It was dark outside when we approached the tower, we all thought it wise to stay out of the tower’s basement for now. We agreed to split up for just a few minutes due to the unstable nature of the tower. Paisley, Sophie-Rose, and Liam stayed at the bottom. While Duncan, Lacey and I made our way to the top. I led the way in order to tell them ahead of time which stairs were more unstable than others due to my last trip to the top, Duncan next, because he was the translator, and Lacey because she was the smallest aside from Sophie and also Duncan’s girlfriend so it made sense. At the top I watched Duncan look around with his flashlight, similar to how I did when I was here.

“Dude, I saw the pictures but being here in person is way cooler not gonna lie.” He said as he walked over to a painted wall.

“Right? I kind of forgot about this after all the drama with Sophie…” I said as he walked from wall to wall. Lacey was next to speak up.

“There’s a lot of references to the tarot stuff in here too, but I don’t see anything else.”

“Me too.”

“Same here.” Duncan agreed.

“Oh well, if we need to come back we can but otherwise we still have those pictures.” I reminded them, before we started going down the stairs. Luckily, we were able to make it to the bottom without an accident this time around. Thankfully no one was gone when we got to the bottom.

“Find anything?” Paisley asked.

“Nothing new, but we have pictures to study for hints later.” Duncan answered, and we all started making our way back to the basement, and to the panel to that was knocked out, cheered on by Sophie-Rose’s cheerful encouragement.

“Whoa… what happened to the wall?” Sophie paused her humming.

“Your super cool brother broke it down to get through looking for you.” Liam answered before anyone else. Duncan snickered, while I smiled sheepishly.

“What? When did you get so strong Owen?” She grabbed for my hand as she stepped through.

“Determination and desperation can lead to pretty cool things.” I said, unsure of how else to answer. I held her hand as we went down the stairs.

Rather than the empty chamber like we all expected, there was a single ball of blue mist floating above the pedestal in the center once again. When all of us were down it flashed once, then hovered closer to Sophie and I, who hid herself behind me for a moment, before recognition flashed across her face and she stepped forward on her own, smiling wide.

“That’s the one I was with when we were attacked by the dark thing!” She announced to everyone as if she was introducing an old friend. Everyone aside from her was uneasy, even as the ball flickered and shimmied in place. It looked excited almost. Then it was like the dust particles inside of it moved around all together and created a vague shape, I immediately recognized it to resemble the shape of her key. Then it retreated to its original shape, and flickered a few more times. Everyone was speechless for a moment until Paisley came around and knelt next to Sophie.

“Show it your key..?” She said in her ear. Sophie rushed to retrieve it from her dress pocket. She held it up to the mist. It spun around and fired itself in her direction, and she flinched but stood her ground. It didn’t go very far, but it was now surrounding her extended hand, and the key. It flickered once, then the key seemingly absorbed it. The light from the transfer was incredibly bright for a few seconds, before everything dimmed, the key retained a dim glow, before slowly blinking out. Oddly, it had this… aura to it, like it was still glowing even though it wasn’t emitting any light. We all surrounded her still outstretched hand for a moment, unsure of what to do or say.

“I get the sense that we should be pretty careful with that key…” Lacey said after a moment.

“Honestly I can’t even get surprised anymore…” I trailed off, Duncan nodded across from me. We all made quiet conversation, talking about what to do or where to go, except Sophie, who remained staring at the key. I kept quiet as I watched her, then stepped forward and took her hand to walk back upstairs. The walk back between us was quiet, afraid of crossing some unspoken boundary. Everyone else followed without stopping to ask, they followed all the way back to my room and continued chatting about all of it, but I didn’t pay much attention. I sat myself into my dad and pulled Sophie beside me. She was still quiet until I got her attention.

“Hey kiddo… Are you alright?”

“...yea.” she nodded, but her expression was concerning.

