Building 10 “The Cube House”
The exterior of the home is similar to many of the others on Wellington Street. But the interior is something altogether different, with every room excluding the main parlor, the kitchen, and the large bathroom upstairs, being the same size, furnished with the same objects. All the rooms are ten by ten, and there are over twenty rooms, though that number is up for debate.
Because of the strange arrangement of rooms and their similar formats, the number seems to change depending on who you ask. Some have tried to count the rooms by making small changes as they pass from one to another. At around thirty, most begin to realize that the objects they had moved have returned to the original position, and that the marks on the walls they had left with chalk have mysteriously been wiped away. Some even try to leave doors open, only to discover that they have a propensity for closing themselves once you are several rooms away.
The reason behind the peculiar design of the home is unknown, and none of the architect’s notes contain any information outside of floor plans. Although the existence of floor plans should be able to offer a clue as to how many rooms there are, it seems that as the years have passed more and more rooms have been attributed to the home, added on by each preceding owner. The current figure of twenty is based on the original floor plans, though the actual number is likely closer to thirty.
Each room contains maroon colored wallpaper, one bed with black sheets, an old clock built into the wall, a short ornate lamp, and a single oak trunk at the front of the bed. Each room also contains a picture on the wall, and it is assumed that these are images of the original family. This should aid in the assessment of the number of rooms, but people report that in any visit one may see only a couple of the full total of pictures contained within the home. It is not uncommon for people to become lost within the walls of the house, and it is not strange for people to require a minimum of a half hour to find their way out.
Even groups can become lost, and it is believed that the walls are insulated as attempts to communicate between closed doors has proven to be impractical. This has not prevented people from purchasing the home, and like many of the buildings here there has been a long string of owners. But like many, it is always short lived as a series of disappearances and deaths have marred this places history. Unlike many however, this has little impact on the popularity of the property and it is only the intervention of an investigation by local law enforcement that has managed to keep the home empty for any period of time.
Most of these murders are domestically based. The worst of these resulted in the death of a young woman at the hands of her husband of fifteen years. According to neighbors, the couple moved into the home almost a full year before problems began to appear. Increasingly, the couple would be seen arguing in public, and it became known that they had been pursuing couples counseling for several months. Weeks passed, and things seemed to improve. Eventually, the couple seemed to be themselves again, and on several occasions they were seen at the theater of which they were prominent contributors, sharing in one of the local productions.
Then one night a call was made to emergency services by the husband. An ambulance soon arrived on the scene, and it took several minutes to locate the room in question. They found the husband huddled over his wife, applying pressure to several wounds including a significant one in her stomach. The woman had lost a large amount of blood, and her breathing was shallow. She was rushed to the hospital, but died in transit. The man was treated as well, as it was discovered that he had suffered several substantial wounds of his own.
According to the man, the wife had gotten up to go to the kitchen and get something to drink. When she returned she was wielding a knife. She then attacked her husband, who claims that her mannerisms seemed completely different from when she left. In the ensuring struggle the couple fell to the floor, and it was then that the knife slipped from her grasp and entered her stomach. The woman stopped attacking then, and the husband immediately tried to call the police. This proved difficult as his phone failed to maintain a signal. It was only after leaving the house that he managed to place the call. Then he came back inside and tended to his wife.
To this day it is unknown what prompted the wife to attack her husband, though it was stated by both the supporting EMT's that the behavior between the husband and wife in her final moments showed no semblance of aggression. The widower moved and was never remarried. He continued his support of the arts, and would include his former wife's name on all of his check's to the theater. To this day, the plaque commemorating the couple's significant contributions to the theater contains both their names and upon his death the man's will demanded that be buried next to her.
It has been six months since I began my study of Wellington Street. I fully intended to submit this report last Sunday, but my computer began to malfunction. Every time I began to make headway, my computer would inexplicably turn off. I would restart, relying on the writing program to quick save the work before it shut down. Eventually I got to the point where my computer would not start at all, and have since then passed my laptop off to a friend of mine who is thankfully much better at computers than I. Hopefully they will find what is wrong and correct it soon.
