Can You Count to Ten Without Crying?

The party chose the stairs first. It was the wrong direction for a basement, which made it exactly the sort of thing My Alchemical Romance might do before finding the correct one by accident. Dhaz led the way in Father's Favor, climbing through the brittle old house while the others followed below. The door upstairs was barely a door anymore. When Dhaz forced it, the stairwell answered by giving way. Wood cracked, bodies dropped, and the old house opened a hidden wound beneath them: a carved-out space under the stairs, a skeleton tucked into the ruin, and rubble heavy enough to hide something more. Dhaz was left above. The upper floor held a hallway and three doors. One stood ajar. Inside was a child's room, or what remained of one, where small black shades with red eyes skipped and played as if the house had trapped a game in the dark. A fourth shade approached him from behind. Can you count to ten without crying? Dhaz did not stay to find out. He turned, ran, and threw himself back down through the broken stairwell, landing badly but alive. Below, the others searched the rubble and found the part of the house that mattered. The collapse had uncovered a hidden hatch and a rusted metal ladder leading down. The house had tried to send them upstairs. The basement had been under their feet the whole time.