I looked around the barren room. Yes, I said barren. The entire room, the entire place was silent, the only things making noise were the small fan Carmen had and my steady breathing. "I knew this place was big, but not this big." I spoke my thoughts, which is something I do a little too much. It was like a habit at this point, where I would think that I said something in my head, actually giving a lecture on how soap works out loud to the class.
I looked through the library first, looking for Ruby. Since she's playing, it makes hiding spots 10 times easier to find for her. And it 10 times harder for us. In about the 40 or so times we played, Ruby won about 87% of them. The other 13% was us cheating. Yes, cheating. That's how good she is, who knew a ghost would be so good at games? 'Is Ruby a ghost? Is that just what I called her for comedic effect, or was I onto something? What if Ruby was also a child, blinded by the person who killed her before and is now wreaking havoc on others? That would explain my nightmares. How old would she be? She looks like she's 12 or so, but she may be my age or older.' I stayed silent thinking about my new theory. If I wasn't there was a chance Ruby would start to find me herself, as we all don't know how long this facade will last. 'Maybe this was Carmen's plan after all? What if she knew that Ruby would try and gain our trust with games, just to lure us into some sort of trap? What about Issac?' Issac. He was probably the one who would die first if this plan wasn't in place. I'm not saying he's dumb, I'm just saying that if a murderous clown approached him without us there, there's a high chance he would take whatever it has and get himself kidnapped. That's why we would stay with him a lot, for surveillance ya'know? Definitely not because he's dumb enough to go under the beanbag that was way too small to hide him...
"Found you, now help me find the two that are good at this game." I smiled while Issac pouted about my comment. "Finnnnneeee." We both split up, Issac going down to the OG fort and me double-checking places.
I got lost in my thoughts once again as Issac happily pulled Carmen into the house. "Guess who I found~'' He sang. I chuckled at the faces of the two friends. "I was hiding in a bush, if it wasn't for the squirrel that passed me I would've won. Carmen said in a monotone voice. She was obviously mad that she was caught by Issac, as she usually got quiet whenever it did happen.
"At least you can help us now, we haven't found Ruby yet." "HERE I AM!" Ruby's voice came from what seemed like the roof, in reality, she was peering her head through the window to see us. The sudden noise had made us all cock our heads up in surprise.
Carmen hit her head against the wall muttering "I can't believe we lost to a child, a non-inanimate one to make matters worse." Issac gave in to the smell of defeat wafting the air. "Shouldn't we move on to another game?" Ruby perked up at the sound of that. "What game should we play? Tag? Pretend? What about-" I cut her off. "How about a board game?" I suddenly remembered the stack of board games that were in the closet.
"A board game, that sounds like a good idea!" Ruby seemed excited to play, as she started to look around for any sign of a game. I pulled a few card games out and the game "Sorry!" It was one of my favorite games, and I knew I had the upper hand as Ruby seemed to not know the game.
I first opened a fresh pack of solitaire cards and set them in the middle of the floor. We all sat around the pack as I explained.
"Okay. With this deck of cards and the knowledge of everyone except for Ruby, we could play around 7 games. Unless-" Ruby grabbed the cards and started to shuffle them in a few different ways before passing everyone had 13 cars. "What are we playing?" Issac tilted his head in confusion as she started slamming a card onto the floor. "War!" Ruby yelled. She has a happy glint in her eyes as Carmen copied Ruby, me and Issac doing the same. We went in a counterclockwise motion as we played for hours on end. This time, however, we were winning.
"14 doubles! We win!" Isaac giggled in delight as he slid his deck of matches to the middle of the circle we were in. "Why have you all been saying we?" Ruby tilted her head in confusion as Issac looked at me and Carmen. We both knew what he was thinking 'Should I make something up, or should I tell her that we're secretly jealous of being beat by what looks like a 10-year-old?' Luckily, Carmen piped up before the silence got suspicious.
"That's just because we've been using a team name! We just thought you wanted to use your own name." Ruby's eyes lit up as she started to blurt ideas out faster than light. "We could make shirts! Or posters! Both! we need some paint, paper, and we may need time to plan We could play games for candy! And then watch movies until there's no more to watch or-" "I found the paper!" Issac was holding a stack of printer paper in his arms, he walked over and brang it to the middle of the circle. "No! We need big paper! We also need stuff to draw and write with! Do you guys not know proper team advertising etiquette?" Ruby was talking quickly and using much longer words. "Wasn't she just tripping over her words a few hours ago?" Carmen whispered to me. "I guess she just got comfortable." I muttered back. Our conversation was cut short as a paper was waved in our faces. "New game!" Ruby yelled. "You all have to get these supplies by 5:30!" I looked at the clock. '4:45, that shouldn't be too hard.' "What are you guys waiting for? Go!" Issac was the first to rush out the door. He was always good at scavenger hunts.
Hopefully this wouldn't be our last.
