"You can't be serious."

The flat-screen television mounted on the wall behind Lance crackled silently, TV-snow flurrying across the screen like millions of tiny little black bugs scurrying across a white floor. Pidge was slumped on across the couch, her arms hanging over the back of it as she kicked her feet up and down absentmindedly. Hunk leaned his weight on the back of the couch beside her, his arms folded loosely across his abdomen. Allura was silently studying the pictures on the DVD case in Lance's hand from her perch on the couch's arm, Shiro standing close beside her with his weight on one leg.

I scowled at Lance as I made my way into the den area from the little kitchenette where the popcorn had been popping over an eye on the stove. Not this crap again. Lance had the worst taste in movies.

Lance gave all five of us pajama-clad Paladins his signature crap-eating grin and shook the plastic DVD case back and forth in his left hand. "Serious as a heart attack, Keithy-boy," he replied smugly, flashing me a cocky, rage-inducing wink. "Why, babe? You scared?"

I crossed my arms over my chest and scowled. "Me? Scared? Of that?" I nodded my head at the case clutched in his fingertips and gave him a poisonous look. "In your dreams. The Night of the Living Undead is one of the lamest horror movies to ever hit the box office in history, right next to the 2013 version of Carrie. Even the name is lame, Lancelot."

"I dunno, man," Hunk began, eyeing the case warily. He cracked his fingers one-by-one inattentively, a quirk he had when he was anxious about something. "I don't—I really—I don't think I wanna watch that. It looks like it'd scare the ever-living heck out of me. Carrie scared the ever-living heck out of me."

"Scooby-Doo and the Legend of the Vampire scared the ever-living heck out of you, Hunk," Lance reminded him flatly, waving the case around carelessly.

Hunk gave him a sheepish look and shrugged his shoulders. "The vampires were creepy."

"Eh, it's all just fiction," Pidge put in nonchalantly, adjusting her glasses and rolling her hazel-brown eyes. "There's no such thing as ghosts, anyway. I say let's watch it. It's better than the other bullcrap Lance tries to make us watch when it's his turn to pick a movie."

Lance nodded his head and held out his hands, almost as if to say, Yeah, duh. It's way better than the other bullcrap.

"Well, she's not wrong," Shiro added in response to Pidge. "It has to be better than that lame romantic comedy that he picked for us to watch a few weeks ago."

"Excuse you?!" Lance interjected in offense. "Two Lovers on Lovebird Street is one of the best romantic comedies of all time!"

"It was a Lifetime movie," I deadpanned, "It sucked."

"You suck!" he shouted back at me.

I raised an eyebrow, nonplussed. "Yeah? Well, you swallow. And you like it."

He opened his mouth to rattle off another comeback, his cheeks turning that deep crimson red like they do when he gets angry. "Yeah?! Well you definitely weren't complaining last night when—"

"Guys, guys," Shiro interrupted, waving a panicked hand, his eyes wide. "Enough. Tee-em-eye. That's enough, okay? It's Lance's week to pick the movie. So far, we have two 'yays' and two 'nays'. Allura, you're the only one who hasn't voted yet. What do you say?"

Allura had remained mostly silent for the entirety of our squadron's little spat, listening to both sides of the argument. Now, she glanced between us in a decisive manner, her eyes narrowing a little in consideration. "Well, to be honest," she began, smoothing a rogue wrinkle in her pale-pink nightgown, "I've never seen a horror movie, nor do I really know what a 'living undead' is—the two words themselves are completely identical, so I don't much understand the point that the title has to make... But at the same time, as one who believes that there are still some spirits that wander the world of the living, I'm opposed to the idea of a movie that might, as Hunk said, 'scare the ever-living heck' out of me or anyone else."

I saw Lance's shoulders slump in defeat, and my chest puffed out in triumph. He shot me a glare, to which I responded with a grin and a shrug of my shoulders. Hunk looked relieved.

"But."

Lance's eyes turned back up at her, a glimmer of hope swimming in their depths.

No. No, no, no, I willed her. Please, please, please don't make us watch this dumb movie.

She either didn't hear my silent willing, or she refused to listen to it. "I'm curious to see what kind of scare a cinema really could invoke in me," she finished, a smile widening across her coffee-colored face. "Let's do it!"

