HEY PEOPLE, HOW ARE- *whack*

I'm reeeeeeaaaaaally sorry that this took so long! I really did intend to work on this over my vacation…buuuut then I figured out my mom's laptop has no writing programs on it. Like…at all. So I couldn't.

Then, when we finally got back from vacation, I just couldn't figure out what to write! It was like the trip left me drained of ideas. Buuuut, then we were starting to re-model my room (we're turning it purple! :D) and suddenly- BAM! Inspiration struck! So now, I'm typing this in my, um…temporary bedroom.

(It's the basement…DX)

I didn't get to when they get out of the castle in this chapter, but that'll be in the next chapter, I swear.

Random comment here: It was really hard to write this chapter while listening to Gabriel Iglesias at the same time. "AAAAAAH! …Pepsi." XD

Now, enough excuses about why I'm not writing! Time to get to reviews!:

Gongondemon6:

Yes, I'm so glad that she grew a brain and figured it out. Really, I am! And also, she's an idiot and panics easily, so she decided it was a GOOD idea to whack a possibly homicidal freak on the head. I'd probably do the same thing, because I'm also an idiot like that. :P

And I've heard that Fatal Frame was actually a pretty good game! I've just never had the guts to play it, because I suck at horror stuff.

Angelic:

…You know, now that I actually look at some of these chapters…it's starting to remind me of that, too. Weird.

Sylph Writer:

It's really hard to hit your full potential with the beginning chapters, because you just want to get to the real exciting stuff! Still trying to figure out if some of the stuff I have planned is original or not.

I bet Cassie's just hoping that Zagi doesn't remember that little whack on the head. XD

StarSonata:

Thank you for your input! I'm really trying to make this an entertaining story, so I'm glad that you've enjoyed it so far. :3

*Ahem*, now then…on with the chapter!

Disclaimer: Do not owwwwwwn.

Chapter 4: Things get Explained

Ugh…so tired…why am I so tired all of a sudden? I just wanna…sleep…

"…lo?"

Hm…? Who'zzat?

"…must've…he wall…ty hard."

"Do yo…e'll be oka…"

Who are these random people talking? Let me sleep! …And quit shaking me!

"…you okay, miss?"

"Mrr…go'way. Sleepy…"

"Well, time to get up." Whyyyyyy? I wanna sleeeeeep…

'Get up, you lazy ass!'

"ABLAPH!" I sit up incredibly fast at the sudden loud voice in my head. However, I quickly notice my mistake, as I am now holding my head and swearing at the agony flowing through it. Good god, my head! Why the hell does it hurt so-

Oh. Right. Got thrown at the wall.

Hard to remember things when you're knocked unconscious.

When I manage to open my eyes without writhing in pain, I see that I'm back in Flynn's bedroom, with Yuri and that girl staring at me. This causes me to close my eyes again, both from confusion and pain. I mean…wasn't I just talking to Demitri a second ago? Why am I back here?

A hand on my shoulder causes me to open my eyes again, and I see the mystery girl at my side, looking concerned.

"Are you okay?"

Ah. Must have worried her with my loud swearathon-of-pain. Still holding my head, I manage a small smile. "Yeah…my head just hurts a lot right now."

"I'll bet it does.", says a voice to my right, and I notice Yuri is crouching next to me. "You hit that wall pretty hard."

"Eh, I'll be fine." I say, waving a hand quickly before putting it back on my aching head. "I've hit my head plenty of times before."

I see that the girl next to me still looks worried. "Are you sure?"

"Yep. Just need to walk it off!" I then notice that something's missing from the room. Namely, one crazy-haired psychopath. "Uh…where'd that Zagi guy go?"

"He left a little while ago, with the rest of his group." Ah. I guess Yuri must've chased him off or something. "Speaking of which, we should be getting a move on, too."

"That might be the best idea right now." I reply. Yuri nods at my response, then stands up, looking towards the open doorway.

"…We'll just go pay a visit to the goddess and be on our way." he mumbles, half to himself. He looks at me. "Think you can stand up?"

