"Uh, hey... Who are you?" Ethan asked. He felt like he had said that a million times so far and he had only been in this village for like, six hours.

"I'm Bela, but that's not very important right now. I just wanted to say that I'm pretty impressed that Mother didn't kill you instantly. Sucks though 'cause I was pretty excited to see a cute guy like you get sliced up into ribbons," 'Bela' said.

"Wait, that tall lady is your mother?" Ethan asked incredulously. He said it with a bit more shock than he intended

Bela looked at him curiously. "Well, she isn't our biological mother but... she treats us with all the love and care that we could ask for. I don't really think too much of it," she explained.

"Right, I got it. Your mom is okay so far. She hasn't done anything too horrible to me except for slurping up some of my blood and calling me annoying," Ethan said. He felt like this was a really awkward exchange because he had no idea what to say.

The girl simply laughed at him. "You were being annoying as hell though! When Mother heard you shattering our vases... Oh man, she got so mad, hahaha. You'd better be more careful around here little twink," she said. After a brief pause, she suddenly took on a more serious look. "I'm assuming that you're trying to get the keys to get out of here, right? Well bud, it's not gonna be that easy."

Upon hearing that, Ethan furrowed his brows and huffed. He hated being called 'bud' and he also hated being underestimated in any way. He was now determined to show off and get that stupid dumb key just to prove this 'Bela" woman wrong.

She raised her brows at his expression and smirked. "Oh, you mad bro? Hehehe~" she taunted.

"Wha—...? Why are you quoting that... that one meme... TROLLFACE. I knew that one," Ethan (practically) shouted. He felt a stupid blush creep onto his face for getting so hyped up.

"Oh, don't worry about it, normie boy," Bela sneered. She loved picking on people who she assumed were uninvolved with meme lore. Whenever her mother hired maids or servants or whatever, she would harass them by asking them all sorts of questions about American memes and YouTube videos she had watched. The only reason that none of the servants were here today was because it was a holiday and the workers were given a paid day off. Despite being a sexy vampire milf, Lady Dimitrescu was a strong advocate for workers' rights and humane work hours.

"Okay, explain to me in concrete terms here: what is a normie? I'm fully aware that I count as one but like, why?" Ethan asked. He was stalling for time because he didn't want to be doing anything weird. He sort of knew the definition after Heisenberg got on his case for liking 'normal people things' but wanted to hear alternate opinions.

Bela shook her head and sighed loudly. "Okay, look! You're a normie just because you are, alright? You're a normal guy with normal interests and a normal life. Like, you don't know memes very well and you're not being cursed by the Curse of Irony. In a way, I almost envy you, not having to be plagued by knowing all these stupid ass memes... Now, if you'll excuse me... Actually no, come with me."

Ethan pondered his options for a moment. Follow a pretty woman to some mysterious location or continue to be lost for the next few hours? It was going to be better for both of them if he just followed her. "Uh... okay, I'll just go with you then."

"You didn't really have another option by the way. If you had said no, I would have just brought you along anyway. I want to introduce you to my sisters and see what they say about you," Bela explained.

The man just nodded. They weaved through several halls, each one being quite elaborate and well decorated. Whoever the interior designer was, Ethan really wanted to hire them for whenever he felt like moving into a new house. Then again, he saw all the 'Live, Laugh, Love' signs hung up on the walls and shook his head.

"I think... I want to take inspiration from everything but those," he mumbled. He had been taking pictures of the place on his phone for a while now.

Bela turned around and looked at him confusedly. "Huh? What are you saying this time? Also, I heard the photo shutter thing go off like, a million times; you better not have gotten any pictures of me. I look like a huge mess today."

"I'll recheck the pics later but ugh, these stupid Live Laugh Love signs all over the walls. I just think they are SO cliche and annoying. Like, when my wife and I got married she personally requested something with that printed on it. I think Chris actually got her a poster that said something like that on it but I, uh, lost the box that it was in. Both Chris and Mia were so angry with me because it cost a lot of money," Ethan explained.

Bela chose to ignore the side story in favor for the first part. "Oh, you Do have some taste! No, look. I love Mother and I would never want to hurt her feelings but she is more... on the normal side when it comes to memes. I would actually say you guys are fairly close in your meme expertise," she trailed off for a moment, thinking of what else to say. "I assume you remember Lord Heisenberg? He and Mother hate each other partially due to the difference in their meme taste. Mother is so fond of those weird 'minion memes' and whatever and personally considers herself to be a wine mom. I'm too shy to say anything so I just kind of don't mention it..." she continued. Ethan didn't reply because he assumed this was something she had been meaning to vent about for ages now. "Let's just keep going, okay?"

