NOTE: Here's a lovely log for you, my treasured readers!

Prompt given by: NextBerserker

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Log 16: The Horror Game

Cover Image: Yukiko, Gwen, and Ben were dressed as Ghostbusters. The three were traversing through a haunted mansion with vacuum cleaners in their hands ready to suck in the ghosts. Yukiko was laughing her head off, Gwen looked terrified, and Ben was excited.

Gwen, dressed in her pajamas, peered through the door as quietly as she could. Her grandfather's loud snoring was the only signal she needed. Softly shutting the door to the shared hotel room, Gwen shuffled her feet back to her cousins.

Their family had stopped at a local motel for the night and Max bought two separate rooms. Ben had come over from his and Max's room to join his cousins. For what they're about to do the kids had to wait for Max to go to sleep.

"Okay, I think Grandpa's asleep," Gwen plopped down on the bed next to her cousins. She flinched slightly from Ben's dirty socks being right next to her.

Ben, also dressed in his pajamas, smirked before pulling his legs back, sitting up on the bed. "Cool! Then we can start playing that super cool game Yukiko bought."

Yukiko, who was wearing her yukata, pulled the game out of her bag to show it to her cousins. The game in her hands was a Rated M horror game. Which didn't surprise Gwen at all that Yukiko had chosen that out of everything else in that bargain bin. "Had I known there were video games about horror stories I would've been playing these a long time ago. I wonder why Chie-chan never told me."

"I can take a good guess…" Gwen muttered. "I don't want to bring down the mood-"

"As if you don't do that every day," Ben spat.

Giving him a harsh glare, Gwen continued. "Are we sure this is a good idea? I don't think Grandpa would appreciate us playing this behind his back."

Ben got up from the bed and took the game case from Yukiko, so that he could put it into his game system. "The box said 18 and up. Yukiko turns 18 this year, so the math checks out."

"When have you ever been good at math?" Gwen questioned.

"Since now," Ben said after booting up the game. He grabbed his controller and plopped back down onto the bed between his cousins. He was ready to start it up until the controller was ripped out of his grasp. "Hey!"

"Considering that I'm the oldest here, I'll play it," Yukiko said.

"You don't even know how a controller works!" Ben tried to reach for it, but Yukiko's length made it difficult.

"Then I can start learning now," Yukiko pushed Ben back down onto the bed. "It's the responsible thing to do, Ben. Something that you still need to learn."

"I'm always responsible."

The stares he received for that comment made him blush. Clicking his tongue, Ben decided to focus on the screen. "Fine. You can play the dumb game."

"Now it's dumb?" Gwen challenged.

"Shut up, doofus!"

"You shut up, dweeb!"

"How about you both zip it unless you want me to shut off the game and we all go to bed?" Yukiko's threat managed to quiet them down. "Good. Now we can start the game." Pressing the 'start' button, the screen illuminates to the title: The Haunting.

"Still a lame title," Ben said.

"We didn't care the first time and we don't care the sixth time," Gwen hushed him.

The game started up with a cutscene explaining the setting and plot of the game. The player must acquire several articles of paper in an effort to investigate an old, abandoned toy factory. It turns out that the factory was haunted by 10 ghosts that desire to stop the player from acquiring the papers.

"The story is simple enough," Gwen commented. "Expected something more complicated from a rated-M game."

Ben shrugged. "Most of these one-off games don't have much thought put into them besides pushing the horror aspect."

"Like a B-rated movie?"

"Pretty much."

"Seems interesting enough to me," Yukiko said.

"Anything with 'horror' in its title is interesting to you," Gwen replied.

The game transitioned to a first-person perspective for the player as it went from cutscene to gameplay. The setting of the factory's entrance was dark with the only bits of illumination coming from the character's flashlight.

"What is that meter for?" Yukiko asked. She had looked at the top right of the screen where a small battery-like meter was placed.

"Probably the health of the flashlight, meaning that if it reaches zero then our source of light is gone," Ben explained.

