"Aw, Jo-Jo, you're such a good boy. I'm glad you here with us now."

Jake had been looking through the front window again when he heard Jeffrey say this, and he turned around to see Jeffrey sitting on the floor, gently stroking Jo-Jo with a calm look on his face. The tabby cat looked very pleased.

It had already been several days since Jake had accepted Jo-Jo into his house. Both Jake and Jeffrey had agreed that they would own the cat together, but Jo-Jo always stayed at Jake's house, even when Jeffrey went home. Jake liked having Jo-Jo around, too; the cat was very gentle. He was sweet to him and Jeffrey, almost never mad, and never scratched the furniture or anything. He tended to spend his days eating the food he was given and sleeping on sofa or on Jake's bed.

They had already bought everything they needed to take care of the cat, too. Both Jake and Jeffrey made enough money from their part-time jobs to be able to give Jo-Jo a constant supply of cat food every day, as well as an extra scratching post in case he needed it, and a litter box as well. They had even both been planning to get Jo-Jo his own kitty bed so he would have a designated place to sleep all day long.

Jake realized that he had forgotten about Jo-Jo for the most part. The excitement and events that had happened over the last few days had been his main focus, and the neighbor always resurfaced to his mind here and there. They never invited Jo-Jo when they went to the neighbor's house, because they knew the neighbor would not be very happy if he saw his cat under their care. Besides, their priority was to keep Jo-Jo safe and happy, and so far, they had done a very good job of doing so.

"Having fun with Jo-Jo, Jeffrey?" Jake inquired, smiling.

"Yep. He's been on some really good behavior over these past few days." Jeffrey replied, nodding. "I'm glad we have him around. Makes life just a bit brighter, you know?"

"I can agree with you there. On an unrelated note, I think we should get back to our plans with the neighbor today. After all, we've got all the items we need." Jake went over to the dresser that had the tv seated on it and opened one of the drawers, taking out several items: the basement key, the keycard, and a crowbar.

The crowbar had been a recent acquisition. They had previously thought they had needed to steal the neighbor's crowbar and use it, but they had found that unlike the basement key and the keycard, which were items that were one-of-a-kind and were required to be stolen in order for them to enter the basement, the crowbar was something they found themselves able to buy off of the internet. And so they had yesterday, and now one was in their possession.

"We've got all three of the items we need." Jake said, holding them up in his hands. "Now we'll be able to unlock the basement door and get inside."

"I know, I'm excited that we got them." Jeffrey answered, grinning hopefully. "With these items, we can finally accomplish our main goal and rescue the missing people!" Jo-Jo looked up at them and meowed. "Huh? No, sorry, Jo-Jo, it's too dangerous for you to come. You'll have to stay here while we go." Jo-Jo looked disappointed, but he nodded his little head in acceptance anyway.

"Wow, Jeffrey, you actually can get Jo-Jo to answer you like a human can?" Jake asked in surprise.

"Well, sort of. He can't exactly understand me and communicate with me like a human can, but he seems intelligent enough to get the general meaning behind what I say."

"No way!"

"Yes, we can communicate in our own way. Watch this. Hey, Jo-Jo, what do you think the meaning of life is?" The cat paused, then leaned forward and licked Jeffrey's face. "Aww, ha ha! I think he thinks that the meaning of life is to love and be loved by everyone."

"Hey, that's a pretty good message. Did he really say that?"

"Not sure, but that's what I interpret. Man, it makes me kind of excited to finally get into the basement. Once we rescue everyone and bring this town back to its former glory, we can relax all day long. We might even be able to go on road trips, too."

"I know, I'm dreaming of being able to do the same thing. But before we can get there, we have to work hard at stopping the neighbor first. Now, I think it's time we go over to his house and get into the basement. I'm ready when you are."

"Oh, wow, you're ready to go already? Even I'm not that much of a go-getter! Yeah, I think now that we're so close to doing what we wanted to do, there's no use wasting any more time. Let's go."

