"Nothing."  Thomas said, burying his face in the palm of his hands.  "We searched everywhere last night and we found nothing."

"We found Lukey."  I said, attempting to raise his spirits a little.  It wasn't working very well.

"They're in the hospital and out cold.  Who knows when they'll wake up!"  Thomas said.

"From what you said Dan told you, they didn't find any serious head injuries.  It was just blood loss, it shouldn't take too long."  I said.  "At least, I don't think it should. It's probably better to talk to Alicia about that part."

Thomas sighed, putting his head down on the table.  Earlier, I called him over to my apartment so we could talk more about the situation at hand, but so far that wasn't going so well.

"We shouldn't worry about Lukey."  He said, picking his head back up and resting his hands on the table.  "We still haven't found anything about the House.  That's what we went for!  Now a whole night's behind us!  Someone's dead Jo!"

I sighed.  "We were never gonna be able to save everyone.  Even if we knew everything about this House, who knows where it could be?  It'd have to be far away at the very least, and even then we'd have to plan on what we're gonna do when we get there.  At our best efforts, in the luckiest situation possible, we were always going to lose someone."

"But we're NOT AT OUR LUCKIEST SITUATION!"  Thomas shouted, his hands pressing against the wood so tightly that his knuckles were becoming pale.  "We know NOTHING!  ONE WHOLE PERSON IS DEAD AND WE KNOW FUCK ALL!  WOULD YOU STILL BE SAYING THE SAME SHIT IF YOU KNEW THAT CORPSE WAS CHARLIE?  OR ALLY?  OR JOJO?"

I shrunk back in my seat. He was angry, but he was right, and that's the scariest thing to deal with in him. He's been getting a lot of help with his anxiety and, for the most part, he's been doing a lot better. But in the rare times that he is anxious, it comes out like one big tsunami.

He hates it more than anyone else does.

"I..." Thomas looked like he wanted to say something, but stayed silent instead.  I could see tears forming in his eyes before he put his head back down on the table and tried to stifle a sob. I gave him a quick pat on his shoulder.

"Look, we can't go about stressing over this now, and we can't just give up on it either. Even if we can't save our friends, we can still save everyone else who's left." I said. "What's more, if we find out where that House is, we could have a chance to stop the killing game entirely."

"...what do you mean?" Thomas asked, raising his head a little.

"Remember when the announcer said that they've done this before? They weren't lying." I said, looking towards the doorway of my bedroom for a moment, wondering if I should show Thomas the box, or at the very least the journal inside it, but in the end I decided to leave it for another time. "I was supposed to have an older brother, Tom. He died because of the death game before I was even born, but he has it all written down. The last thing he did before he died was try to find a way of stopping the game, and I wanna finish what he started."

"Is that why your parents never told you about him?" Thomas asked.

"I'd like to think that," I said, "because that would just mean my parents are idiots. Any other explanation would tell me they're evil."

We sat in silence for a while in thought when Thomas suddenly snapped up.

"Wait!" He exclaimed. "Most of our parents are around your brother's age, right?"

"Yeah, I know your mom and Ally's dad are around the same age at least. Why?" I asked.

"They must've been part of the same killing game your brother was in if that's the case!" He said. "Or at the very least they would've known about it! Why haven't we just asked them yet? Surely they'd have to tell us something, right?"

"That's a great idea," I said, "but we can't just go walk up to them and say 'Hey, were you part of some life or death killing game about 18 years ago?' We'll look crazy if they've never heard of it!"

"You're right..." Thomas said, going back into thought for a hot minute before picking himself back up again. "...what did that announcer guy say it was called? The game, Flicker was it?"

"Yeah, it was Flicker." I said, knowing full well no one was ever going to actually call it that except for the people working with it. It's horrible enough to call it a game like it's supposed to be fun, but giving it a title feels even more absurd.

"We just ask if they've heard of it. If they don't know, we can play it off like it's a new movie or something, but if they recognize it, we'll know that we can go into full detail without looking like we belong in a mental hospital."

