XPLR | Colby Brock

~13~

CALM DOWN GUYS I WASN'T READY FOR THIS KIND OF COMMITMENT

"Did you show Rose what you found?" Colby asked Elton as we started down the hallway. Elena and I walked a little ahead of Colby and Elton, since the hallways were so skinny.

"Oh yeah," Elena said sarcastically as I turned around and started walking backwards. "What did you find?" I asked. Elton turned his backpack around and pulled out a baby doll. The doll was ragged and creepy, and dirty. My main question was why did someone have a baby doll out here, and second, why such an expensive one?

The doll wouldn't have been so eerie if it didn't look so real. Like the kind of doll you buy out of a catalog on an airplane.

Elton smiled watching my disgusted reaction. "What are we going to do with that? I doubt Amanda will let you take that back to your house," I said. "You're right, she definitely won't. So we're going to take it back to the mansion and play one man hide and seek. Or.. two man hide and seek. Maybe three," he winked at me, like he wants me to get in on it.

Oh and I definitely will.

"Anything catch your eye while you were walking around?" Elena said.

"Not really, the upstairs and this floor are pretty in-tact I think. I did see a basement sign, we can follow those," I said. "You mean you didn't go down to the basement?" Colby teased.

"I might do all these stupid games and explorations, but I'm not doing any of them alone," I laugh nervously. Elena was obviously nervous, I know that because when she gets nervous she gets touchy. Every scary movie we've watched together, she always clings to someone. Rather it be me or Hayden or a stranger.

Now she grabbed my hand with her clammy one, and squeezed it tight. I looked at her and laughed a little, pushing my nerves right down into the pit of my stomach. "You alright?" I asked.

"I don't like the feeling this place gives me."

Given we were right around the spot where I had the same odd feeling, but it seemed to affect Elena more than it did me. Probably because I'm not one to believe Satan's hunched over my shoulders as easily as she is.

But even so I rubbed her hand with my thumb gently. "I came through here alone, remember? If there was something here they probably would've killed me first," I assured her.

She rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I'd hope so."

Just as predicted, nothing about the asylum was really creepy. Well, at least the top few floors. Elena barely ever let go of my hand.

Now that we were finally making it down to the bottom floors, Elena pulled me back to let Elton lead, and Colby filmed behind us, getting all three of us in the frame.

"Are we doing the ouija board down here?" I asked as I took my hand away from Elena, only for her to grab my arm. Elton shined his flashlight around the room and smirked. "Yeah."

I laughed as Elena clung to me. I nudged her towards Colby and grinned mischievously at him as she clung to him. I took the camera from him as she wrapped him and laughed.

"This is why it was only ever us and Hayden when we went exploring," I said as I checked the view finder of the camera.

"What happened to Hayden?" Elton asked as he turned to us and signaled for me to turn the camera off. I stopped recording and checked the save.

She glanced at me like she was expecting me to answer. I moved the camera over my shoulder as I started to look around, "Your department, Elena. You have to explain."

"Because I thought about it. I didn't want to bring you here if you two were together. I mean if I was with a girl I wouldn't want her to go hang out with two-" Colby said, but Elena cut him off.

"No, we broke up," she said, letting go of Colby and coming back towards me. I looked at her and mouthed the words- You did? As Colby let out a sigh of relief. "Good. I was the one who suggested we bring you here."

She just shrugged.