Chapter II: The Haunted

"Goodmorning"

~Everybody moving around

Acting like nothing had changed

But something had changed in me~

Ariya Arden

I wake up to the sound of screaming.

I'm up in a flash, knives in my hands as my eyes dart around my surroundings. Pierre has the same reaction beside me, Everly and Arno both a bit more sluggish to wake up but still finding their weapons before long. Our two night-watchers are the only ones not stirred into action, Ainsley and May both peering at the mansion oddly.

The screaming continues for another good fifteen seconds uninterrupted before it finally abruptly cuts off, not a single other sound rising from the mansion as the arena is suddenly returned to silence.

Arno is the first to speak up.

"What the heck was that?" he mumbles, rubbing his eyes and yawning as he leans on his spear for support.

"Maybe that cut was deeper than you thought," I offer, a yawn forcing its way out of me as I shove my knives back onto my belt. "And one of them is in there dying right now."

"No," Ainsley says, taking a hesitant step toward the door and brushing her hand along the wood tentatively. "That was a girl's scream."

"So another one of the outliers was already hiding out in there," Pierre says dismissively. "And they all just discovered each other. More fish in the barrel for us to shoot."

"I don't know," Ainsley says tentatively. "There's something about that scream, it didn't seem–"

Her train of thought is cut off as she leans into the door and it pushes open easily, the wood creaking loudly on its hinges. Ainsley pulls back suddenly and stops, the door left open a sliver as we all stare at it oddly.

"Huh, whatcha know," I say cheerily. "Why didn't we think of checking the lock?"

"We did," Everly mutters, but nobody seems to hear her.

May skips over to the door and pokes her head in. She turns around to the rest of us and shrugs, her voice light and airy. "So, I know we're all going in there, because duh, but I just want to say it totally looks like a horror movie in there. Like, there's one-hundred percent a couple of ghosts hanging out in the basement is all that I'm saying."

"Ooh, that's fun," I say. "You think they're gonna try possessing one of us? I feel like it's gonna be Everly that they get first. Anyone else get that vibe?"

Pierre pushes open the door, the early morning sunlight cracking through the entrance and dimly illuminating the entrance. May's description was pretty spot on. From our shared outlook on the front steps, it's pretty much horror-movie central. Creaky wooden floors, dusty old portraits, random dark red paint splotches on the wall, and a bunch of old-timey furniture that's been torn upside down and thrown in all sorts of random directions. The only piece of furniture that hasn't been touched is a black piano that stands neatly in the center of the room, not a speck of dust on its shiny surface.

"This is so stupid," Ainsley murmurs.

Arno grumbles something in a similar vein and Everly's eyes seem to share the lack of amusement, but nobody opens their mouth to voice any other ideas aside from heading in. Obvious Gamemaker trap or not, there are two (or maybe three) outliers hiding in this little place and it's our job to put on a good show for the audiences back home. Everybody knows it, and so with May excitedly taking the lead, Pierre and I trailing right behind, we head inside.

Everly brings up the rear and much to my surprise the double doors don't slam shut behind her the moment she steps through the doorway. No screams ring out again, no furniture slides against the floor, no flickering lights or creepy music in the distance. It's a bit anticlimactic, really.

We stay in the entry room for a good minute waiting for something to happen that never does before Pierre shakes his head and whistles for our attention, a circle forming up as he starts barking out instructions. Let's find these runts and clear this place out. Everly and Ainsley can stay here, sweep the first floor, and watch the exit. Ariya and May go find out if there's a basement, I'll take the one-armed pacifist up to search the second and third floor."

"What about the attic?" I ask giddily. "There's definitely an attic. I call dibs on me and May getting to explore it after we go say hi to the demons in the basement."

"All yours," Pierre says.

I fist pump and go for a high-five that May enthusiastically meets, a goofy smile on her lips. "This is going to be so fun! Some tension and action and fear? The squad splitting up in a haunted house with a few dangerous outliers on the loose? I think we're about to peak, you guys."

"Just shut up and start searching already," Ainsley groans.

