said the cat.

"I'd find somewhere else to go, then," I said to him. "This place isn't very funny so far."

"Incidentally, where the heck'd you come out from?" asked the cat.

"From this room her—" Viola let out a startled gasp. "Isaac … the door …"

I turned around and saw that the door we had just come through was gone, replaced by nothing but more wall.

"Well … that's certainly interesting," I commented. I thought for a moment. Even if I thought we would be allowed to leave through the front door, it would have been pointless for a number of reasons, the least of which was the rose bush that blocked our way out of the forest. "What do you think, Vi? Left or right?"

"Maybe we should flip a coin?" Viola suggested.

"Good idea." I took a coin out of my pocket. "Heads we go right, tails is left." I flipped it. Heads. "All right, looks like we're heading right."

As I started to walk toward the door on the right, Viola grabbed onto my arm. It appeared to be in order to gain some form of comfort. We walked through the door and came upon some sort of office. It was carpeted in black with occasional white lines in it. There was a workbench in the far left corner that looked like it had seen better days; on the bench was a pair of scissors that was held to the bench with a chain. To the right of us, in the near corner, was a chest of drawers with the bottom most drawer open and full of spider webs. Just past the chest of drawers was another door.

I walked over to the chest of drawers to see if there was anything inside but the webs. There wasn't. I heard the rattling of a door handle and saw Viola trying to open the door with no success.

"It's locked," she said.

"Well, looks like we've got to go the other way, after all," I said.

We left the room and walked across the entrance hall (?) to go through the other door. At first glance, the room it led us into appeared to be tiny, but it turned out to be a long corridor that stretched out to the left of us. There was another door just in front of us and a vase of flowers on a table just to the right. The ticking of the grandfather clock at the end of the corridor was loud and constant.

Without thinking, both Viola and I turned left and started walking up the corridor. When we got near the clock, I noticed a door to the right. I pulled Viola through it.

This new room appeared to be a study or an office of sorts. The carpet was a deep, bloody red. In the far right corner was the strangely disturbing image of a teddy bear sitting on a pile of wrapped presents. Against the left-hand wall, right in the centre, was a desk – there was a lamp sitting on the left side, a book of some sort (maybe a journal or a diary) sitting open at the centre, and a bowl of flowers adorning the right side. Just to the right of the desk was a wooden dresser.

I walked over to the dresser and felt Viola let go of my arm as I did. I got to it and saw that there was an inscription carved into the wood.

Opens when the house returns to normal.

Returns to normal …? I wondered silently. You mean this place hasn't always been like this …? Then again, I guess Viola wouldn't have come here so many times if it was always like this.

I went over to the desk and sat myself down on the stool that was set up in front of it. I put my hand on the paper of the page and flipped the book closed so that I could see the front, my hand still on the page so that I didn't lose where I was. Witch's Diary, the front of the book read. I opened up the book again and read what was inside.

I was sick, so no one played with me.

My father and my mother didn't love me.

"Isaac," said Viola before I could read what was on the other pages. Those two sentences were all that was on the page that it had been open on.

"What is it?" I asked, turning toward her. "Did you find something?"

She was holding the teddy bear. "I get the feeling we might need this somewhere," she said.

"All right," I said. I looked at the teddy bear sceptically. "I'm not sure how it would help, but I'll trust your judgement."

"Shall we go check that room at the other end of the hall?" Viola suggested.

"Yeah, I think we should," I said.

The two of us left the room and walked back down the corridor, the way we'd come. Then we took a left and entered the other room we hadn't been in. It was pretty much bare-bones empty, with rotten wooden flooring. There was another sign on the left-hand wall and a basket in the middle of the room … with a teddy bear sitting in it.

I walked over to the sign and read it.

BEARS IN THE BASKET

"Well, Vi, it looks like your intuition was spot-on," I praised her. "Why don't you try sticking the bear in the basket?"

"Okay," she said and tried to do just that. It looked like she was struggling. "I can't. It's the limbs, they're making it too big to fit."

"Well, then …" I hummed, rubbing my chin in thought. I clicked my fingers as a thought came to mind. "How about we use the scissors in that other room to chop them off?"

"That should work," Viola said.

We walked to the other room, and Viola set about cutting the teddy bear's limbs off. I found myself feeling deeply disturbed, as when she cut the arms and legs from the teddy bear, the stumps left behind actually bled! There was nothing else to indicate the bear was alive, the insides were blatantly just stuffing and cotton, but there was blood coming out of it.

This really is some Witch's House, I thought in disgust.

"And done," said Viola, who looked significantly less put out than I felt. "We should go put it in the basket now, yes?"

