"We gathered today to talk about Samson's behavior, but not only that. The fact that you messed up my plan I haven't forgotten"

Tian said while sitting at the sofa, the others stood around him like some sort of gang.

"Samson! You acted without consulting anyone, I hope this won't happen again, as for the rest of you, you should have consulted with me about the escape from the hotel, if you all wanted in on the action, all you had to do is state it and not sneakily backstab me"

Tian was serious about the second, the first he honestly didn't care much, the but they had to be more organized than this, as of now they had to work as a group, not as a rubble.

"I believe that we have to change leadership, who thinks that I would make a better leader?"

David came forward, but to his words there were more people that thought they would make better leaders than both him and Tian. Jonas and Sydney also wanted to be leader of the group, with the perk of deciding what the group would do next being one that everybody wanted.

In the end however Tian was still the one elected leader, because of one simple fact, he was the only one whom had survived multiple missions and he had a house. The "veterans" all leaned towards him, even Jonas who wished to be leader understood that fact, David didn't know why he was losing so much against Tian, truthfully he could solve most problems twice as well as Tian could, but his social skills were really bad.

Back at the mansion there was a similar scenario going on. Three people were "fighting" for the leadership of the survivors, Chrysa, Mike and Nick.

Back at the mansion they spent most of their time carrying furniture into the attic and making themselves at home.

Chrysa was influential and liked to order people around. Mike was helpful and was the only other male in the group other than Nick, whom didn't do anything for anyone, all he did was explain how things worked.

"We survive for as long as it takes for the others to finish, a month the longest they will have finished, what they had to do is learn how to cure horse meat and make themeselves at home. It would also be preferable if they learnt how to shoot a gun before the mission ends.

Hera shouted as she came inside, once more throwing a fit.

-Nick you should put Chrysa in her place!

-Don't bother me with your girl quarrels, I don't care

-But she calls herself the leader!

-So what?

-She's undermining your authority as leader

-Why should I care, you understand that we only have a few days before we are forced to live in the secret piece, just do your best to make the wait sufferable

-What about Mike, he's like a thorn on my side, always helping others do stuff and never finishing his own tasks

-He's a good lad, one of these days he'll start posing as the benevolent leader

-Impossible, he's a wuss

-How do you know, I think he's the most dangerous person here

-Is it because he's a man?

-No, it's because he's smart, if he was a wuss or an idiot he would have gone with those "Heroes", there's only two reasons to stay behind

-What reasons?

-Knowing his own limits and trying to learn how to survive

-You think that he's not doing his tasks, but reality is that he's weighting the pros and cons of doing each task and found that the tasks you give him are not needed for survival

-But only he can help take the cupboard up to the attic

-Do we need it?

-It would look great next to the sofa

Nick gave up on trying to reason with what was nessessary and what not, the woman was drunken with power, she viewed herself as the queen and Chrysa and Mike were thorns in her side.

Nick didn't care one bit about this struggle for power, he only cared about his own survival.

Mike at the time was helping Maro get on top of the last remaining horse, trying to teach the two girls, horseback riding.

It so much happened that the horse made a sudden movement as Hera shouted in anger, the results were the horse jumping and Maro finding herself on the ground, blood everywhere and probably dead. Mike did his best to see if he could save her, but it was pointless, they had already lost her. Mike and Mary stood there for a moment of silence and then threw her corpse off the cliff and into the ocean.

The three were sort of friends, but they both were eyeing her gun as she died, Mike conceded and the gun and bullets went to Mary, whom was very happy. Mike smiled weakly as he gave up on the bullets and gun.

Most of the ammunition they had used up on shooting practice, Hera and Chrysa using most of the bullets, while they were only allowed a few magazines of ammunition.

Mike looked at his own gun, he only had one bullet inside, the one supposed to take his own life.

He was told that as long as the objectives are complete they will all be safe and happy, his bullet however had another name on it.

Mike wanted to be the leader of the group, Chrysa was a weak leader, she was too authoritive and didn't do half the things they did, Hera was even less a leader, she practicaly did nothing all day, just decided which furniture to bring up to the attic.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

The bullet however was for another person, it was for Nick, Mike viewed Nick as thorn in his side, he was unpredictable and didn't even act like the leader all he did was give three orders and that's all.

1.distribute the guns and ammo

2.slay and cure the horse

3.redecorate the attic

The thing about his orders however was that he himself worked on them, thus he deserved a share in them. He even took a gun for himself, an assault rifle, stating that it would be useless in their hands, since it only had 3 magazines of ammo, not enough to learn how to shoot and them getting an assault rifle would be rare.

Back at Rachel's appartment everyone was feeling down, since they only had one night of rest before the next objective appears, it proved to be a really easy thing to do. Holding a person hostage, unless the police learns about it, they could even keep him for a week.

"Little Aidan, do you like video games"

"What's a video game?"

"They are games played on the TV or computer"

"How do you play a video game"

"first we need a TV, yours has been occupied by hostile forces, lets go liberate it"

Chris took the time to play with Aidan, making up games was one of his strong points, them being good games or not was another matter.

"Retreat, Retreat, the enemy is too strong!"

He said as Rachel and the other girls of the group had hogged the TV, watching a soap opera.

"We have to use stealth and guile to..."

