"They made more Star Wars movies?" Chelsey asked with surprise.

"Yeah, a new trilogy," Henry explained.

"What happened to Luke?"

"No Luke. They were prequels about Darth Vader. But like before, he was a robot."

"That sounds pretty cool. One more thing to look forward to when we get out of here, right," Stevey said.

The three of them were sitting on a couch in the middle of their cavernous home. Henry was feeling better this morning. He had spent most of the night thinking about his situation. The more he thought about it, the more he realized he hadn't really lost anything. He had nothing waiting for him out there. No prospects for a better future; no real friends. He was sure even his own family had never really cared for him all that much. He had nothing. Here, in Paradise, he had a chance to start over. It was tempting, but he was unsure.

There was one thing he had made up his mind about for certain. He wanted to learn how to survive in paradise. The sheer pain of his death was something he wanted to avoid at all costs. So, he had spent the morning waiting for Mark and Grace to leave their shared room.

"I wouldn't get your hopes up. They're terrible movies," Henry said.

"What!? Really," Chelsey said with a surprising dismayed look on her face.

"Borderline unwatchable, honestly…," Henry let his eyes drift to the only shut door, "Do they normally take this long to get up?"

"Yeah. Mark and Grace aren't exactly morning people. When they got married, it actually got worse," Stevey said.

"I still can't believe they made a bad Star Wars movie. Empire Strikes Back was my favorite," Chelsey said.

Henry sighed.

"You don't know the half of it. There's this guy called Jar Jar Binks-"

***

35 minutes of discussion about the Star Wars prequels had passed by the time Mark and Grace emerged. It was probably a good thing they had, too. Henry may have underestimated just how much Chelsey liked Star Wars. By the time he had begun to describe the sand dialogue, she looked like she was going to be sick. Grace on the other hand, seemed to be in good spirits. She had a wide smile on her face. Mark was as stoic as he had been the day before. Unlike his wife, his face didn't show a hint of emotion.

"Good morning," Grace said as she left her room, "What are you guys talking about?"

"They ruined Star Wars, apparently. I think it might kill Chelsey," Stevey answered.

"You don't have to worry about it, Chelsey. I'm sure they'll make more someday. I doubt they can mess it up twice," Henry said.

"What's Star Wars?" Mark asked.

They all turned to look at him. Even Grace seemed to give him a puzzled look.

"It's a movie, dear. A very popular one."

"Ah. We didn't have a movie theater in my town. We probably missed it," Mark said.

Henry stood from the couch and made his way over to Mark. He greeted him with a friendly smile.

I thought about it some last night, and I want to take you up on your offer. You said you could teach me to survive; I want to do it."

"That's a good choice. I'll teach you the basics today. Tomorrow, I'll let you go on the grocery run."

It was at that moment that Wendy re-entered the cave. She laughed as she did.

"The grocery run! That ought to be entertaining. I bet he dies again," she said.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Stop trying to scare him, Wendy. He's not going to die. We've got it down to a science. Don't listen to her; she's a bad influence. The grocery run is easy; you'll be fine," Grace said.

"Don't forget, it's a British night!" Stevey exclaimed with a finger pointed at Mark.

The whole room let out an audible groan.

"Do we have to? Shit's gross, Stevey!" Grace remarked.

"It's my turn to pick. The rules are the rules, right?" Stevey replied.

"What's British night?" Henry asked.

"It's the night Stevey gets to pick what we eat. He makes us get English food from London Town," Chelsey explained.

"It's the best night of the week!" Stevey proclaimed.

"Maybe if you have no taste buds," Grace said.

"Even I don't like it and I'll eat anything," Wendy said, "and I do mean anything."

"It is not gross. There is nothing wrong with a good blood sausage or lamb stew."

"There's about a hundred things wrong with it," Grace said.

She seemed to be sarcastically pretending to throw up.

"Well, that's too bad," Stevey said with a mocking face, "Rules are the rules. My night, my pick."

"Fine, but you're making the run with Henry here," Mark said.

"Now that is an excellent idea. I'll show him the ropes. Teach him everything he really needs to know."