Jeffrey got up onto his feet, and Jake led him out of the living room and into the foyer. As they did, Jeffrey turned and said: "Bye, Jo-Jo! We'll see you when we get back!"

The cat just meowed calmly. Jo-Jo had already jumped up onto the sofa and stretched out, possibly planning to take another nap while Jake and Jeffrey were gone.

"Bye!" Jake joined in, waving to Jo-Jo as well before he and Jeffrey left the room, heading through the foyer, out the front door again, and onto the front porch of Jake's house. Their sights were already set on their target: the neighbor's house, standing across the street as it always did.

"Alright, so I assume that we're going to go the same way we did last time?" Jeffrey asked Jake.

"Yeah, I figure we should. Going the back way and sneaking around the camera seemed to be our best bet yesterday, so we'll take the same route, get inside the house, and keep going from there."

"Great, then we've got a plan of action now. Let's move."

As they went forward, Jake took the items needed to break into the basement and tucked them away. He put the basement key into his left pocket, the keycard into his right, and he tucked the crowbar into his jacket. With all of the items secure, he finally decided he was ready, and off he went, Jeffrey following behind him.

They took the route they had taken before: they went across the street from there, going left and around the house itself, being careful to avoid the two cameras watching the front porch. Then they crept to the backyard and the fence surrounding it. So far, so good.

They both climbed the same tree from before, with Jake helping Jeffrey get up, and then they dropped down into the yard. They made a wide berth around the area where the backyard camera was keeping watch and made their way over to the back window of the neighbor's bedroom without detection.

It was here that Jake saw that the window had been boarded up again. But, before he could question what they'd do know, Jeffrey went over, climbed up the short ladder to the window, and simply ripped off the barricades with his bare hands. He flashed a grin to Jake, and Jake grinned back; luck was on their side again, it seemed. The neighbor had once again been careless about putting barricades on his windows.

With the small obstacle already out of the way, the two of them climbed through the window and into the neighbor's bedroom. They made their way through the doorway and into the front hallway at once. They didn't want to waste time looking at anything else in the neighbor's house when the most important room in the building was now possible to access.

They made their way down the front hallway, into the foyer, and it was here that they heard the neighbor. They could hear him in his living room, loudly muttering things Jake couldn't decipher. Curious, both Jake and Jeffrey peeked through the doorway of the living room.

The neighbor was standing in the center of the room, his eyes trained on the basement door. For once, he didn't seem angry or aggressive. In fact, he looked...depressed? He was muttering things to himself, but suddenly, he came to a stop. Then he put his hands up to his face and covered it, sighing into the palms of his gloved hands.

Jake stood there, frozen to the spot as he watched the neighbor. He didn't understand why, but for some reason, he felt sort of sad, too. It was this feeling in his gut that Jake felt, and he found himself unable to explain why seeing the neighbor so vulnerable had made him feel this way. It was so unorthodox for the neighbor to do; after all, Jake was used to the neighbor being a gruff, irritated man who never seemed to fully appreciate his day. But this was different. This was another side to the neighbor.

Jake found himself wanting to look closer at the scene. He stepped further through the doorway, pushing the door aside...and it made a loud creak.

The neighbor went rigid, then whipped around. He gasped, seeing Jake and Jeffrey standing there. The two of them were openmouthed to having been spotted so quickly, and Jake legs started to work as he planned to turn and run away.

But the neighbor was faster. His surprise now replaced with anger, he ran up quickly, and Jake found his ability to breath suddenly restricted.

Can't move.

Can't hear.

Can't breath.

And then everything was dark again.

Before he knew it, Jake found himself exclaiming in fear as he woke up.

He already expected to see what he was about to see before he even saw it, but it still didn't please him: he was back in his house, sitting on his couch, all over again. Jeffrey was laying against the wall, tiredly stroking Jo-Jo, who was looking up to Jeffrey with concern.