"Ye-heh-heeesss!" Lance shouted, pumping his fist in the air and giving Pidge an enthusiastic high-five before skipping to the DVD player and popping the movie in. Pidge vaulted over the back of the couch and shot into the kitchen to retrieve the now-sizzling popcorn from the stovetop.

Hunk and I exchanged an apathetic glance. "Aw, quiznak," he mumbled under his breath, shuffling dejectedly to the orangey-yellow beanbag next to Pidge's green one and flopping down on it. He took his large brown teddy-bear in one arm and shoved his face into its fluff. "Fine. Let's just get this over with."

Pidge bounded back into the den with two monstrous bowls of popcorn, slinging one onto the side-table next to Lance and me and keeping the other in her lap as she cannonballed into her beanbag chair. Miraculously, none of the popcorn spilled from the bowl. I chuckled as she shoved a hearty fistful of it into her mouth and turned to Hunk. "You want some? Might make you feel better."

Except, it came out more like: "oo wanffum? Ma make oo feel be-uhh."

Hunk glowered at her. "No, thanks. I don't want any of your traitor popcorn. You helped get me into this."

Pidge responded with a maniacal giggle.

Lance had already beat me to our spot on the couch and had sunk into the corner, patting the seat right in the crook of his arm and wiggling his eyebrows at me vigorously. "Don't worry, baby," he muttered teasingly as I curled under his arm, "I won't let the big bad ghosts get you. If you get scared, you can just hold on to me. I'll protect you."

"I'm not scared," I growled back at him as I threw a blanket over our legs and snuggled deeper into his side. The buttery scent of the popcorn wafted to me as the blanket stirred the air, causing my stomach to grumble audibly. I ignored it and resisted the urge to grab it and wolf it down as quickly as possible. I was still trying to be angry at Lance. I would not let my hunger overcome my cause. "Nor will I be scared. This is just a stupid movie, with a stupid, unoriginal plot, stupid, talentless actors, and stupid, expressionless dialogue."

"Mmhmm. That's what you said about Saying Goodbye to Molly and you cried in the end. And, by the way, this one has Bella Thorne in it. So there."

"I was crying with relief because it was finally over," I shot back at him with a playful smirk. "And Bella Thorne being in it only proves my point. 'Talentless actors'. Or did your goldfish-brain forget that already?"

He scowled in reply, sticking his tongue out at me. "Killjoy. At least she's hotter than you."

I snickered. "Keep telling yourself that, McClain. I'm the best you'll ever get."

Shiro and Allura had taken up a cozy little position on the opposite end of the couch, barricaded snugly underneath a huge, fluffy blanket and two large downy pillows. "Are you sure you don't wanna join in with us, Coran?" Shiro asked the ginger-headed Altean over his shoulder, squeezing Allura's body close to his with one arm and reaching down into Pidge's popcorn bowl with the other. "There's room for one more over here between Keith and Allura."

"No thank you," Coran responded kindly as he swabbed up the last of the crumb-sprinkled counter with a rag and tossed it into the laundry bin beneath the cabinet. "Movies aren't really my thing. They turn your mind to mush." He tapped his temple with his index finger. "Make you think things. Straaaange things."

"Oh, come on, Coran!" Allura urged with a huge, beaming smile, throwing her platinum ponytail over her shoulder and accidentally slapping her hair into Shiro's face. (He blew it out of his mouth, wriggling his nose.) "It'll be fun!"

"Nah. I think I'm good."

"I think he's just a chicken," Lance called, making obnoxious clucking noises with his tongue and swinging his arms wide with a chicken-wing-flapping motion. He almost knocked me in the head with his elbow, and I shoved my own into his ribcage, annoyed. His breath flooded suddenly between his teeth with the force of the blow, and he shot me an innocently quizzical look. "What? I think he's just not man enough to take it!"

"What was that? 'Not man enough'? You better watch yourself," Coran chided, raised both of his eyebrows in astonishment as he let out a light chuckle. "I'm more of a man than you'll ever dream to be, boy."

"Ooooooooh," Pidge and Hunk crowed behind their hands.

Lance rolled his eyes and took a bowl of popcorn from the end table, but didn't try to muster up a comeback. I hid my snigger behind my palm.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked me irritably as the opening credits fade on and off the screen ominously.

