Fred sucked in a deep and loud breath as he opened his eyes and sat up, coming face to face with a pale, translucent ghost boy who quickly floated away from him.

He hissed, hand going to his forehead as he felt a pounding pain in between his eyes.

A groan from his left made him turn around to see Jean on the dusty, tiled ground, the younger man still holding unto Fred's hand and he sighed with relief.

“They're awake,” the boy said, and Fred turned to see him standing in front of the closed door, seven more people appearing from all his sides.

“What?” Fred heard Jean say as he sat up, but Fred wasn't going to take his eyes off the spirits with colorless forms and no eyes.

Sweat began to gather on his forehead, the worst type of opponents floating right in front of him. If it were something tangible, he would've had a fighting chance. Ghosts were impossible to even dodge, especially the ones without eyes for they were the angry ones with little to no humanity left. Only shamans, witches and necromancers, as far as he knew, had a fighting chance against them. Definitely not a young werewolf like him that got his ass kicked by a deer once.

“Fred?” Jean called out, moving closer and moving his fingers to grasp Fred's wrist. Fred guessed that the whole place was pitch black to him and he couldn't imagine how terrifying that might have been.

“Stay close to me. They're right in front of us.”

“Oh?” an elderly looking female ghost said, head tilted to the right with strands of hair out of her neat bun as they all turned to Fred. “This one sees us.”

“Not like the others,” the older male beside her said, wispy voice the saddest one Fred had heard from any spirit so far.

“Yeah. I see you,” Fred said evenly, taking deep breaths to keep his heart steady. A hint of fear was never good around them. It was something they twisted and used to enact their mad games.

“What? What are they saying? What do they want?” Jean asked but Fred couldn't answer. Looking away or showing his worry for his companion could give their captors any kind of leverage.

“That one is like the others,” a young, teenage looking girl in what was once a beautiful dress said, hair horrible and down over her shoulders.

“Tell me what you want,” Fred demanded. He needed to keep their attention on him and him alone.

“Play a game,” the four youngest looking ghosts said in a chorus, Fred grimacing slightly at the sight of a young boy’s blown up face.

“Of course it's a game,” Fred mumbled, cursing his luck. It was always a game with those bored psychos.

“What game?” he asked, shifting closer to Jean, arms ready to grab him and break through the wall on their right if push comes to shove. It was better to risk it than deal with them. One was bad enough but eight?

Gods do I wish you were here, dad. You know more about these guys than I do.

“My turn so I choose, and one can see us so…guessing game.” The boy from before appeared in front of Fred again, thin lips up in a small smile with hands on his sides. Fred tried hard not to look at the slit wrists.

“We ask questions--” an older ghost boy said, his voice echoing, loud and steady as he appeared beside his brother, his own hands on the pockets of his slacks. Fred really couldn't ignore the ripped open stomach right in front of his face.

“--and you answer honestly. Both of you. All our questions until sunrise,” birthday girl finished, floating in the middle of her brothers, the bullet hole between her eyes making Fred think about third eyes and that was really inappropriate considering his situation.

“Tell him,” she said, gesturing to Jean with her head.

“They're going to ask us questions and we're going to have to guess them right. We play their guessing game until sunrise or…” Fred said, trailing off. He wasn't sure he needed to know the consequences but the old lady was kind enough to tell him in her scratchy, uptight voice.

“Oh. Of course. Get them right, or you join us.”

“Or what?” Jean asked, his own voice trembling and Fred was too scared himself to tell the guy that it was all his fault in the first place.

“Or we die.”

If Fred thought his thought about a third eye was inappropriate, then Jean's scoff of derision was a whole new level of the word.

“Really? Talk about cliché.”

Fred turned around, eyes wide as Jean just called stood up and brought out a flashlight from his bag, making it stand up on the floor and brighten up the room.

Jean cracked his neck and smiled, his entire attitude change making no fucking sense to Fred.

“Alright spirits of the dead,” Jean said, his calmness freaking Fred out. “Got questions? Lay them on me.”

#

“I'm first,” the old woman said, standing in front of Jean who couldn't see anything besides a dusty covered couch.

Fred sighed from his seat on a chair beside where Jean stood, still wondering why the guy was looking all confident and sure of himself when they were in a very bad situation.

“What is my name?” she asked.

Fred perked up at that, not expecting that. He expected some complicated question that involved all kinds of running around and actual detective work.

“Tell him,” she ordered, sounding angry.

“Oh uh…She asked what was her name? Elder woman. The grandmother you mentioned?” he said quickly, blinking when Jean began to lace back and forth on the creaking floors.

“The grandmother,” he mumbled to himself and Fred wasn't expecting him to know her name.

He still thought there was some double meaning behind the question but just four words and nothing else, he couldn't see it. It felt like those math questions that looked too easy so he was definitely doing it wrong.

“Known around town around her time as Guinevere Calandra Winston but alas,” Jean stopped, finger put up dramatically and Fred wondered who he was putting on a show for, “what many did not know was that the former daughter of a wealthy designer from England kept her maiden name and never actually did take her husband's name. So your name is Guinevere Calandra Springs.”

“Correct,” she said, her harsh features relaxing into a barely seen smile as she floated back in line of her family, the twins stepping forward.

“Our turn,” the one still with his bottom jaw said, floating in front of Jean.

“Alright,” Fred said, sitting up then sneezing because the amount of dust around them was a health hazard.

“It goes away but it's always there. It's our enemy. It's our friend. It brings suffering, it keeps us safe. What is it, that's like love?”

The kid had lost Fred around the first sentence.

“What's going on?” Fred looked to his right to see Jean seating on the arm chair, arms folded and smile still on his face.

The fucking maniac.

“Got asked a riddle. Uh...It goes away but it's always there. It's our enemy. It's our friend. It brings suffering, it keeps us safe. What is it, that's like love? I don't get it.”

Jean blinked down at him slowly, the light of his flashlight illuminating the poker face.

“Dude,” Jean said blankly. “The answer is pain.”

“No fucking wa-”

“Correct.”

Well fuck me. Jean isn't as soft in the head as I thought.

“I'm next,” the old man said, his voice filling Fred with dread but Jean rubbed his hands together, looking even more excited.

Fred felt like he was forced into an odd trivia show, but instead of the consequence of failing being a simple bucket of slime dumped on him, it was death and eternity with a family of bored ghosts.

If I survive this, I'm going to try my best to get drunk.