Flip the Coin [BL]-Chapter 333. Closing in

From the street without cars to the sidewalk without people, through a flimsy glass door that shouldn’t keep the cold out, yet the moment we stepped into the dimly lit lobby, it felt a bit warmer.

Black lobby, black furniture, no plants, only two staircases left and right, both narrow like one would expect from an apartment building.

I looked around.

"Why am I relieved that there is no elevator?"

"Elevators in ghost houses are always bad news," Henry hummed, taking the left staircase up with his gun drawn.

"Right?" I followed him with the kid, branch, and machine gun.

I suddenly couldn’t say how long we walked through the forest or how long I held onto these three ’items.’

I would prefer to stay in the lobby, but here it was still too cold. Henry opened the first door on the left, which should have its windows directed at the street we just came from.

He stepped inside and looked around.

I could already feel the warmth wafting out from the room, although it should only be low room temperature. But frozen stiff, low room temperature was good temperature.

"There is nothing inside." Henry said, and when I looked inside, I saw a room, the size of a normal teenage bedroom or something, with really nothing inside, not even heating.

But it was warm at least.

I wanted to step inside, but Henry beat me to it, looking behind the door and at the black walls that seemed neither painted nor burned, just ’black.’

Touching the wall, I felt nothing specific and slid down near the window, which had glass in it but was one of those you couldn’t open because the building feared you would kill yourself.

"Close the door." I told Henry, and he did, letting Henrietta down.

He leaned her roughly against the wall before again trying to wake her up.

She didn’t flinch and didn’t have the rapid eye movement or anything. If he opened her eyelids, there were no pupils, just white—no idea what that means—and she didn’t even flinch.

The kid was still holding onto me while I leaned against the wall and sat on the floor with my legs stretched out. She was slowly starting to warm up, and I felt her heartbeat go a bit faster and steadier.

"Why is she always such a nuisance?" Henry murmured.

"Pfft. She looks like shit." I leaned the gun and bloody branch in the corner beside me and hugged the little koala. I was feeling like a mother bear with this additional package, refusing to let go.

"Should I shoot her leg again?" He asked, more to himself than me.

"You shot her leg before?" I asked him.

"Your grandma did; you didn’t know?" He asked me back.

"Pfft, nope, but I can picture her doing that." Aahahaha! Good one, you hag.

"Just give her some time and sit down. If you feel lonely, you can hug your good sister to warm her up." I chuckled, especially when Henry’s face turned into a grimace of pure disgust.

He sat beside her, making sure not to touch her while he leaned against the wall across from me and stared at the kid.

"What’s the plan now?"

"Waiting until she wakes up. Worst case, I’ll give her my blood."

"No." Henry instantly sat up and leaned forward, his gaunt expression again turning dangerous.

I shrugged.

"Then how will we get home?"

Henry bit his wrist and held it to his sister’s mouth in sheer protest.

Henrietta had a prominent side cut on half of her head, while her other hair was about chin length. Her clothes, a simple black long-sleeved shirt and pants, were wet and cold, but neither of us would volunteer to undress her, so she would probably stay wet and cold.

With her emaciated look, crazy hairstyle, and now blood dripping from her lips, she looked... unsettling.

The setting with a black wall behind her in an empty room, her brother who looked like a villain himself—the best-looking one out there, but still—as he sighed in annoyance and forced her jaw open to feed her his blood, well, what should I say?

They now somehow looked more like twins than they had before.

Unreal, this whole shit, really unreal.

Anyway, her skin looked better after receiving his blood, although she showed no swallowing reflex, just letting the blood run down her throat and spilling half... Hmm, her state didn’t seem that good.

She did have small cuts on her face, which were probably from Henry breaking the glass of the capsule instead of trying to open it like someone normal.

Anyway, these cuts were now healing.

So it should work somehow.

"I will try feeding her blood. If it doesn’t work, I will try to get rid of my collar," Henry decided, wiping his healing wrist on his sister’s clothes before he shuffled away from her.

"And how will we get home if you have your powers?" I asked him.

"If I can get rid of my collar safely, we’ll get rid of yours too, and you can flip the coin."

"Let’s talk about it when the blood feeding doesn’t work," I sighed and looked around.

"Want to play a game?" I offered.

"Give me the girl; I will warm her up," Henry spoke like a first-class pervert.

"Then we can play..." Ah... that additional sentence didn’t help his case.

"No. If she wakes up and sees you glaring, she’ll freeze to death." I chuckled.

The wind outside wasn’t heard inside this room, which was not very comforting. Absolute silence wasn’t really the appreciated soundtrack in a ghost house, though there should be worse.

Henry growled unhappily and took his gun. He slid into the corner across from me and pointed it at the door.

"By the way, how long have I been gone since the last time we saw each other?" I suddenly remembered my chanting and that I had forgotten to ask that.

"Three months. You were gone for a total of one year." Henry answered, his face falling into expressionlessness.

"Isn’t that better than the two years? I prayed really hard for that to happen before the portal opened." Maybe it worked, and that was somehow the key.

Just cry and beg to the universe, and it could maybe, possibly, just hear you out.

"You were still away for a year." He didn’t look at me but at the door, as if he feared something would break in at any second.

I closed my eyes, feeling drowsy because my body was warm again, and so was the little ice block on me.

"I know, I’m sorry."

"I will forgive you one last time." Henry whispered, and I drifted off into sleep.

*****

I woke up with a flinch, not knowing how much time had passed. I was, however, euphoric to have gotten a good night’s sleep without seeing the Maestro or some other version of myself.

"You are okay," Henry hummed while eyeing me anxiously, still pointing his gun at the door.

It seemed nothing bad had happened in the ghost room; the room just seemed... I don’t know. I can’t put my finger on it.

"How long was I out?" 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎

"A few hours, maybe. Any strange dreams?"

"Nope. It was a really nice sleep. If you want to nap, I can point the gun at the door just fine."

"No, I am not tired," he said, very unconvincingly, given that he looked as if he had been awake for years.

"Anyway. What else happened in the year I was gone?" I finally asked, now that we were still waiting for Henrietta to wake up while lounging in a room with nothing to do.

"Hmm..." Henry tilted his head; his hair, which was now shorter than before we had met again, was covering his intense blue eyes, and he hesitated as if he didn’t know where to start.

"Why don’t we wait until your power is back, and you see for yourself?"

"And for what do you have your mouth? Wait—don’t answer that." I didn’t have a good feeling about providing him with an opportunity to answer that.

Henry laughed and seemed much happier again.

I chuckled and looked up before looking at the wall and door, finally getting why I was feeling that something was wrong after waking up.

Huh.

"Wait...Are the walls coming closer? The ceiling too?"