"Nothing, nothing," I replied, scrambling (and failing) to suppress my chuckles. I caught the slightly-hurt expression on his face, choked my laughter back down my throat, and added, "but, just so you know, you're more than man enough for me."

That brought him back from his silent little tantrum. The first flickers of a smirk flashed across his lips. I pressed against them with my own and giggled as he squeezed my body closer to his.

"Hey, you two," Shiro stage-whispered, forcefully whacking Lance's elbow with a pillow and causing him to break away from me in surprise, "Enough sucking faces and watch the movie. You can do all that kissy stuff later—away from us, when you're alone."

Lance and I snickered again as I buried my head deeper into his chest, the mild, ever-lingering and ever-intoxicating scent of his cologne enveloping me, our attention slowly sinking into the movie on the screen before us.

"Uh…. Keith? Babe?"

I hadn't taken my eyes from the screen for the entire two hours, even as the double-columned ending credits began to roll lazily across the screen. "Mmhmm? What is it?"

"You're, uh… You're killing my hand. My hand is numb. I can't feel it. Please…" Lance's hand squirmed uncomfortably against my own. "You gotta chill, man. That hurts."

I blinked, coming out of the trance in which the television had enthralled me in, and glanced down at where my fingers had wrapped intensely around his. I noticed the little red indentions that my fingernails had made on the back of his hand and loosened my hold on him. I hadn't realized I'd been gripping onto him so tightly. "Oh. My bad."

He snickered and shook his hand out, giving me that devilish, crap-eating grin again. "Not scared, my ass."

Needless to say, I flipped him the bird.

Shiro had been covering his eyes awkwardly with his free hand at the end of the movie. A glance in his general direction showed that he was now staring in a sickened kind of awe at Allura, who was eyeing the screen with the same kind of animated, enthusiastic amusement as a six-year-old kid who just watched Mickey Mouse and his gang saunter down the sidewalk at Disney World.

"Can we watch this one again sometime?" she asked Shiro as she stood to her feet, her crystal-blue eyes wide and pleading as she gazed innocently at her horrified boyfriend.

Shiro's expression evolved to one similar to a small, elderly Christian grandmother who just learned what "Netflix and chill" meant. He shook his head slowly. "Uhh… no."

"Hunk." Pidge nudged the mountainous lump of blankets with an R2-D2-slippered foot, sipping her carton of apple juice heartily through a straw. Her gargantuan bowl of popcorn now only contained a couple of un-popped kernels and a few grains of salt. "Hey. Hunker-ino. The movie's over."

"I don't care," came his muffled reply from beneath the blanket. "I'm not coming out. Can we watch Dora or something? Something without creepy zombie clowns and murderous ghost people? I really, really hate you guys right now." His large brown eyes suddenly peeped through the only hole in the blanket, flickering back in forth between the five of us. "Like, really. I'm serious. I hate all of you. Especially Lance. I really, really hate Lance. But not Keith, no. He's the only sensible one."

I couldn't help but chuckle at that.

"Well," Shiro grunted as he stood up and stretched, "it was nice spending time with you guys, but I think it's time for me to head on to bed. It's getting late."

Lance groaned as I stood to my feet and began unraveling him from the blanket that we had both become entangled in. "Blahhh. It's only 10:30. You sound like an old man."

Shiro shot him an apprehensive look.

"Yeahh, I have some programming to do on a new drone I've been building," Pidge informed us, grabbing her pillow and blanket in one hand and tossing her bean-bag chair carelessly in the corner with the other hand. "I was gonna get Hunk to come with me and help, but I guess he's gonna be staying here alone for the rest of the night."

Hunk's head instantaneously snapped upright at her last remark. "Alone? No, no. No, no, no, no. I'm coming with you. Give me just a second…." And, with that, he rolled off of his bean-bag and began to clean up his—and Pidge's—mess with rapid, uncharacteristically-Hunk-like speed.

"Come on, lazy-bones," I told Lance, smacking him in the face with the blanket. "Let's go find something to do."

He leapt out of his slouched seat and wrapped his arm around my waist as I began wadding it up in a ball and stuffing it carelessly beneath my arm. "Oooh! I think I know something that we can do—"

Pidge grimaced comically, wrinkling her nose and poking the tip of her tongue between her teeth. "Jesus, Lance. Literally none of us want to know what you two are gonna do after you get back to your room."

