Side-story 1: ‘IT’

A/N: My first (shitty) side story chapter! I tried to keep the tone comedic horror, but I'm not sure how well it came out.

We'll get back to Alex after this. Enjoy! :)

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[Maids' POV]

Two of the house maids walked in the hallway this morning where Alex's room and their destination– one of the bathrooms were situated.

They had been assigned clean-up duty by the head maid soon after she received the orders herself.

They, in proper cleaning gear and masks, made their way silently toward their destination. Then one of the maids spoke.

"You know, I feel really bad for the young master. He was so healthy and fit yesterday morning but got so sick in the night. Poor young master… he looked so deathly pale and had lost so much weight."

"Indeed. It was horrible. He didn't deserve it. Poor young master… he even lost all his beautiful muscles…. I really hope he gets well soon. From what I heard, he's not in any serious condition and will be back to normal after resting." (A/N: Anyone remembers this maid?)

The second maid replied, but she muttered part of it to herself.

The first maid, who didn't catch on to the other's strange remark, nodded in agreement.

"I hope so as well. He's such a kind and charming person. It's truly unfortunate that something bad like that happened to him."

Soon, they reached a closed door that was their destination–The bathroom.

"Alright, let's quickly get this over with. This is the closest bathroom to the young master's room. He'll have trouble if it's not usable."

"Yes!"

The first maid opened the gate to see the condition of the room.

""?!""

The two looked in revulsion at what seemed to be a room out of a gory horror movie. There was a strange greenish substance spread on the floor near the toilet and the sink. It made a pathway from there towards the shower, almost looking as if something was dragged on the floor. (It was.)

The toilet seat was closed, but something disgusting seemed to ooze from the slits of it.

And above all, their noses experienced the worst stink they had ever smelled.

"Oh, my goddess!"

"What is this mess?!"

The two scrunched their faces from the disgusting sight and smell they were experiencing, their wills were now shaken from seeing the real thing.

'Do we really have to clean this?'

That was the dilemma in their heads.

"Ugh. There's no other way. We must do it, Sera."

The first maid spoke in the ultimatum. This was a job assigned by the head maid. And if she said to do something, they had to do it, even if it meant cleaning this toxic wasteland-looking place… without hazmat suits, since they didn't exist in this world.

"Ugh. You're right, Mena. We can't go against the head maid's orders. Let's do this!"

Sera steeled her heart and mind.

"Yes… Then I'll clean the shower; you clean the toilet!"

Mena suddenly ran, leaving the surprised Sera in the doorway.

"Huh? What?! No fair!"

It took a brief moment for Sera to realize that she was given the short end of the stick by Mena.

"Sorry, but first come, first serve. Now, get working! This place isn't gonna clean itself."

Mena spoke, smirking at Sera, who gave her a stink eye for her unfair actions.

"Fine! But you'll pay for this."

Sera trudged towards the toilet, dreading what it contained.

She reached there and covered her masked face due to the horrid stench coming from it.

'Curse that Mena! She left the worst place for me to clean.'

She tried flushing the closed toilet in hopes of getting rid of most of the horrible contents it possibly possessed.

"Blast it! The flush isn't working. It's jammed."

Much to her disappointment, it didn't work.

She then filled the bucket she was carrying with water from a nearby tap and then opened the toilet seat to view its condition.

Then she saw 'IT'. Then she screamed.

…

Mena cleaned the floor of the bathroom, feeling a bit sorry for her friend maid whom she had tricked to clean the worst part. She was planning to apologize for it later, but for now, she let her deal with whatever was in there.

'But still, what is this strange substance. I've never seen such a disgusting thing in my entire life.'

It was a gooey green substance that seemed like it was secreted from a poison slime.

She wiped the floor with an abundant cleansing agent to get rid of any traces of it.

During her work, she suddenly jolted as she heard her friend's scream.

"EEEEEEKKKK!!!!"

The scream was loud enough to be heard from a few rooms away.

Mena immediately turned to see what happened and was shocked to see her friend Sera lying on the floor.

"SERA!"

She dropped the wiper on the floor as she ran to her friend's aid.

