As the line Jacuzzi was in grew shorter and shorter, he became more and more nervous. He was torn between wanting to go into the haunted house and get it over with, and wanting the line to be longer so he wouldn't have to go in. "W-what's in there, anyway?" asked Jacuzzi.

"All sorts of things," said Misato, "Don't worry, though. Don't touch them, and they won't touch you."

Before he knew it, however, he was right at the entrance, and then he was following Misato, Shinji, Asuka, and Rei into a dark, smoky room, full of lots of moving chairs and bouncing lights. Jacuzzi sat down in the same chair as the four of them, and they were scooted quickly across to the edge of a steep drop. Jacuzzi gripped the chair hard, willing himself not to fall; but it stopped so abruptly that everyone was thrown off, including Jacuzzi, who tumbled after the quartet screaming all the way.

This barely visible slide took them down, down, down, until they were deep in a basement-like area. Immediately they were set upon by ghouls and monsters of all sorts. Some were ghosts, some were ogre-like creatures, some were aliens, and some looked just plain unidentifiable. The group quickly ran through a tunnel past the monsters.

"I thought you said they weren't going to touch us!" Jacuzzi whined.

"They aren't touching you," Rei pointed out.

Still, the monsters came just about as close as they could get without actually touching anyone. And this was more than enough for Jacuzzi, who repeatedly found himself grabbing onto the other characters in shock, much to their consternation.

Once they had broken through the monsters, they found themselves at the edge of a lake full of red liquid. Jacuzzi heard a loud creak, and then a crash, and he felt a gust of wind. Turning around, he saw that a big iron door had just closed behind them. "W-what was that?" he asked.

"Oh, every time you complete a section of the haunted house," said Misato, "a door closes behind it. There's no opening those doors, so far as we know. You can't go back through the house, you can only go forward."

Just then a small flume boat with a single candle lighting the deck came to them, and all five filed in. Jacuzzi took a good, hard look at the liquid in the flume to discover body parts: hands, organs, and eyeballs, floating in it. He covered his mouth to keep from throwing up, and sat back in the boat.

"Are… are we riding a flume through… b-blood?" he gasped.

"Yes," said Rei softly. Jacuzzi gave an involuntary shudder at the thought of where it all could have come from.

As they rode through the blood, Jacuzzi turned his attention to the banks of this little river. On them, he saw all sorts of lights, flashes, and scenes of monsters, on farms, on the high seas, just about everywhere. Some of them appeared to be actually drinking the blood. The trip might actually have been fairly relaxing, if not for the organs that continuously surfaced in the blood, and the tendency of the creatures on either side of the river to jump out at them, even going so far as to touch and rock the boat.

Before too long, the boat ride ended, and everyone stepped out onto dry land again. When Jacuzzi went to get out, however, the boat tipped just a little too far and he fell in the blood. He started crying and dancing around like crazy, until Rei caught him and held him steady.

"Climb out, it's not that deep," said Misato.

Jacuzzi felt his feet around and realized that yes, he could stand. The floor was so soft and squishy and uncomfortable that he yanked himself out onto dry land in shock, and sat there for awhile, shaking. "It's okay," said Misato, pulling him up roughly, "You're fine."

"I'm c-covered in b-blood!" Jacuzzi whined.

"Coward," Asuka muttered.

"We need to get going now," said Rei. And with that, she started to disappear down the tunnel. Jacuzzi, noticing her walking away, mustered the strength to pick himself up and carry on, still dripping with the heavy liquid.

As the group wandered down another corridor, Jacuzzi saw something dark and brown flitting up ahead. It took him a second to realize that the something was a bat, flying straight at them! He ducked, and when he stood up the bat was gone. When he looked behind him, he saw the bat coming at him again, and ducked a second time. When he stood up again, the bat was flying at him yet again, but the other four were already gone, toward the end of the tunnel. Jacuzzi ducked the bat for the third time, and then ran straight for the next room.

He ran until he had caught right up with the other characters. Asuka was the first to notice him. "Oh, will you keep up please?" she shouted. "It's hard enough to keep track of Shinji, stupid!" In an attempt to ignore her, Jacuzzi turned his attention to his surroundings. The group was in a lab, with lots of brightly-colored liquids sitting in vials and other equipment on the desks. A few rats ran out from under a table, and for once, Jacuzzi did not jump. He was used to rats. As he nervously followed Misato, Shinji, Rei, and Asuka around a corner he kept a wary eye out for anything that could jump out of the many cupboards and cabinets. On one shelf he saw repulsive-looking body parts and small animals floating in green liquid; in one corner he saw cages of larger animals, which looked like several different species put together. They all growled and hissed at him, and a few put their appendages through the bars, as though to try and grab him or trip him up.

The next second, one such chimera, which looked most like a cross between a human and a lizard, jumped out of a nearby door. Jacuzzi screamed again, and ran after the other four, who deftly navigated the lab which was beginning to fill up with smoke and flashes of light as the creature dashed over the lab, smashing glassware and spilling chemicals all over the floor. Soon Jacuzzi couldn't see. His only trace of any of the other four was a faint view of Shinji's white shirt and brown hair. "Shinji!" he shouted, "Where are you?" He coughed and gagged as he felt the chemicals, whatever they were, enter his lungs. "P-please come find me!"

