"..um,"

Mandy's grip on Nora's hand loosened as she felt her own heart speed up. It had been an act, but saying that even as that was embarrassing beyond belief, yet all that had happened was make the other girl dumbfounded. Because yes, this was only the start, but Mandy didn't get a chance to continue, as Nora stepped back her face reddening.

"Let me think about it!" she called out as she opened the very same door that had those ominous sounds coming from it—

One moment Nora was there, the next something dragged her in, the door falling shut. Then a muffled scream.

Mandy's embarrassment faded within moments. She had been late again and Nora was likely no more. Mandy remained standing there for a minute or two till a crunching sound returned. Nora.. probably.

Mandy turned around, walking a few steps towards the lobby. She felt sick. Now she had met all three girls. There were also two boys, yet before Mandy could approach anyone to ask about them, the hallway grew hazy and disintegrated into a mist. When Mandy blinked she was back in the toilet, looking at her own reflection.

Mandy drew a deep breath then let it out: time to meet the boys.

"Have you seen Isaack?" Mandy asked Samantha again.

Samantha's expression took on a disgusted glint for just a moment. "I wish I hadn't." She said.

Mandy tilted her head in curiosity.

Samantha sighed. "Bathroom on the first floor." She pointed towards the same hallway leading to the kitchen. "End of the hall. Left side."

Mandy left with a "Thank you!" and headed right there.

As Mandy got there, she realized why there was that disgusted expression. There was a Jacuzzi and a rather attractive looking dude was in it with hot (alas washed out) girls in bikinis on both sides. This couldn't get more stereotypical, could it? The guy even had shades on his nose. Really?

"Hey, pretty mama," the dude called out.

That was towards her, right? Mandy opened her mouth then closed it. "Isaack, right?"

"Call me Sacky, babe," the guy replied, lifting his shades a bit to send her a wink.

A shiver ran down Mandy's back. Sacky? Seriously? That was the worst nickname anyone could think up for anyone, but there he was – owning it. Mandy wanted to leave. She could only pray that this dude was not the owner of this nightmare.

"Congrats on getting published," Mandy said, doing her best to not let a disgusted expression take a hold of her facial muscles.

"Thanks, babe," Sacky winked again. "Wanna come in the tub and talk some literature?"

The girls on his both hands giggled, telling cliché lines like 'Sacky, we can talk literature too' and 'Sacky's so greedy' although they didn't seem to mind one bit that their boy was trying to pick up other girls at the same time. Odd. Truly odd.

At first, Mandy had thought that Samantha was odd for fitting in, but now she had a feeling that perhaps this Sacky guy was the fishiest. Would there really exist such odd harem dudes that put on Jonny Bravo roleplay with two girls at both sides? Yet Mandy felt so reluctant to deal with him that she just had to check out the last guy out as well.

"Maybe later, I need to find Andrew first," Mandy said.

"Come whenever," he said, sending Mandy another wink.

Mandy didn't even want to ask Sacky where Andrew was so she left the bathroom. Please please please let it not be him.. but on the other hand, Mandy kind of felt that she could push this guy out of the window.

How to find Andrew then? The kitchen was close, so Mandy peeked in. "Has anyone seen Andrew?" Hazel was there, so she might reply, Mandy didn't have much hope for anyone other to reply.

Yet.. much to her surprise, it was one of the sandwich girls who replied.

"He was in the game room just now," she said.

"Where's that?" Mandy asked.

"Under the stairs," Came a reply.

"Thanks!"

Hazel was still smoking. Good. Now then.. Mandy turned around to head to the game room.

The door under the stairs was open and a bunch of people were playing billiards, a pair was having a ping-pong match and two more were glued to a table hockey rink.

Mandy drew a breath, raising her voice a bit. "Is Andrew here?"

