
Dungeons and Demons

Part One

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Kayla Krantz
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.

Dungeons and Demons Part One

Copyright (C) 2020 Kayla Krantz

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods--except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews--without written permission by the publisher.

Cover by Maria Spada

Edited by Kayla Krantz

First Edition April 2020

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020902402

https://authorkaylakrantz.com/

# Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

"And at once I knew I was not magnificent." | -Bon Iver

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

6.

7.

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9.

10.

11.

12.

13.

14.

15.

16.

17.

To Continue This Story...

About the Author

Bonus Content:

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Also By Kayla Krantz

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# "And at once I knew I was not magnificent."

# -Bon Iver

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# 1.

SHAWN WILLIAMS PUSHED the glasses up the bridge of his narrow nose and dashed down the stairs. Years of going to school predominated his mornings, and yet he still somehow always managed to be late. In the living room his sister, Penelope, and one of his mothers, Lottie, were waiting for him. At eight in the morning, his other mother, Nicole was likely already on her way to work. She lived by the philosophy "The early bird gets the worm."

Ironic considering that Shawn had probably never been early for anything in his life.

"Late again," Penelope said, voice a singsong rhyme.

"I know, I know," Shawn said and snagged his checkered backpack from its place on the end of the couch. "But I'm ready now."

Penelope smiled, curling her fingers to study her pink nails as she waited for him. "C'mon, Randall. We're wasting the morning away."

Randall. That was her nickname for him, and hers alone. If anyone else called him it, he would've been angry, and most likely wouldn't have talked to them much anymore. From his sister, it was a term of endearment, but it hadn't always been that way. Shawn had been adopted into Penelope's family, a fact that stood out like a sore thumb. While they had dark hair and blue eyes, he had orange hair, brown eyes, and freckles. The first time he had met his soon-to-be family, he was five or six, not old enough to have many memories of his life before this one, but at the same time, old enough to ensure that he was grateful for being here.

When Lottie and Nicole had decided to bring him home, Penelope had been venomous. She was only a few years older than he was but wasn't happy about the idea of suddenly having to share their entire lives. They bickered a lot in that first year, but their beautiful sibling rivalry had blossomed into something that almost resembled friendship, and he wouldn't trade it for anything.

The nickname was a reminder of everything that they had gone through so far. A reminder that he was in the place where he belonged. Part of him was very aware of the fact that he could be living a different life, one where he had never been adopted. One where he had never been loved.

Lottie gave them both hugs in turn before the pair rushed out of the house to Penelope's waiting car. Shawn hurried into the passenger seat, throwing his backpack to the floor beneath him as he relaxed. Her car always smelled sweet, like vanilla or cinnamon, yet he never saw her clean it.

"Excited for Halloween tonight?" she asked him as soon as they were on the road.

Shawn bobbed his head, staring absently out the window. He liked Halloween, but at fifteen, he was starting to feel as if he were too old for the entire concept of trick or treating. Instead, he and his buddies had made other plans. Or at least his best friend, Jack, claimed he had made plans for them.

"You know I'm too old for it," he said at last, fingers tapping his knee casually.

Penelope pursed her lips. "That's nonsense. There's no such thing as being too old for Halloween. I love it."

Shawn rolled his eyes. Every year she picked some revealing costume or other. Mama Lottie and Mom Nicole had fought her on it a few years back, but Penelope was a rebel, and so her costumes had persisted, getting progressively more revealing the more that their moms protested. Shawn was pretty sure they hoped she would grow out of the phase on her own, but Shawn wasn't so sure she would. After all, he knew a different side of her than they did, the side that only siblings confide in one another.

"We're different people," he said at last.

"Fair enough," she said, turning the steering wheel slightly before she said, "Well, I plan on going out tonight."

Shawn raised an eyebrow. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Whenever the Moms go out, I'm in charge of watching you, that's why," Penelope said, tucking a strand of brown hair behind her ear. "It's their date night tonight."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"I was invited to go to a party, and I want you to come with me," she said.

"That's ridiculous," Shawn said, studying her over. She didn't normally want to spend time with him so suspicion was his go to emotion.

Penelope laughed. "Come on. It's better than us both sitting at home bored to death of each other. People kill to go to their first high school party. Are you really telling me you're not even a little curious?"

"That's exactly what I'm telling you. Parties...aren't really for me," he said. And it was the truth. He enjoyed the peace and quiet of an evening with his friends more than anything.

"Tell me all about your big Halloween plans then, stud," she drawled, and Shawn could hear the irritation. He knew what that tone meant--she would do what she could to wear him down, to get him to do what she wanted to do. She had a plan and wouldn't stop until she saw it through.

"Tease me all you want, I'm not going to crack and go out just because you say so," Shawn said. "Now, I don't know exactly what Jack's got up his sleeve, but if I know him, it'll be a new dungeon for D&D."

"Such a nerd," Penelope said, laughing as they entered the school parking lot.

Shawn shrugged as the car came to a halt. "I am what I am."

Penelope jutted out her bottom lip, bobbing her head. "Love the confidence, but seriously. Think about it, okay?"

Shawn nodded but knew he wouldn't. There was nothing to think about. He didn't want to go, and all her begging wouldn't change that fact. He didn't trust the invitation, didn't trust that there wasn't some kind of prank on the other end of it.

As soon as she was parked, Shawn hopped out, feeling the sunshine on his face. The quicker he could get away from her, the sooner he could start to relax. His gaze studied the other cars and students in the lot for familiar faces. The breeze blew, ruffling his spiky hair. It was unusually warm for October, and he attributed that to Indian Summer.

He didn't wait for Penelope as he crossed the parking lot. She wasn't the type of sibling that was embarrassed to be seen with her younger sibling, but he didn't like to be seen with her. It wasn't a fault of hers, but it was no secret that Jack had a crush on her. The knowledge was more than enough to make Shawn squirm with awkwardness when they were in the vicinity of one another.

He glanced over his shoulder, but Penelope was already crossing the parking lot in the opposite direction, most likely to meet up with her boyfriend. Shawn blinked, relieved as he scouted through the crowds for his friends. They waited by the door, Jack waving him over as soon as they made eye contact.

Shawn wasn't popular by any means, but his group of friends was solid consisting of Jack, Milo, and himself. Jack, he had known since he had been adopted. As the son of one of his mother's friends, they had been inseparable. With his bulky frame, narrowed blue eyes, and baggy black pants, Jack intimidated a lot of people, and Shawn liked that about him. As a skinny kid with pressed khakis and glasses, he imagined he'd be an easy target for bullies, but Jack's presence was a safeguard even though in reality, he was a teddy bear.

As soon as Shawn merged into the group, he smiled at Milo, the newest addition to the group. Shawn had met him when he moved to the town around four years prior.

"Plans on for tonight?" Jack asked, adjusting his bag on his shoulder as he took his place beside Shawn.

"Not sure. Penelope is apparently in charge of babysitting me tonight, and she said she's going to a party," Shawn said, dragging out the last few words to exaggerate his horror. "She wants me to go with her because apparently misery does love company."

"Dude, aren't you too old for a babysitter?" Milo asked, taking off his sunglasses as they went into the school. With his albinism, the sunglasses were a requirement for seeing in the bright morning sun.

"Yeah, I am," Shawn said with a huff.

"Don't take it to heart," Jack said, waving his hand. "You know how parents are. They're probably just worried because it's Halloween. The only holiday where people are told to cause mischief."

"Yeah, maybe," Shawn murmured, but he didn't feel much better. To him, it felt like they were determined to baby him forever. After all, once they acknowledged he was growing up, they could never go back. "But I don't think a party is exactly what they were hoping for either."

"Well, if you can't get out of it, what if we just go with you?" Milo suggested. "We can play in the basement or something. Or maybe there will be some woods around the place to make it even spookier."

"Hey, yeah! That could be better actually," Jack said, rubbing his hands together. Shawn winced, nearly seeing the thoughts flying through his friend's mind. "I'll tweak a couple of my monsters, and it'll be like a Halloween edition," Jack added. He was so excited that Shawn nearly felt bad for the next words out of his mouth.

"Wasn't it supposed to be that already?" Shawn asked, raising an eyebrow.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Sure, sure, but there's nothing frightening about my basement. I mean, there's spiders, but like everywhere has spiders so that's not special. The woods though, there's potential there."

"You sound crazy when you talk like that," Milo said, chuckling softly.

"Good. It's having the intended effect," Jack said, doing his best evil villain laugh.

Shawn laughed with them, stopping only when they reached his locker. He opened it, switching his books around. Jack leaned his shoulder against the wall nearby, and Milo stood near the center of the hallway, attention focused on the other end of the corridor. Shawn closed his locker, and when he noticed the look on his friend's face, he drew his eyebrows together, turning to see what he was looking at.

Rhys Rivera. The new kid. He walked with his shoulders hunched and his hood up to cover his usually messy brown hair. He hadn't been at the school long, maybe two or three days, but there was something about him that stood out. Something about him that made him hard to approach.

On his first day, Shawn had tried to talk to him, but Rhys had said nothing in response. He hadn't even bothered to remove his hood as he continued to stare into his locker without a word. Shawn had eased himself away from the conversation, or lack of, but ever since then, Shawn went the other way when he saw him coming.

"What do you think he's all about?" Jack asked, tilting his head as he watched the boy stop and turn his locker combination.

"Don't know," Milo said, casting a glance to Jack. "But he's definitely someone the counselor should keep an eye on."

"Agreed," Shawn replied.

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# 2.

THE DAY PASSED just as any other. Shawn sought out Jack and Milo, but for the most part, he was alone. When the final bell rang, Jack and Milo gathered around Shawn's locker, watching him exchange his books.

"So we have word on the official plan yet?" Jack asked.

Shawn shrugged, thinking again of Penelope and her strange request. "I need to talk to Penelope again," he said. "I'll let you know as soon as I do. One thing is for sure though, either way, we're going to play Dungeons and Dragons so bring your A game."

"Hell yeah," Milo said, smiling as he slid his sunglasses into place.

When they stepped outside, Rhys shuffled past the group so close that his shoulder bumped into Jack's with force.

Jack held his hands out to either side of him. "Why don't you watch where you're going, huh?"

Rhys looked at him over his shoulder but didn't stop moving. His dark eyes, were icy, enraged, and chills went down Shawn's spine.

"Woah," Milo said, looking to Jack. "I don't think he likes you."

"Somehow, I can live with that," Jack said, reaching up to rub the shoulder that Rhys had hit.

Shawn saw Penelope's car pulling toward them through the crowds, and he waved to Jack and Milo, the incident with Rhys already forgotten. "Talk to you guys later, okay?"

"See you, man," Jack called.

Shawn didn't look back as he climbed into Penelope's car. When the door closed, her eyes stayed on the road, not even sparing a glance to him, and Shawn had a rock in his stomach. Her lips were pushed out into a pout that told him she'd had a bad day. "What's wrong?"

"Got into a fight with Ethan," she said.

"That sucks. About what?" Shawn asked.

"Men just think they know everything," she seethed, pushing the gas with such force that the car screeched as it peeled out of the parking lot.

Shawn's heart beat harder in his chest at the chorus of angry honks and shouts that she received. From the side mirror, he could see just how closely she had cut it. Penelope didn't seem to notice.

"That mean your party plans are off?" he asked, not knowing why he was poking the bear.

Frowning, Penelope took one hand off the steering wheel to bunch up her hair. "I don't know, alright? We didn't exactly talk evening plans in the middle of arguing."

"Geez, don't have to bite my head off. I need to know for me since apparently we're stuck together tonight in case you forgot."

Penelope waved a hand. "No, I didn't forget. As long as you don't tell the Moms, you can go do whatever nerdy plans you've got set up. I won't rat you out."

Shawn perked up then. "Really?"

"Really," she said. "I couldn't care less about being a good daughter."

If he wasn't so happy to have gotten his way, he would've been concerned. "You're the best," Shawn said though really, he wondered if he would've still felt like that if her and Ethan hadn't gotten into a fight. Maybe Ethan is the best for making this happen, he mused.

Penelope tightened her grip around the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white, and Shawn was very glad that she couldn't read his mind. She might've changed hers. When they arrived back home, Shawn tumbled out of her car, eager to be back on solid ground. Penelope wasn't the best driver on an average day, but when she was emotional, it was chaotic. The first thing he did once he got inside was to scoop up the phone and dial Jack's number.

"Hey, dude, good news. I'm free. No party. We can go to your place if you want."

"Good, good," Jack said. "This pleases me, but I think we should stick with the woods. I have some really good ideas."

Shawn smiled. "You were really serious about the forest setup, weren't you?"

"Yeah, it's just so spontaneous. Especially today," Jack said. "I can't believe I never thought of it before."

"Anywhere you want to go, dude."

"Anywhere, you say?" Jack asked, voice raising in an interested tone. "Cuz this might take us to the cemetery."

"A cemetery on Halloween? You're going to pull out all the stops, aren't you?"

"That's the plan."

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# 3.

SHAWN WAS UNUSUALLY excited the rest of the day. Halloween wasn't traditionally a holiday that he enjoyed. There were too many bullies, too many pranks, but today, everything seemed as if they were working in his favor. The day was his to control. He couldn't wait until the sun started to go down so that he could meet up with Jack and Milo. Jack had sounded so excited at whatever he had cooked up that Shawn knew it was going to be good.

Shawn was able to hold onto his excitement, even through Penelope's icy attitude. After getting off the phone with Jack, he went into the living room where his adopted sister sat on the couch, channel surfing. He made a move to go straight to his room when he stopped. If their situations were reversed, he'd want her to show some sign she cared.

"Are you okay, Penny?" he asked, hand resting on the banister at the base of the staircase.

She sighed, turning the television off before she stood to her feet. "I'll be fine, but for now, I don't want to talk about it. Trust me. When you finally get a girlfriend, you'll understand." Her words were harsh, but there was a smile on her face that usually accompanied her teasing.

"Hey, now! Low blow. I was trying to help," Shawn said, holding out his hands, but he was joking too.

While Jack and Milo might be ruled by their hormones, Shawn wasn't as eager to find himself a girlfriend. He found joy in different aspects of life. When the time was right, he would meet someone.

Penelope crossed the few steps between them to pull him into a hug. "I know," she said when they broke apart. "And I appreciate you trying."

She offered no more words as she went upstairs, leaving Shawn alone. He frowned as he watched her go and considered seeking out her boyfriend to see if he could tell him exactly what it was they were fighting about. As far as he knew, Penelope and Ethan didn't fight much, and maybe that was why she was taking it so badly.

Briefly, Shawn thought about calling Nicole or Lottie but decided that would ultimately make things worse. Especially since Penelope was already willing to risk being in their good graces to let him go out and hang with his friends. He would leave the situation alone and hope that things would settle on their own.

Shawn listened to the floorboards creaking overhead as Penelope paced back and forth and decided against going upstairs. Instead, he sat down on the couch, scooping up the remote. With one eye on the window, nothing on the television really held his interest. Still, he stayed in place, waiting until the sky outside was pink with the setting sun. Excited at the night before him, he hopped up and grabbed his backpack, swapping out the school things inside for his D&D things instead and went out the door.

Milo, Jack, and Shawn had a designated meeting spot. When Shawn barreled into the tiny store, he realized he was the last one there. Jack and Milo were already in the candy aisle, choosing handfuls of sugary treats as if they were preparing for the apocalypse.

"Hey," Shawn said, bending over to pant for breath.

"You actually ran here?" Jack asked with a laugh.

"Yeah, didn't want to be late," Shawn replied, standing up straight.

"Which you still were."

Shawn smirked and grabbed his own handful of candy. "It's the thought that counts, right?"

"So they say," Milo replied.

With a pound or two of candy each, they went to the register. Each of them paid in turn before they left the store, mouths full. On the sidewalk outside, they stopped, pulling their backpacks off to add their candy collections to them.

"You've got the good bag, I see," Shawn said, gesturing to the Jack's black bag as he slung it back over his shoulder.

He winked, chewing the last bite of his candy bar before he said, "Only the very best for my friends on this special night."

"I did what I could to add to the theme," Milo said, gesturing to the skeleton pattern on his shirt, and shrugged.

By nature, Milo was a light-hearted person, but he didn't like to talk about his albinism much. He wore brightly colored clothes to try and make himself look less pale, but ever since Shawn had met him, it was Milo's running joke to dress as a skeleton for Halloween. He liked to say that with his skin and hair being as white as they were, he was already halfway there. In the darkness, Shawn could understand his thinking. His face nearly glowed above the line of the black collar.

"And how are you going to do your part, good sir?" Jack asked Shawn.

Smiling, Shawn uncinched his bag, digging through the tiny pocket in front. When he pulled his hand back out, he revealed two black and red dye, the engravings looking almost elvish in the fading light.

"Now that's badass," Jack said, clapping Shawn on the shoulder. "How long have you had those?"

"Thought you'd appreciate that," Shawn said, dumping the dye back into their safe place before he righted his bag again. "And not long. Maybe a week?"

"You've had them a whole week and managed to not tell anyone about them? That's discipline," Jack said.

Shawn laughed, thinking of Penelope and his two Moms. They weren't exactly D&D players so it wouldn't have mattered much to them if he had told them. "If you say so. But, hey. Exactly where are we going? I don't think you've said."

"Scared?" Jack asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Hardly," Milo said, rolling his eyes.

"Seems I have my work cut out for me tonight," Jack said, holding a hand to his heart as if he were personally offended by the remark.

"Yes, but in all seriousness, I have to stay somewhat close to a payphone so I can call Penelope. If I don't check in at least once, she'll hunt me down," Shawn said.

Jack and Milo bobbed their heads.

"Understandable," Jack said at last. "We're not going far. Just to the woods by the old cemetery. Your sister knows the place."

Shawn winced. The woods by the cemetery were a popular makeout spot. He had never been there himself, but all three boys had heard stories of classmates going out there to drink and party. It didn't surprise Shawn at all that Penelope would frequent the spot. She might play innocent for the Moms, but she was anything but.

"C'mon on, man," Shawn said.

Jack smiled and held his hands up. "That was my one and only sister joke for the night, I promise."

"I'm gonna hold you to it."

By the time they reached the woods, the sun was just beginning to dip beneath the horizon line, the faint hue of purple pushing away the pink.

Jack looked up at the colors, breathed in deep through his nose, and clapped his hands together. "I was hoping it would be completely dark out already by the time we got here, but I suppose this will do."

"By the time we get set up, it'll be dark enough," Milo conceded.

Jack bobbed his head. "Oh, for sure."

Shawn was the one to lead the way into the trees. Even if this particular patch of forest wasn't very familiar to him, but he had an idea of the trees and forests as a whole. Shawn's Moms had insisted he go out for fresh air every day. As a kid, he had hated it, but now he appreciated the time he had put into it. There was something freeing about the outdoors, about being disconnected from the world around him for just a little while.

It didn't take long for Jack to surpass him, taking his place at the head of the pack. Shawn fell back a step with Milo. The boy's eyes were trained on the ground to watch every step with uncertainty. Unlike Jack and Shawn, Milo hadn't spent as much time outside. With his condition, he was suspectable to damage from the sun so he and his parents had conditioned him into leaving at earlier or later times of the day when the sunlight wasn't as harsh.

When a clearing came into view, Jack began to slow and turned toward the rest of his group with a wide smile on his face. "Well, mates, this is it."

Shawn surveyed the surroundings. He had expected Halloween decorations or at the very least a fog machine. He couldn't see anything from his initial survey and gave Jack a questioning stare.

"It's the woods," Shawn said pointedly.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Yes, it's the woods. And I know what you're thinking. It's boring, we could've done this at my house...blah, blah, blah. Well, I'm not showing you what I've got up front. Otherwise that kind of takes away some of the surprise. I think a huge part of the point of Halloween is fear. How can you be scared of what you know is coming?"

"Okay, now I'm sure you're crazy," Milo said, playfully punching Jack on the arm.

Jack smiled, looking pleased. "Okay, help me get this set up." He thrust his black bag to the ground beside a huge smooth tree stump.

Milo and Shawn made it to his side when a voice cut across the clearing. "Room for one more?"

Tensing, Shawn turned and made eye contact with Rhys Rivera.

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# 4.

"RHYS?" SHAWN ASKED more out of confusion than anything.

He had never seen him anywhere besides the school before. The town they lived in was relatively small so it wasn't uncommon to see his classmates at the park, mall, or cafe, but Rhys? It was as if the boy vanished at the end of the school day and reappeared in the morning.

"What are you doing here?" Jack asked, more in charge of the situation than Shawn had hoped to be. He rose up, approaching him from his place beside the stump as if he thought that if Rhys even got anywhere near it than he would ruin it somehow.

Rhys didn't seem detoured by the three sets of eyes glaring at him. He picked his way through the foliage, taking his first official steps into the clearing before he stopped, meeting Jack's eyes. "I overheard you guys talking, at school, and thought maybe I could...."

"Join?" Jack asked, cutting him off.

Rhys bobbed his head, sticking his hands in his pockets. He peered up sheepishly as if he was afraid any words he might say would erupt something negative, something that his presence hadn't been able to summon.

"What makes you think we'd allow it?" Jack demanded, folding his arms over his chest.

Shawn waved a hand at him, stepping in to pull Rhys' attention. He wasn't exactly thrilled about the idea of Rhys joining them either, but Jack's hostility wasn't required as far as he was concerned. "I didn't know you played."

"I have for a while," Rhys replied.

"That's uh...neat, but why try to be cool with us now? If I remember correctly, when I tried to talk to you a week ago, you blew me off as if you didn't want to be my friend," Jack said.

Shawn tilted his head to the side, reaching up to scratch the back of the neck when Rhys' gaze came back to rest on him again. "Hate to say it, but you did the same to me."

"I'm not...good...with making friends," Rhys admitted, mouth puckering into an expression that was somewhere between a frown and grimace.

"Yeah, no, we got that," Jack said, slowly, carefully, as if he wanted to make sure each word were punctuated by silence.

"We're just trying to understand," Milo piped up. "I mean, think about this from our point of view. One day you want nothing to do with us, then the next you want to join our game? It's strange."

