Francis had gotten bored with wondering around aimlessly and was now sitting on a big stringy blue armchair, his candle flickering from his steady breathing. He was far from being nervous - in fact, he was becoming sleepy. "I should have known it wouldn't work," he muttered to himself and rested his head against the chair. Decided it worth the risk, he closed his eyes and tried to relax in the embrace of darkness. He shot his eyes open and frantically looked around the old degrading living room. "Who's there?" he asked sharply and stood up.
The minute he had closed his eyes he heard shifting near the big windows. Regarding it as a draft moving the curtains, Francis chose to ignore it for the first time. But when he had heard soft footsteps along the back wall coming nearer, he thought something wasn't quite right. He scanned the room once again and gasped as he saw a dark figure standing in the far left corner. It had the shape of a slim man and was tall - in fact it stretched from the floor all the way to the high ceiling, reaching about 4 meters in height. Francis took a quiet step backwards in order to head for the door behind him. The moment he saw the figure start walking towards him, his candle blew out. Francis could only let out a small whimper before he stumbled over a pouf. Rubbing his sore back, he could hear a crackling voice whisper numbers in French. "Trois... quatre... sinq..." Having remembered what that meant, he immediately went after the lighter in his pocket. Cutting it close, he managed to relight his candle and look around. There was no sign of the shadowy figure anywhere. Francis scuffed. "That dickwad... Idiotic, simply idiotic. Was that really all? You really have to try harder if you're trying to "suck" the life out of me, haha!" He cursed Gilbert under his breath when something made him stop and face the large doorway. He couldn't see anything because of the darkness, so he had to lift up his candle to illuminate a larger area of the living room. At the doorway stood the same figure, but something was different. It seemed... agitated. Francis hated himself at the moment more than he ever had. It hadn't been Gilbert before, it had been the Midnight Man. The same Midnight Man, who was slowly stepping towards him, as if thirsting and hungering. Francis made his way quickly to the room behind him and locked the door. It was a big bathroom and his steps echoed throughout the room. He could hear his breathing become heavier and he cursed himself. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, oh God... I just broke one of the rules." Francis clearly remembered what Arthur had said earlier. "No provoking the supernatural being," he had said waving his finger in the air as if putting off little children who wanted to cause some trouble. He sighed as he thought of Arthur. However, his train of thought was came to a halt when the temperature in the room started to descend. The more the doorknob was jiggled, the colder it became until Francis could already see his breath in the candlelight. He swallowed slowly and looked around the grand bathroom. No doors. No windows. He put down his candle on the toilet-lid and with shaky hands he dug out his salt container and opened the lid, when he stopped. The temperature had started to rise again and the jiggling had stopped. A sudden stomping against the door made him jump. "Hello?! Anyone in there?" he heard Arthur yell from the other side.
Arthur knocked again and jiggled the doorknob, when the door suddenly burst open, nearly pushing him to the ground. "Francis!" he exclaimed in awe and was happy to see he was still alive and moving. "What happened, why did the Midnight Man try to enter the room you were in? I didn't think he could open doors by himself..." Francis scratched the back of his head and said awkwardly: "I... may have provoked it..." He could see Arthur look at him, dumbfounded. "You what?" he only asked, not believing what the Frenchman had just said. Suddenly he grabbed Francis by the shirt's collar and shook him. "Do you have any idea what you have done?" he hissed through his teeth, trying to remain silent in fear the Midnight Man might still be around somewhere. Francis felt guilty for having made Arthur worry about him. After a brief explanation from his friend, Arthur was pacing around the room, his mind racing, trying to figure the best way to stay alive until 3:33. "You know he'll probably try and harass you the most now, right?" he asked as he bit his lower lip. Francis nodded and sat down with a sigh. "I also checked how much fluid I have left in my lighter. It's... not much. Definitely," he stopped as he checked his wristwatch; it showed 00:34. "Definitely not enough until the end of the game." Arthur sat down beside him. "Well, you could always pour a ring of salt around you. I'd stay here with you," he said quietly, rubbing his tired eyes. Francis smiled. "Merci, mon ami, but I cannot have you do that. Remember? You need to keep on moving and besides," he let out a small laughter, "I don't plan on losing the Midnight Game and I'm sure neither would you." Arthur nodded and smiled. After a little while of sitting in silence together he decided it would be best to keep on moving. "I just hope Gilbert will provoke him more than I did so he'd go after him," Francis scuffed as he stood up. Arthur laughed and they decided to explore the rooms surrounding the upstairs lobby. Francis hadn't been there and they wondered maybe they would see one of their friends there.
They had made their way to a big bedroom with a magnificent canopy bed surrounded by thick green curtains, or rather, they looked green. "Tempting, isn't it?" Arthur asked next to him when they were checking out the bed. Francis swallowed suddenly and could feel red forming on his cheeks. "I..." he started quietly but the Brit cut him off without noticing he had had something to say. "What I wouldn't give to go to sleep at the moment," he sighed and Francis could feel his heart-rate return to normal. "What the hell was that?" he thought to himself when he went to check out a big white vanity table in one of the corners of the room in order to get his mind off certain things. "Have I really been on the dry for so long I actually just thought about something like that?" he cursed and started to rummage through the drawers of the table. Arthur joined him and also put his candle on the table to be able to use both hands. After a minute of searching they were sure they wouldn't find anything and decided to see where the three doors in the room would lead to. Upon looking into the mirror, Arthur suddenly pushed Francis on the floor with him in order to dodge something that was thrown at them. The mirror broke and the candles fell down because of it, extinguishing the little flames. The entire room fell into darkness and Arthur frantically pulled Francis to sit into a corner with him. "What the-" Francis started when Arthur cut him off by pressing his hand against the Frenchman's mouth in order to shut him up. He crammed his other hand to his own mouth in order to keep the heavy breathing from giving away their location. Arthur knew they were practically sitting behind the vanity table and if they stayed quiet and didn't move, it would be impossible to spot them. Well, for a human at least. Francis didn't have time to remove Arthur's hand and to wonder what his friend had seen because a sudden heavy feeling of fright suddenly came over him. He could feel Arthur next to him also start to panic, so he grabbed the Brit's head and shoved it into his chest to muffle the panting and to calm him down, although whether it was to calm down Arthur or himself, he wasn't entirely sure. What would happen if the Midnight Man would come now? Francis knew finding the candles without making any noise was futile and he didn't dare to reach out for his bottle of salt he felt against his thigh. Even if he did manage to pour the ring around them, he doubted it would keep away whatever was in the same room with them. He could hear himself breathing heavily and trembling, so he hid his face into Arthur's warm body. Neither of them heard or saw anything, but they could feel the tense atmosphere, they could feel someone being in the room with them. They were sure it wasn't one of their friends nor was it the Midnight Man; something else was in the house with them.