After a bit, Bela paused outside of a rather fancy looking door which was emitting some weird vibes. She pushed the door open and dragged Ethan inside.

"Okay guys, I brought this guy. Ethan. He's the one who's been sneaking around and being loud as hell, Bela said. She gestured to Ethan like a student showing off their show and tell project...

The other girls turned around and stared at him intently.

"Well, Ethan, you remind me of a raccoon or something. You come into our house and dick around, breaking shit and being loud as hell, then get scared when we do something about it," the brunette said.

"Oh definitely. Like, why be a home invader if you can't do it right? If I broke into your house, I would have just snuck around and snagged some stuff, ate some food, and gotten out of there before you even noticed," the redhead said.

Ethan didn't reply because he was checking out the place. As he glanced around the room, he noticed it was also well decorated but with more of a modern vibe. It had less of a classic gothic feel and more of a modern alt e-girl Tiktoker vibe. The girls were watching something on a Hello Kitty themed TV.

"Oh sick, that's a really cool TV," Ethan said.

"And... why are you talking to me?" the redhead asked harshly.

He didn't know why he was trying to strike up conversations either. "Okay, fine. Can you just tell me where the key is so that I can get out of here then?"

The brunette just laughed at him, not even turning away from the TV. Ethan assumed that meant 'No freaking way'.

Bela looked at the TV and let out a groan. "Right... What's all this then? Cassandra, why have you got on David Dobrik videos? I thought you were trying to watch new stuff aside from YouTuber drama?"

"Come on Bela, this guy is really entertaining in a 'I hate him but I really want to see what stupid shit happens' type of way! I wanted to see what all the hype was about too! Plus, I got sick of James Charles and Jeffree Star, you know?" Cassandra said. She pointed to the other girl. "Daniela wanted to watch this one too so it's not all on me this time."

Oh, YouTubers... Ethan learned about these people on Twitter sometimes (against his will). He remembered seeing a lot of madness on Twitter about that James Charles fellow but didn't really follow what was going on. Then again, it seemed like that guy was always being 'called out' for one thing or another. He didn't know (or care to know) what being 'cancelled' was either. He kind of missed when the only YouTubers people talked about were Smosh, Annoying Orange, and Fred. He hated them but they were now symbols of a better era of the internet...

"Uh, hello?" Bela said, waving a hand in front of Ethan's face. She was staring at him looking mildly perplexed.

"Oh shit, what? What was I doing? Sorry, I must have been thinking about YouTubers again," Ethan said. He was quite embarrassed; this wasn't even the first time something like that had happened to him either.

The first time was at a business meeting at the systems engineering company he worked at. He had a nice outfit on (A/N: his RE7 outfit) and felt pretty confident about his pitch for the next project proposal... Yet, when he sat down in the conference room, he found himself getting incredibly distracted thinking about some TV show he was watching the night before called Supernatural. By the time he snapped out of it, his supervisor was already giving him The Look and he knew he was in big trouble.

"YouTubers? Alright, who do you watch then?" Bela asked. The other girls turned to look at him and hear his reply.

"Uh, right... I watch those videos by the guys who build their own houses and pools and whatever but I also like watching Kitchen Nightmares clips. I don't actively watch any big YouTubers in particular because they annoy me. I keep hearing about that Minecraft guy and—"

Daniela gasped and glared at him. "Oh my GOD, you watch DREAM? I cannot believe YOU know him," she said. She was simultaneously disgusted and impressed. Ethan did not know how to interpret that.

"Well, I mean... I don't watch him, I just hear about him so much that it feels like I have been a damn fan since day one. I didn't really know his name because I've been too busy to look into it," he said. "Oh... speaking of which, what are you guys' names? I wasn't paying attention to who was who."

Bela didn't reply because she assumed Ethan was at least polite enough to remember hers...

"I'm Cassandra," said the brunette, "and that's Daniela," she said, gesturing to the girl next to her.

"Anyway, Ethan, we can't just give you the key because that would be really boring. I was thinking we could maybe play a game first," Cassandra said.

"Maybe we can make him get a victory royale in Fortnite or something. He doesn't look like the type that plays anything other than sports games," Bela replied.

Ethan played Madden and FIFA games, yes, but it wasn't the ONLY thing he played... Sigh. It was hard to be a man in a world of girlboss gamers.

