The detective tilts his head after her statement, studying her.

"Evidence?"

The young woman gulped back her nerves, hoping not to mess up.

"I remember reading articles online, but I mostly skimmed so my guess isn't fully supported but based on the shower built in the room and a cage for a bed frame, the people that resided in these bedrooms were mentally ill and kept like prisoners here, prisoner as evidenced by the cage and the lock on the doors that I finally noticed, locks on the outside." She pointed to the door that just snapped shut like a Venus flytrap, the padlock and metal hook and eye screwed on the outside of the door, just above the doorknob.

Laurence held his chin and nodded, urging her to continue as he took a picture himself of the locks on each of the doors.

"The shower I guess is because doctors in the 1900s advised some kind of hydrotherapy for their mental patients. The stuffed animals, I saw the stitch marks, these people either suffered or it was something else."

He snapped his fingers as he smiled and followed with a theory right after her.

"So then, I can only guess the music we're hearing now, it's serving as some kind of, either comfort that the entities had in life and is continuing in death or was something they heard during their suffering that they remember, and it's playing now because they think they can still hear it."

It was Dove's turn to tilt her head.

"How would that work? I can understand illusions like this, and some poltergeist powers, but a ghost can't just, make music, unless there is an actual music box playing in each of the rooms that the ghost is haunting."

"No, if there was a music box in every room, no matter how perfectly the ghosts were to time when they would all play, we'd still simultaneously hear multiple of them, making it sound like the same notes repeating in the same order. But we don't, we're clearly hearing one song, being played from one music box."

She nodded; they continued walking down the hall.

"So, there's either a real music box hidden somewhere, or the ghosts are actually creating music. That, I find hard to believe."

"Really? After everything you've seen, a choir of ghosts making melodies is hard to believe?"

"Yes, at least to me. Ridiculous, it probably is, I don't have any good evidence to back my thought."

Laurence stopped in place, causing her to stop as well and look back at him. He still had that gentle look on his face, looking in front and behind them before signaling that they just stay in that one place, since just walking was doing nothing anyway.

"Mind telling me your thoughts anyway?"

It felt like a trap, hearing that line. I wanted to stay silent for safe reasons... But I also wanted to get out of that house. All that black and white, you'd think it'd be cool like a noir vibe, but the filter was far from it. Instead of like the shiny monochrome usually shown on tv, it felt like someone colored over my eyes with black and white chalk, making me dizzy, so I kept letting out whatever thoughts might get us out, regardless of the judgement.

"Hallucinations and illusions make sense, since we're in a physical space of the entity's territory, but sound is another type of matter. I'm not all that smart so I can't really explain it scientifically, please don't ask me to try and explain it scientifically just yet. Sound waves are just a different type of space, it's not exactly visible or physical unless it was louder, enough to make painful sound waves, but this lullaby isn't."

Just as she was saying, the constant music playing throughout, difficult to pinpoint its location but it was coming from somewhere.

"I know there are some ghosts that make wailing noises, but that's solely the ghost's sound or them manipulating the wind, because they used to be a creature that could make noise, so they're just replicating their sounds in death just like they are making hallucinations of multiple identical rooms from their memory, but a music box definitely couldn't have been part of the entity's vocal cords during their living days, especially not one we are hearing in such a perfect ongoing tune."

The detective nodded.

"So, you're basically also confirming that there must be a physical music box somewhere that one entity is haunting?"

The girl blinked, jaw hanging open for just a minute as she thought back on her spoken words so far. It was only then that they really began turning their heads slowly and carefully, listening.

"Yes. And based on how we first heard it after opening the attic, maybe there is one in the attic, but then why would the ghost just hide it from us?"

"Perhaps from one of your first hypotheses, the rooms are clearly tied to the entities in a traumatic way. Perhaps whilst trying to trap us into one of those rooms, it's also keeping us away from the music box. The music must be like a comfort of some kind, and it sees us as intruders."

Dove doesn't say anything to object, but there's also something from holding her back from agreeing to it.

They both decide to look in opposite ends of the hallway, of course, it seems to go on forever in both directions.

Laurence nods his head at her again, inviting her once more to give some ideas, as if letting her lead the entire thing.

Maybe he could tell how giddy it was making me feel, being on a supernatural investigation like this, even though I was almost feeling dizzy. I can never tell what my face is saying about me, but I always assume I may look too excited, I try to dim it down.

"Well, it looks like we have some limited choices, but I'm scared to try either."

"Tell me, maybe I can change them to not be that way."

