Sophie clenched her fists. With nowhere to go, nothing to eat or defend themselves from what they thought was to come, they were going to die. It is the logical thinking of things. Nothing could be done except patiently waiting for their death, but who would? Who — if not extremely stoic — would wait for their death with comfort and the conviction you would merely fall into oblivion; cease to exist with no suffering?

How could she, who acted so almighty, tell her friends to sit back and wait for the final judgement? That there was nothing more to be done because their destiny doomed them from the start? That going to her house was the cause of their death? That she was the cause of everyone’s death?

How could she look into Saskia’s eyes to tell her she would never see her old dog Mirage before he passes, never see her parents again, her new friends from university, the amiable neighbours who gave her pumpkin pies, the young waitress she had a crush on… How could she break her heart like that? Would she even have a heart left if she did such a thing?

How could Sophie squeeze Winnie’s hands on hers while she tells her to forget how bad life treated her because she was about to break free from it forcefully? That no matter her suffering until now, not even in death would she find peace because she was going to die in one of the cruellest ways?

Sophie hastily cleaned any sign of wetness from her face and sighed. She had to concentrate: there had to be something she missed. The note might have something on its back, but she never checked; maybe the bedside table’s drawer was false; perhaps the mirror in the living room had something behind it… The possibilities were immeasurable, and she had time, so much time.

First, even though it hurt her pride, she needed their help. With the help of her friends, she could cover all her hypotheses in a shorter time. If the note was no coincidence — and she wanted so badly to believe it was not —, then there had to be something in the house to save them. She did not want to feel hopeful but needed to be, for them.

“Can you help me find something that feels out of place, or just extremely unusual?” she asked. “Anything like the note I found.”

She gave solid instructions: they should search for something in the kitchen/living room while she would examine the bedroom and the bathroom. As they were in two, they all agreed Sophie should be the one to stay with the candle, their only source of light.

Sophie searched the bedroom in a way she thought was meticulous. There still was nothing in it.

“What the fuck am I missing…”

As she said that, a wood piece from the bed frame broke. She approached the bed with the light and saw under one of its legs something pointy and yellow sticking out: a note. Hurriedly, she called the girls to help her lift the bed, without ripping the — already fragile — paper.

Winnie and Saskia struggled to hold the heavy bed while Sophie took the paper out, almost crying happy tears. She put the light close enough to be able to read:

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< A porcelain grave where sorrow dwells,

Where shadows linger and darkness swells. >

Once more, it was signed by “T”. After looking at it briefer than a minute, Sophie hit her forehead with her palm under the confused gaze of the others putting the bed down. They were curious but Sophie was too much “in the zone” to even share the details of the paper without being asked.

“Soph?” Winnie started. “What does it say?”

“That I am so stupid. How could you be so stupid, Sophie Riviere? How?” she spouted to herself. “You know what it means to swell?”

“To grow larger, why?” the confusion on her face was obvious.

“Here it says ‘darkness swells’ and I thought it would be that darkness grows in this place, but what if the verb is to distract you from the real meaning of the word? The first part is a ‘porcelain grave’ so our options are obviously made of porcelain, and the only things like that are in the bathroom.”

Winnie did not understand what Sophie explained, so she handed them the note.

“It’s a charade! For a bathtub!” said Saskia, excited, and Sophie nodded. “People usually cry while they bathe so that explains ‘sorrow dwells’, and ‘swell’ probably refers to both the wave-thing and the verb.”

Saskia looked proud of herself for having Sophie’s approval and clapped her hands. She adored charades when she was little, so her dad would play with her, finding harder ones every time but she would always guess them easily anyway.

Sophie had no time to celebrate: she had to go to the bathroom. There was something on that bathtub she had found so out of place, the same words she used to describe what her friends should look for, how did she not think about it sooner?

The bathroom was as she left it: apparently empty and dreadfully dirty, but her objective was right there: golden and clean. How could she not have found it any weirder in the middle of dirty old things?

This time, she examined it cautiously but there was no note. Instead, she thought she would need help to lift something, again. A wooden door to an underground room was hidden under the bathtub, and Sophie was eager to go through it.

All three of them helped to move the heavy bathtub out of the way and opened the door to the vault. They could see the darkness did not leave them as the stairs — whose steps only had enough space for one person at a time — were illuminated just by the small candle, almost out, Sophie had in her hands. This way, Sophie was in the front, followed by Winnie and Saskia.

When Saskia stepped into the vault, the lights in the long corridor’s walls lit up gradually from the end to where they stood. The corridor was not narrow, and they could all stand side by side comfortably. Its walls had a wallpaper of vertical stripes painted in saturated shades of blue, yellow and red, and a dark red liquid dripped from them.

As they walked down the vault, they noticed, at least, a thousand posters on the walls. Some were very old, others looked like they had been ripped out aggressively, and there were those which looked recently glued on top of the old ones. Roughly, they all talked about the same thing: a masquerade ball of sorts, and attractions in an amusement park. The only ones they paid attention to were:

< We promise you an amusement where nightmares come to life >

< Each step of the Masquerade will leap you away >

< Unveil your fears for skeletons whisper your darkest truths >

Before they could reach the door, a tiny bell rang from over them. As they looked up, three purple tickets magically began to obey gravity and fell in front of their feet.

Saskia was the first to pick one up, but could not control her scream. The tickets had a flower drawing like nothing they had ever seen and capital letters formed “Mhabi’s Never Everland”. However, they had an obvious fresh blood stain on the back that had dirtied her fingers.