"Sera! What happened? Open your eyes! Sera!"

Mena hurriedly took her in her embrace as she shook her, trying to wake her up.

But Sera seemed to be unconscious.

Mena looked around in confusion to see what caused this to happen. She suddenly smelled something horrendous and then looked at the now opened toilet seat.

She placed the unconscious Sera back on the still dirty floor as she went to close the lid and observe what seemed to have been the culprit.

She slowly made her way, her nose pinched from above the mask, and then took a peek inside.

Inside, there was a strange substance filled with all sorts of horrendous-looking things, creating a hue of weird greenish and brown colors.

But then, she was something else.

She saw 'IT'. And then, she too screamed.

[End of Maids' POV]

***

[Laura's POV]

Laura got alarming news from one of the maids on cleaning duty in the hallway that lead to Alex's bathroom. Apparently, there was news of a few maids fainting in the washroom that Alex used and was supposed to be cleaned today.

She immediately sent some maids to check up on it, but even after a while, they didn't return. After waiting for over 20 minutes, she went there herself, deciding to give those tardy maids a piece of her mind and to see the problem.

She along with a few other maids made their way to the hallway. The maids looked fearful of Laura who now dawned an annoyed expression. She had to delay her task of taking care of her young master to deal with this mess. Thus the reason why she was annoyed.

'What could have possibly gone wrong there for them to not finish their task quickly?'

She wondered as she took a turn and finally could see Alex's room and a fit further down the hallway, the place in question.

But when she reached there, she was shocked to see a maid had fallen on the floor.

"Call the guards!"

She ordered one of the accompanying maids, who immediately rushed to do so after affirming.

'What's going on here?'

She and the others were on alert as she made her way toward the fallen maid.

After reaching her, she asked one of the maids to check up on her as she looked around to find anything or anyone suspicious. But there was nothing that seemed out of place. Then she looked inside the bathroom and frowned. Her nose was bombarded with a foul smell and it was coming from the gross and strangely horrific bathroom. Inside, she saw 4 other maids who were unconscious, lying on the dirty bathroom floor.

'Did they all fall from the smell? To think the toilet was in such bad shape. Just what kind of stomach problem did young master have?'

She was baffled, to say the least. She had no idea what that greenish gooey substance she was seeing on the floor.

Meanwhile, the maids had picked up the first maid at the door and while covering their noses, entered to pick up the rest of them.

Luckily, they had masks and gloves as basic cleaning kits with them.

They picked everyone up and in the meantime, some guards had shown up as well.

"What's going on here, miss Barton?"

One of the guards asked, seeing the maids carrying some unconscious maids outside, their clothes stained with some sort of greenish smudge.

The head maid looked at the 5 guards and wondered how to reply to that question.

"From what I can tell, they fell unconscious from the foul smell in the toilet. We'll have to hear it from them to know the details. But for now, please assist the maids in carrying them to the infirmary. And we'll need some water and air-based magicians to help with the cleaning."

She looked back at the source of the foulest smell in the room: the toilet.

She didn't want to think what kind of atrocity it carried to make the cleaning maids faint on sight. The guards followed her gaze and scrunched their faces as they saw the horrific state of the room.

"Goodness me! How on earth did it turn into that?!"

One of the guards voiced what was on all of their minds.

"…"

The head maid remained stoic, although with a furrowed brow due to a foul smell.

The guards realized they were not going to get answers from her, so they decided to help the maids carry the unconscious maids to the house's infirmary.

[End of Laura's POV]

…

Later, the bathroom was tackled by a group of 2 mages, with Air and Water affinity, and some new maids—since the original ones assigned on the job were still unconscious.

It took a collective effort to get rid of it all. It still took them over 2 hours to turn the bathroom into its original clean state, ready for use again.

But in the process, many of them were scarred by what they witnessed inside the toilet. 'IT' was not something even the experienced mages could completely be unaffected by.

The horrors of that day, of 'IT', would be passed down the household for a long time, but the cause of this mess, Alex, will remain blissfully ignorant of it since the talks would be done in hushed whispers.

***