Young Writers Society

Kate snorted, "Sure. It's a real thrill. Now, can we get this over with so I can get back to my girlfriend already?"

She hopped down from her barstool and put on her glasses. She had been pointedly not paying any attention to whether or not the others had noticed the glow, but even the idea that they could be staring riled up a primal rage in her chest.

Better to not be able to see that great than to have the army of awkward kids start making pig-headed comments.

Alyss walked over to Benji and smiled cautiously. "Let's get going," she said, still gripping the piece of glass in her hand. "Do you want me to guard the front or the back?"

It didn't feel like an adventure, but Benji didn't want to be the pessimist.

"It's probably a good idea for you to guard the back," he suggested. "I'll take the front, and Alyss can take the middle."

Talking about their positions made Benji feel more concerned about the current situation than before - it tricked his brain into thinking that a threat was going to materialize out of nowhere.

He started for the house.

James watched as the three gathered, relieved that they'd all been cooperative. Kate was eager to get going, and so was James, but as the other group started off his eyes caught on a small stack of towels on a little table by one of the lounge chairs. He casually walked over and grabbed one, returning to Kate and handing it to her.

"Alright. Let's go," he said simply, walking a little to the side to get in through what looked like a side-door that probably led to a hall.

He opened it slowly, peering in briefly before stepping into the house. Up, down, left and right, he couldn't see anyone in sight. He was right about it being an entrance to a hall. To his left, he could see a spiraling stone staircase leading to the upper floor. The steps were white with traces of grey like little veins throughout, and the banister was gold. On the wall beside it, there were paintings of picturesque nature scenes, all by the ocean, each one framed in elaborately carved gold.

Well, it definitely was a mansion.

He headed for the staircase.

Kate slung the towel around her shoulders, tension she hadn't realized was there easing in her back now that she was covered. She rolled her eyes at the gift - she didn't need it, really - and followed her new partner into the mansion. "Watch my back, or whatever," she said to him, hurrying to walk ahead of him. He was weirdly more muscular than he looked, with long legs that made it hard to stay ahead of him. All calloused and stuff, like her sailors.

Her gaze flicked over him. He would make a good sailor.

"I'm undead, so it doesn't really matter," she added with a roll of her eyes.

James started up the stairs, pausing for just a second to glance back at Kate. It took him a moment for her last comment to register. Undead. Now that she was in the bright (though unnatural) lights of the mansion, he could clearly see how her skin was pale - lacking the peachiness that blood and life would bring. Her glasses also seemed to be concealing her unusual eye color, which James had honestly not paid much attention to until now. But even now, it didn't really matter all that much to him.

He turned away again and kept walking just in time to miss seeing her second eye roll.

"Hm. Anything like vampires?" he asked.

She scowled at him. Everyone who said 'vampire' in these little other world's had their own twisted little idea of what she was and what that meant. She could hear in his voice that he was no exception.

"Why?" she snapped.

James looked over at her, his eyebrows pinching upward slightly. He hadn't expected such a viscerally defensive reaction, but he supposed it would make sense. Vampires weren't necessarily beloved in all of the contexts he learned of them in. But the few he did know were kind.

"I was just wondering," he said quietly. "I have an old friend who's a vampire, and he's the only person I know of who classifies as undead. But I'm sure there are many different ways to be undead that I just don't know of, being from a different world and all."

She pulled the towel tighter around her shoulders. "Well, yes. I'm a vampire. But I'm also still human, got it?" she said tersely. It was hard not to sound just a little bad about snapping at him so quickly.

"Of course," James said. He didn't think she was anything less. As they reached the top of the stairs, he paused to look around. A small portion of the hallway was open like a loft, looking down at another lounge area that had big bay windows looking out at the pool. The colorful lights of the pool shone in, just a little, but the light from the vaulted ceiling did most of the work.

Where they were standing was in the middle of an intersection, so to speak, shaped like a "T." One hall split off from the loft going forward, to what was presumably the front of the home, and two other ends split off to the west and east ends of the home (if they were even in those directions, it wasn't like he had a compass on him). The hall was clear, for the most part, and considering there were several doors in each hallway, it would be best to just commit to one and get to as many rooms as possible.

He went left, towards what he was calling the west wing for now, just for the sake of mental clarity. The hall had more detailed nature paintings and photos on the walls, along with some more abstract pieces, but they weren't really what caught his eye. He marched towards the first door on his left, testing the knob. It was unlocked. He glanced back to make sure Kate was following before slowly opening the door.

What he saw inside was a kitchen, but one larger than any he'd ever seen before. The counters and cabinets practically took up a whole corner of the room, there was a fridge so large he could probably fit inside it, and there was a big long bar-like counter with bar stools. In the middle was an island with more storage units.

At the far end of the room - because the room kept going - there was a long, long table with more than a dozen chairs around it and a chandelier hanging over it.

It looked empty, but it also looked like the room opened up behind the cabinets and something could be behind all of it. He stepped in with caution, holding the door open for Kate so it didn't swing back on her.

Kate walked into the kitchen, immediately and harshly reminded that she was hungry. She hardly glanced at the place - a rich person's oversized kitchen, nothing interesting about it - and tossed open the door to the fridge.

Surely someone this well-off had something vaguely unhealthy to snack on. Sure enough, a plastic container of cool whip. Perfect. She reached in and pulled it out. She was smirking to herself about her find when her eyes caught the thing behind it. A glass jar, sealed and carefully labeled, Blood, Type-AB+.

Her face lit up, and she greedily snatched this up to add to her haul. She grabbed a few more things from the fridge before depositing the piled contents of her hoard onto the counter.

She was practically giddy as she popped open the lid of the cool whip to find it undisturbed, new.

