Visiting the Monster House

Visiting the Monster House

Chapter 1

Every Story Has to Start Somewhere.

            My name is Demetry Gabriel Matthews. I was hoping to retell the events I have recently dealt with because I have a feeling that it’s the closure I need, especially since the events were severely traumatic. I'll try not to go too far into detail, but sometimes detail helps me calm down. Anyway, have you ever seen that movie from a while back called "Monster House?" At the time these events began, I had only seen it once and couldn't remember the majority of it, but it was a great movie from what I recall. I would have watched it again, but my parents were a bit protective and the movie wasn't the most kid friendly movie out there. I'll give the plot line, or as much as I can remember: Three kids DJ, Chowder, and Jenny discover that after the owner of the house across the street from DJ dies his house comes to life whenever someone gets too close and no one is watching. So they devise a plan to kill the house before kids begin trick-or-treating on Halloween. I don't know why I liked the movie, just one of those things where I liked it because I did. There was also a video game of the movie not too long after the movie’s release.

I used to play the Game Boy Advanced version a while back in late elementary, but after a while the game just got overlooked as handhelds moved on. From what VERY little I remembered of the game was great too, and I knew that I actually still had it somewhere but didn't feel like finding it so I could pick it up again. And just like the movie, I barely remembered anything about it. And I did find it a bit strange to remember so little. I remembered almost every game I played as a kid, even the bad ones. Why I enjoyed Bugs Bunny’s Crazy Castle 2 so much I’ll never know.

            Now the events started around July third of 2015. I had two jobs and worked anywhere from fifty-two to sixty-eight hours a week and spent most of my free time with my girlfriend, Andria Ellen Watson. I was barely home, needless to say, and when I was I usually spent my time on my PC my friend Jenson had helped me build on my birthday of that year. But on the fifteenth, I decided to get off of the PC for a while to see what the rest of my family was up to. I went outside into the camper we had recently gotten to find my younger brother watching a library copy of Monster House on the portable TV we had in there. I looked over to see he was watching the scene where the three main characters have to talk to their nerd friend Skull to ask how they can kill the house. I chuckled because it reminded me of my friend Isaac with his nerdy knowledge and his love for that overrated mess called Destiny.

            "Have you played that Monster House game recently Demetry?" my brother asked.

            "Do you think I would have the time? Even if I wanted to I don't remember where it is or anything about it." I responded.

            "Mom and Dad gave it to me a few years back. I remember you used to always play it and decided to give it a try."

            "Alright, so?"

            "I just asked because I heard something interesting about it. You remember how you could play Skull's favorite arcade game if you beat the game at least once?"

            "No, I haven't played it in forever."

            "Well apparently if you beat his high score, you get the best gun in the game."

            "So what’s your point?"

            "I've been playing it recently and I just barely managed to beat the final boss. Now I'm back at the beginning which is very close to the arcade game and I REALLY want that gun. The second play through is harder than the first. So I need you to get that gun for me, you’re better at video games than I am."

            "No thanks. I'm not up for..."

            "You know you owe me a favor after I helped you beat Mecha Engy on Team Fortress 2 last week."

            "... fine."

            We went inside, he gave me the game, and I started it up. Seeing the game after eight years was kind of nice, and it made me actually consider starting the game on the second file once I was done. I selected my brother’s file and the beginning cut scene began to play, or at least the dialogue, the game didn't have true cut scenes. My brother told me where to go to get the arcade game and I started trying to beat Skull's record. I couldn't do it though. His hi-score was 50,000 and all I could get was 43,725. I told my brother I would try again some other time to which he was actually quite understanding. Normally he would have been in a fit had I just stopped like that, but I think he understood this time because once I loaded the save file, my head began to ache and throb quite violently at times. It was very sudden, and I wasn't sure what caused it. I went to the cupboard to take some ibuprofen to ease the pain, however it barely worked at all.

            I went back to my PC in hopes that some of my friends were on steam so I could spend time with them. I had to go to my job at Dairy Queen the next morning and wouldn't have the time then. I was in luck as my friends Jordan, Isaac, and my girl Andria were online, and all agreed to a quick dead harvest campaign in Left 4 Dead 2. My headache started bothering me more consistently by the time we had made it to the final stand in the last chapter and I let out a few grunts just loud enough for mic topic up.

            "Babe, are you alright?" Andria asked.

            "I'm not sure, I recently got a headache and have no idea what caused it."

            "What were you doing when you got the headache?" Jordan asked.

            "I was trying to help my brother do something on this Monster House ga..."

A sharp burst of pain rung in my head.

            "Monster House what?" Isaac asked.

            "It's not important, there is no way that I got a head ache from playing a video game with no flashing lights."

            "Oh! Are you talking about that game for the Gameboy Advanced based off the Monster House movie!? I loved that game!" Isaac replied.

            "AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!" I screamed as I got another sharp pain.

            "Babe, somethings wrong and you need to get some rest." Andria suggested.

            "Alright, let’s just finish this though."

            We completed the campaign, said our 'see ya later's, and I headed for my bed. I was woken two hours later by Jordan ringing the doorbell. I let him in and quickly got to the point of what he wanted.

            "Bro, I was heading home from work and I thought I'd see how you were doing. My job let us go home do to the heat causing some of my co-workers light-headedness."

            "Thanks bro, but I honestly don't know how I'm doing. I took some ibuprofen and took a nap with no relief, and I don't even know what's caused my headache in the first place."

            "Well you said you were playing some Monster House game when you noticed it. Could that have anything to..."

            "OH MY... AAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!" The sharp pain had struck me again.

            "Are you ok man!? I'm not going to lie, you scared me with that scream."

            "I get this pain from time to time. How do I describe it? It feels like a tazer nailed me in the middle of the head. Not that I know what that would feel like."

At that moment my brother was walking by and asked, "Can you help me with that Monster House game again now?" I dropped to the floor, rolling over in pain. Jordan went up to my brother and asked him if he would bring him the game so he could check it out. When he brought it to him he started up the game and loaded the first file. The pain had cleared to tolerable measures, so I sat next to him to see what he was doing.

            "Bro, every time we bring this up, you get that massive ache. There has to be something about this that’s responsible or related to your headache." Jordan claimed.

            We sat there for the next couple of minutes analyzing everything we could about the game. When none of the visuals or sounds showed any sort of suspicion, we decided to just mess around with it for a while. The game consisted of the three characters DJ, Jenny, and Chowder, and each had different play styles. Jenny was the fastest and most fragile, and her water pistol had a rapid fire type of style. Chowder was the slowest and biggest pain

Brass Door and Net Lamp

tanker, and his water bazooka could fire a single shot and could then be charged to fire a spread of multiple spheres of water. DJ, my personal favorite, was the most balanced, and his water gun was would spray a stream of water. The opening room itself was story of its own, there was a pink door locked up on the top right after walking up a set of stairs,

Pink Door

a brass colored door in the back which was also up the stairs, and the weirdest chandelier was hanging in the middle of the room. It was a bunch of glowing balls inside a net or at least that's how I would describe it. Jordan headed to a room that was on the left. Inside there was a table, a few chairs, and a blue toy chest towards the back of the room. We opened the toy chest to find a vase and a walkie talkie inside which DJ and the gang used to get advice from Skull, the nerd guy from the scene I got to see when my brother was watching the movie.

            "Oh crap! Sorry bro, but I gotta go!" Jordan said as he was running for the door.

            "What's the problem?" I asked.

            "I have a wrestling tournament tomorrow! And you of all people know that I can sleep through anything, so I NEED to get enough sleep so I can wake up on time!"

            "Ok, see you later."

            "Can I bum an aspirin or something though, I got a headache myself now."

            "Yeah, I'll get you some."

            I got him a few aspirin pills, he swallowed them in literally a second without water, and he bolted out the door, jumped in his car, and was on the road in those next few moments. I decided that I had best get to bed also. I didn't get any sudden pains when we played the game, but now my head consistently hurt worse. I hoped it would at least calm down by morning.

            I woke up in a rage the next morning as my headache had only increased. It was not by much but the sound of my alarm clock, which I hear every morning without fail, was not helping. I got myself some breakfast, put on my Dairy Queen uniform, and was out by 8:30. I arrived early to find that I was opening with Miss Leroy, which was fine because she was my favorite shift supervisor, so I felt a little relief, but that relief faded quickly as the customers flooded the restaurant later. Eventually the customers subsided and I headed to the back to sit down for a moment. My headache had reached a point where my head would throb in pain every few minutes and I had to take a breather. It was then that Miss Leroy found me. Beings that there was usually something that needed to be done or something productive at least, she asked, "Demetry, are you alright?"

            "I honestly do not know. I say that as a joke most of the time but I have this incurable headache and I don't even know what caused it." I replied.

            "Well is the kitchen stocked for night crew?"

             "Just about, most of the orders where chicken and burgers so I just need to put some on the grill and get some chicken from the freezer."

            "Get that taken care of and you can go home. I can watch the kitchen for the last hour. You seriously look like you're in pain."

I took care of the chicken and patties on the grill and was homebound. The ride home was longer than usual though or at least it felt like it. Every noise I heard only agitated me and that pain made bothered me to the point I felt like banging my head against the steering wheel to try to knock the pain out, even though that makes no sense, and I just about tried it.

            I finally reached home and crashed on the first soft piece of furniture I saw. I tried to nap but it was more futile than trying to beat the elite four with a Magikarp. I got my iPod out of my pocket and pulled up the Facebook messager app to text Andria.

            "Baby, help me. This pain is unbearable. I've never felt anything this intense before and if it doesn't get cleared up soon I'm seriously going to consider a hospital." I sent to her.

            "Do you have any idea what caused it yet?" she replied.

            "No, the only thing that I ever thought had something to do with it was that stupid Monster House game."

            Just as is sent that my headache practically roared in my head.

            "Before you do anything, come my way. I learned how to make this tea a few years ago. It's helped all my headaches in the past within minutes and I personally think it’s one of the best teas I ever tasted. I also know where a few pressure points are that can help with headaches if it's as bad as you say it is. And bring that game, I want to see what the big deal is."

            Reading that last sentence made my head feel as if a nuclear warhead had just gone off.

            I drove over to her place slowly so I wouldn't run the risk of hurting anyone. When I arrived, she had already made some of the tea she had mentioned and was giving me a look of serious concern.

            "Baby, you look like crap." She said.

            "Thanks, I tried real hard today." I replied in my most sarcastic tone.

