The Deepest Abyss

The next morning came like an old friend for these two travellers. They woke up later than they would have back in the UK, around 11 AM or so. The warm rays of the sun shone through the thin curtains and created a lovely, warm atmosphere in the master bedroom.

"Good morning, babe," said Roy. "Great to have a sleep-in, hey?"

"Morning, morning", Alex replied, as she gave herself a big stretch. "I slept like a rock."

"This place is amazing. The pillows were so comfy I could have just slept on those."

"Well, maybe tonight you can take the pillows on the floor and I can have the whole bed."

"I wouldn’t even be mad!"

Roy then tackled Alex playfully. Startled, she went down screaming and laughing.

"Roy, you monster! Give me a chance to wake up at least!"

"No!" he said, continuing his assault.

A sharp clearing of the throat punctuated their child-like antics. Before they could even consider where it had come from, the couple had jumped up to their feet on separate sides of the bed. Their faces bright red, they turned to see Bheka standing in the doorway holding a newspaper. His face held no expression, but his eyes were fixed to the ground.

"Oh! Oh, Bheka! How’s... are you?!" asked Roy, his brain only just managing to string a phrase together.

Bheka, of course, did not answer. He stepped forward into the room, evidently treating Roy’s greeting as an invitation to enter. He walked over to the fine oak desk that was on the opposite side of the room from the bed. He then placed the newspaper down neatly in its centre, turned, nodded to Roy, and swiftly took his exit.

The couple did not say anything for a time. Finally, Roy broke the silence and said, "That was-"

"-weird," completed Alex.

"Yes, weird. Should I-"

"-say something? I don’t know. I don’t want to get him in trouble."

"No, ja, for sure," said Roy, scratching his head. "He didn’t mean to impose, I’m sure. I’ll just talk to him and let him know about boundaries."

"No, Roy! You can’t do that," said Alex sharply as she bolted upright in the bed.

Roy stared at her, now confused. "What’s wrong with that?" he asked.

"You can’t just go up to them and complain! We only just got here."

"Sure, you can. I’m not going to get mad or anything; I just want to have a word. Plus, we’re the boss here and our boss does it all the time."

"Babe, do you really want to have the reputation with these guys that our boss has with us?"

Roy mulled it over in his head. "Good point," he said. "Fine, I’ll find Mr. Dladla and ask him to have a word."

"Okay, good," Alex said.

She breathed in and exhaled strongly. "You know what? It’s not really a big deal, is it? But do have a word. Better to sort these kinds of things out earlier rather than later."

"Yeah, yeah, I got it covered. Anyway," he said while jumping to his feet. "let’s get ready and go explore our new place! Do you want to start with the house or garden?"

"House, definitely. I want to see everything this place has to offer! Perhaps even rearrange things a bit," she said with a wink in Roy’s direction.

"No! Not decorating!" he mourned in sullen despair.

"Yes, decorating!" she answered with a witch's cackle.

"Okay, fine!" exclaimed Roy. "Let’s get to it."

* * *

The couple began their self-guided tour in the dining room, the same one in which they had eaten dinner the night before. Alex’s strange taste sensation—or lack thereof—popped back into mind for both of them upon crossing the threshold into the room.

"Oh," said Alex.

"Oh," said Roy in response.

"Last night I couldn’t-"

"-taste anything, yeah. You must be sick. Shame, man!"

"I guess so. I feel fine, though."

"You hungry? Let’s get some breakfast. We can check your taste buds, too."

"It’s 11:30, Roy. Normal people are getting ready for lunch."

"Breakfast is a state of mind, my love."

"Whatever, just wait a few minutes," said Alex, as she moved further into the room to take in all the details.

The first thing one would notice in the dining room was the gold trim lining almost every surface. The furniture was imported from Italy and made from some of the most beautiful and durable wood that money could buy. Everything from the floor to the ceiling was an antique.

"Honestly, I’m afraid to touch anything. I feel like a security guard is going to run up and grab my hand," said Roy.

"If you break it, you buy it, love," replied Alex.

"Well, I already bought it. I’m still nervous!"

Once they were done in this room, they moved into the living room. There were actually three of these—a public one, a private one, and one now exclusively for the use of Roy and Alex.

In addition to the dining room and the living rooms, the mansion contained an assortment of other rooms, which would probably boggle the mind of any of the townsfolk still remaining in the neighbouring town. There was the billiard room for a nice game of pool. There was the indoor uncovered swimming pool for mid-afternoon cocktails. There was the rooftop deck for basking while watching the sun set. There was also the basement relaxation area and music room for listening to one’s favourite tunes in the evening. All this and more was available to the young couple and was theirs, and all theirs, to enjoy.

As grand and beautiful as each new part of the house was, the actual design of it left a lot to be desired. The swimming pool was located directly in the middle of the house’s area. In any other place, it would be fairly simple to find, but, in this case, it was another story. The corridors of the house seemed to twist and turn in ways that were both confusing and disorientating. Although not quite a maze, one could be forgiven for thinking of it as such.

To get to the swimming pool from the master bedroom, they had to go down a long corridor, through the dining room, into the living room, past the security gate, into the kitchen, up some stairs, through another long corridor, and then down some more stairs to reach the central room. Truthfully, the couple would never have found it if they hadn’t met Bheka and Jabu in the kitchen preparing for lunch, who silently pointed the couple in the right direction.

