For all of Alex’s bluster he was soon proved wrong. Apparently even the smartest freshman at Hinan academy was no match for the puzzle that was the second dungeon floor. Though they tried on the following Sunday, and the two Sundays after that the “Diving Club”, as they’d taken to calling themselves, failed miserably.

“I don’t get it,” Alex muttered looking down over his notebook. “I’ve mapped the entire place twice and it just goes in a big circle. Well, it’s a little more complicated than that but basically it goes nowhere and the only exit is the elevator. There’s no creatures or people on this floor. In fact there’s really nothing except solid concrete walls and crappy fluorescent lights that give me a headache.”

“I think staring at that paper is what’s giving you a headache,” Ethan said from his position in front of the TV where he was currently trying to “practice” killing aliens.

“We’re missing something, I know it,” Alex said refusing to look up. “If I can just figure out what it is we can move on.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t be holding my breath,” Ethan quipped.

“You know, you could help,” Alex spat iritably.

“How would someone as stupid as me be able to help when even a self-proclaimed genius is struggling with it?” Ethan asked mockingly.

“Oh shut up,” Alex said laughing and threw the notebook at Ethan causing him to lose focus on the game and promptly die on screen.

“Ahhh,” Ethan grunted setting down the controller in frustration. “Every single time.”

“Face it, if Earth is ever invaded and you’re all that stands between the human race and annihilation, we’re screwed,” Alex said.

“Let’s hope my last soccer game goes better tomorrow,” Ethan muttered sourly.

“Tomorrow’s your last game?” Alex asked surprised. “You don’t have playoffs like Quin?”

“No, we’ve done alright but not well enough to make the playoffs,” Ethan said. “If we can pull off a win tomorrow at least we’ll end the season on a positive note and have something to work off of for next season.”

“Sounds like you all just didn’t try hard enough,” Alex said smiling. “If you had you’d be able to remind us about your upcoming playoff game at least twice during every dinner and once per class.”

“God,” Ethan muttered rolling his eyes. “I didn’t think she was capable of showing excitement for something, but apparently I was wrong. If I have to keep hearing about that game I’m going to purposely root for the opposing team.”

“You may want to,” Alex said seriously. “Do you have any idea of how insufferable she’s going to become if they win and progress further?”

Ethan frowned feeling like he should have more loyalty towards Quin. They were after all sort of friends. She ate dinner with him alot of nights and the two of them ran together three mornings a week in addition to the time they spent together in the dungeon, yet part of him resisted classifying her as one. Even though he knew it was stupid he just couldn’t help but dislike her. She was rude, self-centered, and had this way of making you remember all of your flaws.

“Well I’m going to bed,” Ethan said. “I’ve got classes in the morning and then that game in the afternoon tomorrow. If you’re gonna stay up and play, can you please keep the volume low.”

“Yeah, sure thing,” Alex said moving into Ethan’s chair when Ethan got up to get ready for bed.

Alex had been a whole lot more amenable since Ethan saved his brother and usually was pretty courteous about his video game playing. Gone were the days were Ethan fell asleep swearing he was in a war zone because of the booming sounds of violence coming from the television. Instead he usually fell asleep to very muffled sounds of violence and a glow coming from the TV, neither of which bothered him as he was used to falling asleep in conditions that were far from ideal.

While the investigation was making no progress, and the dungeon was completely outwitting them, Ethan at least was managing to get through his classes, even if he was only scraping by in a couple of them. Drawing & Painting was going to be a very close call on if he passed or failed it for the semester. He actually didn’t want to know what would happen if he failed it. He’d pass math, thanks to Bella helping him, but it wasn’t going to be pretty. At least he’d have P.E. and History to help pull his GPA up so his mom wouldn’t completely lose her mind when he went home for Christmas break.

In a few weeks he would head back to Fresno for the first time since he’d come to Misty Oaks and Hinan Academy. It felt weird to think about, but he felt like a different person than the one who first arrived here back in August. So much happened since then and now he had the dungeon, the Black, and all of the craziness around him to worry about. Sleep didn’t come easily to Ethan that night as his mind refused to shut down and worries bounced around it.