May giggles and shrugs, unsheathing her little hook sword with a flourish and dramatically gesturing for me to lead the way. "After you, Miss Arden," she says.

I bow dramatically and skip on ahead of her, not bothering with my knives just yet but making sure that they're at my belt waiting for me. "So gracious, Miss Redding," I say in a posh accent not too far from the one my parents probably wish I was speaking in right now."

We begin the search after that, which ends up being a bigger task than I had thought it would be at first. For starters, the mansion is even bigger than it looked on the outside. Or maybe it isn't, but it sure seems like it. Past the large, open entrance room the place is a giant maze. The hallways and scattering of rooms and closets would already be confusing enough, but with how torn apart and scattered the place is with loose furniture, torn wallpaper, and hanging sheets and drapes, the place gives me a headache.

It doesn't take long to lose track of the other two duos, but that doesn't bother me too much. It's not like drapes and sheets are gonna soundproof them screaming if a ghost pops out at them or something. And failing that there's always the trusty old sound of cannons. Besides, May has my back. Even if she is wielding a sword that has an edge less sharp than a training blade.

I suppose I should be feeling scared about all of this. Even Pierre is acting serious, and that's saying something. Sure, May is keeping up with my craziness, but that girl isn't right in the head so that isn't worth much. But I can't help feeling excited more than anything else. This is why I wanted to volunteer.

The tingling feeling I'm feeling may not be coming from my gut, but my heart is close enough. That nervous energy and anxiety, the uncertainty and danger, it's like a drug pumping through my system and distracting me from dwelling on anything that could bring me crashing back down to earth.

Everything from that fight until now has just been one blurry fever-dream that's kept me running with my head down, ignoring the crushing weight of everything that's been constantly falling down on my shoulders for the last eighteen years.

"Ariya? You seeing this?" May's voice snaps me back into focus and I follow the tip of her hook sword to the dusty, cobwebbed crawl space that she's pointing toward. It would've been easy to miss, but dropping down to the floor and peering through confirms that it definitely leads somewhere.

"Can't see where it goes, too dark. Definitely goes somewhere though." I stand back up and turn to May, who's still stuck looking at the wall above the crawl space.

"Uh, so are you not seeing the rest of this, or are you just actually clinical?" She asks.

I turn back around and take a closer look at the surroundings. Most of everything around us is the same as the rest of the decor. A narrow hallway with white sheets covering the walls and any windows there might be. But the wall around the crawl space is clear of sheets, the painted drywall chipping and a few strips of wallpaper torn asunder. Right above the hole in the wall is a message drawn in a long-dried dark red paint.

KEEP OUT KEEP OUT KEEP OUT KEEP OUT

I shrug. "Not the least inviting hole I've crawled into."

"Look," May says uncertainly. "I'm totally on board the whole haha haunted mansion thing with you here but warning messages written in blood above dusty crawlspaces is where I step back and start wondering if we don't let Ainsley lead the way instead."

"Pft, come on." I punch her on the shoulder. "It's paint, not blood. You gonna let the Gamemakers spook you off with some lame-o scary messages? Bet you there's something real good in there if they don't want us going in."

She seems ready to argue but then thinks better of it and just shrugs, her smile returning. "Ugh, you're right. Maybe the real haunting of this place is turning me into a chicken like everyone else in the pack. We picking sticks for who goes in first?"

I laugh. "Aw, look at you. So cute, pretending you wouldn't rig it to make sure you go second." Before she can argue with that I drop down to the floor and poke my head into the crawl space, peering around for a better look and getting absolutely nothing. It's just wide enough for me to get my shoulders through and maneuver enough to army-crawl, but there isn't enough light for me to see more than a few inches ahead.

The drywall quickly gives way to grimy, rotting wood that shifts in place each time that I wiggle forward. I feel something rub against my foot and hear the unmistakable sound of May slowly but surely trailing after me hot on my heels.

I end up crawling for longer than I thought was possible and by the time that I reach the end of the tunnel, I'm sure that I'm about to poke my head out into the cornucopia and find Ethan taking a nap.

