Act 1: Chapter 2

The hallway was empty.

"Looks like the coast is clear. For now," I commented.

"yeah."

As we looked around, I noticed all the junk on the ground.

"Have you guys ever thought of cleaning this up?"

"since most of this belonged to our dad, we decided to let them be. but throwing them out would've been a better option."

"anyway, come on," she gestured for me to follow. "my weapon's in the hall closet, maybe we can find something for you as well."

"Yeah, we don't want that crafty snake to get a drop on us," I agreed.

As we explored the hall, I spotted several notable objects. One of which was a globe-like sculpture with an arrow that point up towards the ceiling.

"Ah, so that's the location of the ceiling. Thank you, globe object!"

Joey couldn't help herself as she burst out laughing.

Another object I spotted was a jewelry box. Joey told me that it belong to her mother, so it was an extremely valuable heirloom. Next to it was any empty can of Pringles. Most likely Jude's.

There was a stuffed toy that really creeped me out. Jude apparently ripped it with an experimental "foamless dart," so Joey patched it back up.

There was also a statue in a tutu covered with darts.

"ah balinda," Joey commented, "she provided great cover in the dart gun war."

"Who won?"

"i tried to distracted jude by tap dancing, but it did not work."

"So it was a draw?"

"...sure, why not?"

There was a dart gun on a nearby chair.

"Maybe this could be useful," I held it up, grabbing several darts on the floor.

I looked up to see a painting of a woman covered in stickers.

"this lady was hanging out, and it was making me a little uncomfortable. so i churched her up a little."

"Seems a little silly doesn't it?"

"well, i was eight years old at the time."

I looked around the hall a little more. Jude's bedroom door was covered in stickers, signs and caution tape.

"The guy is real serious about privacy."

"jude wants to make sure no gets into his room because of all his conspiracy work."

"Conspiracy work?"

"i don't know much about it. i've never thought about entering the room."

"Why would you want to?"

"well, his pet is there."

"His pigeons?"

"no, his other pet."

I arched an eyebrow.

She stepped forward and whispered in my ear.

My eyes widened, "Oh."

"i love animals all the same," she explained, "but that's one i'd rather let jude deal with."

They're Lite Brite was a pretty cool device that changed shapes.

The closet was right next to Jude's room. Opening it up, I wasn't surprised to see it crammed full of junk.

"my weapon is in that box," Joey pointed up at a brown box crammed up top. "can you give me a boost?"

"Sure," I knelt down and got into position.

I braced myself as Joey climbed up, her shoe slightly digging into my hands.

"Do you think you could hurry up a bit?" I asked as my arms began to shake.

"hang on. i almost...got it!"

However, right as she said that, she lost balance.

"Oh crap!" I let out as she fell on top of me. She landed on my stomach expelling the air out of me.

"are you ok?" Joey asked as she got off.

"Oh I'm fine," I grunted. "Just had the wind knocked out of me."

After helping me up, Joey dug into the box, pulling out a flashlight, an old pair of ballet shoes and a bag of dog food.

"Where's your weapon?" I asked.

"this is it," she held up the flashlight.

I looked at her with an arched eyebrow.

"you'll see what i mean," She explained before trying to turn on the device. Confused, she opened it and turned it over. Instead of batteries, all that fell out was a bunch of POGS. "dang it, jude!"

As she radioed her brother, I sifted through the closet to find my own weapon. I picked up what look like a glow stick, and the hacking tool I lent to Jude. I wondered what happened to this thing.

Joey switched off her walkie as I slipped on the watch.

"up the attic then?" She asked.

I shrugged. "Where else?"

As we arrived at the attic, I noticed a bunch of stuff right outside the door. Nothing but a pile of useless trash.

Joey approached and looked it over. "looks like there are some old toys that i used to play with."

I noticed she had a small look of anger on her face when she looked at the door. "You ok?"

"during his rare visits here, we could hear pa up here messing around with all this trash."

"I'm sorry."

"it's fine," she responded, turning to me with a smile. "but thanks anyway."

She approached the door and looked through the key hole. "hmm..."

"What is it?"

She looked away. "there's something big that's covered up. i've never seen it before."

"That's weird. Let me take it a look."

