(A/N): So. 2020. Just keeps coming, huh?
Hope you guys are managing it okay. Stay safe if you have to go to school soon. 3

Cole woke up with sweat all over him, his heart threatening to jump right out of his chest.

For a second, he was thrown by how disorientingly unfamiliar everything felt. Then he abruptly remembered where he was and everything that came with it.

With a soft moan, Cole spread a hand over his face and tried to calm down. Why had he even bolted awake like that in the first place? It had happened last night, and now it'd repeated itself with more intensity than before. If it was a nightmare, he couldn't remember it …

Wait.

The fire was still going, small but warm, and if he turned his head, the light cast a soft orange glow on … was that …?

Cole gingerly pushed aside the covers, careful not to disturb Lloyd next to him. Then, wincing at how sore his legs were, he stood on his feet.

The firelit silhouette startled, but otherwise didn't acknowledge that it had noticed. Jay stood, unmoving, with his back to Cole, before the entrance to the passage system.

It was open.

Cole came up to him tentatively. Froze for a few moments. Tried to come up with the right words to ask just what Jay was doing.

Jay spoke first.

"I tried contacting Nya again." His voice was quiet, like everything else. It only made Cole uneasier. "Tried to contact the falcon." A low, bitter huff that could pass for a laugh. Jay still didn't turn around. "Nothing."

So being trapped here was bothering him. Understandably. But there was something in his tone that suggested that there was more to … whatever this was.

Cole weighed what to say, whether to ask why in the world the passageway entrance was open. After a moment, he decided to go the safe route and keep him talking about their inability to contact the outside world. Maybe Jay would reveal what he was thinking of his own volition.

Besides, being unable to reach Nya was genuinely concerning.

"Still?" He asked, casually ignoring the gaping hole in the wall in front of them both. "Did you have an idea to get through that didn't work?"

Jay had seemed so much more cheerful that evening that he'd figured just venting his feelings to Zane had done the trick—after all, whenever Cole caught him feeling down and offered reassurance, it usually genuinely helped. Jay, as he'd come to know over the years, just worked like that.

But he should've known it wouldn't be that simple. Especially not here.

Cole had experienced what this place could do to their heads firsthand, after all.

"No …" Jay reached for the lantern above the fireplace, pulling it upright and sealing off the entrance, then finally turned to face him, expression stormy. He'd taken off the hoodie, Cole noticed. "I was just kinda hoping it'd worn off a little by now."

Cole had half a mind to try and read Jay, figure out what he was up to, but something about what he'd just said brought his attention fully to the conversation.

"What's 'it'?"

"Oh. Uh, you know, magic." Jay said sheepishly, turning his gaze to the fireplace. "Like, how Zane was talking about how magic's interfering with all the electrical signals and all, and since our powers are kinda back a tiny bit and that's also magic, I thought maybe …"

"Ohh." Cole remembered it now that Jay mentioned it. Honestly, he should've put two and two together himself. "Heh. Sucks it didn't work out that way. Wishful thinking, huh?"

It must've been something he said. Immediately, Jay tensed up, eyes going dark, but before Cole could fully register the look or ask what was wrong, his face immediately shifted to a half-hearted grin.

"Hahahah. Yeah. Guess it was."

Weird. Had he imagined it?

He had to squint in the firelight to tell, but the corners of Jay's mouth were very pinched. That laugh sounded more nervous than anything.

Yep. It was definitely something he'd said, he decided, stomach sinking. But what?

Maybe … maybe calling the hope that things had gotten even a little better "wishful thinking" made it sound silly. Maybe calling it "wishful thinking" made it seem like escape and recovery were far-fetched dreams, rather than a clear objective. If he was being honest with himself, he could see that. Everything they learned only served to further muddle the big picture and their prospects, if they hadn't already hit rock bottom, were kind of bleak all the same.

Now that it was nighttime (or so they assumed), that annoyingly persistent ball of nerves was gnawing at him with a renewed intensity. It was just a little too dark, everything just a bit too quiet, like the eye of a hurricane about to come crashing down on them, and it was disarmingly easy for his mind to get carried away conjuring up all the worst things that could happen if he let his guard down.