Instead, though, I find a dead end. I come face to face with a wall of green, rotted wood that blocks my path in anticlimactic fashion. I let out a defeated sigh and call out over my shoulder.

"It's a dead end. Get off my heels and start, I don't know, shuffling backward or something. I can't exactly turn around up here."

"What do you mean, get off your heels? I haven't gotten into the tunnel yet."

"Headass, that doesn't work when I can hear your voice right at my feet."

"Oh," she says. "Yeah, I guess that makes sense." She pauses for a moment. "Can we, like, not just awkwardly shuffle all the way back? That sounds terrible in so many different ways."

"Scared someone's gonna grab you by the heels and start yanking you backward?" I tease her.

She's silent. "Well, I mean, now I am. There's no way they put the blood warning for a dead end. Are you sure you can't push through the wall or something?"

I open my mouth to respond that she's an idiot, but then pause and chew on that idea. I shrug. "I mean, I can try."

"Please do."

I suck in a deep breath, tense up my muscles, place my hands on the wood to prepare for a hefty push. . . and watch as the wood crumbles and drops to the floor, a hole opening up where it stood a moment ago. A faint light creeps through the hole and I poke my head over the edge to peer into the room.

It's not much. No ghosts or outliers hanging out. No demonic wall paintings or blood sacrifices. Just a small little wooden room with no window or door. The only thing inside the room aside from dust and mold is a little desk with a dimly flickering oil lamp and a scattering of papers and books.

The hole is only a couple feet off the floor and so I just decide to send myself tumbling in headfirst, diving into a roll as I drop onto the floor. May comes falling after me an instant later, gracefully somersaulting and popping up to her feet.

We both peer around the room, our eyes both landing right onto the books and papers and then switching to each other.

"So," I say, dusting myself off as I stand back up and stretch out my aching legs. "That's like, definitely some curses or something sketchy in those books, right?"

She nods her head. "I mean, obviously."

I nod my head. "Right."

"Yeah."

"So which one are we reading first?"

Kyler Valde

I'm getting tired of hiking. The mountain path seems to go on forever. Every time it seems like I'm making it a little bit closer to the mountain peak, the trail takes me down a hill that seems to erase all my progress. The whole first two days I spent on the move, only stopping for water and rest. Yet looking over the edge, it looks like I'm barely halfway to the top, the cornucopia still in view in the not-so-far distance.

I reach a stream and take a moment to pause, dropping to my knees before the clear, fast-running water that cuts through the narrow rocky mountain pass. Three days of training was at least enough for me to learn that fast-moving water means most-likely clean water. If the Gamemakers want me dead and poisoned it then I'm not sure I care enough to fight it.

I palm my hands and cup a few handfuls of water down my parched throat before reaching into my bag and taking out my water bottle. Once that's been filled to the brim and capped, I dunk my head in, washing the dirt, grime, sweat, and wrinkles off of my face.

It may not be as fancy as those complicated Capitolite showers, but it's a thousand times more refreshing. The days have been getting hotter, the nights colder, and I'm not sure if it's something the whole arena is going through or if that's just mountain weather. More than a few times I've thought about heading back down and trying my luck in the woods instead.

But every time that thought crosses my mind the memory of Amara's death hits me like a ton of bricks. A spear flying out of the foliage, never even seeing it coming. It's enough to keep me marching up. Besides, there's water and berries up here, and I know that the Careers are all behind me. No risk of turning a corner and suddenly having them in front of me.

I shift around my bag to make room for my water bottle to fit snugly inside. The rest of my supplies are jammed in there, most of the space belonging to my sleeping bag. Otherwise, I have a small spool of rope, a hand-powered flashlight, a box of matches, and a hatchet. The first day I kept the hatchet strapped to my belt, but the bruise that appeared at the end of the night from its constant thwacking against my leg was enough for me to decide to bury it in the backpack.

Looking at all of it, crammed into this tiny bag, makes it seem so ridiculous. I almost died over this. I should have died over this. I still can't understand why she didn't release the arrow. It isn't like she knows me. It isn't like I went up on stage during the interview and made everybody know how good of a person I am, like Cambria. I'm not some saint that deserves to live more than anybody else in here.

