It took us some more hours before we reached another clearance. There, we see a tiny house. I really don't like the darkness that seems to be emanating from that building. It gives me the chills. I stop at the limit of the forest, feeling some uneasiness. Cry stops and looks at me, locking our glances.

"Is something wrong?"

"Don't you feel something is wrong?"

He chuckles.

"I've been feeling like that since the beginning."

"No, I mean… Right here and now."

Ryan looks around in incomprehension then looks back at me.

"Not… really."

"Maybe it's just me…"

I still feel kind of stressed, but I get over it and follow Cry as he heads into the clearance. We have only walked two or three steps when I hear a crow's call. I look around, unable to make out where it came from exactly. Ryan keeps on forcing me to continue walking. I think he didn't hear it.

The call resonates again. This time, it's quickly followed by another one, then another, until it comes from everywhere. Ryan starts looking around, making me know he has heard it now. We both stop, looking around to try and find where those cries come from. Soon as we halt, the silence falls again, heavy and creeping up our backs.

"Fuck! Get down!"

I jump on Cry, making us both stumble to the floor. The crow that had been aiming for Ryan's head flies over us before getting away, croaking in anger. I am about to say something when all the crows cry out at the same time. I bring m y hands to my ears as I sit up, trying to deafen the noise. I see Cry wince at the painfully loud concert.

I can hear wings flap as a literal cloud of black takes off from all around the limit of the clearance. I look at Ryan to check if he saw it, and by the whiteness of his face, I'd say he did. Our eyes meet as he turns his head to my side and without saying a word, we agree and take off as fast as we can towards the house.

I hear behind me the angered croaks of the crows as they understand what we are doing. I hear the wings flap all the more faster as they try to catch up to us, shouting menacingly. I see Cry stumble and stagger as he takes the lead of the fleeing. He reaches the door and turns its knob, banging it open. I enter right after and stop to turn around and slam it shut.

I hear the sounds of birds hitting the wood, unable to slow themselves down fast enough. Croaking echoes outside as their brothers scratch onto the door and the walls with their claws every so often. I catch glimpses of them flying around the building through the half-blind window on the wall to my right. It goes on for some time before I hear them moving some bit away, understanding that they won't be able to catch us like that.

The sound of their flapping wings subsides slowly before the silence falls again on the clearance and the house. I suddenly realize I am panting from fear and the effort. I try to slow my breath down as I turn around to look at Cry. He's no longer there. It seems that, while I was being crept out by the crows, Cry just decided to take off and explore the house.

I start walking away from the entrance door and looking around. The place is quite cosy, I'd have to say. It almost looks like a countryside habitation's insides. Maybe a bit richer, but that's all.

"P-Pewdie! Come here!"

Ryan's voice came from the right, and I aim my stroll towards him. As I cross a door, I see him in front of me, but before I can try to say a thing, he throws a deadly frightened glance at me and points at the roof. I look up, wondering what freaked him out so much.

"Shit…"

Out of a hole in it, three quarters of the torso of what I believe to have been a man sticks out. Its skin is dry and heavily wrinkled, as if all water in him had been drained out. The only remaining hair is of a sick and stained yellow. I'm not even sure if it means the person had been blond, or just that time changed its color enough to make it look like that. I walk around and I freeze as my eyes meet with that grimace of a face it has. The mouth is wide open on dark, broken and half-smashed out teeth, which are accompanied by a rotten piece of flesh as a tongue. The nose's cartilage has long since disappeared, and only two holes remain to attest of where it had been. They are the echo of those empty, pus-filled carved rounds that stand as eyes.

I wince in disgust as I see it, backing up with a shiver running down my spine. Has it been stuck in here for days before dying after having ran out of food, because of the crows awaiting outside? Or is it the cause of the crows staying around, as if they were the protectors of its burial? One option or the other, it's freaky as hell.

"Hey, Felix, come see what I got!"

I look away from the horrid face and move my glance onto Cry. I walk around the body, careful not to touch it at any moment, and I move closer to stand by Ryan's side. He points up still, and at first I don't get what he's trying to show me. But then as I turn my head to ask what it is that got him so excited, I catch the shining of a piece of metal up in the hole where the man in the roof comes from. I get my eyes back on where I think it is and squint a bit to see better.

"a gun…"

I can't believe it. Why… How… How is that even possible?! I turn to Cry, and he smiles back to me in triumph.

"We have to get upstairs to grab it."

He nods and we separate to look around the house. I don't find stairs, but I do find a door. When I open it, I see darkness, and wooden stairs leading down to a tunnel with rock walls. As I am looking at it, I hear someone walk behind me and I throw a glance behind me.

"Shit-"

I fully turn around and take a step backward at the vision of a walking skeleton with a gun in hand heading towards me. I lose my balance and begin falling, but the bony man reaches a hand out and grabs my shirt before I can fall down in the cellar. As it does it talks, and I recognize Cry's voice.

"Careful!"

As those words come out of his mouth, I stop hallucinating and all that white gets covered by muscles and skin. I blink a few times to make sure everything is back to normal, and it seems like it.

"Are you okay?"

Cry looks at me and I can see the worry in his eyes.

"Uh, yeah, I'm okay now. I saw you as a skeleton for a second."

He furrows his brows but doesn't comment. He doesn't have to. We both know what this means; that thing from the Gymnasium is still after us.

After an awkward moment of both of us wondering if there would be any moment when we'd reach the limit of this nightmare, Cry holds out the pistol he's holding.

"There. I got it from upstairs."

"Keep it. I already have the knife"

He shakes his head.

"No way I'll do that. Not after the clearance's accident. I could kill you out of hallucinating."

His face is full of fear, of himself and of that curse we got after us. I sigh.

"Fine. But you take the knife."

He doesn't argue on that one, even though I can see that he is worried about even that.

I turn around, gun in hand, and I stare at the dark hole underground that was behind me.

"I think that corridor would be our best chance out."

Ryan comes closer and looks at it.

"Alright. We have to find a lamp or something like that."

I put a piece of furniture to keep it open – I learned out of those other doors – and we start looking around the house. After some minutes, we have to admit it to ourselves; there is nothing do light up that corridor in the house. We stand in front of the entrance to it, and none of us talks for a long time. Then, without concerting each other, I step in there first, followed right after by Cry, which frees the door. I reach the solid ground as the door finishes closing and darkness wraps itself around us.