|—————————————————————> 6 <—————————————————————|

Ursahara began pacing, or rather, shuffling around the room, dipping her finger in a lump of cake mix every now and again.
That stupid boy with the camera was admittedly brighter than the others. Brighter in more ways than one…
And more importantly, how was she going to complete her project in time for her sister’s return? She knew it would be difficult to use the children in her plot.
She sighed and flicked her wrist, causing a rustic, ancient key to appear in her hand.

Meanwhile, on the other side of a window, James squeaked in shock. The woman had just conjured a gnarled old key into her gnarled old hand! Sure, she could have been holding it the whole time without him noticing.
Get ahold of yourself! Thought James.
You’re sounding like Zoe!

Ursahara looked at the key as if she had just asked it t bring her a pen and it came back with a hen.
She grumbled something incoherent, flicked her wrist once more and conjured another key.
James gasped a little too loud and began fumbling with his camera.
It was clear Ursahara was still unsatisfied with the keys she was conjuring, so she shuffled over to her handbag, which was about the size as your average shopping bag, and shoved her entire arm into it and began rummaging around.

Meanwhile, outside, James slowly aimed his camera and took a shot.
The entire room lit up with a flash like a firefly had just exploded.

James ducked down behind the wall and sucked his lips so hard that when he stopped they turned scarlet, making it look like he was wearing lipstick.

Ursahara quickly withdrew the entire top half of her body from the seemingly bottomless bag and looked around.
Her head was shoved in her bag so she didn’t know for sure, but she could have sworn there was a sudden flash of light.
She narrowed her eyes.
She also saw something disappear in the window in her peripheral vision.
She ran over and threw open the window with a bang.
Again, she saw something disappear around the corner.
A foot.
A child-sized foot.
“Come back here, you rotten little knave!” She yelled as she clambered out the window and fell into a bush.

James was panicking. He was going to get caught any moment now. It was only a matter of time.
He ran back into the cottage and began frantically scanning the room for places to hide.
“I’ll get you, and when I do, i’ll blemish your backside like nobody’s business!” Shrieked Ursahara.
At the last second, James ducked under a desk.

The door exploded open, sunlight seemingly vanishing from the room.
The sun probably just went behind a cloud. Or did it?

She ominously dragged her walking stick behind her, muttering to herself.
Deja Vu, thought James.
How am I going to get out of this one?
As Ursahara came closer and closer, James scoured the room, once again, for an escape.
The window? He would be seen.
The door? It was blocked.
The rest of the house? Unknown. Never venture into unknown territory when you’re being hunted.

Suddenly, a familiar voice rang out.
“James? Jaaaaaames?” Called his sister.
Ursahara spun around.
“What the Fu Manchu?” She growled.
Kate and Zoe burst into the room.
“Ah! Ursahara! Have you seen my brother James?”
Ursahara stared, wild eyed.
“Who?”
“That weird kid with the UFO t-shirt and nerdy diary thing.”
“Heyyy!” Yelled James, jumping up from behind the desk.
“My journal isn’t nerdy!”
Ursahara’s pupils seemed to sharpen.
“IT’S THE LITTLE SCURVY KNAVE!!” She shrieked as she leapt through the air to tackle him.
James flung himself away from the woman, and, not sure what else to do, scooped up a big glob of cake mix and chucked it at her.
She stopped it with her stick like a Jedi from Star Wars deflecting a laser beam with their lightsaber.
“Stop! James! Stop!” Cried Kate over the din.
But it was no use.
James grabbed a broom and leapt at the old hag with it, but she blocked it, once again, with her stick.
Eventually, Kate and Zoe stopped trying to intervene, sat down and started cheering.
“Zoe is getting Star Wars vibes!” Zoe squealed.
“Bravo! Bravo!” Clapped Kate.

James had watched a lot of Star Wars, so he knew more or less how to utilise his weapon.
However, Ursahara seemed to have been trained by an actual Jedi, because she seemed to know exactly what she was doing.
She finally managed to disarm James, and shove him down.

Unfortunately, as James fell down, he grabbed onto whatever he thought would keep him upright.
This turned out to be a small stool, about the hight of his ribs almost like a pedestal, with a very fancy porcelain bowl-looking thing with little struts.
Everyone in the room held their breath and clenched their fists as the bowl teetered on the edge of the stool.

Eventually, it stopped wobbling and settled down.
Everyone sighed in relief. Which turned out to be a big mistake, because the massive amount of air that was blasted out of their mouths shoved the fragile porcelain bowl off the stool, causing it to hit the floor and shatter into a million pieces.
A darkish mist seemed to rise from it and make strange whispering noises, but it disappeared almost immediately.
Everyone stood in silent shock, staring at the broken bowl.
“Oh no…that’s…that’s Jennifer’s favourite cooking pot…”
Zoe breathed.
“The one that she liked so much she never used it!”
James gathered all the bits and put them in a bag.
Everyone was worried, but Ursahara was literally panicking.
“You-you have no idea what this actually means! By destroying that thing, you’ve dumped us all in a massive pile of-“
James turned on Ursahara.
“What?! You think I did this on purpose?!” He yelled.
“What else am I supposed to assume?! You were spying on me, you poxy little delinquent!”
“What’s that got to do with anything?!”
“EVERYTHING!! You think i’m one of those magical monsters you draw in your stupid little diary!”

James’s face went red, and he made that growling-screaming fuming noise that you make when you’re really, really mad.