"Aw, man, we were caught already." Jake groaned. "I was hoping we wouldn't have to get knocked out again today."

"Pretty clear at this point that that luxury isn't available to guys as reckless as us." Jeffrey joked, chuckling dryly. "Isn't that right, Jo-Jo?"

"Meow?" The cat meowed.

"I'm fine, okay? No need to worry. I'm used to feeling down and out for a little bit after I get knocked out."

"That was weird, though." Jake processed. "Like, a different kind of weird."

"You're right about that. I've never seen the neighbor look like that before. He's usually all "idiot kids!" and "get out of my house!" but he didn't even look angry or even peeved today. And when he spotted us, he didn't even say anything either. He just charged at us and knocked us out."

"Huh. I get the feeling that we saw him in a way that he didn't want us to see..."

"Feels like it, definitely."

"Then...I didn't think I'd have to do this, but I'm going to have to resort to plan B."

Jeffrey sat up straighter, looking perplexed. "Plan B? I didn't know we had a pre-prepared plan B."

"Well, we do, because I made it. I was coming up with new plans in my free time while you were away at your house, and I wrote down my planned message on a piece of paper. Let me take it out real quick." Jake walked over to the dresser in the center of the room, opened the drawer, and took it out: a piece of paper scrawled with a message. "See this? My plan is that we're going to deliver this to the neighbor."

"Deliver it?"

"That's right. It's a letter for him- but it won't be marked. We'll keep it anonymous so he isn't the wiser. One of us has to go up, put the letter on his doormat, and ring the doorbell so he knows it's there. He'll come up, read the letter, and be off."

"Be off? Wait, so the letter is going to make him leave his house? How?"

Jake let out a mischievous grin he had been concealing. "It's going to tell him the secret location in this town where the rabbits are hiding...or at least, the letter will act like it knows. In reality, it actually goes to the alleyway between the clock tower and the theater. He's not going to find any rabbits, but he will find a whole lot of garbage."

Jeffrey gawked at Jake for a solid ten seconds after Jake had finished speaking. Then, sounding stunned: "You...you planned all of this just last night? I'm impressed."

Jake grinned wider. "Hey, when your main focus is doing heroic acts and sneaking around, you've got to put a lot of thought into it if you want it to succeed. Now, we need to just run to his front porch, put it at the doormat, ring the doorbell, and run away. I was planning to go and do it real quick-"

"Woah, woah, hold on! Let me do it, Jake."

"Oh, you want to do it?"

"Yeah, it'd be the good thing to do. You were the one who worked to make the plan, so I should be the one to do the other half of the work. Fair tradeoff, right?"

"As fair as we can make it! Well then, let's do this. Come on."

They walked out of the room, into the foyer, and to the front door. Jake handed Jeffrey the note, which he gripped tightly in his hand. They nodded to each other.

"Okay, go on. I'll be watching from right here in case something happens."

"Got it. I'll get this over with quick. Let's do this."

Jeffrey opened the front door and ran outside. Jake closed the door almost completely, but left it open a crack as he watched through the door's windows. He watched Jeffrey make his way across the street, instinctively looking both ways despite their being no cars on the street, and making it to the sidewalk on the other side. He watched Jeffrey get across the moat with little difficulty and get right to the fence gate.

Jeffrey then reached for the handle on the gate and pushed it. It swung open easily. Jake couldn't help but snort; the neighbor seemed to have a consistency to forget to lock his own gate.

It was then that when Jeffrey crept into the front yard, Jake exclaimed: what about the cameras?! But fortunately, he could see that the cameras were facing down, deactivated, and they did not activate when Jeffrey got closer. Jake chuckled a bit at this. Sure, the neighbor forgetting to lock his front gate happened so frequently that it wasn't that big of a surprise, but the cameras were deactivated, too? Jake supposed that either the equipment was broken, the neighbor had gotten lazy that day, or he and Jeffrey were just incredibly lucky to have all the major obstacles be down at the right time. For some reason, Jake couldn't help but think the answer might've been a mixture of all three.