The next morning a heavy fog had settled in Misty Oaks and was blanketing the school grounds. Ethan struggled through both Biology and P.E. because of his lack of sleep from the night before. Thorton seemed especially irritated that one of his players was so tired on the morning of a big game and Ethan was given a special assignment for Biology that was due the following Tuesday.

Luckily Rockfort was less inclined to work them hard in P.E. as she knew many of her students had games that afternoon and she had no desire to tire anyone out before the match. For once she seemed inclined to follow Gavin’s lead and allow the class to be lazy something that everyone except for Quin appreciated.

After gym Ethan ate a light lunch and then changed in the gym and made his way over to the soccer field where Thorton was already barking at players to warm up. Today’s game was a home game which normally was a good thing except that today the visibility was going to be awful. He could barely see half of the field at once, the fog was so thick. It was going to be a nightmare finding open players marking players on the opposing team.

“Russell,” Thorton barked as Ethan came up to where the coach was standing. “Get out there and start warming your legs up. I don’t want to see any sluggishness like I saw during class. This is our last game of the season and I want to go out with a positive result.”

“Yes, sir,” Ethan answered beginning to run short laps around the field.

At this point after spending so much time running with Quin he barely felt it when he ran short distances like this. He was easily in the best shape of his life and for all the grumbling he gave and how much he hated getting up early and doing it, it made his life on the soccer pitch so much easier. Most of his games lately he found himself running circles around the opposition by the end of the game because his stamina was so much better than the opposing players. Quin might not be his favorite person, but he had to give her credit where credit was due. She knew what she was doing and he benefited from that alot.

Of course while his legs and lungs worked perfectly for him while he warmed up, he couldn’t say the same thing about his eyes. He narrowly managed to avoid collisions a couple of times and saw that several of the other players on both his team and the opposing team weren’t so lucky. Honestly it was dangerous playing a game in thick fog like this, but he doubted Thorton would call the game off for anything short of the field falling into the ocean.

After all of the players warmed up their legs by running, Thorton put them through a couple of drills to get them ready for what the conditions would be like when trying to pass and shoot the ball. It wasn’t easy. Ethan, Lee, and multiple other players completely missed the ball on a couple of occasions when they went to kick it. Judging by the frown on Thorton’s face, the second time Ethan did this, he was pretty sure the man was not pleased.

Still there was a game to play and Ethan was determined, maybe not as determined as Thorton, but determined none-the-less to finish the season on a good note.

When the teams lined up and the game started a few minutes later it was a mess. Neither team was able to handle the conditions well and to call it sloppy would be an understatement. Passes were missed, there were multiple whiffs on shots, and the keepers might as well have not been playing for all the good they did in net.

At halftime it was five to four in favor of Hinan Academy and Ethan had scored a couple of goals though this was partially offset by the fact that he was directly responsible for a goal the opposing team scored.

In the second half Ethan scored again leading to his first ever hattrick. Actually to be more precise he ended the game with four total goals which he would have liked to call heroic but if he was being honest, he knew it had more to do with the inability to defend well in the fog than anything he did. Still his four goals helped Hinan eek out a win by the score of eleven to ten, which was just a ridiculous scoreline, but then it had been a ridiculous game.

While Ethan felt please, but somewhat unsatisfied with the game, Thorton was ecstatic. The man clapped all of his players on the back and actually hugged Ethan which felt a bit awkward coming from the normally sour-faced biology teacher.

As he was getting ready to leave Ethan noticed Quin walking over towards him. Did she watch the match? Surely she couldn’t have seen much if she did.

“Congrats on the win,” she said giving Ethan a rare grin. “You’ve improved from the first time we played against each other.”

“Thanks, but honestly I got lucky today,” he replied. “The defenders couldn’t see anything. Actually I’m not sure how you saw anything yourself.”