Too easy. Unbidden, the image of ghostly, jagged claws, bearing down on Kai and making quick work of his arm, surfaced. Crimson droplets, spraying into the air and on the ground, gleamed in the light of his mind's eye, far too vividly for comfort. Huge, razor-sharp teeth snapped shut mere inches from where Lloyd desperately held his ground, gi stained brown with blood. Hateful eyes and deformed hands towered over him, blotting out the light and all rationale —

Cole swallowed, realizing his throat had gone very dry, and noticed Jay was watching him from the corner of his eye.

Some help he was. He was trying to figure out what was eating at Jay, and here he'd gone and psyched himself out. Again.

He was not enjoying being so quick to lose control of his thoughts. This had to change.

Jay was still silent, his soft breathing the only thing indicating his presence. He'd dropped the grin as soon as Cole went quiet.

Cole took a deep breath of his own, shakier than he would have liked.

In, out.

Yeah. It had to change. For all of their sakes.

"Hey … Jay."

Jay hummed to acknowledge that he'd heard.

He despised being the weak link. Here, especially, he couldn't afford to be. He was hardly the only one having a rough time of it, and they all had to look out for each other if they were going to make it out of this mansion in one piece.

So even if he was a little more useless at being the collected, solid rock he usually prided himself on being, he was going to at least try. It was grasping at straws, seeing the effect but not having enough clarity about the cause, but he had to say something.

"We'll be alright."

Were the words for himself or Jay? Maybe both of them. That was fine. Whatever it took to convince the both of them.

"We've been in situations that looked just as bad before. Heck, plenty of times it felt like the whole world was crashing down and nothing would end well."

Jay's attentive eyes reflected pale firelight. There was no need to rack the mind for examples—they were there, and they really had felt like the world could've ended right then. After all, there had always been the creeping dread while they'd trained Lloyd that it could go wrong hanging over their heads, much as they tried to tell themselves otherwise. Or Zane's death, where it'd looked like nothing could ever truly be okay for what was left of them again. Or there was Morro's quest to free the Preeminent, which had brought them to Yang's temple, where every creak of the floorboards and sinister whisper and twist of his gut had made Cole question if they were really going to make it to saving Lloyd from Morro —

Speaking of guts, his had started twisting again. Why, oh why couldn't this place stop being so familiarly creepy? Like every bad thing that had happened inside its walls was oozing up from the floor and trying to swallow them whole. With his mind on hyperdrive with anxiety, the parallels were practically writing themselves and it really wasn't helping.

Cole banished the thought from his mind before he could lose the few layers of a spine he'd been building back up. He was trying to comfort Jay here. Right. Just focus on that.

Besides. They'd gotten past those things. He held onto that thought as he cleared his mind.

"But every single time, things worked out. Yeah, usually there's a couple new scrapes, and hurts, and maybe we even lose something along the way." He had a very vivid vision of looking down at his hands and seeing the ground, tinted misty green, underneath them. "And it takes a while for everything to actually feel normal again afterwards, but it does. One way or another … we'll be okay."

And maybe he was still a tiny bit terrified of their surroundings, and the spirit, and how he felt. Maybe he was still scared that they still hadn't found Kai or Karlof …

But he was genuinely holding out for that to be true.

He hoped Jay could take reassurance in it, too.

Jay didn't say anything immediately, not even to argue or offer two cents of nervous cynicism, which was a bit odd for him. There was something still miserable in his eyes that made Cole nervous that he hadn't gotten through to him after all.

Finally he spoke.

"I'm glad you think so, Cole."

That wasn't relief.

"Things'll work out, huh?" Jay had turned to fully face him again, tone deceptively light. Cole caught the disingenuity of his smile, the acerbic undercurrent of his words, and didn't know what to make of them.

"We're trapped in a mansion that's basically a graveyard, nearly powerless against a huge crazy ghost-thing that we don't know how to kill, and we've got no clue if Karlof or Kai are okay because Kai wanted to get up to who-knows-what in the middle of the night and I let him. But yeah, we'll totally be okay!" Cole cringed when Jay tossed up his hands and laughed, a clearly-forced sound, and then dropped any semblance of mirth entirely.

