Many, many hours later and Stephen felt both exhausted and lethargic, almost on the verge of sitting down on the floor and crying. He was still a bit weak-kneed from his orgasm but knew that he had to continue: the house was already influencing him to dawdle, wait, rest a bit, stay… but he refused to give in to its seductive whispers and kept going. He knew exactly what he had to do, and he would do it.

He had searched dozens upon dozens of rooms, and was now helplessly lost in the never-ending windling corridors and endless parade of rooms, one more twisted than the other. No trace of Nick. His heart ached, his feet ached, and he no longer had any idea where he was. Not even which floor he was on. He had lost count of how many stairs he had gone up and down, but it did not matter anyway in this house. Nothing mattered much here, and maps were useless. He opened another door, exhaustion making his hand tremble, and carefully made his way through.

He found himself back in the corridor that seemed to go on forever. He kept walking, and finally found himself back downstairs, in the billiard room. He stood for a moment and he could almost see the others moving in there, ghostly apparitions that were there and yet not. But they were unimportant, as his focus was completely on the man by the billiards table, leaning against the pool stick and smiling at him. His heart skipped a beat and it took everything in him not to run straight into his arms - it was his Nick, and yet it wasn't. The eyes were all wrong, and the smile too. Nick would never have had that note of cruelty in his face, was not capable of it.

"Not there" he muttered, as if he was channeling Emery. "Not there, not there, not there!" The apparitions disappeared and Stephen stood alone again, feeling a chill that came from nowhere seeping into his bones. He hugged himself briefly, and then moved further into the room. He would not give up now. Not when he was so close to finishing what he had come to do. A few places were left to visit, then he would go to the one place that terrified him more than anything else in this hellhole. The tower. He wandered on, following the distant sound of building.

The mirror library was as he remembered it: a particular piece of nightmarish architecture. He wandered slowly around it, careful to avoid the middle where the floor was rippling like a lake full of hungry fish, running his fingers over the books, then onwards. Onwards, steadily deeper and deeper into the house, listening to the sound of building sounding so close and yet distant. The feeling of being watched intensified, but he pushed on. His pack was lighter now, almost empty, but he still had a few places to visit.

The rooms were growing steadily darker and more twisted the further he walked. The walls seemed almost crooked this far in and the colour schemes were getting steadily darker. His thoughts kept slipping back to memorial weekend, and his mind replayed every single memory of Nick that he had. His smile, his laugh, his eyes, his scent, his kiss. It all swirled in Stephen's mind. He wondered when he had fallen in love with him. He knew he was in love that night in Rose Red, when Nick laid him out on the rug, but surely he had fallen in love earlier. After all, when he first saw the man at the information meeting that Monday evening, it had been like reuniting with an old friend. He had been dreaming about him for years - since he was eight years old, in fact. This man had starred in his dreams when he was a child and his erotic fantasies as a horny teenager. If he was honest with himself, the only reason he dated that football player in senior year was because he was tall, blonde and British. Oh, and his eyes were almost the correct shade of blue.

The room he was in now was as large as a ballroom, but it was the ballroom from The Mask of Red Death - the windows were dark red like blood, the drapes black, and the chairs twisted iron. It was like the scenery in a vampire movie, and if it wasn't for the fact that Stephen was all alone he would probably have found it funny. The tiny part of him that was amused shut up, however, when he saw the noose. It hung just above a lone chair placed on the side of the room, turning slowly as if touched by an unfelt wind. It was just the right height for him to climb onto the chair and put the rope around his neck like Uncle Posey had done once, and kick the chair away. The urge to do so was nearly overwhelming, and he had started moving towards the chair when once again the memory of Nick saved him. ...was he into roping or branding? his amused voice asked from out of nowhere, and Stephen snorted with laughter. The spell was broken and Stephen turned his back on the rope, opening a door that had not been there before. It led, unsurprisingly, to yet another corridor.

He followed the corridor, wondering if maybe he was getting himself permanently lost in the darkness, wandering there forever. But at the same time - something, a sense maybe or a feeling, told him he was heading in the right direction. He opened another door and found himself back in the garden. A few feet in front of him stood the tower in from which John Rimbauer had fallen, and Stephen shivered slightly. This was the epicentre of the dark energies of Rose Red, and if he wanted to save Nick he would have to go up there.

"Alright" he muttered in an attempt at humour, "time to go have a chat with great-grandma herself."

He took the first step on the staircase that would lead him to the tower, keeping the memory of Nick's arms around him close to his heart as both protection and comfort. It was time. He had only one card to play, he would have to gamble everything on it. Both Nick's soul - and his own.

Stephen hesitated only briefly before ascending the stairs.