Author's Note: This chapter has less action and more creep factor. Hope none of you have a fear of dolls! Speaking of which, what do you think the Zone actually is? Do you think there's a mastermind? And what about Lila? What's her deal with Jordan and Angela? Let me know in the comments and don't forget to vote and add Zone Albrecht to your reading list!

--

I screamed, bolting up and blindly trying to hit whatever was seizing me.

"Jordan! For fuck's sake, Rabbito! Would you stop trying to kill me?!" I heard a familiar voice shout.

I opened my eyes, breathing heavily. I was still feeling anxious because of my nightmare, but the sight of Angela sitting on my bed was quick to bring me back to reality.

"Good to see you missed me. You know Jordan, I know I'm annoying and you hate me, but you really should get rid of that pesky habit which includes trying to beat the crap out of me everytime I'm around," she said sarcastically as I glared daggers at her.

"What the fuck did you do that for?! You scared the shit out of me!"

"I'm bored, awake, and it's morning. Everyone else is sleeping."

"So why am I the one you wake up?!"

She opened her mouth as if to say something, but then apparently changed her mind.

"...'Cause I felt like it?"

God I would have slapped her. Instead, I just kept on leering at her. Angela just shrugged without a care, clearly not intimidated in the least.

"Why did you look so scared when you woke up?" she inquired. I couldn't tell her that it was because I had had a nightmare, where I saw many corpses floating in the water. And when I myself leaned over to look at the gruesome lake, it wasn't my reflection that appeared, but Thomas'. Also, in my dream, I had felt a horrible chill, as if I was alone. But at the same time, it felt as though I was surrounded. Then one of the floating corpses got washed ashore and even though it was barely recognizable, it looked a lot like ... Angela. That wasn't the type of information you shared with someone who was going back into another Zone sooner or later. In fact, this was more the type of information which you tried to suppress and forget as much as possible and as quickly as you could.

"Jordan? Jordan!" Angela said, making me snap back to reality.

"Yeah?"

"Well..?" she insisted as I shook my head in response.

"Nothing, I just...you never know with this place," I responded. She nodded somberly but didn't say anything else. It was surprising that she didn't persist the matter further. She awkwardly glanced to the side, then back at me, then aside again. After that she gazed at me uncertainly, which, coming from Angela, was extremely rare; she appeared as if she was going to say something else, but thought better of it.

"What is it?" I asked her more softly. Obviously, this was serious. Probably about the place.

"Nothing," she replied, gazing down once more.

"Angela, what is it?"

"Nothing!"

"Come on, tell me..." I persisted. She stayed silent for a moment before inquiring something that relatively surprised me.  To this day I don't think that's what she planned on originally asking me, but I guess I'll never know now, will I?

"How did Alix and Alexander die?" she mashed the words together in such a low voice that it was hard to make out, but I heard it. I blinked, stunned, then felt my blood run cold as I shuddered, my heart pumping more quickly. This brought back the most terrifying time of my life, one which I would have wanted to forget. Like the nightmare, except this had actually happened.

"If you'd rather not tell me, it's fine, I understa—"

"Alix was decapitated," I suddenly blurted out, interrupting her. "and Alex was...h-he was..."

It was so clear in my mind...

"JORDAN LOOK OUT!" Alex shouted.

I looked up and saw a cut electric cable falling straight in my direction.

I ran aside just in time. The electric cable hit Melanie, a girl in my class, instead, and I saw her whole body suddenly transparent for just a few seconds.

I screamed, my flesh crawling, my throat sour.

Alex died in such an unfair way.

As we ran, he suddenly slipped in a pile of blood and collapsed to the ground. I tried to catch him by the arm but missed and, as I was bending down to help him up...the floor suddenly parted.

Under us was water. We were walking on a huge aquarium with a floor that randomly opened. A few bodies slipped and fell in the water with a simple "plof". Alex was part of those, except he woke up once in the water and screamed.

"ALEX! IT'S OKAY ALEX TAKE MY H --"

My eyes widened. Hundreds and thousands of little fish were came out of nowhere and began biting the dead bodies, devouring them at an extraordinary rate. For a fraction of second I looked at Alexander and he looked at me.

Piranhas.

He suddenly started screeching hysterically and, when I stared at his feet, I saw that the water was red surrounding him was now red. Despite the red blur I managed to make out the silhouettes of a few fish.

One of my best friends was being eaten alive.