"You sure that'll work?" I ask.

"Do we have any better ideas?" He retaliated.

I glanced around my apartment for a second. A box in the corner of the room was slightly open, and inside were a bunch of books. They were Jojo's, and he said he'd read them later when he got the chance. I don't know exactly what kinds of books he has in there, but it gave me an idea.

"You can go ask around about the game." I said. "I'll check the library downtown and see if they have any books about it."

"Wh- you're gonna send the person with social anxiety to go talk to people?! By myself?!" Thomas nearly shrieked.

"You've been doing so much better then you were before, and it's either that or you go look through a bunch of books by yourself." I said.

"Can't we just go do both of those together?" Thomas asked. I shook my head.

"You said it yourself, we can't waste any time. We can do both tasks perfectly fine on our own, and we need every second we can get."

Thomas sighed. "Fine, we can regroup in a couple of hours."

"Regroup where?"

"Argo's maybe? The place might be more empty than usual since..." Thomas stopped talking before he finished the sentence, which was ok, because he didn't need to finish it.

"Let's just focus on the task at hand for now, ok?" I said, trying to give him some support. He nodded and stood up, as did I, and we left the apartment complex to continue our search.

***

I've been standing in the same spot for over an hour, but it didn't affect me like it should've. My legs felt fine, great even. I couldn't even think about taking a seat with the whirlpool of other thoughts clouding my mind.

"Why do you want me here?" I had asked before that hour passed by. "What do you want me to do?"

The answer, despite coming out of a radio, was clear as day.

"Find your kin, your family, and kill them."

"What?! No!" I squeaked, silently damning how high my voice was despite me being almost 18.

"A soul for a soul. You kill the 3 direct family members you have left, I'll return your 3 friends. That is our deal, and you have less than 5 days to complete your end of it. Otherwise, I may have to consider a painful death for each and every one of them."

I didn't know who my dad was.  I was even less aware that I had a cousin who was around double my age.  The only person I could target now was my sister. 

I could feel something forcing it's way into my throat.  I held back a sob as tears started to form in the corners of my eyes.

Don't cry Nave, now's not the time for crying.

I was thankfully distracted by two people exiting the apartment complex. Some people came and went, but it caught my eye each time, something you start learning how to do when your job is to be as sneaky as possible. This time, though, I didn't give it a second thought.

That was my sister and her friend. At least I assumed that was her friend. It really didn't matter. Either way, it was her.

I never actually met her in real life before, and I had no plans to do so until yesterday. I was able to look on a database nearly 5 years back, and that's where I figured out I was adopted in the family I had before. My real parents were here, and I had two other siblings, but supposedly one of them had died. Again, it didn't matter. At first, all I wanted was to see just one of them, my mom, my dad, my sister, even a cousin would be fine. But the more I thought about it, the more I pushed the idea away. They had abandoned me when I was barely a few weeks old, why would they want to see me now?

My sister was a different story. She was the same age as I was when I was abandoned, but they kept her around. She would've gone looking for me if she knew I existed, wouldn't she? I was thrilled to know I had a sister, and I'd like to believe the feeling would be mutual.

No. I'm dwelling too hard on what I want. I want to meet my sister, let her know that I exist despite everything. But I can't do that. I can't give her hope just to kill her in the very next swipe.

It's cruel. I have to do this silently.

Finally, I got my legs moving and ran to follow the two. I had to weave between different areas to make sure they didn't see me, but thankfully they never even gave me a second look.

Then they split up, and Jo went into the library. Her friend just kept walking, looking down at his hands and fidgeting even when there was nothing in them.

This would've been the perfect time. She didn't have anyone watching over her like an eagle, and it would be easy to lure her outside of the building to isolate her completely. But it was like my brain and my body were at a disagreement, a war even, and I continued down the road to follow her friend.

I had a few days of time left. Maybe it would be ok to just stop and take a breather for a minute. Just for a while.

It'll be ok. They'll be ok.