Then, Jake saw Jeffrey drop the note right in front of the door, lean forward, ring the doorbell, then rapidly turn and run back the way he came. Jeffrey had gotten back out the gate, across the moat, and almost entirely across the street when the front doors of the neighbor's house slammed open.

Jake threw open the door as Jeffrey ran inside, and threw it back closed as Jeffrey got safely into the house's interior. Jeffrey smiled, nodding in confirmation at Jake. Jake grinned, patting Jeffrey on the back for a job well done, and then both of them went into the living room, opened the window a crack, and started to see what the neighbor would do.

The neighbor had not noticed Jeffrey; as soon as the door had come open, his eyes had rested on the note lying at his feet. The neighbor picked up, and Jake saw his eyes scan the words on the letter at lightning speed.

"Hmm..." They heard the neighbor say. "...interesting. So the location is there..." He looked at the area around him, looking for whoever delivered the letter, then he stared back at the letter once again. "...but who knew this, anyway? I'd need to thank them...maybe not. However, this information will come in handy...yes, I'll go there now." He grinned evilly, stuffed the letter into his pocket, and went back into his house.

A minute later, he came back out, toting a shovel in his hands as he went out his front door, out the front gate as well, and then down the street, looking very much ready to get what he wanted.

Jake just shrugged once the neighbor had left. "Wow, my plan actually worked. I'm surprised how easily that went."

"Well, the rabbits have been getting on the neighbor's nerves since the day he started kidnapping people." Jeffrey informed Jake. "He's letting his desire to get them out drive him now instead of his cunning and intellect. We can use this to our advantage."

"Exactly, we can take advantage of this and get into his basement! That was what I was thinking."

"We should head over to his house now, while he's long gone. He's fast, but that man won't be back for a short while. It'll give us enough time to get in there and do what we need to."

"Right. Let's go."

"Bye, Jo-Jo." Jeffrey said to Jo-Jo, who was laying on the sofa. "We'll be back as soon as we can! Stay inside the house and stay out of sight!"

The cat meowed, then laid back down.

Meanwhile, Jake and Jeffrey went back into the foyer and departed out the front door together this time.

"Hey, Jake, are you sure there aren't any rabbits in that alley?" Jeffrey asked as they walked, raising an eyebrow.

"I think so. I checked it out and it looked empty. If there are any rabbits hiding there, I wouldn't have known. I kind of just picked the location of the fake hideout at random."

"Then it's probably fine. The rabbits would've picked a better spot to hide out...well, anyway, enough of this crazy talk about rabbits. Let's keep going."

Again, they managed to cross the street, get across the moat, and through the front gate without any problems. Jake, now that he was there, took a closer look at the cameras. They indeed were shut off. There was usually a red light blinking next to the camera visor at all times, even when it was pretending to be deactivated, but no such light shone now.

"Hmm, this is a bit too easy." Jake noted. "The cameras are shut off, and the entire alarm system isn't even active."

"He must've gotten overconfident and left them off." Jeffrey theorized. "Or maybe he forget to turn them on because he was busy with other things. Either way, the alarm system isn't even active."

"Then we should be good to go. Come on, we can't delay this much further. This is our chance to finally get into the basement, and we can't just sit idly while opportunity is knocking so close to home!"

"Right, right."

They walked across the front lawn and up to the front door. Jake knew what was going to happen before it happened, and was not disappointed to see that the front door had been left unlocked. This, in his mind, was understandable. The neighbor had left in quite a hurry in his rush to find the rabbits. It once again made Jake realize that his plan, which had been developed in less than a day, had been working so much better then he could've ever expected. How did it work so well? Not that he was complaining, anyway, since it gave him and Jeffrey the chance to do what they had been meaning to do: to break into the basement.