"Of course I can!" Slowly, I pull myself to my knees, and then carefully get to my feet, trying to be careful not to agitate my throbbing head any further. I wobble a little bit upon standing, but otherwise I stay upright. Woohoo. "See?"

"Yeah, well, just don't push yourself too hard." I give the swordsman a thumbs-up in response. He nods, then heads towards the door. I start to follow him, but I see the (still unnamed girl) move out of the corner of my eye.

"Yuri, um…"

Yuri turns to her. "Yeah, I know. We'll stick together until we're out of the castle." Then he looks at me out of the corner of him eye. "You too, I guess."

"Oh, yes," the girl replies, nodding. "But I was going to say…my name's Estellise."

Oh thank god, we finally learned her name! Now I can stop calling her 'the girl in the dress'. And I guess I was right about her being of nobility. Last I checked, a name like Estellise wasn't given to some normal person.

Yuri nods at her, then looks over to me. "What about you?" Huh? "I don't think you ever said who you were."

"I didn't?" Well, that's awkward. Usually I let people know my name when I first meet them. "Sorry. My name's Cassandra Freeman. I'd prefer it if you'd call me Cassie, though. Everyone else does."

"Well then, Estellise, Cassie. Let's get moving."

"Wait!" I look over at Estellise, who shouted out. I see her pointing to the ground, and when I follow her finger, I see she's pointing at the fallen door, which Yuri is standing on. "We can't just leave the door like that."

I see Yuri raise an eyebrow. "I really don't think this is the time to worry about something like that."

"Yeah, really." I add in, giving her a weird look. "I mean, we're kind of…escaping a castle here."

She gives us a pleading look. "But…"

Silence, then Yuri sighs and puts a hand on his hip. "All right, all right. Just…" He steps off the door. "Just give me a minute."

And believe it or not, he actually picks up the door, and starts trying to put it back in the doorway. Jeez, this isn't the time to be fixing doors, people! We're supposed to be getting of this place, dammit!

This place…

I zone out as I recall my conversation with Demitri. He said…I was in a video game, right? But…how the hell is that even possible? He said that he pulled me in here for something, but that should be impossible, too! People can't pull other people into fictional games! That kind of shit only happens in fandoms!

Wait, doesn't that mean…? I turn my head towards my two companions. Yuri is still trying to fit the door into the doorframe properly, and Estellise is standing to the side watching him. Quite comical, really.

That's right…they're game characters, aren't they? That's why I thought Yuri looked so familiar. He's the main character of the game…Tales of Vesperia, wasn't that it? Though, I only recognized him earlier because he was on the cover of the game case.

Now that I think about it, there was another guy on the cover too…was that the Flynn guy? I don't really know…I mean, I only saw Stormie get as far as that hill place…what the hell was that place called? And aren't there supposed to be two more people joining this group? I think I remember seeing a dog, too. What are their names again? I really hate not being able to know this stuff-

"Would you please stop your mindless rambling? It's giving me a headache."

It takes every ounce of my willpower not to jump and scream bloody murder. That would confuse the hell out of the other two people in the room. My sudden shock and sense of 'oh-god-im-gonna-pass-out' are immediately replaced by annoyance. I am seriously getting tired of hearing Demetri's random voice out of nowhere, now that I know that it's him. Where the hell is he, anyways? I want to give him the tongue lashing I couldn't give earlier.

"It's not my fault you're an utterly clueless idiot.", I hear him say from…wherever the hell he is. "Like I mentioned before, I'm connected your subconscious. It would be wise to speak to me through your thoughts, unless you want to look mentally unstable."

"You could have mentioned that fact earlier!" I seeth inside my mind (hm, weird). "Why the hell did you kick me out of my own mind, anyways? We weren't done talking!"

"The other two had been trying to rouse you during our short conversation. I had to wake you up so you could continue on with them."

"You seriously think I'm gonna do that?" I retort. "No thanks. I really don't feel like becoming a freakin' self-insert."