"It's what the sign said," I said with a grimace.

As we left the room, a bloody paw-print suddenly appeared on the wall to the left. I tried to ignore it. As we made our way across the entrance hall (?), I could have sworn I heard somebody else moving around in here, and I don't mean the cat.

When we got into the room with the basket, Viola stuffed the teddy bear torso into the basket. The unmistakable sound of something unlocking somewhere nearby resounded around us.

We walked back out into the entrance hall (?) and started making our way to the other room, where I was sure the door had unlocked, when …

SMASH!

The nearest of the two flower pots in the entrance hall (?) smashed to pieces completely out of nowhere. I managed to keep relatively straight-faced, but Viola suddenly started hugging onto my arm like it was a lifeline.

"There, there," I said, starting to rub her arm. "It's okay, don't worry about it. I bet it was just a … an old pot, is all. Most of the stuff in this place looks like it's coming apart, anyway."

"I … I know," she said shakily. "It j-just took my by surprise, is all. I'm okay, really."

"That's my girl."

As we took another step forward, however, all pretences of calmness vanished. With a deafening SLAM! the door we had been making our way toward flew open, and out charged a GIANT RED-EYED TEDDY BEAR!

I grabbed Viola by the hand, turned around, and hauled ass back to the long corridor as fast as I could. But I didn't stop there. After I had slammed the door behind me, I grabbed her hand again and pulled her back into the basket room, slamming that door behind us, too.

"What the fuck was that!?" I exclaimed, breathing heavily. "And, more to the point, how the hell can a teddy bear be that terrifying?"

"Isaac," said Viola. "You might wanna see this."

I turned around and saw that the basket with the teddy bear and teddy bear torso in it was a few feet closer to the door than it had been before, but that wasn't the least of it. The sign that had been so useful in telling us what to do was now unreadable because of the bloody paw print that was covering its surface.

"… Well, Vi, if you didn't believe in ghosts before, I sure as hell hope you do now," I said. "'Cause there's no way this shit's anything but supernatural."

"I don't doubt it," said Viola. She glanced at the door nervously. "Do you think it's gone?"

"Only one way to find out," I said. I thought it was gone, it was too quiet out there. I was proven to be right a few moments later, after peaking back into the entrance hall (?). "Vi, don't take this the wrong way, but I don't think I like your friend's house."

"I'm not sure I like it at the moment, either," said Viola.

We walked into the workshop and made our way to the door on the right side of the room. There was a small thump on the ground behind us, and I turned around and saw that the teddy bear limbs had all been thrown to the floor. Maybe the poor little bastard was more alive than I thought, I mused, feeling suddenly very sick.

The door opened up into some sort of dining room. The floor was wooden and rotting, but the area of the table was covered up in an extravagant red carpet. The table itself was pretty big, being surrounded by three chairs on either side and one on either end and still having plenty of room between each chair that more could be added if they were needed. There was a white tablecloth draped across it. There were two candelabras on the table with all three candles lit on both. On either end of the table, there was also a tea set. On the side of the table nearest the door, there were a couple of pieces of paper. The centre of the table was the eye-catcher, though, as there appeared to be a skull with the top of its head opened up.

"I doubt we're gonna have the cutlery singing "Be Our Guest" anytime soon," I mused aloud.

"What?" asked Viola.

"I'm not sure," I said. "It just kinda popped into my head out of nowhere."

We walked down the room a little until we came across a door on the right. I opened it and walked through and was startled for a second when I saw the entrance hall (?) again.

A startled meow! to my immediate right told me that I wasn't the only one surprised by this.

"Geez, you freaked me out!" complained the cat. "Don't come out of nowhere like that!"

"Sorry, little mate," I said. "If it's any consolation, I'm just as surprised as you are."

I walked back through the door, which didn't vanish like the last one, and into the dining room. Viola was standing on the far side of the room from me, staring at a sign that was stuck to the wall by another door. I walked over to her and read it.

THE COOK IS BUSY
LEND A HAND

"What do you think that means?" Viola asked me.

"I don't know," I said. "Though I do get the horrible feeling that's a pun of some sort."

Viola went toward the door and opened it. The two of us walked inside. It was definitely a kitchen, there was no doubt about that, but it wasn't a very clean one. The place looked dusty, the light grey cobblestone of the floor was cracked, and there were cockroaches everywhere. If the little fuckers weren't basically invulnerable, I'd have made a point of stepping on them just to make this place into a healthier food-making environment. There was a door on the right which I assumed led to the larder or something. There was a table by the left-hand wall that had an open book on it. All the ovens and such were against the right-hand wall. The sound of someone chopping food resounded through the room. But …

"Am I going completely crazy … or is there an invisible man chopping food over there?" I asked Viola.