She grabbed a bigger bowl and a spoon and got to work.

Cool whip was mixed with blood, creating a soupy, pink concoction. To this was added strawberries, cherries, grapes, and something that was probably mandarin oranges, all drizzled with chocolate syrup.

She hopped onto the counter as she ate the first delicious bite. Her eyes glowed brighter with satisfaction and she wiped her face to clear it of that delicious pink goop, only to get more of it around her mouth with the next bite.

James followed into the kitchen, but he was, admittedly, not expecting Kate to beeline for the fridge and start whipping something up, and he certainly hadn't been expecting there to be blood in the fridge. Haunted memories of drinking blood straight (and being turned into a vampire, among other things) pressed at the back of his mind and he pushed them back down.

Kate wasn't drinking it. She was mixing it with fruits and some kind of whipped dairy... thing. He honestly wasn't sure what she had just made, but he decided to search the cabinets while she made something to eat. He wasn't hungry at the moment, but he supposed it was a good idea to note where the food was. Not that he wanted to be here long enough to require a meal.

Everything he found in the cabinets seemed pretty average. There were bagged and boxed foods, pasta, and other canned ingredients. Nothing notable. In the lower drawers and cabinets, there were cooking supplies. More variations of things than he could imagine, and some utensils he didn't recognize but knew weren't weapons. They were just foreign to him because, well, he wasn't from this world.

He sighed as he closed the last cabinet. Searching them had felt like a waste of time. He looked over to Kate sitting on the counter. He needed to check behind the cabinets still, but if it was anything like the kitchen it would probably be a waste of time.

He walked around the counter, between the bar stools and the long dining table, and to the back.

When he poked his head around the corner he was ready for disappointment. Instead, he froze.

Carter.

Fully armored, with his sword at his side, sitting atop a desk, with one leg propped up and one dangling off the edge. He looked relaxed, but the moment James appeared around the corner Carter's eyes landed on him with an intense, fixated gaze.

"You're here," Carter whispered in disbelief. "Here I was thinking this was the punishment your friend was talking about. Something about the afterlife, right? You don't happen to be dead, do you?"

James stared. His feet were glued to the ground, and his muscles rigid and tense. He knew he should say something. He should move. But everything in his mind came to a complete halt. Carter was here? Carter of all people?

A shiver ran down from his head to his toes. His body started aching in places it had already healed. His vision was fogging. He knew he needed to snap out of it. To wake up, but as Carter hopped off the desk and walked towards him, he just couldn't.

"Please, I'm sure you have something to say. I didn't cut out your tongue, you know," Carter teased.

Kate frowned. Her new friend sounded like he found an old friend.

Hopping off the counter, she went to investigate. Her spoon clicked against the inside of her borrowed bowl as she rounded the corner and leaned against the wall, sizing the guy up. It didn't take long. He was tiny. She snickered.

"He doesn't feel like chatting," she said, reading her buddy's body language, "and you don't seem to want to shut the sparkle-soaked Hell up."

Exaggeration, but if James didn't like this guy - which is clearly didn't - neither did she.

The first thing that Benji did when they entered the house - if the mansion could even be called that - was look for a room. He wasn't sure what to expect from a place like this. He wasn't even sure he'd be able to find clothes that matched his style. But anything would be better than the swimsuit he was currently wearing.

"I'll be right back," he told Alyss and Genevieve. "I just want to check this room for more comfortable clothes."

He knew they weren't supposed to split up, but they were standing right outside the door to the absolutely massive bedroom. If he needed help, they wouldn't be far. And if they needed help, Alyss and her glass would probably have them covered.

He made his way over to a closet in the very back of the room, peering inside for something that looked vaguely like what he would wear. All he saw were button up shirts and dress pants. The size wasn't exactly his, either, but he kept hoping he'd find something a little bigger.

"Hi, Benji."

Benji froze.

No, no, no.

"Can I call you Benji?" the owner of the voice asked. "I've been calling you Benjamin for awhile now, but I think we're finally starting to get to know each other a little better. Especially after you eavesdropped on me and my hunters."

The clothes he was holding fell to the floor.

Benji slowly turned.

Daniel was sitting with his legs crossed on the very end of the bed. Benji could have sworn he was alone when he entered the room, but Daniel definitely wasn't a figment of his imagination. The brown leather jacket, the black combat boots, the wild brown hair that was thrown up into a little ponytail, and the eyes that were almost white in the lighting of the room were all real.

"You know it was me?" he whispered, his voice quiet.

"Of course I know it was you," Daniel replied, giving him a smile that bordered on monstrous - there was just something about the way the light reflected off of his teeth that made the smile seem less and less human every time he gave it. "You're not as subtle as you think you are, Benji. I heard you coming a mile away!"

His throat went dry.

"...What do you want?" he managed to get out. "Are...Are you the one that brought me here? That brought us here?"

Daniel studied the dirt underneath his fingernails. "It'd be boring if I answered that. Don't you want to make this a little more fun? You know I love a good hunt."

Kate was there. He'd almost forgotten for a moment that she was present.

"I've spoken but a few sentences. I'm hardly talking your ear off," Carter countered casually in a tone that said he was friendly and didn't care, but James knew he did.

"Besides, I didn't ask to be brought here, and you are the first people I've seen." Carter shrugged.

James stood up a little straighter, still stiff and tense.

"We should go," he said quietly, to Kate, even though he couldn't stop staring at Carter.

"Go where, James?"

Carter was playing dumb, but James knew Carter knew what he meant. James took a step back.

"I'm not staying here. Not with him," James said to Kate, still quiet, and still ignoring Carter. He didn't have anything to say to him. He didn't want to say anything to him.