She handed me the tea and I handed her the game. I practically chugged it. She then started to massage the pressure points that were supposed to help with headaches. It wasn't doing any good and was actually making it worse until about two minutes later when I somehow felt instant relief. I couldn't even form words and I just wanted to hug her for getting rid of the headache but I didn't get the chance to. First reason was because I paused for a moment because as I felt the relief I thought heard a faint voice of what I could only describe being a middle aged man's voice screaming 'yes!' Not only that but he sounded like he had just won the lottery because he said it in the same way as Jafar did when Aladdin gave him the lap in the Disney movie. The other reason was because the textplus app on my iPod was going off.

            "Answer that honey, I'm going to investigate this Monster House game."

            I unlocked the iPod

            "Dude, I need help"

            It was Jordan.

            "What?" I asked.

            "That headache from last night escalated quickly. I couldn't go to the tournament because of it. Now I can't even sleep."

            "So what do you want me to do about it?"

            "I don't know, I just... needed... someone to... talk to... I guess..."

THUD

            He hit the floor and there was no reply. I turn to Andria to tell her Jordan passed out and I was calling 911, but when I did I had to catch her because she too had passed out. I checked to make sure she was still breathing and then I put my hand on her forehead. Her temperature was fine. I was now worried and confused. Before I could call 911, I too started to lose consciousness. As things began to go black, I swear I saw a silhouette of a man form in my vision.

            Next thing I knew I was in a black void. I was standing, not floating, but there was nothing to stand on. The voice I had heard earlier returned.

            "You blocked me out, moved on, and forgot about me. Some things shouldn't have been forgotten. I'm not happy with you, Demetry, and that’s putting it as mildly as possible. But I'll have you know I will make you pay for what you did. How could you let something like that slide...? I will have my revenge. And now your loved ones are mine, too."

I had no idea what was going on. But in the literal blink of an eye, I found myself on the floor of a room I didn't recognize. I stood up and found Jordan and Andria waking up behind me. They both looked around for a moment.

            "Where are we?!" Jordan asked.

I looked around quickly and said, "I don't know." In my quick look I managed to notice some windows and what looked like a double front door. I tried to open the doors but they were locked, which didn't really surprise me. I then looked out the window, and what I was almost made me lose my mind. There was nothing, just another black void. Andria and Jordan looked too once they saw the look on my face, and both of them had the same reaction as me.

            "Where is here is a better question!" Andria said.

            I looked around and pay attention to what I was looking at instead of just looking in quick fear. I notice a pink door, a brass door, and a chandelier made out of a net and glowing balls.

            "Um... guys. I think I know where we are now."

Chapter 2

Well Isn't that Just Great?

            The three of us picked ourselves up off the floor and paused for a moment.

            "Where? And how do you know?" Jordan asked.

            "Jordan, does this room look familiar to you? The two doors up the stairs? The net hanging from the ceiling?" I replied. He looked around for a moment, then looked at me with eyes that would be big on a cow.

            "YOU'RE NOT SERIOUS..." He said in disbelief.

            "Guys, where are we!? And do I need to be worried? Please tell me quick, I'm about to have an anxiety attack!" Andria said freaking out.

            "We're inside the Monster House babe, and that means we all need to keep it down. When Jordan and I played the game, I remember reading the characters mention that the house is asleep. If we wake it up, that could be the last mistake we ever make." I answered.

            "Babe, how can be in the Monster House? We were just at my house a few seconds ago."

            "I have no idea, and I'm not joking when I say that either. But we need to find a way out of here as soon as possible."

            "Well remember what we did Demetry? When you showed me the game we went through that door on the left side of the room. There was a walkie talkie in the toy chest that might help." Jordan said.

            "That's right, now I barely remember anything about the game, but mentioning this is jogging my memory. And if my memory is correct, the person on the other end of the walkie talkie is Skull. Now who, or what for that matter, WE will be able to talk to, is beyond me."

            "Well considering our only other options are sit here and die slowly or wake up the house and die, more than likely, horrible, gore filled deaths, I'd say it’s worth a shot." Andria said in her usual sarcasm.

            We went to the room and found the table, chairs, and blue toy chest just like in the game. This only seemed to confirm my theory about where we were. I opened the chest and found a vase which I handed to Jordan. I then picked the walkie talkie and held down the button to speak.

            "I have no idea who is on the other end or if anyone is there at all. But if anyone is there, can you please explain what is going on." I said into the walkie talkie.

            "NO WAY! DEMETRY!? IS THAT YOU!?" It was Isaac.

            "ISAAC!? Where are you!? And what is going on here!?"

            "No clue bro. One minute I'm playing Destiny and the next thing I know I'm lightheaded and pass out. I wake up still in my room, but as I open the door I found nothing but the wall. I looked out my window to find nothing but a black void too. Now get this. I'm in a void, yet I can still play online games."

            "Do me a favor, look up a walkthrough of the Monster House game for the Gameboy Advance since you have internet."

            "No can do. You see my Xbox One doesn't agree with any of the internet apps or YouTube, even before I passed out. I left my 360 downstairs, and you know that my laptop is a piece of crap. But you're in luck. I used to play that game all the time, and just beat it on the hard mode for the fourth time six months ago. I can probably help you out. Memory is slightly fuzzy, but it will be of use. Which by the way, which bathroom are you in?"

            "We just found the walkie talkie in the room with the table and chairs. Why would we be in the bathroom?"

            "... BRO! GET TO THE BATHROOM PRONTO! THAT IS THE ONLY SAVE PLACE! DON'T TALK TO ME UNTIL YOU GET THERE!"

            "Ok, give us a minute then..."

SMASH!

Jordan dropped the vase. The look on his face was pure horror and he looked at me and Andria waiting to see how we would react.

            "YOU IDIOT! WHY DIDN'T YOU JUST SET THE VASE DOWN WHEN DEMETRY HANDED IT TO YOU!?" Andria whisper yelled at Jordan. Before he could answer however, there was rumbling sound. Not loud enough to be the entire house, but definitely the sound of wood rumbling close by. The three of us turned to face the table only to see that one of the chairs had sprung to life and came after us. In a panic, I reacted by backing up and felt something against my back when I hit the wall. I reached back and found the water gun used by DJ in the game. I pointed at the chair and sprayed it until it burst into pieces. Then another chair came to life. Jordan reached behind him and found Chowder's water bazooka. He blasted the chair until it too burst. Next Andria pulled a water pistol off her back and shot down the next chair to come after us. The last chair lasted the shortest amount of time however, because we all decided to pitch in on spraying it.

            "Don't ask me how these things can blow crap up like this, but if this is what keeps us alive, I find it better not to question it. The house is still asleep too. Thank God. Better find the nearest bathroom. Isaac said it would be safe." Jordan said.

            We went from door to door trying to find the nearest bathroom. Once we came across a blue door with a keyhole. It was locked until we found a key in a small brown toy chest in one of the rooms we explored. A few times we encountered a creature of some sort. So far all it was were chairs and floor boards springing to life. But in the midst of our search we found a grey door. We opened it and breathed a sigh of relief that is was a bathroom. We piled inside and called up Isaac again.

            "In the words of Doctor Halsey, 'It took you long enough.' Anyways, you'll be safe here. The house can't risk damaging the plumbing in the bathroom for fear of flooding itself. This will also be a good place to fill up you weapons. They don't have unlimited ammo after all. Well... they do... but after too much use they spray in small burst and aren't as effective until they get refilled." Isaac informed us.

            "Well, what now? It's been so long since I beat this game that I can't lead us through it. You'll have to tell us what to do." I said.

            "Well, for once Demetry actually admits he needs my help. If memory favors me, you need to head to the basement. Head towards the back of the house and you should even find a map that will show the layout of the first floor and the first basement. There is a room in the basement that goes to the furnace, which is the heart of the house. Destroy the furnace, you destroy the house, and you win the game. That might get us all out of this... whatever it is."

            "You know, I was thinking about it. We all passed out, and we all came in contact with the game except for Isaac who only heard about it. Demetry also got a headache every time it was mentioned. Now the three of us who came in contact with the game are in some world that defies logic by using water guns as lethal weapons almost like a dream, while the one who only heard is away in some other area guiding us through this world. Considering none of this makes sense to begin with, could it be that we are all in some sort of dream together?" Andria said.

            "I think you're partially right, but you can't feel pain in dreams. When Demetry blew up that first chair, a splinter flew off and hit me in the arm. It wasn't that bad but I still felt pain, and it left a mark too. I think somehow all of our consciousness have joined together. Where? Could be one of our minds. The headaches we all got had to have meant something. Probably Demetry's since he was the first one to start getting them. And even then, I'm just spitting out ideas. This whole thing blows my mind harder than Bildgesnipe blows Slenderman" Jordan added. Isaac then butted in.

            "Worry about that part later. As much as I enjoy unlimited Destiny and I have enough snacks to stuff Wholebeaf's Mom, You guys need to get out of there and I'll need to pee at some point. I'll turn down my game volume so I can hear you in case you need something. In fact, I'll turn the volume off so that way I can hear you guys the whole time on the off chance that I remember something or need to say anything for whatever reason."

            "Alright, fill up the guns and let’s get going. If we manage to not die, this might even be a bit of fun. I dib Jordan as the guys who gets killed first." I joked.

            "Not funny dude. I may screw up most of our plans, but this is serious and not planned in the first place." Jordan scowled.

            "Sorry, just kinda lost all sense of seriousness for a moment. You and Isaac started making jokes first though. Anyways let’s go find the map and kill the house."

            We headed towards the back of the house and found the map Isaac had told us about. The map turned out to be the blueprints of the house from when DJ's neighbor was building the house. I was honestly surprised at just how big this how was. The first floor alone had more rooms in it then Jodran’s house and my house combined even if we included our basements and attics. (I’ll try to stick to the important rooms, or else I would be writing a novel.) It wasn't too long before Isaac then warned us we would need to find flashlights before we headed to the basement. New creatures began attacking us along the way, but they didn't give us too much of a challenge and it didn't take us long to find the flashlights. Before we knew it we were at the stairway to the basement.

            "Well, for once you knew what you we saying and not just talking out your butt Isaac. Let’s head for the heart guys." Jordan said as he walked down to the basement.

