Alright, is everyone here?

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No need to get aggressive yet, we're still a little human here.

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In some way, yes. But this isn't what we came here to discuss.

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Our lives, Lillian, they were all ruined by the same person. The same creature. I regrouped us because I want revenge just as much as the rest of us do.

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But we can kill a god with no power.

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No one's here, Theo-

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...! Kid, how are you still alive?!

I jolted awake, my breaths short and quick. I sat up, both my neck and the back of my head giving me nothing but pain, which made sense considering I was laying down on the hardwood floor. I blinked a couple of times, letting my eyes adjust to the darkness of the room. As soon as I noticed the dark red blankets on the bed in the middle of the room, it clicked.

I was back in the house.

Thankfully, it wasn't long after that I heard someone groan from the bed, my attention quickly being focused on the mystery person to distract myself.  I hear a bit of shuffling, then a sudden thud.

"Ow, fuck me!" He muttered, just loud enough for me to hear. I was about to language him until I remembered I'd be a hypocrite for doing that, so I said nothing about it. Instead, I stood up, using the wall for support as my legs felt like jelly for a moment.

"Hello?" I called. Whoever it was sat up from the floor, tossing the unfixed blankets haphazardly back onto the bed. As soon as he looked at me, I immediately recognized him.

"Oh, hey Charlie." Chidi said, rubbing the back of his head.  "Who's house are we at?  And how did I get here?" 

"You don't remember anything from last night?"  I asked.

"Nope!  I was black out drunk for most of it." 

"I thought you were 17!"

"I was 8 months ago."

"You said you were just earlier this month."

"Hey, fishing licenses are expensive over here."

I sighed.

"So are you gonna tell me where I am or not?" Chidi asked.

"Uuhhh... let's just find everybody else first." I really didn't want to say anything about this place to anyone right now, but I didn't want to lie and tell him I had no idea. The speakers will probably do the talking later anyways. Chidi just nodded and stood up as I walked to the door, opening it to the sickeningly familiar sight.  The green couches and the old TV in the small living room, the checkered floors of the kitchen, the creepy paintings strewn across the walls of the pale interior, and the doors to each of the smaller rooms.  Immediately, I notice the door to what was Solitary seemed to be off its hinges as it was kicked down on the floor, seeing Colleen, Jean-Claude, and Marley laying on the floor in the room.  Another new thing I noticed was a bunch of pictures on a shelf right above the bedroom, but I was too short to reach them and so was Chidi, so we just left them alone until we could find someone taller to get a better look.

Vinny was on the couch with Jackson, who was holding Vinny in a protective manner, and Austin was laying on the second couch. Jojo was on the floor, and naturally being his best friend, Chidi went to go wake him up. Not knowing where else to go, I decided to follow along. While Chidi was shaking Jojo to get him up, I looked at the fireplace and noticed a couple of picture frames there as well, and these were some I could reach, so I picked one up to look at it.

The photo was of three people I didn't recognize. They all had similar black hoodies, but each of them had different accent colors, which were red, blue, and green. The one to the far left had the red accent, with red eyes, a scar across his nose, and a small streak of red in his dark brown hair. He looked unimpressed with the other two, but also somehow content with whatever they were doing. The one with the green accent was sitting on top of the blue accent's shoulders in a piggyback fashion. The green had light teal eyes, a brown paw print on the side of his face, and was the only one with his hood on, revealing cat-like ears attached to the hood. The blue was the tallest one of them all, with golden yellow eyes, a band-aid over his forehead, and a very obvious bruise on his cheek. He also had a bright blue streak in his hair, extending all the way to the back of his head. Unlike the red one, the other two looked overjoyed in the photo. Despite my body heat warming it up, the frame suddenly grew cold again, so I put it back on top of the fireplace.

The second picture frame wasn't a picture at all.  At first glance, it just looked like a mirror sitting in a frame, but looking on the backside of the frame revealed a small switch, which was currently off. I flicked it on and heard a small clicking noise before there was a sudden purple light emitting from the glass. It was like a UV light, which looked like it'd be way too useful later on, so I turned it off, put it in a pocket inside of my coat, and decided that it needed to be kept a secret for a while, at least until I could find people I trust. Why weren't these things here the first time we had to go through this god awful mess?

Without any more interest in anything there, I left the living room to look around again. Nikolai laid sideways on the table, but because he was more tall than the table was wide, his legs rested off of the edge. That's definitely not gonna feel good when he gets up. Miguel and Trey were on the floor of the kitchen, Bailey and Mateo were laying on different parts of the counter, and Omar was propped against the fridge.

I was about to go open the closet door when the handle turned itself and out stepped Kai.  Ally was right behind them and immediately ran up and hugged me once she noticed I was there. 

"Oh thank god, are you ok?"  She asked, letting me down after a couple seconds.  I nodded.

"I'm good.  I almost thought you weren't here for a second."  I said.

"I sure wish I wasn't.  Kai had to talk me out of panicking earlier." Ally sighed.

"...Should we go wake up everyone else?" I asked.

"Kai's already on it. We should just get situated."

After a few minutes of waiting, Kai went to check the Solitary room. By now, everyone else was awake, most of us congregating in the living room.  Jojo noticed the paper on the wall with all of our names listed on it like before, but as he read it to us out loud, something seemed off.  I clearly remembered Lukey being at the bonfire, but not only was their name not listed, but 2 new names were there, names I've never heard before.  Almost right on cue, Kai comes out of the room with Marley, Jean, and Colleen, along with a 4th person they were holding like he was a convict.

"Before I start beating the shit out of him, does anyone know who this guy is?" Kai demanded.

"For the last time, I don't know any of you- AGH!" The man tried to speak, but Kai just twisted his arm further behind his back.

"I didn't ask you!" They growled.

"Kai, calm down! Let him go!" Vinny tried to reason.

"Shut up Vinny."

"Oh ok..."

"Vinny has a point. We don't even know this guy yet." Mateo said.

"...Ugh, fine." Kai said, letting go of the man's arm. He flinched for a minute, rubbing his arm in discomfort.

"So what's your name, sir?" Jean asked, a very light but noticeable French accent in his speech.

"Peter. And you guys?" He said, looking around the room.

"Introductions are gonna take a hot minute, we've got a bit of a crowd here." Chidi said. Right after he was done talking, a loud screech erupted from the speakers, like a fork scraping on a chalkboard. It died down pretty quickly and someone started to speak.

"Hello contestants! Glad to see you're all- wait, oh shoot, I started too early! Someone's still asleep. Dangit!" The person sighed in frustration. This was more than likely not the same announcer as before, as they sounded way younger and were definitely male. He sounded kind of familiar too, but I couldn't put my finger on it.

"Sorry, but I checked every single room here, there's no one else still out." Kai said.

"Did you check the ceiling?" The announcer asked.

"Why would I check the fucking cei-" There was a sudden thud from right behind Kai, making them flinch for a split second. A new person fell from the ceiling light above, somehow still asleep even after the fall.

"That. That's why you should check the ceiling." The announcer said.

Peter walked up to the body and lightly shook her. "Eva. Eva, wake up."

Eva yawned and stretched a bit before opening her eyes, looking around and sitting up on the floor. "Oh, hey Peter... wait, where are we?"

"That's what we're trying to figure out."  Seungho said.

"And that's also what I was gonna get to!"  The announcer said excitedly. 

"Contestants, welcome to the game of truths and lies.  A game where you can tell fates or help your enemy evade capture.  A game where mistakes are crucial and the loss of the game means the loss of your life.  Welcome new contestants, and welcome back old contestants. 

Welcome to Flicker!"