DENOUEMENT
xlvi. house of envy
❝OH, WE HAVE A DEATH WISH.❞

A GIGANTIC SPIDER.

What had startled each and every single member of the secret group, eliciting gasps to erupt from their throat, had turned out to be a (not alive/not real) gigantic spider, dangling down from the ceiling and casting a shadow across them all as it stared menacingly at the humans in front of it. After a few seconds, in which the members of the group spent attempting to calm themselves down after such a fright, it soon became apparent to them that the spider was actually fake and it couldn't harm them. However, despite knowing that, there still seemed to be an eerie feeling about it, as though it was the epitome of danger and that only darkness and terrible things could become of it. If Sydney Anderson was able to see auras around objects/people, she was almost certain that the fake spider's aura would have been blood red - menacing, evil, and most certainly deadly. It was safe to say that the female prankster wasn't particularly a fan of the spider, not even due to the resemblance it had to the insect - she wasn't scared of bugs.

Amber Millington, however? Amber Millington most certainly was scared of bugs - spiders especially - and perhaps that was why the fashionista had her hands covering her eyes as she refused to look at the ginormous and menacing object looming in front of her.

"Just remember: if you can't see it, it's not there." The fashionista gave herself some... pretty flawed... instructions as she tried to forget about the petrifying thing that was casting a shadow upon her face - however, considering it was right in front of them and it was extremely big, the ginormous spider was pretty hard to forget and the female prankster didn't necessarily think her roommate's instructions were enabling her to forget the spider as she told herself repeatedly, "It's not real, it's not real."

"It's not real, Amber." Fabian Rutter assured the worried blonde, with his own worries being absolutely and totally gone as soon as he had noticed that the ginormous spider wasn't a real spider, and that was why he soon began to approach the object alongside Nina Martin, the pair of it examining it as they wondered what it was and its use.

"That's right, Fabian, say it with me!" The frightened fashionista encouraged him, obviously believing that the brunette nerd was following her odd and flawed instructions and trying to force himself to believe the spider looming in front of them wasn't real - when, actually, the spider genuinely wasn't real and Amber was just being... well... Amber.

"He means that it's actually not real." Sydney informed her roommate, sending a somewhat wary glance towards the spider whilst she patted the fashionista on her shoulder comfortingly, hoping that'd assure her worries in some way.

"Oh." Amber mumbled, about to pull her hands away from her eyes to face the evil object in front of her before she suddenly halted in her movements and a hesitant look came across her face, "Wait, how do I know you're not pranking me?"

"Why would I-?" Sydney went to ask, though she soon found her words being cut off by herself as she realised that she most certainly would have pranked the easily scared fashionista in that way, causing her to release a reluctant sigh as she admitted to her roommate, "Okay, yes I would prank you like that."

"Exactly." Amber huffed.

"Come on." Sydney muttered, deciding to take matters into her own hands (quite literally) by grabbing the hands of the fashionista and peeling them away from her eyes, allowing for the worried blonde to see that the spider in front of them actually wasn't real.

"Guys, I think this is what we've been looking for - the spider that fits in the hole in the task room." Nina informed the members of the group, holding the spider in her hands and examining it thoroughly as she tried to find any more hints as to what they were meant to do with the metal spider that was simply dangling from the living room ceiling.

Messing with the wire that was attached to the spider, the nerd of the group eventually was able to disconnect it from the wire that had allowed it to dangle from the ceiling and thus held it in his hands, finding an inscription upon it that he soon read out to the members, "To pass beyond the weaver's throne, lay her daughters in their home. Move with care through her poisoned loom, the scarlet thread may spell your doom."

"Oh, the ginormous, metal spider wasn't weird enough - they had to add doom into the mix, too!" Sydney huffed exasperatedly, still feeling rather wary about the spider.

"You're not scared of spiders." Alfie pointed out, his eyes narrowed and laced with confusion as he wondered why the female was so hesitant about the spider.

"Spiders become a lot creepier when they're ginormous and randomly fall from the ceiling with an inscription about doom written on the back of it." The female prankster argued - in all honesty, she just couldn't shake the really bad feeling about the humongous spider that she was having, and the message about doom didn't exactly ease those worries.

"Good point." Alfie agreed with a nod, then sending a cautious look to the spider himself - after all, it was pretty creepy and, considering the riddle mentioned doom, there was probably something regarding the spider that they had to worry about.

"Spiders weave webs." Patricia noted, getting the members back to focusing on the riddle that was inscribed onto the metal spider as they attempted to come up with different theories as to what it meant, "So, is that where her throne is - the big web in the tunnel?"

"But who are her daughters and where are they?" Amber inquired, knowing that they most likely needed to find the 'daughters' that the riddle mentioned before the secret group was able to complete and conquer the spider web task.

"Okay, we need to go down and check them out. Tonight?" Nina suggested, obviously wanting to complete the spider web task as soon as possible so that they were able to progress through the tunnels and find the mask that the spirit haunting them desired.

Although, there were apparently more important things that were occurring that night, because not everybody seemed so thrilled with going down into the tunnels.

"Maybe we should, um, synchronize schedules, because tonight is Fabian and Joy's-." Alfie commented quite joyfully, a teasing smile on his lips whilst everyone other than the nerd of the group (who was clearly trying to get the talking boy to shut up and not say anything further) looking at him quizzically as they wondered what else was more important than progressing through the tunnels to get rid of the curse placed upon them, "-first date!"

Oh...

Of course, Sydney Anderson knew that the pair were going on a date due to the awkwardness of Fabian Rutter and his apparent lack in abilities of saying 'no' - however, she had absolutely no idea that it was occurring that night. Although, it appeared that there was somebody else who had been left in the dark about the date happening later that night: Nina Martin, who had absolutely no idea that there was a date at all, nevermind what day it was happening on.

Considering that the American was still rather in love with her ex-boyfriend (despite how much she refused to admit it and pretended that they were 'just friends'), it was safe to say that the poor girl was absolutely distraught by the news of her crush going out on a date with another girl, and her fallen face was enough proof of that. Laced with sadness, her eyes had awkwardly fell to the ground and it soon became clear that she'd rather be anywhere else other than right next to (practically touching shoulders with) Fabian Rutter.

Yeah, that was rather awkward.

"No, no, it's not a date. It's more like a, um, it's more like, um..." Fabian quickly attempted to clear up the whole situation once his eyes had drifted over towards his ex and he had noticed how upset she seemed about the entire situation, and it was obvious that he was searching for some sort of excuse to justify the date that he was going on - despite that, he was most certainly failing at justifying it as he stammered over his words, nerves and awkwardness clearly getting the best of him, "A misunderstanding! We're just going to see that film that Jasper was on about - it's hardly a date!"

"No kidding." Patricia remarked.

However, the news of Joy Mercer and Fabian Rutter going on a date to see a film that the latter's uncle recommended (it was one about ancient Egypt) only caused the heartbreak that Nina Martin was going through become further emphasised, with her voice being rather shaky and sounding broken as she told her ex, "I thought we could go see that."

"Hey, why don't we all go?" Amber suggested, "You, me, Sydney, Jerome-."

"Sydney and Jerome?" Sydney mumbled in confusion, wondering why she and her childhood best friend had to be dragged into their plans to watch a boring film.

"-Joy, Fabian." Amber continued regardless of the interruption, with her having grown used to her roommate chiming in confused whenever the fashionista included the soon-to-be couple in her plans, "Nah, let's not crash their date."

"Amber!" Fabian quickly cried out incredulously, his tone laced with frustration as he continued to try to clear up all the confusion and assure his ex that he wasn't going on a date, "Tell her it's not a date! You were there - you were telling me what to say!"

At the revelation, Sydney's head (alongside the heads of the other members of the secret group) whipped towards her fashionista roommate as fast as it possibly could, her eyebrows knit together and her eyes narrowed - of course, the female prankster knew about the date, but she had absolutely no idea that Amber Millington, of all people, had instructed the nerd on how to respond to the date which had led to him agreeing to it, causing Sydney to ask with shock clear in her tone, "What?"