Daniela looked at Ethan and hummed in thought. "No... he definitely isn't a chad. Like, I bet he doesn't even play Minecraft or anythi-"

"Actually, I do play Minecraft," Ethan interrupted. "I haven't played the recent updates because I've been busy but I have been watching building tutorials and snapshot update vids on YouTube. My wife told me that if I kept building Minecraft houses instead of going to bed, she would make me sleep on the couch." He really hated explaining the intricacies of his life. He thought of how much he had talked about Mia today and got a bit antsy.

"Wow! I just do not understand heterosexual romance in the slightest!" Daniela said. The other girls nodded in agreement, muttering things Ethan didn't bother to ask about.

Rather than disagree (or agree...?), he just plopped down on the ground and sighed. He was feeling tired again, though this time it was more of an Emotional Exhaustion than anything so he couldn't bring himself to care. "I'm just gonna... sit here and relax for a moment."

Bela glared at him. "You are so freaking uncouth, you know that?" she hissed. She folded her arms and sighed. "Well, fine. I suppose we haven't really lined up anything. My sisters and I will go figure out what to do and then we can move on from there. Believe it or not, we plan these things with a level of seriousness. If you fall asleep, don't be loud and don't get your gross ass drool on the floor," she said. Ethan wanted to laugh because she sounded like a teacher scolding a first grader but couldn't laugh because he was way too freaking tired. Plus, if he laughed in the middle of her explanation, she would probably kick him in the nuts.

He rolled over on the cold ground and passed out. When he Awoke again, he turned over and saw something mysterious on the TV. It was the music video for Gangnam Style. "I feel like I'm in hell now," he said groggily. How the hell do you even react to something like that? He got up and looked around but noticed that this room was, in fact, a completely different room from the one he was in before... What was going on?

Cassandra walked into the room and looked at him inquisitively. She was a bit surprised that he was awake already but more confused to see him just... staring at the screen, intently watching Gangnam Style.

"Uh... Ethan, what the hell are you doing?" she asked.

She saw him flinch like he'd just seen a spirit before he whipped around. "Oh fuck! Agh... Cassandra? Fuckin' hell dude, you scared the shit out of me. I was so engrossed in watching... this. I don't even know why, I guess I was just bored and trying to see if there was any stupid ass clues to some riddle you guys cooked up," he said. He was still groggy and found it difficult to explain his reasoning.

"Riddles...?" she mumbled, squinting to think about if there Were any riddles behind that. Cassandra just assumed that YouTube was running on autoplay mode. "Well, we moved you into this room because we realized it would be way more cryptic for you to wake up in another room. Like, you know when you'd get home after a long road trip and are super passed out and just like, wake up in your bed? I don't know that experience because I've never been out of the village but... I've seen it on TV. A-anyway, we're going to make you play games with us," she said, maybe rambling on longer than she intended. "So get up, we're gonna play Smash."

"Smash... the Switch game? Yeah, I played that once," Ethan said. Finally, something he was vaguely familiar with!

"Yup. I figured you'd at least know that one so thank God. We agreed that if you can beat all of us then we'll let you go and then you can mess with our mom until you get the key from her room. Oh, and the Duke texted me to tell You to check YOUR messages," Cassandra continued.

Ethan looked confused again but checked his text messages. "Hang on Cassandra, let me just see what's up..."

Apparently, the Duke wanted Ethan to steal some of Lady Dimitrescu's makeup and goodies while he was in there. They would sell for thousands of Lei so he really wanted to get them. Ethan replied that he would 'try his best' to snag some stuff.

After that, Cassandra led him down the hall back to the Original room and pushed open the door. She gestured to the empty chair and Ethan took a seat, looking around at the room again. He was pretty hyped up until the Conditions he heard earlier hit him: how the fuck was he supposed to beat these girls at Smash if they were pro gamers? Sigh.

Bela handed him one of the controllers and loaded the game up. The last time he had played Smash was when Chris came over to his place. Chris really wanted to play Mario Kart but Ethan wasn't in the mood. They compromised by playing another game where Mario was a character (Smash) and Chris beat the shit out of Ethan like, three times in a row. Ethan eventually realized that Chris left himself open and didn't defend very well, but figured he wouldn't get lucky in fighting these girls. Either way, Ethan decided that he would play as Mario just because he had pretty good vibes. After all, who didn't like an Italian plumber...? Only a fool would dislike Mario.

"Oh, I just knew you were going to pick him. Must be your predictable energy," Daniela said.

"Okay, whatever! When I win and you guys have to help me find that stupid key, then you'll see," Ethan said cockily. He was on another Grind after taking a nap and felt like being evil. He hit the "ready" button and smirked, completely ready to win and get the hell out of there...