"ALEX! HOLD ON!" I shouted.

I tried to pull him up. He hung on to me, but the agony he was in made him cling to my arms in a more than painful way.

He was half dragged out of the water and still alive (though I preferred not to gaze at his legs) when I lift my head up. And my eyes widened as well as Alex's.

We both saw it falling at the same time and looked at each other.

Another cut electric cable was heading straight towards us. Well, towards us, it would miss the both of us by a few meters at least.

Only it would fall in the water.

And water conducts electricity.

I think Alex immediately understood he was doomed because he was very calm. I was shouting and hysterically telling him to try and wriggle out.

I let my friend go barely one or two seconds before the cable hit the water and fell back.

Then came a light around most of the room which practically blinded me, and I saw what was formerly my friend fry before my own eyes. Once his corpse had darkened to the point where it more appeared like a piece of charcoal, it slowly slid off the edge of the floor and fell into the water to join the others.

The piranhas popped up at the surface one by one, turned on their backs like regular dead fish.

"JORDAN! Jordan, are you okay?!"

I should have saved him.

I vaguely saw Angela on top of me along with another girl. Was it Julie..? I couldn't tell for sure.

"Jordan! JORDAN!" Angela said, shaking at my unharmed arm firmly but not too roughly.

"Julie! Call the ghost girl or the nurses!" she then added.

"But where are they?!"

"In the dark corner! That's where they always come out from!"

"But what if it's forbidden?! What if they kill me?!"

"They won't! Julie PLEASE!" Angela begged.

I let him die...

Julie stared perplexedly at me before taking a solemn expression.

"Okay, I'll go," she told Angela gravely. "if you hear me scream, try to do something about it, because it'll obviously mean I'm in trouble."

Angela nodded.

"Okay," she accepted.

I hoped Julie wouldn't die.

Not another one.

She was one of the last survivors from our class ...

And in general.

I thought I saw her leave, I wasn't sure. I saw Angela though. She looked worried.

Or at least, I thought she did. I'm not sure because after that, all I remember is nightmares. And the vague image of a man with an ax.

--

Extract of Julie R.'s Memoirs

I walked stiffly and quickly, getting gulped down by the surrounding shadows at an incredible speed.

This place sent shudders down my spine. No, it was worse. I was utterly terrified, I expected that something would jump out of the darkness, the horrible darkness, anytime to grab and kill me.

I was looking in every direction, afraid, but could barely see anything at all, only blackness. And then ... I heard a laugh.

A laugh that felt like a butcher knife cutting through my skin. A creepy, flesh-crawling laugh, that's what it was.

I jumped, frightened, before stuttering.

"Wh-wh-who's there?"

No response, but I thought I'd faint. I was practically sure that something had brushed the back of my neck.

I wanted to scream and rush back, but I was too paralyzed by fear to do even that. I gulped, feeling as if my blood had suddenly stopped coagulating in my veins. My eyes widened as I thought I saw something move ahead of me, something approach me. It slowly came closer, little by little appearing more clearly.

It was a bear.

You heard me, a bear. But not a normal bear, a teddy bear. Just your average teddy bear. Nothing to be afraid of.

And yet ...

I screamed. It was staring at me. It hadn't moved, but I could tell, with its head slightly tilting on the side.

All of a sudden, I felt what was THE worst fear the world has ever created. I know it's hard to explain but ...

I screamed, screamed, screamed until I fell on my knees, begging it to stop. I felt and I saw rape, I saw and felt blood, flesh torn aside, claws and teeth ripping through it, torture, a sledgehammer, but most of all...I saw a little girl. A little girl and a teddy bear. THAT teddy bear.

I could picture her so clearly in my mind. In all the other horrible images, she was there, watching, but not clearly present, as if a ghost, as if barely a mirage. Her pale white skin, which appeared to be peeling off, her eyes, or more her eye sockets, of the dampest of blacks. She was young, very young, and she had a purple dress, a bit old fashioned, with braids. And black hair, she had black hair. With red elastics. They made daddy proud. I could tell they did because SHE told me, before the image of someone shrieking and getting smashed with a sledgehammer appeared. Was it her that hurt Daddy because he was a bad adult, that was how she put it, or was it Daddy that had wanted to "fix things"? I couldn't tell. Whatever the case, her little pale and slightly chubby white arm was wrapped around her teddy bear's waist, holding it tightly -- IT, that thing that only looked like a teddy bear but that was all the Horrors of the world combined. I felt blood trickling down my nose, and some going out of my nails as well, my eyeballs. But that didn't hurt for some reason, because the little girl was smiling, she was happy, and Mr. Bear -that was his name- wanted me to join the party, I could tell. So all was right, because Mr. Bear was feeling lonely, and he needed company. The little girl beckoned me with her finger, apparently asking me to come closer. Her dry lips, so pale and crackled that they appeared old and practically as white as her skin, were drawn in an attempted grin. She appeared as though she had stitches all over her mouth.

