The Haunted Orphanage

Chapter 27

(Tag's at the end)

Mark's POV

The ground broke away completely and I could feel myself falling. The multicolored swirls seemed to be pulling me and Anti downward. I looked over and noticed Anti was smiling while I felt like I was being strangled. "Why are you smiling?" I asked.

"I can smell death and despair again!" he cheered as if it were a good thing.

I restrained myself from asking more questions and focused on what was happening. The colorful tornado seemed to be turning black and red. I could make out a few figures on the other side of the swirls. Tall buildings, houses, and several human-sized things that appeared to have wings.

Wait, what?

"Anti?"

"Hmm?"

"DO PEOPLE HAVE WINGS HERE?!" I asked, trying to hide my excitement, but failing.

"No," Anti replied, uninterested.

"But," I pointed upward as we continued falling, "those are people–"

"Those are demons, Mark. I could've sworn I explained that." He mumbled the last part to himself.

"Everyone's a demon? I thought it was just you and Dark?" I asked.

Anti giggled at me, "We aren't that special. Everyone down here's a demon except for you and Jack, and that should be taken care of shortly."

I paused for a moment and began examining our surroundings again. Suddenly, a thought hit me, "Do all demons have wings?"

"They sprout once you turn eighteen, why?"

Before I could quote Peter Pan and yell 'WE CAN FLY!' Anti and I hit the ground.

I landed on my stomach while Anti stuck the landing perfectly. I noticed we had landed on a pentagram inside a building. We were in the middle of a huge crowd. "Get up," he whispered to me as he helped me off the ground.

Once I was up I turned to him and asked, "Why'd I have to get up so fast?"

He didn't answer my question. He just pushed me off the pentagram and led me through the crowd, telling me to keep my head down. I noticed that he had put his hood up. He navigated his way through the building and stopped in front of a door that was labeled 'De-cleansing'.

"Anti, what are we–"

"Shush up," he interrupted me. He opened the door and led me in.

It looked identical to a bathroom.

I erupted into laughter.

"Stop laughing! It's illegal!" Anti screeched. "You've got a lot to learn."

"B-But," I choked out between laughs, "'de-cleansing' is a pun on cleansing because it's hell a-and this is a bathroom."

Anti face palmed. "Mark, control yourself. Plus, puns aren't funny if you explain them."

"Why are we," I paused for effect, "'de-cleansing'?" I began chuckling again.

"We aren't here to take a shit." Anti walked around a corner and I followed close behind. Around the corner, lockers were lined neatly against the wall.

Anti pulled out a phone that had a skull where the Apple logo would typically be. I peeked at his phone long enough to see that he was texting someone. "Who's that?" I asked.

"Well," Anti started, "because I know that Dark would fuckin' torture me to death if he found out that you're here, I texted Dan. Dark changes his locker combination every time I break in and I didn't figure it out before I left."