They entered the house, stepping into the foyer, and then through the door to the right into the living room. And there it was, right across from the front window of the living room: the basement door. It stood there as it always did: metallic, a noticeable obstacle. There was a slot for a key, boards were nailed to it, and there was a keycard slot connected to it as well.

Jake stepped up and began the process. Taking out the crowbar from his jacket first, he ripped every single board off of the door with great effort, and one by one, the boards clattered to the floor, their nails still stuck in them. These boards had been pried with much more precision and care than before, but with enough effort, they came off easily.

Second came the keycard. Jake took it out from one of his pockets, reached over to the keycard slot, and positioned the keycard. He swiped it carefully, making sure it passed all the way through. There were two lights above the slot: one green, and one red. The red light had been on, but now it flickered off, and the green light came on in its place. Jake took this as a sign that the security system for the door had been disabled.

Jake could feel himself sweating a tiny bit. The anxiousness inside was building up, more and more. He couldn't help himself; after all, this was the moment he had been waiting for. The moment when he and Jeffrey would finally manage to break through the defenses of the door and crack it wide open. They had been building up to this every day, and now the time had come.

As he took the basement key out of his pocket, he looked at Jeffrey. "This is it." He whispered.

"Yeah. At last." Jeffrey sighed. "Hey, just want to ask...can I do the honors? I've been waiting to open this door for a while."

"Of course you can. You've been here longer than me and you've been investigating the neighbor longer than me. You deserve to be the one to do this."

"Thanks."

Jeffrey took the key from Jake, held it up to the key slot, and inserted it in. Jake could see that Jeffrey's hands were shaking slightly, and he didn't blame him. This was tense, after all.

Then Jeffrey slowly but surely turned the key to the side.

A second of silence...

And then, there was a click.

Jeffrey slowly took the key out of the keyhole, gave it back to Jake, and then...reaching out...he pushed the door open.

It swung forward creepily, making a loud creak as it slid into an open state, and revealing what was behind it.

At first, Jake couldn't clearly see what was there. The room ahead was very dark and eerie, and it took his eyes a second to adjust, but then he saw it: a long, long flight of stairs going down a long, long corridor. Candles had been placed along the stairs as a form of lighting, though the flickering flames of each wax candle that was placed barely illuminated the area around them. The overall sight was perhaps the most intimidating thing Jake had seen in the neighbor's house so far.

"Woah." Jake gasped. "That's...very scary-looking."

"Jake, we can't hesitate now." Jeffrey said determinedly. "Everything we're looking for is down those stairs. We need to get down there."

"Alright, alright, I understand, it's just...man. I knew the basement would have to look creepy, but I didn't expect it to look this creepy. Anyway, you're right. Let's start going down."

Jake took a step forward, and placed his foot on the first step of the stairs. The wood creaked a little under his weight, but otherwise it seemed fine to step on. He took another step and another, and he started to go down the stairs. He heard Jeffrey stepping on behind him, and knew it was too late to turn back. Time to go.

The steps didn't go down all that far. Jake could see a small room at the end of the stairs, and to the left of this room was a beam of light pouring out of the room. Was there somebody down there? Did the light signify a presence?

Jake found out right then. As soon as he got about halfway down the stairs, his ears were pierced by a sudden, loud noise.

A woman's scream.

There was a tremendous uproar of noise coming from down below. Footsteps, tons of them, and Jake could even hear...voices?

"Everyone! He's coming!" Jake jumped in surprise, his heart taking a jolt as he heard this scream coming from down below. "RUN!"

"Is that?!" Jeffrey exclaimed.

"The missing people!" Jake finished. "They must think we're the neighbor! HEY! Come back! We're not the neighbor!"

They both shouted this down the stairs as they thundered further towards the end, but it seemed as if they were not being heard. The footsteps sounding below had got even louder, and the voices were louder, too. There were people down there, shouting in panic, yelling to one another things Jake could not make out. Shadows were passing by the light streaming from the door below, and then the light snapped off. Suddenly, there was the sound of a door being thrown open, and the footsteps were beginning to fade away.

