We sped past the scruffy dilapidated furniture and ascended the grand staircase in a blur. I had almost slipped over the carmine rug on the stairs but thankfully a quick-thinking ginger-haired boy steadied me, his touch lingering on my exposed midriff beneath my crop top. Uncertain of what to say, I watched him flash a grin before darting off to continue the chase. Pausing for a moment, I dismissed any lingering thoughts about his touch and refocused on the task at hand.

As we were near to end the stair journey, pixels coalesced into a nightmarish form—she had used her teleportation ability to reach the top floor ahead of us.  Frustration surged within me since I wasted my energy on this staircase pursuit unnecessarily just to get caught by the chaser at the end. Like, come on!

With grime-covered fingernails outstretched, she let out a menacing roar that reverberated through the halls; we six taken aback from the whole phenomenon, decided to run but we knew we just couldn't.

However, that Clay guy leaped onto the railing with both his legs straight on the sides, and he simply slid down with astonishing speed. We all followed him and quite amused, I smiled.

I glanced back to see her eyes widen, nearly popping out of their sockets, as we leaped over the kitchen counter. The kitchen table, coated with spiderwebs along the edges, came into view. Realizing we had been outrun in the chase, we resorted to circling the table, hoping to delay her until one of our wild imaginations conjured up a plan.

As I kept running and panted vigorously, Rebecca moved out from our orbicular run and glanced at us once, presumably as a gesture for us to follow, one by one.

As per our expectations, she couldn't keep up with us, and we gratefully took the chance for a getaway.

Once again, we thought of going up the stairs towards the direction of a wide fabled window, regarding the experience we had last time.

Memories of our previous encounter with the window flashed in my mind, causing my stomach to knot. Being pursued by a phantom was certainly not what I had anticipated when I came here in search of adventures with Beca.

We pushed through our exhaustion towards the open window and heeded the murky, shrouded sky through it. There was a masonry spread adjacently slanted downwards, which as we later discovered, was the roof attached to the frame of the posterior of the window. The slimline of the roof led to a floor appended with pillars that supported the rooftop. And hanging from the middle of the bottom ceiling was a gigantic bell.

"Guys, we have to move it or lose it." Joey firmly reminded.

"But who the hell would balance on top of this thin buffy piece of shit?" Clay whined, rolling his eyes.

I examined each of them as a time-pass whatsit and noticed the darker-toned guy with glasses, plastered with a dazed look of bewilderment. It was like he was thinking about something solemn. As I expected, he widened his eyes and spoke up, "Guys! Did any of us notice the buds embedded into La Llorona's ears? It's like...like she doesn't quite embrace noises."

"So how would it help us to the least?" Joey hissed offensively, while he politely replied, "It kinda proves that sounds can supposedly be her weakness. Just look at it, when she drowned her children, they weren't exactly calm, and the gods made her react negatively to those screams as a punishment for her heinous crimes."

"And considering that, if we somehow bring her under that bell, and bang it, it might just destroy her!" Austin, as far as I could recognize, suggested erratically.

"Exactly! Sounds like the plan now!" Clayton responded, equally enthusiastic.

"But she chases only us-"

"So we need to cross this tightrope. And bring her over to that side."

Despite the overwhelming fear, a slight sense of satisfaction washed over me. Finally, a task that aligned with my skills as a gymnast. As such alking on these narrow steps was a piece of old tackle for me.

At first, Austin and Beca stepped up, tiptoeing cautiously on the lank line. Unknowingly, I got all icy with panic observing Beca in the middle of crossing that thin line. Out of anything in the world, perilous escapades especially in the outside world, quite out of her home was the only thing that she totally, definitely, completely neglected. And here we are, working out on things she never dared to start, let alone complete. Or maybe, she had changed, you just never know.

I watched with narrowed eyes, at her vigilant steps, till the point where her feet twisted slightly aside and tripped over, her body recklessly turned and hung low, just about to fall.

