Dove still stayed silent and stuck close to Laurence as they walked up the stairs to the second floor. Each step made a heavy creaking noise, and he would tell her not to worry as it's simply the house playing tricks on them to get them to physically stutter and slip up.

The amount of dust on the rails would've allowed to make it slippery.

Another hallway, doors on either side of the halls. She takes a picture aimed down the hallway.

"Will something bad happen if we take too long?" She asked as he counted down the rooms going down the hall from their spot.

"Well, no, it's just best to finish these as fast as we can and get out before any danger."

The girl seemed to wake up a bit more, not in an excited way, just more like she was able to hear a signal in his sentence on where to pinpoint most of her energy towards to fulfill a goal, making it easier, making her more motivated. She pointed all the way to the end of the hall.

"Attic." Was all she said as she walked down the hall in firm footsteps, rotating her head, left and right passing each of the rooms.

At least, I had assumed they all looked the same at first.

Laurence didn't say anything, just letting her lead as he scanned each of the rooms more thoroughly, walking behind her.

Dove took another picture and then pulled the string of the attic door down, stepping aside to see the ladder slip down and hit the wooden floor.

Dust clouds everywhere, not much of a surprise, but she did try to ignore the aching feeling in her eyes, only to sooner give in and turn away, scrunching her face and snapping her eyes shut, bringing her hands up upon reflex.

He rushed towards her concerned, wafting the dust clouds away as he held a hand near her face, as if wanting to hold her head to see but not wanting to touch her.

"Hey. Hey, are you okay?"

"Yes." She answered instinctively, even though it wasn't true.

Outside of that strange building where I couldn't stop being honest or saying everything on my mind at the moment, I was back to my old instant answer habits here. I was sort of happy, even if my instinctive answers don't match what I'm actually feeling.

"No, you're not." He fired back gently.

"Here, open your eyes slowly, pull your top eyelid down and tilt your head downward." He instructed, hovering his hands over her shoulders as she followed along.

With her eyes all fully watery, she hung her head low, wiping her eyes back to normal quickly.

"Sorry." She spoke.

"Don't apologize, just be more careful next time."

He went up before her, sticking his phone in first, recording a video as he turned his arm, rotating so that the camera was able to look around instead of him sticking his head up the dusty room.

He pulled it back down, watching the video he just shot, eyebrows creasing as he studied it.

Dove said nothing in the hopes of not disturbing him, taking another photo aimed down the hall, now from the opposite end.

She suddenly put a hand on the back of her nape, feeling a shiver as Laurence fully stepped off the ladder, face serious.

"We're keeping our eyes on this, call for Bence and the others."

She nodded as she stood stiffly, stepping back as he crossed his arms, staring pensively at the attic entrance, also urging her to step back as he extended his hand outward, like blocking her from it.

Dove used Annabelle's phone number to reach the group, she didn't have the necromancer's number, but she wasn't going to shout throughout the house for them.

"Please tell Mr. Bence to come upstairs, you and Joon as well please."

Rapid footsteps could be heard shuffling throughout the house, really helping in understanding how much noise could travel throughout the house's structure.

"That came out awfully polite." Laurence said on the offside.

He lightly grinned as he kept his eyes steady and up.

"Well, the others usually talk very polite..."

"You don't have call formally to any of us, we're not Korean." He lightly teased.

Dove pursed her lips, slightly blushing.

The footsteps grew louder so for just a second, Dove looked over her shoulder to see if they had come up yet, the footsteps all collectively sounding so loud.

There was no one there.

Her phone was still on call with Annabelle, but a different voice came on.

"Where are you?!" She heard Joon yell out.

"Upstairs!"

"Where are the stairs?!"

Her chest, slowly like it had fully woken up, rose up and down slowly, as Dove's eyes widened, and she side glanced at Laurence, who's eyes were also wide, pupils shaking but he was also grinning. Grinning tiredly, like a parent who just witnessed their child break something but can't be too mad at them, and honestly expected it.

As Joon was asking for a response from the other side, Laurence gently took the lead with the call.

"Don't panic, don't rush. Somethings, happening, stay close to Bence, he'll tell you the rest."

*Beep*

"Hah, so this is how the spirits want to play. We didn't even do anything yet."

"I'm sorry." She said, eyes growing worried not out of fear of the house shifting, but of her mistake as she tries her best to look him in the eye through her shame.

Walking backwards, he placed his hand on her shoulder to have her follow as they continued watching the attic entrance, waiting for whatever was now waking up.