One of the onlookers for the billiards game raised a hand a bit awkwardly, a bit like one would in class in response to teacher's call. Some other looks turned to point at Andrew, but that was a mere passing look. Andrew was a short and thin guy with glasses in thin frames. If he grew out his hair, he might pass for a girl. Mandy had expected a more stereotypical.. nerd, or someone icky, considering that this small dude had written porn.

Mandy walked right up to him. "I read your work," she said.

Andrew averted his eyes and blushed. "..I see."

Mandy felt like blushing too, but she tried not to. What could she even say having blurred out the scenes by squinting? "It was interesting, what made you come up with the idea?" In a sense it was interesting, especially considering it was made by someone this timid seeming.

Andrew blushed even deeper red. "I.. I had a dream like that, so.. uh.. sorry."

"Ah, dreams tend to be wild," Mandy started to blush a bit as well.

The boy nodded.

Judging by how explicit the comic was, though.. this timid looking boy probably was into that stuff. Most of the comic was just porn after all. Don't judge books by their covers.

"How do you like the party?" she asked, switching the topic. Perhaps he would drop something interesting; If she recalled right, he had made Nora angry before – Hazel said something along those lines.

"It seems nice? Different from what I've heard about them, but nice, yes." The boy seemed to calm down a bit now that the topic was changed. Seemed like arguing with Nora hadn't made things sour.

"Your first party?" Mandy followed up.

"Yes, I'm not very.. uh.. social," he said.

"Did Nora invite you?"

"Yes. To celebrate our book." He nodded. "I was afraid it would be like.. yeah.."

"Heavy drinking?"

"Mhm. I didn't want to be forced to.. I mean. No, nothing."

Forced to drink? Didn't seem like it was his first party, or perhaps.. he was just told various tales of how these parties went. It was hard to tell if Andrew was fitting in normally or not, but the fact that he considered this party unusual was probably a point towards him not being the culprit??

"All good, see you around then!" Mandy said, turning to head away.

Andrew nodded, turning back to observe the billiards game as well.

Her goal was to try shocking Samantha, then Nora, then.. Sacky, if neither Samantha nor Nora worked. And the only proper idea she had was hitting on them.. Mandy felt her cheeks turn red. Embarrassing. Or maybe there was something else? Think Mandy, think.

How did dreams get you to snap out? With something really exciting, stressful or frightening, or utterly shameful.. right! Shameful might work too, like being pushed somewhere naked. Taking off Sacky's pants in front of a group of people.. that was a plan. He was almost naked as he was anyways, right?

But dealing with Sacky just seemed like a pain in the butt, so other two came first. Just as Mandy headed upstairs, to look for either of the girls, she spotted Samantha leading a guy into the same room where the crunchy sounds had come from before. Mandy squinted slightly.. what was that about?

Would the centipede monster eat them now? She was afraid to approach the door, but so Mandy did, carefully pressing her ear to it. Giggles, rustling sounds, then wet sounds.. hey.. Mandy turned red. Eavesdropping on something like that just.. the bed started to creak, then a muffled scream.. from a male.. the bed continued to creak though and crunchy sounds. Holy..

Andrew's comic. Samantha was the sexy monster.

Mandy gulped.. had she tried hitting on Samantha, she might be the one being eaten right now. Mandy carefully stepped back, this time turning around to do so. The crunchy sounds went on and soon Nora appeared on the stairs.

Before Nora could be eaten, though, Mandy had to try something. Push her down the stairs... Ugh. Mandy clicked her tongue at her own brain for dropping these morbid ideas.

"Nora."

The girl stopped partway. "..Yes?"

"After reading your story I fell in love with you at first sight!"

"Eh—" Nora stumbled over her feet and fell backward. Since she was still by the stairs, stepping back made her lose her footing all too easily. After making a backflip of sorts she hit her head and passed out.

"Crap." Mandy let out a breath. It didn't count as pushing her down, but.. if this wasn't a nightmare she would feel incredibly guilty right now. And considering the fright Nora had just experienced.. most likely she was not a suspect anymore.

