I gave myself ten seconds to freak out about this discovery. Five seconds as my sanity shivered and dropped before it stabilized, then five more seconds to know it wouldn’t drop anymore. I took a deep breath, letting it all out. Then I gathered the beer cans and headed toward the dumpster. It was important, in order to not freak out, to treat this all like an experiment. I dumped the cans, gaining +.01 point for each of them. I grabbed a bag to scoop up all the cigarette butts I could, grateful that I had gloves as part of my cleaning outfit. Once it was all clean, I let out a breath.

  “This is great,” I said to the window of my room. “This way… this way I can start… checking. Checking when this person comes to my window. See… see how much they drink. At night. While looking… while looking…”

  I forgot how to speak as I stared at the window of my bedroom. I backed away, trying to think of other things. It didn’t help that tonight was when they would attack. It always put me on edge, even if I did have fish and chips.

  I turned away, trying to steady my breathing as I walked through the back door and up the stairs to the second floor. I had two empty spaces in my inventory, and I wanted to see how this would help me with decluttering. I still had a half hour until the wolf came, and I needed to stay up here anyway to get more information on the haunting.

  I chose the blue room, since that was where I heard little Theo last night. Decluttering with my inventory was much like foraging. The two empty slots could hold up to ten pieces of garbage each, as well as whatever I had in my hand. It was so much easier to walk down the stairs, and strangely satisfying to stand at the dumpster and pull out the trash from my pocket dimension. I had to keep an eye on it, because I didn’t want to accidentally dump my fish and chips.

  This was so much easier to declutter a room. It was like having a wheelbarrow strapped to my back that didn’t weigh anything when it was all the way full. I loved this inventory. In fact, I was able to do one more trip in the blue room to get a good chunk done before dumping the rest, and was in the house before the wolf timer was even blinking. I leaned against the door, closing my eyes to give myself a moment. They were coming tonight. If this was like any other time when they were here, the hauntings would also get worse. Which meant tonight was an excellent opportunity to study more about what Theo experienced. It still didn’t stop the feeling of being absolutely terrified. There was a part of me, a very strong part, that wanted to hide in the bathroom again, curled in a ball, eating my comfort food whenever the need arose as I waited for them to attack.

  I had already lost a chunk of sanity at the discovery of the beer cans. Another huge chunk, and I’d be eating fish and chips.

  Killie started hissing. It was how I knew she was in the entertainment room. I went over to see her snarling at something in the corner. I scooped up my cat, holding her in my arms. I tried to look into the corner Killie was focused on and attempted to be diplomatic.

  “We… we mean you no harm,” I said to whatever was in the corner. “Please. I’m… just trying to figure out what happened here.”

  There was nothing, then a wall shattering shriek filled the room.

  I sprinted to the bathroom, Killie in my arms. The lesson we learned from this was I was not as brave as I thought I was. I’m sure this was a surprise to no one.

  I slammed the bathroom door shut, trying not to sob. “That woman is crazy,” I kept saying in order to make myself feel better. “Crazy, crazy woman.”

  Maybe there was a method to her madness, but right now, when my sanity took another blow, I didn’t have the most charitable outlook.

  I sank to the grimy floor, pulling out a plate of fish and chips from my inventory and ate it in three bites. I learned a very important lesson as I watched my sanity rise. Eating fish and chips did not make me feel braver. If anything, my sanity rose, but my physical exhaustion remained. It was simply giving the ghosts, the wolf, and them more opportunities to frighten me.

  Something inside me deflated. Maybe I put too much hope in comfort food, but I had hoped I would somehow feel braver than I was when I ate this stuff. I wanted to waltz out of the room and demand what that grandma meant when she shrieked at me. Or march right up the stairs to the second floor to start studying what happened. Instead, I remained a shivering mess on the grimy bathroom floor as I gathered what little of my shattered courage I could.

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  Killie hopped into my lap, and I placed a hand on her back. She seemed to know I was struggling.

  “I admire you, you know,” I said to Killie. “Your first response is to hiss and fight. I just run. Must be some instinct of mine handed down from my ancestors. See the supernatural, run the other way. It’s kept me alive for this long. How are you so brave?” I rested my head against the door, closing my eyes as I kept Killie on my lap. “Maybe if I knew I was unkillable, I would be a bit braver, too.”

