Things were different now. The world was different. The static in the sky wasn’t a droning sound just hiding in the background. It was coming for us. The static stormed and got louder by the second. Jenny and I were running at a brisk pace. I had taken Henry’s bat along for the ride. He would have wanted us to have it. We knew where we needed to go. It didn’t sound like a place we really wanted to be, but it was our only option. We turned a corner and saw our destination. The movie theater’s now playing board was empty. It wasn’t a place for fun and games. It wasn’t a home. It was a prison. In this world you didn’t piss off the boss without facing consequences. The static continued to roar behind us. We looked back and saw that the world was getting smaller. The static wasn’t high in the sky anymore. It had dropped down and was closing in on us.

“Inside is better than out,” Jenny said.

“I’m not so sure about that. This isn’t the type of thing you want to be dealing with.”

Jenny looked up at the approaching static, then back at me.

“Good point,” I said.

We hurried into the theater. Candles were placed around the concession stands. Lanterns lined the theater’s walk ways.

“Where the hell are you?”

Whispers echoed from down one of the walk ways. I walked over to it with Jenny behind me. She took a look at the concession stand. Her hunger still on her mind even in a place like this. Mine was too. There wasn’t time for that though. One way or another we wouldn’t be in this place much longer.

We followed the whispers down the hall. In a weird way, hearing them was comforting. Back when this all started I was at least still in my own world. I still believed there was an easy way out. Things were less complicated then. The whispers lead us to a theater entrance.

“This thing isn’t pleasant. Don’t get to close to it,” I said.

“Really? You think you still need to tell me something like that?” Jenny replied.

She was right. Everything in this place was dangerous. She knew that. It was easy for me to forget that I wasn’t protecting her. We were protecting each other. We both made it this far. We were both going to make it as far as we could.

“Let’s go.”

I pulled the theater door open. The whispers stopped. We walked in silence up the carpeted walk way. The theater screen had a grey looping static playing over it. We walked to the middle of the theater and stopped. We were directly in front of the screen.

“Now what?” she asked.

The screen came to life in front of us. It was now a bright white with a single silhouette in the middle. I knew the figure. His wide grin appeared in the shadow.

“Bryce. You’ve come to me. Have you decided to finally let me have all of your laughter?”

“I don’t think I have any laughter left. It doesn’t look like you are doing so good either.”

“This place. Within it I’m trapped. The Director didn’t like that I was going off script. He isn’t much for creativity.”

“We need to get out of here. This world belongs to Crucible. Unless you want to do something about that.”

“I can’t do anything from this cage. He has made sure of that. Soon this place will eat what’s left of your souls and then you will be nothing but static.”

“I don’t think so. We aren’t going to end up like that. Not without causing come chaos.”

I took the recorder out of my pocket and placed it on the ground.

“Bryce. Look,” Jenny said.

Behind us, filling the theater seats, were the ghouls. The creaking sound of an old rusty wheelchair alerted me to who was coming. Out of the darkness, The Host appeared.

“Good. You’re here just in time for the feature presentation.”

I pressed play on the recorder and it came to life. My father’s voice began telling the story of the whispers. Of how they had found their way through the static and Hellequin was breaking from his chains. The ghouls all became aggressive. They got up and began to barrel over the seats towards us. I didn’t know how long we had to make it for. But they were coming for us.

Jenny began wildly throwing punches as the ghouls reached her. I knocked them back with my bat. Swinging for the head and taking as many out as I could. We backed up to the recorder. We needed the story to be told. The ghouls started firing their sheets out at us. The sheets all came like sharp blades. They drew blood with every slice and graze. They were over taking us. Then the scream came. The all voice screamed.

Hellequin peeled himself off of the screen and landed on the ground in front of the closest seats. He leaped over the seats and settled in front of us. He took broad strokes with his claws and tore through the wall of ghouls. The Host began to unravel in the back of the theater. The static began to creep out from under his sheet. Hellequin grabbed two ghouls by their heads and slammed them into the floor before throwing them forward into more ghouls. He trampled his way up the theater carpet towards The Host. Right as The Host was about to fully unleash the static Hellequin reached him. He pulled the sheet down and gripped The Host’s throat.

“Daddy can’t help you now. All he can do is hear you scream!”

Hellequin squeezed and crushed The Host’s throat. The Host made a guttural, painful, and inhuman sound. Hellequin’s wide grin opened up. Inside his mouth weren’t teeth. Instead there was just darkness and the sound of a thousand fanatical laughs. He shoved The Host down his throat. As he did the ghouls and fell to the ground, leaving only bloodied sheets. It was over. The Host was gone.

I picked up the recorder and put it back in my pocket. Jenny stayed close to me as Hellequin floated down towards us.

“You can’t touch us. We made a deal,” I said.

“A deal was made. I can’t hurt you. That doesn’t mean you will make it out of this place. Almost nothing has ever made it out of here. Even then, there are other places like this one. Some worse,” Hellequin said.

“You have to take us to the gap. The place where we can escape.”

“I’ll take you there. Crucible must be taken care of before the door will open.”

“Can you do it?” I asked.

“Many things hold power in this place. There are rules all of us must follow. Even The Director. The Recorder made a deal. With both of us maybe we can kill. Maybe there can be an escape.”

Hellequin spoke no more after that. He floated off towards the exit of the theater. We followed him. I didn’t fully understand what he had said to us. I didn’t understand exactly what deal my father had made. All I knew was that we were heading towards the end.