"I did not tell you-!" Quickly wanting to defend herself and feeling all the shocked eyes upon her due to the revelation, the fashionista soon began to argue against the nerd, but was soon cut off by the voice of Nina Martin.

"Okay, guys, I get it - tonight's not ideal. We can wait one more night - the mask can wait." Nina told them, although none of the members were particularly too sure of that statement considering that their lives were literally on the line and they were cursed by a weird and scary spirit - however, before anybody was able to question it and make sure that she was completely certain of her statement, the girl quickly made an excuse to leave the room as she informed them, "I need to go and phone Gran anyways, so..."

And with that being said, Nina Martin soon brushed past all of the members of the secret group and made her way out of the living room, her head hung low.

"Nice, Fabian, very nice." Amber sarcastically commented, obviously frustrated that her best friend/roommate was now upset, before both the fashionista and the female prankster that shared a bedroom with her heartbroken girl soon decided to leave the living room as well, deciding to follow their poor roommate and make sure that she was okay.

Despite the tension, the entire situation had mildly amused Alfie Lewis, and perhaps that was why the boy was lightly chuckling to himself as he left the living room soon after the trio of girls and went to his own bedroom, opening the door and quickly noticing that Jerome Clarke was also present in the room, though the blonde-haired prankster remained pretty silent as he lay on his bed, the pretty and precious gem that he had yearned after for so many days being in his hand as he examined it thoroughly.

"Hey, Jerome." Alfie greeted the boy, not noticing the odd mood that his roommate was in as the chuckling boy had hardly spent him a glance and simply went towards his bed as he inquired, "Ooh, do you wanna punk Fabian and Joy on their date? We could get popcorn to throw at them, or maybe you could go on your own date with Sydney? Hey, maybe-." However, the boy quickly cut his own words off as he finally noticed that his best friend was not in the mood for pranks and/or jokes, "This can't be good. What's up?"

Knowing that he couldn't exactly hide his sour mood (it was obvious from miles away), the blonde-haired boy sighed heavily as he glanced back towards the gem in his hand once more, revealing why his mood was so terrible to his best friend/roommate, "Everything I did to get my hands on this, and I can't even put it back where it belongs."

"Have you told your dad you've found it?" Alfie asked, wondering what the older man had to say about it and whether he had given the blonde-haired boy any more advice on what else to do with it if the shield was nowhere to be found.

Yet, Jerome had not even dared to tell his father about the struggles that he was having with the priceless gem, knowing that he hadn't completed the mission that he had been instructed to do by his father and subsequently thinking that he'd only disappoint the man if he even tried to tell him about the gem, "And say, 'I'm sorry, Dad, I know you're trying to turn your life around but there's no more shield and I'm fresh out of ideas, so-'."

"Come on, you'll work something out! If you can't charm your way to that shield, then you'll scam your way to it - it's the Jerome way." Alfie encouraged his roommate, knowing that the prankster had never given up on something in his life and surely wasn't about to start then - although, Jerome did need some cheering up and the roommate of the sad boy knew exactly how to do that, or perhaps... who he needed to get in order to do that.

Sydney Anderson.

Meanwhile, the girl in question was sitting upstairs in her bedroom alongside her two roommates, as both her and the fashionista out of the three females attempted to make sure that Nina Martin was okay after the shocking and rather saddening revelation that her ex-boyfriend was going out on a date. Yet, once they had followed the heartbroken girl into the room, the two friends had soon come to learn that the sad girl didn't necessarily want to talk about it and buried her head into homework. As much as Sydney Anderson liked Nina Martin and wanted to make sure that she was okay, there was absolutely no way that the prankster was going to do homework with her - that job was left to Amber Millington, whilst Sydney Anderson grabbed her camera and took some shots of the sky and the stars from out of their bedroom window.

"We could still make the start of the movie if we hurry." Amber Millington spoke up towards Nina Martin after watching the evidently upset girl check her watch once more, whilst their third roommate - the female prankster - took another snap of the dark sky and the slightly twinkling stars, the shutter sounding in the midst of the fashionista's words.

Briefly lowering her camera so that she was able to check the time on her phone, Sydney Anderson noticed that her fellow blonde was correct and spoke up in agreement with her, informing them, "Yeah, we'd probably only miss the first few minutes at the very most."

"Amber, Sydney, the last thing I want to do is sit there whilst Fabian and Joy hold hands in the dark." Nina Martin argued, which her roommates pair probably should have realised - if they did go and crash the film date between Joy Mercer and Fabian Rutter, the three girls (plus Jerome Clarke, if they went with the plan that Amber Millington had suggested) probably would have had to sit there and watch as the nerd and his date flirted with one another, and that would have simply led to more heartbroken tears from Nina Martin, "I'm just wishing we could go to the tunnel and do the next task."

"I was going to tell you, honestly, and it really was kind of an accident - you know Fabian." The fashionista informed her roommate, defending herself and also trying to assure the poor girl that the date truly wasn't the fault of the ex-boyfriend.

"Yeah, I do, and if he really didn't wanna go, he wouldn't have." Nina argued, deciding to make it seem as though she didn't care about her crush anymore as she attempted (and failed) at a nonchalant shrug before telling her two roommates a complete and utter lie, "Fabian's free and single now - he can date half the girls in school; I really don't mind."

Yeah, a complete and utter lie.

Just as Sydney Anderson was about to argue against her roommate and attempt to force her to tell them her real feelings so that she didn't bottle it all up and suffer more in the end, the door to their shared bedroom burst open and soon enough revealed Alfie Lewis, who rushed into the room with very loud and piercing screams coming out of his mouth. Normally, that would have concerned the female prankster tremendously, and she honestly was a little bit startled at first - that was until she had noticed that the reason why he was screaming was due to the huge metal spider (which he must have stolen from Fabian's room) being on his chest, and he was pretending as though it was attacking him when it really was doing absolutely nothing. As soon as she realised the entire situation was fake, Sydney Anderson lifted her camera up in his direction and snapped a few pictures with her camera, snickering to herself as she watched the entire ordeal unfold.

As it continued to unfold, the situation only became even more hilarious to the female prankster as she watched her fashionista roommate hastily stand up from her seat, yelling the 'victim's' name as she began to hit him repeatedly with her book in order to try to get the metal spider off him. As expected, hitting the boy many times and quite harshly worked, and thus the metal spider was soon dropped to the floor.

"Amber, relax. It was just a joke." Alfie instructed the fashionista.

"Hilarious." She sarcastically responded, clearly not having found the prank as funny as the two pranksters (Sydney and Alfie, the former of which was laughing hysterically as she reviewed the photos that she had taken of the situation) had done.

"Text me next time - I could have recorded the entire thing." Sydney instructed her best friend, still chuckling as she patted him on the shoulder.

Slightly irritated by the prank that had been pulled upon her, the female prankster rolled her eyes at the pair, which then resulted in her eyes landing on the spider that had apparently broken when it had fallen to the floor, "Oh, and now you've broken it."

Instantly, the pair of pranksters had snapped their gaze towards the ginormous spider on the ground to see if it was truly broken due to the impact of it hitting the ground once it had been dropped, and they soon noticed that the metal spider appeared to have opened up - although, perhaps it wasn't as bad as they first thought, because Nina Martin soon dropped to the ground and began to pull three smaller spiders, all of which had different colours upon them (one red, one silver, one yellow), out of the big spider.

"Ew, they're gross and tiny, like spider babies." Amber instantly showed her disgust towards the smaller metal spiders that were being pulled out of the bigger one, which was to be expected due to her completely hating insects - honestly, Sydney Anderson was rather surprised that the fashionista hadn't had a bigger breakdown over the larger spider.

"Guys, the riddle says 'lay her daughters in their home' - well, if the big spider's the mom, then these three little baby spiders could be her daughters." Nina theorised, leaning forward and picking up one of the spiders (the red one, to be specific) from the ground, her arm lowering a tiny bit and causing her to comment, "Wow, they're really heavy."