I hear Demitri sigh in my mind. "Unfortunately, I believe you have no other choice. You are going to have to travel with them in order to survive here."

I look over to the others again. Yuri's finally managed to fit the door back into the doorframe, and he's now trying to fix the hinges. Estellise is still standing to the side, watching Yuri work.

I look away. "I don't think so. If this place is anything like Tales of Symphonia, then I'll probably just end up dying anyways. No thank you."

"Regardless of that," Demerti says in his echo-ey voice, "You're only hope for actually staying alive is by staying with them. Frankly, you have no other choice."

"…I hate you."

"Hmph."

Hm'kay. Time for some updates.

Well, after my mind chat with Demitri (which I still think was kind of weird), Yuri was able to fix the stupid door. When he did that, we were finally able to get on our way out of here. Luckily, we didn't run into any more knights in the gigantic hallways, so we didn't have to knock anyone out. I was actually wondering where the hell they had gone, because…aren't they supposed to be guarding the place?

We soon figured out that they had another problem on their hands then guarding the hallways.

One of the hallways we went down led to some sort of balcony area, and we had a perfect view of the floor below us. Which was in a total state of chaos, by the way. Seriously, there were knights running around everywhere down there. They actually made a small dust cloud, they were running around so much.

"Jeez, they're running around like headless chickens down there." I remark, bending the upper half of my body over the chest high railing. I'm not really worrying about the knights below seeing me, because they're obviously occupied with something else right now.

"I wonder if this is because of those guys earlier." I hear Yuri comment. He's doing the same thing I am, except for the whole 'bending-over-the-railing' thing. Estellise is just standing next to him. "They better not try to pin this on me, too."

"I hope no one was hurt…" The pink-haired girl mumbles, a worried look on her face. I look over to the two, and see Yuri wave a hand in the air.

"Don't worry about the Knights. They'll make sure to protect themselves."

I raise an eyebrow at him. "If they can protect themselves so well, then how were we able to knock them out so easily earlier?"

Yuri opens his mouth to respond, but is interrupted by a sudden shout from below.

"Yuri Lowel! Where are you hiding?"

I face Yuri, a confused look on my face. "Um…who's that?"

He sighs in response, staring down at the chaos below. "That must be Leblanc. I'd recognize those dulcet tones anywhere." Hm…I'm guessing that Leblanc is one of those knights down there. It kind of worries me that he knows him, though…it really does.

I see Estellise look over at the swordsman. "Do the two of you know each other?"

"We've had a bit of a history." Okay, now I'm officially worried. Anyways, Yuri looks over to the other side of the balcony. "…Come on, let's hurry."

I huff as he starts walking away, and pull myself off the balcony to follow. However, I'm interrupted by Estellise tripping and falling to the ground. As I go to help her up, I notice that Yuri stopped walking, and is now looking down at her.

"We should do something about your clothes." He says, putting a hand to his hip. "You'll stick out like a sore thumb." Here, I have to agree with him. I mean, walking around, trying to escape a castle, in a dress? It's just not practical.

"My room is just up ahead." She replies as I help her up. When she's standing fully, she continues. "I have a change of clothes there…"

"Okay, that'll work." I roll my eyes at the swordsman's response, but just as I'm about to comment, he walks away. Therefore, I am forced to follow, along with Estellise.

I peer down at the chaos below as we walk, just for entertainment purposes. I almost burst out laughing when I see two knights run into each other, possibly from not paying attention to where they're going. Or maybe it's just really hard to see through that big dust cloud they have going on down there. Makes me wonder if they ever dust in this place.

"It's irritating listening to your random train of thoughts."

"Nice to know you're still up there." I shoot back in my head. "You've been quiet for a while now."

"I see no point in babbling random nonsense to entertain you. You seem to do that yourself."

"Oh, haha." I reply. Silence fills my mind (really weird), and then I think of something. "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"What is it?"

"Well, I was just wondering…" I start, think for a second, then continue. "You said that you were the one that brought me here, right?

