Chapter 5- Tumbling Dominoes

"Sorry about him. He's a grump." Nya gave Jay a small smile, which he dutifully returned.

"Absolutely understandable." Jay shrugged in response. He momentarily turned away from Nya, to make sure Cole was still in sight. He was. "I would be grumpy too if-"

"If what?"

Jay thought for a second, mouth opening and closing as he tasted unspoken words. "If- well, what I- It's just that this place is pretty out of the norm. I don't blame him for being on edge."

"Oh. Yeah." Nya's smile faded. "How come. . . you're acting like all this is just your average day. It's a little weird, if you don't mind me saying."

Jay bit his lip. Nya could see secrets shining in his eyes. They shifted, as he decided what to say, and what not to say. Observing this, Nya decided to follow Cole's suit and remain on her toes. The guy before her seemed kind and friendly, but he definitely knew more than he was letting on.

"Okay, I'll be honest with you." Jay finally spoke, as they moved up the stairs, where Cole had stopped to wait. All three of them moved together, steps loud against the silence. "I knew there was something weird about this house. I just. . . didn't know how to bring it up. You've got to admit, if I'd started spouting off nonsense about endless hallways and magical dinners, neither of you would have wanted to trust me."

"That's fair." Nya said, but she wasn't wholly convinced. Neither was Cole. They exchanged quick glances, silently agreeing to not let Jay out of their sight.

Moving through the hall, Nya noticed that the world outside had darkened considerably. The broken passage of time was another thing that didn't make sense. At least the rain hadn't returned.

Nya hoped Kai would worry after the static-filled call, and decide to track them down. With loads of luck, this time tomorrow, they would all be home, working on the best way to write out their experiences.

"Here we go!" Jay's eternally cheerful tone broke through her thoughts, as he pushed open one of the doors. How he could tell it was the right one, when every other door around them looked identical, Nya couldn't even begin to guess. "Guest room number one."

She stepped inside. "We should. . . try and see if there's anything that will tell us . . . Anything about them, or. . . something. I guess?"

"That's your most coherent plan yet." Cole teased.

Nya ignored him. Instead, she began to peek around the room.

Cole did the same. He took a picture of everything as a whole, then paced around to capture the smaller details. His steps led him to another door. Cole twisted the handle, pushing it open to reveal a small private bathroom. He flicked the light on before stepping inside.

The mirror was darkened with age, and the once silver faucets were covered in grime. "Haunted bathrooms are gross. Maybe you should tell the owner to look into hiring a cleaning service."

Cole looked up to the mirror as he joked, to look back at the others. The reflection in the mirror, however, had different ideas on what to portray.

It was completely coated in a gray, mist-like cloud. From that, a shape began to form. Cole opened his mouth to call out, but found that his throat was tightened into uselessness.

So he stared, body frozen, fingers clutching his camera. The shape in the mirror grew in detail, until he was staring into the eyes of an old man. His blue eyes shone with knowledge, and a long white beard framed his aged features.

Unsettling as this was, Cole was somehow convinced that the old man was not dangerous. He cleared his throat, slowly relaxing enough to speak. He took a step back. "Hey, uh, Nya? There's-"

Slam!

The door to the bathroom shut behind him with an ear-deafening sound. The lights went out. Cole screamed and jolted, swiveling around to face the blocked exit. His hands fumbled for the handle, but surprise, surprise, it wouldn't twist. Locked.

"Nya!" Cole shouted, more scared that he'd been in their whole little misadventure. He hated ghosts. He hated the dark. He hated this. "Nya, open the door!"

He pounded his fists against the door, but he could hear nothing from the other room. Even though he knew it was pointless, Cole tried the handle again, desperately attempting to force it open.

"Just get the lights on. Yeah. Get the lights on." Cole nodded to himself as he spoke, feeling around for the light switch. His hand slid over the wall. Nothing. He took a step forward. The light switch had been planted beside the door. And now it just. . . wasn't.

He took a couple more tentative steps, while still leaning against the wall. He pictured the bathroom in his head. Soon, he would come up to the tub. Just one more step and. . . still nothing.

