Chapter 4

'H-how am I back here?!' I questioned myself as I felt all around my neck and stomach for an answer. I had sat up by now and suddenly looked over to the person next to me that I could hear crying. "Ryan? Are you ok?" He wiped his eyes and nodded. "Yeah, I- Mia?!" I rolled my eyes and held my arms out wide. "Come here, crybaby." Without hesitation, Ryan hugged me back and pulled me close; it was clear he wouldn't dream of letting go but he'd have to for us to find an escape. We soon pulled away and stood each other up. Lily then ran up to me with a white roll of bandages as she pulled the bear into her side. "We found these for you." She held them high above her head for me to reach. "Thanks Lily! And thanks Mr. Pickles!" She smiled and skipped back over to the others. I unwrapped the bandages and started to gently wind it around my neck. "Ryan, could you tie it off for me?" I asked but received no response. "Ryan?" I questioned what his focus was on at this point. "Dude what on earth-" He covered my mouth and leaned into my ear. "Don't move, don't speak and don't draw attention to yourself!" I raised an eyebrow and turned around to see the largest fucking spider (like the one from Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter but grey and black) looming over us!

Tears ran down my face and I covered my mouth with both hands over Ryans'. The arachnid seemed to look around for something till it picked up a scent! Then it looked down to me. At that moment, I realised what it was doing: it's trying to look for food. Well, when I say look, I mean smell and listen. It had every single eye covered by hair and sewn shut.

The spider purred as it leaned in closer to me. I lowered myself to the ground as the tears that where coming from my eyes began to stream out at a rapid speed. Then I felt it build up... a sneeze! My breathing hitched as the sneeze grew closer to releasing. The spiders pincer like mouth opened up and seemed to lean in towards my face. I couldn't decide whether to scream in fear or just shove my head in its mouth and end it all over again!

"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM THEM!" The spider raised its head up to keep listening. I looked under its belly and saw a set of legs in a fighting stance. It wasn't any of the others since they all where behind me... so who was it? "YEAH, YOU HEARD ME YOU 8 LEGGED BITCH! NOW LEAVE. THEM. ALONE!" The spider started to turn around and faced where the unknown voice (that sounded Scottish?) came from. It purred and squatted down a little; I dipped out the way of it's thorax and shuffled over to the others. I felt several people grab ahold of me and pull me in closer for protection. I watched as a figure ran down the rest of the hallway he came from and around the corner with the ginormous spider hissing after him. We all stared in shock at what we just witnessed with heavy breathing. I stood myself up and helped Ryan to his feet with me as he was crouched beside me. "Uhh... thanks." He smiled weakly and we turned to the others. "You guys ok?" They all nodded and I felt something grab both my legs. I looked down and saw Lily and Harvey burying their head in either leg and crying. "W-we thought you wh- where going to die!" Harvey wept with puffy eyes. "Yeah.. we d-didn't want to loose youuuu!" Lily looked up at me and sniffed. I patted their heads and smiled. "I'm alright you two, let's get going before that... THING comes back." They all nodded and we made our way up the next few floors.

I don't know if we had really climbed as many as it told us or if the floors where just random numbers - one higher than the other - but we where already on the 246th floor! 'What is going on?' I asked myself as we climbed another set of stairs. I checked the number and it read 487th floor. "Ok that can't be right!" I blurted out. "What can't?"

"The floors! We've gone from 240 something to 487, am I tripping out or something?" They all shrugged. "I mean we did just see a ginormous spider nearly bite your head clean off." I let out a sigh. "I'm checking the next floor." Before anyone could argue against it, I made my way up the next flight of stairs and saw the numbers 729. 'Hmm...' I looked down the gap between the staircases and saw hundreds of steps below. "Hey guys?" I shouted downwards and soon saw a head pop out and look up at me; it was Scarlet. "How the hell?!" I shrugged and sighed. "I'm on my way back!" It took a few attempts and several sets of stairs for me to climb up and down from but I eventually made my way back to the group. "That's so weird. How does it even work?" They all kept quiet and kept on inspecting the randomised floors.

At floor 334, a blue light lit the hallways instead of the dim, yellow ones and the laminate flooring was tiles. The walls where the same as the flooring but larger slabs. It was all white and pristine besides a freshly dragged blood stain that lead into the second door on our right. Hoping we could avoid it, we checked all the other doors but only found empty rooms with a shower overhead and black goo dripping from the shower heads. A few comments where said between the others but I preferred not to listen; especially to Georgia. As the gang kept on looking through doors, I walked over to the blood stain dragged under the door and slowly opened it. A cold aura seeped through the crack and, as it got bigger, the coldness created frost around the frame of the door. Inside the room was almost like a fridge but with a large pool in the centre. It took up the whole right side of the floor- no wonder the shower rooms where tiny. There was a large, grey blur under the thin, frosted sheet of ice that rested calmly on the surface of the pool.

"What's that?" Lily pointed into the pool as she ran to the edge. "Lily slow down, you'll slip!" Scarlet gasped as she hastily shuffled after Lily and picked her up before wrapping her arms around her protectively. The two looked into the depths of the water and, almost instinctively, Scarlet leaned closer to see what was in there before jumping back with a yelp and Lily birdied her head in Scarlets chest. "What happened?" Georgia strutted over, trying to act like the tough one, before noticing movement in the water.

"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

She stumbled over to Ryan with tears forming in her eyes and clutched into his arm. "I-it mooooooved! Do somethingggggg Ryan!~" What a fucking child... I rolled my eyes and walked over to Scarlet and Lilly while Georgia continued to whine at Ryan and Harvey stood beside him with his small hand gripping his jeans in fear. "Umm, Scarlet? You two ok?" She nodded and stroked Lily's hair. "Whatever that thing is in there, it's alive!" She whispered through gritted teeth. "We have to move on before that... thing does something bad!" I nodded in agreement and we all walked back over to the others. "Alright, we've seen enough here. Let's move o-"

"Mr. Pickles!? Come back!" We all turned our heads to Lily that was reaching out for her teddy that floated away from her and landed gently in the centre of the water. We all shared a look as Lily began to cry from the lack of her friend. "I'll go get it." Ryan declared and started to undo his jacket. "Don't, that's what it wants you to do!" Scarlet blurted out and raised a hand to pause Ryan in his actions. "That blob wants you to get it so it can get you. Don't you see? This place is trying to kill us! First Pyra and now-"

"Scarlet, we know what it's trying to do but I'd rather risk my life for Lily then leave her upset." She sighed and looked at the teddy bobbing up and down in place before passing Lily on to Ryan and throwing her leggings and shirt off and cannon balling into the water with a surprisingly large splash. "Scarlet!" I yelled and got to my knees beside the edge and watched as she quickly swam under the water, towards the dampening stuffed animal.

She surfaced, grabbed the bear and threw it over to me. I felt the cold, almost mush-like fur against my hands as it landed in my palms. We all watched on with grins as Scarlet began to safely swim back to us. Just as she reached out for the wall to pull herself up, her body submerged in a frantic mess and was pulled around by a growing mess. We all screamed as we watched in horror as she was slowly dismembered. She rose above the water for a moment and yelled toward us in fear:

"SHARK!!!"

Holy fuck! That... that grey thing was a shark?! How did it even survive in there? Was it being fed? Isn't chlorine bad for them?!

Her screams faded as she was taken to the bottom of the pool in a curtain of blood that slowly hid them both like a blanket and soon vanished from view...