            "You know honey, I'm worried about what would happen if one of us where to actually get hurt or even killed in the house. Especially you." Andria worried. I replied, "I understand, but I'll be fine. I seem to have knack for this gun. I do recall it being my favorite one to use for some reason. I worry about you to because I Love You, but I also worry about Jordan. That bazooka doesn't seem to be as effective as our guns. Come the think of it I never liked that gun in game either. Man. This stuff just all seems to come back to me as it happens."

            "Well hopefully if something bad is about to happen, you'll remember and warn us before it happens. Anyways, we'd better get going. Jordan is going off by himself. Remember how well he could do that in Left 4 Dead 2?"

            "Well what are we waiting for then?"

She began heading down the stairs to the basement, and I followed. However, I had only taken one step when I heard the voice I had heard in the void.

            "Made it this far have you? Well this is the easy part. I can't wait for you to find it though, but even then will you remember? You'd better remember at some point. I'd hate for my revenge to end without seeing the look of terror on your face when it all comes rushing back to you! Especially after how long you have forgotten about me and hid me away. I waited too long to be let down. Go, and remember, I'll be waiting for you." I froze for a few moments in shock and terror. Then I ran down the stairs to meet up with Andria and Jordan. Whatever this voice was, I didn't want it to get them, but at the same time, I didn't feel safe alone anymore.

Chapter 3

The Journey Begins!

          "Did anyone else hear that!?" I asked.

            "Hear what? Wholebeaf's Mom?" Jordan replied.

            "Moron. There is this voice that I've heard twice now. It's been saying something about me blocking him out and forgetting about him... or it... whatever it is."

            "Well dude, I don't understand anything that is going on right now so I believe you, but what do you want me to do about it."

            "Well you did say that we were probably inside Demetry's head if your idea was correct. I don't know. Forget I mentioned. This whole thing is confusing" Andria said.

            "Stay on the current task mis amigos. Now, there should be a bathroom in the area of the basement you are in. Explore the area and you should find the entrance to the furnace. You'll know you found it when you see a giant brass double door with a candle in front of it on each side." Isaac informed us.

            We searched the basement and found the bathroom. After filling our weapons we set out on our search for the furnace entrance. We searched for what seemed like an hour with no sign of the door Isaac had mentioned, but our hopes were lifted when we came across a big blue toy chest. Inside it we found a Super Peppermint.

            "Ok, I could handle the demon chairs, flying wall insects, hell's floorboards, killer TV's, and walking lamps. But this right here, this is just stupid. What is this!?" Jordan complained. Isaac then radioed in, "Dude, you're lucky! That Super Peppermint very well might save your life. Thing is, if you guys are just like the characters in game, you each have different strengths and weaknesses."

            "Well now I'm interested, but why didn't you mention this before?" Andria said.

            "Hey, cut me some slacks, I just remembered. But if you guys are the same as the characters who hold your guns from the game, then it should go like this. Andria is the fastest of all of you and can crawl through small vents, however, she is the most fragile and will be killed easier than any of you."

            "... ANYTHING ELSE YOU WANT TO FORGET TO MENTION!?" Andria yelled as quietly as she could.

            "Oh will you shut up, it's not my fault you got stuck like that. Anyways, Demetry will be the most balanced. He can take more punishment than Andria but less than Jordan. He is also the same way in terms of speed. Not only that but he can climb up walls that have makeshift ladders, you know like broken pipes or a bookshelf. And Jordan is slower than all of you, but he is the most durable and has the ability to push heavy objects due to being the strongest."

            "Well that seems about fitting. I was always the strongest." Jordan boasted.

            "And slowest you fat pig." Andria replied.

            "Wait guys, remember those pipes we saw on the wall back in that one room? That must be where we need to go. Next time you tell us something Isaac, make sure you tell us when we need to know it. But back to the original topic, what is the mint for." I piped in.

            "It makes you all a bit more durable, so you don't have to worry as much now Andria. Just because you are the least durable doesn't mean you're flat out weak."

            "Whatever, let’s just head to the pipes and get out of here." Andria said.

            We headed over to the pipe room. Jordan and Andria tried climbing up to see if they could climb the pipes and see if the rules of the game were imposed in this "Joined Consciousness" as we had coined the phrase. Sure enough, they both couldn't help but slip off every time they tried, yet I could climb just fine. I then headed up and went thought the first door I saw. Suddenly the doorways were barred up with metal pipes as soon as I entered the room. Everything is the room sprang to life and headed my way. "HOLY ----" I screamed. I wasn't a fan of any language considered offensive, but this pushed me over the edge. "Well that right there almost made the wait worth it. I'm beginning to enjoy watching you three search for your freedom so aimlessly too." The voice was back. Putting all the airsoft practice I had got from playing capture the flag and king of the hill with my brothers into use, I fought off against the incoming hoard. I had managed to fend off against almost all of my enemies when the TV that was in the room shot a beam of electricity my way. I didn't notice it in time and it hit me on my left shoulder and sent me flying into the wall. That is when I knew that this "Joined Consciousness" was to be taken seriously. I looked at the spot on my shoulder where the beam hit me to find a serious gash. However, the pain was there but it didn't seem to affect my will power like normal. Usually when you get hurt, it takes a few seconds to shrug off the pain. But as soon as I saw the TV ready to strike again, I jump out of the way and proceeded to finish it off. The doorways cleared up and I hurried to find out how I was going to reunite with Andria and Jordan. A few rooms over, I found two pull switches. After activating both of them a sealed door in the room opened and Jordan and Andria walked in. Too keep them from worrying, I decided not to mention the incident with the TV, and instead just told them to always be on alert if they should have to separate from the group.

            Through more searching we came across the same bathroom again, so we decided to fill our guns. I accidently broke one of the barrels sitting next to the grey door and found a regular peppermint inside. Isaac told me to eat, and once I did my gash had been healed.

            "They won't cure you entirely if you get beaten up too much, but they should be able to cure a hit or two from average enemies. Now how to tell when you are fully healed is beyond me" Isaac told us.

            "I did have a mark on my arm that just healed, maybe when you don't have any wounds will be the indicator from now on." I suggested trying to make the injury sound less threatening so as not to lead to panic.

            We headed back to the passage way I unlocked during my time alone and explored some more. We entered this one room we came across and were locked in as soon as we entered. But fear turned into pure joy as we looked and saw the passage to the basement was in this very room. "OH THANK GOD! I'mma kick this door open just... no that isn't a good idea." I said. We went up to the door and pushed it open. Or at least we tried. No matter how much we pushed it would not budge, not even with Jordan's superior strength that Isaac had mentioned. We tried pulling it open, but there weren't any handles and it wouldn't budge when we tried pulling out from the middle of the door.

            "Oh great! Isaac leads us to our death and he is completely fine! I dought he even knows what were supposed to do!" Andria raged.

            "Um guys, I just remembered. That way is blocked, but there is something in that room that you need. So yes I do know what I'm talking about, but I'm still iffy on some of the details. You won't be trapped in there as long as you can find that item."

            "Well what do we do once we find it!?" Jordan asked.

            "Head upstairs. This item should let you travel up to the second floor and third floor."

            "Wait, are you telling me that there are more areas to explore!?"

            "Dude, remember when you found the blueprints? I said that they we're for the first floor and first basement. There are three basements, four floors, two levels of the attic, and the furnace. You guys are NOWHERE near out of here!"

            "YOU JUST NOW TELL US THIS!"

            "I'M SORRY! Look, it's been six months, plus you know I have autism. Not trying to use it as a crutch, but that might be part of why I can't think of this stuff right away. I could play Destiny and only help when asked, I did just get my internet set up after months without it you know."

            "Sorry, but any idea what we do once we get to second and third floor?"

            "Should be more blueprints on floor three. Can't remember what all floors it will be for but they should contain information that will lead us to the next objective. If you find them I should remember what to do."

            "Well, I found that item you were talking about Isaac" I said picking up a Brass Key from the floor. "I can already tell this will be for that brass door in the room we started from. This room has a brass door too. Guess this thing will come in handy from time to time."

            "Told ya, now get going. And you guys can find your way back to the first floor. You've explore with the blueprints enough to know where to go. In the meantime I'm going open my window to see what it's like to pee in a void."

            I opened the brass door and we headed back to the room where we started from.

 

Chapter 4

First Step Down, A Thousand Miles to Go.

            It didn’t take us long to reach our starting point. I opened the brass door at the top of the stairway and we went up to the second floor. There was nothing special about floor two, there were only a few chairs in the big square room we spent most of time in. A few rooms over and we found the stair case to floor three. A few rooms later we came across a long hallway with four rooms connected to it. Upon entering the hallway, the door behind us instantly shut us in.

            “Boss fight?” Andria asked.

            “Nah, the first boss doesn’t show up for quite some time. Now I don’t remember what it is. However, I do remember it being kinda disturbing and in a big open room.” Isaac replied.

            “That’s right Demetry, you really liked that boss didn’t you?” It was back. My hair stood on end, but due to the fact that no one else even acknowledged anyone saying anything, I found it safe to say I was the only one who could hear it. This thing I ended up calling, ‘The Voice.’ We headed the rest of the way down the hall to find a big blue toy chest. After killing all the chairs in our way, we opened it to find the blueprints we were looking for.

            “This isn’t right, we walk up some steps, kill some chairs, and BOOM! Blueprints. I’m not complaining, just cautious.” Jordan said. I had to admit, it was kind of strange. We gave the blueprints a look over and found they contained the layout of floor four, the attic, and the upper attic known as the roof.

            “Hey look, the roof has an elevator in the back. And it’s right next to a bathroom too. That must be where we’re supposed to go.” Andria pointed out.

            “Ah yes, the elevator. Now I know with one hundred percent certainty that that is how you get to the furnace. In fact, it can even go to the third and second basement as well as floors one and four. However, it does not go to floors two and three.”

            “Well that’s good news.” I muttered.

            “Now THAT is messed up Jordan. The blueprints may have been easy, but why would there be all these floors if the elevator will take us right to the end of the game? This isn’t going to be over that easy. How soon until we get to the elevator Isaac?” Andria asked.

            “It’s the next place you head to. Now granted, there is an important item that you will need find Andria, it’s your slingshot. You’ll have to use it to break some mirrors which will open the door to the attic. Thanks for reminding me.”

            Jordan then piped up, “Now we just need to get Demetry to remember this game. It’s about time he started being useful.”

            “Watch it Jordan. Anyways, Andria will also find a trash can to hide from enemies, and Jordan will find water balloons and cold syrup. But that will be later.” Isaac retorted. We dropped the bickering and decided we best head for the elevator. If there was some catch we couldn’t do anything about it now.