On the way there, they stopped off at various rooms to inspect them. Unfortunately for Alex, it would take a while to properly scope the place out. No redecorating would be done on this day.

From the kitchen, which was adjacent to the living room, the couple entered another hallway. They were confused upon coming across their first dead end and were frustrated with the second one. Had it not been for the directions given by the groundskeepers, they certainly might have gone down one of the many corridors to nowhere that were scattered all around the house.

"I'll really need to ask Mr. Dladla about that. Who on earth designs a house like this?" Asked Alex, mystified.

"Your great uncle, apparently," answered Roy.

"I didn't realise he was this batty," said Alex, half with a chuckle and half with a sigh. "Also, he’s more of a great, great uncle, once removed."

"What does that even mean?"

"Nobody knows."

"Also, they remodelled this place before we got here, right?"

"Yes, exactly."

"I guess they thought all of this was normal," he said while gesturing around him.

"I think they just didn’t want to change the design. This house is quite the antique," replied Alex.

"Doesn’t mean it’s not ugly."

Thankfully, the explorers did not lose hope and eventually found the pool area in the centre of the house. The entrance there was directly out of a seemingly average corridor and down a rather random staircase.

The first thing Roy noticed was how you could see straight into some of the rooms from which they had just ventured. This included the dining room, living room, and kitchen. He pointed it out to Alex, who was wearing the same frown she had on when encountering the dead ends from earlier.

"You can see in, but not out?" asked Alex rhetorically.

"Yeah, it seems like it," answered Roy with his second scratch of the head that day.

"I don't know how comfortable I am with that, honestly."

"I'll have a word with them about it."

"You might be having a lot of words," said Alex, clearly becoming a tad frustrated. "I guess my uncle really was a madman if he lived here. There's definitely some changes we need to make before this is a liveable home."

"Do you think they'll be fine with us just coming in and renovating like that?"

"It's our bloody house, Roy."

"True, true. I just don't want to step on any toes."

"I suppose. Still, though, the one-way mirror walls are just... weird. Someone could always just be-"

"-Watching, yeah. It's just us and the guys here though, Love."

"I don't want them watching us eat, either."

"That's not what-"

Roy got cut off by a large clang that echoed throughout the pool's area. The glass seemed to reverberate in an odd way and gave the acoustic impression of a deep cave rather than an outdoor courtyard. The clanking gave way to a tremendous crash and subsequent crunching sound which echoed in the courtyard and into the hallways.

"What the hell?!" Roy exclaimed as he threw his hands over his head.

Alex, who had also ducked for cover, ran back up the staircase from which they had descended. "What was that?!" She shouted down to her husband.

Roy wasn't sure initially, but a quick scan of the courtyard revealed the likely source of the sound. What was once a glorious depiction of a guardian angel was now in several large pieces, all over the floor and in the pool’s water. Underneath the what had been the angle’s torso was a set of (now crumpled and smashed) metal poolside furniture. The central table of the arrangement had completely buckled in the centre. The chairs had been flung to the side and were now broken and utterly useless.

"Well, there's your answer," said Alex with a bitter snarl. "That could have killed us!"

Roy was speechless, barely managing to force a constrained "What..." out of his tight throat.

"Roy, that could have killed us!"

"Y-yes. Yeah, you're right. Wow..."

His legs were shaking and weren't listening to his brain. He told them to go ahead and look over the crash site, but they wouldn't allow him. He just stood there like a deer in the headlights of a car that had already crashed. Alex, on the other hand, was pacing up and down alongside the pool and hyperventilating wildly.

"Sir! Madam!"

The voice belonged to Mr. Dladla, of course, and the call had come from down the hallway somewhere. His footsteps quickly approached, followed by two more distant set from behind him. He nearly jumped out from behind the corner at the top of the stairs and stopped dead when he saw Alex and the state she was in. "Madam, what..."

"Are you serious?!" she interjected "We could have just f-" She paused to catch her breath. "That thing almost just fell on us." She was trying very hard not to unleash her anger on the wide-eyed gentleman.

"Madam", he stuttered, "I don't..."

Jabu and Bheka arrived in that second. Although they were silent as ever, their faces told of their own shock and worry. Jabu, in particular, had sweat rolling off his brow. Mr. Dladla turned to them, and they both shrank away from his gaze. He slowly turned back to face Alex as Roy had managed to get back up the stairs himself.

"Madam and sir. I do not know what has happened here today. This house was inspected before the sale by a very qualified team. No cost was spared on the manor’s reconstruction. For them to miss a danger so obvious as this is unheard of. I honestly do not know what to say."

Alex did not say anything, but tears were welling up in her eyes. Sensing the volatility of the situation, Roy snapped to his senses and stepped in to try and defuse things.

"Love, let's just go sit down. The guys will take care of it, right?" He said this not with the commanding tone of an employer, but with the pleading tone of someone who needed to finish the conversation as soon as possible.

Mr. Dladla picked up on this and nodded his head firmly to Roy.

"Madam," he said, "please accept my apologies. I will get to the bottom of this at once."

Once again, Alex did not reply. She was now looking down and struggling to maintain her composure in the face of everything—a new land, new people, and, apparently, new dangers in her would-be paradise home.

She managed a nod as the couple passed the three men and departed back to the master bedroom.