"It's ok. Just don't panic, so I didn't explain any instructions for scenarios like this since it can be hard to just remember on the spot, so I'm telling you now: If it appears the entity that we still haven't found is beginning to mess with us, we can either approach it or run."

"Okay, and I'm really sorry." She said, thoughtlessly just responding as that was better than silence.

"For?"

"For triggering something that got us trapped."

"It's okay, relax. We were looking for a trigger anyway, remember? 'If you see anything strange, pick it up and interact with it, or chase after it. You did good, you found something." He patted her shoulder and reminded her of the last rule he and Bence gave the interns before splitting up.

Dove gulped and nodded, holding back from apologizing again as she focused her attention to their surroundings instead, trying to be helpful.

The lights throughout the house faded in and out but it was too slow to see at first, only noticed when the sounds of old window curtains were heard, and the rings that kept them hanging onto the poles made shaking and clattering noises, polished wood against metal poles as the curtains flew closed for every window, and we could all hear the double doors of the entrance slam shut.

And suddenly, everything inside looked different. Blink once, it's the same just dark, blink again and things have moved, the paintings on the walls have different looking characters painted on them. It was like a filter cloaked over to a child's monochromatic play world. A lullaby-like melody, one played from a music box, started playing, I couldn't pinpoint the source, but the music was definitely the source of the hallucinations.

As they continued stepping back carefully whilst the music got louder, Laurence waved a hand behind him, searching for the post to the staircase. Dove looked back just a bit to see there was no longer any stairs, just a long hallway with doors on each side.

They were less shocked and more one sighing while the other tutted quietly.

"New plan. we can either go up that attic or down the hall."

Dove hummed, looking at all the rooms, seeing every door was open, like the house was trying to reveal something, like it wasn't hiding, aside from having dragged the curtains over the windows.

Like we were being hidden from the world.

"Do all the rooms look the same to you?" She asked him as she carefully walked over to one of the open rooms, staying a good distance away from the threshold.

"They do, don't doubt yourself if you also saw it. Must be why all the doors are wide open. Normally ghosts like to keep all the doors closed, multiple surprises for the visitors. This one clearly wants us to see them."

"Likely for... three reasons I can think of." She turns her body to look at Laurence, to see if he was paying attention.

He never stopped paying attention and had eyes and ears on her, giving a grin and nodding for her to continue.

While it was comforting to know he was paying attention to what I was saying, it was also nerve wracking to hope I didn't guess wrong.

"One, the entity wants to show us a specific room they are clearly very tied to, from life to death. Two, it's, mostly tied to the first but, the entity wants to bait us into this specific room they are particular about. Three, it's both reasons."

Laurence hums as the young woman fiddles with her suit jacket, walking over to stand next to her to study one room as best he could from the only opened door and the best angle they could get.

There was a shower built inside but it wasn't a bathroom, it was clearly a bedroom what with the carpet and the stuffed animals.
The bed was peculiar, specifically it's frame. It looked a giant crib but with a lid on it, more like a mattress inside a cage. All the other rooms were slightly different based on wallpaper, or the different toys, but they all had the same set up.

"The stuffed animals..." Dove murmured, and the detective hummed, wondering what she meant.

"They have stitch marks all over, I can see them, even from this distance." She bowed and tilted her upper body further, to look just a bit closer, taking another photo.

SNAP!

The door shut right as Laurence grabbed her shoulder and reeled her back, nearly just getting her nose.

"Well, that definitely confirms your hypothesis, now if we can make a theory about a 'why' for all of this." He says while thinking, the gears turning as he pulls her away from the door, nearly lost in his own world of calculating logic with his hand still grasping her shoulder to keep her safe.

Dove simply lets him and quietly maneuvers his hand from her shoulder, grabbing onto his wrist to pull him along as they walk further down the hall.

All eyes were taken off the attic as soon as it was the rooms' turns to be studied, so of course it disappeared, and of course, the music could still be heard. All the rooms really looked the same, with the stuffed animals and everything, if only it was less black and white, it would've been easier to see, but the important details were easy to find.

"A shower in the room, a cage for a bed, and stuffed animals that have been torn and then fixed again, trauma, clearly, but a room with a built-in shower..."

She blinks an epiphany and turns to Laurence, squeezing his wrist to garner his attention, it didn't work, and he was looking at the other rooms, but he also seemed to have an idea as he returns her gaze.

"Do you have a guess too?"

"Yes. But it might sound rude."

"Not unless you phrase it carefully."

She gulped nervously.

"These entities had a mental illness when they were alive, and these are the rooms their family kept them in."