"The first bold choice would be to split up and run down opposite ends of the hallway simultaneously, hoping the ghost wouldn't be able to keep up the illusion simultaneously and it would break, but I'm scared we'd end up just separating entirely. The second bold choice would be to willingly go inside one of the rooms, since they all used to serve the same purpose and would all at least have the same elements but different pieces to investigate further. We could investigate more inside a room, but we could also end up trapped."

He hummed to himself, before freezing as there was a sudden noise heard amongst the ongoing music. Dove stood still and silent as she began to hear it too, tip toeing to the wall nearby, feeling the vibrations there. A strong vibration.

It felt like something was moving the house. The real estate agent did say that the house was alive in a way.

"We should try the splitting up down the opposite ends, but I have an idea to make that less scary."

He reaches into one of the inner pockets of his coat, it was like a small roll of string, but different in that both the opposite ends of the whole bundle could be pulled out, and he showed how both could be pulled at the same time.

"Just a little trick item, it's an easy project that all the beginner Alchemists have to make, so we get lots of these. I rarely get the chance to use it." He smiled.

Dove already got the idea as she took one end, Laurence helped to tie it around her wrist, and she took the other, tying it around his wrist, he let the roll fall onto the floor as he told her, 'Make mine tighter'. She hesitated of course, not wanting to hurt him but he insisted.

"I need to make sure I can feel it." He told her, ensuring that he could feel the pressure as he assured her.

They both gave each other a nod, Laurence held two fingers up, simultaneously pointed between his eyes and hers and they both began walking backwards.

She kept her eyes on his surroundings as he did the same for hers, as they continued walking backwards in opposite directions, the melody got a little louder.

Not the disturbing kind of loud, it was just the type of volume increase where you're clearly walking closer to the source of a noise. The only scary part was determining which one of us was getting closer as the illusion was deteriorating. It also got me pretty scared when I noticed how far we were from each other, but it still felt like the hallway was endless from both sides.

The detective stops in place, and Dove copies him, raising her right eyebrow up, hoping for an explanation. But he just stares at her side, eyes widening like saucers as he wears this sort of scared grin, he subtly shakes his head at her, mouth motioning the words 'don't move'.

She of course stays in place, not taking any more steps. She wants to look and turns her head just to the side while still maintaining eye contact with him. He makes no objections, no hand signals or shaking of his head as she continues her attempt to look over her shoulder, and it's then that she realized how close the repeating melody was to herself.

One room, just next to her, seemed to have the music coming out of it, they could both hear it. They could both hear the path of the music coming from the one room near her.

She whips her head back, almost smiling a crooked smile before blinking rapidly, frowning, and then rubbing her eyes as she no longer sees Laurence there.

The string and the bundle of it were on the floor, I could see that, I could still feel the string on my wrist, my vision was getting blurrier, and my head was starting to hurt. Clearly the entities were making me feel more delirious, or it was just my vision being in a chalky black and white filter for too long.

The place where Laurence was supposed to be standing, there was a wall there now, and his part of the string couldn't be seen.

In a panic, Dove ran over to it, ignoring the room that now finally appeared as she picked up the roll of string, making sure hers was still connected.

It was all an illusion; I knew it was all an illusion. I couldn't tell whether Laurence was under the same illusion as me, maybe he blinked and that changed his visions, I didn't accidentally bump into his body. The only thing that kept me grounded was when I felt around the roll, I found where my part of the string was coming from, I couldn't see his, but I could feel another string sticking out, it was faint, but I could feel it there as I moved my hand up and down the roll.

She pulled on her string, and she could see the roll spin a little, following the pull of her string. She waited, kneeling on the ground staring at it, before seeing it turn again without her pulling her string. He was still there; she just couldn't see him.

Dove sighed in relief, breathing deeply as she stood back up and turned to see the room, she just next to, the melody playing out of it.

All the other doors suddenly snapped shut as soon as she got closer to the room with the music. Dove forced herself to focus and continue to go inside the room, even as the door shut behind her, but she knelt down and tested the string, still able to move it from underneath the door.

Her ideas, whatever she had in the moment that were forgotten later, suspicions confirmed as she saw in the middle of the child-like, hospital-like room, a ladder, leading up to the attic that was clearly out of place in the ceiling of that bedroom.

I could've closed my eyes as I went up to investigate it, but I feared whatever vision my brain might have tricked me into thinking, more than whatever I would find up there. I didn't have any other options. Going into one of the rooms and I would end up trapped, and continuing down the hallways would just eat up my time.