—==meetup==—

*cracks knuckles*

*clears throat*

*warms up voice*

*sips coffee, takes deep breath*

Seriously, [lowercase]. just get on with your frivolous [banter]. Your precious indulgence in [actors], which ruins the [Action] I set up in the last chapter.

stop throwing around those terms. they’re dumb. i don’t put '''[Allegory]''' in my moments. i do '''[seinfeld]''', motherfucker.

Just get the chapter over with.

—==—

—==—

Jax and Leo are chilling on the couch in the room we left them in, watchin’ tv. it’s a show called Brekken, about a bunch of birds crying about feelings and stuff. it’s supposedly a younger kids’ show, despite the fact that in the episode we’re watching, the owl Myrna has just finished murdering 3 of Brekken’s friends.

the juicy show is interrupted when a door bursts open and four kids rush into the room. Leo cries out and Jax jumps. one of the newcomers regards them with a look of disappointment.

(SPOILER): you ain’t Ben and Callie.

Leo: who?

(SPOILER): who are you guys?

Jax: i’m, umm… Jax. she.

Leo: my name is Leo. a boy… um, who are you?

(SPOILER): oh! sure. i’m Jen, he/him, and these are:

Vera. they/them.

Luke, he/him.

Ellis. him.

Luke: we came here looking for two of our friends. they went missing almost a week ago. have you seen anyone?

Jax. ummm… no.

Luke: is this house A or house B?

Leo: what?

Ellis: hol’ up a sec. you guys… do you guys know where you are?

Jax: no, no i don’t know. i’m confused. i came here out of a cell, and i fought a guy, and… i don’t know. it doesn’t make sense.

Ellis: i get it. we came outta cells too.

Ellis: an Old Guy gave us some vague as fuck hints about quests and shit, then he went poof.

Ellis: we escaped the cells and kinda just ran into each other. there were 6 of us.

Ellis: that Old Man appeared again to tell us what was goin’ on, kinda.

Ellis: so you got 3 houses. A, B, C.

This was explained in the last chapter.

hush, you.

Ellis: house C is safe, house A is kinda safe, and house B is basically a noose. the 6 of us met in A, but we started out in all 3 of them at first.

Ellis: there’s a buncha doors and shit that go between the houses, so you gotta be careful not to end up in B.

Jax: why did you not go to house C, for safety?

Ellis: we tried, but i don’t think you CAN get there? you just sorta get kicked outta that one.

Jax: oh, ok.

Leo: what house are we in?

Luke: i believe this is house A. we haven’t been killed or kicked out yet, so i’d guess that we’re still in A.

Luke: the problem is, we think our friends are in house B. they disappeared from this house, and they can’t really go to house C, so they must be there, or else in some house the Old Man neglected to tell us about.

Luke: hence the urgency.

Jax: oh…. oh no. how’d they go there?

Luke: that’s the other thing. we don’t know how they got there.

Vera: tha Old Coot hinted that there wazza ‘nother person here. tryna kill us. we gotta find ah friends and get tha fuck outta here.

Leo: can’t they just go through a door back here?

Luke: you’d think so, but it seems that they can’t. we’ve been here for a few weeks, and we’ve explored enough to find all the routes from house to house.

Jax: what if you get trapped too?

Luke: then we’re screwed. i’d prefer to be screwed with my friends i’ve tried to save than be relatively safe without them.

This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

Jax: that’s fair. so—

there’s a weird popping sound, and a new door appears on the wall. it opens to reveal two more kids. they stare at the crowd of others confusedly.

Criss: uh…

Malcom: this just gets weirder and weirder.

Jen: hello. who are you?

oh, uh, i’m Criss. he/him.

Malcom. he/him. what’s going on in here?

Vera: we—

Vera motions to their other three friends.

Vera: —we came outta cells like ya guys, but we’ve been here fo’ WAY longah than you. our friends dissapeared, and we went lookin’ fo’ them and ran into THESE two—

they gesture towards Jax and Leo.

Vera: —who have been here just as long as you… ya just got outta tha cell, right?

Criss: yeah…

Vera: so yeah. that’s what’s goin’ on.

Criss: a’ight, then. cool. my confusion just dropped its diet and gained a hundred pounds.

Luke: join the club.

Criss: so… uh, you got any idea where we are? and what we’re doin’ here?

Luke: we have an idea. was there a letter on the rug in the room just outside your cell?

Criss: yeah. a C.

Luke nods.

Luke: that makes sense. so there are 3 houses.

[lowercase]. Seriously. This is absurd.

Luke: you just came out of house C. we are currently in house A. the four of us came here looking for our friends who are trapped in house B. house B is extremely dangerous, and our friends are likely in peril.