"Aidan honey can you bring mommy some juice from the fridge"

Rachel's voice caused their strategy meeting to end as the good boy Aidan went to the fridge for the juice.

Chris wanted to shout "traitor", but then he smiled, Aidan was a good kid, he made him remember his own childhood, those careless times, when all they had to think was how to pass the time best.

He grabbed Aidan that was about to pass with two juice cartons in hand and begun to whisper to him.

Aidan was laughing as he gave the cartons to his mother, making her somewhat suspicious. As she was about to drink, the boy smiled even more brightly, hiding his mouth with his hands as if it was a secret.

"She drunk it!"

He shouted as he left the room, Rachel wanted to understand what was going on, but the show was still ongoing, in a way she was happy to see Aidan smile, even if it was about some stupid prank.

A child's smile always causes adults to feel better, especialy when it's your child.

The guys of the group spent most of their time with Tian whom wouldn't stop talking about his adventures, the others were either taking notes or enjoying themselves over some smoke, Tian too like Nick had a pack of cigars, of course not everyone smoked, but it didn't matter, nothing really mattered, they could even do drugs without having to fear the concequenses, after all the worst possibility for them was death and death wasn't too far away.

They could see Chris fooling around with the "hostage", laughing.

"they all drank from it, does it mean you inderctly kissed all of them..."

Aidan asked confused, while Chris was laughing due to his confusion.

"...that's no good, now you have to marry all of them"

Aidan continued causing Chris to stop laughing, not understanding where it came from.

"Mother said that kissing is what adults do in order to get married"

The confusion lasted for a minute, until the guys whom were watching them begun to laugh at them.

Indirect kisses, such a childish concept, kissing equals marriage, such childish thinking.

Aidan felt shame, as if he had done something bad and everyone was laughing at his expense, while Chris didn't really care about them.

"Aidan, there are direct and indirect kissing, they are different, only direct kissing leads to marriage"

His explaination earned even more laughter from the gang, but Aidan didn't understand why they were laughing.

"What are you teaching my son?"

Suddenly a female voice came from the door, causing the laughters to stop for some reason, causing a dramatic pause.

"I was..."

Chris couldn't come with a good enough answer and Rachel begun to slap at him playfully. It was unlike anything they were expecting. The trio then went on to play with Aidan and since the TV had nothing on, Chris used the Empress to construct a video game for them with voice recognition for controls.

"Jump!Jump!Jump!"

As much as he wanted he still failed the third jump. Causing a wave of laughter from behind as the next player took his place.

It was a "temple run" game where you gathered coins on a 3D road, going left and right jumping from time to time, there was no slide action however and the voice recognition was good.

At first it was just Aidan playing, but suddenly Chris got bored and he announced a tournament. Since nobody had anything better to do, the tournament begun and everyone got a chance to play.

In the end David was the winner, cause of his ability to make quick decisions, everyone else couldn't hold a candle to his score, even Tian ended up in 4th place.

First place going to David, second place to Aidan and 3rd place to George.

Now it was a match for the top ten only and next would be the top 5 and next the top 3.

Before however they could finish the top 5, they were interupted by Rachel, whom wanted to see the next soap opera.

Since no woman made into the top 5, they quickly took over the TV and begun watching their soap opera.

The only reason why Aidan was in the top 10 was because Chris cheated, making the game easier for him. Everyone could see it was easier, but they decided to keep quiet, after all he was only a child.

It was in the middle of the night, that Chris was confronted by Tian.

"You shouldn't get too attached to them, I've been in missions where you had to kill the protagonists of the story, due to a multitude of reasons"

"You do know he's just a child"

Chris retorted.

-I'm talking about both of them

-Why?

-It's just a mission, they are NPCs, you have to get it into your thick skull, otherwise you won't survive for long

-I don't understand

-What's there to understnd it's pretty simple, If I kill you I lose 1000 points, if I kill them I earn 20 points, it's simple game logic

Chris stood there shocked, he understood the logic, but refused to believe it, even as he went ot sleep.

There was only one day until the ghost comes after them, and in a few minutes they would learn their next objective.

Chris woke up from the shouts in the living room, Rachel was having a fit about them using the bathroom and forgetting to flush or something.

=objective 3 - bring Aidan to the haunted mansion in 168 hours=

The message was followed by a gunshot and Chris run towards the living room, where he saw Rachel lying down, with a bullet wound in her chest.

"Call an ambulance!"

Tian shouted at him and without a thought he ordered the empress to do so, while he was looking at the wounded Rachel.

"That's more like it, we're leaving, are you coming or staying?

Tian and his gang took Aidan and were now rolling in the ambulance they had stolen, leaving the paramedic and driver behind.

While Chris was left behind with Rachel, who until now had no idea why she was shot. Of course if she knew they were going to bring Aidan to a Haunted Mansion, she would of course be against it. What Tian did was buying themselves time, they didn't have time for arguements and the ambulance was large enough for all of them to fit in.

Chris was genuinely sad, crying on top of her now lifeless corpse, her final words were "save Aidan", but how could he save him, he was useless, he let her down, he was a phony boyfriend, that couldn't make the choice of leaving her alone in this situation, it was too late to go after them, all he could do was call a second ambulance and hope this time it would come, but it arrived too late accompanied by the police whom arrested him as the prime suspect for murder.