Chapter 19

When I finally opened my eyes I still had my arms wrapped around Fenton. He was sleeping with his head on my arm, breathing softly. I had to chuckle, my arm had gone numb, but I still didn't want to move. I don't know how long I was laying there, staring at him. I just couldn't look away. It was like I was etching every part of him into my memory. If I closed my eyes I could perfectly picture him in my mind. 

I didn't realize I was holding my breath. I tried to control my breathing and pulled him a little closer, pressing him to my cheek. When did it get this bad?

Eventually, his eyes fluttered open and he looked up at me. “Good morning," he smiled.

"... mornin’,” I laughed. "How did you sleep?”

He paused for a moment, "really well actually.” A smile spread across his face that took my breath away. He slowly crawled out of bed and stretched.

Would it be too much to pull him back down, cup his chin and kiss him from head to toe? Would he run away? 

I held myself back and sat on my hands. 

Fenton wandered over to the door and tried the handle. “Still locked… I don't know why I'm surprised.” 

"Well, you never know. It could have been a time thing and it would open up at a different time of day or something.” I was just throwing out ideas, but that did make me wonder. 

I got up and walked over to the wardrobe. I paused at the doors for a moment before throwing them open. 

Nothing. 

“Well, it was worth a shot." 

Fenton let out a laugh, “you're such a dork. Actually, help me move this." 

He went to the side of the wardrobe then looked like he would try to slide it to the side. 

"Ohh, secret tunnel!” I went to the other side and helped him slide the wardrobe away from the wall.

 Behind the wardrobe was an actual secret tunnel. The hole was big enough for one person to walk in at a time.  Cobwebs covered the entrance and it looked like it had gone unused. 

"Why is everything in this game creepy and or cramped?” I whispered.

"It must be your luck, it's trying to keep us close,” he smirked and grabbed my hand and led me into the tunnel. 

I feel like I would normally be nervous about this, but it felt really good being dragged down the dark tunnel by Fenton. 

I pulled a torch out of my inventory and lit it. The narrow tunnel looked like we were just walking in between the walls. 

"Do you think this will lead somewhere or will we need to try and break through the walls?” I asked. 

"We? Do you have the strength to do that?” Fenton chuckled. 

"Hey, I don't think I'm that much weaker than I was offline!”

"Sure sure," he giggles. “We should still make a better plan for your experience points. You can't keep putting them just under luck." 

“I don't JUST put them under luck…only some of them…a lot of them.”

"Uh huh, well, when we get out of here let's make a better plan,” Fenton squeezed my hand. 

I liked this. Making plans with someone. 

CLUNK

We were stopped in our tracks by a loud noise. We stood there for a moment straining our ears.

CLUNK 

"What's that?” Fenton whispered.

Before I could respond we felt a rumble and the wall in front of us crashed in. 

I pulled Fenton back and prepared to run.

"I might have overdone that a little bit,” a familiar voice said. 

"Kendrick?” I called out.

The figure that had crashed into the tunnel turned to look at us, "Oh! You're right Leon! They're here!”

Leon poked his head into the tunnel, “come on guys, we don't have much time left. We need to get moving." 

Fenton and I snuck a look at one another before we followed them out of the tunnel.

“Where did you two run off to?" I asked.

“Man, where do we start? When the lights went out we got stuck in a tunnel. Then we got stuck in a room. THEN we both took a nap…" 

“Wait, Leon fell asleep?" Fenton looked over at him with a confused look on his face.

“Yes, I think time is working differently here, but I was able to see a bit of the future while I was asleep." 

“Oh, that's good! What did you see?" This was good, the more information we had about this house the better.

“There are seven rooms we have to visit before we can leave the house. Kendrick and I already visited one, so we can split the other six between us so that we can leave faster." 

“Split? Like each one of us takes one room?" Fenton asked. 

“...That would make it go faster," Leon answered.

“No. No way. I keep having to say this, splitting up is a bad idea. We should stay together." 

“I kind of agree with Fenton. We've run into a weird monster, I think a ghost? Wouldn't it be better if we all stayed together?" 

“Not necessarily…" Leon started. “Each room represents one of the seven sins…”

"...Come again?" I asked. 

This made us all stop and look at Leon. Even Kendrick seemed confused. 

Leon let out a big sigh. “The door that Kendrick and I went through was decorated with sleeping people. When we went into the room there was a giant bed and portraits everywhere of people asleep. There are six other doors. Each door is also decorated with different images." 

“How do you know they have to do with the seven deadly sins though?" Fenton asked skeptically.

“Because of what I dreamt. I dreamt that after we found you we went back to the rooms. In my dream we did go into some of the rooms together…but I think it would be better to do them all separately." Leon started blushing.

At this point I think that everyone but Kendrick understood the implications. He looked back and forth at everyone who was trying to not make eye contact. 

"I feel like I'm being left out, what happened in the rooms?”

I patted Kendrick on the shoulder, "we’ll tell you when you're older.” 

“So, it would probably be good to decide who goes into which room then?" Fenton said this while he still had a faint blush covering his cheeks and neck. 

“Oh, that's true. What are the options?” I wondered aloud.

Leon recited, "Pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath, and sloth. The room we went to was sloth. So we don't need to worry about that one anymore.”

"Oh, bummer. I wouldn't mind going to sloth.” Out of all the options, that sin probably fits me the best. Plus I love animals. 

“I should probably avoid wrath," Kendrick said. 

“That's true, having you on the warpath could be dangerous for us." 

“Then how about Faust takes wrath, I think that it would affect him the least.” Fenton suggested. 

"I agree,” Leon chimed in. "Maybe pride for Kendrick?”

"Ouch!” I laughed.

"Hey…” Kendrick looked a little hurt. 

"No! That's not what I meant!”

"Sure sure!” I would have to keep bringing this up. The flustered look on Leon’s face as he tried to explain his reasoning to Kendrick was priceless.

“Hey, aren't greed and gluttony basically the same thing?" I asked. 

Fenton let out a little laugh, "one has to do with food while the other has to do with owning things.”

"Ok, then why don't you and Leon take those two. We can decide on the last two rooms once we get out.”

Everyone agreed. We made our way to the hallway with the doors. The space was dimly lit. When I arrived in front of the door to Wrath I had to squint to see what was along the doorframe. I kind of wish I hadn't bothered to look. The door frame was covered in deep gouges. It looked like fingernails had been dragged across the wood. There were images of people in different poses, but all of their faces were scratched out. One face in particular was large enough that I should have been able to make out the features on the face, only there was something sticking out of where the eye should be. Looking closer at it, I realized it was an actual finger nail.

I took a step back from the door. I felt like alarm bells  were starting to go off everywhere. They hadn't been going off before, but suddenly every fiber of my being told me this wouldn't end well. 

I looked over at Fenton and caught him staring at me. He gave me a little smile and took hold of the handle to his door. 

“Ok everyone, be sure to give into the feelings that the rooms give you. You can't leave until you do,” Leon reminded us. 

"What a weird message,” I said more to myself than anything. Give into the demons? Do what they want? Why?

Before I could think of any answer I was pulled into the room. 

A dark room.

Where I could, very vaguely, smell blood.