Lance shot our fellow Paladin a disgusted look. "Oh my god. I was gonna say that we could go play Super Mario on the '64. Get your mind out of the gutter, Pidgeon."

This time, she was the one who flipped Lance the bird.

"Yeah, well, next week is my week to pick the movie for movie night," Hunk began, "and we're watching some My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic or SpongeBob SquarePants or something normal. I ain't putting up with this anymore. The next time it's Lance's turn to pick the movie, I'm going to my room to sit by myself and contemplate the reasoning as to why God had to put me smack in the middle of outer-frickin'-space with you sadistic little tyrants." He glanced at me, his expression softening slightly. "Minus Keith. Keith is still cool."

I gave him a single thumbs-up. "You, too, pal."

Just as we all began to turn and go our separate ways, the Castle's electricity flickered and blinked, buzzing and screeching with a horrible, deafening racket that forced us to clap our hands over our ears in pain. After a few more moments of complete agony (and epilepsy-triggering strobe lights), the Castle's power completely shut off, leaving us in total darkness. I heard Hunk let out a scream, along with a few crashing noises that sounded like the end-table toppling over and a half-empty popcorn bowl being dumped on the floor. I grimaced. I was sure I'd be the one to clean that up later.

"It's just like in Night of the Living Undead!" Hunk gasped loudly, his voice rising steadily in panic. "Right before they all went to bed, the lights went off, and that's when the bad guy started picking them off one by one!"

"Dear Jesus!" Pidge yelled over his incessant screaming. "Will you chill out with all that yelling? You're fine, Hunk! This castle is twelve-thousand years old, you know that the power goes on the fritz sometimes!"

"Everyone, just stay calm," Allura ordered sternly. "The backup generators should be on momentarily. Then, we can go down to the control room and get this sorted out."

"Just stay where you are, guys," Shiro re-iterated calmly.

For once, we actually did what we were told.

A few moments later, the back-up power triggered by the generators saturated the room and hallways with an eerie, crimson-red light that made the walls seem slathered with blood. I looked up at Lance, who still stood pressed tightly against me, his arm still around my waist and his dark blue eyes widening with fear. I snickered and quickly hid my mouth behind my hand.

"Wh-wh-what are you laughing at, Mullet?" he stuttered, his voice cracking slightly. His voice was thick with annoyance.

I couldn't control myself. I was still snorting with laughter. "'Not scared, my ass!'" I quoted back at him, mimicking him perfectly. I heard Shiro and Pidge chuckle lightly.

"Shut up," Lance muttered, glaring at me with contempt. "It's not funny, Keith."

"Ohhh, yeah it is," I teased. I tried to take his face in my hands, but he swatted my hands away, scowling profusely at me. My laughter continued still. "The almighty Lance Charles Julio Esteban McClain is scared."

"Yeah? Well, I'm kinda scared, too, and I don't like this one bit," Hunk said quickly in defense of his friend, peeking out from behind Pidge's shoulder. It was pretty amusing, seeing a twenty-one-year-old, two-hundred-fifty-pound man hiding behind a seventeen-year-old girl no bigger than a beanpole. "Screw this. Screw. This. I don't like this. Not one bit."

Lance was loosening up a little more, now. I could feel the muscles in his shoulder-blades relax as he turned his head toward his best friend and began to speak. "Don't be scared, man," he said sympathetically. Suddenly, as quickly as the power had gone out, a big, mischievous grin flashed across his face. "The big scaredy-cat guys are always the ones who survive the horror movies."

"That isn't helping, Lance."

He shrugged, his normal behavior slowly creeping back into its old ways.

Thank God. He had been acting like a total wimp, and it was getting really annoying.

"So," Allura began after a short silence, tapping a manicured index-fingernail against her bottom lip, "who would die first in a horror movie?"

"Well, normally the bravest one with the best morals and the most integrity goes first," Lance replied nonchalantly. "That's normally the leader. So, since Shiro is our leader, then Shiro would be the first to die. Most definitely."

"No doubt," Pidge added. I nodded in agreement.

"Well, that sucks," Shiro said, scratching the back of his head. "I would've thought that Lance would've been taken out before me. Usually, it's the annoying, obnoxious ones that disappear first."