Due to the door locking us out upon entering, we had to find a different way out. We checked every doorway, but all led to dead ends. Eventually we found a weak point in one of the walls in one of four paths. We brock it down and managed to find our way back to the room that led us to hallway in the first place. The room also had a bathroom in one of the corners, so we decided to fill up and kept our guard up. Safe room, health stations, and other valuable spots show up before bosses and other drastic events most of the time. Heading to the other corner of the room we found the stairs to the fourth floor. We then followed the blueprint to the door that would lead us to the attic. We saw two mirrors and instantly knew what needed to be done. We searched for a blue toy chest in hopes of finding the slingshot, and the first room we walked into had a brown chest with a key for a regular locked door.

“Well, better find a locked door then. Only lead we’ve got in terms of finding that slingshot.” I said. But as soon as I put the key in my pocket the house started to shake.

            “Guys, let’s get out of here. NOW!” Andria freaked. We all began to bolt for the door, but I could not have been prepared for what happened next.

“And… NOW!” The Voice said.

Immediately a pair of extra-long and durable slinkies came down from the ceiling and grabbed Jordan and pulled him up a number of floors.

“JORDAN!” I said as loud I could without waking the house. Andria and I booked it out of the room for fear that the house would catch us too.

“WELL, ABOUT TIME WE KNEW WHAT’S GOING ON ISAAC!” Andria roared.

“HE’S BEEN TAKEN BY THE HOUSE! YOU HAVE TO SAY HIM! HE’S IN THE UPPER ATTIC! HURRY!” He replied.

Me and Andria found the nearest locked door and rushed inside. Room after room we looked for a blue toy chest for the slingshot that we needed to reach the attic. Eventually we found it. I was curious if I would be able to use it since Isaac did say Andria was the one who was supposed to use it, but after the pipe ladder incident, I didn’t want to waste time experimenting when we already knew that the ‘Joined Consciousness’ played by the games rules. Using the slingshot to open a few doors we managed to make it back to the room that lead to the attic. Andria took the slingshot and broke the two mirrors that were on the sides of the sealed door that blocked the attic. The door swung open and we didn’t hesitate to run through and we almost tripped going up the stairs. Once we reached the bottom half of the attic we noticed a bathroom in one corner and a normal door in another. Immediately after that we heard Jordan screaming.

“HELP! AWH! YOU SON OF A -----! DO YOU LIKE THAT!?”

From the sound of it, we could tell that Jordan was under attack. From what though was unknown, but to make sure we were ready we filled up our water supply and headed through the door. How his yelling had not woken the house was surprising seeing how we were inside it. Maybe you couldn’t wake the house in the game, but I preferred to keep my voice down as much as possible. The house could just have been a heavy sleeper like Jordan was, but there was no sense risking it when I didn’t need to be loud anyway. Andria and I took a quick look at the blueprints to see how we were supposed to get the upper floor of the attic. Following the path we found, we managed to come across brown toy chest that contained some chocolate. The candy wrapper told us what the item did, “consume to restore three points of health.” This would be useful. If Jordan was fighting something, we might actually need the chocolate. Heading a few rooms over, we found the stairway to the upper level. Upon reaching the top, we heard more of Jordan,

“AWH! DON’T YOU -------S EVER STOP!? JUST STAY DEAD!”

            “Sounds like you better hurry, hate to see what would happen if you came this far just to lose him now. Then again, ha, you’re not very far anyway.” The Voice taunted. Ignoring it, Andria and I raced to the door in the bottom left corner of the room. We had to make it past some TV’s and watched out for wire hands popping out of the floor, but neither managed to so much as touch us. Once we made it through the door, we had to solve a simple puzzle to get through the next door, and by that I mean we had to pull a wood poll over to a corner of a rug. After that we entered an empty room with a mannequin in the middle facing the way we came in. Nothing happened, Thank God. We were getting more worried for Jordan with every passing second. We were finally one door away from Jordan. Before we managed to unlock the sealed door leading to him, we could hear his voice once more on the other side.

            “SO THIS IS HOW IT ENDS!? BRING IT!”

Andria and I charged in so fast that we bumped into the door as it was opening. The chairs that were attacking Jordan turned their attention toward us and bolted in our direction. We opened fire and finished off all of them in about 10 seconds.

            “Now… now… NOW THEY STAY DEAD!?” Jordan screamed. I tried to warn him to keep his voice down.

            “JORDAN SHUT THE BLOODY…”

            “I DON’T CARE! LOOK AT ME! I CAN’T OPEN ONE OF MY EYES AND I’VE GOT A GIANT SLASH ACROSS MY STOMACH! WHAT MORE CAN THIS HOUSE DO TO ME!? DEATH WOULD ACTUALLY BE A BLESSING NOW! THAT WAY I DON’T HAVE TO LIVE IN FEAR OF WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO ME NEXT!”

            I went up to him and slapped him across the face. “Get ahold of yourself! We didn’t come to rescue you for you to give up on yourself!” He then pointed his water gun at my head.

            “I didn’t ask you to save me! I didn’t ask to be here! They just happened, and I got NO say in it! Well I don’t know if these guns can do damage to us, but I DO have a say in finding out!”

I honestly didn’t know what to do. He had gone insane. Looking at his wounds I remembered the chocolate and asked Andria to give it to him. He reluctantly ate it and instantly all that was left of his wounds were a mark on left side of his nose on his upper check under his left eye.

            “…sorry. I’m overreacting. I just want out of this, and I’m afraid of what will happen to us if something like this were to happen again. What if the house does manage to kill one of us?” He put his gun down. “Forgive me?”

            “Dude, your one of my best friends. Of course I do.”

            “Well looks like you saved Jordan. Now let’s get back to the task at hand. I don’t mean to ruin the moment, but you guys are still stuck in a murderous, oversized shack.” Isaac said.

            “Are you suffering from back pain!?” Andria joked.

            “Not that kind of ‘Shaq.’ Now get to the elevator!”

 

Chapter 5

The Pitter Patter of… The Heart?

            Following the blueprints yet once again. Once we reached the back of the upper attic we saw the elevator in the back of a fairly open and large room. There was a bathroom and a door way to the room with the mannequin. As we approached, Jordan punch the open button in a rage as soon as the button was within reach, however, it didn’t open. He hit the button again without punching it this time but it still didn’t open.

            “I knew that something was wrong with the plan. The game can’t end this easily or this soon for that matter.” Andria complained. Jordan then noticed a note on the floor and picked it up.

            “Well, this might not be as hard as you expect too. Apparently this elevator is missing a gear because the original one broke. But the old gear is still on this floor. What’s a broken gear good for? Well considering that the note bothered to mention it, we’re gonna need it. So it’s not like we need to head up and down the floors a million times before we use it.”

            “You’re right Jason.” Isaac claimed. “Now that you mention it. The gear wasn’t truly broken, it just had a spot of rust on it. The owner of the house in this game took uber good care of his house. It will still work just the way it is, but you still need to find it.”

            I was getting tired of this. Constantly going from one place to the other in hopes that we would eventually find our way to the furnace. I had no choice though. We were stuck here until we did find our way, and even then we did not know if we would get out of this. We just had no other option. The door to the mannequin room was sealed shut with two pull switches keeping it shut. We decided to open the door just in case we needed to use it later on. Luck favors the prepared. Then it was back to the same routine of searching and looking at the blueprints until we found our destination. The gear was on this floor just like note said it was, and like Isaac said it just had some rust. As we headed back, we noticed that one of the doors we came through was now seal shut with no mirrors, makeshift ladder, no anything to get around it. So we had to find another way around. Remembering the door to the mannequin room that was in the elevator room, we planned a path that would allow us to enter through there.

            “I think even Bildgesnipe could have told you that opening the door was a good idea.” Jordan joked.

            “Hey it may have been obvious, but it wasn’t that obvious man.” I replied. It was a bit of a walk though. We had to go to the front of the house to get to the back and reach the elevator. Right before we opened the mannequin room, we found a bathroom and a bunch of vases. The door was locked so we decided to fill up in the bathroom. Out of curiosity, we started breaking a few vases, and almost all of them had peppermints in them. The almost is because one of them contained the key we needed to open the door.

            “Well this is looks like boss fight preparation if I’ve ever seen one.” Andria mentioned.

            “What and where the boss is my question. Is it in the next room? The furnace since we are heading there? In the elevator room? But the ‘what’ is what I’m really curious about.” Jordan said. On that note we proceeded to the elevator. But once we entered the next room, Jordan saw the mannequin for the first time.

            “WHOA! We have to fight that!?” He asked.

            “Me and Andria went through this room once before. It doesn’t do anything.” I replied.

            “Um, why is it facing us still?” Andria asked. I hadn’t realized it until now, but the mannequin was facing us

Mannequin as it appeared in the game

just like it did when we had entered to save Jordan. But we had entered from the right last time, when we we’re now entering from the front of the room. It wasn’t the most appealing mannequin either. It was a woman who was slightly bigger than both me and Jordan put together, and she had created an all around disturbing atmosphere that filled the entire room.

            “Did something… or someone turn it?” I asked. We had to keep going. With guns at the ready, we attempted to pass it. As we got a few feet from the middle of the room, I heard something, “Nah, it was just me…” It was The Voice. Immediately the house shook once again. “REMEMBER ME!?” The Voice said again. We all turned toward the mannequin to find it now sprung to life. Immediately I had a vison. I didn’t know exactly what it was, but it was in my house. The vison was in a first person view of someone running out of the front door of my house. The person running looked back to see two people running out the door after him/her and it was night so I couldn't see their faces. The person running headed past the bank and the old Fypon building before it just stopped. I felt weak and dropped to my knees.

            “DEMETRY GET UP!” Andria yelled. The Mannequin spawned four lit candles from its dress part. She threw two of them, one at Jordan and one at Andria. They both jumped out of the way, and candles hit the wall, but then they sprung back towards the mannequin like boomerangs. The mannequin then headed in my direction. Andria and Jordan tried to spray it to death, but the water bounced off of it instead of being absorbed like all the other creatures we had fought up until now. She charged into me which threw me across the room. I was still weak but I didn’t know why. I tried picking myself off the ground. The mannequin began attacking Jordan and Andria with the candles again. Using their guns, they managed to put out each of the candles before the candles could return to her. She stopped for a few moments, but the two of them kept firing. Now the water was being absorbed. I kept trying to get to back on my feet. Soon the mannequin managed to summon more of her candles and deflect our water. I finally managed to stand up and aim my gun, but I was lightheaded and couldn’t fight as well as normal. Something about this boss had some effect on me that didn’t affect Andria and Jordan. We kept putting out each of the candles, and each time, the mannequin became vulnerable. Now that we knew the weakness, we knew how to attack it.

