"So, uh, how're we gonna do this?" Spooky tries to disguise the stammering in her question as her usual awkwardness, but judging by the way she's fidgeting around, it's much more than that. "We're not going to just uh, walk right into the Mansion, are we?"

You might think I'm mean for what I'm about to do, but Spooky has put me, and many others, through the ringer. So, I feel more than a little justified for being a little petty. Okay, a lot petty.

"Aw, what's the matter, Spook? It's your mansion."

Spooky scowls. "Not anymore. You made sure of that."

"Do I detect a little resentment there?" I fill my tone with lots of overdramatic flare as I ask this question.

"A little, yeah," Spooky admits.

"To answer your question, we are going to walk into the Mansion,—"

"Seriously?"

"Let me finish," I chastise moodily, raising a hand. "We'll walk into the Mansion in a very specific way."

"…Elaborate."

"Ooh, big words for such a little girl." This earns me another scowl. I bask in the beauty of my extremely reluctant ally's annoyance before continuing. "I'm going to go in on my own, and explain the situation. Then, you can come in, and we can get started. Sound good?"

Spooky looks incredibly skeptical, to say the least. "You really think you can just tell the specimens and monsters that, uh, the person who stuck them in there is Here and please don't kill her, they'll listen?"

"Well, it would probably help if you stopped calling them 'specimens and monsters'…"

Spooky puts her hands on her hips, and as much as I hate to admit it, her blank stare with those dark eyes of hers is more than a little intimidating. Why didn't she just do that when she tried to scare people? We might've been able to avoid this whole mess if she did.

I let out a heavy sigh. "Okay, look. As much as I don't like you, and I'm sure the feeling is mutual,—"

"Oh, it's definitely mutual—"

"—I don't want your blood on my hands. Even though it technically won't be me killing you the second time. Dear god, that is trippy to think about. Anyway, you know what my track record is when it comes to doing the impossible, especially in the Mansion. Pretty good, right?"

Spooky doesn't reply. She doesn't even nod. What little guilt I felt about being petty went completely out the window when I saw Spooky being even more so. And I fired back, hard.

"Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Right? Righ—"

"Okay, okay, you can stop!" Spooky shouts over me, covering her ears. "Yes, it is pretty good. Jeez!"

"That's right! So, if anyone can get you in and out safely, it's me, right?"

Spooky seems to want to play silent treatment again, but when I open my mouth to let out a second right, [right doesn't even sound like a word anymore] she immediately replies before I can. "Yeah. Yeah, it's you." She sounds like an exasperated parent, making me burst out laughing. She huffs, putting her hands on her hips. "Remind me, which of us is the twelve-year-old here?"

"Neither of us, technically." I feel the need to explain. "See, you died like a long time ago and came back, so even though your body and development is twelve, chronologically you're a lot older. And as for me, I just turned seventeen today."

Much to my surprise, the technically younger girl looks surprised at this information. "Wait, really? Seventeen? I thought you were a lot younger than that."

Some people, actually maybe plenty of people my age would've gotten offended by such a statement, especially if it came from someone like Spooky. But all I did was blink. "Huh. So, like, my body didn't give it away?"

Spooky shrugs. "Early bloomer."

Then, it's my turn to shrug. "Fair enough." Then I scoop her up, backpack and all, and begin carrying her outside. Spooky, not expecting to be scooped up, backpack and all, begins to squirm in my grasp.

"Whoa! Ah! What the?"

"Chill, you're gonna make me drop you," I grumble.

"How are you this strong?"

I couldn't shrug since I was carrying a blue-haired psycho tween, so I did my best to put a lot of shrug energy into my voice. "I started working out after I left the Mansion the second time. I felt like it'd be a good idea to get into shape."

I pluck my helmet out of the basket of my trike, so I can plop my load into it. Spooky grunts as she attempts to get comfortable in the tight, metal space. "Ugh… Is this really necessary?"

"I mean, I sure as hell can't fit into the basket. Let your backpack hang over the side," I advise, deciding to take a little pity on the brat. She does so, wedging the back of the basket between the pack and her back. "Ow, it hurts my back," she complains. But she does seem a little less cramped. Then, she realizes just what she's sitting in. Whoa, a giant tricycle? I didn't know they made those… wait, can you, uh, not ride a bike?"

"Nope, I reply without shame. Then I'm hopping up on the seat of my trike, buckling up my helmet with a satisfying click. With any luck, nobody will stop me due to my passenger's lack of protection. "All aboard!" I cry out, like a train conductor. And with a spin of the petals, we're off.

Spooky felt like a prisoner on their way to be executed. In a way, she was. No longer was she free from the shackles of mortality, no more did she have complete and total control over the Jump Scare mansion. Actually, that last one hadn't been true for quite a long time. But now that she was no longer a ghost, and was just as susceptible to death and injury as any other living person, it was really beginning to sink in. She couldn't just laugh and fly through the ceiling, away from danger. She was just as vulnerable, just as weak as the many souls who'd traveled this road before her.

She may as well be yet another hapless visitor to the Mansion, no different from all the others. Well, except that she didn't get the luxury of not knowing what was to come. No, Spooky knew. She knew she was walking right into a death trap of her own creation, a labyrinth inhabited by entities she had trapped there. And they hated her. No doubt the moment they realized she had blood to spill, they would thirst for it. She knew she would, in their position.

And the only thing spooky could rely on, her only hope of survival rested squarely on the shoulders of a teenage girl. A girl who also hated her. And rightly so, a small voice piped up in the corner of her mind. Spooky told the voice to shut up.

If I knew this was gonna happen, Spooky thought to herself, would I have still done it? Would I have done everything the same? She wanted to say she wouldn't have, that this whole mess would have been avoided, but she knew better. She knew herself. Spooky knew her past self would just think it was a cool scary story, and dive headfirst into the plot.