"The spider's home is its web." Alfie commented.

"So, there's three spiders, three hooks on the web." Nina pointed out to them, clearly figuring something out that soon caused her to excitedly stand up to her feet from where she had sat prior on the ground with a look of determination plastered across her face, "Let's go down to the tunnels right now."

Unfortunately for Nina Martin, the other members of the secret group that were present in the bedroom (all of them but Patricia Williamson and Fabian Rutter) weren't so keen on the idea and that was rather evident when, slowly but surely, Amber Millington hesitantly stood up from where she had sat on the bed, subtly shaking her head at Alfie Lewis and Sydney Anderson - the latter of which soon spoke up, putting her camera down on her table as she sent a wary look to her roommate, asking, "Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"Fabian's our best web-walker." Alfie pointed out, knowing that it was most likely a dangerous move to walk through the webs without their best web-walker and the smartest member of their group, "Shouldn't we wait for him to get back from his date?"

The date between Joy Mercer and Fabian Rutter - the dreaded event that was taking place at that very moment which caused quite a bit of upset for the leader of their secret group, and perhaps that was why she didn't put much more thought into her choice of going down into the cellar as she tried to convince the other members that it was the right thing to do, "There's enough of us to do this without Fabian - we got this; we're Sibuna."

They were Sibuna. They had gotten past deadly situations plenty of times before (all the prior tasks, plus dealing with Rufus Zeno). However, that didn't mean that each and every single one of them were always going to be invincible and be able to constantly defy death - they still had be careful about what steps they took when entering dangerous territory, or - to be more specific - how they weaved through the webs ahead of them. That was why the members of the group were still rather hesitant and wary of the impulsive and rash decision being made by their leader, but there seemed to be no way for them to go against her word as she raised her hand to cover her eye - the sign that they had to do it.

Thus, they all soon began to cave and follow her actions, with Amber Millington being the first of the three to follow her actions by raising her hand to cover her eye, and then it was Alfie Lewis who did the exact same. The only person left was Sydney Anderson, though she showed no sign of moving as she looked worriedly towards her leader.

One more attempt - she made one more attempt at trying to get her roommate to change her mind and think more rationally about the situation that she was putting the members in, speaking up and voicing her opinion, "Nina, I'm not sure this is a good idea."

"Sibuna, Sydney." Nina responded, her tone sounding slightly forceful as she refused to listen to her fellow members and re-think her dangerous decision, and thus, Sydney reluctantly lifted her hand to cover her eye, telling them that she was in with their plan despite the terrible feeling that she had in her gut about the situation - Nina Martin, however, was rather delighted at them finally agreeing to the plan and felt rather determined, "Let's show these spiders what Sibuna are made of."

Sydney should have listened to her gut.

Their last hope laid in the final member (of who was present in Anubis House) of their secret group, which led to the four members searching around the house for Patricia Williamson until they eventually caught sight of her storming out of the living room, with Amber Millington calling her name in order to catch her attention, "Patricia!"

"What?" Patricia snapped, clearly not in the mood for pleasant conversations and seeming rather irritated by... everything and everyone, for some reason that none of them knew.

"We're going down to the tunnels." Nina informed the purple-haired member, hoping that she wouldn't be as reluctant to agree to the plan as the other three members were as she explained the reasoning behind the trip, "We've figured out what the clue means."

"Nina doesn't want to wait for Fabian, which I totally understand and support." Amber stated, wanting to seem comforting and supportive towards her roommate - however, the act soon dropped as she snapped her head towards their last hope with a completely petrified expression plastered across her face, "Please tell her she's crazy!"

Evidently not a fan of the rather risky and somewhat stupid idea that their leader refused to let go of, Alfie had his arms crossed across his chest before he released a heavy sigh and attempted to get the purple-haired member of the group to agree with them in order to perhaps make their leader see sense, "Look, it's too risky - right, Trixie?"

For some reason, Patricia waited a few moments to respond to the boy as her gaze drifted into the living room, lingering there for a few moments and thus peaking the curiosity inside of Sydney Anderson, who took a small glance and noticed that Eddie Miller was sitting in the living room with his eyes glued upon the small group - apparently, looking at Eddie had allowed for the purple-haired member to make her decision as she replied (quite loudly, may it be added), "No, I'm not chicken! Let's do it!"

And, whilst Nina Martin was happy about the answer that the final hope had provided the group with, Sydney Anderson most certainly wasn't as she let out a rather heavy sigh, mumbling mainly to herself, "Oh, we have a death wish."

Regardless of whether or not the trip into the tunnels was a death wish, both Nina Martin and Patricia Williamson were determined to go ahead with it whilst the other three members reluctantly followed, which was how the five members ended up in front of the spider web task once more. Honestly, there was a part of Sydney Anderson that was hopeful that the leader of the secret group would back down on her plan as soon as she laid her eyes on the dangerous web once more, but Nina Martin showed no sign of that.

"Okay, we've got our spiders - let's match them up with the hooks." Instead of giving up, Nina Martin was choosing to go ahead as she spoke mainly to Sydney Anderson and Alfie Lewis - the trio were the best web-walkers of the group, obviously not including Fabian Rutter due to the lack of his presence, so they were the ones that were weaving through the webs in order to put the baby spiders onto the hooks that they matched with.

"Is nobody else concerned about the part of the riddle that says 'the scarlet thread may spell your doom'? That seems like something that we should be pretty concerned about." Sydney reminded them, wanting to know what everybody else's opinion was about the reference to danger that was included in the riddle - although, Nina Martin apparently didn't care in the slightest about that part, considering she had already began weaving through the webs to get to the hook that matched with the baby spider in her hand.

"You'd think." Alfie muttered, glancing around to try and gauge the opinions that the other members had about the threatening phrase in the riddle, before eventually giving up as nobody responded to him, "No, it's just us concerned about that? Great."

"Come on, you two." Nina encouraged, briefly stopping in her web-weaving to glance back at the pair as she told them, "Let's just do it. We're with you both all the way."

Fear. The emotion of fear and a sense of dread was rumbling deep in the stomach of Sydney Anderson, creating a pit within her that forced her to pay attention to it. Something was wrong, and she knew that - her body knew that. The dread inside of her was attempting to take control of her body, pushing against her and trying to force her to turn back around and retrace her steps back to safety, back to where she was above ground - and, honestly, Sydney Anderson would have been more than willing to follow through with that idea and to give into the dread that was attempting to control her. After all, she wasn't dumb - she knew that the group weren't meant to be doing the task without their best web-walker, and that the choice to do it was stupid and impulsive. Something was going to go wrong, but there was no going against Nina Martin. The American was extremely determined and had her mind set on completing the task and showing that they didn't need Fabian Rutter; she didn't need Fabian Rutter.

Knowing that there was no backing out now, despite how much they wanted to, both Sydney Anderson and Alfie Lewis shared a cautious glance with one another before they went to their respective areas - opposite sides of the rooms - and began to weave through the different colour webs ahead of them in an attempt to get to the hooks that they were meant to match up to the spider that they had in their hands. Each time they weaved past another web, they managed to get even further away from another with their separation being further emphasised by the assortment of webs that were in between them. However, their focus wasn't on each other - it was on the hooks and how to get to them, and Sydney Anderson eventually found herself stuck, glancing around in all directions as she wondered where she was meant to go next and which way would be her best choice.

"Silver thread, Sydney!" Patricia Williamson suddenly warned, causing the female prankster to glance towards her leg as she noticed that, due to her whizzing around in an attempt to find the best path to weave through, her leg had become worryingly close to one of the silver threads and she had almost been stung, "You don't want to get stung!"

Taking the warning into consideration, the female prankster nodded in agreement before her calculating eyes glanced around once more in search for the best path to take. Fortunately for her, she eventually found it and went to weave through it - her relief at actually finding a path must have caused her carelessness, as she forgot to pay attention to her left hand and where it was heading - the yellow thread.