"Exactly," Jack said. "Instead of just talking to us like a normal person, and maybe asking if you can come with us, you followed us out to the middle of the woods like a stalker."

Rhys looked down at the ground, and a surge of guilt sliced through Shawn. He knew what it was like to be an outcast, and that was a feeling he didn't wish on anybody...even someone like Rhys who gave him the chills.

Shawn cut Jack a sideways look. "Hey, lighten up a little, guys. I mean, this plays into our theme, I think. You did say there were plenty of surprises in store for us tonight."

Jack sighed, shoulders slumping. "I suppose that's true." He turned to the other member of their group. "Milo, what do you think?"

Milo's deep eyes hadn't left Rhys, but he blinked and held them shut for a second as if he were trying to make up his mind without looking at Rhys as he did so. "What makes you want to join us?" he asked at last.

Shawn's eyes volleyed from Milo to Rhys. It was a good question.

"You said you wanted creepy for Halloween, and I think I can help with that," Rhys said.

He looked from Shawn, to Milo, to Jack, and Shawn had a moment there where he admired this strange boy. It couldn't have been easy to stay knowing full well that all of them wanted him to go, but he did anyway, pleading his case and making eye contact. Shawn wasn't sure if he would've been able to do the same if he were in Rhys' place.

"You've already done that much, haven't you?" Jack said, grinning wide enough to show off his teeth though it wasn't a happy expression. It was almost frightening.

Shawn smiled too, but it came more from nervousness than anything else. In the moment, he was still caught between that feeling that told him to get far away from Rhys and the one telling him that this was someone who desperately needed and wanted friends, someone who didn't deserve to be laughed at for wanting to fit in. He had to remind himself that even if Rhys had been rude to him during their last encounter, he didn't want to make fun of him. He knew what it felt like, to feel as if you didn't belong, and he never wanted to make anyone feel like that. Even if that person was an oddball.

"You can play," Shawn said at last.

Jack turned to look at him with wide-eyed betrayal but said nothing.

"I want to be Game Master," Rhys said, a moment later.

Jack's hands clenched into fists at his sides. "No way, man. I've been planning this for weeks. You can't just swoop in and--"

Shawn held his hand out. "Why not give him a shot? We know we'll love your game, and we will play it eventually, but aren't you curious to see what he's got for us?"

Jack pursed his lips, frowning. "No, I'm not. I'm curious as to how long he's been following us. Was it just a one-time thing or has it been going on for a while?"

Shawn directed his gaze to Milo. "You're the tiebreaker."

Milo held his hands up. "Look, I don't want anyone to be angry," he said with a nod to Jack before his gaze swiveled to Rhys, "but I don't want anyone to feel left out either. With that, I'm sorry, Jack, but I say we give Rhys a shot."

Jack sighed. "Alright, fine, but you guys owe me. It takes a lot of time to set up a game, and y'all never seem to appreciate that."

"We appreciate it just fine. That's why I give you permission to personally make it difficult for me next time you're GM," Shawn assured him before he turned to Rhys. "You bring your own supplies?"

Rhys brought himself into the clearing. Shawn hadn't noticed the navy-blue drawstring backpack until then. Rhys had no expression as he approached the smooth tree stump and set his bag to the grass. Kneeling down, he pulled out a bundle of papers and seven different dye. They were beige and black, the numbers engraved into the small surfaces along with ruins and designs around every corner.

They put every collector's set that Shawn had to shame. "Badass," he said.

Rhys peered up through the shadows cast by his hood and smiled. "You haven't seen anything yet."

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# 5.

JACK WAS THE first to grab a character sheet, doing so with such ferocity that the paper was a crinkled half-hazard mess in his hands. He stared at it, eyebrows knitted together and mouth straight as if he had never smiled in his entire life.

"Is this your idea of a joke?" he asked, thrusting the paper in front of Rhys' face.

Rhys smiled but didn't take the paper. He peered at Jack over the top of it, and Shawn picked up his own paper. Shawn Randall, it said at the top. Race: Human Alignment: Paladin. There were skills and attributes corresponding to Shawn's personality. Blinking, he looked up at Jack and Milo. His friends didn't even know his birthname. He had never told them much about any of this time before his adoption so how could it be that a stranger knew this much about him?

"I told you this game will be unlike any other you've ever played," Rhys said coolly.

"Apparently creepy is just the entire theme you're going with," Jack retorted.

"What does yours say?" Shawn asked, showing his paper to Jack.

"Says I'm a Rogue," Jack said, eyes narrowing at Rhys. "You know, if you've got something to say, you should just say it.

During the argument, Milo slowly approached the table, scooping up his own sheet. He didn't say anything as his eyes scanned it over. When the argument stopped, Shawn and Jack turned to him expectantly.

"I'm a Ranger?" Milo asked at last.

Rhys bobbed his head, looking pleased. "Those are the character sheets that I drafted for you because I feel you know how to play them best based on your personalities."

Shawn and Jack exchanged a glance before Jack looked back to Rhys. "Are you trying to be funny?"

"Not at all," Rhys said, voice devoid of emotion.

"How long have you planned on doing this?" Jack demanded and from the look in his eyes, Shawn thought he would ball up his sheet and throw it right at Rhys' face.

Shawn ran his fingers through his hair. Even though it had been his idea to let Rhys play, he hadn't expected this. Looking down at the character sheet again, he felt almost sick. It was uncannily accurate, and that made Shawn wonder how Rhys knew him so well. Especially since he had all but refused to speak to him, or any other member of their group, before today.

"This is scary accurate," Milo said, blinking as he took a step closer.

Rhys closed his eyes for a minute before he opened them, gaze moving around the three boys. "Are you going to let me play or not?"

Jack and Shawn exchanged another glance. Shawn had been the one to agree, but something sat wrong in his gut now. Jack's face was just as sharp as if he sensed that Shawn was backing down now.

"What happens if we say no?" Jack asked. "You take out a gun and shoot us?"

Rhys laughed. "Of course not." A pause. "There's no tact in that."

"I don't want to play," Jack said, slapping his paper to the tree stump beside the others.

Shawn looked to Milo. "Thoughts?"

Milo scanned over his sheet, his skin looking somehow whiter as he sat beside the tree stump. "Let's give him a shot. This might be weird, but this is probably one of the better made character sheets I've seen. Let's see where this goes."

"Fine, we'll play," Jack said, plopping down next to Milo. He grabbed a handful of the other papers scattered across the stump, flipping through them rapidly before he came to a stop. "Banshee? Is this one of your monsters?"

Rhys snatched the paper away, setting it down before he looked back up at Jack pointedly. "I don't play D&D like anyone else," he said. "I don't use the typical monsters. Your dragons and giants and orcs. My game features a different quest. One that deals with demons, truth, and redemption."

Jack frowned. "My games have all that too sometimes. What you're outlining sounds like a terrible teen movie involving a Ouija board. If there's no magic or monsters, how can you even call it D&D?"

"How about you stop asking me questions and play? Everything will answer itself in time," Rhys said, placing his hand on the stump. "I promise."

Shawn stared at his fingers. They were long and bony, the fingernails chewed to the quick, and for some reason, the sight put Shawn further on edge. He realized then that he had never seen Rhys' hands before. Something about them seemed...wrong. The boy always kept them tucked into his pockets or the sleeves of his jackets.

"Alright, we're in."

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# 6.

THE BOYS ARRANGED themselves elbow to elbow around the stump with Rhys at one end, Shawn and Milo near him, and Jack in the seat farthest away. As Rhys looked over all his papers and spread out his dye, Jack glared at him, fingers tapping on the stump as if he were anticipating the first mistake Rhys made so he could jump him for it.

"Alright, who's going to go first?" Rhys asked, finally looking up.

Jack narrowed his eyes. "That's not how it works. We're supposed to roll to determine that. I mean that's like rule number one."

"I think it's up to the Game Master to determine exactly what the rules are," Rhys said pointedly. "And that would be me. That's enough of the interruptions."

He waved his hand, and Jack went silent. He opened his mouth as if he were about to argue, but no words came out. Scrunching his face, he tried again, and still, no words came free. Desperately, Jack reached up a hand, nearly clawing the skin around his mouth, but the spell didn't break. Milo and Shawn, with their eyes on Rhys, didn't notice his struggles.

"Shawn, you'll go first," Rhys decided, eerie eyes landing on Shawn through the shadows.

Shawn nodded, doing his best to both seem polite and avoid making eye contact at the same time. To him, the sooner they started this game, the sooner it would all be over. "Okay."

"Jack, you'll be last," Rhys said, with a tiny smile as he watched the struggles of the silent Rogue. "Now, let's see. Our story begins with our three young heroes Paladin Shawn, Ranger Milo, and Rogue Jack, in a very strange predicament. What started out as such an ordinary night, took a turn for something else. They wandered into the woods, the shadows making it hard to see and the crisp smells of the foliage filling their lungs. They had plans to make their Halloween spectacular, but--"

"I don't mean to interrupt," Shawn said, doing exactly that, "but this doesn't sound like a story so far. You're just rehashing everything that's happened. What's the point of this?"

Rhys' smile stretched so wide it sent a chill down Shawn's spine. "It ties in. You'll see."

"Well, I'm intrigued," Milo said, leaning back onto his hands to better see Rhys.

Rhys turned that eerie smile to him before looking down at his notes. He cleared his throat. "Let's see, where was I?" He skimmed his paper. "Ah. They had plans to make their Halloween spectacular, but a few things changed. First, they assumed it would be an evening like every other with them tucked into the safety of their house. Then, the woods seemed like the perfect place to spend their Halloween playing their favorite game."

"Yet, there was someone they didn't expect to meet in the woods. Now, how you responded to me was your very first quest. I'd say you handled it the best Milo, Jack you've done the worst."

Jack opened his mouth, but no sound still came out. Shawn turned to look at him and frowned, noticing his loudmouthed friend's silence. Jack's eyes went wide as both Shawn and Milo looked at him. He pointed to his mouth, shaking his head, and a tiny exasperated noise came out but nothing more.

"What did you do to him?" Shawn demanded, eyes wide as he turned back to Rhys.

Rhys blinked. "Oh, that's nothing, but a little taste of what's to come. You see, this game shall have consequences. Choose your actions carefully."

"Undo it," Shawn said, drawing his eyebrows together.

"I thought you guys said you wanted a creepy game. What's creepier than having actual side-effects? I mean, role playing can only do so much to put you in the spirit, right?"

"I'm with Shawn, this is messed up," Milo said.

Rhys' face darkened. "This isn't the reaction I was hoping for."

Shawn looked to Jack again before looking back to Rhys. "This isn't right. Fix him."

"No," Rhys insisted, dark eyes almost glowing beneath the brim of his hood.

Milo swallowed heavily before he tossed his papers to the stump and stood up. "I don't want to play anymore," he said. "So I think I'm going to split. Mom could use me at home anyway."

Rhys looked down, skimming over one of his papers as Milo walked across the clearing. "Milo, our resident Ranger, has finally chosen his first move, and that is to leave. Let's roll and see what's in store for our dear friend." He picked up his twenty-sided dice, the clicking sound against the stump pulling Shawn's attention. "Ooh, a three. It seems as if he's failed."

Milo glanced back over his shoulder just before he left the clearing. "Don't think so," he said, stepping into the trees.

When Milo disappeared into the shadows, some of the tension left Shawn's shoulders. What had he been afraid of? Magic wasn't real, and if it was, his classmate certainly wouldn't have any. Jack was pulling a trick. That was all. Jack always pulled tricks.

Shawn flared his nostrils and opened his mouth, ready to tell Rhys to take a hike when Milo began to scream. As the quietest member of their group, it was rare to hear Milo laugh, let alone anything louder than that. In the entire time that Shawn had known him, he had never heard him make a sound as gut wrenching as the one currently rumbling through the trees. Shawn was on his feet, ready to race to his friend's side when Milo stumbled back into the clearing, hands clamped tight over his ears.

"What's happening to him?" Shawn demanded to Rhys.

Rhys tilted his head but didn't move from where he had been seated. "I told you there are consequences to your decisions. We're not alone out here. There are demons lurking in these woods," Rhys said, reading from his notes. "And it seems that a Banshee has taken a liking to our dear friend Milo. He's heard one scream from her. When he reaches three, he will die."

A stunned chuckle passed Shawn's lips. "That's a joke." Then he turned to Milo. His eyes looked too large for his face. "He's joking."

Rhys tapped his fingers against the stump, a content look on his face as he watched them struggling to understand. "Don't worry about him, you're up. What will you do about this situation that's unfolded around you? Will you try to do the same foolish thing as your friend? Or will you try to figure a way to save him?"

"I want to attack the Banshee and go home," Shawn said, reaching for his dice.

Rhys raised an eyebrow. "Surely as a Paladin you know that's not the best move you can make."

Shawn held his eye as he repeated his statement, "I want to attack the Banshee."

Rhys waved his hand. "Roll your dice then."

Shawn did, staring at the ten on his twenty-sided dice. Rhys looked down at his notes and back up. "Seems as if your hit will land, but it won't be enough to stop her. Foolish, foolish Paladin always wanting to do the best even if it's not the smartest." He blinked and turned to Jack. "While I have very much enjoyed your silence, it is your turn, Jack."

Jack took in a gasp of air. "Fuck," he said, and his eyes widened at the sound of his own voice.

"Nice to have you back, mouthpiece," Rhys said, tone dry. "Now, as our Rogue, what will your options be?"

"Can I punch my Game Master in the face?" Jack asked, hopping to his feet as if he were about to reach over the stump and do it anyway.

Rhys smiled wide enough to show his teeth. "Of course not. And I wouldn't recommend you try." His gaze moved over to Milo.

The boy had fallen to his knees, hands still clenched over his ears. Even in the darkness, Shawn could see a thick liquid on his pale skin. He didn't have to guess to know it was blood.

"I'll be nice. I'll give you a hint about what to do," Rhys said. "As humans, you are incapable of hurting a spirit such as a banshee. Try to combat it indirectly."

Jack muttered under his breath, clenching his hands into fists at his sides.

"So what'll it be?" Rhys asked him.

Shawn wasn't sure how he felt about that look. To him, it spoke of evil, of hopelessness. It was the way a cat looked at a mouse just before it ate it.

"I'll make ear plugs with dirt that keeps him from hearing the Banshee," Jack said and hurried across the clearing. He dropped to his knees, filling his hands with mud before he nearly tackled Milo to the ground.

They wrestled, Jack trying to get Milo to move his hands, and Milo holding strong. By the time Jack finally peeled his hands away, they were both covered with mud. Jack slathered the substance over his ears before Milo shakily hurried to cover his ears once again.

Rhys' eyebrows shot up. "Impressive, Jack. Real on your feet thinking. Let's see if it takes," he said and rolled his dye. When the twenty peered up at them, he smiled. "Seems to have gone down without a hitch. The earplugs worked, and your friend's ears have stopped bleeding."

Shawn glanced over at Milo. He moved his hands and beneath, Shawn couldn't see his ears for the strange covers over them. The blood was gone from his hands, and Milo flipped his pale hands over and over as if he thought he had somehow missed it. Slowly, he looked up from his place at the edge of the clearing. The moonlight reflected off his eyes, making them look red as he stared at Rhys, haunted expression on his face as if he were afraid that any sudden movement would bring the entire banshee situation back.

"You may approach," Rhys said, gesturing to Milo's assigned seat at the stump.

Milo stood up, walking stiffly back to his place. When he sat down, he kept his eyes on the table, not risking a single glance in Rhys' direction.

"Now that was a very thrilling first round," Rhys said, eyes moving to each boy in turn. "I'm sure that now you understand exactly what consequences I'm referring to."

"What the Hell are you?" Jack asked, slowly plopping back down in his seat across from Rhys. "How are you able to do this?"

Rhys clapped his hands together, looking at his arrangement of dice, papers, and various other pieces as if he hadn't even heard Jack speak. "I'm interested to see how this entire thing will play out. I have a good feeling about you lot. I think you'll make it far."

Shawn shivered, trying to think what the consequences would be if they failed. The banshee had been only an example, he knew that. Shawn wondered what other evil Rhys had up his sleeves. "If we did something to you, it wasn't on purpose," Shawn said, trying to use his most placating tone of voice.

Rhys blinked and licked his lips. "Look, I appreciate what you're trying to do, trying to talk me down like you think it'll change things, but the fact is, you never did anything to me. I'm here because you three fascinated me. You had your little group in the middle of such a vicious school, and you never let anyone bother you. Even when they tried to bully you, you would stick together, challenge them, never backing down. There's something so admirable about that. When you approached me that first day, I didn't know what to think of you. Each of you looked at me through your own lens. None of them were particularly tasteful, but you each tried, and you all just grew on me."

"To sum things up, this is a punishment for being kind to you?" Shawn asked, voice nearly dripping with derision. Shawn was the one who had insisted they treat him with respect, but Jack had been right except he needed more than a counselor. He needed an exorcism.

Rhys tipped his head to the side. "I guess if you have to put a label on it, that would be the explanation though it still doesn't completely explain things. I suppose I wanted to test you all, to see exactly what sort of strength your friendships really have."

"Jesus," Jack breathed.

Rhys cringed, hands doubling into fists so tightly that his fingernails drew blood from his palms. "I would appreciate if you didn't say that again in my presence. Once is an accident, but twice. Well..." He tipped his head in Milo's direction.

Jack blinked, unperturbed. "Why not? What are you?"

"I'll put it this way, if you survive to the end of my game, I'll answer all the questions you want," Rhys said.

"I'm getting the feeling that's not a particularly fair deal," Jack said.

"My Momma said to never make a deal with the devil," Milo added, looking directly at Rhys as he said it.

Shawn winced, keeping his eyes on the table. He anticipated Rhys unleashing another beast just for Milo's courage.

Rhys cold gaze turned to him. "Well, I suppose you're in luck then, because I'm not the devil. I'm something between him and you all."

"A demon," Jack surmised.

Rhys waved a hand over the pieces before him. "Only way to find out is to play."

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# 7.

"NOT AS IF we have any other choice, right?" Shawn asked, glancing to the dirt in Milo's ears.

"Exactly right," Rhys said.

"Alright. You have our full, undivided attention. We'll play your game," Jack said. "What comes next?"

"Let's find out," Rhys said and picked up his paper again. "Angry for being bested, the banshee has disappeared for now, but she lurks nearby waiting to strike again. Our Ranger, Milo, has already heard her shriek once. If he hears it twice more, then she can claim him, and she will wait for the opportunity to do so. Unscathed after the battle, our Rogue Jack, and Paladin Shawn, take the lead through the next part of our adventure. They encounter a passerby who flags them down. Warily, they decide to approach and are given a book. After the encounter with the banshee, they are uncertain what will happen if opened." He paused to rummage through his backpack. When he emerged again, it was with a thick tome that he dropped to the stump with a thump. Slowly, he pushed it toward Shawn. "Shawn, what do you do?"

"I check the book over, but after determining it to be safe, I open it," he said.

Rhys blinked, staring at him expectantly until Shawn mimicked the words he had just said. The book was blank on every page, and Shawn flipped through them, frown deepening. Who would carry around a book this heavy if it had nothing in it?

The roll of Rhys' dice cut through the silence. "And you are correct. It is safe," Rhys said, pleasant expression on his face when Shawn at last looked up. "There is a message written in red ink on the first page that you're pretty sure is blood. It says Greetings travelers, if you are reading this message then you have accepted the quest within. You are tasked with hunting down the demons of the seven deadly sins. Only if you are successful in defeating them will you survive your quest. Failure means death."

Shawn's face tightened. Hadn't he just determined the book was blank? On impulse, he went back to the first page, but the writing that Rhys had promised was there waited for him.

"You made us humans with the expectation to take down demons, but we couldn't even fight a banshee. That wasn't part of the quest. This is unfair," Jack said.

"Life's unfair," Rhys said, eyelids drooping in barely restrained annoyance.

"Who's our first demon?" Milo asked, soft voice cutting into the tension.

"Your first demon will be Mammon, the demon with the sin of greed," Rhys said.

Milo bobbed his head. "Okay."

"Now that you have accepted your quest, your journey takes you to a cave on the edge of the forest. At first, it looks like any other with stalagmites, stale air, and tiny creatures hidden in the dark. However, the longer you travel, the more you start to notice things in the cave that are valuable--a gemstone here or a piece of gold or silver there. The deeper you go, the more common these items start to be."

Shawn blinked, stumbling to the side as soon as he realized that the forest around him was gone. They were in the cave that Rhys had described. The gray walls closed in on them concealing a majority of the path in darkness. Milo was holding a torch, and that was the only light they had. Wide-eyed, Shawn looked down at himself. He was dressed in a suit of armor, and on instinct, Shawn glanced to his companions again, just to doublecheck that they were really here...wherever here was. Beside him, Jack and Milo were also studying themselves in wide-eyed terror. Milo was dressed like a lumberjack with a plaid shirt and jean overalls, and Jack was cloaked in black robes and a hood. There was a bag slung across his shoulder, coming to rest on his hip.

"I see you boys made it just fine," Rhys' voice drifted over their heads.

"What is this?" Jack howled up at the cave ceiling. "Where are we?"

"I thought I did a rather good job of explaining that."

Shawn swallowed, feeling sick. "We're in Mammon's cave," he murmured, though if that was meant to be in response to Jack's question or information he was relaying to himself, he wasn't sure. Shawn looked up toward the sky, but all he could see was the darkness.

"Where are you?" Milo asked.

"Fear not. Where I am is of little concern. You have a quest to accomplish, and that won't be done any sooner with you standing around."

"Oh, God," Milo said, looking even paler than Shawn could believe a person could be.

"Milo, my friend," Rhys purred. "You are up. What's your first move?"

Milo swallowed, eyes darting everywhere as if he weren't sure he wanted to do anything at all. "I would pick up one of the pieces of gemstones or valuables to study them and see if they are real."

"They are all real," Rhys assured him. "But don't tell me. Just do what you're going to do. Oh, just a warning, the bestial roars that you hear from the back of the cave are also real. Just keep that in mind."

Rhys' sentence was punctuated with a roar so loud it seemed to shake the entire cave. Jack's eyes stretched wide, his knuckles white as he doubled his hands into fists.

"You have to be kidding me," he said.

