Skyline Gang

Chapter 7

Throughout that day, no one could speak or do much. They couldn't even try to find any clues to help them out. Just the thought of facing death by the hands of this woman frightened them. These challenges that she's setting, there's no doubt that there will fatal consequences if they lost. They can't lose. A lot was riding on them to win. And that previous group, the ones in the photograph, they obviously came from here. Or at least lived here with other people. So what happened to them and where did they go?

No one could sleep much that night. Sprout was no different. Despite playing around with some of the practical jokes and juggling items in his room, he couldn't force himself to sleep. He was too scared about what was happening to sleep. He wasn't a stranger to fear, he'd been scared of things before, especially spiders. So when he finally dragged himself out of bed that morning, the fear of failing was weighing heavily on him. He didn't even feel like he was hungry at that moment. He was the first one down surprisingly. The others are probably still sleeping after a troubled night. Sprout didn't know what else to do so he just started to play around with a deck of cards from his room. Yes he liked playing the fool and joke around, but he also enjoyed magic. He'd even practice it. He's not perfect at it, he's not ashamed to admit that sometimes, but it doesn't stop him from enjoying it. He was going to try to do a trick but then remembered that he needed someone else to do it with to practice. It's no fun to practice when you're alone.

"Morning, Sproutie!" Candi suddenly cheered, skipping over to Sprout.

"Morning!" Sprout beamed. He was a little surprised by Candi's sudden appearance. He was so wrapped up in shuffling his cards that he had tuned out everything around him. If that woman wanted to, she could've attacked him. Candi didn't seem to notice his surprised gesture as she finished skipping to him. She glanced down at the cards with a curious expression.

"What you doing?" She asked, sitting down opposite to the card shuffler.

"Just trying to get this card trick right. Hard to do it solo though." Sprout smiled a little, trying not to seem too disappointed or needy.

"I love magic! Don't suppose I could help?" Candi squealed, clapping her hands excitedly. Sprout almost dropped his cards in shock. It was rare for anyone to ask if they could see his magic. A lot of the time, they would say that he was dumb to try or just ignore him completely. So this change was really nice. He barely knew her, but he had a feeling that he and Candi would be pretty good friends.

"Yeah! You can be my assistant!" Sprout laughed, holding the deck in one hand. He tried to have it go from one hand to the other, but it went wrong. The cards scattered on the table and a couple fell on the floor. "One day I'll get that right!" Candi only giggled and helped to gather up the cards for Sprout. She bobbed up and down with excitement as Sprout reshuffled the cards.

"Say Candi! What do cards and a board have in common?! Pick one!" Sprout grinned, spreading the cards into a fan.

"I don't know, Sprout!" Candi shrugged as she took out a card from the fan. She looked at it before giving it back to Sprout.

"They SHUFFLE!" Sprout grinned even wider as he placed Candi's card in the centre of the deck. It took a bit, but Candi giggled softly at the joke. Not the greatest reaction in the world, but not the worst either. "Sorry bad joke! I tend to joke around a lot, especially when I'm worried."

"It's fine Sprout! We're all going through the same thing." Candi smiled consolingly. That honestly brought relief to both of them. They're not alone in this and whatever these challenges are going to be surely they can overcome it somehow. Just even the smallest of encouragements can help. The door to the bedrooms opened and Dude walked out, with Rainbow right next to him. After starting to settle down, Rainbow had decided to sleep in Dude's room for the night. Dude didn't know why the dog wanted to stay with him. It was possible that it's because he was the first human that Rainbow had seen in this place. Dude was about to make his way to one of the kitchens when he spotted the two at their table.