It just makes me confused. I try not to think about it too much. No point wondering about that when I'm just going to be dead in a few days anyway. I zip up the bag, sling it over my shoulder, and begin trekking again.

The trail starts getting narrower. The walkways are thin, boxed in on one side by open air and a free fall down to the valleys below, maybe into the river if you got lucky, and on the other side by a sheer cliff face twenty feet high. If I had spent more time at the climbing training station I might be able to crawl my way up and make it to the top of the mountain in an hour flat. But ending up like Thom is the last thing I want.

A bird croaks and a high-pitched whistle pierces through the air. My head snaps up to the source of the sound but I find nothing, just red rocks at the top of the cliff face staring down at me, a handful of birds flapping through the air. A handful of small rocks get knocked aside and rain down the edge.

Trying to dodge out of the way would mean walking over the edge so I just bring up an arm over my head, a light sting as a few sharp rocks smack against my exposed skin but nothing more.

Another birdcall and then a different sort of whistling. I drop to the ground just in time, a stone screaming through the air right where my head was a moment ago, slicing through the air like a bullet.

My eyes shoot up to the cliff face, and this time I see the source of the shot, the girl from District Eight leaning over the edge, a loaded slingshot in her hands pointed right at me. I dive towards the wall and press myself up against the cliff, another rock shooting into the ground just beside me, stone exploding against stone as it hits the floor.

I scramble along the wall toward her, trying to get myself directly underneath her. What I'm going to do after that is something I don't stop to think about. She loads up another stone and I twist my backpack around, using it as a shield. It works as intended, the stone bouncing harmlessly off the thickly padded bag and protecting me long enough to make it beneath her.

She disappears from view, her head pulling back from the edge as I'm left to catch my breath, adrenaline shooting through my system as my eyes snap across the cliff face, waiting for her to appear at a different spot. It dawns on me for a moment just how bad of a situation I'm in. There's nowhere for me to run to, no cover. She can vanish and reappear whenever and wherever she wants, I'm not going anywhere.

For a brief moment, I wonder if my best shot at this point is to just pick a direction, up or down, and start sprinting. Get as much distance between us as possible and hopefully eventually make it somewhere safe.

Then, a voice pierces loudly through the air. "Basila! Drop it!" The voice belongs to a boy, and the name Basila matches up in my head to the girl from Eight with the slingshot. Before I can work on piecing together anything else, the boy from District Six appears just above me, his head peering over the edge. Beside him is Basila, arms folded over her chest and an unhappy look etched on her features.

"Kyler, right?" He asks, not unkindly.

I nod my head. "Six, right?"

"Azai," he says. He pauses for a moment, seeming to think about something, then nods his head. "Sorry about Cambria. She seemed like a good person."

"She was," I say.

"Career killed her?" He asks, but he seems to already know the answer to that question.

"Yeah."

He looks over to Basila, swats her on the shoulder, and quickly says something in a hushed tone to her. Then, he gets up, dangles his legs over the edge, and hops down. I shuffle out of the way as he hits the ground and breaks into a roll, gracefully landing as if it were nothing at all. He extends a hand to me, a fiery look burning in his eyes.

"All of us lost someone to the Careers at the bloodbath. How would you feel about returning the favor?"

I look at him with uncertainty, and almost laugh, or ask him how we could possibly do that, or even just flat out say no and walk away. But I see Cambria, blood pooling up around her stomach and tears in her eyes, her hand stone cold. I see Amara, the blade running across her throat and spilling her vocal cords onto the forest floor.

And I take hold of his hand. "I'd like that."

Ainsley Maris Sims

How did I get stuck with an alliance full of total idiots? It would almost be funny to watch if I was back home instead of here with them in the arena. Almost.

I creak open the closet door with the tip of my Katana, my back pressed against the hallway wall as I attempt to keep as much distance as possible. My weapon is long and large and built for outdoor fights with maneuverability, not close-corridor searches where an outlier with a dagger could be hiding behind any corner or bedsheet.