"… Sorry." His friend deflated, hanging his head.

"I — no, come on, don't be. Believe me, I get it." Cole moved forward and put a hand on Jay's shoulder, curling his fingers in an unspoken invitation, if he so chose to accept it. Jay didn't avoid his hand, but he leaned away ever so slightly at the contact and Cole thought he was going to be shrugged off entirely —

But then Jay abruptly stepped closer and grabbed the back of the hoodie Cole still hadn't taken off. Relieved that Jay was confiding in him, was saying anything to him at all, he returned the hug, letting the warmth seep through his clothing.

After a few moments, they reluctantly pulled away. Jay seated himself cross-legged on the floor, figuring they'd been standing long enough, and Cole followed suit.

"I want to believe you, Cole," Jay fiddled with the sleeve of his gi, "when you say we'll be alright. I just …"

"Not sure how?"

"Not sure how we'll ever make it out in one piece." Jay admitted. "I just want to get out. I'd do anything to sprint out of here and never look back, and forget this place even exists as soon as humanly possible. You know?"

"Yeah." Cole smiled wryly at him; he did know. The words resonated with the ugly ball of paranoia and helplessness that came out with every second they spent roaming this mansion, every time they rounded a corner and hoped that they wouldn't come face to face with the uncaring wall of eyes and limbs, every time he remembered countless innocents had probably met their ends here, every breath he took desperately trying to convince himself that they would be fine. "I know exactly how you feel there."

Jay reciprocated with a small smile of his own, and it seemed more genuine this time.

"Yeah … but for what it's worth, I think you're being pretty great about it."

"I knew there was gonna be a joke about that eventually."

"Ah—heh—what?"

"Look, you really don't have to pretend or anything. At the very least, I'm a self-aware nervous wreck."

"Wha—no, I'm serious!" Jay insisted. "I know this place is making you super anxious—" Ha, understatement, "but at least you're trying not to let it get to you! Kai's missing, Lloyd's so worried I'm surprised his hair isn't falling out, Skylor's got a concussion, but you're still doing your best to hold it together. Heck, even now! You're obviously stressed, and here I go getting worked up, and you still know just what to say! "

A pulse of warmth went through him. As much as he tried to take whatever he was thrown and just deal, it was nice to hear that at least someone thought he was doing alright, constant nerves and all.

"Heh, well. You kind of have to keep working at it if you wanna get any better. Because the alternative is to just go crazy, you know? Noooot really an option here." He chuckled. "But hey, what about you? You're not doing too bad yourself. I mean, you can handle yourself against that spirit-ghost-whatever it is! That's more than I can say right now."

"Aheh." He was rewarded with a smile. "But Kai …"

There was no way Jay still thought anyone blamed him for that, was there? He hoped not.

"Yeah, I know. But you wanna know what I think? Honestly, if he really did just skedaddle, that's his fault. Not yours," Cole declared. "And before that, you stepped up and offered to take watch. The thought was responsible, at least, it showed accountability. I can't really blame you for running off, either; I sure wanted to."

"No kidding, it's so creepy. Like the mansion on its own wasn't bad enough, it had to be haunted, too!" Jay lamented. "But at least most of us are safe for now?"

"Exactly. That's the spir—no, wait." Cole halted mid-sentence, grimacing. Jay snorted, the two made eye contact, and both had to stifle giggles—it was still late at night and the others really wouldn't appreciate being woken up at this hour.

"I can't say that anymore, can I?"

"Nope. Unless you have a taste for the ironic."

"Well, it's kinda funny when it's not in your face. But I can't speak for everyone else …"

Jay huffed, then looked serious again.

"At least most of us are safe." Jay sighed. Where the emphasis fell wasn't unnoticed. "... Do you think they're in the passages?"

Oh, boy. This question again. "I dunno. We've been looking inside them and out, and we still haven't found anyone, so I guess we'll have to see. Not to mention, we're still pretty new to them — there could be so much more left to go through."