            “Well, you handled that well. Let’s see how you handle this.” The Voice said. Now, the mannequin was targeting me specifically. Each candle and every charge was aimed at my direction. Andria and Jordan tried to take out the candles as much as possible, but they could not take out all of them. Before long I could not stand anymore. My shoulders were bruised from being slammed against the wall, my arms we’re burnt from the candles, and I was even coughing up blood after one hit to the stomach. The battle raged on until after one hit I heard a noise that scared me to near death. My heartbeat. It was pounding in my head, and not naturally. I could hear it loud and clear and knew it was mine because it was in sync with what I was feeling. I could assume that this meant that I was close to death. Just then, the last candle active was put out. Both Jordan and Andria sprayed until disaster struck. Both of their guns stopped working properly and only fired in short bursts, which according to Isaac meant they were out of water. Fortunately, an old theory of mine proved true once again. I used to say that things go my way less than one percent of the time, but when they do, they are worth the other ninety-nine percent. I shot at the mannequin from the floor and managed to kill it. Once I saw the boss burst into pieces all over the room, I rolled on to my back and said, “That was the first boss, and we haven’t even gotten in the elevator yet. So in the words of Gimli, ‘Guaranteed death. Small chance of success. What are we waiting for, let’s kill the heart.’” I contemplated mentioning the vison, but I decided to save it until it became relevant. Best not to be distracted or distract anyone.

            “YES!” Andria yelled pointing at the middle of the room. I was a Super Peppermint. We grabbed it, split it into three pieces, and ate it. My wounds healed and I stopped hearing my heart beating in my head constantly. Isaac then radioed in, “Nice to see you guys managed to stay in one piece. Sorry I couldn’t be there to help, but what can I do about it. But now the entrance to the furnace is yours.” Feeling satisfied, we headed over to the elevator room. Seeing how we were about to enter the furnace, we stopped at the bathroom to fill up our weapons. After that, we installed the gear and, to our surprise, the elevator worked fine and we didn’t need do and/or find anything else.

            “Well we’re not in the furnace yet. And there are these basements that we haven’t even visited yet.” Andria pointed out. Jordan pressed the button to open the elevator and we got inside. I pressed the button that brought us to the furnace. We eventually reached the furnace and the door to the elevator opened. Once we saw what was ahead, we all began to worry. There were candles set up across most of the room, but most of them were burning with blue fire and those that weren’t were the same kind of candles we saw in the room where the Brass Key was found. There was a bathroom which made us feel slightly better, but what we saw next made us all want to cry. There was a giant double door blocking the rest of the floor. There was no way to open it.

            “Well, we kinda had that coming.” Jordan pointed out. “But what are we supposed to do now?”

            “Isn’t it obvious?” Andria replied while pointing to the middle of the door. There was an indent in the shape of a heart in the door. “There is a key in the shape of a heart somewhere in this house, and we have to find it. I thought you played video games.”

            “I do, but I prefer multiplayer games. Like Destiny.”

            “THAT’S MAH BOI!” Isaac chimed in.

            “Team Fortress 2 is a free game and beats Destiny in about every way. Not to mention the game is about as old as the 360. So what’s Destiny’s excuse?” I said.

            “Isaac sucks at PVP’s” Andria stated.

            “SHUT UP! But back to business.” Isaac replied. “The elevator can take you to part of the first floor that you couldn’t access before. Start looking there. I remember that basement three has the houses digestive juices, so better to save that area for another time. The second basement has a long drug out path you’ll need to take with no bathroom until you get back to the elevator, so best see if we can find more Super Peppermints to help you get through it. Floor one is your best option, because I know that there is nothing on floors two and higher.”

            “Well back to the elevator guys.” I complained. “The fire can wait, we’re heading back to frying pan.”

            “Sounds fun.” The Voice laughed.

 

Chapter 6

The Heartless Don’t Feel Pain, Yet We Still Hurt.

            Hopping back into the elevator, we went up to floor one. Looking at the blueprints we found at the beginning of this nightmare, we found which room we were in. Just like on the roof, we were towards the back of the house obviously, and we even found a way to reach the room we started in.

            “Now am I the only who thinks we should head this way? Kinda coincidental that the floor would be designed that way.” Jordan asked. We agreed and began our search for the heart key. On our way there, I began thinking about the boss we just fought and why it got to me like it did. I didn’t go weak when I was separated from the gang in the basement, so it couldn’t have been fear or anything along those lines. I then thought of the vision I had. I did not know who the person in the vision was with absolute certainty, but I thought it was safe to assume it was me. It was my house and considering that nothing out of the ordinary went on in that house in the thirty or so years since it was built, how could it be anyone else. But I had no memory of vision, so I was curious if this was a vision of the future. Just because I am a Christian doesn’t mean that I considered the supernatural impossible, I mean, especially considering where I was at the moment. I began to let the recent events get to me and had trouble focusing on the task at hand and decided to drop my thoughts and put all of my attention on searching the house. The search took longer than we thought, there were quite a few puzzles in the rooms on the way to the beginning room. To clarify there were a decent amount of rooms where we had to leave, go through a few other rooms to find a key or switch, then head back to the room we had just left. Isaac had always managed to help us out with details on where we were to go up until this point too. His memory of where this heart key was or how to reach it was nothing more than either floor one or the bottom two basements. However, we eventually found ourselves one room away from the starting room when we found a big blue chest.

            “FINALLY!” Jordan sighed with relief. Without thinking, we ran towards it when I heard The Voice again,

The carpet as seen in game

“Nope.” Just then, a small hole in the floor opened up and a long red carpet came out. It slithered under the chest like a snake and pulled it through the door and into the starting room.

            “… ISAAC!?” I near yelled. I loved snakes, but that is partially because of how much I fear them. Whoever said that snakes are more afraid of us then we are of them never met me.

            “Well good news and bad news. That thing just stole the heart key.” Isaac replied.

            “Ok so the one shot we have at getting out of this house was just stolen by a long snakelike creature and taken to who knows where. We’ll work around that, no problem. WHAT’S THE GOOD NEWS!?” Andria asked.

            “That was the good news.”

            “… um, alright. EXPLAIN!”

            “The bad news is you have to follow it and kill it in a small room in the basement. Either that or you don’t get the heart key.”

            “Well, bathroom right there, guess what we’re doing guys.”

            Freaking typical. I almost considered it insanity. Filling up our guns, we entered the starting room. Looking to our right, we noticed a sealed door that we ignored earlier had now been opened. Obviously this is where we needed to go. Heading through the door we found it was a staircase heading to the basement and we hurried down. Upon reaching the basement, we saw the red carpet slither into the next room but the blue chest was not with it.

            “After it!” Jordan yelled. Each room we entered we saw the carpet head into the next until finally we entered a room which barred us in.

            “I blame you Demetry! I don’t how this is happening, we all would have been fine if you would have just left that stupid game alone!” Jordan screamed.

            “Look, I didn’t want to play it anyway and YOU were the one who wanted to play it for yourself! You are here because of your own curiosity!” I replied. After some exchange of words, we were about to get into a fist fight but were interrupted by the carpet. It came up out of the floor in small hole while three others opened up. It slithered around the floor before eventually entering one of the three random holes. We had our guns at the ready when four new holes popped up. Again the carpet exited one and headed for one of the other three. I had no problems now. I didn’t feel week and had no visions. It made me curious but I didn’t meditate on it, we were in a boss fight. By shooting at random areas of the carpet we managed to find that the week spot was the first end that exited the first hole, which meant that the best way to get a good shot was to get in its way. Fortunately, the carpet could only hurt you if it managed to drag you into the hole it slithered into. It actually wasn’t hard. Before too long the carpet gave up and slithered into the fire in the fireplace in the room.

            “Suicide is never the answer.” I said jokingly. “Now where is that heart?”

            “Go over a few room.” Isaac claimed. We walked through the rest of this section of the basement where we found a stairway back to floor one. Toward the right end of the floor, we found the blue chest with a few large candles around it. We opened up the chest and looked inside only to be horrified once more.

            “ARE YOU ----ING KIDDING ME!?” Jordan screamed. He pulled the item out to reveal that it was only a third of the heart key.

            “Well, you’ve got no choice, head to the third basement. I forgot that the heart was in three separate piece, so the remaining basements must contain the other pieces. After all, they’re the only floors you haven’t even gone too yet.” Isaac informed us. This was getting absurd. We were constantly on the move, one floor to the next, room to room, and it seemed like the furnace just kept getting farther away.

            Things only managed to get worse once we got in the elevator. We pushed the basement three button and soon ended up in an odor filled sewage area.  In front of us a small porch like area with nothing but a big pool of what we thought was sewage in front of us, but that wasn’t the worse thing about it. Something on the left caught our attention. It was a switch with a note next to it on the wall which read, “Pump for digestive juice is broken, replacement fuse can be found on the fourth floor.”

            “Well, I’m done.” Jordan said.

            “What do you mean you’re done?” Andria asked.

            “I mean I don’t care how bad this crap smells, I’m staying down here. Come back once you get the fuse.”

            “GET OVER HERE!” Andria replied in her best Scorpion voice as she grabbed him by the shoulder.

            Heading up to the fourth floor by elevator, we began a discussion as we search the rooms. We had become so good at shooting down the normal enemies that we could just chat and not give them much thought.

            “So why do you think we are in this ‘Joined Consciousness’ anyway? And why of all things is it in the monster house?” Andria asked.

            “Don’t ask me. Demetry is the one who owned the game, so he should have some idea why we’re here.” Jordan replied. I thought about it for a moment and had a slight idea that might have had something to do with it, “I don’t remember all what was in the game, but I do remember this. Before my family changed chiropractors, we used to take my sister to one that was a bit of a drive away. He also took a bit longer than the one we visit now, so we had a lot of time on our hands whenever she had an appointment so my mom would let us bring our game boys while we waited for her to be done. The game I played most was this one, I had watched the movie and wanted to beat the game but it was actually a long game as we now know. So it does have a bit more significance than other games, and that boss we faced in the attic… it actually reminded me of something. I was scared of something in this game, but I can’t remember what it was. I mean that mannequin was creepy as a kid looking back on it, but I feel like something else in the game really got to me. I also had a vison of someone running out of my house once I saw it come to life.”