"Now, like any other game of D&D, you're free to do what you like inside the dungeon but let me give you a hint here. Don't leave the cave," Rhys warned. "If you think he sounds scary, you won't like what he looks like. I promise you that."

Jack said nothing, but the frightened expression didn't change. He loosened his grip, allowing the color to come back to his skin.

"Now that you're in the cave and determined that the valuables are real, what do you do, Jack?" he asked.

"I would personally say good game, turn around, and go home, but that's not an option I can use here," he said, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair as he moved over to the nearest stalagmite, tapping his foot against it. It was sturdy, but when Jack aimed a kick toward its middle, he froze.

"Good choice to try to make a weapon," Rhys said overhead. "Let's see if it's successful."

Jack's foot moved again, breaking the tower in half.

"It appears your weapon search was successful. You are now armed with a sharp steady stalagmite. Paladin, we turn back to you," Rhys said.

"Well, I'd be a fool to go farther without a weapon too, right?" Shawn asked, scanning the possibilities before him. "So, I'll do the same." He moved over to a stalagmite near the one Jack had broken. He tried to copy the move his friend had used, finding himself frozen midway through.

"Your hunt wasn't successful," came Rhys' voice.

Shawn's foot continued to move, but the stalagmite didn't break. Pain shot up his leg, and he howled stepping down awkwardly on a large stone. Right then and there, he was ready to call it quits. When he looked up, he caught Milo and Jack's eyes on him and deflated a bit. In his head, he had always considered himself to be the leader of the group, but he wasn't reflecting that now when his friends needed him the most. What kind of a leader would he be if he simply folded in on himself?

"I'll use this then," Shawn said, scooping up the rock he had slid on to hide his moment of despair.

"Okay, good. Ranger? Your move."

"The same as my friends. I need something too. Especially if we're going to go up against a demon," he said. "Except, I don't want to search for a weapon. I want to make a weapon with one of the gemstones that we've come across." He walked over to a shining purple fleck in the crevice where the cave wall met the floor and scooped it up.

"Ah, now that's an interesting move. Let's see if it's successful," Rhys said. The clatter of the dice sounded. "Yes. It seems you are successfully able to craft a spear of any gemstone that you choose."

Milo nodded, and the tiny piece of amethyst grew into a spear before their eyes.

"It's done," Rhys said. "Rogue, you're up again."

"We're all armed and ready for battle," Jack said. "I guess that means the only thing there is for us to do is to go on against whatever it is making the noise."

"Okay. The travelers go onward into the cave, the darkness consuming them as the guttural roars fill their ears. They estimate that there are plenty of opponents inside the chamber, but they don't know exactly everything that will cross their path."

"Is he going to do this the entire time we're here?" Jack murmured under his breath. "He does know we're capable of seeing, right?"

Shawn shrugged. Whether Rhys narrated their adventure or not wasn't his concern. As far as he was concerned, if Rhys was busy telling the story, he wouldn't be busy doing other terrible things. Shawn shivered then, suddenly thinking of Penelope. He hoped she would sense something was wrong and would look for him.

Even if she did, she would never find me, he thought, and it hit him hard.

The thought that he and his friends could potentially be trapped in this strange otherworld forever filled him with soul-crushing despair that he wasn't used to feeling. Subtly, Shawn glanced at Jack and Milo from the corner of his eye. Jack's face was creased in concentration, and he held his weapon up, battle-ready as could be. Beside him, Milo's lips were pursed, and his face downcast, but he looked fierce in his own way.

If they can do it, I can too, he thought.

Shawn hardly has a chance to move before a stalagmite was knocked to the floor, crashing to pieces beside him. An ear-slitting roar filled the cave, and then a blast of fire.

"Is that a dragon?" Jack screeched and cursed.

Another blast of fire, and a shadowy creature hurried toward them. Shawn couldn't bring himself to move as he stared at it. From his crouched position, he could see the scales covering its body, its blunt face and beady black eyes embedded into pits in his face.

"It's not any dragon," Jack said, scooping up a fist-sized rock. "It's the Nidhogg, the dragon from Norse mythology who eats the roots of Yggdrasil."

Greed, Shawn thought, jumping out of the way a second before the beast's claws sliced through the air. The blast of air from its wings almost knocked him off his feet.

"It's great we know what it is," Shawn said, regaining himself. "But how do we beat it?"

The dragon turned, roaring before it pivoted toward them, its massive wings, knocking them all to the ground that time.

"Time's a-wastin', boys!" Rhys' voice came over the roars.

"What can we do?" Milo echoed Shawn.

"Answers are always put in the game," Shawn said, eyes darting around frantically. That was something video games had taught him. It was clear that Rhys wasn't going to help them. If they wanted to get out alive, they would have to do it themselves. Shawn's eyes came to rest on the bag slung across Jack's body. "What did he give you?"

Jack's eyes dropped to it. Fingers fumbling, he worked at the zipper, the dragon swooping toward Milo. Milo rolled out the way, the torch clattering to the rocks before going out, and the beast crashed into the cave floor with such an impact that Shawn was sure it must've knocked itself unconscious. It didn't, the beating of its wings filling the cave.

"Hurry!" Milo screamed.

"Ah, I'm trying," he replied, the clatter of objects ringing out as he dug into the depths of his bag. His fingers wrapped around a cylinder, the silver item glinting in the light of the dragon's fire before he tossed that aside too.

"Wait!" Milo said, crawling toward it.

Before anyone else could speak, he raised it to his lips. Sweet dulcet notes came out, bouncing around the cave walls, and the dragon stopped at once.

Jack blinked, eyes stretching wide before he looked between the dragon and Milo. "It's working!"

Shawn was so relieved, he clapped. Milo hardly stopped to breath, the musical tones continuing in a rhythm though the volume grew softer and softer. As it did, the dragon dropped lower in the sky before at last it landed. The woosh of air from its majestic wings before it folded them over its body stunned Shawn almost as much as the next minute when it fell asleep.

Milo played a moment longer before he stopped, peering at the sleeping dragon with the flute still raised as if he were ready to start again at any miniscule movement the creature might make. It didn't stir, and Milo shakily handed the instrument back to Jack.

"It's dark," Jack said, and by the ruffling sounds, Shawn guessed he was putting the flute back into a safe place.

"The dragon put out the torch," Milo said from somewhere in the darkness.

"That sucks, but at least we're alright," Shawn said as they tiptoed around the massive form of the dragon. He was so big that they had to press themselves against the wall to avoid stepping on any part of him. "That was a close one. Too close for my liking."

Up close, Shawn could smell the dragon, the musty stench mixed with that of charcoal and dirt. He had to hold his breath to keep himself from gagging on the smell. Once it was behind them, they let themselves relax just a bit. That is until another unearthly roar sounded from somewhere deeper in the cave. It was the same one they had heard before the Nidhogg made its appearance.

"You're nowhere near finished," Rhys informed them. "This first beast was a simple taste of what's to come."

Jack shot a scathing glance to the ceiling. "You've told us something similar already," he grumbled and wiped at his cheek without saying anything.

"What do you think this demon will look like?" Milo asked softly. "A shadow with red eyes?"

Shawn shook his head. "If the Nidhogg is a sign of anything, I think we should expect something similar."

"I hope so," Jack said. When Shawn shot him a confused glance, he added, "If that's the case, we already know how to take it down." He patted his bag for added effect.

A nervous laugh left Milo's lips. "I never thought the research we did for a game would help save our lives."

"Me either," Jack admitted. "To think, Mom says I waste my time with this."

Shawn didn't want to acknowledge the irony. Instead, he thought of the quiet evening he could be having with Penelope at home instead.

Once they were all successfully past the dragon, they huddled together, squinting through the darkness. Up ahead, there was a glint of light, the beams reflecting off the stalagmites and occasional gems until the light had no choice but to disappear into the darkness.

"Looking to one another a last time, the boys decide to walk through the shadows," Rhys voice drifted to them.

Jack huffed, but they did as Rhys instructed. Something about the narrative comforted Shawn, and he had the feeling that his earlier thought had been right--as long as Rhys was talking, they were safe. It was the silence they had to fear.

"Up ahead they spot the entrance to a chamber. Peering just an inch inside shows how different this is from the rest of the cave. There are piles of gems at the entrance."

Jack flared his nostrils again. "Hey, demon whiz? We can take in the scene for ourselves."

"But a proper Game Master always has to set the scene," he argued.

"You've done more than a proper job of it," Shawn said, glancing slightly into the opening to see the gems that Rhys had promised would be there.

"Fair enough. If you come across something confusing, or don't know how to proceed, don't blame me. The hints were in the narrative."

"That might be, but I'm tired of hearing you," Jack replied.

"Are we ready to go in?" Milo asked, voice softer with each word.

"Not as if we have a real choice," Jack said and took the first step inside, Milo and Shawn trailing behind him.

The few scattered gems they could see at the entrance had been nothing compared to the rest of the scene. There were piles of gold, silver, bronze, jewels, and shiny things that Shawn didn't even know the names of. The floor and walls sparkled with the treasures. The smells of the metals combined with the musty cave air created a unique scent that Shawn was sure he'd never smell again.

An unearthly roar sounded again, so loud that it bounced around the walls, the jewels, and hit Shawn with such an intensity that he didn't trust his feet to keep him standing. Beside him, Milo and Jack struggled to keep their balance as well. Through half-lidded eyes, Shawn looked up across the room, desperate to see the source of the sound. When he did, he took in a breath and held it, wishing he would've kept his eyes on the ground.

Whenever he thought of the word demon, nothing good came to mind, of course, but Mamoon was something straight out of a nightmare. It was tall, the top of its horned head nearly brushing the ceiling, and so thin that its ribs stuck out at odd angles down the length of its abdomen. Its skin was so clear that Shawn could see the purple nearly black veins racing everywhere across it. On its head there were ridges, not unlike the kind he had imagined on a velociraptor. In the place there should've been eyes, there was scaly skin, the same texture running over its hands. As if those traits didn't make it nightmarish enough, its hands ended in two long claws each, and there were bat-like wings sprouting out of its back.

The creature looked like a young child's attempt at drawing a monster, except it was terrifying because this was a living breathing being. When it stopped roaring, its head swiveled from side to side as if it were sensing something in the air. Shawn's attention was drawn to the blank skin where its eyes should be. It was blind. Most likely, it could hear them, and from that it had gathered they were close, but it wasn't sure exactly how close.

"This is the first of your demons," Rhys said, confirming Shawn's thoughts.

"Whoa," Milo breathed.

The creature's face moved in his direction, and he reached up, slapping a hand over his mouth. Judging by the looks on his face and Jack's, Shawn guessed they had figured out its weakness too. Looking it over didn't make him feel better though. Sure the creature couldn't see them coming but would it matter when it could crush them with an ill-timed swat of one of its freakish hands?

Shawn's mouth went dry. Now that he had picked apart the scene, the only thing left to do was fight, but how in the world could they face something so unreal, something so beyond them?

"Paladin, we start with you," Rhys said.

Shawn swallowed, feeling as if Rhys had called him out because he could hear every one of Shawn's insecurities. The beast turned its head in his direction, and Shawn worried his bladder would let loose. He had never felt such fear in his life, never thought it possible. The rock in his hand felt the size of a pebble.

"Paladin?"

Shawn breathed in, glancing to his companions beside him. Milo and Jack were watching him with matching expressions, their own weapons seeming just as silly now that they knew what they were up against. Steeling his nerves, Shawn clutched the rock tighter and charged forward, weapon lifted above his head. The creature's face was angled in his direction, but its body still faced toward Milo. Shawn aimed his attack toward the crook of the beast's ugly leg, but just as he got in range, it turned.

"Ooh, bad move on your part," Rhys called in a sing-song taunt.

The creature's wing struck out, hitting Shawn in the side of the face with such force that he was sent flying toward the piles of gold and metal below. The scales on the wing were rough like sandpaper, and he screamed out, wondering if it had taken the top layer of skin from his face. Before he landed, he twisted himself, knowing the impact would be bad, but he didn't anticipate the surge of pain radiating through his skull from one particularly ill-placed piece of metal. Once he landed, he couldn't convince any part of him to move. It was easier to just lie there, staring up at the ceiling and thinking of every failure he had experienced over the course of his life. He couldn't even bring himself to look at the creature though its roar told him it had moved subtly closer.

He had the horrified thought that like an animal, it would be drawn to the smell of blood. It was only after that realization hit him that the feeling of a hot sticky substance across his cheek, head, and neck came to him full force. The cave around him started to swirl, and he didn't fight it. He let himself slip into the blackness.

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# 8.

"SHAWN! GET UP!" Jack called, but he didn't approach his friend. With the demon hovering so close, Jack was sure that doing so would only end in both of them getting hurt.

"He's not going to get up," Rhys said, voice full of something that rubbed Milo and Jack the wrong way.

"Oh, yeah? Your magic dice tell you that?" Jack snapped.

Rhys didn't bite. "Ranger. You're up," he said instead.

Milo was frozen in place, amethyst spear raised though his eyes were on Shawn's body. His first instinct was always to help. By nature, he was a lover, not a fighter, the opposite to Jack's shoot first, ask questions later strategy. Attacking the creature who had harmed Shawn needed to be done, but he wished there was a way he could check on Shawn first. His friend didn't stir from the place he had landed, the golden coins beneath him turning a shade of copper with the smears of blood beginning to coagulate.

Eventually, Milo's eyes moved to the freakish creature, and a rage that was very unlike him bubbled in his stomach. He thought of the evening they were supposed to have, the interaction with Rhys, the banshee, and his hurt friend. A guttural roar uttered up through his chest, and he didn't make a move to stifle it. Jack took a step back, eyes wide. Milo noticed nothing around him as he charged forward, his feet moving easily through the holes between the piles of jewels as he charged the demon.

The batwing struck out in his direction, but Milo ducked with ease, jamming the spear into the point where the wing connected to the demon's back. In his anger, he was focused, and that determination was deadly. A spray of blood blasted into the air, dotting across the golden pieces on the floor as Milo landed to the cave floor a few feet away. Mammon screamed out at the initial point of contact between it, and the spear, but as the moment went on, the sound grew louder, longer, more desperate. Jack narrowed his eyes against the sound, but Milo was so close that the vibrations felt as if they were rattling around his very brain.

He clamped his hands over his ears, covering the bit of mud that still clung to them from the run-in with the banshee. The creature lifted one massive foot to try and bring it down on his head, but Milo was quicker than Shawn and dodged with ease. He hopped back up to his feet, scooping up his bloody spear when it finally fell from Mammon's skin. In a sort of weave and bob dance, he made his way around the demon as Mammon struck out with its wings and arms, desperate to cut him down any way it could. Panting with sweat running along his temples, Milo at last made it back to the safety of the cave beside Jack.

Mammon's head swiveled back and forth, its claws swiping the air again, but the movements were slower, less intense, as if it knew that Milo had gotten away. Slowly, it took two steps closer, its feet still on the patch of cave floor on its side, and Milo wondered if it could cross over the gems or if it was just choosing not to.

"Well, well, Jackie boy, looks like you're up," Rhys' voice drifted into the scene.

"Okay," he said, eyes frantically sweeping the space around him.

Like Milo, he wanted to help Shawn. That was always the thing he wanted to do, but some part of him knew that to do that now meant he would have to beat the creature first. He correlated that in some way these demons would fall to whatever their biggest sin was. Afterall, if sin was enough to doom a human to suffer in hell for eternity, then it had to have some negative effect on the demons who caused it.

"What is it?" Milo asked, eyes watching his every movement.

Jack didn't answer him. The weakness of someone greedy would be the items they hoarded. For Mammon, it would be the stacks of gems, of gold, of copper. The weakness was all around them, and Jack knew then that his stalagmite would never help. None of their weapons would. That was why Rhys had been so giddy about passing them out. He wanted them to believe they were fighting a fair fight while he sat gleeful with the knowledge that they did not.

Jack turned to the bag at his waist again. It had helped them once, maybe, just maybe it could help them again.  "Fighting fair is not going to help us win this battle," Jack said to Milo as he searched. "Just like with Nidhogg, so I'm going to do what a Rogue does best--shady shit."

"Ah, now that's like the Jack I'm coming to know," Rhys said.

Jack grit his teeth in his best attempt to keep himself from saying something in return. Rhys didn't know a thing about him, and now wasn't the time to teach him that lesson. His next move depended on Rhys' blessing to see it through. Angering him two minutes before that would be foolish, even for him. He didn't know if Rhys actually rolled a pair of dice to determine their fate or if he just pretended to and messed with them as he saw fit. Either way, Jack wouldn't risk it. He rifled through his bag, pulling out an empty glass bottle before he used his free hand to continue searching.

"What are you doing?" Milo asked.

Jack ignored him, holding the bag open to peer inside. The first time he had dug through this bag, it had seemed stuffed to the brim with endless items, but now it was oddly empty. He tossed a few things aside, disappointment blooming in him before he found the next item he was searching for--a rag. A moment more of digging produced the other two items he needed, a match and a bottle of rubbing alcohol.

His first move was to put the alcohol in the glass bottle, swishing it for effect. Milo watched on, expression changing from confusion, to admiration, to hope. The demon turned its massive head in their direction at the sound of the liquid moving inside the container, and Jack had a heart lurching moment where he assumed the beast would charge him, knocking everything out of his hands before he could move the plan into action.

It didn't though. It stayed in the middle of its hoard, protectively hovering close to Shawn as if his armor was enough for the beast to add him to its collection as well.

With shaking fingers, Jack stuffed the rag into the bottle, ensuring it was as tight as it would go.

"Are you sure about this?" Milo asked as Jack turned his attention to the match.

"No," he said, and struck it, letting the red-orange flames begin to devour the rag.

He cocked his arm back and threw it. The explosion when it landed at Mammon's feet was deafening, the effect worse for the enclosed space. Jack held his hands to his ears too late to block out the damage. The radiating sound of the explosion rocked him through to the bone. Pieces of the cave walls and floor fell away, crumpling to dust that sprinkled across the pieces of treasure and Shawn too. While Mammon disappeared temporarily into the cloud of smoke, Jack was horrified to see he was unharmed when it cleared.

The fire smoldered, growing larger and larger as it ate at the blood Mammon had spilled earlier. Jack's heart soared at the idea that this would work, that they would win, but the hope didn't last long as he realized that the fire was moving away from Mammon and blazing toward Shawn, the blood he had left across the gold.

"Your move is up," Rhys' said. "You must sit and wait for another player to make what you are considering."

Tears welled in the corners of Jack's eyes, but he said nothing. Despite the warning, he still tried to charge forward and found that he couldn't move. A million curses ran through his mind. Milo frowned, eyes darting around the room for a new plan.

"I would say it's the Paladin's turn, but he looks a little..." Rhys trailed off, considering. "...unconscious."

Shawn groaned, eyelids beginning to flutter as if the word had been enough to bring him back from wherever he had gone.

"Shawn!" Jack yelled, still trying to move against the invisible binds. "You have to move!"

Shawn's eyes opened as the fire moved toward him, burning less than a foot away from his boot. The heat had him lifting his head, and he stared at the fire as if he couldn't comprehend what it was or what it meant. A second later, the confusion was gone, and he struggled against his body to stand on shaky legs. Blood matted his hair to the back of his head and the lens on the left side of his glasses were cracked, but slowly, he moved himself away from the fire, collapsing beside Milo and Jack the second his foot disconnected from Mammon's treasure hoard.

"Ah, Paladin. It seems that for the time being, you have luck on your side," Rhys cooed. "Enjoy it while it lasts because I assure you it will run out. Luck always does."

All three boys shivered at the sound of that. Never had they received a clearer warning in their lives.

Mammon screamed out then, enraged by the loss of his prisoner combined with the fire that was steadily melting the gold beneath it. The demon flapped its massive wings, but the airstream only succeeded in making the flames larger. Smoke made Shawn, Milo, and Jack cough, desperately trying to cover their noses with their hands and sleeves.

Mammon took to flight. Like a horribly large bird of prey or the dragon slumbering somewhere back in the cave, he swooped at them, clawed hands extended to grab any of the boys that he could manage. For not being able to see, he moved with a precision that was frighteningly accurate. Milo's precision was just as fierce. As it approached, he ducked out of the way, stabbing through the fleshy part of the wing on the downbeat when it got too close. Screeching, the monster dropped to the gems, desperate to dislodge the spear from its wing. With the distraction, it didn't pay attention to the fire.

They watched in horrified silence as the creature stepped backward, the bleeding wing catching on fire first. The screeching started again as Mammon wobbled trying to escape the flames that were now all around him. They turned his skin mottled and purple, bubbles forming on the surface before it began to melt away, the scent of burning flesh making Jack dry heave. Milo was emotionless as he watched the creature struggle for a minute longer before the flames swallowed it completely.

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# 9.

"CONGRATULATIONS, BOYS. IT seems as if you have defeated your first demon," Rhys said. "Now get the Hell out of the cave before this dungeon becomes your last."

The boys didn't need more encouragement. After watching the flames nearly melt the massive demon to ashes, it didn't take them much to imagine the same thing happening to them. Milo and Jack started to race away in the direction they had come, but Shawn lagged behind. His pupils were dilated, and Milo recognized the concussion that weighed him down. Desperate to move, Jack hooked his arm over Shawn's shoulders on one side, and Milo did the same on the other. Nidhogg was still asleep where they had left him, and with Shawn hardly able to move on his own, getting past the dragon without waking it turned out to be difficult. Progress was slow, but it was faster than the flames roaring behind them. By the time they made it past the creature, the flames had exited Mammon's chambers.

"Go, go!" Jack roared.

Nidhogg's eyelids peeled back, its beady eyes revealed. It looked at the boys before its attention turned to the fire, and it roared in fury. The boys used its moment of distraction to hurry the rest of the way to the exit.

When they emerged outside of the cave, it was dark, the sweet clean air washing away the fumes and dust that had accumulated in their lungs. Milo looked up at the moon overhead and then the woods around them. For the moment, it looked calm enough, but all of them knew that could change at a snap of Rhys' demented fingers.