The fear came first.

Once she felt her hand come into contact with a thread, a small yelp had left the blonde girl's throat and caught the attention of the rest of her group members, who released a small gasp and snapped their heads towards her - Sydney was pretty sure that she heard Alfie cry out for her, clearly petrified for his best friend as he watched her cautiously, though she was more focused on the thread that she was hit and the fear coursing through her body. Perhaps the yelp that she had let out was what allowed the fear to get into her body, because the next thing that she knew, the fear had slipped through her veins like ice - a cold thrill suddenly rushing through her at a speed that seemed impossible to reach as her body simply halted, all movements ceasing apart from her widened eyes, which travelled over to see which thread she had hit. It was a yellow thread, an unknown. Unlike the silver thread, they didn't know what it caused, and that managed to petrify her more.

Yet, other than the panic rushing through her, there seemed to be nothing different, or no consequence for hitting the yellow thread. Unless her fear had covered it up, the female prankster was almost certain she had felt absolutely no pain when she had touched the thread, so she was almost certain it hadn't stung her. However, it seemed too good to be true - there had to be a consequence, and though she frantically looked around her as she attempted to figure out what exactly that consequence was.

"Syd..." Alfie murmured worriedly, his cautious eyes locked upon her as he tried to figure out why she was frantically looking around and what the thread did to her.

"What is it?" Nina asked, the panic in her voice clear as she began to wonder whether she made a mistake by impulsively coming down to the tunnels - Sydney had been against it.

However, Sydney Anderson couldn't really answer the question that she had been asked. The yellow string did... nothing.

Due to how odd it seemed that the thread would cause absolutely no harm to come to her, the female prankster waited a few more seconds to be absolutely sure of her answer, before a grin worked its way onto her lips and she eventually reported back to the members of the secret group, "It's okay. I'm okay. The yellow ones-."

The dizziness came next.

Honestly, Sydney could have sworn that she was absolutely and completely fine, but then it had suddenly hit her in the midst of her speech and forced her to cut herself off as she began to see double of the dangerous threads and she suddenly felt... warm, really warm. Was that the consequence? Was the consequence that the amount of webs doubled? Contrasting the freezing ice she had felt slipping through her veins due to her fear, it suddenly felt like fire was seeping through her body as she began to feel burning. Of course, she knew that wasn't normal - they were in England, and they never had heat. That was when she realised that it was the yellow thread - she was facing the consequence of hitting the yellow thread, and it was making her feel... weird.

"T-The yellow ones..." The prankster attempted to speak once more, stammering and slurring over her repeated words until she felt like she was about to throw up, forcing her words to come to an end whilst she stumbled back slightly - fortunately for her, she didn't hit another thread, but had been ridiculously close to doing so.

The headache came next.

Then, the ringing in her ears.

Then, the odd sightings.

The flashes of light.

The out of body experiences.

The random screeches.

Something was wrong.

"I feel-." Sydney managed to mumble out whilst she lifted her hand to rub her forehead, hoping that the small action was enough to soothe the throbbing headache that she felt whilst she wondered if one of the threads just suddenly jumped towards her, because she could have sworn that she saw one of them suddenly flash in her eyes, forcing her to blink a few times to try to sort out her vision before she continued to try to speak to her fellow members, informing them, "I feel weird."

Once more, the threads rushed towards her - or, at least, she thought they were, despite them remaining completely and utterly still in reality. However, Sydney Anderson was almost certain that the different colour threads were coming towards her with the intent to harm, and that was emphasised by the frightening flashing lights and the sounds of screeches sounding out loudly in her ears - it was dangerous. She had to fight back, right? She couldn't let herself just be attacked by the threads, and perhaps that was why she began to throw her hands and arms at them, feeling a random sting hit her arm as, unknowingly to her, she hit the silver wire.

"Sydney?!" The sounds of Alfie and Amber calling out for their friend in a panicked tone mixed together, and the female prankster was barely able to make it out through the ringing screams vibrating in her ears alongside the thumping of her own heart.

She was able to feel the sweat beginning to drench her skin, though whether it was from the fear or how hot she actually felt, she didn't know. She was able to feel the throbbing of her own eyes as they blinked furiously against the rapidly flashing lights that kept burning into her retina. Her fingers were curled tightly into a fist as she raised them up in front of her to protect herself, her nails sharply digging into her palm so harsh that blood was drawn - yet, that was only a small bit of pain that mixed in with the rest of the pain that she was undergoing from the stings of the threads around her. Due to the rest of the noise that she felt as though she was drowning in, she wasn't able to hear her breathing suddenly picking up and becoming rapid, but she was able to feel the oxygen flooding in and out of her lungs as she desperately strived to achieve more air. Fear overwhelmed her poor body, making it drastically exhausted extremely quickly as she continued to try to fight the air (or, what she thought was threads coming to attack her). Fear tortured her guts, churning her stomach in tense cramps. Fear engulfed her conscience, knocking all other thoughts aside - perhaps that was why she was so frantic, and why she didn't think that she was hallucinating and simply causing more damage to herself by flailing around.

Flailing around was exactly what Sydney Anderson was doing, throwing her arms around aimlessly as she attempted to stop the different colour threads from attacking her - in reality, nothing was coming towards her, and she was only doing herself more harm as she hit a few more silver threads, forcing a screech to elicit from her throat as she cried out desperately towards her friends, "Help me! They're coming for me!"

"Sydney!" Alfie cried out, blinking away the tears that had formed in his eyes as he watched his best friend struggle and cause more harm to herself, and he simply couldn't stand there and do nothing anymore, so he soon found himself beginning to weave through the wes in an attempt to reach his best friend to save her - however, it was unlikely that Alfie Lewis was going to get there in time due to how far apart the pair were; they were on opposite ends of the room, and they had a ton of threads separating them.

"She's going to hit a red one!" Amber alerted them, her voice merely sounding muffled to the female prankster - however, it was a sharp sound to the rest of the members who were watching and it caused them to panic more as they looked at exactly what the fashionista was talking about - her head was practically centimeters away from the red thread.

The scarlet thread.

'The scarlet thread may spell your doom' - that was what the riddle had said, though none of them had expected for it to spell out the doom of Sydney Anderson.

Clearly, Sydney Anderson wasn't paying attention to the cause of her death that was slowly but surely creeping up on her from behind, quite literally - the only thing that she seemed to be paying attention to were the flashing lights and the attacks of threads that kept coming towards her as she continued to let out whimpers and cries for help, alongside the occasional panic-ridden screech, "They're coming for me!"

"Move, Nina!" Patricia ordered the American, knowing that she was the only one who had the slightest chance of managing to reach the female prankster in time.

Following the instructions she was given, the leader of the group soon began to weave through the different coloured webs in an attempt to reach the frantic female, whom was still throwing her arms about aimlessly and hitting any and all threads in sight - fortunately, she hadn't hit a red one... yet, "Sydney, keep still!"

"Someone help me!"

"I'm coming, Syd!" Alfie assured the female, unsure if she was actually able to hear him or if his words weren't even managing to get through to her - however, he still had a slither of hope as he worriedly yelled out at her, "Stay still!"

"It must be the yellow one!" Nina concluded as she made her way through the threads, realising that she had become odd a few seconds after being hit by the yellow thread.

"It's making her hallucinate or something!" Amber added, noticing how the prankster kept twitching and throwing her arms out at her like she was trying to protect herself from something - albeit that, the only thing that was in front of her were rather still (until she touched them) threads and the air, which most certainly wasn't trying to attack her.

"I'm stuck! I'm going to have to go back!" Alfie informed them, soon realising that there was absolutely no way he was able to get through the threads to get to his best friend - if he wanted to get her, he had to go all the way back and then use the exact same path that she did, and there was absolutely no time for that due to how close she was getting to the red thread, which caused the boy to cry out desperately, "Someone get her!"

