---Cross POV----

I watched Nightmare creep towards the door that the figure had disappeared through. I couldn't see them anymore. They had probably ran off to somewhere else in the mansion.

I stood up, causing the others to turn to me, I ignored them and walked over to the stairs, slowly walking up them, the sound of my shoes hitting the black marble echoed through the room.

I reached the top and stood next to Nightmare, ignoring his questioning glance. "Can I search with you?" I mumbled, looking at the floor.

He sighed. "Fine." I looked up happily, flashing a smile at him. He rolled his eye and turned and looked down at the others.

"I want this whole place searched! There's someone in here who shouldn't be. None of you are excluded, except for Error and Lust."

The others groaned, pushing themselves to their feet.

"Dust, Killer, Horror. You three search downstairs, me and Cross will check up here."

They nodded reluctantly and Horror shifted Lust off his lap, making sure not to hurt the smaller skeleton. They walked off into another room and Killers voice could be heard fading off.

"Wow this place is so big, like I'm serious have you ever seen such a big house...?"

I looked over the landing, down at Error and Lust, who were currently both curled up on separate sofas, trying to fall asleep.

I let out a yelp as I was pulled away by Nightmares tentacles. "C'mon we've got work to do." He muttered. I nodded hurrying after him, the tentacle still firmly wrapped round my wrist.

"N-nightmare." I stuttered. He turned to look at me. "What?"

"Umm can you, l-let go of my wrist?"

He turned and smirked walking over to me, I took a few steps back, freezing as I felt my back hit the wall. "Now why would I want to do that~?" He whispered in my ear, causing my face to explode with purple blush.

"W-what are you doing?" I squeaked.

"Asking you a question."

I couldn't manage to get any words out of my mouth. Just stuttering nonsense.

Nightmare tilted his head to the side questioningly. "I'm sorry I'm not sure I understood that Cross." He whispered.

"Umm...I- I um...You- I um.." It was like I had forgotten how to talk.

He smirked and pushed off the wall, releasing me, humming a made up tune like nothing had just happened. I collapsed against the wall my face the colour of Lusts clothes. Literally.

Nightmare turned round, smirking at my reaction. "You coming or what?" I didn't trust myself to talk, but pushed myself up onto my feet and obediently scurried after him.

He walked into a room, it had a large dusty double bed in it, and a rotting chest of draws. Other than that it seemed empty.

I peered under the bed as Nightmare checked behind the chest. Nothing.

We went through several rooms, finding nothing. It was rather boring, and it didn't help that I was still flustered from earlier.

We had just cleared out another room and were walking through one of the many hallways when a painting caught my eye.

It was of three people. A woman, smiling warmly down at two young skeletons.

In the background of the picture was a tree, one side seemingly lighter than the other.

One of the skeletons was smiling, a tiny golden spiral crown on his head, with mainly yellow clothing, a bright cape hung loosely round his shoulders.

The other skeleton was wearing mainly purple clothes, and looked around the same hight as the other one.

But the face wasn't there. It had been scratched off, claw were marks visible, and it seemed to be covered in a thin layer of black slime.

"Hey Nightmare..." I called.

He stoped, turning to look at me. "What?"

"Who are these people on the painting?"

He slowly walked over to me, staring at the ruined painting for a few seconds, motionless. For a moment I panicked, thinking I had said something wrong.

"They're...no one. Don't worry about it." He muttered, turning away from the painting and walking into another room.

I glanced at the painting once more, something about it didn't seem right. I shook my head, 'forget about it' I thought to myself. 'It's probably nothing'.

And with that thought wavering in my mind, I walked after Nightmare, into the next room.

---Horrors POV----

This place is stupidly big. We're never gonna be able to find this 'stowaway' at this point.

We've already searched for half an hour, and probably covered about, a third of downstairs. Plus I swear there's like five floors to this house.

We were currently searching inside a large kitchen, one of many we had searched. Killer was currently peering into an oven.

"I doubt that there will be someone in the oven Killer." I said.

"Well I'm double checking." He responded, sticking his whole head inside. "Nope, no stowaway in this oven."

Dust hit him on the shoulder. "Your going to be the one in the oven of you don't start looking properly." He growled.

"Owww!" Killer whined clutching his arm. "You guys are so mean."

"What did I do?!?" I cried.

"DON'T CONFUSE ME!" Killer yelled.

We all went silent and stared at each other before braking out into laughter, not really sure what we were doing.

"Guys this is serious." Dust said between laughs. "Still..." Killer giggled.

It took us a good five minutes to compose ourselves and we completely calmed down.

"C'mon let's keep searching." I said, as we walked into the next room.

---??? POV----

This isn't good. I didn't think anyone knew about this place but me. I thought the owners died a long time ago.

This is stupid!

My thoughts were abruptly stopped as the creak of a door and a chink of light spreading through the room.

I froze and tensed, my hiding place of being behind a shelf of books was rather obvious, and I prayed whoever walked in would just scan the room with their eyes, see nothing, and leave.

But just to my joy, two people stepped in. One of them held a giant glowing knife and the other seemed to have four tentacles growing from his back.

"They're in here." The tentacled one growled.

I panicked how did he know?!? I forced myself to calm my breathing, he's just saying that, trying to bait me out.

He's probably said that for every room they had walked into, hoping that it would scare me out.

I didn't dare blink as the one with the knife stared straight at the bookcase I was hiding behind.

"Umm, Nightmare..." He whispered.

The tentacled one, supposedly Nightmare, followed the others gaze with a one eyed blue stare.

He took a step closer and raised his tentacles up threateningly. I forced myself to stay still, one single movement would be sure to give away my position.

The tentacled monster grinned and one of the tentacles lashed out, spearing through the book case an inch from my head.

I yelp escaped my mouth.

Shit.

The blue eyed monster grinned. "There you are."

---------------------------------------------

Najqgwvwiwicrossmarekwbwklwnw
Who is the mystery person?
Who could it possibly be?
Questions questions...
Good news, I finally know how to end this book!
But that's not gonna be for a while😊
-Jess-