Shawn groaned, and Milo turned his gaze to him, concerned. Between him and Jack, Shawn was managing to walk, but he wasn't holding his head up. It was as if his neck had lost all strength. His shoulders were slumped, his face angled toward the ground, and Milo had the feeling that if he moved his arm off his friend's back, Shawn would simply slam to the ground.

He shot Jack a panicked glance over the top of Shawn's head. "What do we do?"

Jack frowned at him then looked up at the sky. "Yo! He's hurt. Like bad hurt. How are we supposed to fight demons when he can't even stand?"

"You have everything you need for your quest at your disposal," Rhys responded simply.

Jack had murder written across his face as he surveyed the scene. They didn't look to be anywhere near a town. There were trees for possibly miles around them, wildlife moving in the night the only sound Milo could pick up.

"We're in the middle of a forest. What kind of medicine could we possible have?" Jack sneered.

Milo blinked and realized this was his arena. He had limited access to healing spells. If only he knew how to use them. Milo bit his lip, staring helplessly at the nearest trees before he turned his attention to the tiny pouch that was strapped around his ankle.

"You got him?" Milo asked, not waiting for Jack's response before he pulled his arm off Shawn.

Jack staggered to keep their friend from crashing to the ground. "You have an idea?" he asked once Shawn was balanced.

"Maybe," Milo said, digging through the things in the tiny bag.

There wasn't much. A small vial of clear liquid. An assortment of leaves arranged in tiny bags. A stone. A mortar and pestle. If Rhys wasn't just lying to them, these supplies should be enough to heal the damage to Shawn's head, but nothing was labeled, and he couldn't identify them by sight alone. Puffing up his cheeks, he grabbed the mortar and pestle, the liquid, and the first few leaves that he saw. He didn't know what any of them were for, and he didn't know if this would make things worse, but he had to try something. He smashed the leaves in the bowl, adding the liquid to make a green paste. Cursing under his breath as it began to dry, he stirred it with more swiftness, more need, watching as the solid particles turned to a syrupy paste.

"What is that?" Jack asked, lying Shawn down on the ground beside him just as Milo rose to his feet to approach them.

"I don't know," Milo admitted, dropping to his knees.

Being that close filled Milo's blood with the unpleasant smell of blood, and even in the silver moonlight, he could see the extent of the damage. Shawn's red-orange hair was matted with blood, the center point a dark mess of gore. The more he looked at it, the worse he began to feel about the entire situation. This was a wound that could possibly require surgery. For all they knew, Shawn had a skull fracture...some leaves and water certainly wouldn't be enough to heal it. If anything, it might just make it worse by making it susceptible to infection.

Milo glanced up at Jack, but his friend was staring back at him without those doubts. He stared at him intensely, hope shining behind his dark eyes, and suddenly, Milo realized that he was the best chance Shawn had of surviving. Swallowing down his nausea and doubts, Milo dipped his fingers into the cold green liquid and lifted it to Shawn's head, smearing it through the hair and into the wound. He thought about dumping the substance over his head but didn't want to risk the chance of wasting a single drop. Even when he wanted to do nothing more than pull his hand away, he kept touching the poultice and the wound, rubbing it across his scalp over and over until none of the green paste remained in the bowl.

Jack peered at what Milo had done with a frown. "I don't know what I expected," he admitted. "But it doesn't seem like it's working."

Defeat surged through Milo, and he dropped the bowl, frustrated. He lifted his hands to his temples, smearing the paste across his paper-white skin. There had to be something they could do unless Rhys had done all this knowing it wouldn't. Had he really lied to them? Could a Game Master do that?

This is no ordinary Game Master, he reminded himself.

It seemed that Rhys was capable of doing whatever it was that he pleased, and they were helpless to do a thing about it other than grit their teeth and endure.

On the verge of pleading for help on Shawn's part, Milo's eyes darted around when he heard a gasp from Jack which pulled his attention back to Shawn. The wound on his head was beginning to heal, the green paste disappearing as the gap underneath slowly faded away. It was nothing short of magic, and Jack was grateful. Maybe it meant that there was part of Rhys who did care if they lived or died...even if their reason for living was just to provide him with entertainment.

Milo blinked, and that was all the time it took for Shawn's wound to disappear completely, his red hair covering the spot as if he had never been injured. Shawn still didn't move though, head lolling forward to press his forehead to the dirt, and Milo wondered if his poultice had come too late to prevent the internal damage that had been done. On the surface it looked as if all was well, but there was no telling how much damage had been done to his brain while they were fighting Mammon.

Just as Milo opened his mouth to voice his fears to Jack, Shawn groaned and lifted his head. His pupils were blown, and Milo narrowed his eyes, trying to decide if that was from the darkness around them or the head injury he had barely avoided dying from.

Shawn's gaze swiveled from Jack to Milo. He blinked, and his pupils shrunk a bit before he asked, "What happened?" His voice was slurred, and his hand shook as he reached up to touch the sticky strands of blood left in his hair, but watching him move left Milo with the distinct impression that he was going to be okay after all.

"Mammon hit you, and when you landed, the impact cracked your skull," Milo said. "You were unconscious for a while."

"But Milo fixed it like a pro," Jack said and patted Milo's shoulder.

"I don't remember any of that," Shawn admitted, poking carefully at the back of his head again as if he thought they were lying. He sat up then, staring at his hand before he looked up at the moon above them.

"Probably for the best," Milo said, thinking of the creature exploding into smoke and ash. The smell of its melting flesh would haunt him for the rest of his life.

"Did we win?" Shawn asked.

"Yeah, and again it's thanks to Milo," Jack laughed and scratched the back of his head before peering at him. "You're really earning your spot in the group."

Milo blinked at him appreciatively.

"So where are we now?" Shawn asked, doing a full scan of the dark woods around them. They had traveled far enough from the mouth of the cave that it had been lost to the shadows.

"We're somewhere outside the cave. We made it out just before the Nidhogg woke," Jack said.

"Oh," Shawn said, shoulders slumping with relief. He would never think of dragons in the same way again.

Jack turned his gaze to the sky as if a new thought had just occurred to him. "We beat the first demon, Rhys! What now?"

"Hold on for just a minute," Rhys said. "I'm tweaking your skills a bit based on how you did. Milo, I have to say, I am generally impressed with you. Not only were you good with combat, but you were spectacular at healing as well. Bravo."

The tone of his voice sent chills straight down Milo's spine, and he couldn't shake the feeling that whatever would come next, wouldn't be good for him. Reflexively, he reached up to touch the bit of mud covers still clinging to his ears. Rhys had already tried to get rid of him once, right?

Milo could feel himself shrinking inward. Most of his life, he had gotten by simply by keeping to himself, by not standing out which, considering his condition made him physically stand out no matter what, seemed ironic now. He said none of that out loud. Rhys let out a throaty chuckle that made him positive he had read the thoughts regardless.

"Answer the question," Jack said.

Rhys snapped his fingers. The grungy cave and surrounding woods vanished. They found themselves standing beside an oasis, bright sparkling water at the center and beautiful picture-perfect trees all around.

"What is this?" Jack asked, seeming more uneasy in this scene than he had the previous one.

"For that show, you've earned yourselves a brief respite," Rhys said. "You have five minutes to rest, collect supplies, drink some water...whatever it is that'll get you prepared for demon number two."

"Who is that going to be?" Shawn asked, plopping down next to the oasis without hesitation. He cast his shoes aside, letting his swollen feet touch the water. The second they made contact; the swelling started to go down.

"You'll find out when you get there," Rhys replied.

Shawn's eyelids drooped in annoyance.

Jack looked just as annoyed but layered over top of that was exhaustion and fear. Those were things that he would never admit out loud, but Shawn could recognize them just the same. "One down, six to go, right?" Jack asked with a scoff as he knelt beside the oasis, filling his canteen. He capped it and went to work tossing a few handfuls of the water onto his face, washing away the dirt and ashes that clung to his cheeks.

"I wonder what order Rhys is using to determine which demon comes next or if there's any reason to the pattern at all," Milo said.

"If he's working easiest to hardest, that means Mammon was the easiest one, and I barely made it out alive. I'm scared to see what the hardest will be," Shawn said, reaching up to stroke the phantom wound on the back of his head.

"No kidding," Milo said, grabbing a handful of leaves from the nearby trees and bushes. He felt as if he had already been physically, mentally, and emotionally pushed to his limits. Five minutes didn't seem like nearly enough time to recover. "But really, this isn't much different from regular D&D."

Jack and Shawn stared at him as if he had spoken in Latin.

Nervously, Milo tacked on, "Well, different in that we can get hurt, obviously, but brute force isn't going to be what makes us win. It's going to take luck and intelligence. Figuring out the puzzles will get us out faster than trying to fight everything head on."

"I don't know if that's the Ranger in you or something else, but you've got a good point," Jack said.

Shawn laughed. "I can't argue with it." He paused. "You know, I don't tell you much how much I appreciate your friendship, but I do. Without you, I would've been down and out. In the cave, I just froze up. I was a liability, but you did everything necessary to beat Mammon, and save me. That takes dedication and resolve. Maybe you should've been the Paladin."

"Then I wouldn't have had my herbs," Milo said, patting the side of his boot where his tiny pouch was protectively hidden.

Jack blinked and looked down at his own bag. "Fair enough. I think the next chance we get, we should go through my bag and yours. Get a list in mind of the items we have on hand."

"Hate to interrupt, but I'm going to let you know now that the items at your disposal will change with each dungeon."

Jack sighed. "Of course. Why did I assume otherwise?"

Shawn blinked up at him but said nothing.

"Ready for your next trial?" Rhys asked, the tone of his voice leaving real fear in the pit of Shawn's stomach.

The boys exchanged a glance. None of them were ready, but that wouldn't spare them from the fact that they were damned to face it regardless.

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# 10.

SHAWN TOOK A deep breath of the sweet air a second before Rhys snapped his fingers, and they were transported throughout the dungeons. Shawn closed his eyes, trying not to let his nausea consume him. He had always suffered from motion sickness, sometimes even finding car rides troublesome. For everything unusual about the situation they were in, it was somehow that normal little detail that cut him the deepest. It was a reminder that regardless of what happened here, life back at home would go on. Even if Milo, Jack, and him were never seen again, the town would continue on, month after month, year after year, until their names became whispered and then were never spoken of again.

When the world swirled back to focus again, Shawn, Milo, and Jack were standing in the foyer of a mansion. White tiles clicked beneath their feet and ice blue walls surrounded them. Above their head was a crystal chandelier, and Shawn didn't know why, but his skin bristled. He had never seen a place so fancy in his life, and on instinct, he expected someone to appear at any moment to kick him out. He didn't belong here, and they would know it.

Jack and Milo didn't speak as they did their own survey, and Shawn found himself wondering what they thought of the place. Like him, both of them had grown up in lower class homes as well. Shawn studied the paintings on the walls, the statues decorating the edges of the corridor. Taking two steps forward, he peered into the first room that he could see, studying the white and baby blue couches and chaise lounges. The surfaces looked plump and silky, and he found himself wondering what it would be like to take a nap on a couch like that. Surely there would be no spring in his back.

"Well, what do you boys think?" Rhys asked.

"I think this is a weird time to show off," Jack said scathingly.

Rhys laughed. "You kid too much, Jack. It won't bode well for you here."

"Who says I'm kidding?"

Rhys ignored him. "You boys have successfully arrived at the lair of your next challenge, Belphegor, the demon of sloth."

Shawn blinked, pulling away from the trance that the lounge had held him in. "Demon of sloth...like sleep, right?"

"As you can see, Belphegor lives in a comfortable place," Rhys continued. "One filled with soft surfaces and beautiful scenery. One designed to get you to lose yourself, to rest and to stay like that forever. Good luck staying awake. Don't let the bedbugs bite."

Jack curled his lip as he peered at Shawn. "I think he likes to say that ironically knowing he has complete control over everything we do. Luck's not a factor."

Shawn raised his eyebrows in silent agreement.

"This is a nice place," Milo said, hands clenching into fists at his sides.

The words, tone of Milo's voice, and posture of his body contrasted one another so much that Shawn found himself asking, "Are you okay?"

Milo bobbed his head. "Yeah. I think this should be an easier venture than the experience with Nidhogg and Mammon. They were trying to protect something, but this place isn't made to keep people and things out. This place is designed to make you tired, to make you want to sit and rest," Milo explained. "As long as we don't give in to that urge, this should be a cakewalk."

Jack and Shawn nodded in agreement, and with hushed footsteps, they began to make their way down the corridor.

"You think he's somewhere in the mansion or outside?" Jack asked.

"Probably somewhere in the mansion, asleep," Shawn said.

"That seems too easy though, doesn't it?" Milo asked. "After the battle with Mammon, catching a demon off guard seems unlikely. I mean he was blind and still put up a good fight."

"Depends on what Belphegor looks like, what he can do," Shawn said.

"While we're on the topic of Mammon, he's a good indication that Belphegor will be ugly. Hellishly so," Jack said.

The comment was enough to cause them all to laugh, breaking some of the tension deep inside Shawn. Part of him was suspicious about the lightheartedness that had washed over him. Could another side effect of this place be the ability to knock their guard down?

"How's your head?" Milo asked as they made their first turn into the mansion.

Shawn came out of his thoughts to say, "Better, thank you."

"Good," Milo said and pursed his lips as he studied the hall around them. "This is more like a maze than I thought it'd be. For the demon of sleep, I'd think his dungeon would be straightforward. Thinking like this keeps me awake."

"If this place is a maze, then Belphegor will be at the center."

Shawn bobbed his head. "Good thinking."

They wove their way through the halls, but it seemed as if every room they peered into was a bedroom. Each had a different bed, one more comfortable looking than the last. There were pillows and blankets piled on them, sometimes the stack so massive that it resumed on the floor beside it. The longer he stared at it, the more he forgot why they were fighting. After the scuffle with Mammon, every muscle in his body ached, and he longed for sleep. The kind so deep and entrancing that a person woke feeling as if they could never be tired again. Without thinking, he took one step forward.

He was halted by a hand on his shoulder and turned to look into Milo's face. "Don't look at them for too long."

Shawn blinked and shook his head, clearing away the thoughts that had only moments ago hijacked his brain. The beds were like a siren song, and if sight alone could cripple them, then this dungeon could turn out to be far more dangerous than Mammon's had been. Maybe Rhys was going easiest to hardest after all.

"Right," Shawn managed to say at last.

"It's probably too early on to say something like this," Jack said, eyes on the path straight ahead, "But I hope every dungeon from here on out is this calm."

"This is suspicious in its own way," Milo reminded him.

"Maybe, but I would rather play games with my shadow than actual monsters who want to tear me apart," Jack said.

Milo blinked and frowned. "Fair enough, but I think it's too early to rule out that there's nothing here. If this mansion is as big as I think it is, there could be creatures waiting around any corner to catch us off guard."

Jack didn't admit Milo was right out loud, but the solemnity that washed over his face was enough to tell Shawn. The time for joking and games was long gone. The mud over Milo's ears, and the scar on the back of Shawn's head were enough to attest for that.

Traveling onward moved them through a parlor and down several more halls. At the end of one, they could see the walls stretch to the side as the path opened into a room. Shawn halted, and a moment later the rest of the group did the same.

"Could it be possible to find Belphegor so soon?" he asked, patting himself down for anything that he could use as a weapon. He had nothing.

Milo drew his eyebrows together. "It feels too soon, but who knows?" He paused to glance back over his shoulder. "There's no other way to go. Rhys is herding us in this direction."

"Doesn't make me feel better about the answer to your question," Jack said.

Shawn watched him fumble for his bag. He opened it, rifling through the contents, and a moment later, a pleased smile crossed his face. When he dropped the bag back to his side again, Shawn realized that he was clutching a small silver switchblade. This time around, Rhys had provided him with a weapon. Shawn could've cried tears of relief...not that weapons had done them much good in the first dungeon.

They moved to the room, and Shawn looked to Milo. He hadn't summoned anything close to a weapon either, and his eyes were troubled.

Shawn put his hand on his shoulder. "Stay at the back of the group," he said. "Just in case."

Milo opened his mouth to argue, but Shawn didn't want to hear it. He pushed ahead of him and ahead of Jack as well. He didn't want to admit to either of them that he felt his role in the group was nothing more than a distraction for any potential threats. After all, Milo had already proved his tremendous worth and so had Jack. Shawn had offered up none of his potential yet.

When the details of the room came into view, Shawn let out the breath he had been holding. Where he had expected a massive demon to be standing was the biggest television that Shawn had ever seen. It was so massive that it didn't rest on a table. It didn't need to. The screen reached up to the ceiling, and it made Shawn think of a cartoon TV because surely this one couldn't be real. Beside it, there was a stand housing every game console that Shawn could think of going all the way back to the '80's. Some of them were so old that he had never seen them in person.

Jack was the first to lose himself and sprung forward, knife tucked away as he shouted, "This is awesome!"

Shawn and Milo nearly tripped over themselves trying to stop him from touching anything. "Wait!"

Jack frowned and turned back to them. There was a confused half-smile on his face as if he had forgotten who they were and why they were there. "What?"

"Think about the purpose of this place," Milo said slowly. "We're supposed to lose ourselves here, right? To forget our mission, and what better way to do that than with video games?"

Jack gave the consoles another punitive glance. "You're right." He frowned up at the sky, and Shawn assumed Rhys himself. "You're not playing fair, you know."

Rhys didn't answer.

While Shawn was looking to Jack, Milo yawned. He lifted his hand, trying his best to stifle the sight and sound so the other boys wouldn't see, but it was too late. Shawn narrowed his eyes as he tried to fight off the sensation, but like a soft breeze, it graced through the entire group bringing sleepiness with it. Shawn thought about the siren call of the bed earlier, and he wondered if there was something in the air that they couldn't hear. Something on a frequency just high enough that they couldn't detect but subconsciously would affect them?

"We need to get out of here," Shawn said, rubbing the heels of his hands into his eyes. "I don't think this fatigue is going to wear off until we do."

"True," Jack said. "If anything, it will likely only get worse." He took a step and stumbled over his foot, landing on the soft couch behind him.

Milo and Shawn's eyes were wide as they watched him, waiting for beasts to come out of nowhere to spell them into a sleep they would never emerge from. Nothing appeared, and Jack easily hopped up before the seat could do anything.

"I'm okay," he said, meeting the worried glances of his companions.

Milo frowned, looking unconvinced. "Could we be wrong about this place? Could the beds and couches have nothing wrong with them, and it's all kind of a placebo effect?"

Shawn shrugged. "It's possible, but either way, we shouldn't risk it. Better safe than sorry."

Milo's bottom lip jutted out, and suddenly, Shawn didn't like the way he was looking at him. For some reason, he felt as if Milo were judging him for the decision he had made earlier, the one where he had thrown himself first into possible danger with no way to fight it off.

Before either boy could call out the other, scuffling sounded from the hall, and Shawn froze. "What's that?"

Jack blinked, hand slipping into his pocket to retrieve his knife. "I don't know."

The sound came again, louder and with more ferocity. Milo tensed but did little more than clench his hands into fists. Shawn took a step forward, once again ready to stand as a shield. He narrowed his eyes, trying to picture whatever was responsible. It sounded like something small but heavy, a fleet of creatures bumping into the walls and hitting the floors.

"Whatever it is, there's a lot of them," Shawn surmised, taking a step backward. While the idea of being a human shield was noble, the actual act was very hard to pull off.

"Then we should get out of here," Jack said, turning to head in the opposite direction.

Milo and Shawn moved to follow but stopped when they realized the sound was coming from both hallways. There was no escape. Swallowing, Shawn blinked, and then the creatures filled the room. They were fat things with purple skin and tiny wings that only supported their weight enough to allow them to flutter a few feet off the ground before crashing back down again. They bounced off of everything in their path--the floor, the walls, and each other.

They reminded Shawn of cherubs...if Hell had their own version. That meant they should've had chubby cheeks and sweet eyes, but instead, their faces showed the horror of their creation. They had gaping mouths full of sharp teeth, red eyes, and holes torn through their odd colored flesh. A few of them were missing their eyes altogether, and Shawn had the sudden thought that they had done that to one another. If that was the case, what would they do to them? Were these creatures like miniature monsters from Jeepers Creepers that rebuilt themselves by stealing the necessary parts from other living beings?

"Rhys, what are these?" Shawn demanded, unsure if he would get an answer. By then, he, Milo, and Jack had backed themselves into a tight circle so that none of the boy's backs were left exposed. The ugly things surrounded them, a mass of purple bodies slowly closing in.

"Those, my dear boy? Those are known as drudes. They are demons of nightmare," he said. "They go well hand in hand with the demon of sleep and laziness, don't you agree?"

"No," Jack said. "These look like somebody ovened their cabbage patch kids."

A comment like that normally would've drawn a laugh from Shawn, but he could hardly move. His stomach rioted with the feeling that his heart had plunged directly into it. The ugly creatures were moving closer, and even though he knew they wouldn't physically harm him, the idea of sleeping forever with nightmares wasn't exactly comforting.

"I don't think they'll hurt us," Shawn said.

"Hurting our eyes doesn't count?" Jack asked, pulling his tiny knife out of its place.

"In this instance, no. I think they have to touch us to put us under a spell," Shawn said.

"So smart, Paladin!" Rhys said.

With that, the creatures advanced forward, the circle of space separating the boys from the beasts growing smaller and smaller by the second.

"Do whatever you have to do, but make sure none of them touches your skin," Shawn called out though really, he hated the fact that he could be wrong. It could be a spell cast through the air that they could inhale for all he knew, but he had to believe that there was some hope for them.

When the first of the grotesque beings reached them, Milo was ready. He lashed out with a tiny scalpel from his medicine kit, slicing the creature until it gave an angry snarl and backed its distance. The cut across its swollen purple belly healed black, and Shawn couldn't decide if that was good or not. It was clear they couldn't hurt these things for long, but if they could do any damage, that could be the ticket to buying them time needed to escape.

"They don't have a way of fighting us," Milo said, watching green liquid seep out of the wound he had inflicted on the next creature. "But don't let them bleed on you."

Jack easily slashed two at once, watching the things bounce away with the force. Shawn was the only one unarmed and when the creatures approached him, he lashed out with the armor on his arm, listening to the crinkle of metal as it came into contact. A second later, it was sent soaring away. Its blood smeared onto the surface, turning it to rust. That should've made him feel worse, but he felt better because a plan was forming. He knew what he needed to do, what they needed to do, and how they could avoid the consequences.