I let out a small yelp, eyes bulging out in utter shock. My heart skipped a beat; a sudden coldness hit my core. That couldn't just happen! I almost jumped out of the window in an attempt to catch her, but I stopped at the view of Austin forwarding his hand to grab Beca's falling hand and pulled her in, closer to him with absolute equilibrium on the slimline of the stone roof.

As Austin pulled her over, Rebecca bumped onto him so intimate, that I  bet both of them could smell in each other's breath. Austin clutched onto both her shoulders and they gazed at each other for a while, before charily parting apart and continuing on their stride.

Even far away, I could catch Beca blinking too many times to count throughout the process of, as we would say, balance

Next went Clay, but I could assure he would stumble over to his death. It somewhat seemed funny but instinctively I forwarded towards the window with one foot outside on the roof.

As he was halfway across, he gave a thumbs-up to Joey and the other guy, and as they say, overconfidence to be the door to death. He missed a step on the line and his right leg stepped on the slanted part of the roof, making his whole body slip over down the roof but he was able to hold onto the extra line on which he walked over and that was estimated to hold him only for a while.

Therefore, I didn't take a hot minute to hop right out and in a quick flash pace, I bent down to pick him up with my hands and pivoted around with all my strength to hold him, swirling him over to the other side of the bell, leaving my grip. He landed safely and I did a ballerina swirl to balance.

I chuckled, quite proud of my talents, and went to Rebecca's side.

"How in the world did you do that?" Clay exclaimed, questioning me.

"Oh, these are pieces of piss to me." I grinned brightly. I saw him roll his eyes from the corner of my eye but I neglected that offense.

As planned, Joey and that guy was ought to hide while La Llorona chased us to that point, in case anything went wrong, they would be able to help us.

Then again, nothing going according to plan is also a true universal fact.

Out of the blue, I saw a dark shadow floating behind those two as they were waving at us for confirmations.

"Look out!" I yelled, pointing at the creature coming out of the shadows, of course.

As soon as they looked back astonished, Joey abruptly grabbed that guy's arm for comfort and bounced in awful fear. They turned back instantly and jumped on the roof, aiming for a run but that wasn't the moment.

Quite unwanted and unforeseen, Travis glided down and in a poor endeavor of Joey, she went on to grab him and she herself toppled down, splashing the sullen lake water, alongside Travis. We gasped and cried in a fit of lamentation,  and I witnessed La Llorona floating in the air proceeding to us, shooting us an evil smirk.

Hyperventilating thoughts ran through me at once but I snapped myself to reality and decided to stick to the plan.

I backed off and gestured the others to get behind the bell so that when she would come through the bell with her ghostly potency, we would ring the bell at the right time, which would eventually weaken her.

As she was close to going through the bell, I scanned the area for the stick. But there wasn't any. I began to panic as my hands became all shaky. From one corner of my eye, I witnessed a hand waving at me. I instantly comprehended Clay, who was trying to throw a stick at me from the other side.
Instead, he bent down and slid the stick vertically towards me, which bumped my foot.

It all happened so quickly as she almost came past under the bell, and struggling to pick the surprisingly ponderous stick, I swung it on the bell.

Equally shocked, each of us witnessed the stick moving through the bell instead of hitting it. Fear fluttered in my stomach, grasping the fact that there was nothing else we could do. My feet turned cold and my hands began to shook tremendously.

In a flash of the eye, she sped towards Beca and grabbed her neck. Even I could discern her grimy nails nearly stinging her neck.

"No! Beca! Le-leave her, you snollygoster witch!" I tapered off, both furiously and scared as heck.

When I registered the verity of people and even ghosts ignoring me, I turned to Austin with a look for help. He was equally frightened and didn't know what to do. But as Beca's doom was indistinct, his eyelids became squinted with some sort of possessive impression on.

He retrieved a small rod and activated it by pressing a button, causing it to morph into an enormous sword with a keen edge. Swinging his weapon, he intended to sever her hand just as she was about to strangle Beca.