Lance was beside himself. "Uh, bull-shit! I'm the handsome, fun-loving one. That one normally goes next to last. And, Keith is the obnoxious one, so they'd take him first. Not me."

I glared at him and smacked him in the back of his head with my palm.

"I mean," he began again, giving me an embarrassed look, "They would try to take you first. But I wouldn't let them. Because I love you, and I'd fight 'em off for you. Like, I'd fight them. To the death."

Shiro laughed, clearly enjoying the reaction that his jab invoked in his fellow Paladin. "Good save, Lance."

"Yeah," I grumbled, still frowning at my lover. "Good save. You can sleep in your own bed tonight."

He whined pathetically, hurt. "Aww, but baaaaabe—"

"Uh-uh. Can it. We'll discuss this later."

Allura giggled, amused at the scene that had folded out before her. "Okay, so Shiro is first. Who's next?"

Hunk, Shiro, Lance and I all practically shouted the name in unison:

"Pidge."

Pidge gave all four of us an incredulous look, genuinely shocked at our immediate response. "What the hell, guys?!"

"You're too smart," Hunk said. "And you don't believe in ghosts. Plus, you're the only truly rational member of the team. It's too obvious. They'd target you next because you're too much of a valuable asset to us."

Lance considered this for a moment, then nodded in approval. "Yeah… Yeah, that basically sums it up. You're dead, Pidgeon."

"Oh, go screw yourself, McClain."

"Nah, fam, that's Keith's job."

I punched him in the arm as hard as I could, causing him to stagger sideways and yelp in pain.

"What?! What do you want me to do, lie?! This is domestic abuse!"

"NO," I seethed at him, "Jesus Christ, Lance!"

He made no apology and gave me that signature Lance McClain grin instead, wiggling those stupid eyebrows. God, I wanted to slam my fist into his dumb, smug face. Instead, I told him something that would wipe that obnoxious little expression off of his face:

"You would be next."

The Cuban paladin's eyes grew huge, anger flickering in their depths. "What?! WHAT?! NO way, Kogane! It'd be you!"

"Keith is right, though," Shiro confirmed, snickering. "You're too boisterous. Too outgoing. Too loud. I would've thought that they would've killed you before Pidge, to be honest. If you weren't second, then you'd definitely be next, Lance. No question."

"What the freak?! He's emo! He's supposed to die in, like, the first five minutes! Like, you know that one character that doesn't even have a name that's killed off in the very first part of the movie to show that something's seriously screwed up with the place? That's Keith!"

"Oh-ho-ho, okay," I snarled, raising my eyebrow at him testily, "you're so in your own bed tonight."

"What?! I'm being real here!"

"You're one step closer to being single. And I'm not emo."

"Only emos say that they aren't emo."

"Lance, for Christ's sake."

Lance cursed, turning his face away from us for a moment to hide his frustration. "Fine. I'm next. But Keith would be right after me."

"Wrong. Allura would be next," I corrected, still miffed by Lance's outburst. "She's incredibly smart, and super crafty. So, it would seem like she'd be able to keep the other two and herself alive, right? She'd be able to get the other survivors out without a problem."

"Well, they're almost off the hook, and then—bam! That's when she dies," Hunk finished for me, waving his hands in the air for added emphasis, "because everything always goes wrong in a horror movie and that's exactly how it'd play out. It'd leave the last two victims struggling for hope."

"What better two to leave to fend for themselves than the edgy, rugged, battle-thirsty loose cannon and the gentle, anxious, kind-hearted scaredy-cat?" Allura pointed out, her eyes sparkling in the excitement of the placement of her own 'demise'. "It's genius!"

"And then it's me," I finished. "Hunk would make it out with a broken leg or something, and then the movie'd end with our undead bodies being shown outside his window that night."

"Mmkay, well, I'm glad we had that little conversation," Hunk interjected quickly, his eyes still darting around the red-aglow room, "but I think it's time we go see what's going on with the power. It's been, like, ten whole minutes and it still isn't on again. Maybe Coran went to sleep. He'd normally have it fixed by now. Right? Right?"

"Oh, don't be such a crybaby," Allura chastised, waving a hand at him animatedly. "I just need to go flip one teeny-tiny switch in the control panel, and everything will be running smoothly again in no time. You guys stay right here. I'll be right back."