He was correct, because instructions popped up on the screen right as he finished talking. The instructions explained the flashlight and the importance of finding batteries to keep it charged. If the battery dies, then the player will be left vulnerable to the ghosts and will receive a game over.

"This sounds annoying," Gwen huffed.

"Keeps the player on their toes, so that you don't get comfortable. Easy stuff," Ben countered.

"Easy to say for the person not playing," Gwen shot back.

"I'm sure it'll be fine, Gwen. How hard can it be to find batteries?" Yukiko tried to ease her worries.

"And you jinxed us," Gwen muttered.

"No, Yukiko! Go the other way! The map said to go to the lab on the third floor!" Ben exclaimed. He watched as Yukiko took the wrong staircase again and went back down to the first floor.

"I'm just making sure I didn't miss anything," Yukiko lied.

"This is the fourth time you keep making rounds on these floors. You didn't miss anything, Yukiko. You're just lost," Gwen interjected.

"These staircases all look the same. How am I supposed to tell which is which?" Yukiko asked her cousins.

"If it looks familiar then we've probably already been there. If anything around it looks new, then that's where we need to go. Basic game knowledge 101," Ben explained.

"Basic to everyone except the teenager who has never played a video game before," Gwen reminded him.

"Oh right."

Yukiko just groaned, slightly embarrassed.

"EEK!" Gwen squealed at the jump scare. She hid her face in Yukiko's sleeve, almost knocking the controller out of the heiress' hands.

"Gwen!" Yukiko exclaimed.

"Not even that scary," Ben rolled his eyes. Though, there was a slight tremble in his body language. He hadn't been expecting the jump scare from the ghost to happen.

"It was pretty funny, right?" Yukiko agreed with Ben's opinion. She had paused the game momentarily to comfort Gwen.

"I never said that…"

"Uh, why am I taking pictures again?" Gwen asked as she held up Yukiko's phone.

"In case another jump scare happens. I want to send these to Chie-chan and freak her out a bit," Yukiko giggled.

"What kind of friend are you?"

"It's something I'd do to you," Ben smirked.

"And this is why you don't have a phone."

"So, the owner of the factory was cursed by a former business partner, because he failed to own up to his end of the deal. Leading to a horrific accident that killed off several employees," Yukiko read the random note she found in the game.

"Willing to bet that the ghosts haunting the factory are the workers who died?" Ben turned to his cousins.

"Almost certainly. The factory was sued by all the families of the victims as well, causing it to shut down. Guess that business partner got what he wanted," Gwen was still creeped out by it all.

"You think we'll ever have to explore some kind of haunted factory or deal with ghosts?" Yukiko asked her cousins.

Ben shook his head. "Other than Ghostfreak, who I took care of with my amazing abili-"

"We get it, move on!" Gwen rolled her eyes.

Ben rolled his eyes. "And that weird guy from Halloween town, I'm sure we won't have to deal with ghosts. Busting into a factory though is something I'm putting on my list of summer goals to accomplish."

Yukiko glared at him. "I think you breaking into a warehouse was more than enough excitement."

"Can't you let that go?"

"No."

Yukiko quickly paused the game; her face beat red with embarrassment. Her little cousins were confused by her actions, having not seen the photo before she paused the game.

"Yukiko what-?"

"Cover your eyes," Yukiko ordered her cousins.

"Why?" Ben asked, annoyed.

"Just do it! You're too young to see what that photo was!" Yukiko exclaimed.

"Tch, I'm sure I can handle it. I've seen worse-"

"You flinched at the sight of a killer teddy bear," Gwen reminded him.

"I was five!"

"I do not care, Ben. This type of stuff you shouldn't be seeing until you're older." Yukiko advised him. "And even when you're older I never want to catch you looking at this stuff! Nor do I want to know if you're looking at this stuff!"

"But-"

"Cover your eyes…!" She hissed as her final warning.