Mr. Bear was throwing a party, a fun party, she said. And he wanted me there. He wanted me there.

With the other party people.

--

Extract from Angela's Diary

I shook him firmly.

"Jordan! Goddamnit!" I shouted, for lack of better options.

I hoped Julie would come back soon, I really hoped she would.

Jordan didn't look good at all. He was panting and sweating, and I felt boiling hot just looking at him, so I supposed he had fever too. I've never really been able to tell if people had fever or not, even when touching them, but I decided to try anyway, for lack of better option. I brushed his forehead, not wanting to touch him too much, even in these conditions. I was right, because he bolted and almost fell off the bed. I caught him, but by his injured arm, and he shouted of pain before instinctively trying to hit me with the right one. Great.

Thank God, him being the useless and weak nitwit that he is, I quickly stepped aside and didn't get hit. Even if I hadn't anyway, it probably wouldn't have been all that painful. This is Jordan we're talking about, he isn't much better than Max in that domain.

"Fur! Calm down!!!" I told him.

He hit his arm again and this time howled of pain, actually letting out tears by the same process. Wow. O.K, now I was really intimidated, both by the demonstration of great pain as by the fact that it was the...asshole-istic boy who wasn't really my friend but sort of that was in so much agony.

But I was worried. I was worried as fucking Hell.

"I swear, you better not die ..!" I muttered. Yet I was scared, I was terrified at the prospect of anything happening to him.

It was stupid, really: who died of a panic attack? But still, he was obviously not feeling well, and who knew where that could lead?

All I knew was that I wanted him to get better.

"Look," I told him, trying to be calm and reassuring. "it's gonna be alright Jordan. We're..."

Gonna get out of here? Was that what I had almost dared to say?

Not even in my dreams, as my step-mom said. Unless some huge miracle took place, but those things just don't happen. I had to start facing it: we were gonna die here, all of us. We were gonna get killed, every single one of us.

I had to stop the sudden urge to scream of despair. Not only that, but tears were also battling to escape my eyelids. In the darkness of my closed eyes I could see the one that had been my nanny and who I saw as a substitute mother, Yolande, and my dad, and Kitty, my cat, and my aunt and...I wanted to hit walls, slam something, I was inwardly crying and sobbing, though exteriorly you could see nothing but slight worry on my face. And what would I do, truthfully, what was I gonna do, what if maybe Jordan -- 

No, now was not the time for panic and sadness, now was the time for action.

I looked at Fur, who was still panting hard and quivering. In movies I knew the heroine would somehow magically sing a song that she had made-up in five seconds that would calm down the hurt dude, but that just didn't happen in real life. No one gave a fuck about singing when they were hurt. Plus, blurting out a random song? I may be talented but I have limits.

Jordan made things so damn complicated! You couldn't touch him without giving him the cooties, you didn't know any way to fucking console him, and there was no one around to give any medical support.

I looked at the dark side of the room, the one where Julie had left now ten minutes ago and shuddered, my eyes widening.

There was a party going on.

I had no idea what that meant and yet, somehow, that hit me as the most terrifying thing of my life.

--

Extract of Julie R.'s Memoirs

The little girl then approached me, still grinning.

"NO!" I screamed, feeling as though I just might turn insane.

My flesh was crawling, my blood had frozen, my body had stiffened, I felt my temperature rise at once, and I was paralyzed.

Just the mere approach of this creature from Hell, it was making me lose my mind.

"GO AWAY!" I screamed.

But Mr. Bear wanted me to come to the party, so that wouldn't be nice now, would it? I screamed so hard that later on I even lost my voice for a while. The hair at the back of my neck was as straight as the quills of a porcupine, and I actually thought I'd faint.

The thing still approached me, its grip tightened around the evil Mr. Bear. It looked like if it was mocking me and my fear.