"I don't think you're going crazy," said Viola.

On a chopping board was some food of indeterminate origin. Chopping the food was a knife floating in mid-air, but it was moving like there was somebody using it.

"Ah, I'm busy, so busy …" muttered the Invisible Chef.

"Try to stay away from him," I whispered to Viola. "I'm gonna go check that book out, see if it says anything useful."

I walked across the kitchen and scooted by the Invisible Chef to get to the table. The book was called Dining For Aristocrats. It read:

People of ruling and wealthy classes have always enjoyed dining with silverware. By using such hard-to-clean cutlery, they could hire servants to demonstrate their wealth. In addition, silver utensils change colour upon contact with poison, making them quite useful.

I went back to Viola after reading it.

"So, apparently silver changes colour when it touches poison," I told her. "Don't know how useful that's gonna be to us, but looking at how things've gone so far I wouldn't dismiss it just yet. Have you tried the larder?"

"Yes, but it's locked," said Viola.

"Damn," I said. "I guess it's back out into the dining room, then."

"What about lending the chef a hand?"

"I don't think either of us wants that."

"… What about the teddy bear hands?"

I looked at Viola, slightly wide-eyed. "You … are a genius."

"Oh, don't! You'll make a girl blush." She giggled.

We managed to go from the workshop and back to the kitchen without incident of any kind. Viola walked right up to the Invisible Chef and offered him the severed teddy bear limbs. The thought that the teddy bear might once have been alive made me feel sick to my stomach, but I managed to hold myself together.

"Oh, thank you," said the Invisible Chef. "I was in need of a hand, or two. Let me show my appreciation." A key suddenly appeared, floating in mid-air – I presumed he took it out of a pocket or something – and then was handed to Viola.

"Thank you," said Viola, then she came back over to me.

"I reckon that's for that door," I said, pointing to the door that I assumed was a larder of some kind. But it was impossible to tell for sure in this damned house.

"You're probably right," said Viola. "Hey … can we head back into the dining room real quick?"

"All right." We walked back into the dining room and stood near the table. "So, what did you wan—" I was cut off when I got caught in a lip-lock with Viola. Her tongue was in my mouth and I was soon pushed back into a chair. I put my hands on her shoulders and pushed her away. "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Steady on! What brought this one on?"

"I'm just excited," she said huskily. "This situation is really creepy, but it's got my blood pumping! Doesn't it do that for you? Doesn't it make you excited …?"

"'Excited' is hardly the word I'd use," I said. "'Shit-pants inducing terror' is probably the better way of putting it."

"Oh, come on," Viola said in a whiny tone.

"Vi, you and I both know this is neither the time nor the place," I said. "We have no idea what could be trying to kill us at any given point. Christ, we were scared shitless by a giant teddy bear earlier! We can't afford to be doing things like this in our current situation."

She sat in my lap for a moment, sighed, then got off. "You're right, of course," she said.

"It's not that I don't want to do that with you," I said. "It's just that this really isn't the situation to be doing it in."

"Okay." She smiled at me. "Shall we get going?"

"Yes."

We got going.

Ellen looked at Isaac through Viola's eyes and seethed silently to herself. She couldn't wait to kill him, but she needed him to do a little something for her first. More accurately, she needed him to do her first.

It wasn't like she'd always had desires about her "friend's" lover or anything of the like. It was a plan she had been formulating at the same time as she had been formulating the plan to take Viola's body from her, a plan which had been very successful. The next plan was to have Isaac impregnate her. There were magical ways of making sure pregnancy occurred, and more magical ways of making sure the baby was a girl, both of which Ellen would be utilising when the time came.

She didn't just want this healthy life. She wanted many healthy lives.

So she would have a daughter, raise her, wait for her to grow up … then snatch her body, too.

It didn't have to be Isaac, per se, but he was the most convenient, given his already existing relationship with Viola.

And now that she had Viola's body … it was only a matter of time.

"Viola" smirked to herself as Isaac led her through her own house.

And done! You know, considering that I'm technically writing this against my will, I'm actually enjoying it rather a lot. I don't have many plot threads to follow so far, but there's plenty of time for them to come to me. I do have a few twists and turns planned out along the way, so don't worry too much about that sort of thing.

I'm going to be honest, that last scene was mostly just me answering a question that occurred to me midway through writing the chapter: What reason would "Viola" have for keeping Isaac alive? Well, there's your answer!

See you next time!