            “Really?” Andria asked.

            “Yeah, but I don’t know what it means or if it was something that will happen eventually, something that happened in the past, if it symbolizes something, or if the person in the vison was even me. But that’s about all I know. For now I’m going to assume that it is something that happened in my past because this game obviously has more significance than what I remember and this vison may have something to do with whatever it is. Only makes sense considering when I had it.”

            We discussed possible reasons for being here and other topics along that line until we eventually found the fuse and fixed the pump. After that we pulled the switch to see a doorway in the area where all of the digestive juices once were. On the other side we found there were two crates in the pit we were in. There were also more doorways once we walked up the steps to get out of the pit, and after inspecting what was through the one on the left, we found that this whole area was a bunch of digestion pits. Heading through the door way on the right we found another switch and a note that read, “All pumps on this floor control the juice levels of in all sections of the third basement.”

            “Great, I can see what kind of puzzle this floor is.” Andria groaned.

            I pulled the switch and the pit next to us filled up.

            “Hey, do you think those crates out in that other room had anything to do with this. I mean, could we use them to float to those other doorways we saw?” Jordan asked.

            “Oh, this is the part is going to be JUICY... Oh dear I did not mean for that to be a pun.” The Voice laughed. I shuddered.

            “Now you’re thinking like a gamer.” Andria pointed out.

            In a joking way, Jordan gave Andria a slight shove. The problem was she wasn’t expecting it so she ended up losing her balance and falling in the juices.

            “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!” I screamed as I jumped towards her trying to stop her from falling in. I did not fall in but she did before I could reach her. She was carried away by a current into the room we just left. I ran out to that room but she was already gone by that time. I did not see her at the bottom of the pit, so I knew she did not drown.

            “YOU B------!” I screamed as I pinned Jordan to the wall by his neck. I could feel adrenaline rushing through me, and even Jordan was scared. He was taller than I was and had the build of an athlete, a wrestler to be specific. His upper body compared to mine was like Mike Tyson vs Jim Carry. Yet here he was pinned to a wall and he could not break free.

            “YOU COULDN’T TAKE A JOKE!? NOW YOU ARE GOING TO HELP ME FIND HER AND SHE BETTER BE ALRIGHT! BECAUSE IF SHE’S NOT YOU ARE GOING TO CATCH FURY THAT HELL NOR A WOMAN SCORNED COULD EVER DREAMED UP!”

            He gasped for air as I let him go. Heading back to the room we came from, we saw the two crates floating back and forth between the area where we were and two doorways. It made the third basement tedious but what could we do about it. Isaac radioed in from time to time trying to keep me calm by saying that he thought Andria would be fine because he remember this this this and that in the game which was really similar to our situation, but I wasn’t in the mood for his crap. He was always giving us information a few seconds to late, just like when Jordan was taken. I was constantly swearing under my breath every time we entered a room and Andria wasn’t there. I did not know where she could be even if she was alright, but she must have had enough common sense to grab on to a ledge and pull herself out. Another thing that got me worried was what would happen to her after she did pull herself out. The enemies were now starting to get tougher. A few of the rooms that Jordan and I entered had grey chairs that moved faster than any of us and, I was not sure because we obviously were not willing to find out, might possibly do more damage. After all, if they were faster, then it would not be too much to assume they were stronger.

            “Bro what are we gonna do!? We’ve been looking for her for half an hour with no success! What happened to her, and what if she doesn’t make it!?” Jordan whimpered. I could tell he was devastated for having caused it, but I was not thinking clearly so I responded by backhanding him in the face.

            “WILL YOU SHUT UP! AS LONG I LIVE AND BREATH I’M GOING TO LOOK FOR HER! WE DID THE SAME FOR YOU! NOW STOP WITH THIS POINTLESS ‘what are we gonna do’ BULL---- AND FOCUS ON POSSIBLE WAYS OF FINDING HER!”

            I was soon relieved though. We finally found her as we entered another room. She was cowering in the corner away from the pits of digestive juice. It wasn’t like her though. She was usually strong willed and confident and like everyone else cried every now and then or got down about things, but to cower in a corner was a level she had never went down too. I rushed to her and threw my arms around her and began to cry.

            “Are you ok? I’m so sorry this happened…” I could stop from crying. She meant more to me than anyone.

            “I was… alone…” Andria whimpered. “I hate being alone. Everyone in my life leaves, and I’m left alone.”

            It was true. Every time Andria and I spent time with each other I had a hard time leaving because she would look at me with an upset puppy look and almost get teary eyed. Her father walked out on her family which led her mother to move to the area where she currently lived because they wanted to get away from him. Every single one of her boyfriends before me left her for whatever reason and some of them were pathetic about it. One did not even have the balls to break up with her so he had his mom do it and he did not speak to her for another three months. Her own brother could not care less about her, and probably would not care if she was gone. More than likely would have only made him happier.

            “I’m sorry, but I’m here now.” I gave her a kiss to try to calm her down. I did not know what I would have done without her. I was never going to find someone like her, and I am not just saying that like everyone else does. She was my first girlfriend because everyone else brushed me off, and I cannot say as I blame them. I was homeschooled to ‘keep me safe from all the crap that goes on in public schools’ up until middle school and had a decent bit of catching up to do. I could list four girls off the top of my head that I had showed obvious interest in, and all of them just brushed me off. The fourth one really cut me deep too. I borrowed my grandmother’s silver 2004 Cadillac Deville to take her to my last homecoming in, but after the dance was over, she went home with someone else and even asked for my permission to go home with him while we were slow dancing together. However Andria was the one who showed interest in me. She had even posted a picture on Facebook trying to look cute specifically for the purpose of attracting me. We came a long way since then too. We were not just another couple, we had more history and more significance than most people realized.

            She regained her composer, stood up, walked up to Jordan, and tried to beat the crap out of him. This time it he saw it coming, so it did not even faze him.

            “Look, I’m sorry.” he said trying not to sound careless but still trying to go back to his ‘no craps given’ self “Now that you’re safe we can focus on getting out of here again. Are you with me?”

            “Yeah, let’s just get out of here. I want to leave this place behind.” Andria replied.

            We all headed out of the room, but just as we all got out, The Voice returned.

            “Well that was even better than I expected. Can’t wait to see how react to it now. If you blow my expectations again, I’m in for QUITE the treat!”

            I continued onward now with questions that I apparently would eventually have answers. But I did not think I would like what the answers would be.

 

Chapter 7

The Beast Inside About to Wake.

            The journey through the third basement could be summed up simply after that: drain pits, move through the drained pits, fill pits, and use crates to float across the now filled pits. I blocked all my questions and my worries out, I did not want to worry about what was going to happen, I did not what to focus on what the voice was talking about, and I only cared about getting to the furnace. We had spent about two and a half hours filling and draining before things finally became interesting. In a fairly large room with a small trail of digestive juices connecting the rooms to the left and right, we found a bathroom with a few breakable barrels.

            “Well guys, looks like the room next room has something in store for us.” I said. After filling up our guns, we entered the room on the left with guns ready, but nothing was there. It had a few doorways, one of which was locked, and one was blocked by a decent sized square pit of juice.

            “Well there’s only one possible way to go. Perhaps we’ll find a key and that locked door will have a pump switch in it.” Andria suggested.

            Her idea seemed legit so we followed the theory and sure enough we found a key. We came back the room with the square pit and unlocked the door, and to no surprise there was a pump.

            “Hey Isaac, have any idea how close we are. It’s been a few hours since we last heard from you.” Jordan asked.

            “If my nerd brain doesn’t deceive me, you guys should find it in the room past that pit I heard you talking about. That room will then lead you back to the room with the first two crates you had to float across next to the pump where Andria got lost. You guys can then just take the elevator on up to the second basement where I’m sure the last heart piece will be.” He replied.

            “YAS!” Andria said in a derpy voice. The end was now looked reachable. As we were exiting the pump room however, “Well, it’s not that simple” The Voice said.

            One glance into the pit and we all knew, we had just screwed up. In the pit was a battered and beaten up mannequin from the roof. I immediately had another vison. This time the person running from the house was running past the old Fypon building like he was at the end of my last vison. He eventually made a turn around one of the Sauder’s building where he ran into what looked like someone in a large group of people. Then the vison cut out again. This didn’t scare me, but I now knew that something about the vison was tied to this boss.

            “DIDN’T WE KILL THIS THING EARLIER!?” Jordan yelled. I could understand his frustration, but I noticed something. This boss was moving around in this small pit where it couldn’t get out. The mannequin even ran into the stairway out of the pit but never climbed out. So I looked at Andria and Jordan and said, “Guys, this thing is trapped down there. Plus, I noticed it can’t toss its candles up at us. We can just snipe it from up here.”

            “FINALLY! This is my kinda fight!” Jordan said.

            Shooting down on the boss was a weird challenge and took a bit longer since it now could summon six candles, but before too long it was defeated.

            “… Well that was anti-climactic.” Andria pointed out.

            I had to agree. We got the same Peppermint reward just like we did from the last time we faced it, but this fight was too easy. Isaac then explained that even on the Gameboy it was an easy fight, so we all felt better knowing that there was no catch and we each took a piece of the Super Peppermint. We went to the next room and obtained the second heart piece and headed for the elevator. Once we exited the room where the heart piece was found, a door closed behind us and sealed that area shut.

            “Guess we aren’t coming back here.” Jordan said.

            Riding the elevator to the second basement, I explained to Andria and Jordan what happened in my second vison.

            “I wouldn’t be too surprised if you had more babe. It sounds like they are bits of one long vison, which you know what that means right?” Andria asked.

            “Don’t tell me that sorry excuse of a female model is coming back again.” Jordan complained.

            “Most likely.” I sighed.

            “Ok guys, I know you where you can find blueprints for this floor. Go through the first door way you see, cross that room, and you’ll find yourselves in a room with six blue chest. All of them are fake except for the one on farthest away from you when you come in. That one will have the blue prints. And I’m going to say this now because I finally remembered something BEFORE it’s about to happen. On the blue prints you’ll find a room that leads to a long path of rooms which connect back to the room you are heading to with the elevator. That room contains the last bathroom before that path and once you enter the path, you cannot go back until you reach the elevator room. So be prepared. That is why I had you guys go the third basement in hopes that there would be another Super Peppermint. I have faith in you guys, it’s been quite a journey too. Go get that heart so we can all get out of here and reflect on this journey with satisfaction over a couple Monsters back at Jenson’s place.” Isaac informed us.