Just like that, they started to inch themselves out of the circle and toward the hall opposite of the one that they had entered from. Milo's grip on his knife slackened, the clang of it hitting the floor pulled Shawn out of his focus. He turned in time to see one of the ugly creatures charge forward, knocking Milo onto the couch in the center of the room.

"Milo!" Shawn cried out, rushing forward.

Jack grabbed him, holding him back before he could rush into the circle of creatures. The cherub that had knocked Milo over had its hands to his chest, pushing the air from Milo's lungs while the others converged around to make a barrier. His terrified expression lingered only a second longer before it slid away into something peaceful. His eyelids drooped, and a moment later, closed, losing him to sleep.

"No," Shawn uttered, pushing Jack off of him.

Jack grunted with the scuffle, trying desperately to hold his friend in place, but Shawn couldn't be persuaded. He elbowed Jack in the ribs and hurried forward, kicking the cherubs out of the way. He hit the drude on Milo's chest with such force that its blood eroded away the rest of the metal left on his arm. It went flying to the floor, and Jack finished it off. Seeing the demise of one of their own seemed to do something to the other creatures or maybe it was the state of Milo. They screamed in unison, an earsplitting shriek, and all at once they split up and departed down the halls.

Shawn, staring down at Milo, hardly noticed that they were alone. With shaking fingers, he grabbed Milo's shoulder. "Milo!" he cried, shaking him harder and harder as the moment passed and Milo didn't stir. "You have to wake up!"

When Jack turned away from the remains of the drude he had killed, which had melted to a toxic green puddle, there was something animalistic in his eyes. He pushed Shawn out of the way and lunged toward Milo, one hand grabbing him by the collar as the other hand reached out, coming back to Milo with a smack that radiated around the room. Red blossomed across his ever-so-pale cheek, but he didn't stir. Jack did it again and again until Milo's cheeks started to swell from the blows, but he didn't wake.

At last, Shawn grabbed Jack by the wrists, holding him before he could smack Milo again. "That's enough," he told him.

Swallowing, Jack reached up to run his fingers through his hair, eyes on the marks he had left on his friend. "They got him, Shawn. Eternal sleep. What are we going to do?"

Shawn frowned at Milo. It seemed so unfair that he looked so peaceful while they were scrambling in panic to fix the situation he had drifted away from. "What can we do? That's the real question."

"There is nothing you can do, but move on," Rhys' voice interrupted. "The battle against the nightmare the drude has infected on Milo is one that he must fight alone."

"What happens if he loses?" Shawn asked, prepared for the answer he would receive.

"Then he will slumber forever."

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# 11.

MILO GROANED, TURNING his head as he tried to get himself comfortable. There was a pain in his neck from the angle, the sensation shooting down his abdomen. All he wanted to do was sleep and sleep until eons had passed, but something jabbed him in the ribs, pulling him from the blissful nothingness he had been part of only seconds before. He shifted, but the aggravating sensation was still there. Slowly, his eyes began to open. They were heavy, and he wanted to slam them shut again, but the peek he caught of his surroundings gave him strength.

Eyes stretched wide, he hopped to his feet. He knew this place, and so did Jack and Shawn. It was the high school, the lobby just beyond the doors leading to the parking lot. This was a point he never passed by himself, yet his friends weren't with him. He blinked, wiping his eyes before he did another survey of his surroundings. It looked like that morning had, this day that had started normal and then gone to completely insane depths.

Milo lifted his hands, pressing the heels into his eyes with such ferocity that he saw stars. He surveyed his surroundings again. The trek to the woods, the game with Rhys, the demons? Had all of it been a dream?

There was a second where a surge of hope passed into his chest. If it had all been a dream, then he had nothing to worry about. A boring day at school? He was just fine with that. Adjusting his backpack, he started to walk down the stark white hall, feeling better and better with each step. He wasn't a hero, and to think there was a universe where he potentially was made him laugh. Unlike the other teens his age, he liked the monotony of his every day, the certainty. He hated surprises. This boring little place in this boring little town was nirvana to him.

Laughter poured from his lips, and he let it out. The sound bounced around the halls, and then it stopped. This was school, he had no doubts there, but why was it so empty? Had he somehow been late and only just now realized it? It would certainly explain the absence of his friends.

Clearing his mind of everything related to Rhys and the game in the woods, he went on a search for his class or his friends...whichever came first would be just fine to him. Milo turned a corner, and that was when he spotted the outlines of two familiar shapes in the distance--one skinny as a bean pole and the other tall and muscular. Shawn and Jack. Their heads were bent close together as they engaged one another in a conversation so intense that something in Milo crackled for being left out.

Milo waved, hoping to get their attention. "Hey! Guys, wait up!"

Milo wasn't loud by nature, doing what he could to blend in, but since there weren't anyone else in the hall, he didn't mind making his voice heard. The sooner he could get his friends' attention, the sooner things could go back to normal.

Jack and Shawn didn't turn to acknowledge his presence.

Milo frowned, trying to keep himself from resorting to immediate panic. Maybe they didn't hear me.

He moved closer, and they turned, walking away. "Guys!" Milo called again.

He started to run after them, the sound of his footsteps echoing around the space, but they didn't stop, didn't even look back, and Milo stopped. There was a pain in his chest, not from his run, but from the sudden rejection. Being cut out of Shawn and Jack's group hurt worse than the banshee's screams in the clearing. Then he paused with that thought at the front of his brain. Banshee? Why did that feel important?

With as much detail as he could, he pored over the last week, trying to understand what he had done to be so brutally snubbed. Nothing stood out, and he blinked away his tears then. Crying wouldn't help him fix the friendships he had apparently lost. If he wanted to do that, he would have to seek them out, to ask what was wrong. The hallway before him stretched once, and he turned another corner, always just barely catching a glimpse of the pair ahead before they turned a bend and vanished again. The walls around him subtly extended into a maze, one that eventually barred him away from the windows and any chance of escape he might've had.

Heart thudding, Milo started to run. A bell overhead rang then, and the doors opened, students pouring out to fill the previously empty space. Jack and Shawn were lost among the sea of classmates. Shouldering others out of the way, he kept going, ignoring the angered shouts following him. Usually, he would've apologized, but right now? He didn't have the time. Something was wrong, and he had to find out what.

He had to find out how to escape Rhys' game. The thought was like a sucker punch to the gut that winded him and brought everything back to the front of Milo's brain. The room with the television, the giant couch, the circle of hellish cherubs. Then the flash of the creature charging at him. Suddenly, it all made sense.

He was asleep. This was a dream.

He was trapped in a nightmare.

The realization normally would've paralyzed him with fear, but it fueled him onward instead. It might not be in this Realm, but somewhere Jack and Shawn were waiting for him. They hadn't turned their backs. He wasn't abandoned. For the time being, he might be alone, but he could figure this out. He had done a fine job on everything else so far.

Milo tried to remember the things that Rhys had told them about the drudes, but that hadn't been much. He had said something about a coma filled with nightmares. He thought of how this dream had started and had the feeling that he would have to be prepared to face everything he was afraid of. After all, losing his friends was one of his biggest worries, and he had survived that. Milo tried not to think too much about his other fears, wondering if Rhys already knew them or if he was waiting for Milo to expose himself so he could use those against him later on.

"I have to get out of this place," Milo determined, looking around.

Running wouldn't be an option. The halls were still distorted, and the walls such a vague indistinguishable color that he would never be able to trace them back to the point where he had started. For a second, he had the fear that there would be no way out, that he would be trapped here until he eventually starved to death. Panicked, he started to run the halls again like a rat in a maze. Fully out of breath, he came to the conclusion that his earlier observation was right. Until he beat whatever he needed to face, he wouldn't be able to leave.

He stumbled into a nearby room, hunched over with his hands on his upper thighs as he heaved for breath. By the time his surroundings stopped spinning, he studied the room he had ended up in. Thankfully, he was the only one inside. There were no windows on the wall where there should've been, and the back wall was lined with cabinets, each door hanging open at the exact same angle to reveal empty shelves inside. Between the cabinets and Milo were rows and rows of desks, the type found in any normal high school room.

There was something about this room though, something that Milo couldn't put his finger on. I'm not just saying that because I'm trapped in a demon's D&D game, he thought to himself.

That's when he noticed it, the dagger on the desk. The light glinted off of the curved blade, and he could hardly draw his eyes away. The handle was black but studded with a large sapphire at one end and rubies wrapped around the base of the blade. It was a beautiful knife, and based on the shine of the silver blade, he could assume it was well-maintained. Even from where he stood, he could tell that the blade was sharp, and why not?

The next part of his mission would be easier if it was after all.

Milo spent a long time staring at the blade, longer than he probably should've. His biggest fear was cliched, but popular--he was afraid to die. He didn't have any real religious beliefs so the thought of not existing after the entire process of being alive was a terrifying concept. One he never wanted to experience so the thought that one day it would happen to him made the fear worse.

Surely that's not what this means, he told himself as he stared at the knife.

Denial made it easier to approach this situation, to think up a solution. If he didn't, he would be faced with the truth of this one. The blade offered him no answers either, but he found himself inching toward it. Maybe there was a note taped to it or somewhere nearby in one of the desk drawers. Milo drummed his thumbs against the sleek polished surface of the desk before he reached one shaking hand out to lift the knife, the weight real and solid. Now that he was touching the knife, there didn't need to be a note. The feeling in his gut told him everything he needed to know.

Licking his lips, he reached out, tapping the tip of his finger to the sharp point. A pinpoint of blood welled from the point of impact, running down his pale finger. Milo didn't think of his condition much, but with the contrast of his blood to his pale skin, he reminded himself of a corpse. That was almost enough to get his breath caught in his throat, to get him to toss the blade down and run. But what would happen then?

If he turned his back on this, what else would there be for him? Endlessly chasing Jack and Shawn through a maze?

Milo twitched his nose. He wasn't a fool. Part of him knew that the only true escape in the end would be death anyway, but he hated it. Milo had made a habit of being optimistic by nature, but sometimes, it just wasn't possible to explain the glass as anything other than half-empty, especially when you know you've been siphoning water from it for some time.

Slowly, Milo turned the tip of the sharp blade toward himself, watching the way it glinted in the light. Hypothetically, the next minute would be easy. One slash, and he would be done, hopefully instantly, but if not, then he would bleed out for sure. In reality though, it was anything but easy. Milo's breathing started to quicken, the world around him swishing into different colors as he fought back a panic attack.

He forced out the air in his lungs with one slow exaggerated breath through his mouth. The tiny cut on his finger was still bleeding, the trickle of blood what he forced himself to focus on. If he wanted out, it would take literal blood, sweat, and tears, and he had already done the latter of the two. Before he could doubt himself again, he thrust the blade forward, into his stomach. His echoing scream radiated around the building, and he struggled to open his eyes, the tears keeping them sealed shut. Part of him expected the yowls to draw the attention of any of the people he could hear moving in the hall, but they disappeared, and he was alone with his gore.

Without taking his hands off the knife, he looked down, watching as the red began to seep into his shirt. He wanted to scream again, to drop the blade, and not do this.

"Can't back out now," Rhys' taunting voice came from overhead.

A string of curses floated through Milo's head, but part of him was relieved to hear Rhys' voice. If the demon was coming to him now, it had to be a good sign, or at least a clue that the end was near one way or another. Milo said none of this out loud as he readjusted his grip on the knife, his own blood making the task difficult. Without letting go, he dragged the blood through his skin, cutting away the organs, muscles, and tissue in the way. Milo had no idea where the strength came from, but once he started, he didn't stop. As his screams echoed up around the room, he thought his voice box would explode, and he had the feeling that it wasn't his hands guiding the knife but Rhys'. Every time he was ready to pull the blade away, it wouldn't leave his stomach, the silver cutting deeper and deeper.

By the time he was able to pull the blade out of his skin, his entrails were threatening to escape. Through the frayed edges of his shirt, he couldn't see them, but he could feel them, and that was much worse. The smell of blood made him want to wretch, the movement igniting a brand-new spark of pain in him with every ripple that moved the wound. The dagger slipped from his fingers, landing in the pool of blood at his feet a second before he collapsed, his world turning to black.

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# 12.

"WE ARE SO screwed," Jack said, raking his fingers through his hair over and over again as he paced before Milo's sleeping form on the couch.

He didn't know how much time had passed, but Milo continued to slumber away, his face peaceful even with the awkward position of his head on the back of the couch. Shawn stood near the armrest, frowning at Milo then Jack and back again. He didn't know which situation concerned him more--Milo's nightmare coma or the fact that Jack seemed ready to fall to pieces any moment.

"He's going to beat this," Shawn said, tilting his head to try to catch a glimpse of his friend's face.

Jack shook his head, and halted, coming to rest before his friend. "We don't know that though, do we? Rhys said coma. That's not something you can come out of easily. I mean, some people never come out of their comas. He might not wake up, and while we stay here waiting, Rhys might be cooking up plans to kill both of us. I keep thinking he didn't design this for us to be able to walk away from, and you expect me to digest a thought like that calmly?"

Shawn blinked but didn't engage. He'd had similar thoughts of course, but it wouldn't benefit them to fuel the fire that was Jack's rage. Right now, they needed to stay calm and collected, to come up with a plan. Yes, it was possible that Milo might not wake up and walking away from his friend would be the hardest thing he'd have to do, but they also needed to have a plan in the small chance that he would wake up. Most likely, if he woke, he wouldn't be in good shape from whatever he encountered on the other side, and it would be Jack and Shawn's responsibility to keep him safe for the duration of the rest of Belphegor's dungeon.

Shawn peered at Milo's sleeping face again with a frown. Rhys had already threatened his life twice, and Shawn knew the reason. Out of the three of them, Milo was the most capable. He had proved that with Mammon's dungeon, and in the oasis after. Shawn had the uneasy feeling that Rhys lived by the baseball philosophy of three strikes and a person's out. That meant Milo had one more chance if he woke up. That thought somehow managed to make Shawn feel worse.

A horrible gurgling sound came up Milo's throat followed by a frantic gasp for air. There was a blossom of red across his abdomen as if he had been shot. Shawn and Jack pitched forward at the same time, Shawn ready to grab his friend when he stopped. Milo's eyes slowly opened; the pits glazed over as if he had seen something truly terrifying. He wrapped his arms around his body as if he were trying to hold himself together, and the blossom of red that Shawn thought he had seen disappeared.

"Milo!" Shawn said, taking another step forward to put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Milo, it's okay. It's just us. It's just Shawn and Jack. You're safe."

The horrible sound of watery breath disappeared from Milo's chest, replaced with a pattern that sounded more natural and less like Milo was about to die any moment. Milo blinked, the haze clearing away as his huge eyes moved from Jack to Shawn as if he were trying to verify that Shawn's words were the truth before at last his pupils began to shrink to their normal size.

"Dude, what happened?" Jack asked, tilting his head to study him over for injuries.

Milo stood on shaky legs, looking back at the couch with venom that wasn't missed by Shawn. "That sucked," Milo said, reaching up to swipe his hand over his mouth. He looked down at himself, patting his stomach before he lifted his shirt to stare at the pale skin.

"What happened to you in there?" Shawn asked, convinced now that the blood he had seen on Milo's shirt hadn't been a figment of his imagination.

Milo looked up at Shawn, his eyes haunted endless pits as he said, "Don't ever let one of those touch you."

Shawn stared back, transfixed and unsure of what he could say.

Milo broke the connection first, turning to Jack. "If you see another one of those things, kill it."

Jack and Shawn exchanged baffled glances but followed behind him as he led the way out of the room. It's true that everyone had their breaking point. Shawn understood that whatever had happened had pushed Milo past his. Milo hardly even looked at them, trudging forward with his fingers wrapped around his tiny scalpel as if he couldn't wait to sink it into the first thing he saw. Shawn wasn't used to seeing such ferocity in his friend, and the more he watched him, the more he was sure that he didn't want to know what had happened. He would give him his space, positive that the topic of Milo's solo adventure would come up again before the end of their journey came.

"What now?" Jack asked, staring at the back of Milo's head as he trotted at Shawn's side.

"Same mission as before," Milo said, wiping his mouth with the back of the hand not clutching the small silver tool. "Let's find this demon and get out of here."

"Yeah, and hopefully, no more drudes," Shawn said with another sympathetic glance to his friend.

Milo pursed his lips but said nothing. Shawn wanted to take his place at the front of the pack but forced himself to stay behind Milo. It was clear that his friend had a personal vendetta--only a person on a mission moved like he was--and he would be a fool if he got in the way of that. After all, the only thing fueling Shawn on at that point was fear.

Shawn swallowed and glanced up at the ceiling through his lashes, almost expecting Rhys to make some kind of comment on what had happened. If anyone was going to rat out Milo, it would be him, but he was silent.

"I think I'm going to lose my mind if I see a bed ever again after this," Jack said, frowning at the newest room as they passed it. There were twin beds against either side of the wall. For Shawn, they reminded him of his time in foster care, and that made the beds less appealing.

"I'm definitely going to think twice about sitting in one place for too long," Shawn agreed.

"You're telling me," Milo murmured, hand reaching up to brush his abdomen again.

Shawn didn't question the movement. He kept his eyes on the path ahead, studying the set of double doors that made it impossible to see what lie ahead. Milo stormed forward but stopped just before he reached them, hand hovering in midair as if he were second guessing his entire plan...if he even had one at all.

"What's wrong?" Shawn asked.

"This looks like the setup for a boss battle," Milo replied, turning to look at him over his shoulder.

Jack sniffed. "It would definitely be time for it. Last demon took half the amount of time to find, Nidhogg not included."

Shawn swallowed, trying to hide his panic at the thought of another, more potentially dangerous sleep demon. If the little drude had been capable of inflicting such fear in Milo, what could a creature ten times its size do to them? Shawn shivered, thinking of how useless he had been in the last fight.

You can be a human shield if nothing else, he reminded himself.

It wasn't glorious by any means, but Milo had been through enough, and he would never risk the life of Jack, his best friend. Taking in a breath, Shawn held his chin high as he passed Milo, setting his hand on the golden doorknob.

"Only way to get this over with will be to face it head on," he said and wrapped his fingers around the knob, pulling the door open.

He led the way inside, Jack right on his heels, but Milo hesitated. He squeezed his eyes shut, face angled to the floor, before he opened his eyes again and followed close behind. Shawn would be lying if he said that wasn't fear. It was fear in its rawest form, terror, and Shawn had new admiration for his friend.

The floor beneath their feet turned to a soft material the deeper into the room they traveled, and Shawn was reminded of a padded room. Just like in a padded room, the walls, floor, and ceiling were all white. Squinting, he dragged his eyes from one corner of the room to the other.

In the middle of the room was a bed just as they had expected to find. It was a huge four poster monstrosity that made Shawn sleepy just looking at. Like the rest of the room, it was all white. Shawn could imagine how comfortable it must be and found himself itching to lie on it, even for just a moment. Remembering the incident with the couch and the drude, the look on Milo's face when he woke and the splatter of blood across his shirt, was enough for Shawn to battle the urge.

For a second, the boys didn't say anything, didn't move.

The curtain around the bed slowly began to swish open, and a creature peered at them. It looked somewhere between the drudes they had seen and the first demon they had slain. It was heavy, its belly protruding from his abdomen and horns protruding from its head. It squinted at them from a fuzzy face, and Shawn didn't breathe. It looked like a troll, and he wondered if this was really Belphegor or just another challenge Rhys had thrown into the dungeon to keep them on their toes.

The longer Shawn stared at it, the more he expected a hiss or a growl, some kind of hostile noise, but as the creature gazed back at them, it let out a contented purr as if it was nothing more than a deformed cat. It slithered out of the bed, rising higher and higher with each inch it moved off the bed. Milo and Jack took two careful steps backward, but Shawn stood in place. It was for this reason that the beast turned its beady eyes to him. The fuzzy places on its face hardened, lengthening into something like the pinchers on a beetle. The little arms clacked together as they opened and closed as if the creature was trying to communicate with him.

Shawn swallowed, taking a step backward. Beside him, Jack was rifling through his bag, items flying in every direction, but it seemed as if everything he pulled out was insignificant. Halfway through his search, music began to play, and Shawn looked up. It was loud, each note nearly drilling into his brain, and he reached up to cover his ears. Like Milo with the banshee, it did little good. He could still hear the music through his hands.

Perhaps the worst part was that with each drilling note, the pain was becoming more pronounced, and so was the exhaustion in his body. He could feel every nerve, muscle, and tendon weakening as if his very organs were liquifying themselves. Shawn narrowed his eyes to try and look at his companions. Milo had slathered a brown paste over his ears from his bag, the covers looking like the ones that had saved him from the Banshee. He was the only one who didn't look as if he was about to melt. Between them, Jack was on his knees, blood dripping between his fingers. Just when Shawn thought it couldn't get any worse, the music grew louder. Milo looked from Shawn to Jack before he took a step backward. One more and then he turned on his heels to flee.

Shawn watched a second longer before the world around him cut to black.

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# 13.

MILO REALLY DIDN'T know what Rhys was trying to prove by once again giving him the upper hand in a situation that seemed like an otherwise lost cause, but he wasn't going to argue with the opportunity. He had an idea, and as his feet pounded down the corridor, he knew he had limited time to pull it off. A giant clock ticked down at the front of his brain and just behind that was his goal--the goal which seemed so simple, but if it failed meant they would all fail. Heart thudding, he skidded into the room with the video game consoles and the majestic couch.

The sight of the couch was enough to bring up a panic attack. He didn't want to sit on it, didn't want to go anywhere near the place where the drude had taken him over. Just looking at it reminded him of the phantom pain in his stomach, and he wrapped his arms around himself. There wasn't time for him to second guess himself. He thought of Shawn and Jack on the ground, the blood leaking between their fingers as their very brains were damaged.

His next move wasn't hard to decide then. Like a stone, he let himself drop down onto the surface, the fibers bouncing him back up slightly before he settled. As he sat there, he was prepared to throw himself off at the slightest sign of movement.