"Camera," Cole muttered to himself, lifting the precious object. With a click, the flash illuminated his surroundings briefly.

The bathroom was gone. In its place, was a hall, much like the one he'd seen the first night. Okay. Alright. He could work with this.

Still holding up the camera, Cole flicked on the night vision. The small screen revealed the hall in a greenish hue. Eyes glued to this, Cole moved forward. As he did so, he tried to state the concrete facts of everything they'd been through, to keep his fear from spiraling out of control.

"The house changes. To take shape of something we want. But what do I want? I wasn't thinking of anything." Cole found that speaking aloud was a little soothing.

"We haven't seen any ghosts. No actual ghosts. The family in the kitchen didn't seem like ghosts. They were real. Solid. They were there. What kind of haunted house doesn't have ghosts?

"Can't be ghosts. Can't be poltergeists either. Nope. Those only move stuff. They can't change. . . change things. Like this. At least I don't think so. So then what?

"It's the house itself." Cole found himself moving a bit faster, even though there was no end in sight. "The house itself. . . but why? How? It doesn't make any sense. Nothing makes any sense."

The camera's screen dimmed, while the battery icon flickered. Cole grimaced, feeling around in his pockets for extra batteries. None. He sighed, pressing his hand against the wall and slowly lowering the camera.

The hall had to end. It would end, if that's what he wanted it to do. Cole began to mutter the word to himself. End. End. End. End.

Something flickered in the distance. Cole's heart skipped a beat. Anything other than endless darkness was a blessing.

As he moved closer, he was able to distinguish it. The mirror! And within it, the old man waited.

"You!" Cole didn't care if the man was the cause of everything. He needed someone to talk to. "What's going on? Can you talk?"

The man smiled at him. It was a worried, sad smile. Cole stepped closer, waiting. The man did not speak

"How can I get out?" Cole tried.

Instead of giving a concrete answer, the reflection uttered five little words. A sentence that seemed to have nothing to do with the situation he was in. Cole frowned. Not understanding. He repeated the words himself, with the tilt of a question at the end.

The world shifted when he did so. Cole's fingers shook, and the camera fell against the floor.


"Hey, uh, Nya? There's-"

Nya turned to Cole, just in time to see the door slam shut. "Cole!"

From within the locked bathroom, there was no response. She'd expected to hear panicked pounding instantly, and the lack of it made goosebumps crawl up her arm.

Shaking off the shock, Nya scrambled toward the door. "Cole?"

The handle responded to the movement of her wrist, twisting open with a soft click! Nya opened it slowly, fearful of what would be waiting inside. Jay walked up beside her.

"Crap." They both said, in unison, as they realized the bathroom before them was empty. Cole was gone.

"Now what?" Jay asked, although he didn't seem confused at all. Nya glazed over this fact, her worry for Cole and her desire to figure things out blotting out everything else.

"He said. . . When we got separated yesterday, he said the house responded to the things he wanted. When he thought about finding me, bamm! There I was. So maybe. . ."

"We just. . . tell the house we want to find him?"

"Yes. It sounds kind of ridiculous but. . ."

"I mean, after all that's happened I think we can set the normal rules for reality to the side."

Nya smiled. "Yeah, no kidding."

They ventured out into the hall together, calling out for Cole at random intervals, while peeking into any unlocked rooms they came across. Searching for his friend felt all too familiar, and Nya was shuddered to think it was exactly the same thing she'd been doing the night before.

She did not want to be trapped in a loop of her own.

"It's not working." Jay frowned. "He isn't anywhere. Are you sure you're thinking about finding him?"

"Yes." Nya hissed, although, in fact, she sort of wasn't. Of course, she wanted to find Cole. But there was something she wanted more than that. She wanted to figure this whole, topsy-turvy house.

They both went hand in hand regardless, didn't they?

If she figured out everything, Cole was bound to turn up among her answers.

The sight of the next room was unwelcome. Nya frowned at the living room that had continued to appear restlessly the night before. "I'm starting to get sick of this place."

This time, however, something was different. Sitting atop the fireplace, was her own folder, the one filled with the reports of missing people.

She took a step toward it. She had asked the house for answers. And the house had complied.