The daily life of a ghost in Oletus manor

Chapter 8

'You can hear me, right?'

There was no reaction. The boy trembled a little, but that was all. He didn't turn his head towards Claude, he didn't answer, nor did he acknowledge his presence.

Well, two can play the game, little Mouse.

Completely ignoring the other's need for personal space, he floats closer to the stiffened boy, taking a peek at the machine he was currently trying to decode.

It was around 50% by now- though it seemed the Embalmer was the only one doing his job, because there wasn't a single machine finished yet. Claude wondered what the other three were doing. Probably fooling around with his brother. Which made Claude slightly frustrated. On one hand, he wanted to go and keep the little rascals away from his brother, and on the other, he didn't want to leave his new... friend alone.

It was fun messing with him, okay?

So, for now, Claude decided to keep lurking around the other boy.

'Are you playing dumb or you actually can't see me? Was I just imagining things before?'

Still no reaction. Huh.

Humming softly under his breath, Claude took a closer look at the decoding Embalmer. He was wearing a white medical mask, that was covering the lower partition of his face, a pair of white medical gloves, dark grey pants with a matching jacket, and a pair of elegant, black dress shoes. He had messy grey hair combed slightly to the left side, tied into a rat-tail, keeping most of it out of his face. He wondered exactly how long it would be unbound. Probably around shoulder-length.

He couldn't see much of his face. What he could see though, was that pair of big, slightly sunken, silver eyes, with long, grey eyelashes, and sickly pale, white skin.

It made Claude feel a little bit of sympathy for the boy. Was he sick or something?

He hoped that wasn't the case- though it would explain why he was trembling so much. Maybe he had a cold? The poor thing!

'Are you cold, little Mouse?' it wouldn't be too surprising if that was the case. It was pretty cold here after all.

'Anyways! I must leave you here, decoding in piece now! I have a brother to protect after all! See you later, little Mouse!'

Waving cheerfully at the boy, who might or might not see him, Claude took off, fully intending to find his brother and get the survivors to leave him alone.

This map was a big one. What was it called again? Leo's something? He couldn't quite remember it.

Well. Anyways.

This place was his favorite one so far. It was covered by fresh, blindingly white snow, that never seemed to cease falling from the sky, though it didn't seem to become any bigger than it was, nor did it ever melt away. The sky was slightly dark, with a few stray rays of sunshine still lingering behind. Time seemed to be frozen in this place, the twilight never really going away.

In the center of the map, there was a big factory building, that had two floors in it: one on the ground level, and another one that could be accessed by a staircase either from outside or from the inside. There were many pine trees, covered by the snow, a big Christmas tree between a ruined building's crumbling walls and an abandoned, empty old shack, that could be found not too far from the other bigger one.

All in all, this was a great place for both the survivors and the hunters. Especially when the latter one decided to go easy on their opponents.

Finally finding his brother with the three survivors, Claude let out a relieved sigh. Joseph seemed to be having fun, playing around with the others. They were having a snowball fight by the looks of it.