“It was difficult but I was able to see enough,” she said. “Give yourself more credit, you played well, I think you’ll have a real shot of making varsity next year.”

“I don’t know about that,” Ethan muttered feeling this statement was a stretch. “I’m surprised you came to the match today. Did your team not have a game?”

“We have the week off in order to prepare for the big game next week,” Quin said happily. “You’ll be at that game of course?”

“I told you I would be,” Ethan replied flatly thinking me and everyone else you made promise to come.

“Excellent, well then I’ll see you bright and early tomorrow for training,” Quin said starting to walk away.

“Training?” Ethan asked alarmed. “My season just ended so I don’t think that--”

“Just because the season’s over doesn’t mean you get to stop training,” Quin cut him off. “You need to keep training so that you’re actually in shape come the beginning of next season.”

Ethan wanted to protest but then he caught Thorton’s eye who was nodding in agreement a couple feet away.

“Fine, tomorrow morning then,” Ethan snapped gritting his teeth and mentally cursing at both Thorton and Quin.

If Ethan was being honest with himself he would admit that when the next morning came and he got up and went for his morning run with Quin it was a comfort. It was part of his routine and a routine that he’d grown comfortable with. Of course he wasn’t being honest with himself so he complained and grumbled from the moment his alarm went off until the two of them finished their run.

They waited until after lunch to meet up for diving club as usual though he’d have liked to get an earlier start on it today with their general lack of progress on clearing the second floor, but Alex had church in the morning and the four of them were committed to sticking together for this.

“I heard you won your game yesterday, congrats,” Bella said.

“Thanks, yeah it was a mess with all of the fog, couldn’t see a thing hardly, but we managed to stumble our way through it,” Ethan answered. “Who told you?”

“Quin,” Bella said, glancing at the other girl.

“And why weren’t you there?” Alex asked. “That’s not being a very good friend you know.”

“I had Model UN,” Bella said blushing furiously. “I would have made it if I could have.”

“I didn’t see you there Alex,” Quin said staring at him.

“That’s because I wasn’t there because soccer is super boring and I had better things to do,” Alex replied grinning at her.

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“Did those better things to do involve playing video games until two in the morning?” Quin asked.

“No,” Alex said defensively. “I only played until one in the morning, thank you very much, and I still went to church this morning, unlike the rest of you.”

Bella looked uncomfortable while I just shrugged and Quin said, “I don’t do the religious thing.”

“You should,” Alex stated. “It’s good for the soul, which this dungeon has basically all but confirmed exists by the way.”

Quin just stared blankly back at him in response.

“It’s your call,” Alex said trying and failing to look unconcerned. “I don’t care either way, but I know I’m in a good place with God if anything happens down here.”

“Let’s just get going,” Ethan said wanting to change the topic. “If this goes anything like the last couple times we’ll be lucky if we’re done by dinner.”

“Don’t worry,” Alex said striding over to the elevator and hitting the call button. “I’ve got a good feeling about today. I’ve got my map and prayed for help in church so today is the day that we crack this floor.”

Though he’d been wanting to change the topic a second ago Ethan just couldn’t help himself and he asked, “So what your saying is you hadn’t been praying for help the previous few times we failed miserably?”

“No, I did those times too,” Alex said, glancing away.

Fat lot of good that seems to have done then, Ethan thought smugly.

“I’m sure God is listening to you,” Bella said walking up next to Alex. “My grandmother always says that he listens, but don’t always help in the way you expect him to.”

“Exactly,” Alex said smiling at her and seizing on the help she gave him.

The elevator slid open and the four of them climbed aboard before we hit the button for the second floor and went down into the dungeon. When they exited the elevator to the second floor looked the same as it always had with its concrete walls and fluorescent lights hanging from the ceiling.

“Lead on Alex, you’re the one with the map,” Ethan said already hating the way the place looked and preparing myself for hours of staring at these grey walls.

