Chris's eyes widened, as did Arlo's. Even though Arlo had only tripped over and discovered the bell they'd picked up yesterday, it felt like a week ago. Chris again tried to pull his arm free of Dean's grasp, and to his surprise, his friend let go of him. He shoved Annie away from Arlo, and the girl receded, a vacant expression on her face.

"Do you still have it?" Chris whispered, inches away from Arlo with his back turned to the king of whatever this place was.

Arlo barely nodded. "It should be in my bag," he said, before leaning to look at the creature who'd spoken to them. "What do you mean only a winner can leave?"

Chris turned his head to look over his shoulder. Waiting for an answer as well. If that bell was so important, and if this antlered, demon, king, creature... thing could just snap his fingers and mind control people, then why hadn't he just made them give it to him? Why all of this? Why was Sara with him? Was Annie in on it the whole time then, too? What the fuck was happening?

"Oh? You do not know? It is very dangerous to play a game without knowing the rules..." the creature replied, but he sounded more amused than worried as he propped up his head with a clawed hand against his cheek. "Without the bell, there is no winner, and without a winner, the game can not end, and without an end... No one leaves."

The bell... Arlo was desperately trying to remember anything he could about it. It didn't look particularly special from what he recalled. Why had they even kept it? The recent memory was hazy in his mind, like a thick cloud of fog had very purposefully rolled in to settle over it. It was there, just hard to see in his mind's eye.

"How do we win, then?" Chris asked, again taking Arlo's hand into his own as he fully turned around to face the king, but Arlo had barely processed the question. He was deep in his own head. Chris had said something about the bell when they'd found it... What was it that he'd said? Not ...to ring it? But why?

Arlo gasped, causing Chris's head to snap towards him, his brows knitted in concern. No, it hadn't just been Chris! The woman had warned them! The woman! He could remember her now—could remember their interview before driving to and entering the woods.

Arlo's gaze found the king's, and the creature seemed to recognize the change in Arlo's expression and posture. Straightening, a cruel sneer spread across the king's pale lips, but the amusement had fled his unearthly eyes.

She'd said, 'if you find a bell in the woods, don't pick it up, and never ring it, or you'd be cursed.' When they'd asked her where that particular anecdotal advice had originated from, she'd elaborated...

There was an old tale that claimed a brave villager once found and struck a deal with the king of the Ielele, creatures she described to be similar to fairies or sirens. The Ielele wouldn't continue luring away anyone who crossed through their forest near the burgeoning town if, in return, the town would send them a sacrifice, a man from the village, carrying with him a bell, once every season.

Once this man was deep in the woods, he would ring the bell, to let the Ielele know he'd arrived, and the creatures would begin their game... their hunt.

"You don't win. I do, and I already have... But I don't need all of you. Just one needs to stay and ring the bell, and I'll let the others leave." The king's contemptuous grin widened. "So, choose who will stay and who will go... or, you can all stay and play with my pets for eternity."

He snapped his fingers again and several creatures, like those that had chased them earlier, came to heel, materializing from the dark places within the grand hall that the light from the candles and lanterns didn't reach; from shadows cast by his many guests—his court.

Dean didn't move or make a sound. He was already one of them. Chris could feel it in his bones. Their friend was one of them, just like Sara and Annie. They weren't gonna be ringing the bell.

"There's no way I'd wanna get outta here without you, Ar," Chris whispered, squeezing Arlo's hand and raising it to his lips. He placed the softest kiss against Arlo's knuckles before gently releasing it. "I'm sorry I never said anything before, but... you go."

Arlo's eyes threatened tears as he looked at Chris. He hadn't said the words 'I love you', but he had, and Arlo's chest constricted... because he felt the exact same. Being in this awful forest had only made that more apparent to him.

"No," Arlo said, his voice firm as he directed his attention back to the king. "Chris and I leave together."

For a moment the king was silent, then his calm broke into a sinister laugh that echoed around them and seemed all the more menacing by the simple fact that nothing else dared to make a sound to accompany it.

"Wrong answer." He snapped his fingers again, and the horrid creatures lurched rapidly into action.

Chris and Arlo once again found themselves running. Only now they'd traded skinny, bent trees for racing through dark, mossy stone halls and corridors, lost in their panic and urgency to escape.

"Chris!" Arlo panted, "What if we break it?"

"What?!"

"What if we break the bell?"

Chris spotted a nook in the hall; a door just slightly ajar that he pulled Arlo into and tucked them both behind, wrapping his arms tightly around his best friend.

"If we break it," Arlo whispered, his consonants so quiet that he was almost unintelligible, "then maybe no one else will get trapped like this..."

They both froze as a deep shadow accompanied by a gust of wind 'fwooshed' passed the threshold of the door they were hidden behind and seemed to continue down the hall.

Chris nodded. Arlo's idea wasn't a guaranteed way to end this nightmare, and would almost certainly give away their location, but Arlo had seemed to resolve himself to those facts, and Chris was willing to accept that. If this was it, and they died or stopped being who they were, like Dean and the girls, after this, then it was what it was...

"I love you," Arlo breathed after carefully sliding his backpack off his back, and inching the zipper open on the pouch to ease out the small bell.

Chris stared at him for a moment, unable to help the small, sad smile that tugged at his lips. "I love you too," he said, placing his hand over the porcelain bell. "Let's do this."

Arlo closed his eyes as he and Chris, together, slammed the bell against the cobbled floor. Chris couldn't see where all exactly the pieces went, but it had most certainly shattered. Arlo released his grip on it, as did he.

That same sensation from before returned. They were falling, but they weren't. Flashes of light and rock and trees within the darkness swallowed them before it all finally came to a dizzying stop.

Stars were already lining the bruised sky. The last touches of the sun's rays were fading quickly, Chris's body protested when he moved as if he'd been standing in that one spot, in that one position, for an entire day.

Arlo was next to him, still blinking off the dazed feeling as he dug through his bag, and produced a flashlight. He offered Chris his hand, and Chris took it. They didn't exchange a single word as they made a quick round of the dead circle, deciding to leave it at a relatively obvious opening in the tangle of branches at its edge. There was a path. And as soon as their feet were on it, they ran. Although, it wasn't as much of a run or sprint, but rather the desperate jog of two exhausted, dehydrated, and hungry bodies.

They both were almost too shocked to believe it when, even in the dark, their flashlight found the spot where they'd stopped to film part of their intro. They were even more surprised to come across the bridge, what felt like not too long after. Then, about twenty minutes after they'd been forced to slow to a walk, they saw it—the parking lot. The rental car sitting there in the dark exactly how they'd left it with only the addition of one or two leaves adorning its hood.

Chris tried the driver's side door even though he knew it was locked, and that Dean was the last one with the keys. Neither of them expressed their excitement or disappointment. Everything felt like too much right now. Too much to talk about, too much to process...

They continued walking down the dirt road, hand in hand, occasionally looking over their shoulders to make sure the forest was still shrinking into the background behind them, while the lights ahead from the town got closer.

"Are you okay?" Chris finally said, having to clear his hoarse throat immediately after.

"No," Arlo rasped, leaning into Chris as they walked.

"Me either," Chris admitted, placing a kiss against Arlo's forehead, and ignoring the awful feeling in his chest when he heard a familiar, sweet chiming on the midnight breeze.