Trying his hardest not to stomp—the floorboards weren't the most stable he'd ever walked on—Benny arrived in the middle bedroom, where Kylie had summoned him.

"This had better be good," he said, groaning as a stench of stale dust and decay hit his nostrils. "Ew, what the heck happened up here?"

"No clue." Kylie appeared on his camera screen, pinching her nose. "It's been like that for the past few minutes, and it's disgusting, for sure. Rotten eggs?"

Benny fought a gag. He was used to odd smells in haunted places, but this one was pungent and foul. "Dunno. So what did you want?"

Kylie motioned for him to follow her to the mirror hanging on a wall near the door. "Look at this." She pointed her flashlight at it. "I guarantee it wasn't there yesterday."

Directing the camera at the reflective surface, he felt his lungs tighten as he sighted what Kylie had discovered. In thick, childish-looking handwriting, a message scrawled across the glass. The substance used to create the letters dripped down to the frame and was about to drizzle onto the ground.

GO AWAY
NOW

"Fuck." He stepped backwards, recoiling as if the words were about to jump out and attack him. The go away part was threatening enough, but the now... that was ominous. If not downright evil. "No, that definitely wasn't there yesterday, I agree."

A mix of angst and adrenaline swirled in his gut as he got out his phone and snapped a few pictures. Proving that he and Kylie hadn't written the words themselves would be tough, but he also had nothing in his bag or on his person that he could have used to compose it. And that color—a maroon shade that looked like blood fused with mud, with the texture of paint but watery, oozing—wasn't something he could reproduce.

That's... nasty.

"This is why I wanted to come at night, Kylie." He stuffed his phone back into his pocket and resumed filming the mirror, zooming in on every letter, every detail. Did whoever wrote this use their finger? A paintbrush? Their mind? Too many scenarios played out in Benny's head and his temples pounded.

"Fine, I get it... but this is creepy." She gulped as she wandered towards the window. "Almost creepier than the recorder being thrown."

Benny gasped. "The recorder!" He was still holding the Ovilus—which hadn't picked up on anything and the signal was weak—and regretted not switching to his voice recorder before coming upstairs. "I meant to listen to my earlier session. Now that I've documented this—" he gestured at the mirror with his chin, "—can we return downstairs? There was a definite presence down there."

Though she grunted—and muttered how much she hated this place, yet again—Kylie shined the way as they marched to the stairs and descended.

Once at the bottom, she shuddered so violently Benny stopped in his tracks and reached out to her. "You okay?" He kept the camera on her, struggling to figure out her facial expression through the night-vision lens.

"It's... freezing down here. What the fuck?" She rubbed her upper arms and winced. "Was it like this earlier?"

Benny nodded, then realized she couldn't see him, as her flashlight focused on another area. "It was. That's why I think there's a presence... it got super close to me, almost like I could feel its breath, whatever it was."

"Arielle?" Kylie's light found Benny's face, and he cringed, squinting so the luminosity wouldn't blind him. It was much darker downstairs, despite the huge windows above the front door, and it took a moment to readjust.

"Possibly, but I couldn't get confirmation. Let me check if the recorder caught anything." He wandered over to his bag and turned off the Ovilus, depositing it within the sack. He'd left the voice device on, in case the spirits were too afraid of coming up to him. More than once he'd captured great evidence while hiding devices in pockets or crevices in walls.

Kylie trudged after him, sticking to his side as she usually did in this zone. Why the upstairs rooms were more appealing to her, Benny wasn't certain, because he received a more negative vibe from that bedroom, and it had worsened after seeing that dreadful message. And at least on the lower level, the stench dissipated, replaced by that less unpleasant, but rarely cleaned, covered-in-cobwebs odor.

Benny plucked the device from the sack and held it up to rewind it. Kylie fidgeted beside him, and for a moment he thought of wrapping an arm around her shoulders, drawing her near to calm her down. She was on edge, and he knew he had to hurry and gather evidence so they could leave. But deep down he wanted to stay in this house, to continue to prod into its depths and locate all its secrets.

"Okay, I think I found the spot where I left off," he said, preparing to press the play button.

To his surprise, Kylie slid her arm around his and glued herself to his middle. "Do it. Hurry. I'm really antsy and I don't like it."

He obeyed, and played the tape, filming the whole process for documentation. During the first few minutes, nothing occurred. The only noises were Benny's questions, his footsteps, and the creaking from Kylie's movement upstairs. He couldn't help the disappointment forcing him to hunch, to frown, to pull Kylie a smidgen closer and revel in her proximity, in her warmth.

The gadget then played a crucial moment. "You... you can take my energy. Draw it from me, use it to use this device."

"Shit." Kylie exhaled and her breath blew over Benny's hand, soft like a caress. "You invited it to use you? Are you insane?"

He rolled his eyes. "It's a common tactic, and besides, the being I felt didn't give off negative energy. Sometimes it's their only way to communicate."