"Yes." Jeez, he's talkative.

"How is that possible?" This question has been killing me since I heard him say that. "I mean, it's impossible for a normal person to do that. How can a spirit do it? Not to mention that this place is supposed to be entirely fictional."

I hear a deep sigh in my head. "Must I answer this now? You seem to be occupied at the moment."

"All we're doing is walking down a hallway." I retort. Because really, all we're doing is walking down another long hallway. As I've been talking to Demitri, I've been careful to pay attention to where I'm going, because I tend to walk into shit when I don't. "And yes, you need to answer it now. You brought me here, so I think I deserve a bit of an explanation."

Another long sigh. "Fine. I'm not going to say this twice, so you better listen the first time."

Silence as I wait for him to begin, after which I head another short sigh.

"As I've said, I am a spirit, which means I could be described as a 'mythical being' by your human standards. All spirits have a certain 'elemental' attribute that is their source of power. Mine is electricity."

"So, you control stuff like lightning and electrical power?" I ask. That's pretty cool, now that I think about it.

"Yes, now don't interrupt me." Meh. "Since I have power over electricity, hat means I can take control on anything that runs on it, such as the technology in a human household. I managed to take control of that contraption of yours, and I brought you into this world by using my power."

"Contraption?"

"Yes, that…console, or whatever you humans call it."

"…the Xbox?" I ask slowly. He can control electrical stuff, and yet he has no idea what it's called? Kind of weird.

"Yes…that." he replies.

"So basically, you took control of my Xbox 360, used your freaky powers on it, and used it to transport me into the fictional world inside my game disk." A pause. "…Yeah, that sounds completely logical." The return of my sarcasm. Welcome it dearly.

"How else do you explain you being here? That is the only logical explanation that I can give you."

"…It still makes no sense." I grumble in my head. "But I guess I'm gonna have to accept it, because I can't think of any other way I might have gotten here! And I still have no idea why you brought me here!"

"I told you, I can't tell you yet."

"Can't you just give me a hint?"

"I'm beginning to lose my patience with you."

"Well, excuse me for trying to be informed!" I yell in my mind, and I swear that I can feel my eyebrow twitch in annoyance. "You just randomly decided to drop me here for a reason I don't know, and it's starting to piss me off!"

"Are you alright, Cassandra?"

"Wha-" I'm startled out of my mind argument by Estellise's voice. I didn't know she was walking right next to me, and she's giving me a weird look. "Uh…yeah. Why?"

"You had a strange look on your face. I was wondering if something was bothering you."

"Oh." Note to self: keep my face neutral when I talk to Demitri. "Sorry, I was just arguing with myself."

She stares, then nods at me. "Okay then, Cassandra. Sorry to bother you."

"It's okay, really." I reply, waving a hand. "And please, just call me Cassie. It's really weird for me when people call me by my full name."

"Oh! Sorry." She says, and she sort of bows her head. "I'll try to remember that."

I nod at her, then look straight ahead. "We'll finish this conversation later."

"Hmph."

One way or another, I'm gonna get some answers out of this guy. I swear.

*is exhausted after writing on and off for 6 hours, and pissed off at this sloppy chapter that she just wrote*

Jezzus, that took me forever. I kept getting stuck and getting distracted by pretty much everything. I hope it was worth it for you guys, though. If it's not, well…sorry.

For anyone who wants to know, or just because I want to, here's a play list of music that I listen to when I write this shit:

*Paperthin Hymn = Anberlin

*One Reason = Fade

*I am Taken Away = Origa

*Karasu = One OK Rock

*Katayoku no Tori = Shikata Akiko

*Madness of Duke Venomania = Gakupo VOCALOID

*Breathe = Gakupo VOCALOID

*Hades = Gakupo VOCALOID

*Bad Apple! (Orchestra Edition) = *on Youtube* Synthesia

*Overdose Delusion = SH2 Original Soundtrack

So…there's that.

Next Time: Talking in the Hallways.