Jake reached the bottom of the stairs, finding himself in a dark wooden room with plain, uncolored and strangely blank walls. To the left, there was another door. It had been slightly cracked open, and there was another room beyond.

"Damn, they're already gone!" Jeffrey cursed. "Jake, we need to go on!"

"I know, we have to catch up to them before-" Jake began to say, but was stopped short.

"HEY!" A thunderous, enraged voice echoed from above. "My basement door...it's OPEN!? Who the hell is in my basement?! Wait, no...I know who it is! You two IDIOTIC teens! How dare you enter my basement!"

There was a large amount of fast footsteps, and then the neighbor came running into the room, sliding to a stop at the foot of the stairs. Jake and Jeffrey yelled, backing against the wall.

"Alright, you idiot kids, you've taken this too far!" The neighbor yelled. "My basement is off-limits to ALL! And you think you can just come in here?! It doesn't matter if you're curious about what's down here, it's mine and nobody else's! And, if you're down here...that letter at the door! You kids sent it, didn't you?!"

"Yeah, we did!" Jake yelled out in a moment of fearlessness. "We did it because you locking all these people down here isn't right! We're going to get them all out of here...and there's nothing you can do about it!"

His fearlessness succeeded, but not in the good way entirely. The neighbor now looked even angrier than before. "So that's what it is, huh?! Grr...well, I WON'T let you! I'll just have to knock you both out again!"

"Jake, now's our chance!" Jeffrey called out, and he pointed at the door to the left, cracked open, leading further on. "Hurry and RUN!"

"Got it!" Jake called back, and he ran for the door.

He knew this was it. The neighbor had found them, found them entering the basement, and now he knew what they were trying to do in full. Was this the end? He didn't know, but what Jake did now was that it was time to go down into the basement, to find the people who fled and rescue them...

"Come on! We don't have time to lose!"

They had split off from the rest of the group upon running. The corridors always were winding, going long, splitting into separate paths here and there. They would need to remember the way they came if they wished to escape.

"I knew this was a bad idea!" One of them yelled. "It was only a matter of time before he checked the basement!"

"Ugh, I can't believe this! I almost thought we were out!" The other replied.

"Well, no time to lament. We have to hurry and hide. If we can dodge the neighbor, we might be able to get past him and get out!"

"Right!"

Both of them continued on their path. They hoped everyone else was okay, but both of them knew there was no looking for them now, not when escape was so near...

"THE CHASE HAS BEGUN...AND MUCH EARLIER THAN I WOULD HAVE EXPECTED."

Dark. Dark everywhere. A voice echoed throughout the darkened land. It was a presence that was there, surveying events that had began, events that he should have foreseen.

"HE HAS FAILED TO KEEP THE BASEMENT SAFE...AND NOW, KEEPING THEM SECURE MAY PROVE DIFFICULT. THIS IS TROUBLING...BUT I MUST NOT DETER IN MY PLANS. IF THEY ESCAPE NOW, ALL THAT IS SET UP WILL BE RUINED. THE NEIGHBOR WILL HAVE TO CATCH THEM IN TIME IF HE WISHES HIS SECRETS TO BE KEPT. I WILL HAVE TO GIVE HIM SUPPORT."

"ALL THAT MATTERS IS THAT THE DEAL IS NOT BROKEN. I WILL NOT LET THIS FALL OUT. AND SOON, THIS WILL BE OVER. THE ORDER WILL CONTINUE...AND I WILL GET WHAT I DESIRE."

"NOW THEN, LET'S GET DOWN TO BUSINESS..."

It went off on its own. It needed to control the situation before it got out of control. This would not be the end, no, but only the beginning.

All that was required for this was to pull some strings. With the correct actions taken, all would go according to plan...