"Shouldn't… Shouldn't one of us go with you?!"

"Don't be silly, Hunk. It's the Castle. What could happen?"

"But… But Allura!" Hunk whined, "that's how the first girl got taken down by that group of creepy zombie-vampire clown things!"

I blinked. I knew that line sounded familiar.

"Don't be stupid. It's just an abandoned insane asylum. What could possibly go wrong?"

Calm down, Keith, I told myself quietly. Your nerves are just shot. It was just a movie.

"Hunk," Shiro said sternly. "This has happened before. It's just the main power switch. I'm sure that Allura is perfectly fine with going down to the control room by herself."

The Hawaiian reluctantly watched Allura's form disappear around a twist in the crimson corridor, her long ponytail swishing back and forth, her nightgown billowing ever-so-slightly with her movements. "Yeah, well… I'd still feel better if someone went with her."

"If it makes you feel better, Hunk, then I'll go with her," Pidge grumbled irritably, turning to him. "Here, we'll be right ba—"

Just then, we heard Allura's piercing shriek ring down the corridor and into the den where we stood frozen in fear. The scream was terrifying enough to send a cascade of shivers down my spine and set each and every hair on my body on end. I could feel goosebumps rise on Lance's caramel skin underneath my fingertips.

It was a moment before anyone reacted.

Finally, Shiro cried out the princess's name in alarm and dashed down the corridor, shoving off the curve in the wall and launching himself in the direction she had been walking.

We broke into action and sprinted after him, stumbling over a combination of long fleece pajama pants and fuzzy slippers.

I skidded around the corner after Shiro, Lance hot on my heels, and found our companion kneeling on the spotless tile floor, bending over something in his hand. He stood facing us and held it out slowly—a single pink gem earring, half of the same exact pair that the princess had been wearing every day since our arrival in the Altean castle. The red light cast strange shadows on Shiro's already distraught face, and made the pink earring look like a burning ember in the palm of his hand.

"What is this?" he droned coldly, looking up at us. "She couldn't have disappeared that quickly. There is literally no other way out of this corridor other than that doorway all the way at the other end." He used his free hand to point down the hall. Sure enough, the end of the corridor was nearly half a football field away. We should've seen her go through that doorway.

"L-L-L-Lance," Hunk started. I could hear the fear seep into his voice. "Lance, I s-swear to God, if you're p-p-playing a trick on us, I'll… I'll…."

"I'll beat your sorry ass," Shiro finished for him, his eyebrows furrowing together. It was becoming increasingly obvious that he was growing more and more confused and worried about his princess.

I looked up at my partner. His face had become as pale and ashen as his bedsheets, his lips parted in shock and trembling slightly in fear. He shook his head back and forth slowly, the dark pupils of his eyes small and mortified. I took his hand in mine and squeezed it tightly, rubbing circles in the back of his hand in an attempt to calm him down and somehow not show my own concern.

"Surely there's a logical explanation for this," said Pidge. "Allura had only been gone for two ticks from the time that she started walking to the time that she disappeared. It took Shiro one whole tick to make it to the corner, as well as another to find the earring. Stay right here."

She walked back into the den where we stood, then walked back down the corridor at the same speed that Allura had been when she left. Instead of stopping where we stood, Pidge continued to walk the length of the corridor down to where it opened into the next room.

"That's almost ten whole ticks," she called as she made her way back to us. "She wouldn't have even been out of the corridor yet, even if she had run."

"Freaky," I noted, gazing at the earring in Shiro's palm again.

None of the other paladins spoke for several long moments.

"Okay," Lance finally, his voice breaking only slightly. "So, uhm… so we have something seriously screwed-up happening here, and we have no idea where our princess is. And, she's the only one who knows how to turn the power back on, other than Coran. Do we know where Coran is?"

"Maybe his room?" Pidge suggested. "It is past his bedtime. He goes to sleep at, what, eight-o'clock? He's old as dirt. He's probably been out cold for a while by now."

"Probably," Shiro grunted, still concentrating in determination on the earring that lie in his hand.

"Is there a secret panel anywhere in here, maybe?"

"Probably," the former Black Paladin repeated numbly. I had begun to get the feeling that he was no longer interested in the conversation.

