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“Beta I swear I am not having this today!” Matrix yelled, pacing their shared room. “These people are more than insane, maybe your imaginary friend should have mentioned that!”

Hershey sat on his bed drinking as much water as he could hold down. He could still taste the regurgitated food in his mouth. “Agreed. That sushi we ate earlier was not good.” Hershey shivered at the thought of it and then froze. “What if Elias was trying to poison me.”

Beta bit his lip, feeling bad for his friends. Not to mention a part of him felt like Elias was trying to poison Hershey, and it was all too much. “No Hershey, it’s not trying to poison you. Guys, this isn’t Elias’ fault—”

“Then who’s is it, hm?” Matrix said, taking a break from scrubbing his cheek raw. “Is it mine? Is it Hershey’s? Or maybe it’s yours.”

Beta choked on the words he actually wanted to say, holding them down. It was his fault, it was all his fault. His body had gotten better after the incident, fixed itself. Still, he felt a little shattered. “Well,” he said, changing the topic. “Fortunately, I did find something. I saw a brunette girl leaving the table when it all went down; she hadn’t said a word. Something’s off about it, don’t you think?”

Matrix sighed. “Okay, wow. Great info Beta. So, we just watch over all the crazy brunette girls in this hell house and hope to find one crazier than all the rest. Great lead. Truly amazing work.” Matrix began to applaud.

“Come on, it shouldn’t be that hard. We’ve got to go back down there for dinner anyway, so we’ll scope ’em out.”

“What do we do until then?” Hershey asked, gargling water before swallowing it.

“I’ll scope the place out,” Matrix and Beta said in unison. “We’ll split up,” Beta decided.

“Okay. Hershey goes left, I go right, and Beta can go straight down the hallway. Good? Great.” Not waiting for confirmation, Matrix made a beeline for the door. Beta rolled his eyes and went straight down the hallway in front of him. Hershey took another swig of water before standing up and turning left down the hallway.

Hershey went down the stairs and turned into a mini hallway leading to the family room. He realized that it was almost as big as the dining room. It held a big screen T.V. stuck to the magenta wallpapered wall and three different-styled green seats. One was a large sofa fitting six or seven people, another was a love seat, and the last was just a padded wooden chair. The white carpet was soft as Hershey stepped onto it with his bare feet. He looked around the room but saw no one in sight. He tiptoed over to the sofa in front and sat on it. Relief flooded through him as he sunk into the couch’s cushions. He looked left in search of the remote and he found it. He picked it up and pressed the big, red button at the top.

Then the living room was a world of life and sound. Hershey winced from the volume and lowered it quickly, afraid it would draw too much attention. Once it was at a good volume, he started to flip through the channels. He was enjoying himself so much…maybe too much. Hershey’s thumb hovered over the channel ꜛ button on the remote, pondering.

He hadn’t been this comfortable, felt this much at home, since he left home all those years ago. It was times like that that made Hershey realize how long he had been away, how short his life had been, and despite all the setbacks a rich lifestyle had brought him…how much he missed it.

Hershey sighed as the T.V. shut off, putting the remote back where it was and exiting the living room. There was nothing for him there.

When Hershey heard the T.V. start up again—already out of the mini hallway and in the dining hall—he turned back around. When he did, his feet squeaked. Just that very sound made him nervous. He didn’t want to look down because he already had a good feeling of what the substance was. He looked down anyway, lifting up his barefoot to see the blood stain clinging onto his foot’s sole. His eyes trailed forward and he saw the trail of smudged fresh blood going from up the stairs to the kitchen. He followed it into the kitchen.

Beta walked down the long hallway, seeing nothing but rooms slightly ajar along the side. It was wearing him out. It wasn’t long after his fatigue struck that he heard a noise. Whining, he thought it was.

With an eyebrow raised, he sped up the pace only to meet and greet a wall. He could either go left or right. The whining was heard from his left, so that’s the way he went. At the end of the hallway was another white door, although this room was completely shut off. Beta jogged toward the door, feeling anticipated. He stopped at the closed door, pressing his ear to it.

Now that he was close, he realized there was something off about the whines. They didn’t seem…discomforting. No, they seemed…

Sad.

Beta pushed the door open just a tad, but that tad was all he needed to see what he needed to see.

The Perna pushed the door open all the way, startling the young girl inside. “Oh my God, what’re you doing in here?” She was alone, half covered in sheets and the other half covered in tears. Beta recognized her from earlier.

