Perhaps it was the adrenaline coursing through their body, or the shock of having nearly died, but Ben and Callie no longer felt tired. They no longer felt drained and hopeless. They no longer felt resigned to their fate.

They had regained a will to live.

Now the two of them were running a methodical search through the gloomy rooms and corridors of House B. Objects were used to mark doors that had been crossed, and furniture was pushed to block doors that had been fled from in terror.

They took advantage of Ben’s Convenience to avoid and escape danger. Their short, stress-fraught nap seemed to have made Ben’s ability stronger—more Convenient things had been happening, and in greater frequency.

And so they went, clawing their way from room to room in search of an escape.

That search led to the discovery of the exit. The exit, not from House B to another House, but the Exit to the outside world.

Duff and Bree were eating cupcakes in a pantry.

They had recently bested three more entities on their search for food, in a much quicker fashion than their first encounter.

Despite uneasy feelings toward each other, these two made an excellent team. A teen and a seven-year-old, plowing through an inhospitable environment.

These uneasy feelings came mostly from Duff. He was afraid of Bree, her strange indifference to others, her giggly demeanor that surfaced in the darkest contexts. These things unnerved him. The two had learned to trust each other—

haha, BULLSHIT.

—but Duff felt that at any moment his companion may throw a tantrum fire one of her gruesome bolts at him. Through some unfathomable train of thought, the phrase “Entomo’s Wrath” popped into his head as a name for Bree’s power. He filed it away for later use.

A few minutes passed. The two Children finally filled up on cupcakes, having gone through at least two moderate boxes of the confection. Too full of spongy sugar to stand up, they drifted off to sleep.

Eight Heroes stood at the end of a hallway as an army of ghostly entities surged towards them. It was as if a dam had burst. As if numerous locks had failed at once, and cataclysm was rushing forth.

suddenly, you hear someone slow clapping. you slowly realize that the sound is coming from yourself, the reader.

The room was filled, practically wall to wall, with silhouettes flooding after the group of Children.

The Heroes sprang into action. Vera made the carpet shrink at blazing speed, knocking many of the figures off their feet. Luke indirectly ordered one of the chairs in the corner to attack the fallen foes. It obliged, flying through the air and pounding many of them to dust.

Malcom picked up the now plate-sized rug and threw it like a Frisbee. Using his power, he made it accelerate to bullet velocity. It zipped through the air and sliced numerous enemies in half before zipping into the darkness at the end of the hall.

Figures vanished at bolts of grey Light from Jax, but they still kept coming. No more enemies were arriving from the doors, but there were still so many here that the massacre barely put a dent in their numbers.

Our Heroes were almost out of fighting ammo. Four chairs were in play under Luke’s command. Their persistent bashing was wearing them down, and Luke had no more furniture to use.

Vera tried expanding the rug, but all it accomplished was creating a wave of fabric that pushed the enemies closer.

Suddenly, Luke had an idea.

“We should bind them up.”

The expanded rug snapped to life. It zipped down the hallway and wrapped itself around the approaching crowd of malefactors, tightening like a cobra’s coils to trap them.

A momentary silence fell. Jen and Ellis had powers that were useless for fighting, and Criss didn’t even know if he HAD an ability.

It slowly became clear that the carpet was weakening. Small holes began to show up, as if the ghosts were chewing through the fibers. The kids watched in horror as those holes rapidly grew until the rug fell to pieces.

The army rushed forth with unprecedented speed. Within seconds, they had reached the panicking kids and began to drag them down the hallway, screaming.

Suddenly the lights went out at once.

A steadily growing glow started to emanate from Leo, which intensified into a blinding beam that ripped through the crowd of phantoms and obliterated them entirely.

The Light subsided, and silence ruled. Kids lay on the floor, panting.

Duff and Bree awoke to the pantry door opening with a CREEAK.