“Yeah, yeah,” Alex said walking over to the wall where a light switch was next to the opening to the next room.

Why there were light switches down here he had no idea, but there were and they worked. They either turned the ceiling lights on and off perfectly. They’d discovered this on their second trip down to this floor after curiously testing the switches a couple of times.

Naturally Alex flipped the switch off plunging the room into almost total darkness save for the faint glow coming from the lights in the adjacent room.

“Alex, turn the lights back on,” Bella demanded.

Bella wasn’t very fond of darkness, which they’d discovered back when they’d initially shut the lights off the first time down here when testing the switches.

“Oh, what was that?” Alex exclaimed sounding surprised.

“What was what?” Bella asked with alarm in her voice.

“I think something just touched my leg,” Alex said.

“Alex,” Quin said sounding annoyed.

“There it was again,” Alex said sounding like he was moving away from his original position.

“Alex, quit being a--,” Quin started before she was cut off by the sound of Bella’s scream followed by raucous laughter coming from Alex.

Feeling my way around the wall I located the light switch after a minute and flipped it back on to find Alex doubled over on the floor near an alarmed Bella who was quickly turning into an angry Bella.

“That wasn’t funny,” Bella yelled at him. “You know I hate the idea of something grabbing me in the dark.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Alex said wiping away a couple of tears and looking anything but sorry. “I just couldn’t resist. Man I thought you would scream but that was even better than my expectations.”

“Here,” Quin said walking over and picking up the yellow axe where Bella dropped it. “Next time hit him with it instead of dropping it.”

“Okay Alex, lead on,” Ethan said already feeling irritable, which to be fair didn’t take a whole lot for him.

“This way,” Alex said moving down the concrete tunnel to their left.

Ethan, Quin, and Bella followed after him and for the next couple hours they slowly and meticulously looked over every wall as they wound their way through the concrete maze. Once again though after they made it all the way back around to the elevator they were no closer to solving the mystery that was the second floor than when they started.

“I don’t get it,” Ethan said seriously annoyed. “We checked every freaking surface in this place and ultimately it just goes in a big circle. All the walls and floors are solid concrete and other than the lights and light switches there is nothing else even down here.”

“There’s definitely something we’re missing,” Alex said thinking.

“Of course there’s something we’re missing,” Ethan snapped. “Whatever it is we’ve been missing it for weeks. I’m starting to see gray walls in my sleep.”

“Maybe we should call it a day,” Bella suggested looking at Ethan with concern.

“I’m fine,” Ethan muttered.

“Why don’t you try to cut through one of the walls with your sword,” Quin suggested to Ethan.

“Oh yeah because that will work,” he retorted sarcastically the rage inside of him instantly boiling back to the surface. “The blade is sharp, but those walls are thick as hell. If I even tried the blade would just snap and then I’d have to wait for it to recover.”

“I don’t see you coming up with any suggestions,” Quin replied keeping her voice level.

“What suggestions would you like?” Ethan asked seething. “Maybe we could sacrifice a chicken in the middle of the floor and pray that it did something, or we could knock four times on each wall and hope that some person somewhere heard the secret signal. Better yet why don’t we have you just shoot out all of the lights with your bow and arrow, then at least you wouldn’t be talking.”

Quin’s eyes narrowed at him but she otherwise didn’t respond, instead it was Alex who exclaimed, “Would you two shut up? I’m trying to think.”

Angry Ethan wasn’t finished yet though and now his ire turned on Alex who he asked, “Hey Alex what does your map say? Does it say that Quin should shoot out all of the lights to keep her from making stupid suggestions? Oh right. Your map doesn’t say anything useful because all it’s done is walk us around in a giant circle.”

“Ethan,” Bella said softly to him placing one of her hands on his shoulder. “I know your frustrated. We all are, but Alex and Quin aren’t to blame for this.

His eyes flicked over to Bella’s eyes and upon meeting them the boiling rage inside of him cooled. At first he was going to snap at her too, but she was being so earnest he couldn’t bring himself to be mad at her too. Worse than that she was right. It wasn’t Quin or Alex’s fault and he knew that.

