I walked over to Flaming Star, who was still on the ground, catching his breath.

“Are you OK?” I took his hand and helped him stand up.

“I’m not sure, but I’m still in one piece.” He didn’t admit it, but he was still trembling in fear.

“So how much of your master plan has worked so far?”

“Let’s not go there, for now.” He picked up his sabre off the floor. “What did we get ourselves into?”

“Seems like a game.”

“A what?”

“This was never a dinner party. Now the invitation makes sense!”

“What are you talking about?”

“This is some kind of a game! He invited us to play a game!”

“A game? Are you serious? Because I doubt the skeleton that I was wrestling with got the same letter we did.”

“I don’t want to meet up with it again, either. All things being equal, I rather get out of here!” I raised my voice a little and started walking towards the main door with my light.

“Wait, what about the whole key to the exam and all-“

“Are you out of your mind?” I shouted. “We barely got away from one nightmare and who knows what else will come next? I don’t know about you but I’m out of here!”

We both walked to the door; he did nothing to stop me so I assumed he wanted to get out too. But the door was still barricaded by bones.

“So what do we do about this?” Flaming Star asked.

“Why don’t YOU try knocking?” I winked at him in the darkness.

He got what I meant and took his gloves off. He stood in front of the barricaded door, took a deep breath and … just stood there.

“Uh, what are you waiting for?”

He turned his head towards me. “I … it’s not working!”

“W-what do you mean by that?” I asked confused.

“My magic, it’s not working I … I don’t feel anything!” He looked very terrified and lost in the darkness

“OK, is this your way of keeping me in this nightmare or …“

“I’m serious!” he cut me off, “I’m trying my best but nothing is happening! You think I like being in here?”

“OK, fine. Give me your hand!”

“Why? I thought we were over this!”

“I just want to see if MY magic works or not, and I can’t try it on anything else!” I tried to convince him, and myself as well.

“Fine!”

He pulled the mail armor and his sleeve up, just a little so I could take a clean grab on his wrist. I took his wrist with mine and expected to see his memories. But nothing happened. For a second I thought I was not directly touching his wrist but no, it was direct skin contact yet I was seeing nothing.

He pulled away his hand. “You done?”

He was right, our magic was disabled! I started shaking in fear.

“Hey!” Flaming Star shook me out of thoughts, “you here?”

“Yeah! Yeah I just … ” I took another look at the barricaded door. “I don’t know why our magic has been disabled, but we’ve got to find another way out of here.”

“OK, but what’s that all about?” He pointed towards the black skull that I was still holding in my hand.

“Oh, it seems this is the remains of the ones who came here before us, like it said in the clue.”

He still seemed to be confused. “Alright, whatever you say. Where do you think we should look first?”

I thought to myself for a second, I looked around to find a window but there was nothing. “Give me a minute …”

I walked around until I found a curtain. I pulled it aside, hoping that we could be free. But that was not going to happen. There was a window, though it was barricaded from the outside by bones. Even if we broke the window, we couldn’t get past the bones.

“Is that blocked too?” he asked.

“Yeah, from the outside.” It was then that I remembered seeing windows from the outside and I was certain that there were also some on the first floor. But they were probably all barricaded now!

“It seems we have nowhere to go, unless...”

I tried to remember the words of the letter again: “find it before darkness overtakes ten burning lights, only then you may see the next part of this night!”

I looked at the black skull that I was still holding. We had the remains of the one who came here before, but what’s the next part of the night?

“so, what should we do?” Flaming Star asked.

“Let’s look around, I have a feeling that something has changed when I pulled this, like I threw a switch or something.” I showed him the skull.

“Alright, so whatever that is, it’s important to this game?”

“I guess.”

I put the skull in my bag. It was not very big so it wasn’t hard to fit in my bag.

We started looking around again and soon after I found something: a stairway leading upstairs. On the left was a barricaded entrance. I looked a little way to the right and the black door where I found the other letter was there, too. I realized that this was one of those barricaded entrances that we saw earlier. But now it was clear.

“Hey, Flame. Come check this out.”

“What is it, did you find a way out or...” He paused and looked around, “Hey, isn’t this the way that found earlier?”

“It is, but now it’s open.”

“So, this is where we should go?”

“It seems we have no other choice.”

“Meaning that we should play along.” He sounded disappointed.

“For now, till we find a way out of this madness.”

We walked up the stairs slowly. The wooden panels let out a little squeak whenever we stepped on them. I looked at the walls, there were more wall hangers but some looked familiar. There were masks, jewelry and some decorated weapons.

“What are you looking at? Just keep walking!” Flaming Star nagged.

“But we better watch out for anything weird. The last time what stopped that skeleton was the skull. Who knows what else we should look for.”

“Yeah, about that skeleton. My sword went right through it!”

“Yeah, I saw, so?...”

“It was not a guy in a costume! Or else it would have bled. And it wasn’t a dummy or an animatronic because there was no resistance. And it wasn’t a balloon because it didn’t pop!” He was onto something.

“Crazy things are happening here.”

“I say Prof. Skull Mustache doesn’t even live here! He just sent us here, to this … this haunted mansion to have a little fun.”

“First of, I think this is his house since only a guy as creepy as him could live here. Also there are notes all around. Someone must have organized them.”

Flaming Star paused for a second, “Or something … like a … ghost!” He sounded a little afraid.

“Ghosts are not real! Man, I thought you would be way bolder, with your dueling and your parkour. Didn’t know you were a chicken!”

“You are the one who wants to get out of here! I still want to find the answers to the exam tomorrow! And also, out of all the crazy things I’ve seen since I came here, I think having ghosts and stuff makes sense. I mean look at me, I can create and control fire!”

“Or you used to.”

“Shut up!”

I sighed. “OK. Sorry. That wasn’t any help.”

By that time we had reached the next floor. There was a long corridor with eight doors, four on the left, four on the right. They blended in with the wood paneling of the walls.

It was then that the candles came on again. Ten candles attached to the walls by candleholders. I saw something moving in the shadows, something tiny and fast like a mouse. But I couldn’t make out what it was.

And there was another envelope on the floor.