"It'd go a whole lot quicker if we knew this place better, wouldn't it?" Jay groaned. "And it'd be even worse if we didn't have Zane helping us map everything out."

"Agreed." They went quiet again for a few seconds.

"... What if we sped things up a little bit?"

Cole cocked an eyebrow curiously. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, we're not getting anywhere because we don't know enough about this place. So … maybe if we tried to go learn a little more?"

He'd been sitting with his head lazily propped up on his hand, but Cole shot back upright now. "You are not suggesting what I think you are. Tell me I'm hearing this all wrong."

"Well …"

"Jay." A small flicker of annoyance started coming to life, and Jay had the decency to look sheepish when he caught it. "I thought I told you earlier not to do anything stupid. Where in any of that did you decide to take it as an invitation?"

"Look, I know, I sound terrible! But hear me out," Jay pleaded. "We've been here almost two days now and we still haven't explored everything. It'd go faster if we knew more; you agreed with me!"

"It's the middle of the night!" he hissed. "I should've known you were up to something when you were just standing in front of the open passage entrance like a total lunatic!"

"But it's still precious time! Think about it. There's so much we've got to do — find Kai and Karlof, assuming they're okay and not that thing's newest toothpicks. Figure out if Shade even got here. Get that spirit off our backs. Find a way out. Can you even imagine how long all of that's gonna take? The sooner we get on the right track, the sooner we get out of here so we can just go home and rest and forget any of this ever happened!"

"Not if you get yourself chewed up like a rag doll!" Cole stood and glared down at his friend, even as he scrambled to his feet after him. He still understood the sentiment behind what Jay was saying, but that didn't make it any easier to believe. "Are you using your brain at all, or did you drop it somewhere fighting the spirit yesterday?"

"Oh, come on!" Jay didn't have any right to sound that impatient. He didn't. Sweet Spinjitzu master, this was an unequivocally terrible idea, and Cole was just as afraid that Jay had suggested it as he was irritated. "That's only if we're not careful. We can just stick to the passage system!"

"What difference is that going to make? Either way, if it shows, we wouldn't stand a chance."

"Zane and I beat the spirit yesterday, and it was back by this morning! Or, uh, who knows with that weird time stuff. Fast, is my point. But we spent all day when we found Lloyd out there looking, and we didn't see it once. There's no way the passages have nothing to do with that!"

"And you're totally certain we can't chalk that up to luck, aren't you now?" Cole was nearly nose-to-nose with Jay; the blue ninja pulled away with a nervous expression flitting across his face. "Drop it already."

"Ah yes, because we've had the best luck ever so far," Jay snorted. "We're trapped, under attack, don't know where some of our friends are, and everything's scrambled up by magic to boot. But sure, we didn't once get ambushed because of luck. Come on, Cole, the passages are safe! They feel safer, haven't you noticed?"

Okay, so maybe that much was true. They weren't out in the open and being able to open and shut them at will made them seem more secure than the vast hallways. But that didn't prove anything, did it?

Sensing his hesitation, Jay pressed on. "We could just go out there, look around for any new passageways we could mark, and come right back. It'd be quick, I swear. I don't like it out there either. You get what I'm trying to say here, don't you?"

"Yeah, Jay," he sighed. "I kinda do, but is a possible leg up in the game really worth risking this in the middle of the night?"

"We could use every advantage we can get, doncha think? Besides," Jay added, his pushy tone losing its edge and becoming something more concerned, "What if Kai's out there somewhere looking for us right now? You don't wanna just miss any chance of finding him again, do you?"

"I …" Every molecule in his body was screaming that this couldn't end well. It was nighttime. Good things didn't happen at night here.

They'd seen that.

But what if he had a point? No matter how small, it was a possibility. His resolve to shoot Jay's harebrained idea down was faltering and he cursed himself for it.

"Look. I still feel like you're being a bit hasty … what if something happens and we're too tired to handle it?"

"Then I'll take it upon myself," Jay swore. "I know this sounds like a really dumb idea to you, I'm sorry, I just … I can't just sit here and think about it all night! If there's a chance we could do something about all of," he gestured vaguely around them, " this! I want to take it. I want to actually do something about it all."