Taking a deep breath he said, “You’re right. Quin, Alex, I’m sorry I snapped. I admit that this place gets under my skin and makes me just want to punch the dungeon in the face, if it had a face.”

Shrugging Quin said, “teams need to clash occasionally to grow stronger.”

Alex didn’t respond right away, but continued to mutter to himself until after a few minutes he finally said, “Yes that’s got to be worth trying.”

“What is worth trying?” Ethan asked.

“Well, you’re pointless tantrum aside from letting us know that you need some anger management,” Alex started causing Ethan to grit his teeth, “gave me an idea. The lights are the only thing down here beside the walls so what if we go around and flip all of the light switches off one by one.”

“What purpose is that going to serve?” Ethan asked.

“Here me out,” Alex replied putting his hands up placatingly. “It’s one of the only things I think to try and my thought is what if the light switches do more than just turn the lights off and on. What if they also open up a section of the wall or something that looks sealed right now? That’s my theory anyways.”

“It’s worth a shot,” Quin said looking convinced.

Bella on the other hand looked horrified and very much had an expression like she object but her passive personality betrayed her and kept her mouth shut.

“Sure, let's try it,” Ethan said. “If nothing else at least we can check it off the list of stuff to try.”

Working methodically they worked their way through the second floor shutting the lights off as they went. Bella clung close to Ethan at all times and looked to be on the verge of making a run for the elevator.

Once they finally reached the last light switch Alex said, “If my theory is right, when I flip this we should hear a rumbling or something to indicate a new way forward is open and don’t worry both Quin and I have phones we can use as flashlights to navigate back.”

“Just flip it,” Ethan ordered feeling Bella squeezing onto his arm tighter and tighter with one of her hands.

Alex did as he was told and flipped the switch plunging them into complete and total darkness. Ethan waited and waited for the sound of moving walls but all that answered was silence.

Finally after a minute he asked, “Have any of you heard anything?”

“Maybe something opened on the other side of the floor?” Quin suggested from somewhere to his left.

“Maybe,” Alex muttered but sounded less than convinced.

“If we’re moving can we please turn the lights back on in here,” Bella asked squirming on my arm.

“Yeah sure,” Alex muttered, “but I don’t get it. I thought for sure that would do something.”

Right as he said this a faint blue glow materialized out of the darkness across the room and a terrible angry shriek erupted.

Squinting hard at the blue glow Ethan could just make out the figure of a woman with long dark black hair who was wearing what looked like a plain white kimono of all things. Her skin was blue or at least looked that way because of the blue light emanating from it. As if that wasn’t creepy enough though, there were two jagged black horns protruding from the top of her head and her long thin fingers ended in wickedly sharp claws.

“What is that?” Bella whispered shaking.

“I don’t know,” Ethan answered and added, “I don’t think it’s friendly.”

As if on cue his eyes locked onto to its eyes, giant pits of blackness, and it sprang at them unleashing another cry. It flew through the air like a hawk in full dive, flying straight at them. Quickly Ethan pushed Bella to the side to get her clear and only barely managed to get his sword up into a defensive position right as it hit him.

The force of the impact knocked him backwards and caused him to drop his sword which with everything in complete darkness except for the blue glow coming from the demon lady, ghost, or whatever she was, meant that he would never find it. Grunting he pushed himself back to his feet just in time to catch the woman licking sharp black teeth with an abnormally long tongue.

“Ethan are you alright?” Alex asked.

“I’m alive,” Ethan grunted circling blindly in the darkness to his left, never taking his eyes off of the woman. “Lost my sword though.”

“Over here,” Alex yelled banging on his shield. “Yes you, you stupid woman.”

The woman seemed genuinely torn. On one hand she clearly wanted to attack Ethan again, but on the other hand the racket Alex was making was very tantalizing. Finally she made a decision, Alex and his noise was too much to resist and she shot straight at him hitting his shield like it were a gong.

