"We lost ourselves..."

Chapter 4: A mysterious life

"h-how though," you ask, looking at Ej

"it's complicated, the longer you stay the more the house shows itself to you, a lot of us like to say that, the house is alive" Ej looks at you "Someday you'll see what I'm seeing, now come on, I wanna show you how to easily make your way to places inside the house, also we need to hurry inside, Toby said he found a wild bear near here and it is not friendly," Ej says as he quickly walks inside, you following quickly behind him.

You walk inside the house with Ej as he speaks up "When walking through these halls, always keep where you wanna go in mind, you lose the thought and you'll be lost until you know where you are" Ej explains walking you to the beginning of the halls "first thing, this house is like a maze, you will get lost, the key is to stay calm, don't freak out or the house will make the halls look longer and smaller, I say that by personal experience, in short words, if your calm, the house is calm and if you freak out, so will the house, now, imagine going back to Nurse Ann's room and lead me there" you take a deep breath, you take on the step, you imagine Nurse Ann's room in your head "remember to stay calm" Ej says softly as too not distract you "ok, I'm calm, ready, and..." you sight "I'm calm" you say, you start walking mumbling to yourself "if you trust the house to take you there, the house will trust you" Ej explains. Your heart starts beating faster, you cross your hands as a cold feeling runs down your spine, your breath gets heavy, and you feel as if the walls are getting tighter and longer, you don't understand, you did what he said, why are you so scared, your legs get weaker, you start trembling, you fall to the ground, you can't breath "great!" Ej says as he runs up to you, holding you up "Snap out of it calm down!" he looks around. "Look, you're currently halfway to Nurse Ann's room. You are currently in front of the proxies meeting room," You look around. Your breathing getting slowly, the halls slowly going back to their original form, you look back at EJ. "i-i-i don't k-know wh-what happened," you say, your voice still trembly "Look, that happens, it happens to everyone, they think they're calm but they're so focused on being calm they forget about where they want to go, that's what happened now, were not so far from my room, come on, ill lead you,"

You follow Ej quietly, your arms crossed, not understanding what just happened. Somehow you were so caught up in your thoughts that when you looked up, you were already in Ej's room. "You'll be staying here from now on," Ej says as he opens the door. You walk inside, looking around before you feel a stiff hand grab your arms. "But do not touch any of my things," EJ's tone and attitude completely changed, his voice more bitter. You can hear a low growl from under his mask.

Before anything could happen, someone walked in. You look to the side to see Nurse Ann. "Sorry about that," Ej lets go of you, and Nurse Ann speaks up again. "You see, Ej took these pills I made so that his anger would be more controlled. Sadly, we ran out, and the ones he took during your arrival were his last ones," Nurse Ann explains as she slaps the back of Ej's head. "Try to stay calm," Nurse Ann says before walking out of the room. Ej lowly growls as he sits on his bed. "Sadly, there's no other bed, so either you sleep on the floor, or we have to share a bed, and I'm not up for that," Ej says, his voice still bitter and stern. His not-so-friendly voice makes shivers go down your spine. You open your mouth to talk. But you can't say anything, so you take a deep breath. "I don't mind. You can choose.." you say as you look around the dark room. Ej thinks for a while. He looks forward for a while, then sighs. "you'll sleep with me on the bed.." you quickly look at Ej. "What?" Ej sighs at your question. "I was told to let you sleep with me," Ej says as his elbows rest on his knees, his void-like eyes looking into yours. His mask covers his facial features so you can't see him, although you notice as black goo drips from his mask. You stare at his mask for a while.

"you do know staring is bad," You shake your head as Ej speaks up.

"S-sorry, it just- what is that black stuff-" you ask as you sit next to Ej.

Ej lifts his hand to his mask. "Why should I tell you," Ej gets up and leaves the room, slamming the door behind him.

You get up to follow him, but by the time you leave the room, he has already disappeared. You go back into the room, grab your backpack, and throw everything onto the bed. You fold clothes and put away snacks, and belongings. You charge your phone. You grab a towel and clothes and walk back out to the hallway. You sigh *trust the house, and the house will trust you* you think to yourself. You start walking as you think of the bathroom, and after a few turns, and stops to think. You finally find the bathroom. You do a little victory dance as you go to open the door... it's locked-, you knock on the door. "In a moment!!" you hear someone scream from inside the bathroom, and before you know it, the door opens. A guy walks out, and you look at him. He has orange goggles, a brown hoodie with sleeves of different shades of brown, and a grayish-blue hood.

"hi." The guy says as he twitches a bit

"hello.." you say, looking up at him

"You- new here," he says, as he ticks between his words

"yeah, uhm, I got here today if I'm correct," you say as your grip on your things gets tighter

"so, what-... mm, what's your name," the guy asks as he ticks mid-sentence

"y/n," you answer. "Yours?"

"Ticci Toby, Toby for shhhIET... short," Toby says as his head tics, he curses uncontrollably.

You tilt your head to your side. "Can I ask you something?" you ask him curiously.

"go on," he answers as he crosses his arms.

"I'm sorry if this is weird or like. Uncomfortable for you to talk about... Do you have, hmm, Tourette's?" you ask, now regretting your question.

Toby stares at you with a blank expression.

"I-I'm sorry, I shouldn't have asked such a serious question... See you later," you say as you quickly squeeze you're way into the bathroom and lock the door behind you. You sigh as you put your stuff down on the counter. You start the shower. You take off your clothes and put them in the hamper. You look at yourself in the mirror before heading into the shower under the warm stream of water.

Your body relaxes as each drop of water hits your skin as it runs down your body and drips onto the floor, your hands running through your hair as you push it back. You sigh.

Once you are done with your shower, you turn it off and open the shower curtain, graving the towel and drying yourself off with it. You quickly put on your clothes. Once you have finished getting dressed, you leave the bathroom. Before you can even see them, you bump into someone. You back up a bit and look up to see Ej.

"oh, uhh, hi?" you say nervously

"I've been looking for you," he says with a bitter voice

"Oh, yeah, sorry, I needed a shower and decided to take one," you explain

Ej examines you. "You didn't talk to anyone else, have you?" he says grabbing your arm and checking if you hurt or not

your heart warmed up as he did this gesture. He was showing he cared for you. You loved seeing that in him "only one person,"

he looks up at you. "Who?" he asks

you think. "he said his name was Ticci Toby,"

"huh, what did he do?" Ej asks.

"Nothing, he just introduced himself to me," you say as you softly smile.

Ej hums at your response. "Come on, Dinner is almost served,"

"I was starting to get hungry so, perfect timing,"