“You came out earlier, didn’t you?” he asked, no sense of comfort coming from him.

She sniffed, holding back even more tears as he said it. Her head bowed slightly and nose wrinkled. “Yeah…” she admitted, raising her head back up. Beta saw all the emotion in her eyes, all that pain resurfacing.

“I wish I hadn’t.”

Beta felt his shoulders tighten. I wish I hadn’t made you. But he didn’t say it, he wouldn’t say it. Instead, he just nodded, backed away, and shut the door behind him.

Matrix strut through the hall like he knew where he was going, but he didn’t, not even a little. He was lost through the corridors. He got the bathroom confused with the laundry room, Erin’s room confused with Alden’s, and all-in-all had no idea what he was really looking for.

He walked past a room with a bruised front. Muscles froze as he passed, realizing what he saw. He backtracked and that’s when he noticed the short smudges of blood leading up to the room, but they were so miniscule he didn’t think much of it before then. “Aww man,” he muttered. He was hoping he just wouldn’t find anything.

Matrix cracked the door open, peaking in to see the walls now splattered with blood and what he thought were very close cousins to intestines. He made the decision to push the door all the way open, and he regretted it afterward.

Before him was the girl that “took an interest” to him at the table, the moment he decided to get up and leave. She was ripping into the small girl’s body like wings that were too hot, taking short but periodic breaks to suck in air and pant. He looked up at Matrix and right before his eyes the hue of their eyes began to melt away until they were pitch black on the outside and white on the inside. Matrix cursed, knowing this wouldn’t end well. The girl—who he now realized or hoped was of age—smiled at Matrix and slowly stood up, her teeth and nails becoming longer and sharper. “So, you are the dead one. I figured that whole thing at breakfast meant one of you were here.” Matrix’s eyebrows furrowed, wondering what she meant. The Sync pointed accusingly at Matrix and smiled. “Hi, I’m Tammy. Nice to me you finally.”

“Is it just me, or do you look older all of a sudden?”

“26, give or take a few years,” she answered, dropping her hand. Her voice seemed deeper now.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Matrix said, feeling his breakfast coming back. “And that’s saying something coming from me.”

Tammy walked closer to Matrix. “You wanna bite, Stak? I heard you weren’t doing so well.”

Matrix scoffed, masquerading his hunger with a stone-cold mask of confidence. “Did Hershey tell you that? I actually feel fine thank you very much, but I appreciate your concern.” He gulped, avoiding the smells of the young girl’s corpse.

Tammy laughed maniacally. Her fingers were covered with blood as she flexed them. Matrix shrugged and smirked. “Okay crazy,” he started, shutting the door behind him, causing Tammy’s heartbeat to rise. “Let’s have a chat.” Tammy made a fist, a wild and terrifying look in her eyes. Matrix locked the door. “Stak to Sync.”

Hershey stormed into the kitchen with fire launching out of his fingertips. He looked around, saw it was clear, and put the flames away.

The kitchen was a mess. There was a bowl tipped over with batter spilled all over the floor. The matter was mixed with blood. Things had fallen everywhere from shelves, countertops, and the island sitting in the middle. Hershey groaned, knowing they must’ve hunted them down here and dragged them back upstairs. He was only wondering how they did it with no one noticing, but then again everyone was locked away in their rooms or out. Hershey stormed out of the kitchen, which wasn’t the smartest idea considering he was on marble floor with blood running against it. He slipped.

This time, he fell hard on his back and on his head. Not even realizing it, he was out.

It felt like nothing when Hershey awoke just a few minutes later, still in the same spot. He didn’t even realize he was out so long until he saw the clock in the kitchen’s time read 10:17. He got woozy when he tried to get up so he let himself stay down, hearing nothing but soft noises he couldn’t identify. Hershey groaned and rolled over, but once his vision returned, he still heard the clinking and the squeaking, realizing they weren’t just in his head.

And then he saw her, her brunette hair bouncing as she stepped over Hershey and disappeared past his line of sight. Hershey’s brain was still processing then, so it wasn’t until she was gone gone that a rush of energy shot through the Nat. He got himself up quickly and ran back into the kitchen. He paused, astonished as he walked back into the unrecognizable room.

It was spotless.

Every pan, every container, every countertop was wiped clean and put in its respected place. It was clear to Hershey that that figure he saw had come back to clean up their mess. He popped his head back out of the kitchen and saw that the trail of blood was gone as well. “Woah,” Hershey breathed, thinking that maybe he was out for more than just a few minutes.