But unluckily for him, he lost three times in a row. Then, when he sheepishly asked for a rematch, he lost Again! He had no idea what happened, these girls were like CPUs set on the damn hardest difficulty.

"...I swear I was feeling great about this whole thing earlier," he grumbled.

"Wow, I almost feel bad for you. Like, you're either having the worst luck on the planet right now or we took all the good luck," Bela quipped.

Ethan so badly just wanted to go feral... Just hiss and growl at these girls to feel something... And yet, he just closed his eyes and heaved a mighty sigh. Ugh! He couldn't risk his reputation going from the strange twink normie man to the Unhinged Feral Twink. Then again, why the hell did he care about what the villagers thought? He didn't even live here. Fuck, he just wanted to get out of here, collect his baby, and chill out with... someone. Who could he even hang out with now?

For some reason, he just suddenly realized Mia was like. Dead. He was still trying to process all that but a random thought crawled into his mind. If his spouse died, was he just single now? Oh god... He didn't remember how to flirt, what to do to talk to someone... All this shit felt fucky. He realized he was spacing out again and shook his head to focus himself.

"Hey, don't look so upset that you lost, okay? Like, you have to take a fat L sometimes, right?" Cassandra said with a faint laugh.

"It's not that, I don't really care. I'd be down to do Another rematch but I just thought about my dead wife again. Like, what do I do? If you couldn't tell from the random tidbits of information you've heard, we weren't having the best time in our relationship but... Jeez, that was my wife," he ranted. He didn't even know why he was venting to these girls.

Surprisingly, rather than instantly make fun of him, they just sort of stared at him and started thinking up a reply. Bela decided to speak up, though the glances they exchanged made Ethan wonder if they had some kind of telepathy powers... That would be cool.

"Look. You're annoying and a normie, but I don't know, it must suck having to go through all that shit all of a sudden. We can't really help you out 100% because Mother would kill us but... Here's the deal. If you take your Sadstuck moment (a/n: if you understand what that means you need a veterans discount) and leave before we get upset, we'll just act like you actually won in all the games against us or something. Like... I think you played around with us enough to be amusing and TBH, that's all we wanted. Plus, we were taking videos of you the whole time that showcase 'normiecore' aesthetics so... Hehe," Bela said. Her sisters nodded at various points as she spoke but didn't offer much direct input. They briefly smiled at him.

Ethan smiled back, not at the idea that he was going to be turned into some stupid tiktok compilation, but because they were being nice to him For Once.

"Hm, let's be mutuals on Tiktok then," he said, holding up his phone. The other girls took out their phones and followed him, noticing that he had several... strange videos posted. Most of them were follower only exclusive videos of him doing movie reviews or dancing or something... cryptic.

Ethan walked out of the room feeling semi-better. Then again, that quickly faded away as he realized that he didn't know where the fuck the girls took him, nor did he know where their Mother's room Was. As he started prowling around, he heard heavy footsteps echoing through the halls. He recognized That sound.

"Ethan Winters... I see you Still haven't left? Ugh, men really just stick around doing the most, don't they?" Lady Dimitrescu said. Ethan craned his head up to look her in the eyes. Although he opened his mouth to reply, she cut him off first.

"I have a proposition for you. If you can get me some stuff from the cellar and help me figure out how to set up some stuff I received from the Duke, I will definitely give you the foolish key so you can get out of here. I do Not like having men linger around longer than intended. Whenever I hire male assistants, they are purely for custodial work or the like... That is beyond the point. I am only being lenient with you because trans people have to stick together. If you were a cis man, I would have probably killed you already," she said, ending with a low laugh.

Ethan felt kind of conned. Where was the suspense in this? He just basically messed around, vented until he made people feel bad for him, and then got to leave? Oh well, it beat the alternative... He was kind of tired of having to hear from these people, everyone in this family seemed to just talk for ages.

"Well, you know what, that's a great deal. If it makes me stop thinking about how horrible my luck is and also about how my life is in shambles at the moment, I'll take it," Ethan said with a sigh.

Lady Dimitrescu raised an eyebrow but didn't say anything for a moment, mentally calculating what would be the best thing to say. Eventually, she groaned and shook her head.

"I would be very appreciative if you didn't 'traumadump' info onto me," she said sternly. "Anyway... This is a list of the things I require from you. I am going to give you Three hours to fetch all of it and bring everything to my chambers. Good luck. If you are late, I Will kill you so..."

Ethan peeked at the papers he received and hummed. Aside from the list of stuff to get, he saw that Lady D included a pretty detailed map for him to follow to both the cellar And to her room. Big freakin win for this guy, he thought to himself. He started off for the cellar and braced himself for the madness to come...