Everly and her longsword is even worse than my situation, and so our search has been slow going, each of us taking turns awkwardly shuffling through the tight hallways and pulling open doors. A part of me isn't sure whether to hope I find somebody or not. On the one hand, it's the most dangerous place possible for me to get into a fight. On the other hand, if it means getting out of here as soon as possible it might just be worth the risk.

But that isn't my decision to make. This door opens to the same sight as all the others, a small little broom closet riddled with cobwebs and dust and rotting wood, but nothing else. A few of the more exciting doors led us to decrepit bathrooms and one even opened up to a marginally more sanitary master bedroom. But those rooms still drew the same results. Empty. Nobody home. Not a single sign that anybody's been here in decades.

Logically speaking, it would be surprising to find them anywhere but the very top floor. If they didn't already know that we were on their trails, they know by now. Even from on the first floor, the banging around that May and Ariya have made in the basement has been exhaustingly loud. And even if that's out of hearing distance, the loud creaking of the stairs from Pierre and Arno's journey up to the second floor would have been enough.

It might not do anything but just stall for time, but it only makes sense that they'll try to get as far away from us as possible. Especially since one of them is injured. Hopefully, their blood trail picks up again on the higher floors and we can cut the first floor and basement searches short to just get this over with, but until then, the methodical sweeping continues.

"Hold on," Everly says. She holds up a hand to me and I turn around to see her digging around in the closet, a curious look on her face.

"What is it?" I ask, holding tightly to the handle of my Katana as I take a tentative step toward her.

She turns back to me, an odd look on her face as she stands back up, dusting off her knees as she backs away from the closet. She nods her head toward the closet. "Look," she says.

I poke my head back in. At first, I don't see anything, but I take a closer look, carefully scanning the room. After a few moments, I find what Everly saw. Half-hidden behind the wallpaper, barely poking out, is a salmon sticky note with blue pen marks jotted on it. I reach in and pull it out, blowing off the dust as I read over the strange markings.

"You have any idea what this says?" I ask, handing it over to Everly.

"Et sic incipit, Deus, miser-misery, miser air? Miserere animarum nostrarum?" She stumbles over the words and then shrugs, handing it back to me. "Maybe it's about miserable animals and nostrils and they have sloppy handwriting."

I sigh, crumpling it up and shoving it into my pocket. "Why do I somehow doubt that?"

She doesn't reply. I turn back to her, and her eyes are locked on the closet, her whole body frozen stiff aside from her hand, which is slowly reaching out into the empty room.

"Everly?" I ask her. She doesn't react. I take a step toward her and grab her by the shoulder. "Hey."

She snaps back to focus, her hand taking hold of the door and slamming it shut. "Sorry," she says, shaking her head. "I'm just a bit spacey is all."

"Not much sleep again last night?" I ask.

She rubs her back, wincing in pain, absentmindedly nodding her head. "Uh, yeah," she says.

It isn't a very convincing answer, but she doesn't seem willing to answer any further, her eyes working hard to avoid my gaze. I shrug it off and make to move on down the hall. For a brief moment, I swear that I can hear the sound of dripping water from the closet. But as soon as I turn back to look at it, the sound is gone.

Everly doesn't seem to hear anything, rubbing her wrists and shaking her head as she shoulders past me, muttering something unintelligible to herself.

My hand is stuck on the closet handle door, and I stay there for a moment before shaking my head and pulling away. A few hours in this place and I'm already letting it play games with my head? I'm better than that. I don't let fear make decisions for me

That's enough of an argument to win over the less rational side of my brain and get my fingers to release their grip on the doorknob. I push away from the door and follow after Everly, jogging to catch up.

A few more rooms and we'll be finished clearing the first floor. Not much longer than that and we'll be out of this place and headed in the opposite direction, where I'll never be stuck clearing through a dusty old mansion closet by closet ever again. I just need to stay focused.

I shoulder in front of a still-distant Everly and march onward, doing my best to ignore the faint sounds of dripping water.

A/N: See y'all tomorrow with the second half of Day 3