"Nina, you have to go faster!" Patricia cried out at the American, noticing that the female's head was now dangerously close to the dangerous scarlet thread that signified her doom - if none of them got to her in time, she was going to lose her life.

"I'm trying!" Nina spat out, though she was still nowhere near the female prankster.

"Sydney, no!" Amber screeched, noticing how her roommate was beginning to lean back even further in an attempt to get away from whatever was flashing in front of her eyes - the more she leant back, the closer she was getting to the red thread.

"Someone help me! Help me!"

"Sydney, no! Sydney, stop!" The voice of Fabian Rutter - their best web-walker - soon reached their ears as the boy appeared out of nowhere and rushed down the steps to reach the spider web task, and within an instant he was beginning to weave through the many different webs at an insane pace whilst he instructed, "Don't move, don't move!"

Merely a second before the back of the female prankster's head would have grazed against the red thread behind her, Fabian Rutter had managed to reach her just in time and grabbed her, pulling her back up so that she wasn't leaning back anymore and holding her arms into place so that she didn't hit any more threads - another way to make sure that she didn't hit any more threads was to calm her down, hence why the nerd quickly assured the female prankster that she was okay and safe, "I've got you. I've got you."

"I'm okay..." Sydney breathed out, her thumping heartbeat slowing down from its unnatural rapid pace, and the flashing lights and strange sightings slowly coming to a stop as she took a few deep breaths and came into the real world once more.

She was safe.

"I'm so sorry, Sydney." Nina apologised, the guilt beginning to eat her up as she realised that she had acted impulsively and it was an extremely idiotic mistake to come down into the tunnels without their best web walker - she had acted on her own emotions rather than her logic, despite the protests of her fellow group members/friends, and she almost lost one of her best friends due to that stupid, stupid, stupid error.

"Come on, let's get you out of here." Fabian murmured towards the still slightly worried female that was still in his grasp, slowly directing her through the different webs and making sure that she didn't hit any as he muttered, "Nice and slow, nice and slow."

With the help of Fabian Rutter, Sydney Anderson managed to make it back to safety and out of the ginormous web, with her instantly falling into the arms of both Amber Millington and Alfie Lewis (he had managed to make it back to safety when he was trying to get to Sydney), who had wrapped the girl up in a tight hug as soon as they were able to, whilst they were extremely thankful to the nerd of the group for saving their best friend.

"We said it was dangerous - you should have listened." Alfie frustratedly spat out at Nina, his eyes narrowed and laced with distaste before he put the arm of his best friend around him and began to direct her out of the tunnels, not wanting to be in the room where Sydney Anderson almost lost her life any longer.

Meanwhile, Jerome Clarke had been unable to sleep that night, though he didn't particularly know the reason as to why that was and it was quite bothersome for him. Normally, he never had any trouble sleeping and was able to fall asleep whenever he wanted and wherever he wanted - that night, however, as he lay in his bed and stared up at his bedroom ceiling, there seemed to be absolutely no sign of him being able to fall asleep anytime soon, and he was completely and utterly bored. For some reason that he was unaware of, Alfie Lewis wasn't present in the bedroom either and hadn't returned to the room, despite it being past their ten o'clock curfew, and that meant watching a film with him and/or playing games with him was out of the question.

Releasing a rather heavy sigh, the blonde-haired male glanced over to his bedside table and grabbed his phone from atop of it, switching it on and being blinded by the shining light that emitted from it. After adjusting to the sudden light, the boy glanced at his phone once more and set his sights upon his lockscreen, causing a soft smile to worm its way onto his face; his lockscreen always made him smile and gave him a sense of comfort. It was a picture of him and Sydney Anderson, of course. The two of them were laying in the exact bed that he was laying in at that exact moment, cuddled up together and their arms wrapped around one another as they just enjoyed each other's presence.

He enjoyed that.

Then, a weird sense of dread kicked in for seemingly no reason at all, and the goofy but adoring smile that had worked itself upon his lips had soon fallen - something was wrong, though he wasn't sure of what it was. Knots were tying themselves in his stomach whilst his brain began to work overtime, thoughts scrambling around as he tried to figure out what had caused him to become so panicked all of a sudden. Little did he know that Sydney Anderson was merely centimetres from her death at that point in time.

Suddenly, it vanished. The weight upon his shoulder suddenly lifted, as though there had been absolutely nothing wrong with him whatsoever. It was a little peculiar, but the boy thought nothing of it after a few moments and nonchalantly shrugged, tucking himself back into bed as he wondered if he was able to actually fall asleep now.

And, just as the boy was about to drift away, the sounds of his bedroom door opening and two pairs of footsteps entering the bedroom rang in his ears and caused the blonde-haired male to release a loud groan before he opened his eyes to check who had entered his bedroom - yet, his tired eyes became much more awake in a flash, widening with shock when he laid his eyes upon his childhood best friend who seemed completely and utterly out of it.

Without a second thought, Jerome ripped his bed covers off him and rushed towards Sydney, taking her into his arms whilst he glanced towards his roommate whom she had entered with, inquiring worriedly, "What happened?"

"Uh, she-." Alfie began to respond, cutting himself off as he didn't necessarily have an excuse planned - plus, he felt absolutely terrible about lying to his roommate due to how concerned the blonde-haired boy was; Sydney and him were incredibly close to the point where no other relationship and/or connection came close to them, and the boy deserved to know the truth about why she was so off, but Alfie knew that he wasn't able to tell the boy, which resulted in him providing the prankster some dumb excuse, "She fell."

"Syd? Syd, are you okay?" Jerome asked worriedly, getting a small groan in response whilst the blonde-haired boy gently directed her towards his bed and helped her to lie down on it, before he noticed the many marks on her arm that had appeared due to the silver threads hitting her and stinging her and his eyebrows instantly furrowed, motioning towards the many marks that littered her arms so that Alfie knew what he was referencing as he inquired, "What are these from?"

"Amber's straighteners!" Alfie lied, knowing that he couldn't exactly say that they were spider bites from weird threads in the tunnel, and quickly coming up with the best excuse that he was possibly able to, "Syd walked into them whilst Amber was doing her hair."

"More than once?" Jerome questioned, clearly suspicious of the entire situation as his roommate was a terrible liar and the entire excuse seemed a bit odd - he knew that Sydney was clumsy, but she wasn't that clumsy to walk into straighteners more than three times; although, he eventually gave up as he decided to just look after his childhood best friend and make sure that she was okay, shaking his head as he got into the bed beside her, rubbing her arm comfortingly as he told her, "Okay, come on, let's get some rest."

And, just like the picture that was his lockscreen, Sydney Anderson and Jerome Clarke fell asleep with their arms tightly wrapped around one another, making the other person feel better and safer simply by their presence. It was as though it was their little safety blanket against the world, and there was no place that the other person would have rather been in that moment.

Perhaps the cuddles that Jerome Clarke provided had secret healing powers, because Sydney Anderson felt perfectly fine the next day, as though anything that happened the night before never actually happened. Honestly, the female prankster wondered if some of the effects of the yellow thread were still affecting her, because she actually found herself enjoying science for once, and that had never happened to her once before in her life unless she was pulling a prank on their poor head teacher in that lesson, which she hasn't set out to do. Instead, she had spent the lesson beside both Alfie Lewis and Jerome Clarke (Mr Sweet had given up trying to separate the pranksters - Sydney was a nuisance regardless of who she was next to, and she always found a way to talk to her two best friends no matter how far away she was from the pair), and she was not paying attention to a single word that was coming out of the mouth of her teacher. Instead, she was much more focused on the notes that were being passed back and forth between her and Jerome, with them creating little doodles for the other and sending them towards one another every few minutes when the teacher wasn't looking.

Once Mr Sweet turned around to face his whiteboard, a slip of paper was pushed towards the female prankster from her childhood best friend, and that action alone was enough for a hint of a smile to appear on her lips and she soon put it on her notebook, pretending as though it was part of her work as she quickly opened it up and looked at the doodle, the small smile that she had transforming into a wide goofy smile that was matched with a faint giggle, which also mirrored the expressions/actions of Jerome Clarke as he watched her - meanwhile, Alfie Lewis watched the pair with an exasperated but slightly amused expression on his face, mumbling something under his breath that went along the lines of, "And you say you don't love one another."

