TEMPTED

"TEMPTED" is the twelfth episode of *The Mistholme Museum of Mystery, Morbidity, and Mortality*.

Areas of interest:

* The Cafeteria

Exhibits:

* Mass Hysteria
* Bowties

## Mass Hysteria

### Content Warnings

Loss of Sanity, Brainwashing

This is more like a featured room rather than a single exhibit explain mass hysteria. The guide says it will be explaining the three main sections of this exhibit [guide glitches and says these three at once] *“the Dancing Plague, the Singing Plague, and the Pied piper”*

This story is set in a town whose name has been lost to time but is commonly called Hamelin. One day a man arrived who he said he would do what he could, he opened his mouth and sang, and the rats pricked up their ears and followed him. The rats followed him into the hills never to be seen again. People in the fields heard the song and they danced for hours and hours with no need for rest. The people in the capitals and children in the schools joined in this singing, not knowing how they knew this melody but singing along anyways. Everyone was truly happy and had been enlightened to the delight that these dances and song brought to them. But then he stopped singing, the people were sad to see him go but everything they could have said could have never stopped him from leaving, as quickly as he had appeared

The children of the town we distraught, they had heard true beauty now so how could they have gone back to the mundanity of life after finally experiencing true happiness? As they returned to the fields with the little motivation they had some tried to recreate the dances and songs they did the previous day, but the rhythm did not make sense and the melody was disjointed and wrong.

People were now losing faith and fractures began to show in the burgeoning country, people were more afraid then ever that they would fail. They tried to return to the unity they felt but the music had left their hearts.

The [guide glitches and says these three at once] *children’s, workers and people* had decided they had enough, they walked into the countryside with nothing but the clothes they had on their backs in an attempt to find the man, and they did. He welcomed them into his home with open arms with them to never return to the town again.

## The Cafeteria

The cafeteria staff are all gone, safely in an alter-natural event shelter somewhere. The guide tells us not to worry about the food on display as vast majority of food here has been produced by an alter-natural item or has just appeared.

The guide mentions it recalls that people need to *“eat”* so it figured it would be a good idea to bring us here and that the billing department would let us pay out tab should we survive until the lockdown lifts. The guide points us to an urn in the corner that supplies an unending supply of Worchester sauce flavored tea, it does not understand the concept of taste so it assumed it would be perfectly fine to drink.

On the menu today is:

Beef wellington served in an authentic wellington boot

Plank grilled seabass that will serenade you as you eat it

Chicken tikka masala

The guide has a feeling that the cafeteria has gone off rails due to the lack of staff supervision and suggests we should just stick to the vegetarian menu for the time being. We are pointed to the bathroom to use it for *“whatever it is people do in there”* and are told how the museum offers gender neutral bathrooms and typical men and women’s ones but the guide does not understand why they need to segregate them when there is a unisex toilet on offer and says *“some people get very weird about that, but jokes on them since the unisex bathroom is twice the size, gets cleaned twice as often and has an endless bowl of individually wrapped candy by the sink.”*

## Bowties

### Content Warnings

Death (Murder)

This exhibit shows a dozen of the same immaculately knotted bowties, all in the exact same size, style, and bold red colour. They look the same because they are the same with each of these being the same on an atomic level. These used to be a signature accessory in the wardrobe of talk show host Don Grayson, this exhibit is based on the accounts from Don Grayson himself as described from the memoirs he released while serving a life sentence in prison.

Guide says that we most likely don’t remember Grayson and that his career ended just as it seemed it was about to take off, and it seems that the industry is also trying to erase his existence or sweep this whole incident under the rug. His signature role was as the host of “Talk Time” a daytime TV show that he held for several years. In youth Grayson is described as an ambitious and charismatic young man who did standup comedy, acting and was even briefly the frontman for a long forgotten rock and roll band. He saw everything and everyone as a steppingstone towards greater success and the fame and fortune he believed he deserved. Talk time was a good job, but Grayson was not satisfied with the constant reminder of any future success looming over his head and he began to hate all of it.

However, one day Grayson walking into his dressing room to see all the staff standing in his changing room with streamers and cake to celebrate ten years where he went on to do his show and take cheesy photos. Going home later Grayson drunk all the alcohol that was in the house and gazed into the mirror, he spotted some grey hairs starting to sprout and suddenly lashed out at the mirror, shattering it and impaling his fist on broken glass shards. He didn’t want to go to the hospital being scared of getting recognised, so he went to bed in his suit and tie, tossing and turning.

Waking up he saw another Grayson staring back and when he saw the doubles in-tact hand he told the double to go to work instead. He watched is duplicate go to work and replace him becoming more popular than he had ever been. With the original Don having more time to go to auditions he was suddenly accepted by one of the more popular directors to play a lead roll in a movie being told that however lacklustre his actual performance was, his performance on Talk Time was what really sold them. He couldn’t believe it, after all that work it was his double that got him the job. So, when the double got home, he killed him.

He woke to see another of him lying in his bed with both of them resuming the previous life they lived and everyday Don would kill the double and keep the bowties.

With the movie finally premiering and the double wanting to go instead saying that Don “didn’t deserve it because the doubles did all the work” and just as the original was about to kill this one as well, he saw a smile on the doubles face like this is what it wanted. He got to the premiere late and rushing up to the entrance he saw a man holding the door open, glancing briefly at the mans face what he saw made him freeze, it was his double that then proceeded to walk down the stairs and into the night.

After the premiere ended Don was apprehended by officers, reportedly lunging away from them to sign an autograph for a shocked fan. The only reason he was ever arrested is because that same double alerted police to a large amount of burnt human remains and a few intact bones buried in his yard and although none of them were ever identified one of the jaw bones were “misidentified” as Don Grayson’s own jaw. After this arrest he was reported to be spotted all over the globe, but how could anyone be in two places at once?