The Adventures of Atlas the Greatᵗᶜ

I Should've Stayed In The Bathtub

Rayne Atlas did not know the reason he agreed to this trip.

It was not because his friends were a convincing bunch; they were a bunch of idiots who would try to convince a chicken that it was a duck and come back convinced they were flamingos, set on a mission for world domination. 

It couldn't have been for the place, because no one would want to go to Transylvania in the middle of summer to help fix up his friend's great-great aunt's house, and who wants to do work during summer vacations? His days were meant to be spent at the beach.

It was because of the weather, Rayne tried to reason with himself, sighing at the sight before him. It was either that or he just signed up for one week of hell for no goddamn reason, and who signs up for hell with no goddamn reason?

Brooklyn got crazy hot in the summer, like the universe just decided 'Screw it', and turned up the heat in the boiler. And as much as Rayne would love to spend his summer marinating in the bathtub, Transylvania must have sounded more appealing to his heat-muddled brain when his friends pitched their idea.

"Ain't this exciting, Ray-ray?" His friend, Kazuya Ren grinned out. Kazuya, whose great-great aunt woke up on the wrong side (or right side...?) of bed one day, and decided to buy a house in the middle of god-knows-where, and also left it to simmer in the chill of Transylvania for a few decades, was as excited as a starved man seeing food when he heard the house needed repairs, and somehow managed to lug his friends halfway across the world with him.

"Very." Sarcasm dripped out of his mouth, just as the rain did a few minutes earlier. The house in mention, as Rayne very belatedly realized, was as much a house as a castle was a building. The mansion seemed to stretch far beyond his eyesight, but that wasn't anything great, if Rayne's thick-lensed glasses had anything to say about it. 

"You oafs!" Their other friend, Elena Hale, was close to tears trying to pull their luggage out of the car they'd rented. "I thought you were strong." A woman commented, stepping out of the car to watch her friend's struggle. "I thought you were kind!" Elena snapped back, making the woman cough out a laugh. 

"You called me an overrated-moron when we first met, El." Mallory Lorien grinned widely, standing right next to Elena and not lifting a limb to help. "You threw a book at my face!" Elena glared at Mallory, huffing as she finally got the last suitcase out.

"If it's any comfort, I wasn't aiming at your face."

Rayne and Kazuya burst into laughter at Elena's misery, as the said girl dragged (only) her own suitcase toward the house- no, mansion. 

Rayne pulled off his glasses, wiping away the few raindrops that sat on it. He pulled his eyes back to the mansion, scanning every inch of it. The courtyard was filled with overgrown grass and bushes, the driveway not anything better. The gates had creaked when Kazuya had gotten down to open it, and creepers grew on the walls of the manor, a few windows broken and patched up, giving it the whole haunted house feel.

Ironically enough, Rayne had laughed at the people in horror movies a few too many times for it to be sane, and here he was, walking into a house which had 'Haunted' written over it in dark black ink, circled and underlined twice. "We're going to have fun!" Kazuya laughed, grabbing Rayne's suitcase and handing it to him. 

"Let's get this old thing up to date." And the black-haired man had disappeared into the house before he could say 'This was a bad idea.' Rayne groaned, following his friends into the house and what he thinks is utter doom.

The house was somewhat better inside than it was out, and the inside was covered in dust, so that must give you an idea of what the house's condition was. There stood a statue right at the entrance, (of what? Rayne wouldn't know, since everything was covered in white sheets), and stairs creeped up the sides of the statue magnificently, leading to the upper floors.