Just as Sydney Anderson was about to rip a piece of paper out of her notebook and create another doodle to pass back to the boy, the sound of banging caught her attention and caused her to snap her head towards the source, soon landing her eyes on Patricia Williamson, who was using the legs of a plastic skeleton and clattering them on her desk, which resulted in Mr Sweet quickly scolding her and forcing her to come to a stop.

Thinking that was all over, Sydney Anderson went back to her doodle and quickly created a small but adorable cat that had hearts all around it, before she folded the piece of paper up and slid it over to her childhood best friend. Yet, before the blonde-haired boy was able to open up the piece of paper and look at the doodle, the sight of Eddie Miller standing up from his seat caught the attention of the two pranksters (plus Alfie), and they watched him attentively as he went towards the model of the musculature of the human body and took out the plastic eye, before he sneakily approached Mr Sweet's desk and dropped it into the science teacher's tea, grinning to himself before he went back to his seat as though nothing ever happened. Of course, Sydney gave him a thumbs up.

"Whatever is happening, I want in." The female prankster muttered to her partners in the class, causing the two of them to giggle slightly whilst they watched the apparent prank war that was occurring between Patricia Williamson and Eddie Miller, the pair of them having a few words with one another before another prank was put in action.

Taking a bottle from her lab table, Patricia wasted no time in opening it and purposely pouring the contents of it on the floor beside her, calling out, "Oops!"

"Ugh, a little more care, girls!" Mr Sweet chastised, standing up from his desk and quickly going towards the desk that the purple-haired female shared with both Joy Mercer and Mara Jaffray in order to help them clean up the mess that had been created.

And, whilst the head teacher was distracted with cleaning up the mess of powder that was on the floor, Patricia Williamson took that opportunity to walk towards the desk at the front of the room and took apart the biscuit that had been resting on the saucer by Mr Sweet's tea, before she grabbed something slimy, green, and most certainly disgusting out of a fish bowl and placed it in between the two pieces of biscuit, before she set it down as though nothing was wrong with it and then walked back towards her seat, sharing a small high five for such a great prank with Sydney Anderson as she passed by.

"Oh, I love this!" Sydney declared, extremely giddy as she was practically bouncing in her seat due to her excitement at the pranks being pulled in the classroom, "Patricia and Eddie would make a cute couple if they actually realised their feelings for one another."

"Oh yeah, why's that?" Jerome inquired curiously, briefly glancing over to the couple mentioned before he turned his attention back to his childhood best friend.

"Well, you can see the chemistry from a mile away." Sydney pointed out, noticing the way that the pair were looking at one another, before she then added onto her statement, "Plus, couples who prank together stay together."

"And, who else does that sound like, I wonder?" Alfie muttered, his words causing both Sydney and Jerome to glance over at him with a weird expression as they wondered what he was on about - although, that caused the poor boy to release a heavy sigh as he looked at them incredulously, "Neither of you, really? Do I have to make it anymore obvious?"

The answer was yes.

"Who else pulls pranks together?" Alfie inquired, trying to make the pair see what literally everybody else was able to see from hundreds of miles away as he cried out, "You two!" The pair of blondes sighed, now realising exactly what their best friend was doing - yet, he still continued in an attempt to prove his point and make their prankster pairing realise they were perfect for one another in every way and absolutely destined to be together, "Who else has chemistry that everyone else can see from a mile away? You two! Who should date already so that I can yell 'I told you so' at them? You two!"

"Oh, look, he's going to notice." Sydney announced happily, managing to change the topic as she excitedly tapped her childhood best friend's shoulder, the two of them watching eagerly as the head teacher made his way towards his desk, where his cup of tea and biscuit lay - meanwhile, Jerome's eyes drifted towards the female prankster, noticing how her face had lit up by the prank being carried out and how she was softly giggling at it all, and he couldn't help but to smile himself due to how adorable it was.

That very small but important action wasn't missed by Alfie Lewis, who threw his arms into the air exasperatedly before he decided to turn his attention to Mr Sweet, wanting to see how the two pranks that had been pulled on him were going to pan out.

As expected, the head teacher picked up the saucer that carried both his tea and the biscuit, but he opted to have the latter of the pair first as he picked up and went to eat it, murmuring a very small but still audible, "Yum yum."

Yeah, it wasn't as yummy as the head teacher expected it to be, and that soon became apparent when he let out a screech and dropped the biscuit onto the ground upon noticing that it had green slime in the middle of it. Oh, it was absolutely hilarious, and the class burst out into fits of laughter at the prank that had been pulled.

The one person who wasn't laughing was the teacher, who soon turned to the class in the midst of their loud laughter in an attempt to figure out who had pulled the prank on him - of course, he accused the usual culprit of the many pranks he was a victim of first, inquiring, "Sydney, was that you?"

"Oh, I wish it was, sir." Sydney managed to wheeze out through her laughter, being truthful as she told the teacher, "For once, it wasn't me."

"I can vouch for her, sir." Jerome supported his childhood best friend, chuckles mixing in with his words as he was still trying to get over watching the entire prank unfold.

"Next time, though-." The female prankster began, though her words were soon cut off as her childhood best friend lightly kicked her from underneath the table in an attempt to stop her from getting into more trouble, causing her to bite her lip in order to restrain herself before she took back her prior words, telling the older man, "Nevermind."

"Patricia, was it you?" Mr Sweet continued his accusations, recalling that the purple-haired girl had the opportunity to sneak past him when he had been cleaning up the mess that she had created with the powder that had spilt upon the floor.

"Guilty." Patricia confirmed.

"Well, you're in real trouble. You see me after class." Mr Sweet ordered, causing the purple-haired female to mockingly salute him as the head teacher turned back towards his desk and picked up his tea, clearly not suspecting that his drink had also been messed with - yeah, he clearly thought very, very, very wrong.

Knowing that the head teacher's assumption that nobody messed with his tea was very wrong, the class watched with anticipation for the realisation to fall onto the head teacher's face, and in the process, Sydney had leaned towards her childhood best friend, their shoulder brushing together and the sides of their heads almost touching as she informed him through small chuckles, "Here comes funny."

As if it was queued up, another screech ripped from the throat of the poor head teacher as he noticed the eyeball casually floating in his tea, and that caused the male to quickly drop his mug to the ground, the tea spilling absolutely everywhere over the floor whilst the entire class burst out into laughter once more - oh, it was totally the best science lesson that they had ever had, and Sydney Anderson hadn't even had to pull any pranks herself; what a delight.

Delighted she was, and that much was evident due to her probably laughing the loudest out of everyone in the classroom, exclaiming through her fits of laughter, "There's funny!"

"Sydney!" Mr Sweet accused once more, snapping his head towards the blonde-haired prankster that was known for pulling many pranks upon the head teacher in order to make science lessons less boring for herself - of course he was going to suspect it was her.

"I know I said next time, but I meant the time after this one." Sydney clarified, confirming that it wasn't her once again (though, she did kind of wish that she was the cause of the pranks being pulled due to how hilarious the pranks were), and that led to the head teacher accusing the same person who had ruined his biscuit merely a few moments ago.

"Patricia?"

"Ah, that was me." Eddie admitted, saving the purple-haired girl from defending herself against the accusation whilst the boy raised a finger in the air to bring the attention towards himself, sitting in his lab seat with a cocky smile plastered upon his lips.

"Well, don't let me catch you misusing school apparatus again, is that clear?" Mr Sweet told him, his demeanour having totally changed upon realising that it wasn't whom he suspected that pulled the prank, and thus he had hardly given the boy a punishment - now, Sydney had gotten off for her pranks many of times, but she had been called to his office at the very least - but, that wasn't all that Mr Sweet had to say, as he soon turned towards the purple-haired member of his class "And, as for you, Miss Williamson, I'm getting rather tired of you leading new students astray. You will copy down that periodic table one hundred times before tomorrow - perhaps you will learn some respect for the sciences."