Some washed out figures approached and straightened Nora out, one of them taking out their phone and making a call. If time meant anything, soon this would reloop in either case, so Mandy figured she might as well just sit on the stairs for the time it takes.

After around five minutes the scene grew hazy and when Mandy blinked she was back in the restroom. Okay. Sacky then.

Mandy left the restroom and ran towards the bathroom. Drag him out, no, get him to rush to the living room, then tear off his pants. That was the plan.

"Isack, come to the living room ASAP!" Mandy opened the door doing her best to act as shocked as she could muster.

"Huh?" Sacky startled.

"There's no time, just come." Mandy pleaded.

"Okay, okay, but only because you are cute," Isack got out of the tub.

Mandy grabbed his wet arm by the wrist and pulled him after her, as they reached the room, she got behind him, while Isack was all confused.

"What's going on?" Isack asked, water dripping from his swimming trunks.

"Close your eyes," Mandy said with a smile. She felt bad for him, but.. if he was the cause of this, then it was better if he snapped out, right? Although Mandy didn't know if anything bad at all would happen to him or not. Maybe centipede monster? In Samantha's comic it did attack in Bathroom, so that was likely. This ought to be better than that.

Isack cast a really confused look towards Mandy. "Okay, but only because you are cute," he said and closed his eyes.

Mandy reached her hands towards his waist. "Surprise DICK!!" she shouted as she pulled down his pants.

People in the room looked towards them and Sacky startled trying to crouch down. "What the hell??" He tried to pull his pants back up. The people in the room whistled and laughed.

Sacky turned completely red and after pulling up his pants he dashed into a run. Mandy felt guilt gnawing at her heart, there even seemed to be some tears appearing in his eyes.

"Sorry," she mumbled. But at least.. it seemed like Sacky wasn't it.

Samantha, huh?

Mandy trailed off to upstairs and since Samantha was already leading a guy to that room, she found a seat and waited. All the while she felt horrible. This was a nightmare, but that didn't mean she felt good about embarrassing a boy like that.

Soon Nora passed by, disappearing in that room again and sometime later the scene relooped. As it did, Mandy's guilt eased. In this iteration, nothing that bad had happened to Sacky. Now then.

Mandy repeated the same scene she had the very first time. At least in the beginning. Approach about the subject of the party, ask to read the comic, yet, when the girls headed up to the top of the stairs, Mandy overcame her reluctance and pulled on Samantha, causing her to fall. As shock passed the girl's eyes, the scene grew hazy once more and disintegrated into dust.

Mandy snapped out from the nightmare in a room filled with fog and blue floating lights. August was holding her hand and the figures she could see through the fog started to grow wings and shrink in size. Since August was holding her hand, she could feel a strong scent of cinnamon. Soon, the sound of flapping wings filled the fog and many birds all flew up.

"It's over?" Mandy asked.

"Good work," August replied.

Mandy went through the motions of letting out a breath, even if no actual air was expelled. She was glad this was over, yet.. there would be some awful memories remaining.

August let go of her hand and went around the room, tearing small pieces of paper as he went. There was something drawn on them, yet as the paper got torn, the writing disappeared.

Mandy looked at him work, with each paper torn the lights faded and so did the fog and when the last strip was removed, the room had gone back to how it had been before, the only difference being – the dreamcatcher no longer had its web of strings.

"Did you wait long?" She asked.

"A couple of hours," August replied. "Not considered long for these things."

Mandy nodded. She felt fatigued. Not a normal feeling for a ghost, but she really wanted to get some sleep. She wasn't sleepy, just..

"Let's go home," August said.

Mandy nodded. For the rest of the way back home, neither of them spoke. August looked close to passing out while Mandy thought over the nightmare she had seen.

Just as the two had reached the apartment building, a tall figure greeted them by the entrance.

