The Horror and The Song

## Story

After Daniel wakes up he sifts through Argos LeGrant's journal, searching for something to save himself from the madness. What he finds is a plethora of incoherent ramblings, and a tragic tale at the end. It reveals that Argos unknowingly murdered his wife and daughter, save Ariadne, due to the Presence tricking him into thinking that they weren't actually his family, instead agents of the Presence trying to take away Ariadne. After finding out that this was not the case, Argos was drowned with grief and hung himself, as he couldn't bear the madness.

Peculiarly, there was a note at the end of the journal from a certain Berenice Prestegard, a therapist working at the Jeremy Hartwood Mental Hospital. Daniel deduces that she must have read the journal, and been the one tasked with examining young Ariadne's mental state, so he plans to go there. But this time, he wisely comes to the conclusion that he can't go alone.

Pulling up his contact list, he calls one of his companions and requests their help. They will go to the mental hospital while Daniel reads more of the journal and goes back to Ariadne's home. After agreeing upon this, both of them enact the plan.

As they explore the mental hospital, they find out that the workers were in progress of moving all of the furniture out and abandoning it, but for some reason were stopped from completing said task. The Presence impeded their progress, and eventually snuffed out their life like the rest of the fallen.

While searching for a way to stop the curse, they find notes, films, and more from Berenice detailing her findings in the Ariadne investigation and the Music box investigation. She goes into detail about young Ariadne's mental state, and how she is extremely closed off from people. A film reveals that somehow Ariadne knew what she would look like in the future, and that she would meet Daniel. She even knew his appearance.

At young Ariadne's request, Berenice goes to former home of the LeGrants and sleeps there for a night. Placing candles all around the room and the mattress she laid out to light the place and try to calm her nerves. After falling asleep she has a dream where she explores an unfamiliar environment featuring a painting of a hanging Argos, a bloody-eyed head statue of Berenice, and a painting of Berenice at her desk with the music box in front of her. When she leaves the room, she somehow ends up in the same room again but with differing items such as a painting of Isaac Färber at his desk with the music box and a picture of him hanging. Yet the statue of Berenice remains. The final room features a painting of old Ariadne with the music box, Daniel with the music box, and once again the statue of Berenice. Eventually she is scared awake by a nightmarish version of herself.

In the second recording Berenice details another dream that she had at the LeGrant's. In the dream she explores a twisted version of the mental hospital, filled with rust, poison, and death. Different versions of herself beg her to continue going down, to continue figuring out what is going on with the cursed music box. One version even takes her dream catcher. She is attacked, but does not die, instead she is put into a room with "ONLY ONE WAY OUT" where the door should be. As the lights flicker on and off, different methods of ending her life appear on the table, and eventually she drinks a bottle of poison. But she wakes up.

In the third and final recording Berenice figures out how to stop the horror, you have to return the music box to the Presence. As she wakes up she begins to get hopeful, as she just has to find a way to return the music box, but her words begin to slow, signaling that she either drifted off or she died.

The companion contacts Daniel on their phone, telling him of what Berenice said would stop the curse once and for all. He travels to Ariadne's home and asks her where the music box is, to which she informs him is upstairs, and he grabs it and puts himself into "There". Daniel experiences the different nightmares that both Sebastian P. Husher and Isaac faced when they were alive. Husher's dream reveals how Masha, Julia, Saul, and Catherine all died. Masha was locked in her room and was killed, Julia got trapped behind the impossible door, and Catherine and Saul hid in his room until the Presence entered, to which Catherine comforted her child and said their goodbyes before the Presence murdered them.

After Daniel successfully completes two of the nightmares, the door will open and Daniel deposits the music box. As he tries to leave, hundreds of bodies chase him and try to escape as well. Daniel barely makes it before the door closes and brings him back to reality.

As he tells Ariadne that the song will never play again he passes out on the couch. When he wakes up it is pitch black, and Ariadne is still staring outside of the window. And when he asks to turn on the light, she tells him that the Presence doesn't like the light, but it likes the song. And she places another music box down on the coffee table, one with a different inscription, "To Elayne, my firstborn and my pride.", revealing that there were two music boxes made for both children.

The credits show Daniel screaming for Alexander/Alina/Etienne/Sophie and trying to break out of the door as they hold it back and shove it closed.

## Playable Characters

### Introduced:

* Dr. Berenice Prestegard (Playable only in flashbacks)
* Lidia Salgari

### Returning:

* Daniel Noyer
* Etienne Bertrand (if alive)
* Sophie van Denend (if alive)
* Erica Färber (if either Sophie or Etienne are dead, Erica found her father. Present and survived Episode 4)

## New Gameplay Additions

* Phone contact system, where only Daniel and the selected characters are playable.
* Playable flashbacks.

## Trivia

* This is the only episode in Song of Horror that got delayed, and its original release date was March 13th which makes the delay roughly 2 months (May 14, 2020) and has been delayed again to two weeks (May 28, 2020) due inpart to the COVID-19 situation.
* The developers' estimated playtime of this episode is three hours.
* Episode five is the first and only episode to use the phone contact system.
* This is the only episode that doesn't introduce a new threat from the Presence.