Okay, that was more like the punishment that Sydney Anderson had been expecting, but she did find it odd that it had only been given to Patricia Williamson rather than to both the purple-haired member and Eddie Miller. Apparently, the rest of the class had also been confused by the discrepancies in punishment, with all of them having a flabbergasted expression plastered across their faces. It was safe to say that Edison Miller was extremely lucky, or perhaps there was more to it that met the eye.

"Surprised you got away with so much, Edison." Sydney Anderson commented to the apparently 'lucky' boy himself, Eddie Miller, once the science class had finished and everyone had began packing their belongings away into their bags and leaving the room, "I get away with quite a lot with Sweetie - he's used to me pranking him by now, but I'd at least get a meeting in his office and a lecture about the rules."

"Guess I got lucky." Eddie Miller responded, his tone seeming quite suspicious and odd as his eyes briefly drifted over towards the science teacher - Sydney's eyebrows furrowed, but she decided not to interrogate the boy for much longer.

"Maybe." Sydney agreed, feeling an arm being put around her shoulders and already knowing that it belonged to her childhood best friend (he had waited for her, because the trio of pranksters had plans for their break), causing her to glance back and smile up at him before she turned back to face the boy that she had been talking to prior, informing him, "But, hey, that was the best science lesson I've had in months."

But, soon enough, the pranksters had to leave the science classroom in order to carry out the plans that they had organised already, and that was exactly what led to Alfie Lewis, Sydney Anderson, and Jerome Clarke being in the Frobisher Library during their break from lessons (yes, Sydney Anderson was in a library just for Jerome Clarke, once again), and the trio of pranksters rummaged through the many books that were held inside of it, searching for anything that spoke about sports and/or the Frobisher Shield.

"Dude, here it is!" Alfie called out after they had spent many agonising minutes flicking through all different types of books in search for what they were looking for - at his call, the other two pranksters rushed over to the boy in order to look at the book that he had found, "The school sporting record!"

Taking it out of his roommate's hands, Jerome didn't waste a second in flicking through the many pages of the book in an attempt to find what he wanted, muttering the words 'Frobisher Shield' over and over again until he found the page he desired, soon finding a grayscale picture that showed the Frobisher Shield being held by (presumably) two prior students of Amun Academy, and the blonde-haired male who desperately wanted to hold the Frobisher Shield in his own hands soon began to read the page out loud to his friends, "The jubilant champions holding the winners' shield, which was donated to the school by Sarah Frobisher-Smythe in honour of her father Robert; a key ping-pong enthusiast."

"You know, I know many things about Robert Frobisher-Smythe, but did not know he enjoyed ping-pong." Sydney commented, finding the fun fact about the man rather interesting - perhaps she'd be able to use it in order to pretend that she was smarter than Fabian Rutter (whom she had also thanked profusely that morning for saving her from dying, though the pair had then somehow managed to get into a debate about whether people should wear helmets on bikes or not again).

"So..." Alfie murmured, trying to think about ways that they'd be able to get the Frobisher Shield back so that the blonde-haired boy was able to put the gem back into it and therefore be able to finish the mission that his father had given him, "Charming and scamming are out, then. You might have to win it back fair and square."

"Fair and square - that's a thing, right?" Jerome quizzed.

"It's a thing." Sydney assured him, letting out a mildly amused chuckle at the boy's statement as he was never the type of person to do things in a 'fair and square' manner.

"That's fine." The male prankster responded, though it seemed as though he was trying to convince himself of that due to the wary look on his face, "I never really got it."

Letting out a small laugh, Alfie patted his roommate on the shoulder before he walked a little bit further away, wondering if there were any books in the library about who had the Frobisher Shield at that moment and how they were able to win back the Frobisher Shield. Thus, that left Sydney Anderson and Jerome Clarke together, with the former of the pair glancing towards the boy with a small smile on her lips.

"You might not get 'fair and square' now, but you will." Sydney assured him, being absolutely confident in his abilities to learn how to win something back 'fair and square' - he never gave up on anything, and he wasn't going to start at that moment just because he couldn't scam his way to a shield, "I know you, and I know that you'll be a master of 'fair and square' probably by the end of today. Come on, let me teach you the ropes."

Instantly, a smirk fell upon the blonde-haired boy's lips as he gazed down towards the female prankster, his eyebrows furrowing and a rather cheeky expression being plastered across his face as he inquired, "Is that your way of asking me out on a date?"

Confused at where her childhood best friend had received that impression from, Sydney asked quizzically, "What part of that was asking you out on a date?"

"A boy can hope, can he not?" Jerome responded somewhat jokingly, yet those words caused a smirk to fall upon the face of the female prankster that time.

"Oh, so you're hoping that we'll go on a date?" Sydney teased, small giggles leaving her lips as she noticed how the boy's eyes had subtly widened, as though he had been caught out, and then he began to stammer over his words as he tried to think of an excuse.

Despite his thinking, he still somehow managed to provide the female prankster with the worst excuse possible as he straightened his posture and claimed, "I never said that."

Amusedly shaking her head at his antics, Sydney's smile continued to grow on her lips whilst she attempted to get the boy to confess to what he had just said, staying adamant to her word as she told the boy, "I think you'll find that you just did."

"Nope." Jerome denied, shaking his head.

Deciding that there was absolutely no point in arguing with him as they would have simply gone back and forth, the female prankster opted to simply give him the look which screamed 'really?', her eyebrows raised and everything, and that soon caused the pair to burst into laughter whilst wide and goofy smiles were on their faces.

Looping her arm with his, the female prankster soon decided to get a move on with winning back the shield that the boy so desperately desired, telling the boy about their next moves as she stated, "Come on, we have to go and find Mr Sweet."

"We're having a double date with Sweetie now?" Jerome jokingly questioned, small chuckles mixing in with his words whilst he shook his head at the dumb idea, declaring, "May have to pass."

Giggling somewhat herself, Sydney wasted no time in slightly and gently shoving the boy and thus causing more laughter to erupt from him whilst she denied his claims and cried out, "Shut up! We need to find him to ask about the Frobisher Shield."

"You're going to willingly talk to Sweetie?" Jerome asked, one of his eyebrows quirked up as everyone knew that the female prankster hardly wanted to be in the same room as Mr Sweet and usually avoided the head teacher as much as she was possibly able to.

"This means a lot to you, right?" Sydney inquired, already knowing that it did - as expected, he nodded, "Then yeah, I'm going to willingly talk to Mr Sweet."

Following through with the impromptu plan that they had created (plus, having Alfie Lewis tag along with them), it was only a few minutes later when the trio of pranksters had found themselves rushing through the school corridors in an attempt to find and speak to their head teacher, hoping that he was in a better mood than he had been in the science lesson when he had been relentlessly pranked. Fortunately, the trio soon caught sight of the older man and frantically called his name as he began to unlock the door to his office, hoping that they were able to catch his attention and that he wouldn't go into his office.

"Ah, Lewis, Anderson, and Clarke, excellent." Mr Sweet commented, sounding a little bit sarcastic with the compliment, but thankfully not ignoring them and not entering his office as he turned towards the three students, "And, what can I do for you?"

"It's about the Frobisher Shield." Jerome Clarke informed the older man, mustering the most serious tone and dedicated expression that he was possibly able to do so as he declared honestly, "I want to win it back."

"The Frobisher Shield isn't a joke." Mr Sweet told them, clearly not believing that the trio wanted to win the esteemed trophy back for the right reasons and that it was somehow a plot for another one of their many schemes, either against him or the entire school.

"He's not joking." Sydney assured the man, sounding just as serious as her childhood best friend whose hand she was holding tightly - however, she wasn't necessarily sure if her words were exactly trustworthy to the head teacher after how many times she had lied to him and pranked him in the past few years, "We're not joking. We want to win it back."