            “Thanks bro. Nice to know you’re looking out for us.” I replied

            “Don’t forget I’m here too.” The Voice interrupted.

            I was seriously annoyed by all the comments that came from this whatever it was. It only every said something creepy or announce tragic events. It sort of reminded me of Riuk from Death Note, only I could not see it hovering around me the way Light could see Riuk. Also I had not heard anything about apples. Exiting the elevator upon arrival, we headed to the blue prints that Isaac had told us about and followed them directly to the spot before the long path of rooms. But once we reach the room, I began to panic. This room made me feel weak, similar to the way I had felt back in the attic with the mannequin. It was less extreme this time but I still knew something was wrong.

            “Demetry, you ok?” Jordan asked.

            “I don’t know, and again, I’m not joking. Something about this feels… wrong. You know how it doesn’t hurt when you throw up, but it feels so nasty that you hate it? I feel like that. Something about this room is just evil.” I replied.

            I looked around and noticed that this room was easily of some significance. With a bathroom and breakable barrels, it might have just had a sign that said ‘Third mannequin fight ahead. Your anus… prepare it!’ However, the door to the next room was unlike any that we had come across, and was more impressive than that of the furnace door depending on how you looked at it. It was the side of a cage, like one you would find used to contain animals at the circus. And on the bars there was a chain holding the cage wall in place, locked down with a brass lock.

            “Demetry, your brass key!” Jordan pointed out.

            I just stood there looking at the door. Andria took our water guns to the bathroom and filled them for us.

            “Demetry, what are you waiting for.” Jordan said getting impatient, yet still I did nothing. He walked up to me and gave me a half-harded slap across the face. “DUDE! Your key!”

            I snapped to attention and pulled the key out of my pocket. Andria gave us our guns back and the two of them face the door guns ready at whatever lay ahead.

            “Guys, I think something on the other side of this cage isn’t going to be just another boss. I can feel something more unnatural in here than the rest of the rooms we’ve been in. We’ve got to do this, but be ready for ANYTHING.” I warned them.

            I put the key in the lock, turned it, and the chain dropped to the floor. Shaking like a naked man in a snowstorm I push the door open. I just about peed myself two seconds later when I heard The Voice say, “The moment I’ve waited for for years is about to begin. Don’t disappoint me.”

 

Chapter 8

Do You Believe in Ghosts? This One is From Your Past.

            We entered the room and the cage slammed behind us. Nothing was subtle about this room. There was nothing in this room but the corpse of a huge woman in the middle of the floor. From the look of it, she was once covered completely in cement but the top part of it collapsed revealing her skeleton. Looking around the room there was nothing else except a notebook next to the carcass. Seeing it laying in a room like this meant it was obviously important, so I picked it up. The cover had nothing on it but these words: Demetry’s forgotten tragedy.

            “Your forgotten tragedy? What the heck is that supposed to mean?” Andria asked.

            “Only one way to find out.” I said as I opened the notebook. I read the contents out loud and what I read was as follows:

            ‘Summer 2007. I am a child named Demetry, and I have something to tell anyone reading this. As of recently I have been playing the game Monster House. I have beaten the game by now, but accidentally deleted my save file and could no longer access the room with the arcade cabinet. I wanted to see what would happen if I beat Skull’s record so I played the game through again. But things took a turn for the worst. I’m not the bravest kid, easily not as brave as most other ten year olds. In the dark, images are easy for me to imagine. Any dark shape without color easily makes me cower. My mind just can’t let anything I see go without form, so when I see my closet open at night, I easily turn every shape I see into some terrible creature in my mind. I also studied King Tut as of recently, and that has made corpses scare me quite a bit. Which leads me to this room you are now in. You see, the first time it wasn’t that bad. I was too focused on beating the game that this skeleton didn’t bother me. But replaying this game changed all of that. I knew what to expect now, and I knew I didn’t like what I was about to see. So late at night I couldn’t stop thinking about this stupid thing. Night after night everything I saw somehow looked like this dead body in this room. One night though, things went too far. There was a storm outside and the bulb in my closet was broke, so the light didn’t automatically turn on if the door was open like it should have. I never like looking into a dark empty closet, and everything looked like that skeleton tonight more than any other night. I was panicking for hours and couldn’t sleep, and I was sweating out of every pore. Eventually lightning struck so close to my house that the thunder was deafening. When it hit I was looking at my closest and could have sworn that I saw this skeleton inside the closet clear as day. I screamed and ran out of my bedroom for fear that it would come after me. My parents ran out their room to see what was wrong, but all I saw were these two dark figures and ran out the front door. Adrenaline pumping I ran passed the Fypon building. I knew my way around all the equipment and buildings next to it because my dad used to work there and decided to head for Sauder’s. As I was rounding the last corner before reaching the Sauder’s parking lot, I ran into someone knocking both me and him to the ground. We looked up for a brief moment to see a squad of police all shoot at once. The man I ran into was hit directly between the eyes with one of the shots and for the first time in my life I saw someone die. Blood burst out of his head upon impact too which that on its own would have put me in shock but one of the police hit me right behind my right ear lobe. It didn’t do any permanent harm other than a scar, but the pain combined with everything I just went through made me pass out. I really don’t want to remember this at all, so I’m blocking it out and forgetting it completely. But I have to write it down in memory for what is seen can’t be unseen, which is why you are able to read this. But I’m not going to access this memory any longer. It and everything related to it can just be forgotten. And since this game is what started it all, I’ll have to forget about it too.’

            Blocking it out. Forgetting out it. These where things The Voice had been saying all along. I immediately had a vison of the shooting just like the notebook described. Now I knew why this game was the one we were trapped in. But the question ‘why where we here in a game to begin with’ still remained. I put the pieces together and came to the conclusion that The Voice was the memory of the game inside my head and it was taking revenge for blocking it out. How the memory of a game could do that, I had no idea. But the headaches after replaying the game with my brother finally made a bit more sense now.

            “Hold up.” Jordan said as he grabbed me by the head. He looked behind my left ear and found a scar. “Well then. Never noticed that before.”

            I was curious for a slight moment. How could have gone so long without anyone mentioning anything. My parents would have obviously found out. But that’s when it hit me. My parents where incredibly worried about our family’s image. They would not let me stay overnight with Andria because then others would think we were taking things to ‘too far.’ So for people to find out that their son was involved in a shooting, they would have a heart attack. Even if I was the victim, they would think that someone would spread rumors saying otherwise. So once they found out that I did not remember they probably found it best not to remind me, did everything they could to cover it up, and then they gave the game to my brother once I stopped playing it. Had they known it was involved, they would have thrown it out.

            “Does it say anything else?” Andria asked.

            I looked at the back, “It says, ‘warning, this room contains the final and most deadly form of the manne…’”

            At that moment the mannequin from the roof and third basement came from the floor. This time it looked it had just bean to hell and back. Its mouth was torn open wide, its hair was almost completely gone, and its body was ripped to shreds. It spawned eight candles this time and began its usual attack. I could see why this scared me in my youth, a corpse and a hideous boss fight in the same room with little time to take it in. Fortunately for us, we had gotten somewhat used to this boss. While it was about twelve hours since we fought it first and we did not have to get to close to it the second time, we knew what to expect and our first experience gave us some confidence. However, we did take a bit of a beating, but the three Super Peppermints we had eaten so far gave us enough durability to withstand what the boss threw at us. Once we finally saw the boss explode, I felt incredibly relieved. I had in all honesty destroyed something that had haunted me long ago in what felt like reality. Of course it dropped another Super Peppermint, which was a bonus we were happy to take, and a sealed door open up to the long path the Isaac had warned us about. We walked to the first room and what we saw made me want to cry out of pure joy.

            “A blue chest. Anyone want to guess what it is?” Andria joked.

            Jordan ran to open the chest and he yanked out the last heart peace a held it high.

            “SUCK IT HOUSE!” he yelled.

            I was fairly confident now that no sound we could make could wake the house. But that still did not mean I was going to be loud for no reason.

            “Well guys, your journey is finally coming to an end. We even learned something about Demetry that even he didn’t know about himself. Now let’s kick this house right in the porch!” Isaac encouraged us.

            “Please don’t. Just… don’t.” Andria replied to Isaac’s porch joke.

            Egger now to get out of the house, we mowed down anything that stood in our way on this long path. I will not lie, these enemies we face heading through that area gave us a run for our money. It was such a long trip with no way to heal that we almost lost Jordan and even myself at one point. But we managed somehow. Upon reaching the elevator, we went back to the roof to get a peppermints to recover and then we headed straight for the furnace. On the right down, I got a surge of confidence and rage. Under my breath so that no one could hear me I smiled and said, “What’s the matter Voice? Was that fight not what you were hoping for!?”

 

Chapter 9

Setting Up the Finally.

            The elevator reached the furnace. We stepped out and each of us put in one of the three pieces of the heart into the key hole, after filling up our guns in the bathroom of course. With the key in place we gave the door a gentle push and it began to open on its own from there on. As the door open we stoop weapons free facing whatever we we’re about to see through this door. It was underwhelming. Instead of seeing some massive boss or some long and menacing hallway, it was just another room. Well, it was not anything special but the room did have a bit of a yellow glow to it.

            “Isaac, isn’t this the heart of the house?” I asked.

            “Um… give me a moment… OH! Ok, there is no catch. You don’t have to go find something and come back. The furnace is just its floor, and there is a room containing the actual furnace. You just have to go there. Then you can face it head on.” He replied.

            This was not too upsetting. Easily more tolerable than when we came here only to find that we would have to explore somewhere else to find a key to only then find the key in three pieces. However the furnace was different from the rest of the house. There was a noise that all three of us could hear the whole while we were there. It was a steady beat of drums and other noises that just had the intent of being unsettling. It sounded familiar. I then remembered that this was the theme that played while playing the arcade game, ‘Thou Art Dead’ that my brother wanted me to beat. Here is what it sounded like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ztb_gGhcCig. I soon began to remember more. Throughout the entire game there where only three characters, four including skull. But in the furnace, the characters meet the owner of the house, Mr. Nebbercracker. Everyone in this ‘Joined Consciousness’ so far was someone I knew and each one represented a character from the game. Who was Mr. Nebbercracker going to be? Jenson? We would just have to find out. The furnace area was a bigger pain than any of the other floors. How? While the other floors such as the third basement might have been more tedious, the furnace was actually heated which made just being there a trial, but the enemies where also faster and stronger. Other than that, it was another floor that just so happened to have music. Eventually we did find a bathroom.