  “Ring around the rosies,

  “A pocket full of posies!”

  I flinched, even though I knew that was Theo.

  “Ashes! Ashes!

  “We all fall down!”

  “Just Theo. Just Theo,” I whispered.

  “Ring around the rosies!

  “A pocket full of posies!”

  “He’s just saying the same thing he does every night. Switches from Pop, Goes the Weasel to Ring Around the Rosies,” I whispered.

  “Ashes! Ashes!

  “We all fall down!”

  I swallowed, knowing I would have to go up to the second floor to check this out. I had my fish and chips. This was something I could do. But my body was frozen in the bathroom. I was terrified. They were coming tonight. I was going to be so exhausted.

  I forced myself to stand up. My sanity was almost full. I could do this. My knees trembled as I opened the door. Killie remained by my side as we walked through the kitchen door and into the hallway.

  It was at the foot of the stairs when Killie stopped in her tracks. Little Theo was still singing to himself, and Killie stared up at me as though I was crazy. This did not bode well.

  There was silence on the second floor. The singing was done. I wasn’t sure what to expect, but silence made everything worse. I took a step, then used about three minutes to mentally prepare myself to take the next step. My sanity was shivering. I could not move at a faster rate. Something about this all made me sick to my stomach, and I tried not to imagine what this would be like for them to attack later tonight, too. I was going to be so exhausted.

  It took so long to get up to the second floor. I heard every creak my physical body made, even as my soul screamed the whole time.

  Information. Information. Information.

  I repeated that to myself to remind my body and soul why I was doing this. I turned with the stairs, approaching the landing of the second floor. I hadn’t heard Theo singing in a while. I heard nothing. I wasn’t sure what I expected when I came to the second floor, but my mind certainly made up a lot of truly terrifying things to make it so walking up the stairs was like swimming through molasses.

  Killie remained at the bottom of the stairs, her fur standing up. I didn’t keep my gaze on her too long, because it truly did scare me that Killie was too frightened to come up the stairs.

  I reached the landing, holding my flashlight as the beam trembled. The light was supposed to be a comfort, but with how much it shook, it was messing with my head. I did not want to be up here, but my gamer self said I had plenty of sanity to lose, so I should take this opportunity to learn.

  Whispers came from the locked door. I tried to approach them, but it took a mental strength I did not have to walk up the stairs. I was spent. I would have to listen to the whispers from here.

  Perhaps it followed the same logic as last night. Last night’s whispers were quiet enough that I couldn’t understand them, even when my ear was against the door. Maybe this would be as loud as they got. It was a perfectly good excuse for me to remain where I was and just wait.

  The whispers kept going, and I didn’t dare close my eyes. These were different, and it only took me another few minutes to know why. This wasn’t a man and a woman; this was two women. Both in hushed voices, the kind where they knew a child was asleep and didn’t want to wake them.

  Then all at once the whispers cut off. I waited, terrified, at the stairs in case I needed to make a hasty getaway. More silence filled the space, and I checked my sanity. A little over seventy-five percent. That had to be good. It would-

  Liquid trickled out from under the door. Everything inside me froze in horror. I knew this would happen. There was a huge possibility it would happen tonight with the higher frequency of haunts. It still did not prepare me for how quickly my body entered a terrified state of being and stumbled down the stairs.

  Information. Information. Information.

  It was my mind trying to calm my heart down, but I couldn’t do it. I stumbled down the stairs, tears in my eyes as a huge chunk of my sanity disappeared. There was a murder scene behind that door. Perhaps those two women. Perhaps someone else. I still didn’t know the logic of how these hauntings worked. Theo talked about how his mom died. Was this how? Behind closed doors on a quiet night?

  I got as far as the kitchen before I collapsed to my knees, the sob I held back came through in force. I did not want to open that door. I didn’t want to see. How it happened… I didn’t have the strength tonight to find out.

  As I stayed on the kitchen floor, I ate two more fish and chips, feeling my sanity bar fill up as I remained on the ground, shivering.

  I wasn’t sure how long I was on the ground shivering when I heard the creak of someone at the top of the stairs. Whatever I gained from eating those fish and chips disappeared in a second. It was those bloody footprints. Things clicked into place for me in the worst possible way. Someone was still here, and there was a good chance it was the murderer.