It was a party. No one should be afraid of the party.

"Leave me alone!" I hollered.

I wanted to bolt, run away, but the fear had paralyzed my legs, and I had no energy whatsoever to run. And ... and Mr. Bear was like hypnotizing me, I couldn't take my eyes off his expressionless black teddy-bear face.

Then I heard a growl.

No, not just one growl, many growls.

And I saw the thing finally stop advancing, as its grin turned upside down.

"Whatever those growls are," I thought at the time "they're not friends of Mr. Bear's."

Yes, because the real toy was the girl-looking thing. It was Mr. Bear the true essence of evil, the thing that made my skin crawl. The girl was just its voice.

The party was Mr. Bear's. And yet, apparently, someone had had the idea to wreck that little party.

Suddenly, out of the shadows came the nurses.

Ten, fifteen, twenty of them, all growling, and I could see their pointy teeth reflecting even in the dark, their veils going up as they flared.

Yup, they definitely weren't human, every last remaining doubt left me at that moment.

The girl hissed as well, her dry lips withdrawing to show only two, pointy fang-like teeth. Its black sockets seemed to be glaring at all the surrounding nurses. Mr. Bear didn't like that, but the nurses didn't like Mr. Bear either.

And then I saw the ghost kids advancing. They walked slowly, their faces expressionless, before they were finally facing the little girl.

A the other chick (not the mixed race girl but the other one, who accompanied the two boys all the time), a blond with short straight hair, advanced forward and whispered something to the demonic child, leaning over, only I knew it wasn't the girl she was talking to. She was talking to Mr. Bear.

And then something incredible happened. I know it may seem stupid and near close to insanity, but somehow that stroke me as the most terrifying.

The little girl nodded dully before...collapsing to the floor. Like she was a doll and nothing more.

Then, with horror, I saw the evil plush toy extract itself from her chubby now fake-looking arms and walk on its two feet. Two expressionless, button-like eyes peered at me, making me terrorized, chilling me to the bone.

It then started running away in a strange fashion, a bit like a puppet guided by a crazy ventriloquist that tried to make it seem like if it was bolting.

Then it disappeared into the shadows.

"Goodbye Mr. Bear," a voice that sounded a lot like the little girl (but was it even a girl?) whispered inside my mind.

The biracial girl, who was there along with the nurses, the other teen, and the two guys, stared at me hardly.

"Why are you here?!" she inquired in a hard voice.

I gulped.

"Angela s-sent me here. Jordan, one of our classmates, the one with glasses --"

"I know who Jordan is, Julie R.! Get to the POINT!"

"...he's hurt. Fever or something. Angela sent me here to bring a nurse to help him."

She observed me for a few seconds with a look as cold as steel, silent. Her friends were also deadly quiet.

"You risked all this for one of your classmates?! One who you don't even like or know that well?"

I nodded meekly, partially because it was the truth. I had risked my life for Jordan who, fine, was an okay guy but I mean, I didn't even know him all that much.

Funny how panic works.

The pig-tailed girl snorted disdainfully.

"Wait: Angela sent you?! Didn't she want to save her precious prince herself?!"

I blinked confusedly. I had no idea what she meant by that. Well, there had been a rumor going around that they liked each other but ... how would the ghost know that? And why did it seem to annoy her?

The bitter laugh of the girl died in her throat and she was now glaring at me. I felt a chill crawl up my spine.

Was she going to kill me? Or would they bring me back to the nursery?

I felt tears slowly trickle down my cheeks, but stayed silent.

"Come," the tan girl said.

I felt my heartbeat slow down a little and the tension that my body had been in slowly released itself.

I'd be fine. At least today and for now.

The creepy teens started walking in the direction from which I came, the nurses following them.

As I did the same, I couldn't help but peek one more time over my shoulder at the never ending shadows and shuddered.

How close had I come to death that day? I don't know, but I think it wasn't too far. After all, I knew one thing: in Hell there was a teddy bear.

And that was enough to keep me running.

--

I remember nothing but vague images of Julie going to fetch the nurses, or the nurses themselves, bent over me and checking on my temperature, giving me medicine and treatments, etc. But Angela wrote all that happened down. That's how I managed to know what I had been missing. A great deal actually. Sometimes, I wonder what would have happened if Mrs. Serrano hadn't translated her diary in French for me. All these things about her and the Zone I wouldn't know. It would all have remained mere more than a mystery.