"Fine!" Ben covered his eyes and so did Gwen. Once Yukiko made sure the two weren't peeping, she unpaused the game and revealed the very lewd image that had popped up. She quickly backed away from the picture before her cousins got bored-

"Why was that lady positioned like that?"

"Benjamin Tennyson!"

"I spy with my little eye: Something that begins with 'B'!"

"Ben's stupid?"

"Ben's short?"

The glare fixated on his face could kill if it wasn't aimed at the two women who couldn't care less for it. "I was talking about the giant blue x on the wall!"

"We know," The two grinned at him.

"You guys suck," Ben pouted.

"There it is! The last piece!" Gwen exclaimed, pointing at the screen.

"Grab it, Yukiko! Before the boss ghost gets you!" Ben bounced on the bed. His bouncing was disrupting Yukiko as she directed her character.

"It would be easier if you stopped bouncing!" Yukiko yelled. She was then disrupted once more as Gwen fell onto her, the girl being taken by surprise from another jump scare. Both disruptions from her little cousins caused the heiress to drop her controller. With her inability to move her character, the boss ghost caught up with them and killed them. Ending their run with a game over.

The three Tennysons stared at the screen for a few minutes in silence. Baffled that their close victory had been ruined so easily. The two culprits for the crime instantly turned on each other. "THIS IS YOUR FAULT!"

"If you hadn't been bouncing then Yukiko would've gotten the last piece!" Gwen yelled.

"If you didn't get scared so easily then Yukiko's would've gotten the last piece!" Ben yelled back.

The two continued to argue back and forth, blaming each other for the failure. As they shouted at one another, Yukiko sat between them both. Her left eye was twitching from both anger and exhaustion. They had been staying up past what Max had considered the kids' bedtime to play this horror game, the two had screwed her up as she was anticipating the ending of the story and were now shouting into both of her ears.

"Quiet!" Her order was effective and clear. Slicing through the bickering children and silencing them both. "It's both of your fault! And if you don't stop bickering right now, I'm going to show you both something more terrifying than that game-"

KNOCK! KNOCK! KNOCK!

Yukiko's scolding was silenced by the knocking on the door. Three heads slowly turned to the noise, silently wondering who that was.

CREAK!

Their question was answered by the door opening, but the only other person who had a key to this room was their- "Oh…hi…Grandpa…"

Max Tennyson stood in the doorway of the girls' motel room. He was dressed in his blue pajamas, but that did little to lower just how terrifying his presence was. His eyes were tired, but the anger was fresh and hot. None of their enemies were emitting such a strong intimidating aura as Max currently was.

Yukiko attempted to speak up. "G-Grandpa…I can-"

"Quiet."

She hushed up immediately.

"Benjamin. To bed. Now."

"But-"

"Go to bed now," Max wasn't in the mood for arguing.

Ben sighed before getting off of the bed, slouching in depression as he left the girls' room. Ben tried to give them one last look, but Max's glare made him think otherwise.

With Ben back in their room, Max gave the girls his full attention. "Gwendolyn, you too. Get to bed now."

Gwen hastily nodded her head without argument, climbing off of Yukiko's bed and into her own. Leaving Yukiko to nervously push her index fingers together. "G-Grandpa, I can explain-"

"Shut the game off and go to bed. We'll talk in the morning about why you decided it would be a good idea to stay up past midnight to play a horror game with two 10-year-olds," Max informed her.

Yukiko quickly did as told, shutting off the game and climbing into her own bed. He stared at the two for a few more seconds before shutting the door. The girls refused to even speak, because of the fear that Max might overhear them.

That night the three cousins discovered something more terrifying than a horror game: Maxwell Tennyson.

Log End

NOTE: Nothing is more terrifying than an exhausted parental figure that just wants to sleep but has to deal with his grandkids having a shouting match at 1:00 in the morning.

Not much thought was put into the game, which is why they never get to the ending.

Have a great day!