"Couldn't you do that a bit earlier when I was getting a heart stroke, thinking how much bankrupt and fakir we turned into?" I gave vent to Austin sarcastically but was relieved.

"Either way, you would have died. Plus I'm still a beginner at fencing." Austin smiled wryly.

"Of course you are. Anybody would need to training classes just to cut someone's hand. Like of course." Clay scoffed from the other side, mocking Austin but at the same time coughing out the suffocating air.

We turned our scrutiny towards the witch and observed her in pain, but she lifted her head with a roar and we backed off, terrified.

Impulsively, Austin swung his sword undirected and it penetrated Llorona's waist, parting her upper body from her bottom. Her upper body plummeted to the floor and I couldn't be any more disgusted. My nose wrinkled and I held onto the next person to me for comfort.

Watching the homicidal carmine blood gushing out as well as revealing the inner muscles. It made a feeling of dread in my throat as sweat dripped down my brow through my greasy brown hair.

I couldn't hold it any longer. The vomit pooled out of my mouth and ended up on the person next to me, whom I had been supporting. Surprisingly, it was Clay, the same person who had claimed me to eat his poop. Perhaps this incident balanced the scale between us.

"What in tarnation? Gross, ew!" He instantly backed off and I wiped my mouth with an extra tissue from my pocket.

"Oh, I'm so sorry! I really lost it!" I stated apologetically and really wished to wipe my vomit off his shirt but there wasn't an option.

"Ok-Okay guys. Firstly, I don't know if she's completely dead, I mean you just never know when she comes walking in with only her upper body and...never mind. Let's fly the coop."

We proceeded to go inside the mansion through the window, walking over that slimline again but I heard a squeal behind me. I looked back and- no, not again.

My eyes couldn't get any wider. I gasped, covering my mouth with my palm.

She was back again in her full body form, floating in the air, holding Clay up. The way she clasped his hair was torturable enough to make him cry, which he wasn't but there tears already swimming in his eyes.

Somehow I couldn't just bear the sight.  I ran with enough balance to overcome the rooftop; leaped forward and extended my leg to hit her leg which then caused her to fall on her face but with Clay in front, therefore hitting his forehead.

"Jeez. Well, at least that stopped him from getting eaten." I consoled myself to stop the guilt.

Smartly enough, Clay bent sideways and with that gesture, Llorona fell on the ground and well, hit herself quite badly.

That time we didn't take any more time to stay and exited the place, going downwards to find the other two. I just hoped they'd be still out there safe.

We got out in the outside rotten yard towards the pond. Quill, my brother was able to move underwater unlike any other spirit, as he had told me and I moved aside to take his help.

"They are not in the pond. I talked to the aquatic mammals and they mentioned that Joey and Travis, that guy got out of the pond." He whispered back from the air.

"Thanks, bro." I smiled and went to state the fact, "They are not here."

"How do you know?" Clay inquired, raising an eyebrow.

"We-well, I- um. I have a-a very good vision! Night vision, you know and I can quite see past waters and-" I blinked consistently, looking around aimlessly but witnessed Clay forwarding towards me. He leaned forward and narrowed his eyes suspiciously, "We both know you pesky little Spanish girl can't be of so much power. So please, drop the act."

"Wha-what act?"

He smirked, just before his eyes turned away to look horrified at something behind me. He grabbed me by my waist and pulled me towards his chest. My eyes got sealed due to the abrupt movement and I felt him moving sideways.

We parted and I perceived that without him there to rescue me, I would have been steaked beef with her flamed weapons that she was about to hit me there.

I mumbled thanks to him and once again I scanned the area. There was nothing we could do, could we?

From the other side, I spotted Beca waving at someone to her right side. It was Joey and Travis.

I felt a sense of relief and smiled when I saw both of them return to the spot. However, my joy quickly faded when I noticed Beca moving behind a pillar and eventually vanishing entirely. Adding to the unsettling situation was the fact that La Llorona was ominously watching us, which made it even more convenient for Beca to escape. It was truly heartless and cowardly of her to abandon us like that.