Come on, he thought, tapping his foot. Exhaustion started to creep over him, but he fought it back. His plan wasn't working as well as he had hoped it would, but he wouldn't accept failure. Not yet. I can do this.

It didn't long for the scurrying sounds filled his ears, and he was relieved as the first of the hellish cherubs made an appearance. There weren't nearly as many as there had been when Shawn and Jack were with him, but there were still enough that it could be fatal if he made one wrong move. I disemboweled myself. I can do this, he told himself though something in him told him that the disemboweling had been easier than this would be.

Milo sprang up from the couch as the lead cherub got closer. He didn't want to touch the thing, convinced that it would spell him back into a slumber if he did, but he needed it. The ugly things skittered all around him, and it began a frantic dance that consisted of Milo trying to grab one and avoid the rest. Desperate to make space as the circle began to close in, Milo grabbed the nearest thing to him which happened to be a lamp from the end table next to the couch. Rearing his arm back, he winged it into the things, making a space wide enough for him to dash through.

One of the ugly creatures fell to the floor with a splat. The twitch of its wings told him it was alive, the green slime of its blood dripping to the floor beneath it. It was probably the worst plan he'd ever had, but it was better than nothing. Milo reached for it, scooping it up, and cradling it to his chest with its hands facing away from him. It smelled of smoke and sulfur, and he had a minute where he wondered if that was what Hell itself smelt like. Burning flesh. Against himself, he retched and bit back the urge to vomit. As he ran from the rest of the drudes, the beast in his arms hardly stirred, but he didn't trust it.

Milo had hoped that snatching up one of the pack would cause the rest to leave, but they continued to pursue him as he ran down the hall, toward the double doors that barred Belphegor's room from the rest of the hall. He had the sudden realization that the creatures would only stop their chase once they inflicted their curse which meant, like it or not, his fan club would stay with him. Breathing heavy with exertion, Milo forced himself to keep going, wary of the scene he had left behind, the creature in his arms, and the mob behind him rapidly closing the gap.

Shawn and Jack were lying on the floor in the same places they had been when Milo had left, rapidly growing pools of blood beneath both of them. Milo nearly slid in the puddle around Shawn, barely avoiding running into Belphegor entirely. The troll-like thing nearly stood over Jack, the pinchers on its face snapping beneath beady eyes gleaming with victory.

The look angered Milo, and he was glad. He internalized that anger, pushing it down to the pits of his stomach where it would be converted to determination, drive, and desire.

"Choke on this!" Milo snarled, holding out the drude before he rushed at Belphegor, smashing the cherub between them.

Belphegor was a good couple of feet taller than Milo, the sound of its pinchers clacking together above his head causing him to feel uneasy for new reasons than the nightmare coma. Now that he was this close, he realized his own error. He had no exit plan, and it was all too easy to imagine those pinchers slicing through his neck, severing his very head from his body. The creature between him and the demon squeaked, and that brought Milo back to the reality of his life.

Milo wasn't sure what he expected to happen, but he was disappointed to find that nothing did. The creature started to struggle to free itself, and Milo stumbled backward, desperate to get away from it, from Belphegor, and he fell onto his tailbone with a thud that sent a bolt of pain up his spine. As quickly as he could, he pulled himself backward away from Belphegor. His palms and legs dragged through his friends' blood, and he tried not to look at them.

He was very much afraid that it was too late, that they were already gone, and all this would be for nothing. If he dared a glance at them and confirmed his thoughts, his will to fight would be gone. He wouldn't risk it. In his fall, the drude freed itself, and Milo's eyes were wide as he stared it. It bounced to the floor, and as it righted itself, Milo prepared himself for it to lunge. The drude, however, seemed to have opposite thoughts.

It bounced up from the floor, the tiny flutter of its wings aiding its bit of movement. It clung tightly to the front of Belphegor's frame. Even from his place on the floor, Milo could see its stubby fingers using Belphegor's scales to bring itself closer. The troll tried to pluck it off, but its short arms didn't quite reach. Instead, it stepped backward and sideways, throwing its weight into each move to shake the drude off. Each time he succeeded, the drude bounced up and clung back on again. What started out as frantic, angry movements quickly turned to slow almost gentle motions, and eventually, the beast collapsed.

Its beady eyes stared at Milo for a second before the drude snuggled to it, eyelids drooping shut. The pinchers morphed back into the fuzzy beard Belphegor had had when Milo had first seen it. He didn't move as he stared at the scene, and behind him came the flopping pattern of movement as the rest of the drudes entered the room. Upon seeing their friend with Belphegor's slumbering body, they all took up similar positions, nestling among its scales down the entire length of its body.

Milo blinked, waiting for any of them to notice him or his friends, to come after them for taking down their leader, but they didn't. At once, all their eyes closed, and the terrible drilling music in the background faded into nothing. Milo waited a whole minute before he hopped to his feet, sliding in the blood again, and rushed to Shawn's side, dropping to his knees beside him. The blood around Shawn's head was beginning to congeal, and Milo tried not to think about that as he set his hand to the side of his friend's neck. There was a pulse, and that meant it wasn't too late to fix this.

Milo rushed over to Jack and frantically checked him for signs of life as well. At first, Milo couldn't feel anything beneath Jack's tough skin. Putting more pressure into the movement allowed him to at last pick up the tiny bah-bum of his pulse. Milo breathed out slowly, moving into a sitting position beside him. He was tired though even if he had energy, he wouldn't have known what to do with it.

"Rhys! Get us out of here, please," he said, staring up at the fancy chandelier hanging from the ceiling, the one that was so much like the one they had seen upon first entering the dungeon.

Silence at first then, "As you wish."

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# 14.

WHEN SHAWN'S EYELIDS fluttered open, the pain in the sides of his head became prominent. It was as if someone had shoved ice picks directly into both of his ear canals. What was perhaps worse than the pain was the realization that he couldn't hear. On instinct, he lifted his hands, trying to block his ears from the pain, from the silence. There were plastic covers in the way. His eyes fluttered open as he turned his nails toward the surface, trying to pry it off with the assumption that it was the reason behind the pain.

Eyes open, he was left peering up at Milo standing before him. His friend held his hand out, shaking his head no, and Shawn was confused, but he obeyed. Milo mouthed something to him, but Shawn didn't know what it was. In the moment, his mind was sorting through the final memories he had before unconsciousness had taken him--Belphegor, the blood coming out of his ears, and the music. He blinked, expecting to see the bedroom, but it was nowhere in sight. They were back at the oasis, lush plants all around him. It was the same place he had woken up in after the dungeon with Mammon.

Milo's eyes were wide, body rigid, and Shawn recognized that look. It was pure terror, probably the same way he had looked when he was waiting for Milo to come out of his nightmare coma. Just like that, Shawn felt more than useless as he realized what had happened--Milo had saved him again. Shawn sat up, groaning at the pain in his shoulder, and glanced to the side. Jack was lying in the dirt beside him, protective covers over his ears too. Shawn looked back to Milo, eyes watering.

"You're okay," Milo said, and Shawn perked up.

"Thank you," he said, glad that he could suddenly hear again. "I don't know how you did it, but we would never have made it this far without you."

Milo reached up to point to the dirt plugs in his ears. The ones that Jack had crafted after the banshee attack. "These. Not to mention the drudes had some use after all."

"You went back?"

"It was either that or stay and wait for Belphegor to kill you two," Milo said.

"I can't thank you enough for everything," Shawn said, looking down at his hands. "Especially after what you went through in that place. For you to risk going back there for us? I can't..."

Milo lifted a hand, gentle smile on his face. "It's okay."

Shawn bobbed his head and looked up. "I can't believe those things could actually work in our favor."

"You're telling me," Milo said with a laugh. "But I guess no one can truly resist the call of a good nap."

Shawn reached up to rub the back of his neck. "I could use one myself."

"It's too bad we don't have the time," Milo said, shoulders sagging.

Suddenly, he looked two decades older than he actually was. Shawn looked away, partially blaming himself for the ragged look. Maybe if Milo had the help he'd needed, he wouldn't be so bad off now.

Shawn tried to distract himself by studying Jack. His massive friend was beginning to stir, lifting his hands to the ear covers in the same way that Shawn had. Milo waved him away from moving them, and as soon as he realized that Shawn and Milo were already up, watching him, Jack jumped to his feet.

"What happened?" he asked, looking around for any sign of the dungeon they'd barely escaped. "I thought we were goners."

"We would've been, but Milo saved the day again," Shawn said, setting his hand on Milo's shoulders.

Jack blinked. "At this point, it's almost like you're in on this whole thing. Teach me how to be smart like you."

"I don't think it's smarts so much as luck," Milo admitted.

"Or Rhys likes to play favorites," Jack said with a shrug. "Where'd you get these from?" He tapped the cover over his ear.

"They were inside my pouch," Milo said. "After we came here from Belphegor's, I filled them with medicine. I didn't know if it would help you or not. There was so much blood." He trailed off, staring past Shawn and Jack. He could only imagine the way he had felt staring down at them in the chambers had been the way his friends had felt watching him struggle through his nightmare coma.

"Seemed to be the right call," Shawn said.

Jack nodded. "Definitely. Now, we can be grateful there's another demon behind us. Just five more to go, right?"

"Sounds easy when you say it like that, but as far as the past two fights have gone, I've been nothing but useless," Shawn said, squinting his eyes to try and keep his pain out of them. "I don't think I can handle being a liability in another battle."

"Your time will come eventually, Paladin," Rhys' voice cut into their conversation.

Jack cut his eyes to the sky, the loathing clear in every inch of his body. "And just when I thought you weren't paying attention to us."

"Rest assured, I am always watching, always listening," Rhys promised.

Jack shivered, his lip quirking upward into a frustrated snarl. "That's the opposite of a comforting statement."

"What's next?" Shawn asked, not expecting much in the way of an answer.

"For now? I'll allow you the time needed to rest properly. Going dungeon to dungeon was hard on you, and since you have taken the first two down with such finesse, you've earned a reward."

"I don't feel good about this," Milo admitted, dropping to a sitting position by Shawn.

"Me either," Shawn admitted, plopping down beside him. "But a chance to rest? That's not something I'm willing to pass up."

"Use your time wisely," Rhys suggested. "With each dungeon, there will be more challenges, more danger."

"Yeah, we figured," Jack said drily. "I think we're starting to get the hang of your sense of humor."

Milo bobbed his head, staring down at his fingers.

"Are you going to be alright?" Shawn asked him as Jack sat down a few feet away. "You still never told us what happened when that drude put you under."

"It doesn't matter," Milo said quickly. "The only problem now is that I'm tired," he admitted, looking up at an angle that made his naturally dark eyes look red in the light. "But I don't trust going back to sleep."

"I can imagine," Shawn said though really, he couldn't. Whatever had happened to Milo on the other side had to have been traumatizing if he was scared that regular sleep would bring him back to that place. Shawn frowned, once again wishing he could switch places with his friend. Milo deserved so much better.

Milo looked up at the sky as if he sensed Shawn was about to pry again. "Rhys!" he called. "Who's the next demon we're going up against?"

"The next demon?" Rhys asked, sounding genuinely surprised that it was Milo to ask the question. "Are you sure you'd like to know?"

"No. Ideally, we'd like to be at home, bored out of our minds and far away from you, but you've made it clear that's not going to happen," Jack retorted. "So you might as well tell us now."

"We're going to know sooner or later anyway, right?" Shawn tacked on. "No point in keeping it tightlipped."

A moment of silence, and Shawn thought Rhys was about to ignore their request when at last he said, "Your next demon is going to be Leviathan."

Jack paled and slammed his hand to the ground, a puff of dust rising up around it. "Wait. Leviathan...like the things full of black gunk from Supernatural?"

Rhys sighed. "If it'll make you be quiet, I'll accept the comparison."

Jack looked at Shawn and Milo with wide eyes. They looked back at him, just as uncertain. It wasn't unusual for Jack to be edgy, but there was something about the look in his eyes that Shawn didn't like.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Leviathans are big ugly sea monsters. In folklore they can either look like a sea serpent or have two heads. In the show though, they looked like people. They could possess people like they were some special kind of demon." Jack paused as if he were considering something before he tilted his face toward the sky. "Hey, what kind of Leviathan are we looking at here?"

Rhys groaned. "Is that a real question? Use your common sense. If you have any."

Jack pursed his lips, murder on his face.

"I would assume that means the one from folklore," Shawn said.

"Okay, well, if that's the case, they really only have one weakness--each other," Milo said, licking his lips.

"What does that mean, exactly?" Milo asked. "Do they have to fight one another to die?"

"In...in a way," Jack said, running his finger along his chin. "From what I can remember, Leviathans suffer from an extreme hunger, and with that, they've been known to eat one another."

Milo crinkled his nose. "I shouldn't be surprised that Rhys would toss cannibalism into our net of horrors, but I mean, that's not much of a solution, is it? If there's only one of those creatures, like there was only one Mammon and one Belphegor, then what are we supposed to do?"

Jack frowned, the expression cutting so deeply into his face that Shawn wondered if it hurt. "Not much we can do. Cutting off its head temporarily kills it, but..."

"Temporarily?" Shawn asked, blinking.

Jack bobbed his head. "From what I've read, they have the power to regenerate any body parts that are cut off or destroyed by anything besides Leviathan teeth."

"So if you cut off its head with say...a sword, it'll grow a new one?" Shawn asked, eyes wide. And here he was thinking the Nidhogg had been difficult.

Jack held his hands up, eyes moving from Milo's concerned face to Shawn's. "Hey, I don't know if this is for sure. This is just some stuff I've read while trying to create dungeons. Even some of the mythology contradicts itself so it's not as if it's set in stone. For all we know, this could be a completely different beast that we're going to go up against, and Rhys is just toying with us by giving us a name I recognize."

"Or, have you considered the fact that I might be tossing you a line to try to keep you afloat rather than throwing you in and letting you drown?"

"I don't believe you possess such kindness," Jack said flatly.

"The fact you still have your hearing should tell you otherwise," Rhys said.

"Fine," Jack said, flaring his nostrils before he reached up to rip the cover off his ears. "But even if you are trying to help us, I'm confused. Leviathans are sea creatures. We can't breathe underwater."

"Won't be necessary," Rhys assured them.

"Why because you've already planned for us to drown?" Jack asked.

Rhys snorted. "I just said that's what I'm trying to keep you from."

Shawn shivered. Metaphorically, the mention had been enough, but the potential of actually drowning left him sick.

"Seems as if the need for rest has passed," Rhys said.

"I'm sorry we're a little chatty about the next way we might possibly die," Jack said, tick in his jaw.

"I suppose this means you're ready to face your next challenge?" he asked.

Shawn, Milo, and Jack exchanged glances. They wore the same grim expression, and Shawn thought it odd how in sync they were with one another. They had always been close, but never on the same wavelength like this before. There was something to say for shared trauma.

Shawn knew that they could scream to Hell and back that they weren't ready for dungeon number three, but it wouldn't make much of a difference. If they didn't go to the next dungeon, then they would be stuck in this oasis until Rhys decided to put them somewhere else. Shawn reached up to take the plastic covers off his ears.

He stared at them as he said, "As ready as we can be."

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# 15.

JACK CLOSED HIS eyes, trying to keep his stomach from sloshing with vertigo as they were transported out of the oasis. When they landed, he was afraid to open his eyes. The last two dungeons hadn't been intimidating in the beginning, but the thought of what this one would bring was scary enough. He had never been a fan of water, and the thought that they might be submerged in it only made him feel worse. In his head, he pictured black water at the bottom of the sea floor, odd creatures that were mostly teeth, and gigantic beasts with lights. There was no telling just how many mysteries lie in the bottom of the ocean, and the thought only made him feel worse.

Beneath his fear, his mind tried to distract itself by plucking out every bit of information he had ever learned about Leviathans. It had never been a creature he studied for D&D since his unique fear of the ocean had him stick to mostly land creatures. No, the first time he had learned of the Leviathan was when he had been researching mythology for a school paper in middle school. The research project had left things to be desired, and even after it was finished, he had researched the being more in-depth.

"You may open your eyes now," Rhys' said.

Jack had the feeling that he wasn't the only one hesitant to see what dungeon number three would bring them. He opened his eyes to slits, peering at Milo and Shawn beside him who were doing the same. When he saw his surroundings though, his eyes stretched wide. They were standing at the mouth of a tunnel. This wasn't just any tunnel though. The walls and ceiling were made of a glass so clean and see-through that he could make out the fish and other creatures swimming easily through the black water beyond.

Air was hard to draw in as he did a 360 survey, and he hoped he wouldn't succumb to a panic attack. Even Shawn, who had been his best friend forever, didn't know just how much the ocean frightened him.

"Are...are we at the bottom of the sea?" Shawn asked, eyes wide as he glanced at Milo and Jack.

Jack didn't reply at first. All he could do was stare at that flimsy glass, wondering how much pressure it could withstand before it cracked and shattered, the water crushing them as they drowned in nothingness. Clenching his sweaty hands into fists, he tried to tell himself it could be worse, that they could have to be swimming through this water where they would be at the mercy of whatever creatures happened to stumble across them.

Please don't let that be coming, Jack thought.

"I think so," Milo said at last, craning his neck to study every inch of the glass enclosure above them.

"This is crazy," Shawn said, blinking, and let his feet tap against the metal flooring beneath them before he turned his attention to Jack. "But I guess it makes sense. You did say they were sea monsters."

Jack managed to bob his head, eyes still volleying back and forth to take in every inch of the blackness above their heads.

"So what now?" Shawn asked, turning to look behind them.

There was a thick silver door, the gears in the middle of it strong and complicated. Jack didn't have to ask what it was to know. It was a door leading to the water beyond. Touching it would be the worst move they could make.

"See where the tunnels lead us," Milo said, squinting up into the darkness ahead. "That's about all we can do."

Milo was right, but that didn't mean Jack had to like it. He clung close to Shawn and Milo as the group advanced forward. Each section of the glass above would light up to illuminate their path, and as soon as they reached it, the one behind them would turn off. Jack glanced over his shoulder, feeling even worse as a new thought crept into them--what if they got lost in this endless tunnel beneath the ocean? Was there an air supply?

Could it run out?

It's like my worst nightmare, Jack thought and peered up at the sky, wondering if Rhys was eavesdropping on his thoughts or if he already had and had created this dungeon just to spite Jack for being so outspoken. The silence brought him little comfort.

The boys' footsteps barely made a sound against the odd flooring beneath them. When the sound of clacking sounded from farther up the path, from the part still bathed in shadows, Jack's heart began to pound. His first assumption was that there was a leak in the tunnels and as they got closer, it would give out, crushing them beneath the pressure of the ocean floor. All three boys stopped to listen, and Jack realized then that it was the sound of movement, footsteps, something trotting through the darkness.

Jack scrunched his face. It sounded like a horse, but that couldn't be right. He took a step backward, lighting up the light behind them while Milo and Shawn's presence kept the current one on. Through the darkness, Jack could spot a mass of shadows moving toward them. It was tall, the top of whatever it was nearly reaching the ceiling of the tunnels. An ethereal growling rose from it, and then the light above where the creature was turned on.

Jack was ready to faint. It looked like a horse with no skin. All the muscles, tendons, and pulsing blood that should've been beneath a protective layer of flesh were exposed. The front of the freakish horse creature had one eye, and above that, there appeared to be a man coming out of its back. Like the rest of it, it was stripped of skin, the eyeless sockets in its face peering at them.

"God, I think I'm going to puke," Jack said, taking a step backward.

"What the Hell is that?" Shawn asked, watching as the thing took another step closer to them.

"It's a Nuckelavee. It's from Orcadian mythology," Jack said.

"And you know what that is how?" Shawn asked, taking a step backward to balance out the creature's movement.

"Mythology project in middle school."

"Okay, wonderful, you know what it is," Milo said, swallowing heavily. "Does that mean you know how to beat it?"

Jack screwed up his face, trying to dig through all the buried knowledge he had. Most of the information was about the Leviathan, but scraps of other water creatures were in his brain somewhere. "I don't remember if there even is a way to beat it," he admitted. "The only way to escape it is to cross a freshwater stream."

Shawn gave an exaggerated look around at their surroundings. "I think we're out of luck for that option."

"Then let's run!" Jack said, just as the thing charged forward.

Screaming, Milo and Shawn were right behind him. With the lights taking a delayed second to process, they were virtually running through the dark. The sound of hooves beating against the floor urged them onward even when they couldn't see the grotesque beast responsible. Jack thought he had never run faster before in his life, not even when he was running from the fire that had consumed Mammon. Even when his lungs started to ache and the muscles in his legs felt like Jello, Jack pushed onward, siphoning his fear into energy.

It was gaining on them. Jack knew that without even turning around. Damn it, he panted inside his head. If they didn't slow it down, it would catch them. He didn't know what would happen when it did, but it didn't take much to guess nothing good.

Everything had a weakness. The same had to be true for the Nuckelavee. They rounded a corner so quickly that Jack nearly stumbled into the bucket that had been placed there. Milo and Shawn took no notice of, bounding right past, but Jack skidded to a halt.

He picked up the bucket, looking at the mushy green pulp inside. It was filled with seaweed. "That's it!" he yowled.

Shawn and Milo, who were already a considerable distance ahead, stopped and turned at those words.

"What are you doing?" Milo asked.

"Run!" Shawn added.

Jack didn't move. He watched the skinless monster growing closer and closer, lights illuminating to monitor its movement. Jack listened, the sound of hooves growing closer and closer. When the beast got so close that he could smell its toxic breath, he reared the bucket back and let the slimy green tendrils fly through the air. Some of them hit the Nucklelavee with a wet splat and the rest rained to the floor around it.

It moved a step, and then another, and Jack dropped the bucket with a clatter, convinced the monster would destroy him. It stared at him for a second, the eerie single eye on the horse head peering through the shadows, before it backtracked, horse face pressed to the ground to lap up the seaweed. Jack let out the breath he didn't know he'd held and almost laughed in relief.

"Come on!" Shawn called.

Jack took one more look at the hideous thing and ran to his friends.

"What'd you do?" Shawn asked as they hurried down the corridor, leaving the Nucklelavee in the shadows.