Joey aside for me too look through. The attic was pretty dark with a lot of junk laying around. In the far back however, was a huge object draped in a sheet. A window must've been open as the sheet was rustling.

Joey turned on her radio. "hey, the attic door's locked!"

"CRIPES, FORGOT ABOUT THAT. TACTICAL BLUNDER ON MY PART. over."

"it's fine. no big deal, we just left the safety of my room to be eaten by monsters in the hallway because my dorky brother sent us to the safety of a locked door."

Wow. Burn.

"IT IS NOT FINE. over."

"jude!" Joey cried out in panic.

"PANIC NOT NECESSARY. STILL NEED TO GET YOU TWO TO ATTIC. over."

"for safety, right. well, whatever," Joey responded. "we're trusting you, i guess."

She turned to me at that last sentence, probably to see if I agree with here.

I smiled and nodded, causing her to smile in return.

"APPRECIATE THAT. over."

"although so far it hasn't really paid off," we both snickered at that.

"GUYS PLEASE, JUST NEED YOU TWO TO HEAD TO TROPHY ROOM. over."

"oh gross!" Joey complained. "i hate that place. why does pa even need a trophy room, when our WHOLE HOUSE is just his dumping ground for whatever garbage he picks up on his stupid "adventures?" "

"WILL FIND KEY TO ATTIC THERE," Jude responded. "MYSERIOUS WHIMS OF ABSENT FATHER NOT RELEVANT. over."

Joey sighed. "fine."

"over and out."

"So," I spoke after a moment, "back downstairs then?"

"pretty much."

We made our way back through the hallways to the stairs. As we made our way down, I got to look at their family pictures hanging on the wall. Some of them were of Joey and Jude, others included what I think is their baby sitter, their mom and their dad.

I recognized the lovely diptych of Joey and Jude's school portraits. Both were smiling, Joey on a forest background and Jude on a laser background. I'm remember the bad hair days too. Simply perfection.

"ha ha, jude puts the DIP in diptych," Joey commented as she looked at the portraits.

I stared blankly at her. "I... don't get it."

She turned to me. "You see, it's... uh. I don't get it either."

I noticed another picture of Joey's pa with what looked like a dead deer. It was covered in stickers. Joey obviously did it, she deplored cruelty to animals.

There was a picture of a younger Joey and Jude with a white haired girl. Probably their babysitter. Joey used to talk about how she was really cool, but later on Joey mentioned she turned out to be a sucky role model.

Some of portraits were of their mother. I had to admit, she was a very beautiful woman. Their dad just looked bland.

As we kept moving down the stairs I noticed other decorations that belong to their dad such as guns and a statue of a snake.

The lights flickered out as we neared the bottom of the stairs. We could hear everything power down. The mansion grew dark but it was still illuminated by the open windows.

Joey began to look nervous, so I grabbed her hand and gave her a reassuring smile. It helped calm her down. I wasn't gonna lie, I was scared too, but I promised Jude I'd look after his sister.

Joey turned on the radio. "well, it would seem the power's out."

"CLASSIC PSY-OPS. over." Jude responded.

"what?"

"CREDIT WHERE IT'S DUE," he explained. "BEST WAY TO DESTABILIZE COUNTERMEASURES: LEAVE YOU IN THE DARK. LITERALLY. over."

"not literally," Joey countered. "it's still like, late afternoon. we can see fine."

"SHOULD HAVE NO TROUBLE GETTING TO TROPHY ROOM THEN. over."

"fine then, mr. mission control," Joey answered in a mocking tone.

"YES. GREAT. over and out."

The two of us look down at the bottom of the stairs, knowing that snake thing could be down there. But, we steeled our courage, and proceeded down.

And here is chapter 2. Sorry for the delay.

This story is going on hiatus until I'm in Mortal Kombat, Sweet! is finished. It shouldn't be too long, but don't quote me on that.

On another note, I have a request for you guys.

I'd like you to check out my story Joining the Fight. It's based off the web comic Dreamkeepers. For those of you who don't know it, type in Dreamkeepers Comic to find the website.

When it's finished, I'm going to send it to the creators so they could publish it. Hopefully.

Until then, I'd like to get your reviews on it.

'Til next time.

This is the EZ-GMR,

logging out.