To Alex’s immense credit he actually managed to hold onto the shield even with it vibrating wildly in his hands. She clawed at it, creating several long gashes down the front of it but didn’t manage to get past it.

Apparently at this point Quin decided it would be a good time to shoot at the thing. This sort of worked in that she managed to hit it with a couple arrows which stuck into the woman’s back. Unfortunately she also hit Alex who yelped as a green arrow sunk into the spirit armor at his right shoulder.

“Sorry,” Quin yelled. “It’s hard to see.”

“No kidding,” Alex snapped. “Maybe you shouldn’t be firing that thing in almost the complete dark.”

Whatever else was going to be was lost in the angry cry the woman unleashed as her head snapped toward the darkness in the general direction Ethan believed Quin to be in. A second later it detached itself from Alex and shot in that direction.

The sound of rapidly running footsteps echoed through the room and a second later Ethan heard a yell and a grunt to his left.

“Bella?” Quin’s voice asked. “Sorry, I couldn’t see you.”

Oh no, Ethan thought, seeing the blue woman closing in on the area the sound came from.

“Look out you two,” he yelled feeling completely helpless.

A second later he could see the glowing woman on top of Quin ripping into her spirit armor with its claws. The girl didn’t scream instead just grunted and looked somewhat shocked. Please hold, Ethan mentally begged her armor. He had no idea how much punishment the stuff could take, but it couldn’t be a whole lot.

He never made it all the way to her because Bella let out a shriek to match the ghost woman’s and fell on her and Quin like a mad woman with her axe. It was hard to make out in the blue glow coming from the woman but from what he could see Bella was slamming the sharp end of her axe again and again into the woman’s back even as she tore at Quin with her claws.

After a few seconds all went completely, terrifyingly dark and Ethan’s mind raced. Were they alright? Was Quin even still alive?

“Bella, Quin?” he heard himself call out. “Are you two okay?”

Sobs responded though he wasn’t sure who they were coming from though they were quickly cut off by the dungeon booming, “ “Congratulations, you have cleared the second floor by defeating the Aoandon. The third floor is now available to you.”

As soon as the dungeon stopped speaking the sound of sobbing returned and Ethan yelled,” Alex get the lights quickly. We need to check on the girls.”

“We’re alright,” Quin’s voice said shakily and Ethan was never so glad to hear the sound of her voice in his life.

Sure he fully would admit that he wasn’t the biggest fan of the girl, but that didn’t mean that he wasn’t to see her hurt or killed.

It took Alex about thirty seconds longer than Ethan was comfortable with to find the light switch, but when he finally turned the lights on Ethan could finally make out the two girls. Bella was on her knees with her axe discard and sobbing vigorously into her hands while Quin lay on her back with the center of her spirt armor completely destroyed. Several long gashes appeared to have ripped through her closes near her midsection and she was bleeding from her stomach by the looks of it.

“Quin,” Ethan said hurrying over to her, “you’re bleeding.”

“They’re shallow,” Quin said grunting and pushing herself up into a sitting position. “Basically just scratches. Check on Bella.”

They look like more than just scratches to me, Ethan thought but did as he was told and gently placed a hand on Bella’s back. She looked up at him still sobbing and then buried her face into his shoulder.

“It’s alright Bella,” Ethan said soothingly. “You’re alive, we’re all alive and you did really well. You killed that thing and saved Quin’s life.”

“I freaking hate the dark,” Bella said between sobs while Alex came over and helped Quin to her feet.

“Well between you and me,” Ethan said, “I think you won this round. The dark will think twice before messing with you again.”

She laughed between a sob in response and said, “I just lashed out instinctively, I didn’t really think about it.”

“Hey if it works, it works,” Ethan replied. “Come on, let's get you on your feet and get out of here, besides I think Quin’s wounds need looking after.”

She allowed him to help her to her feet and the four of them made their way back through the second floor and out of the dungeon.