"We're over here…!" Came a voice, which Jacuzzi was too disoriented to place.

"Where?" he screamed.

"Can you follow the sound of our voice?"

"I… no!"

"Try!"

"Can you come in after me?"

"I can't see you!"

Jacuzzi began desperately trying to feel his way around the lab, which just then went completely dark. "AAh!" he screamed, again, "I can't see! It's so dark in here!"

"It's okay," came the voice, "Things'll get clearer in a minute! Just come follow our voice!"

"You seriously wanna wait around any longer for this stupid moron?" It was Asuka.

"We can't just leave him to wander the haunted house alone." Shinji.

As the two of them squabbled, Jacuzzi began to realize that visibility was slowly returning. Soon, Misato, Shinji, Rei, and Asuka were visible above all the smoke, framed by a faint glow at the end of the display, and Jacuzzi was able to run to the exit with them, just as the whole lab burst into flames.

Yet another long passageway led the group to a long tunnel, guarded by a giant, multi-colored face. "Oh- the living…," said the face, "Welcome to our… UNDERWORLD!" And with that, he parted, revealing a long tunnel. Jacuzzi was shaking in his boots, but he followed Misato, Shinji, Asuka, and Rei. It was then that he noticed the tunnel in there was moving, and that images of flaming-red distorted faces lined the inside. He bit his lip and tried to ignore them, but he felt himself get dizzier and dizzier the longer he spent in the tunnel. When he finally made it to the end, his entire world appeared to be swirling.

Now the group descended yet another flight of stairs, into a dark, wet cave. There were motion-activated torches to light the way, and the five of them made their way along a dark passage, skirting a big, shallow lake.

Suddenly, however, the ground began to tremble, and hands, in various stages of decomposition and covered in dirt and blood, sprouted out of the ground by the dozen. All sorts of ragged creatures, their flesh peeling off and their organs rotting out of their bones, dug themselves out of the ground, the lake, and the walls, to come chasing after the five of them. Jacuzzi began to cry, yet again.

"Oh, quit your sniveling!" Asuka managed to shout even as she ran away, "They're just zombies!"

"B-but… I've never seen a dead, rotting corpse that could move!" Jacuzzi whimpered.

"Asuka, this isn't the time," Shinji whispered.

They all ran around the edge of the lake, and then Jacuzzi fell in. He rushed to find his footing as the zombies and some sea monsters with sharp teeth and burning eyes began circling him. "How'd you like to come over for dinner?" one of them taunted.

"Help!" Jacuzzi screamed, running straight through them onto dry land.

He was still shaking by the time they found the next staircase, which led both up and down. Jacuzzi, who had been fully expecting and fearing that they would continue to go down, was relieved, almost in spite of himself, to find that they were going up instead.

Along the way up the stairwell, which turned from stone to wood as they climbed, Jacuzzi could swear he saw a little green dragon nestled in a corner, sleeping in front of a large crevice. Behind the crevice came a wisp of steam and a small growl. The group hadn't gotten more than halfway up the stairs when they heard a gigantic crack behind them, and a big red-and-black dragon burst through the wall and onto the stairs. It began jumping higher, and higher, ultimately soaring up into the air. Jacuzzi felt a lingering dread as to what would happen if it ever came back down.

Just as they had almost made it to the top of the stairs, the dragon came back down, nosediving through the stairwell and burning and shattering the wood. Jacuzzi, who unfortunately just happened to be the last one up, suddenly lost his balance and felt himself slip. The next thing he knew, he was dangling over a dark pit and clinging to the top of the stairs. "Help me!" he screamed.

In an unthinking moment, Shinji ran back over to Jacuzzi, followed by Asuka. "There's no way I'm letting you win this day, Wonder Boy!" Asuka shouted.

"Asuka, don't," said Shinji.

"You think you're hot stuff, running to save this poor little loser?" said Asuka.

"Asuka, just go on," Shinji sighed.

"No way! I can't let you have the satisfaction of saving anyone by yourself!" Asuka shouted. "It's bad enough that you get to be the big hero in show!"

"You guys…!" Jacuzzi moaned through gritted teeth, "Can you just stop fighting and help me?" He could feel his fingers slipping, bit by painful bit. There was no way he would be able to hang on much longer.

"Oh, just shut up!" Asuka screamed at no one in particular. Both were leaning over the giant pit when Jacuzzi started to slip, and both grabbed his hand a second too late. He fell, and since neither Shinji nor Asuka could hold that much weight on such bad balance, they fell in with him.

Misato and Rei, for their part, had already made it safely to the end of the segment. By the time they turned around to go after Shinji, Asuka, and Jacuzzi, the door had already closed behind them. "We can't go back," Rei observed. "The haunted house doesn't work that way."

"But I heard them fall," said Misato, "They've probably fallen into the optional segment of the house."

"The scariest part of all," Rei put in. "Only a few of us have ever been in there more than once.

"Yeah," Misato sighed. "But Shinji and Asuka both know their way around. Jacuzzi should be okay, if he's with them." She sighed again. "We just have to keep going on. Those kids should be okay. That segment isn't any more dangerous than any other part, just scarier. And it's a lot shorter." They started winding their way toward the exit.