Even with a hoodie on, it was beginning to feel cold again; the fire was once again starting to lose steam. The dwindling light cast the whole room into a sinister play of oranges and blacks that added a desolate quality to Jay's tense expression.

"But I mean, I get it," he continued, turning away and walking towards the drawer where all their phones were. Cole watched him uneasily, wondering what he was doing now. "This place is one big nope-fest, especially at night. Of course it's safer to be cautious." He unplugged his phone again.

What was Jay doing? Cole bit down a response, trying to tangle out what Jay was leading up to. He said he understood, so why … ?

"I guess I could go alone."

His eyes immediately widened, gut giving an ugly lurch at the idea.

"Wha—no! Are you TRYING to get yourself whisked away into the abyss? Because that's how you do it!"

"Cole—"

"No way!" He'd worked so hard to bring it down, but his breathing was picking up again with distress. "Was last night not enough for you?"

"Cole." There was something pleading in Jay's voice that made him stop in his tracks and deflate for a moment, but the nerves remained. "I was just hoping you could come with me because the passages have all sorts of creepy stuff in 'em, and everything's scarier at night, ya know? Just thought, maybe if you were there it'd feel a little safer, since you're my best friend. But I shouldn't be forcing you into anything you're not comfortable with for the sake of my silly ideas…" He punctuated the last sentence with a nervous chuckle that twisted in Cole's gut like a knife.

"Why go at all? Why not just drop it?" Cole demanded nervously. He knew what Jay was doing—the way he'd said "best friend" didn't escape him. But despite himself, the beginnings of guilt were pooling up in his gut. Even if it was an appeal to his better nature, Cole was his best friend and he'd asked, misdirected although the intentions might've been, because he obviously trusted him.

"I already told you why," Jay said, barely louder than a whisper and lacking all of the insistence of earlier. "I'm sick and tired of this place. If it'll help us get out of here, then I'll do it. Alone if I have to."

It was right then that Cole fully realized that Jay was serious.

Something in the very air was poisoning any optimism they could scrape together, and suffocating it. Already, it was driving them all past the point of sanity, sending them hurtling towards desperation.

Cole would do anything to escape the mansion, escape these woods entirely and leave it all behind, wouldn't he?

So would Jay. Whether or not Cole approved. And he would not be a very good friend if he just let it happen without at least being there to pick up the pieces if they fell.

He took a deep breath and sighed, already regretting what he was about to say but knowing there was no other option here.

"No. Don't go alone." He looked at Jay's face, and cursed the faint hope he could see sketched all over it. "I'll … I'll come with you."

"Coooole!" A tiny, grateful smile spread on Jay's face. "Thank you thank you thank you! I swear we won't take too long!"

Cole felt the beginning of a headache coming on, and groaned internally.

The two of them took a few minutes to pack anything they would probably need before they headed out. Cole double-tasked, trying to convince himself they would be alright and calm himself at the idea of leaving the safety of their room, as he hurriedly scrawled a note explaining where he and Jay would be in case anyone else woke up. Then he made sure the lock was turned before grabbing his scythe and a flashlight and carefully opening the passage. Jay grabbed his phone, nunchaku, and a marker (to note new passages with), then pressed the switch behind them.

They did indeed find a new offshoot of the passageway that led away from their room, and carefully marked it so they could find their way back once they were done looking. Flashlight in hand, they warily explored the trails branching out of it, every so often calling for Kai or Karlof as they walked. Jay, a far cry from excited to be doing this, looked as tense as Cole felt. Cole asked himself acerbically if he'd be here, in an unfamiliar passage system in the dead of night, if Jay had kept himself as uncharacteristically quiet as he was being now.

The next switch they pressed spat them out into a room with an already-unlocked door, but he didn't recognize it. Unease pooled in his stomach; they didn't have a key for this room, they didn't even know where it was relative to the rest of the mansion—

The feeling only got worse when he spotted a swirling dark mist making its way through the door and swimming near Jay.

His heart skipped several beats.