"If we could actually win it back, why then the school could be truly great once more." Mr Sweet stated, clearly thinking about the amazing trophy for a few moments before he turned towards his office once more, "And, greatness is no laughing matter."

Obviously, he still thought that they were joking.

"Check out his serious face, Mr Sweet - see?" Alfie tried to convince the older man, stopping him from unlocking the office door whilst the boy motioned towards Jerome's face, where an expression of complete and utter seriousness lay - he was being truthful about wanting to win back the Frobisher Shield, "It's serious, seriously."

"If you really mean this, then I'll make arrangements." Mr Sweet informed them, clearly having changed his attitude upon seeing how determined the blonde-haired boy seemed about getting back the trophy - however, he did have to warn them about the stakes, "But, once you begin on this, the hopes of the entire school will be riding on this match."

And with that being said, the head teacher went into his office for a few moments, leaving the trio of pranksters outside of it as they glanced at one another nervously, feeling a huge weight upon their shoulders whilst Jerome Clarke soon commented, "No pressure then."

Only a few seconds later did the head teacher come back out of his office, now with ping pong paddles tightly in his hands - one of which he passed over to Jerome Clarke, before he glanced over towards the blonde boy's best friends that stood beside him and announced to them, "And, uh, one of you two will be needing this - the Frobisher Shield is for ping pong doubles."

Knowing that Alfie Lewis was probably more than excited to play ping pong alongside his best friend, plus being completely aware that she hated exercise, Sydney Anderson stepped aside and allowed the second male out of the trio to take the ping pong paddle, meaning that it was Alfie Lewis and Jerome Clarke competing in ping pong to win back the Frobisher Shield. Once that was settled, Mr Sweet went back into his office whilst the three pranksters looked at one another with wide smiles - they were on track to getting back the shield and being able to complete the quest that Jerome Clarke had.

"Jerome and Alfie: ping pong partners in crime!" Jerome Clarke exclaimed excitedly, grinning widely before he looked over at his trustworthy and reliable best friend and quizzed, "Who else am I gonna trust with something like this?"

Over the moon with how everything had panned out, the two boys did their small handshake that led into a 'bro hug' whilst they laughed with one another, Sydney Anderson watching the two with a big grin on her lips - they were absolute dorks, but she loved both of them so much and she was beyond glad that they were happy.

Pretending to take offense to the blonde boy's statement (though, the smile on her face showed that she really wasn't offended), Sydney pressed her hand to her chest once the pair broke away from their hug and asked, "Do I take offense to that, or not?"

Yeah, it was obvious that she was joking, hence why the male prankster rolled his eyes at his childhood best friend before he slung his arm around her shoulder and informed her, "I'd trust you with it too, if you didn't hate exercise."

"Come on, you two need to begin practice whilst I sit there and take photos." Sydney encouraged them, knowing that they weren't exactly the best at ping pong and thus had to practice as much as they were possibly able to before the big match - plus, it was a good opportunity for the female prankster to take some cool photos of the ping pong ball zooming through the air, and the pair were probably going to make some funny faces too.

"Oh yes, you can be our own personal photographer! It'll be like we're celebrities!" Alfie giddily cheered, practically bouncing up and down whilst the trio laughed, making their way down the corridor as they attempted to find a room to practice ping pong.

Later that night, the members of the secret group had found themselves back in the tunnels once more and facing the spider-web task once more, though they had Fabian Rutter alongside them that night and felt much more confident than they had done the previous night. Believe it or not, the different coloured threads didn't necessarily bring back great memories for Sydney Anderson, and she found herself wishing that they completed the task sooner so that they were able to get out of the dreaded room. Apparently, she wasn't the only person who had bad memories of the room, as Alfie Lewis had refused to let Sydney Anderson go through the webs again after what had happened last time, and that was exactly why it was Alfie Lewis, Fabian Rutter, and Nina Martin weaving through the webs in order to reach the hooks where they presumed they were meant to put the different baby spiders onto it.

"Lay her daughters in their home." Alfie recited the riddle that had been inscribed onto the humongous metal spider, and in the process, he slipped the baby spider that he held in his hands onto the hook, causing a rumbling noise to sound out throughout the tunnels.

Typically, those noises occurred in the tunnels when the members of the group were either doing something terribly wrong or extremely right, and there was usually no way of knowing until it was almost too late. So, after glancing around the room hesitantly, Nina Martin followed in the footsteps of her fellow group member and slid the baby spider that she had in her own hands onto the hook next to her, causing more sounds of rumbling to echo throughout the tunnels, with it sounding even louder than it had done prior.

"What happens when they're all done?" Fabian Rutter inquired warily, with him having the final spider in his hands - he had lifted it right beside the hook, though had yet to actually put it on, and it was obvious that he was worried about what was going to happen once they had finally put all of the baby spiders onto their presumably designated areas.

However, they hadn't figured out what occurred once they put the spiders onto the hooks, and they had been provided with no clue as to what to expect afterwards from the riddle, so Nina Martin seemed rather hesitant before she advised, "Let's just all be ready."

Nodding in agreement with her words, the members of the group watched as Fabian Rutter placed the final baby spider onto the hook that was beside him, causing more rumbling to occur throughout the tunnel and the loud noises bounced off the walls surrounding them. In the meantime, the students instantly looked around the room for any sign as to what they had caused, soon finding that the back wall was beginning to open up to reveal a new room - they had completed the task; it had worked.

"You did it!" Sydney Anderson exclaimed happily as she shared a high-five with both Amber Millington and Patricia Williamson, as all three of them were on the side of safety and weren't in the midst of the web of threads.

"Way to go!" Amber Millington added excitedly, pleased with the result of the task - however, it appeared that the pair of blondes spoke way too soon.

Unexpectedly, the passageway began to shut once more and all of their faces dropped as they realised that there was absolutely no way that they were making it through to see the other side - the closest person to it was Nina Martin, and she'd probably only just be able to make it through if she rushed through the webs. Apparently, the American female had that same thought as well, although she was determined to take her chances as she soon ducked and began to weave through the webs towards the closing passageway.

"No, Nina, don't!" Fabian warned her, knowing that anything could have been behind that passageway and that they had to face it as a group rather than alone, and his words or warning caused her to halt in her tracks as she turned to face the boy.

Yet, Nina was still adamant to pass through into the closing passageway, even if it was by herself rather than with the entire group like she (and the rest of them) would have preferred, as she pointed out to them, "This might be the only chance I get!"

The only chance to progress.

The only chance to get the Mask of Anubis.

The only chance to get rid of the curse upon them.

"No, no!" Fabian cried out desperately in, watching with panicked eyes as his crush turned around once more towards the passageway, though he begged for her to not go through and to rethink her decision as he continued to yell out for her, "Nina!"

"No!" Simultaneously, the three girls that were on the side of safety screeched out, their eyes wide and laced with fear as they watched the leader of their group, their friend, and their housemate run through the passageway merely seconds before it completely closed, physically separating her from the rest of them and leaving no apparent way for them to follow her or for her to come back to them; she was gone.

"Nina!"

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[29.10.2020]

NOTE: ahhh! hello again! i've missed you!

honestly, this chapter was so fun to write and i've had this plan of sydney almost getting stung by the red thread in my head for so long, because all of the members of sibuna almost die at some point during season two so sydney's got to have a slight run in with the grim reaper as well! i also love how worried/protective alfie gets, he truly does care for her and their brother/sister friendship dynamic begins to shine even more soon! plus, fabian and syd have this cute bickering friendship that i love too, so it felt like a good fit. i also love syd and eddie's friendship, because they have quite a few similarities and then you have the fact that eddie's dad is the teacher that sydney absolutely hates. obviously their friendship gets better in season three, but i love writing small snippets of them now!

also, yes, sydney and jerome are soulmates - i've said it before and i'm saying it again. they're such dorks in this chapter and it's so cute! they somehow manage to get cuter throughout s2 and you're all going to cry.

i love you!