            “Well, it’s almost time to get out of here… hopefully” Jordan noted.

            We filled up our guns and move to the roomed on the left. That’s where we saw it. A giant double door like the one we came across in the basement where the Brass Key was, only this one was three times as big.

            “Alright guys, guns at the ready, we’re about to end this once and for all” I said prepping Jordan and Andria.

            Ready to face anything, we all ran towards the door and slammed it open… if it would have opened.

            “Isaac, what’s going on?” Andria asked.

            “Alright guys, I promise that I’ve finally remember it all. The furnace is a giant beast which can tank water guns. The only way to kill it is my favorite way. You have to blow it up.”

            “EXCUSE ME!?” Andria replied in confusion.

            “Plot convenience, Nebbercracker was in a demolition squad. There is dynamite in the first basement. Just head to your left, there will be a path to the basement a few rooms over. That is the last of the road blocks. After this, you can just kill the furnace.”

            We were upset with another task, but hearing him say that this was the last trial managed to lift our spirits enough to keep from complaining. However, in the very next room things went from zero to a hundred. There was a silhouette of someone just standing there.

            “Well, about time. Looks like my time is almost up.”

            I almost crapped myself, it was The Voice. And now we all could hear him.

            “So, I’ll spare you the time of asking. Asking what? Pretty much every question you’d have.” The Voice said. The silhouette than was given detail. It was a middle aged man who looked like he had lived a rough ghetto life.

            “So, before I answer any questions, I have one for you. Do you believe in the supernatural?”

            “Well, the past few days have been a strong argument if that’s a fair answer.” I replied with gun at the ready.

            “You read the notebook in the second basement. You were involved in a shooting and have subconsciously blocked it from you memory. Do you know why there was a shooting? Me. Wanted in multiple states on charges of pretty much everything, I was finally about to escape capture just like I did at least a dozen times before. I had quite the reputation, and even was given the nickname, ‘Thrill.’ Why? Because there was nothing I wouldn’t do just for the pure joy of knowing all the chaos I could cause and get away with. I’m was the kind of guy who could be used as a death penalty argument. Not only that but I could give the detective L, Mello, and Near a run for their money. Nobody even knew what I looked like or what my name was. Why? Well if my victims could explain that. That is, if they weren’t dead… and still had a face. That one con man was probably my favorite disguise, he just fit me. Literally ‘fit’ me. But my ego is big enough as it is, back to the point. That night outside of Sauder’s, I was messing around and was purposely sloppy to give the police a lead. Of course they didn’t suspect me to be thrill, they would have been much more prepared if they knew it was me. But I was on track to bring in the police and slip from their grasp like I had done so many times before. But that’s when you showed up. I planned out my escape route and you just so happened to be in the way at the worst of all times. I could still be alive right now, f---ing with the law just for the fun of it, but no. My life cut short because some kid was a being a little p---y. Due to my gruesome nature and since so little was known of me, my death wasn’t found much on any form of media. Even the internet barely has anything on me.”

            “So how are we here!? Get to the point!” I screamed.

            “As you will one day find out, there are a few things after death that nobody knows about. You know how some people believe they are protect by a guardian angel? Just one of the many unspoken gimmicks of death. Before your soul goes to Heaven or Hell, you are allowed to return to earth to, oh how do I put this? ‘Complete a task’. Some people pass this up if there are going to Heaven because they just want to pass on, but those like me who don’t have the pleasure almost never do. Some people come back to save a relative or to help a relative get a better life. That is the guardian angel thing that you see so much of. But me, I came for revenge. Taking all those hidden memories to recreate this game that terrorized you as a child and force you and your loved ones to live through it. Unfortunately I was trapped in your mind for so long since you blocked me out along with all memories of the game, but once you played it again, the dam slowly began to break. It was only a matter of time before I was able free myself and bring you all here in your mind. But this is almost over now. I know my time is up, the finally is almost here. To hell with me then.”

            He disappeared after that. We had our answer now. It was farfetched, but we we’re being force to relive a game that terrorized me as a child in my mind. It sounded dumb to say it out loud, so we decided to just drop it. We were back on track and found are way to the first basement again. We looked at the blueprints to see where we were and then see if we could conclude where the dynamite would be. We developed a theory that the room was this fairly large room that was a bit farther out from the rest, we headed there. Of course we came across some room puzzles and enemies, but nothing special. In time we reached our destination. To no surprise we found a blue toy chest with dynamite in a corner of the room.

            “I’m actually REALLY excited to do this! LETS BLOW SOME S--- UP!” Andria scream.

            “I just want to get out of here. Apparently there is wind in the void, and I didn’t realize that until it was time for a bathroom break. Thank GOD my mouth wasn’t open.” Isaac added.

            “I’m…. weak!...” Jordan laughed as he dropped to the floor.

            “Well, this was actually kind of fun guys, image what kind of stories we can remember down the road. But let’s get out of here first.” I said.

            We walked back to the room that the furnace had taken us. Along the way we heard some strange noise like something broke as me and Andria were walking through the door to last room before the furnace.

            “What was that?” She asked.

            “Let’s check, carefully though… where is Jordan!?” I freaked.

We headed back through the door to find Jordan being slammed into the ground repeatedly by some wires that had popped up from the floor.

Chapter 10

Final Hour.

            “JORDAN!” I screamed running towards him. I aimed my gun at the wires, but as soon as I did they dropped him. He was barely able to stand, and his body was beaten black and blue on almost every literal inch of him, at least from what we saw through his ripped clothing. His eyes slowly opened as he looked at me.

            “Well… ain’t that a b----…” Jordan said before falling down.

I ran to his side crying. Considering the wires let him go and none of us had ever been beaten this badly before, I feared the worst.

            “Jordan… get up…” I whimpered.

            “Not this time. I physically can’t. At least now I can finally stop fighting this house, shame that I never got to see the furnace though.”

            “JORDAN GET UP RIGHT NOW!”

            “Ain’t happenin’. You guys are almost there, don’t give up now.”

            “Jordan… you’re my closest friend. In a time where I had no friends, you where there. I’ll carry you. Let me return the favor. Please.”

            “I’m fading dude. Carrying me will just slow you down. Face it, I’m gone.”

            “PLEASE JORDAN!”

            “You want to return the favor? Then promise me one thing.” He grabbed my hand and I pulled him up. “When you enter that room with the heart of this house…” He pulled himself up to my left ear. “Give it my regards. An a-- whoopin’ and a headstone.” He then fell over.

            I checked his pulse but could not feel any. I sat there and cried for a few seconds as Andria tried to comfort me. Jordan was the reason I had even met Isaac and our friend Jenson in the first place. For years people passed me off as some weird kid and continued to only spend time with the friends they had already made. That was what I got for being sheltered until the seventh grade. Despite this, Jordan was willing to spend his spare time with me, even though his spare time was almost nonexistent. We formed a bond so tight that I used to make the comment that we made even the best of friends look like they were at each other’s throats. He was like family to me. I even openly called him a brother.

            I pick him up and walked into the next room where I sat him down next to the stairway to the furnace. I put his water gun in his hands and wiped some of the blood from his face onto my finger. On his gun, I used his blood to write the number, ‘116.’ A reference to his favorite Bible verse which talked about being unashamed for Christ. It was so special to him that it was even put it in some of his gamertags. Me and Andria went back to the furnace and ended up back in front of the giant door.

            “Do it for Jordan!” Isaac exclaimed right before me and Andria busted the door down.

            There we saw it. This massive dome furnace. Pipes leading to all the floors of the house, and opening on the front which made for eyes and a mouth.

            “NOW THE END HAS COME!” The Voice shouted.

            The furnace was a formidable foe. Its weakness was these two opening on the sides that remained shut until we knocked it out with our water guns. The only trouble was to knock it out we had to shoot it in the mouth as it tried to suck us in, and you do not want to be in the way of a giant death heater capable of breathing fire. Andria and I developed a strategy where I would not the house out since my gun was a bit more powerful and she would throw sticks of dynamite in since she was the faster one. We took a few blows from the monster every now and then, but before we knew it, the furnace let out a deafening squeal of metal on metal before passing out once more.

            We had won. I punch the front of the furnace and yelled, “THAT’S FROM JORDAN!”

            “DEMETRY! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING!? RUN!” Isaac yelled over the walkie talkie.

            “Why, we just won.” I replied.

            “DUMBA--! THAT DYNAMITE HAS TO BLOW BEFORE YOU WIN! A NEW PATH TO THE STARTING ROOM HAS OPENED THROUGH THE DOOR ON THE LEFT, NOW MOVE IT IDIOT!”

            Andria and I made a break for it. We followed Isaac’s instructions back to the starting floor. On our way we even came across the sealed room on the first basement where we found the Brass Key. Turns out the door had to be opened by a lever from the other side, but we were going to yell at Isaac for forgetting that later. We made it back to the starting room and pulled on the front doors with all our strength.

            “HURRY! THAT GIANT NET LAMP IS THE UVULA! SHOOT IT AND IT WILL BARF YOU OUT!” Isaac yelled hurriedly.

            We climbed the stairs to get a better shot and unloaded clip.

            “Well, that’s it I guess.” The Voice said.

The house barfed and we were sent flying into the void. We looked back at the house to see it explode into a million and a half splinters a few seconds later. Next thing we knew we both woke up beside Isaac in side by side hospital beds.

            “HEY! YOU’RE UP!”

It was Jenson.

            “You guys have been out for a few days. I decided visit, and I’m glad I did.”

            “Well, let’s NOT do that again.” Andria said.

            This was kind of an awkward moment. I was hoping that it was all just a really detailed dream, but now I knew it was real.

            “Get this, you all woke up at the same time. And Isaac, you snore like a bear. But Jordan is still out cold” Jenson commented.

I looked over to find Jordan still out cold. His heart monitor showed that he was still alive. I got excited for a moment before I caught a glimpse of red on his shirt. I pulled back his blanket just enough to find ‘116’ written in blood across his chest in my handwriting.

“He isn’t waking up.” I said. “But I know he’s satisfied with how we beat the house.” I pointed to his face as everyone turned to look. Even though he was braindead, that idiot managed to smile in approval. “May Ban Presto Heaven welcome you old friend.”

Written By: DC Swag