"In the old myths, Nucklelavee would come ashore to punish humans for the damage of their seaweed. When I saw the bucket, I just guessed."

"Thank God for that," Milo said. "What do we do now?"

"Get as far away from that thing as we can while it's distracted," Shawn said.

Jack nodded in agreement.

"What if it's blocking the path to the Leviathan though?" Milo asked.

Jack shrugged. "These tunnels seem to stretch for miles in every direction. There's no way to say for sure which one will lead us there."

"We're not going to split up if that's what you're thinking," Shawn said.

"That's the complete opposite actually," Jack said. So far, they had survived solely on their ability to work as a group, and that led Jack to the fear that Rhys had designed this dungeon with the hopes that they would separate so they would be easier to take down.

Jack wouldn't allow it to happen.

A deranged whinny echoed from the tunnels behind them, putting an exaggerated boost of speed into all their steps.

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# 16.

JACK'S MIND RACED. It wasn't a sensation he was used to. Jack had always prided himself on being one of the more levelheaded people his age, but now, he couldn't get his mind under control. It didn't sound as if the Nucklelavee was following them yet, but it couldn't be much longer before it finished off the seaweed and would come after them again.

There was no distinction in any of the paths they chose, and Jack started to wonder if maybe they were going in the wrong direction or if maybe they were doing laps that somehow avoided the tunnel the Nucklelavee inhabited. His only bit of comfort was that they hadn't stumbled across the big silver door yet, the one that marked the start.

He let himself believe that they were making progress. Even if it wasn't great progress. They rounded a corner then and were faced with a giant red button. It was embedded into the floor, the path continuing on past it. There was no writing on or around the button, and they converged around it, staring at it with goosebumps running across their skin.

"Do we press it?" Shawn asked the question they all thought.

Jack swallowed, looking at the glass walls around them. It was too easy to imagine the button opening up one of the walls and drowning them all.

"I don't know," Milo said, looking around as if he had similar thoughts.

"I think we should keep going," Jack suggested.

The familiar sound of hooves beating against the floor drifted through the tunnels, and Jack's eyes went wide. Whatever head start they had was gone now. The Nucklelavee was on its way.

"I think we should press it," Shawn said at last, glancing over his shoulder.

"Are you crazy?" Jack asked.

Shawn's mouth opened and closed as he struggled for his next sentence. "I don't know why, but I think it has something to do with the Nucklelavee, not the tunnels."

"What if you're wrong?" Milo asked, white eyebrows drawn together in concern.

Jack frowned. He didn't want to think about that. Didn't want to think about what could happen if Shawn was wrong. So he didn't. He closed his eyes, listening as Shawn stamped his foot onto the button with a clang that radiated around them. They all held their breath, waiting to see what would come next. Jack stared up at the ceiling, hoping the worst wouldn't happen though part of him expected it to anyway.

It didn't. Behind them, a silver steel door rose from the floor to the ceiling, blocking off the path they had just traveled through. Jack's eyebrows raised, and he tried to determine if this was a good thing or not. It would certainly keep the Nucklelavee away from them, but they wouldn't be able to backtrack, to go through the tunnels again if they had taken a wrong turn at some point.

We must be on the right path, he thought, remembering the double doors that had separated the drudes' room from Belphegor's.

"Full speed ahead," Shawn said with a sigh, pushing his glasses back up the bridge of his nose.

Jack took the lead as they continued onward. He didn't know how much longer it would be until they ran into the Leviathan, but he could imagine that it would be soon. Just as the thought crossed his mind, the floor beneath them dipped, the tunnels shifting to lead them downward instead of just forward.

"I don't know how good I feel about going more under the ocean," Shawn said.

"I don't feel good about it at all," Milo scoffed.

Jack kept his thoughts to himself, but he was in full agreement. When the floor beneath them flattened out, ankle-deep water waited, and Jack halted. "How can this be?"

Shawn and Milo looked down at their feet, both of them looking just as confused as him. Shawn picked up one foot at a time as if he thought the scene would change between steps.

"I don't know," Shawn said at last.

Milo walked a few steps forward, and Jack and Shawn followed behind. The longer they traveled, the deeper the water became. Where Milo stood, it sloshed up to his knees, and Jack looked up. There was a dome overhead. The black ocean water far above his head was so much like an abyss that he could see nothing in it. As if Rhys had heard his thought, the path ahead of them lit up, revealing the corridor that the water extended to.

"This is a battle room," Jack breathed.

"I don't see anything," Shawn said.

Jack held his breath. Just as Shawn's words faded into silence, the water parted, and a monster leapt from it, sharp teeth sinking into Milo's arm. He screamed, squirts of his blood flying into the air all around him as he struggled. The creature, vice-like grip in Milo's pale skin, grew larger and larger, the teeth digging deeper and deeper, until at last Milo's entire arm was gone. The creature swallowed it, and Shawn and Jack hurried forward, trying to grab their friend. They weren't fast enough. The creature lunged again, dragging Milo from sight.

When the water settled, there was no sign of their friend beyond a wisp of crimson among the blue.

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# 17.

BESIDES JACK, SHAWN screamed. If Jack hadn't been shell-shocked by what had happened, he might've done the same. Instead, his eyes were on the water, on the spot where Milo had vanished. After his ability to get out of everything so far, he expected to see his white hair break the surface at any moment.

The second dragged out to a minute, and Milo was still nowhere in sight. Jack regained feeling in himself then, and he scanned the surface, seeking out the Leviathan. Risk or not, he would propel himself into the water and drag his friend back to safety.

"Oooh," Rhys tormented. "Three strikes, and you're out! Seems Milo is our first loser. Not the bet I would've placed."

"No," Shawn murmured, staring up at the ceiling with glassy eyes as if he couldn't fully process the situation unfolding around him.

Jack wasn't about to accept it. Not lying down. He traveled knee-deep in the water, wading until it was mid-thigh.

"Risking yourself, Jack? That doesn't seem like you though I think that would've made Milo proud. You do know why it was the Leviathan that he fell to, right?"

"He's not dead!" Shawn cried, and suddenly, he was at Jack's side as if he were prepared to jump into the water as well.

"Milo's biggest sin was envy," Rhys said, drawing out the last word.

"That's impossible. He wasn't jealous of things. He wasn't materialistic like that."

"Not envy for items, envy for people," Rhys said and then paused.

"He's talking crap to distract us," Jack said and waded deeper into the water convinced that if he drowned out Rhys for long enough, he would see Milo again.

"I'm afraid I'm not," Rhys said. "Did he tell you what the main feature of his nightmares was when he was under the drude's spell?"

"He didn't need to," Shawn said.

"Milo was deeply jealous of the friendship that you and Jack share," Rhys said. "He always thought you two didn't care about him as much as you cared for one another. He felt as if he was the additional friend, the unneeded friend, and he would've done whatever it takes to get in your good graces."

A pause as Shawn and Jack absorbed the information.

"Even die for you."

Jack gritted his teeth, searching the room for something he could use. All he could see were the edges of the tunnels, and the black water beyond. It didn't seem as if there was anything to help them this time like there had been with the Nucklelavee.

"It's not true!" Jack roared again and launched himself into the water.

He struck out, paddle after paddle until he couldn't feel the floor beneath his feet anymore. He didn't know how deep this place went, but he was suddenly aware of the mistake that he had made. Milo wasn't here. All the denying in the world couldn't bring him back.

Now Jack was in danger.

Shawn watched him with wide, horrified eyes as if he expected to see a repeat of what had just happened. Slowly, Jack started to swim back, and the reality of the situation crashed around him. Before he made it, Shawn waded out a few more feet, helping to pull his friend back to shallow water before the sea monster could claim him.

Jack trudged out and stood there, dripping water as he looked up at the ceiling. "He was our friend. He wanted to be your friend. Don't do this."

"I can't undo what's already been done," Rhys said.

Jack bowed his head, the first of his tears blending in with the rest of the water that dripped from him. The movement gave him access to the water, and that was when he noticed the rumple of the surface, a tiny flurry of bubbles as the Leviathan moved steadily closer.

Rhys was trying to distract them. Jack's mind was a whirlwind with the realization, and he couldn't focus on any one thing. His mind flashed various images like an old movie reel--Milo, the bloody water, the Nucklelavee, the Leviathan.

"Yes, you can!" Shawn howled, turning his back toward the deeper parts of the water as he stared up at the ceiling. "You control all of this. All these worlds and creatures. You've kept Milo alive through everything else, you can do it through this!"

"Don't listen to him!" Jack roared. "He's distracting you!"

Shawn's attention went to the water instantly, then to Jack who was holding his arms out at strange angles in an attempt to make himself look bigger.

"We have to get it to bite itself," Jack said in the way of an explanation. "It's our only hope of getting out of here."

"How are we going to do that?" Shawn asked.

"Like this!" Jack said and hurried forward just as the Leviathan made a move for Shawn.

Jack, standing in the middle of the two, took the creature by surprise, and it moved mid-launch to turn its attention to him, the long tail spiraling as it tried without much success to keep itself on its original path. Jack peered at Shawn over the creature's back, and Shawn dipped his head, determination in his eyes.

The monster lunged for Jack, and Jack dove into the water getting out of the way. Back and forth, Shawn and Jack called the creature's attention, causing it to move one way then the other. Its long snake-like body curled and unfurled, its snapping teeth occasionally tearing away a few chunks of its own skin.

Jack was starting to tire and based on the sheen of sweat over Shawn's forehead, he was too. The Leviathan wasn't backing down though. Sending out a silent prayer that he was sure would be blocked by Rhys, Jack lunged forward and grabbed the beast's tail, holding it up just as the creature swiveled to bite him.

With a crunch, its rows and rows of teeth sunk into its own skin with a sickening pop. Jack let go immediately, backing away as the water around it turned red. He expected the creature to let go as soon as it realized its mistake, but it didn't. It bit again, harder and harder. Chunks of flesh came away down to the bone, and the creature kept eating. Jack used the moment of the creature's distraction to hurry back to Shawn's side.

"Its hunger is a Leviathan's biggest weakness," Jack said breathlessly. He was quoting something, he was sure of that, though where it had come from, he couldn't be sure.

"Good job, boys," Rhys' voice floated through the dome.

The creature retched to punctuate his sentence, throwing up pieces of its own tail into the water all around it. Among the pieces were ones more familiar--an arm and a torn flannel shirt. Shawn started to cry, and Jack gagged, holding his hand over his mouth as he watched the half-mauled creature sink beneath the waves.

A pop, and they were back at the oasis.

Shawn and Jack stared at one another, tears bubbling in their eyes with the last image of the third dungeon still burning in their heads. Jack didn't want to believe what he had seen. He surveyed the place, expecting Milo to be here and the entire end of the dungeon to be nothing more than a cruel prop put in place by Rhys. When he realized his albino friend was nowhere in sight, he balled his hands into fists, holding them to his temples as he stared up at the sky.

"Why! Why'd you take him?" he demanded. "We're playing the game. We're doing what you want. Isn't that enough?"

Rhys laughed, and at first, Jack thought that was all he was going to do. It would've been the appropriate response since Rhys hadn't been too keen to answer any of their questions. Then he said, "Don't you see? We're not just playing a game here. I'm challenging you, shaping you into better people. If you can't learn to overcome the sins that eat away at you the most, the ones that are trying to decide who you are, then you don't deserve to live. I thought Milo understood that from his experience on the other side, but his sins were etched in deep."

"You have no right," Shawn yowled, tears streaming his freckled cheeks.

Rhys voice was calm, almost soothing as he said, "I have only done God's will."

"What God would ask for something like this?" Jack demanded. "Surely not the one with the fluffy white clouds and rainbow waterfalls. This is the work of a demon. Of Satan."

Rhys laughed again. "And what if I told you that you weren't wrong?"

TO BE CONTINUED....

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# To Continue This Story...

Be sure to preorder your copy of the Soul's Day boxset!

The epic conclusion of Jack and Shawn's struggle will only be available here in this boxset of 19 chilling Halloween tales for the price of 99 cents.

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# About the Author

Kayla Krantz is fascinated by the dark and macabre. Stephen King is her all-time inspiration mixed in with a little bit of Eminem and some faint remnants of the works of Edgar Allen Poe. When she began writing, she started in horror but somehow drifted into thriller. She loves the 1988 movie Heathers. Kayla was born and raised in Michigan but traveled across the country to where she currently resides in Texas.

She has ideas for books in many genres which she hopes to write and publish in the future.

http://www.facebook.com/kaylakrantzwriter/

https://twitter.com/kaylathewriter9

https://authorkaylakrantz.com/

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# Bonus Content:

A H A L L OW ' S EV E J I N X

By Judith Holstrom

First Three Chapters

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Once you enter the Henley Mansion you never really leave.

Drew Anderson had to relive her time in the Henley Mansion in order to help demolition constructer, Stanley, flatten this evil brooding house.

Going back to her teenage years brought up memories of lost friends and wok something in the darkness from a deep sleep.

FEATURED IN THE SOUL'S DAY BOXSET

C H A P T E R ON E

PRESENT

"MS. ANDERSON," AKACHI said. He walked slowly into my room and came to sit on his haunches before my chair.

I could see the head nurse through the corner of my eye. His friendly chocolate-colored face, with a gaze staring at me compassionately, and a smile that always made everyone feel welcome.

I kept staring out the window, looking at the beautiful world outside, without trying to link it to the Creator behind it. Because the second I thought about Him, I remembered the other one.

And then my mind would go back to that horrible, horrible time, that I desperately tried to forget, and before I knew it, my unwanted visitors would return.

"There is a visitor here to see you," he said softly, with his Jamaican accent.

I didn't care much about visitors anymore. It was usually a reporter who tried to force me to talk about my memories, to write an article about it, or an author looking for material to scare his readers through another bestseller. Anyone with common sense knew to stay away from that place.

Akachi got up from his haunches without me acknowledging him. I just stared out the window, at the beautiful big old oak tree and the cat stuck in its branches again. That cat would never learn.

"Just speak to her softly, I don't think she is going to be of any help to you today."

"Thank you," a male voice said. "I really appreciate it." He sounded friendly but I did not care. I saw him from out the corner of my eye too.

He introduced himself as Stanley and I didn't get his profession as I was already tuning out.

That stupid cat. Every other day she got stuck on a branch. You would have thought that she would have learned by now, but she kept on climbing the tree, kept crawling up to an impossible height and getting stuck there for hours, or at least until she started making an awful sound to get someone's attention.

"The Henley Mansion ...." was all I heard and my head snapped at my visitor.

Did I hear him correctly, did he say that?

Stanley stopped speaking. Probably shocked that he got any reaction from me.

"Get out of my room," I said.

"Please, I need to know about the Henley Mansion."

"I said get out!"

"They have asked me to demolish it, but no matter what I've tried, the next day it's as if we hadn't done anything. Please."

I knew that sound of desperation, I knew the pleading in his voice, the begging in his tears that glistened in his eyes. He wanted someone to just believe him. But no one ever would.

"Please, I don't know what's going on. The things that have happened over the past few weeks. This was supposed to be a one day job, two at the most, but nothing I do can destroy that house. My workers refused to stay on, most quit, and those that didn't end up dead, accidents, heart attacks..." His tears began forming drops in the corner of his eyes and spilled down his cheek. He wiped them away vigorously.

I knew what he was talking about. Henley Mansion wasn't like any other mansion.

It was upon a hill, far, far away from any street, surrounded by trees. One could feel the evil protruding out of it when you got close, but no one cared. They should. Stupid idiots.

"You know that place better than anybody else. Please, I'm begging you, help me understand so I can tear it down."

I sighed. Minutes went by. This guy had no idea what he was asking of me. And it was almost Halloween.

Stanley sighed, got up slowly and walked to the door.

He was about to exit when I opened my stupid mouth.

"One thing you need to remember, Henley Mansion isn't just a house. It's alive and its sustenance is living souls. It feeds on them, they make it stronger."

Stanley froze for a few seconds by the doorway and then he came back slowly and sat on the edge of my bed.

I still kept staring at that stupid cat. Trying to will my mind not to go back there, but Stanley was right, I knew that house the best.

I was the only one that had made it out alive.

"Mind if I use my phone to take notes?" He held up his phone and showed it to me.

I shrugged, indicating that I didn't mind. He was going to need all the help he could get if he wanted to demolish that house for good.

"So what do you know about the house?"

I smiled. "Plenty, I know how it operates, I know what it wants, I know how it all came into existence."

"Do you mind sharing what you know with me?"

I sighed. "You do know you are the first person who actually wants to know about the house so it can be destroyed? You don't want to write a book about it, you don't want to go peek at what evil lies inside those walls. Promise me, you will never set foot inside that house."

"I have no desire to go inside. What the journalists have written about it gives me the creeps."

"It should. Only horrible things happen there."

There was a knock at the door and Akachi entered the room. I looked at him and a smile adorned his face. "Ms. Anderson, so very nice to have you back with us once more."

"Akachi," I said softly as the corner of my lips barely tucked upwards.

"May I offer you some coffee or tea perhaps? As a thank you gesture to our visitor," he said in his Jamaican accent and smiled at Stanley. "Coffee would be great." "Chamomile tea, please," I said.

He bowed his head and left.

Akachi had been my caretaker for a long time.

The property where we lived belonged to my parents. I never had children, didn't want them, especially after I realized that we couldn't always protect them from the dark forces that were roaming around us all the time.

I had turned it into a safe haven for poor souls like myself. Souls that knew about the dark forces, those that had seen unexplainable things happening around them. Things that others, who had not seen them, refused to believe. These were my people and I was their protector, while this place was their little piece of heaven on earth.

Stanley smiled and asked his question again.

I nodded.

"The mansion was built in 1904 by Henley, a rich man. Some men shouldn't have that much money, to begin with."

"Eckard Henley?" Stanley asked and I nodded.

"He was an idiot. He built on sacred Indian burial grounds. As stubborn as an ox just like his home."

"Why do you say that?"

"I did research too after I escaped from there. I wasn't the only one to get out though, there was a girl from my school, her name was Lily. But she was different from us. Quiet, clever, but I never knew the things she had seen. She went into the mansion twice, but she wasn't lucky enough to get out the second time. Anyway, I researched because I needed to understand what had happened to me that night."

The air around us grew thicker and I hugged my body.

That was one of the reasons I never talked about the mansion.

Stanley got up, grabbed my foot blanket and wrapped it around me.

He must have a mother or someone that he takes care of from time to time.

"I actually spoke to a very old lady back then who knew Henley personally. She told me that he was stubborn as a mule and had known that he was building on sacred ground. Of course, the Indians tried to stop him, but back in those days, there weren't any laws to protect sacred burial grounds. So Henley ignored them and carried on with the construction."

"She knew, knew him?"

"She did," I smiled. "She was a few years younger than him. Her sister had dated Henley. Her sister was the first one the house took. Right after they got married and

moved into the mansion."

I could see the shock on Stanley's face.

"How did the house take her?"

"That is the thing about the mansion. People just disappear, become part of the walls, the floor. I've seen it with my own eyes and there is nothing anyone can do about it."

He swallowed hard.

"He married another woman real fast. One that her sister believed had already been his mistress. She lived long enough to give birth to three healthy boys. But the boys didn't live long. Two of them died in their cribs, while the other lasted eighteen months. He fell down the stairs. Their mother's grief consumed her so much that she committed suicide. Five victims in such a very short time." Stanley didn't interrupt.

"But that was just the beginning. Eckard married four more times. After the fourth wife's death and loss of another child, a daughter this time, police finally started to suspect something was going on. They instigated an investigation. By the time his sixth wife, a southern belle, which was half his age, died the police had pieced together enough evidence to prosecute him. During their investigation, they discovered that he had built a sort of second house underneath the main house. The rooms had no windows and were full of torturing devices which he had used on all of the wives." Stanley shuddered.

"He was the first evil in that house and he laid down the foundation of the darkness that still roams there to this day. He ended up hanging himself in his jail cell before they could sentence him to death."

The door opened and Akachi returned with a tray carrying two cups, steam emanating from them.

One was for Stanley, his coffee, which he worked with eager hands, pouring in two heaps of sugar and a bit of cream.

I just took my cup of tea. "Thank you, Akachi." I smiled lovingly.

"You are most welcome, Ms. Anderson." His smile reached his eyes and lit up his face. The warmth protruding from it always warmed my soul.

He carried the tray away and left me alone with my visitor.

"In 1936 a new family, an Irish family, McIntosh, moved into the house," I continued as Stanley listened eagerly with a cup of coffee in his hands.

"They had six children. Awful things happened to those children. The house took their father and the oldest son, Denvers. But the rest made it out alive. Of course, they were never the same again. They couldn't, or wouldn't, tell others about what they had experienced. I did try to get a bit of information out of Derick, the middle one, but he was almost like a vegetable, completely shut down. One might say that the house had emptied his mind, turned him into a shell of a person. The only part of Derick, and his family, that the house did release was their bodies while keeping their souls."

Stanley took another deep breath. I could tell that the story was getting to him. It would get to anyone if they listened and believed it. Of course, most didn't believe it, but Stanley had seen what that house was doing to his workers and they were just on the property. Not even inside the house. I was sure he was very leery of what might have happened if they had gone into the house.

"After the McIntosh family, the house stood empty for about two years before a young couple decided that they wanted to restore it, give it a facelift, so they moved in." I took a sip of my tea. "Of course they never moved out. Nobody knows what happened to them. Some say they are still at work fixing up the house. People have sworn that they can hear them working at night."

His lips curved softly. "Do you think that they are the reason I am having so much trouble trying to demolish the house."

I shook my head. It was another evil entity that was stopping him, not the couple.

"We don't make jokes about Henley Mansion, Stanley, not even innocent ones like yours. That couple might not even know that they aren't alive. Maybe that is why people still hear them trying to renovate the mansion." Stanley was silent.

"After that, everything just went haywire. As soon as a person set foot on the ground weird things started to happen. Stray animals have been found dead, foaming at the mouth." I shuddered just thinking about it. "The police tried to figure out what was wrong in the early sixties. Now some of them still are wandering the grounds, perhaps still trying to find answers. Abrahamson was one cop that made it out. The horrors he saw one can only guess at. He was never the same when he escaped from the house. Another empty shell, mumbling incoherent, babble about darkness, not knowing where he was or who was around him. He died in the asylum that is up on Mill Road." I took another sip of my tea.