They both stiffened at the shock of a response to Benny's words.

"... how to do that!"

It was a low but feminine tone; casual but charged with impatience, not menacing but not pleasant either.

"Whoa," said Benny, rewinding the tape to hear it once more. "That's nuts. It's almost like it's speaking into the receiver."

Had the spirit been that close to him? He'd sensed it for an instant, when his entire body had coated with ice and his breaths were clouds, but it had happened so fast he wasn't positive if he'd dreamed it or not.

"Is there m-more?" Kylie was overcome with tremors, and her grip on Benny's arm tightened.

Benny pressed play again. He listened to himself becoming cold, teeth clattering as he spoke, the shift in the temperature obvious in his voice.

"Don't go! I'm not afraid of you! I... want to chat! Let's chat!"

He leaned in, wondering if he'd somehow frightened the spirit, if his insistence had sent it flying off to hide somewhere.

Yet he was wrong, and another response chilled him to the core. A gravelly growl, followed by, "... think I'm evil..."

Kylie released him and squeaked as she shuffled over to the door. And Benny nearly dropped the recorder as that last word repeated, over and over in his mind.

Evil... evil... she's evil?

He wasn't clear if it was a full sentence, or if the ghost had said something else first. He rewound the tape, replayed it, rewound it again, replayed it again. But there was no telling if the spirit meant to spook him, or if she was asking herself if she was evil.

Kylie whimpered. "It's... she's... the fucking devil, right?"

Benny shifted the camera to her. She had flattened against the door, breaths shallow, slouched forward with her shoulders drooping and her hands on her knees. Benny worried she might be about to throw up, but from what he saw on the screen, she wasn't gagging or covering her mouth.

"I'm not sure, hun," he said, tiptoeing over to her. He slid the recorder into his pocket and rubbed her back, finding her light jacket was warm to the touch, almost sticky. She was sweating, panting, and likely battling to keep her composure.

He'd never seen her like this. Kylie was the strongest, most bad-ass woman—most bad-ass person—he knew, yet here she was crumbling from a few croaky voices and a subtle growl.

Not that the growl hadn't petrified him, too; but something told him it wasn't a threat. It didn't come off as violent, and it matched the energy he'd sensed earlier, the presence he'd offered himself to. He hadn't detected anything nefarious, and wondered if maybe the spirit was simply frustrated at not being able to express herself.

"First the message on the m-mirror, then this. And this is," Kylie inhaled, then blew out a whiff of mint-tinted oxygen, "gold, it is. But—and trust me, I hate to say this—we need... more." She perked up, but Benny felt her legs trembling near his, and her hands were clammy as she touched his wrist to remove his palm from her spine. "T-try to talk to it again. I'm thinking I might... wait in the car."

"You sure?" Kylie would get in trouble if she left him alone in the house, he knew. So for her to risk reprimand, it meant she truly was terrified, and she didn't want him to see it.

"Just... keep asking it questions. See if it'll... throw shit... again." She took hold of the doorknob, began to twist—

A gust of frigid air whooshed into the house, stilling them both. How, Benny had no clue—no windows were open, there were no vents, and Kylie hadn't yet tugged on the knob to escape outside.

"What the..."

The frostiness was worse than before, like snow was falling from the ceiling. Like ice trickled from the balcony railings. Like someone had turned off the heating, turned off the sun, and the world fell into a polar pool of water. It encircled them, seeped under their skin, into their bones, into their blood. It was toxic, violent, like a hurricane of icicles that pricked them, sliced through their clothes, immersed into their organs and transformed them to stone. To icy stone.

This energy had nothing benevolent about it. "Th-this... this isn't the same b-being as earlier," said Benny, sensing his lips turning to frost, his heart speeding up, his fingers and toes becoming numb. His breath was denser than earlier, too; instead of a foggy blur, it was an actual cloud of blinding white, like a large wad of cotton.

Kylie's was the same, and she hugged herself, sliding down the door and stuffing her hands under her armpits. Her legs were unstable, and she slipped and tumbled onto her behind, as if she'd been standing on a sheet of ice and the slippery surface had taken her by surprise.

"Fuck." Benny tried to heave her up, but his arms were too stiff and his own legs weren't much more balanced than hers. He fell to his knees. "K-Kylie, you... all right?"

She nodded once, though her expression showed the opposite of being all right. "H-how is this happening?"

The house had become a freezer. They'd been transported to the North Pole and snow had dumped all around them. And Benny noted something—a shadow? A mist? An oversized orb? He couldn't tell—swishing to and fro in the vicinity, as if depositing more snow, hoping to drown them in it. He wasn't certain if he was imagining things, if the frost had reached his brain and played tricks with his mind, but next he knew, his senses dulled and he barely managed to grab Kylie's hand before he spiraled into a black hole of unconsciousness.