It only took a single look for Mandy to know that this was August's sibling, they might have been fraternal twins for all she knew, that was how much alike the girl standing there was to August - if August got magically transformed into a girl - that might have been the result. Except this girl had far more active lifestyle than August it seemed. Her legs were well built and hinted at her ability to run and her face had no trace of August's usual sleep deprivation. Hair reaching just over her jawline and equally messy to August's usual, a short parka, a black shawl, she wore shorts over leggings and hiker boots. Due to how thick the soles of her boots were she was exactly the same height as August.

"Can you come on another year?" August asked with a scrunched expression. Not a day, not a week, but a year.

"Ha ha ha, joking as always," the girl beamed a smile at the two of them.

No. August wasn't joking. Mandy didn't think he was.

Her smile faded almost as if it had been an illusion to begin with. "C'mon August, I wouldn't have come unless I was in a pinch."

"Like last time?" August asked his voice cold.

"I was wrong that time, sorry," came a serious and straightforward reply.

August let out a breath. The chill dropping just a notch, but his face was still not showing any goodwill.

Mandy wanted to fade out into background. Something big was up here, yet she doubted that they would just go and fill her in on the details, and being here, looking at this just felt kind of.. wrong, yet leaving at this moment felt like a bad idea too. To sum up Mandy's feelings - she felt awkward. She didn't even know the girl's name.

"And this time is different?"

The girl looked sideways. "Well.."

"Just go away." August said. "I'm no longer an exorcist."

The girl let out a breath. "I can guess only one reason why you smell like a cinnamon roll baker."

August clicked his tongue.

"Your skills aren't rotting, that excuse won't work." She said.

"My bad. Shouldn't have made one."

The girl scratched her head a lot like how August did when troubled about something."C'mon, can you at least listen what's up?"

"I want to sleep. Legit."

"Fine, I'll come tomorrow," the girl said and walked past the two of them.

August looked like he was about to say something, but he didn't and just walked towards the door leading to the staircase.

"Sister?" Mandy asked when they were half-way up.

"That much is obvious," August replied.

Mandy thought for a moment and although the chances of getting a proper reply were slim, she asked. "Do you hate her?"

August stopped walking for a moment. "...I wish she would become happy enough to not willfully get involved in shady stuff that costs organs of her family members."

Mandy was surprised at the amount of information that reply contained. His kidney was taken by a paladin, but - "Your lung?"

"And Tia's blood. Not an organ, but you get the picture." August resumed walking up.

Perhaps August would tell her if she asked more, but Mandy choose to not ask. Not now. Now was not a good time. She could tell that he was very tired, and that was something in big part due to her selfish request.. And she was tired as well. Tired enough to desire some sleep despite being a ghost. She had a hard time even processing the ideas she had about this probable twin sister. Careless like Tia? Very unhappy for some reason given that August wished she would become happy enough to act differently? Hard to tell.

When August got back to the apartment, his expression was still sour like he had eaten a lemon whole. He changed back into something more comfortable – t-shirt and sweats and prepared for bed. Yet, rather than heading to sleep right away, he opened his suitcase and took out various small vials and one sheet of paper. He drew a complicated sign on the paper, placed a mug on it, then poured a bit of liquid from each of the vials. Like in a magic movie, each drop made a colored smoke and sparkled a bit.

Mandy observed with curiosity (as much as she could muster in her state). Well, this was magic by any definition you could.. use. Chemistry certainly didn't look like it, but if she called it that August would correct her that it wasn't, wouldn't he? But because she wanted to ask something: "Alchemy?"

August confirmed with a nod much to Mandy's surprise.

"Dreamless sleep concoction," he elaborated. The drawing under the mug started to burn up starting from the outer edges ending with under the mug till there was nothing on the paper left, in exchange, the mug started to fill with shimmery white liquid. It reminded of pearls.

August picked it up and downed it in a few gulps, then took Mandy's hand wordlessly and without any explanation whatsoever, fell down into the sofa, pulling her down with him. Mandy was shocked enough to lose her ability to speak and before regaining it she felt her own consciousness blank out.

The room was completely silent. August was sleeping on the sofa and a slightly transparent girl was floating a little bit above him her hand in his.