The Monster Under the Stairs (canon)

Emma sat outside, staring at the forest. The others had gone to their rooms to think about what could give them the edge, to save them from the audience. Emma had instead drifted out here.

The cold helps me to think. It has since my first case. It keeps me in the moment.

But it did not help now.

How do you win over a group of people you never met? Do they love intimacy and romance? Cruelty and humiliation? Some arbitrary mix of both?

The only clue she had were the best girl rankings. And while Emma was smart, she wasn't some eidetic memory genius either.

I'm mid. That's all I can tell myself. I'm probably safe… maybe? I need to be ok with that…. I'm not though.

She breathes deep, the cold air raking its claws down her throat and into her lungs. The air helps to fight the panic that swells in her, though nothing could extinguish it. Nothing but the oblivion of sleep, assuming no nightmares, a huge ask.

Still, feeling this brainstorming session going nowhere, Emma stands from where she was leaning, walking inside.

She crosses the large empty lobby slowly, in no hurry to be anywhere. When, as her foot touches the first step, she hears a sound. A slight sound, something that could pass for the stair squeaking. But stairs don't have gaps in their noise.

Emma looks over the banister, only to see something she never saw before. As she looks at it, she leaves the stairway, stepping beneath it. A hatch sits at the foot of the stairs, just barely giving enough height for somebody to enter…

Emma feels a sense of danger. This is… someplace she shouldn't go, she knew it. An animal instinct, one that was built in back before apes, back when mammals were only rodents. But the sound raised again, now clearly talking, clearly a voice. Emma reaches down, popping her finger into the hole, pulling up, the hatch popping open.

What do I even think is down there? This is probably a trap. But…. What if this is the answer? Maybe I could get some advantage…

Those are her active thoughts. But beneath those are the basal emotions. Fear, yes, but curiosity and also the inkling that maybe, through some divine providence that the answer to how to gain the audience's favor lay down these dark stairs.

So even as she curses herself, her foot takes the first step. And another until she walks into the mysterious abyss.

At the bottom of the black stairs a landing and another set. There is no light source immediately visible in the stairwell, but the light from the lobby meets another from the bottom of the stairs. Emma can tell this place is not intended for the eyes of the audience… but she continues forward, down the staircase. As she reached its bottom, she looks on in awe.

The source of the light is no torch or lightbulb, but glowing ice. There is a wall of ice, glowing fully and of an unclear thickness. Along its surface, a magic sigil clearly patterned off the fractal of a snowflake. It is an opaque wall.

Emma touches the wall. Her hand is hit by the cold, a cold far stronger than ice. It was cold, too cold to the point that it felt like it burned her. She jerked back, but her hand was caught like a tongue to a flagpole. And as she watched with terror, she screamed, begging for help as ice encased her hand, her arm, over her elbow. The only mercy was that she passed out from the terror.

“EMMA!”

Emma wakes up, unsure where she is, looking down at her arm only to see she is bound to some stool in an unfamiliar room, one that she quickly adds up is Yuki's due to the terrifying woman standing above her.

“Fuzukenna!” Yuki looks down and scowls as the subtitles show “Don’t fuck with me!” Yuki switches to English. So, you tried to get past my ice wall, my little mouse? It froze you solid the second you touched it. Are you an idiot?”

Yuki seems to think about this. "Well you are sort of a ditz, but only around others."

Now, Yuki snaps and her clothes disappear, the sole exception the chastity belt she wears. “Ha, I forgot you got that.” Yuki lightly knocks her knuckle against the belt. “Now, get talking!”

Emma shudders. “Uh, so I touched your wall and I froze, what more do you want from me?”

Yuki frowns. “Well, aren’t you a dumb little girl? Now how to get rid of you."

“Wait… ugh, that would ruin continuity. I’d need to explain to the others what happened, and then I’d need to reveal the wall to my bedroom. Ugh… Actually, you’ve been pretty low in the rankings a couple of times. Maybe the audience will choose to eliminate you anyway. And…” Yuki touched Emma’s ass, who answered with her own voice but Yuki’s words. “I’m the only slut who hasn’t put out, why would they keep a frigid girl like me around?” Yuki slaps Emma’s ass. “Right, right.”

“How about this for a punishment? You are trapped here, unable to make any last plea for the audience’s mercy? And while you’re trapped in that belt.. I think I’ll allow you to feel all of the sexual sensations of the other girls, but they will always stop just short of letting you cum.” As Yuki waved her fingers, a sigil appears on the chastity belt. “There. And trust me, things are going to get fun, there was a reason I didn’t look too closely for where you ended up. Now, I don’t want you to ruin my me time, so no talking.” A white ballgag appears in Emma’s mouth.

Yuki smiles, as she sits down in her chair. “Now, let's watch some Harem Hotel. Oh I know! Let’s watch the Satan season… the extended cut!"