He scraped a big gob of cake goo off the wall and hurled it at the old woman.
She dodged once again with those lightning quick reflexes, causing the gob to fly across the room and hit one of Jennifer’s favourite paintings of a hand with an eye on it.
Splat.
Everyone froze as they did when the bowl thingy was smashed, but for a different reason.
The flying gob of cake mix must have triggered something, because the painting sunk back into the wall with an ominous rumble and a door seemed to open behind the wallpaper.

“Woah.” Breathed Zoe. Everyone muttered in agreement.

James whipped out his camera and slowly approached the patch of floppy wallpaper.
It was wobbling around, like there was a breeze hitting it from behind.
“What are you doing, you stupid boy! Get back! You don’t know what you’re doing!” Exclaimed Ursahara.
“ExCUSE me, but i’ll have you know i’ve watched several videos about ghosts and the paranormal and stuff and I will not hesitate to try and recall some of the fun facts if you say another word about me not knowing what i’m doing.” Barked James, spitting the words out with emphasis as he edged closer and closer to the wallpaper.

Everyone leaned forward in anticipation and he grabbed the wallpaper and ripped a chunk out of it, revealing the darkness behind it.

“AAAAAAAARRGH!!!” Screamed James.

|—————————————————————> 7 <—————————————————————|

Everyone else jumped and instinctively screamed along with him.

The gaping hole he had created revealed a tunnel, made out of dark stone bricks with a few gnarly looking plants poking out of the cracks. On one side of the wall was a weathered metal rack with a dead rat, an empty test tube and a small plastic bucket lying haphazardly on it.
The tunnel led slowly down, with only candle hanging on the wall every five or so metres, so they could hardly make out anything in there.
“Why’d you scream?!” Yelped Kate.
“I dunno! I thought there was going to be something horrifying behind the wall, so I screamed because I was so surprised there was nothing!”
“That is literally the stupidest thing i’ve ever heard.”
“Shut up.”
“You shut up.”
“YOU shut up!”
“Fight! Fight! Fight!” Cheered Ursahara.

While James and Zoe were bickering, Zoe noticed something.
And screamed.
“ARRRRRRRRGH!!” Screamed Zoe.
Everyone else jumped and instinctively screamed along with her.

“Why’d YOU scream?!” Yelped James.
“L-l-look!” She whispered, pointing a trembling finger at the rack.
“The rat’s alive! It just scampered away!”
“Big whoop.” Grumbled James, looking away before snapping his head back at the rack.

He walked forward and took the plastic bucket off the shelf, avoiding the spot where the apparently dozing rat had been.
“What is it, James?” Asked Kate nervously.
His face brightened.
“It’s GLUE!” He exclaimed. “Label says its the most powerful in the world!”
“But they all say that.” Grumbled Ursahara.
James ignored her.
“This is just what we need to fix that bowl thing!” He said excitedly.
He ran over to the sad-looking plastic bag in the corner of the room and took out two fitting pieces. He unscrewed the lid of the glue container and shoved a spoon into it, but all it met was plastic.
James swore.
“There’s no glue in it! There’s just a bunch of dry crust smeared on the outside.”
Kate peered over at the rack.
“And there’s no more over here.”
“Zoe guesses she know what this means.” Groaned Zoe.
“That we’re going to put the wallpaper back, clean up this room, go to the store and get some glue from there?” Asked Ursahara, her pupils moving independently of each other.

Everyone turned and fixed her with a look.
“What?” She grumbled.
“What a stupidly unusual thing to say when a literal doorway to an adventure is just sitting right in front of us?” Said James.
“We’re going to go into that tunnel and look for any more glue that might be in there!”
“That’s a long shot and you know it.”
“Rubbish. Where is your sense of adventure?”
Everyone murmured in agreement except Ursahara, who made a face and a very rude gesture at James when his back was turned.

“My sense of adventure is fine.” Muttered Ursahara.
“Yours, however, is much too eager to poke its nose where it doesn’t belong.”
“What?” Asked James, not turning around.

“Nothing, you stupid little brat.” Hissed Ursahara silently.

|—————————————————————> 8 <—————————————————————|

The mismatched quartet slowly crept down the tunnel, jumping at every creak, footstep and rat scampering past.
“Hmmm.” James mused.
“The fact that the candles aren’t burnt out means that somebody has been down here recently. So recent, in fact, that they still might be here.”
Everyone shuddered.
“Hey guys.” Said a familiar voice.
Everyone screamed and spun around.
It was the fat kid.
“It’s just me. I just saw you go into this cool cubby house and I decided to follow you. Also, pro tip: don’t try and lick the melted wax from the candles.”

Everyone screamed louder.
“Oh, and I found this cute little guy running around in the corridor.” He said, holding the sleepy rat from earlier in his hand.
and took off running down the tunnel.
“SHOULDN’T WE CONSIDER WHERE THIS TUNNEL IS GOING BEFORE CHARGING DOWN IT?!” Yelled James over the din.
“NOPE!! DEFINITELY NOT!!” Kate shouted back.
“Welp, I guess i’ll follow you guys then.” The fat kid said.

The tunnel slowly began to slope down, and the quartet, or rather, the quintet began to pick up speed.
“ZOE CAN’T STOP! WHY CAN’T ZOE STOP?!!” Screamed Zoe.
“Wheee!” Cheered the fat kid, his cheeks flapping in the wind like a dog with its head sticking out the window of a car on a motorway.
“My back! My legs! My back! My legs!” Screeched Ursahara in a high-pitched, keening voice like a rat that had stubbed its toe.

Suddenly, the tunnel suddenly disappeared into a huge drop, and everyone was flung into the inky blackness.