Malcom: what are their names?

Luke: Ben and Callie. boy and girl. they’ve been missing for about a week.

Malcom: so there were 6 of you at first?

Luke nods.

Luke: correct. i’ve met four of you, so i think it’s safe to presume that there are two more, who are also probably in house B.

Luke: i believe you asked what we’re doing here? that remains to be seen, but we have a few clues.

Luke: we’ve been hinted by an Old Man that there is someone in the houses trying to kill us. i would assume that apprehending the killers and then escaping is our current goal.

Now would be a good time to stop.

Malcom: okay. things seem a little more clear now. one more question. what is the point of all this?

Ellis: that’s a damn good question. i think the Old Guy has a dumbass '''quest''' for us to do. that’s what we’re doin’ here, i guess.

Leo: i don’t really want to do a quest.

Ellis: me neither, dawg. this is all bullshit, in my opinion.

Criss: i kinda just wanna eat. Malcom and i came here lookin’ for food.

Malcom: yeah. i assume you have no idea where to find any?

Jen: i think we found a pantry earlier, and i think this room is a dead end. we can probably go there.

Criss: oh, a’ight. can show us there?

Jen: sure.

eight kids leave the room to find a pantry.

Chapter 10: Crossing Over

Fifteen minutes passed. A pantry was found. Food, eaten. Friends, made. Plans, drafted.

The new plans weren’t really different from the ones the original four kids had already plotted. They had just been slightly adjusted to include two more possible people in need of rescue.

Even “plans”, as a plural, is misleading. Their intents were to simply comb through every door the House until one leads to House B, then do essentially the same thing there until four Children have been found.

Food was finished and the kids set off. The first while of their searching was fruitless, an echo of the past week for the original four.

The Originals had covered a lot of ground in House A in their search for House B. Vera had already escaped from B along with the now-missing Ben, but since escaping they had forgotten the location of the door that led to House A. It was even possible that these doors—gates, if you will—changed location from time to time. If so, the hunt may be much more difficult than they had planned for.

Criss and Malcom brought up a tidbit of info that the Originals had forgotten about—the fact that crossing a gate to another House creates a sensation live being shoved through a pinhole. This confirmed that when they had met Jax and Leo, they had still been in House A.

The search continued. It seemed that all manner of rooms could be found in this House. An auditorium here, too large to fit into the space between the surrounding rooms. A dark, dripping cellar was explored in vain. A walk-in freezer, walls lined with shelves of ice cream. A phantom figure was fought elsewhere.

One door appeared to lead to a lush city park. When Luke opened this door, a mysterious force tried to suck him through the doorway, catching him by surprise. It took four people to hold him back and slam the door shut.

After passing by an elevator and a lavish bathroom, the group opened a door and space inverted.

In earlier chapters, [lowercase] neglected to give House B an apt description. In fact, all three Houses were somewhat neglected. Given [their] penchant for over-illustrating the [journey] of the [Characters], this surprises me.

ok man. i see how it is. i figured that roasting other narrators would be too '''[poetic]''' for you.

It is, in fact, very [Direct]. When used as [Allegory], especially so.

no one gets your weird symbolism. just cut the shit, man.

The B House has a strange aesthetic. It is simultaneously pitch black and perfectly visible.

Imagine waking up in a strange room in the middle of the night. It’s dark and scary, and your eyesight is null. And yet, somehow, you can still see clearly. The darkness is there, but the details remain, only slightly fuzzy.

Pair this with a vague, unsettling ambiance and you’ll understand what our 8 [Characters] experienced when they crossed over to House B.

Criss scanned the blank, cold room. “This is givin’ me some sketchy vibes.”

“I’m kind of scared of this,” agreed Jen. “I think we should mark our door.”

Luke nodded and spray-painted the door with a bright yellow star. “Isn’t it a bad idea to use that indoors?” Malcom asked, coughing from the cloud of fumes.

“Yeah, it’s somewhat dangerous.” Luke replied, “Almost as dangerous as living in a House that wants to murder you.”

“Point taken.”

The small space only had one other door, to the party’s left. Criss walked up to it, noticing that it had a peephole in it,

Peering through the door, he saw a long, worn hallway with flickering lights. The flickering was particularly disorienting due to the fact that he could still see in parts where the lights were off.

The very end, however, was shrouded in a darkness that blocked all sight.

“What’s back there?” Asked Leo.

“A real frickin’ creepy hallway.” Criss responded. “Shit ton of doors.”

“Let’s get searchin’ I guess,” said Ellis.

The crowd filed through the door.

The moment the last Child crossed the threshold, the door slammed shut. It then vanished.

On both sides of the hallway, dozens of doors flung open.

From each one, dark shadowy figures enter.