"That was when I finally made the connection that if anyone went there with any intentions, good or otherwise, they would never escape. At least not as a whole person," I said, looking at Stanley. "I'm afraid your intention of destroying the house is not going to work. You are obviously its biggest threat."

Silence lingered as Stanley tried to process what I was telling him.

"After the disappearance of the police, they locked up the mansion tight. Boarding up the doors and windows. For a short time, the evil was contained. But time seems to erode some fears, as well as a bit of common sense. There was no one who wanted to spend money to maintain the abandoned property. Wood rots and so forth. Eventually, bits of darkness started to seep through again. As kids, we all grew up hearing about the horrors of Henley mansion, but you know kids and their curiosity. Young fools. All of us were just young fools."

I finished my tea in silence while Stanley didn't say a word for a while.

Then he asked, "How did you do it, get out with your mind still intact? I mean, if the house only spits out empty shells, why didn't it do the same to you?"

I smiled. "Because I was innocent and pure. I didn't want anything from the house. I had no intentions. I didn't even want to see what was behind those doors, my curiosity wasn't peaked in the least. My father was a man of God, a devoted man. Some would say that his devotion to God was what saved me. But I don't know. The best way to understand it is if I take you through that night, step by step and then you can judge for yourself.

C H A P T E R T WO

1988

"C'MON, DREW." ALEX was hovering around me like an unwanted bee I wished I could swat.

"No, Alex. You don't know that house."

"Oh, please. They're just stories to scare kids into behaving. You don't believe everything your dad ever told you, do you?"

"Of course, there is always some truth to what he says.

And of all nights, you pick tonight, seriously?"

"Where is your sense of adventure, Drew?"

Alex had been my best friend since we were little. He was sweet, had this bush of curly black hair that hung down on his shoulders, a thin face, and a long nose. There was a bit of Italian in him if you asked me. He was tall and lean. Wherever Alex was, I was just a few steps behind him. We were inseparable. We had been that way since the age of four.

He also had the tendency to do the most stupid things a boy could do. No, take the most idiotic boy one could think off, multiply it by 20 and that would be Alex Tiffindale. His ideas always landed us in so much trouble. Shit that usually got me the worst hidings from my father. I couldn't sit for at least a few days. But Alex was adventurous so there was never a dull moment with him around.

"It's the Henley Mansion," I said softly and slowly so the daft prick would hear me. "It's Halloween, which means this is the worst idea that you ever came up with."

"But we won't be alone. Ralph and Amy want to come along too."

"Ralph! He's even more of an idiot than you."

Ralph was this redhead, freckled boy who went to kindergarten with Alex and me. We all grew up together, most of the kids living in the same neighborhood grew up together, but that wasn't the point. Up until high school, Ralph was a real shithead. But during summer, the year we started high school, he transformed from a redheaded freckled boy, into one of those badass redheads that make girls weak in the knees. I was the only girl that still saw him as the little shit he was.

"He's not that bad. Ralph is going to get others to join, then we'll have a big group, Drew."

"You are all nuts."

"C'mon. You are my wing girl. Us against the world. It's just a house, a creepy house, but this will be perfect for

Halloween."

"To do what?"

"Party, what else?" He had that 'duh' expression on his face.

I grunted. "I'll think about it. But you guys are idiots."

He smiled. It went up into his eyes. "I knew you wouldn't say no."

"I said 'think about it'."

"Oh Drew, when you say that you will 'think about it',

I know you are in. Always have been." We walked into biology class.

"Just give up now, I know you're in," he whispered as he took his seat behind me.

A creepy feeling tingled up my spine.

My butt was going to end up all shades of blue if, or more likely when my father found out about this. He had warned me a thousand times, at least, to stay away from Henley Mansion. And I remember Alex being with me on several of those occasions.

But Alex did know me so well, maybe too well. I knew that on Halloween night I would be right there with the other idiots partying at the Mansion.

"WHAT ARE YOU supposed to be?" I heard my father asking in a not so impressed tone when Alex came to pick me up on Halloween.

I had to suppress my laughter. He was wearing some sort of a mask, kinda like some sort of a horse with a huge horn protruding from the hat.

"Ah, c'mon, Mr. Anderson." Alex pulled off his mask. "I'm a unicorn."

Father stared at him and then laughed, holding his stomach. It was one of those laughs that bellowed from his soul which usually made mother laugh too, and me giggle.

"He is an idiot, Daddy, I will be back by eleven o'clock." I kissed him on his cheek.

"Enjoy and remember...." He looked at both of us.

"Yeah, yeah," Alex said.

"Stay clear of Henley Mansion," we both said in unison.

"I'm not joking about that Alex. Weird things happen there and after the occult made it their headquarters, who knows. They could have summoned almost anything. It's not safe."

"We know." I lied. I hated lying to my father and I could already feel the burn his hand imprints were going to leave on my butt later.

"Eleven o'clock, young lady. I don't want to have to come and look for you."

"Yes, Dad. I'll be home by eleven. Love you."

My father's lips curled with a smile. I knew he was only teasing us about coming to search for us, but he was dead serious about Henley Mansion.

We hitched a ride with Toni and Mike, a couple Alex and I knew very well. Toni was a lot like Alex, always looking for trouble. More kindergarten friends. She was a tomboy, always wore leather, had auburn hair and the greenest eyes. Her mother thought she was a cheerleader, and she always wore dresses, acting all ladylike when her parents were present. I felt sorry for the day when Toni revealed who she really was to her parents. She was always up for a good time. Something that usually wound up with her, and every one with her, in trouble or maybe trouble just found her wherever she went. Mike was a football player. He was tall, stocky and had played football since he was old enough to run with a ball. He had spiky blond hair and had the deepest blue eyes I'd ever seen. He was another idiot. Teaming up with Toni was a great example of the word 'disastrous'.

They had been a couple for a few months now. I never really thought that Toni would go for Mike, but here she was, head over heels for a footballer.

"Are you guys ready to go to the H...," I lurched forward in my chair and smacked my hand over Mike's lips.

He stared at me with huge eyes.

"Would you be quiet? Talk about it when we are miles from my house. If my father hears a word starting with 'H', that wasn't Halloween, I would get the biggest thrashing you could imagine," I whispered.

Tony laughed as Mike pulled out of our driveway.

"Like 'Henley Mansion'," Mike said.

I sighed audibly when they all laughed. They seriously had no idea what my father's wrath was like, especially when it came to his child disobeying his orders.

Mike turned down Dan Schmidt's street.

"What are we doing here?" I asked as my heartbeat rose slightly.

Toni chuckled and I kicked her seat. She knew that I had had a major crush on Dan since first grade.

"To pick up Dan." I felt my face flush and Alex chuckled softly. Of course, he knew how I felt about Dan too. Idiots.

Dan was friends with Ryan and Max, well basically everyone, but those two were like his blood brothers or something. He was tall, stocky, built like a horse, and had beautiful brown hair with beautiful dark eyes and a smile that made every girl's knees go weak.

I had had this weird crush on him since forever. Weird because he kept on calling me Nancy and crush because everyone in our school had a crush on Dan. All the girls wanted to be with him, and all the boys wanted to be just like him.

He had that lost puppy thing going on which was like catnip to females.

The car finally stopped and my leg started to tap softly on one spot.

Alex put his hand on my knee to make it stop as we waited for Dan.

The back door opened and Dan looked into the car.

"Mike," he smiled. His deep dimples showed, weakening my knees more. "Scoot over, Nancy."

I was grateful that Alex had sort of pulled me out of the way before Dan's body crushed mine.

I was pinned tightly in between Alex and Dan. "Party at Henley Mansion, rad," he said.

Had he just said 'rad'? I felt all my fantasies about him crushing and like the fluttering of birds, my affection for him scattered into the wind.

"Hey Toni," Dan said as he just did a virtual handshake with Mike.

"Dan."

Mike drove off toward the direction of the Henley house. My heart started to beat slightly faster.

Calm down, deep breaths. It's just an old creepy house.

If so, then why was I feeling that this was going to be the last night of my life.

WE PARKED THE car on a nearby road, at the edge of the forest, which wasn't as creepy as it looked.

My father used to tell me stories about the grounds, the ones up the hill.

We couldn't even see it from here because it was surrounded by trees.

I pulled my jacket tighter and waited with Toni as the boys put branches all over the car to hide it from the cops who might be patrolling the road later on.

"It's going to be fun, stop stressing so much," Toni said and gave me her super-duper smile.

I didn't feel fine. I felt like I was going to throw up.

What if someone caught us walking up to the Mansion, worse, what if no one caught us? I shouldn't be here. This was Alex's fault. Why did I always listen to him?

I heard his voice. His famous one-liner. 'Us against the world, Drew.'

I hated that saying, because every single time he used it, I would give in.

I sighed. Well, I had had a choice and could've easily told him no. It wasn't just his fault. It was mine too.

The guys finally finished hiding the car. Mike turned his flashlight on.

He shined it on his face and made boogeyman calls.

Toni laughed, she thought everything he did was hilarious. It just gave me the creeps. An arm twirled around my shoulder and my face smacked into a chest as we were making our way to Henley Mansion.

From the smell and the laughter gurgling from him, tonight might not be such a bad and idiotic idea.

Dan looked down at me and gave me his super warm smile. "It's just a creepy old house, Nancy."

I wanted to scream that he still couldn't get my name right. I had told him a gazillion times. I didn't want to be a stupid Nancy. My name was Drew. I wanted to scream at the idiot.

"You don't believe the stories?" I asked instead, the annoyance was a bit evident in my tone. But I felt like an idiot the second I had asked.

"No," he chuckled. "They are just like an old wives' tale to get kids to go to bed. It still works on my ten-yearold brother every night."

"That is so cruel."

He just laughed and I joined in.

I didn't have a brother or a sister for that matter. I was an only child. I wanted a sibling but mom always told me that she had the most perfect child one could imagine, why ruin it with another.

I didn't share her belief. A little sister or brother would've been great. Like what Dan had. I wouldn't have scared them shitless with stories about Henley Mansion though.

The path to the Mansion grew steeper and it took some strength and effort to walk up the hill. There was a road, but it led to a big gate that was usually guarded by Frank, who also guarded the mall, but during Halloween, he was by the front of the Mansion.

So we had to take the back route, up a steep hill which left you breathless by the time you reached the top.

I was unfit for this type of expedition.

As we neared the top the air grew thinner and staler or was it just my imagination. My chest felt as if taking deep breaths didn't help one bit.

Even with all my friends around me, I felt unwanted eyes on me. Like someone or something, was watching, and couldn't wait for us to get inside the house.

My spine tingled and the hair on my arms stood up.

I brushed my arms softly, using slow motions so that my friends couldn't tell that I was scared shitless.

My heart was racing again and this time it had nothing to do with the climb.

I was afraid of going inside, but if I chickened out now, it would be social suicide.

Get a grip, Drew. You will be fine. It's just a house, and the stories are just that, creepy-ass stories to threaten naughty kids into going to bed.

I walked behind Dan just as we came to a halt by a huge wall.

Mike ran up the wall like Spiderman and sat on top of it.

He dropped something down which turned out to be some sort of a makeshift ladder. Probably a project they had made at school.

He leaned over and fiddled with something on the other side before he looked down at Tony.

"Milady," he held out his hand to her from his perch. She laughed softly, shook her head and started climbing the ladder.

I was next, since it was the respectful thing to do, to let girls go first.

When I reached the top, my skin crawled. The house was visible now. Its door and windows were boarded up, but light seeped softly through the cracks. There was no evidence that a party was going on. Maybe we were the first ones to arrive.

The trees were dead, no leaves at all.

The grounds were filled with shadows lurking everywhere. The corner of my eye caught so many things that I didn't know where to look and felt stupid as I tried to take in everything.

Mike started to laugh. "Your expression is priceless,

Anderson."

"Shut up. This place gives me the creeps."

"The reason why it's the best place to have a party."

"Hell yeah," Dan and Alex yelled from the bottom of the wall. I climbed over and down the other side, which had another ladder.

I stood next to Tony when my feet reached the ground, waiting for the boys.

Movement caught my eye again and my head snapped in the direction.

I froze as a thousand needles and pins rushed up my spine.

I squinted my eyes. I could swear there was something watching us from the corner and then I found it. It was a blob of blackness, crouching by the corner of the house. The thing was still looking at me, and I felt my energy leave me.

This was the biggest mistake of my life. We should not be here.

C H A P T E R  T H R E E

1988

THE SHADOW IN the corner started to move.

I backtracked as Alex climbed down the ladder.

"Drew, you okay?" I heard the question but it didn't register who was asking it.

I couldn't speak as fear engulfed me. Alex grabbed my shoulders, trying to get my attention, but my eyes didn't leave whatever was making its way toward us, hiding behind the tree now.

I just pointed at the tree. They needed to see what I saw.

It jumped out and everyone shrieked. Some of the guys louder than the girls.

Max pulled off a cloak. It had small red lights sewn into it.

"You stupid fucking idiot," Toni yelled, swatting him a few times as he laughed. He was a tiny short guy, with blonde hair, and must have thought this was the funniest joke in the world.

He received a body punch from all the guys though as they walked past him. Payback for scaring us shitless and I had to admit, it was fun hearing him groan as each fist connected with a different part of his body.

Still, even though it was Max, I couldn't shake the feeling that we should not be here.

"Are you okay?" Dan asked me as his arm twirled around my shoulder.

"No, I'm not okay," I managed to look up at him.

"It was only Max, Nancy," he said and gave me a smile that made my ankles sway.

Tears blurred my vision.

"There is something here. I can feel it."

"C'mon. You were just spooked. I have to give it to the idiot, he really knows how to scare the living crap out of someone. It's a house, a stupid old house. There is nothing here."

I whimpered. Actually whimpered. My hands were still trembling softly as we walked toward the front door of the Henley Mansion.

The wooden beams that had been used to board up, and barricade, the entrance were scattered on the creaky old floor.

We had to walk on a thick one because the porch had a huge gap right in front of the entrance.

If that was not a sign for us not to enter, I didn't know what was.

It was so quiet that I could hardly believe that a Halloween party was going to happen later tonight. I hoped it was a party and not one of those electronic voice phenomena nights where idiots like Max, Ryan, Ralph, and Mike were going to try to communicate with the dead using electronic devices. I knew Ralph and Mike would seriously be up for it.

I hated the Mansion with a passion and wished that I had faked the flu or something.

Mike opened the door and music was blaring from inside.

I froze.

Something was seriously not right with this house, but before I could turn around and sprint out of here, Alex nudged me from behind. Dan grabbed my wrist and pulled me while Alex was still pushing me from behind as I went into the room.

"Glad you finally made it." Brick, a jock that played on the varsity team slapped shook Dan's hand.

"Glad to be here," Dan replied

There were more than twenty kids from our class here, a few from higher grades, almost the entire varsity team, and the cheerleading squad.

There was booze on a table that someone must have brought in and set up.

"Dan," Chris, another varsity player greeted him. Dan was so good that he was already playing on the varsity team.

He soon got distracted by the guys on his team while I hung back with Toni and Alex.

Mike just went to grab her beer.

Ryan and Ralph finally made an appearance. Ryan jumped on Dan, and laughter echoed through the music as Dan pushed him off and he almost landed on his ass. He was tall and lean. A head taller than Dan had light brown mouse hair and blue eyes. But like I said, Max and Ryan were like Dan's blood brothers.

Amy hugged Toni. "Isn't it awesome?"

"So were you part of the party committee?"

"Party committee, and every other committee." She had a twinkle in her eyes.

"Oh, you are such a slut." Toni teased her softly which made them both laugh. I tried not to eavesdrop but they were so close.

"Drew, nice seeing you here. I didn't think I would." Amy looked at me confused.

"Why not? She always does what I do." Alex chirped in.

"Oh, Henley Mansion and Drew's dad, I didn't think it would happen this time, Alex."

"I'm a guy with many talents," Alex said and I pushed him away.

Toni and Amy chuckled.

I kept looking nervously around as Dan chatted and made jokes with the guys on his football team.

The house was old and molded, but the music was loud.

I was puzzled. Why couldn't I hear it from the outside?

The windows were boarded up, but the noise should've reached whoever was patrolling the front gate, but nothing.

This was part of what made me afraid.

Science told me that noise travels farther in the night and I hadn't heard a single thing standing outside that broken, fragile door and boarded up windows

Yet, when the second the door opened, music filled my ears, loud music.

Scientifically, nothing could explain this.

So red flags, for whatever was lurking in the shadows of this place, were fluttering at high speed in front of me.

Something wasn't right, and that something couldn't be explained scientifically.

"Nancy," Dan yelled at me with a beer in his hand, sauntering up to where I stood frozen by the boombox speakers. Alex, Amy, and Toni were still goofing around with each other.

Amy stopped when she saw Dan standing in front of me. She raised one eyebrow.

Dan handed me a cup of beer. I wanted to decline. I could feel the whop of my father's hand on my butt if I went home reeking of alcohol.

But my stupid hand took it, brought it to my stupid lips and I gulped the beer.

It took a few moments for the zing of the alcohol to hit me. Alex and Dan stared at me. I just shrugged then Dan cheered the loudest.

I smiled, but my heart was still not into this party. I kept looking at the door. This room looked like it had been used as a dining room or maybe a lounge.

Dan grabbed my hand and I barely had time to hand my second cup of beer to Alex. Beer splashed over the rim as he grabbed it. He would finish it for me. Dan pulled me to the middle of the room which was being used as a dance floor and we started to dance.

The beer was definitely going to my head by now and I felt a bit off-balance. Everything felt off balance.

My stomach, my head, my body. But it wasn't a horrible feeling like I wanted to barf. It was actually a very relaxed sort of feeling and the heaviness of the house started to ease up as Bruce Springsteen's voice blared about how fortunate we were to have been born in the United States.

THE NIGHT PROGRESSED as more students made their way into the house and others left.

Frank, who was supposed to be on patrol at the front of the house still hadn't shown up at the door to investigate.

I still couldn't believe he hadn't heard the noise or that the sound didn't travel. Later I decided that it must have something to do with the house being soundproof. It had to be something as stupid, or as simple as that.

I felt my brain cells working overtime as if the beer made me smarter, but the effect it had on my body was to slow down everything--my reactions, my speech, everything was slow. For some reason, I found this hilarious.

Finally, a slow song, Unchained Melody, played and Dan came out of nowhere and grabbed my body.

I almost slammed into him as I was so light on my feet.

It felt nice to be in his arms again and my heart was racing and finally, it wasn't because of where we were.

The Mansion wasn't that scary anymore.

I was with the most gorgeous guy in our grade.

He was everything a girl could dream of, and Susan Mackleston, what a last name, had no idea what she gave up when she broke it off with him a few months ago.

His hand trailed down the small nape of my back and goosebumps flashed all over my body.

We slow danced for a long time to the sound of the Righteous Brothers' song.

His other hand held mine tight against his chest and my eyes started to feel heavy. His fingers left mine and cupped my face softly, lifted up my chin as his lips were inches in front of mine.

It felt as if my heart was going to stop when his soft lips touched mine.

If it wasn't for the beer, I would've probably chickened out, but then again it was Dan. Maybe I wouldn't have.

His lips and tongue pried mine wider and the kiss deepened.

I had never kissed anyone like this before, not even Alex when he wanted to try it out.

It was just so weird, but here I was kissing Dan.

I felt a soft breeze in my hair as if someone was touching it. When our kiss broke and I looked over my shoulder, I saw no one, other than Dan. Dan chuckled. "What is it, Nancy?"

I looked at him. "Nothing, just the jitters, I guess, after all this is the Henley Mansion."

He smiled and brought his face closer to mine and kissed me again.

When the music abruptly stopped I almost grunted as Dan broke our kiss.

Max's voice came over the system. "Can I have everyone's attention?" He tapped softly on the microphone, making low hollow sounds.

Dan looked over his shoulder at Max.

"It's time for trick or treating with the ghosts of THE Henley MANSION."

A few of them cheered, Amy, Ralph Mike, and Alex included.

"You gotta be kidding me," Dan said brushing his hand through his hair.

"Dan my man, what do you say?"

"Seriously," Dan didn't sound impressed. All the other students were booing Max.

"C'mon, dude. It's Henley Mansion. According to all the stories, we should've been eaten by ghosts already. But we are still here and I need to know if the stories are true."

"You know they are just stories."

"Prove me wrong then," Max egged him on.

"Fine, one hour, that's it."

Max jumped up and down with joy. He just loved a good challenge, no matter how idiotic it sounded.

Everyone else started cheering.

"What do you say, Nancy, you up for a ghost hunt?"

"Not really," I sighed. The heaviness instantly came back, "But why not," I said in a slurry tone, so relaxed, yet my mind was screaming NO!

It was screaming HELL NO!

But nothing about that made me stop.

PRESENT

I SAW STANLEY staring at me. Just knowing that we had entered through those doors so long ago, with the music blaring from the inside, music that nobody could hear from the outside. Something that science couldn't explain.

Everything was evident on his face. All the mystery, all the worries about what had happened when we went ghost hunting in Henley Mansion.

"So, the house let you party inside without showing you guys it was sinister and evil?"

I nodded. "It pretends to be your best friend until it isn't," I said somberly.

He sighed. "I thought it didn't let anyone leave, but you said some of the students left."

I smiled. "Yes, I know. The Mansion played a lot of tricks on our minds that night. None of those kids truly went anywhere."

He nodded slowly as it sunk in. Them leaving the property was just a trick and they were still roaming the grounds or inside the house. "How many of you did make it out that night?"

"You need to listen until the very end of my story, Stanley. There is a lot of it that won't make sense right now, but later on it will. Especially this story. But I need to tell you, so you know what is in store for you, should you continue on your quest."

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Also by Kayla Krantz

Rituals of the Night

Dead by Morning

Alive at Sunset

Standalone

The Moon Warriors

Stained: A Short Chiller

The OCD Games

Empty Branches

Dungeons and Demons Part 1

What I Did (Coming Soon)

Watch for more at Kayla Krantz's site.