“... Are you sure?” I asked hesitantly. She nodded, but tears were already welling up in her eyes. I held her close as she started sobbing quietly, trying not to alert anyone else in the room to her distress. She clung to my shirt as if I’d float away if she let go, or maybe she’d be the one floating away. I ran my hands through her blonde hair before I spoke up.

“Hey, it’s okay… You’re okay…” I spoke softly “do you want to talk about it?” She sniffed a few times before saying what was on her mind.

“It-was-all-fine-and-stuff-and-I-made-a-blue-ghost-friend-and-then-this-scary-dark-ugly-came-and-chased-us-and-then-I-woke-up-somewhere-weird-and-I-was-stuck-there-by-myself-for-three-days-and-it-was-cold-and-uncomfortable-and-I-was-all-alone-and-now-I’m-back-and-all-this-other-is-happening-and-I-don’t-understand-it-and-it’s-scary-and-tiring-and-I’m-scared.” She somehow managed to say all of this in one breath as she sobbed. She took a deep shuddering breath before she continued, though more calm this time. “And then I saw my blue friend again and it disappeared in this key and I can’t play with it anymore and what if I get taken again I don’t wanna be alone anymore.” I listened quietly as she cried and she eventually calmed until there were only a few tears every now and then. I rubbed her back the whole time until I decided she was ready to hear me speak.

“I won’t lie to you, this whole thing has been super scary for me too. When you went missing, I called Liam on the phone crying for help, poor guy probably didn’t even hear me properly. Duncan just left in the middle of work when I called, he dropped everything to get Lacey and get here to help us find you. We were awake the entire time trying to work together to find you, and we wouldn’t have done it if a blue ghost friend didn’t help us. So what I’m trying to say is all of us love you so much and we’d risk just about everything for you, and we are gonna keep on trying to fight whatever took you until we are all sure that this place is safe for you again.” I went off on my own little rant awhile, I thought again for a moment before I continued. “And if for some reason you find yourself alone, it won’t be for as long, because we know more stuff now and we are gonna drop everything again and again if it means keeping you safe.” I reached for the hand still tightly gripping the key.

“Besides, I think the blue ghost friend was worried too, and they put themself in this key. So that way if you ever find yourself alone again, you’ve still got a friend beside you, and a way to see the light.” I finished, she sniffed once more as she looked at the key, which shone a bright whitish-blue for a moment before fading once again. Sophie smiled a sad smile, and hugged me one more time.

“Thank you Owen. I’ll try to think of that from now on. I’m really tired now…”

“You can sleep here if you want, we’ll all be here.” I offered, but she snorted quietly in response.

“That’s part of the problem, they are too loud.” She gestured to the group on the other side of the room. Suddenly I was pulled from distraction to find bickering coming from them. To my immense surprise, Paisley and Liam were in a bit of a shouting match against each other. I turned back to Sophie to tell her to lay down while I dealt with it, then walked over near Duncan and Lacey who were watching with semi-surprised faces. They shrugged when I looked to them in askance. I approached Liam and Paisley next.

“What do you mean ‘if I’d calm down a little’!? Being calm isn’t really getting us anywhere so someone’s going to have to step up.” Paisley claimed.

“I get that you’re upset, but this whole conversation you’ve just been taking your frustration out on us, it’s not fair, it’s not our fault all this is happening!” Liam announced.

“Sorry, but if you’d’ve been a man and just told someone how you felt in the first place then maybe Owen wouldn’t have gotten all sad and left, maybe he would have stayed with us and Sophie wouldn't have disappeared, so maybe it is your fault.” Paisley sounded ridiculous, but she seemed to be tearing at the seams here.

“What?! You can’t put this on me! I wasn’t gonna say anything but maybe you shouldn’t have left her alone in the first place, so from where I’m standing it’s your faul-”

“GUYS.” I projected my voice as much as I could without shouting. Fortunately they stopped and turned their attention to me. I didn’t have much time to feel awkward under their gaze before I announced my own feelings on the subject.