After a quick nod in affirmation from Pidge, Lance and I began to knock on the walls, searching for some kind of hollow sound that differentiated from the solidity of the steel around us. Pidge and began to do the same. Hunk was still too petrified to move; Shiro was still gazing at the earring in confusion.

"No luck," Lance said once we had finally given up. "What about you, Keith?"

"Nothing," I replied. "Pidge…?"

She shook her head. "Nope. Not even a trace of a trap-door or anything."

Things had gotten a bit uneasy among our group, to say the least. Lance and I exchanged a troubled glance. He took my hand again and lifted my knuckles absentmindedly to his lips, his brow furrowed in concentration.

"Maybe… Maybe we should just split up."

We all looked up at Lance in utter disbelief. Just an hour ago, he had chastised those stupid teenagers in that movie for not staying in one unit

("Rule numero uno! Never split up! Ever!")

and now, here we were—and he was suggesting that we split up.

"What happened to rule numero uno?" Hunk asked. It was the first time he had spoken in a long while. I jumped. To be honest, I had forgotten that Hunk was even there for a second. "You know, the one that says explicitly not to split up under any circumstances? Ever?"

"Well… Our first borrowed concept about horror movies was wrong…" Lance began quietly, his forehead wrinkled faintly. The blood-red light cast a sinister shadow on his face, causing his already-sharp features to seem even sharper and more in-depth. "About the leader being taken first, I mean. So, right now, shouldn't we just assume that we can't just depend on what we learned from horror movies to survive, right? Maybe it really is better if we cover more ground. One team can go and wake up Coran so he can get the castle power going again, and the other team can go search for Allura. What else can we do? We're sitting ducks."

"We can always go back to our rooms and go get some sleep," suggested Hunk. "That'd be nice."

One look at Shiro's distressed expression told us that it clearly wasn't happening. "I'm not going to bed until I find Allura. Go on and go sleep if you want, Hunk, but I'm going to find her. That goes for all of you. If I have to do it by myself, so be it."

Pidge laid a gentle hand on Shiro's shoulder and shot Hunk a dirty look. "Don't worry, Shiro. We're gonna find her. And we'll all do it together. Right, Hunk?"

Hunk pressed his lips together in retaliation, but slowly nodded his head anyway.

The Green Paladin nodded in approval. "Okay, well, then why don't you and Keith and Lance go look for Allura, and Shiro and I can go get Coran?"

Shiro appeared torn for a moment—but then he gave in. "Fine. But as soon as we get Coran up and into the control room, I'm going to look for the princess."

"Fair enough."

"Why did I get put with the them?!" Hunk asked frantically. "We literally just watched a movie where the scaredy-cat got put with the couple and they ended up making stupid, cliché decisions that got them both killed. What if something happens to them at the same time? What am I supposed to do if that happens?!"

Shiro rolled his eyes. "Lance and Keith are better at hand-to-hand combat, Hunk. I'm sure if anything attacked you guys, then you'd be fine."

Hunk looked mildly offended. "Uh, I can take care of myself, too, you know. I'm a Voltron Paladin, too. I mean, yeah, I'm just a mechanic, and yeah I kinda suck at combat that doesn't include a gun or a Lion, but that's not the point!"

"It's just for a minute, Hunk," Pidge told him, clapping her hand on his shoulder. "We'll come find you as soon as we find Coran. Okay?"

"I'm just concerned that this is exactly the way the movie went and none of you are even worried about it or about each other. Like, seriously, something seriously funky is going on here, and I have a really, really bad feeling about this. I swear to God, if one of you is playing a joke, you better quit it now or I swear to every celestial being in this stupid God-forsaken universe I will slaughter all of you in your sleep."

It took a little more convincing, but Hunk finally agreed to break off into groups—even if it was reluctantly, still. I can't say I blamed him. This was going eerily similar to Night of the Living Undead. I didn't want to confirm that, or bring it up in any way, though. Hunk was already insanely scared, and I could tell that Lance was getting spooked, too. Showing my own worry with the matter would only make it worse. I just clasped Lance's hand in between my own and led them both through the twists and turns in the castle, trying my best to ignore the eerie shadows that the pulsing red emergency lights cast on the ever-winding corridor walls.