"Oh God," Chelsey said with a half-sorry look for Henry.

***

About an hour later, Mark and Henry sat down at the large table in the center of the cave. Mark unrolled a large piece of paper with a map drawn across it. The map looked like a large circle divided into eight even pieces, some of which were labeled. Strange dotted lines ran across the map in varying colors.

"There are four zones. The Campsite, Brightshore, the mines, and Londontown," he pointed to each of the zones on the map, "Each zone has its own ghost story. The Ghost Stories mostly keep to their zones. It's very rare that they ever leave."

"So these lines are?"

"The paths they take. After years of studying the Ghost Stories we figured out that they tend to follow a set pattern. With one exception, the Camp Zone. Its ghost story doesn't follow any regular pattern. We mostly ignore the camp zone anyway. There is not much food variety there, and it can be difficult to navigate."

"Unless it's hot dog night," Stevey added from the couch.

"So what about these spots here?"

Henry pointed to the unmarked areas between the zones.

"Those are the dead zones. Once, this map used to be nothing but dead zones. As each of us arrived, a new zone was added," Mark explained.

"So that means when I came, there was a new zone added. What will it be like?"

"That depends. What's your Ghost Story?" Chelsey asked.

"What does that mean?"

"These things that hunt us; They come from our pasts," Mark explained, "They are the campfire stories that scared us as children brought to life. That's why we call them Ghost Stories. The zones and the Ghost Stories are tied together. One usually comes from the other."

"You mean that the undead fisherman came from one of you?"

"Me," Grace answered, "When I was growing up, we used to call him Undertow. He was supposed to be a fisherman who got a rope tangled around his neck, which dragged him into the ocean. The story said something in those depths brought him back, but not the same. I used to hear the story all the time when I was a little girl. My parents would say, don't go in the ocean at night, or old Undertow will drag you under. I think it was supposed to keep us out of the water during the riptide. Undertow was supposed to keep me safe. I guess that's kinda ironic now."

Henry was not fond of the parents who had made up the macabre story that led to the creation of Undertow. He could still remember the pain of that harpoon in his chest. If Grace's Ghost Story was so horrible, Henry didn't even want to imagine what the others would be like. He asked anyway.

"What are the other Ghost Stories like?"

"Mine is an undead miner named Pickaxe Pete," Mark said with a hint of a smile, "Like Undertow, Pete used to be an urban legend in my hometown. It was a poor mining town, and the mines were about the only job you could have. So even when I was young, everyone knew I would go into mines one day, so I heard all the mine stories from my folks. The story about Pickaxe Pete scared me the most. It went that Pete was a coal miner trapped by a collapse. He waited and waited for help to come, but it never did. After a few weeks, Pete was starving to death in those mines, so he decided to take his own life with his pickaxe. In the years that followed, people claimed to see him roaming the mines. Anytime a miner disappeared or a collapse happened, they'd say it was old Pete getting his revenge on those who abandoned him."

While Henry didn't like the sound of that, it didn't sound nearly as bad to him as Undertow. That could be biased, though. After all, the undead fisherman had impaled him in the chest only the day before.

"Mines a real nasty bugger," Stevey said, "He's a knight all done up in armor with a real wicked sword. They used to say he haunted a church not far from my home. He's like a ghost, walks through walls and all that."

"I hate Stevey's Knight," Grace said, "He always comes out of nowhere and stabs you from behind. At least with the others, you know they're coming."

"At least mine is easy to kill," Stevey said.

"So is Undertow, you said it yourself."

Stevey just shrugged and let the debate die.

"What about you, Wendy?" Henry asked.

"Oh… I don't have one."

Henry let the confusion show clearly on his face.

"Why's that?"

Wendy looked toward the others and raised an eyebrow.

"You didn't tell him?" She asked.

"It didn't come up," Mark said, "Besides, it's for Chelsey to tell."

Chelsey sighed. She fidgeted with her fingers and then loudly sighed.

"I guess you need to know," Chelsey said nervously, "Wendy isn't like us."

"How so?" Henry asked.

"Well, you see… Wendy is my Ghost Story."