The Game at Carousel: A Horror Movie LitRPG

That day and the next were some of the many peaceful days we had at Kimberly’s loft.

We had come to savor them, even though the longer they lasted, the sooner we would start to feel the panic and dread that came with running another storyline.

That night, however, we would not get to relax.

In our first few weeks there, we got used to the occasional knock on the door coming as we went to sleep. Isaac took pride in being able to disengage and send away whatever omen had come to try and trick us into a storyline.

We saw no reason to exercise anything but abundant caution, so it was pretty standard for us to use multiple opinions. He would look, then I would look, and then we would decide what to do to send the omen packing.

Even though the others didn't have scouting tropes that would allow them to be helpful whenever omens knocked on the main entrance, they still got up and got dressed enough to be ready on the off chance we failed to send away the omen, and we were all drawn into a storyline.

Everyone was wide awake by the time we assembled outside the main door after that night's knock.

Isaac held his breath as he walked up to the door and put his eye to the peephole.

He froze.

He literally didn't move for about 10 seconds, then he backed away and looked at me.

It was my turn.

From the icy look on his face, there was something terrifying on the other side of the door.

I couldn’t imagine what it was.

Usually, other sounds accompanied the knocking—something like a person asking to be let in or some ominous growls. When I looked through the peephole, what I saw was Camden.

My friend Camden Tran, whom I had known since I was a little kid, was standing out in the hallway, anxiously waiting to be let in. He dressed like Camden: short-sleeved, buttoned-up shirt with the top few buttons undone, surfer shorts, a necklace with little white shells on it, the works.

He had a smile on his face and strangely seemed to know that I was looking at him as he made eye contact with me even though we kept the lights off on our side so they couldn’t see the shadows.

I knew it couldn’t be him, but the sight of it made my heart jump. I made sure to look at the omen on the red wallpaper. The storyline was titled Suitability. It was dangerous, which made it hard to see what was on the poster, but I could guess it had something to do with shape-shifters or similar, given that my dead friend was staring back at me.

I didn’t need to know anything except how to dismiss the omen, how to send it away.

My hint was helpful: "Be a better stranger," according to the red wallpaper, was what I had to do to send him away. Normally, my trope told me how to trigger an Omen, but in combination with the rules for Kimberly's loft, it instead told me how to avoid its automatic triggering.

However, it wasn't as straightforward as some of the hints had been, which made me dread the day when the hints were so obscure that we could guess wrong.

Being a better stranger to someone who looked like my oldest friend meant something pretty clear to me. I just hoped that I was right.

I found myself afraid to speak, but I took a deep breath and spoke anyway.

"Go away," I said. "I don’t know you."

It made sense to me. A creature that imitates your loved ones would probably be thrown for a loop if you claimed not to recognize it.

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I seemed to have guessed right because Camden suddenly looked very confused.

"Are you sure? I thought I was at the right place," Camden said.

"I’ve never seen you before in my life. Get out of here," I said through the door.

And then we waited to see if I had guessed right.

Slowly, Camden—or whatever looked like him—turned and walked away.

Dina stood near the door with the sawed-off shotgun pointed and at the ready. If I had been wrong and fake Camden had tried to bust through that door, he would have gotten a real surprise.

No one spoke, but Antoine looked at me like he was hoping I would explain.

"I’ll tell you later," I said. I was afraid to acknowledge what I had seen because I was low-key afraid the monster would hear and realize I secretly did recognize it.

I took a deep breath, and we all just kind of walked back into the living room, none of us ready to go back to bed.

"I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to that," Kimberly said.

"Not after Camp Dyer," I said.

“I miss it so much,” she said. “Scratch that. I miss the real world. But I do miss Camp Dyer.”

We stood in silence for a moment longer. It occurred to me that every base we would ever live at would have some drawback, just like this one.

This one had omens that would tempt you.

They were easily avoidable, but still, the constant barrage brought on a stress that reappeared every time we heard that knock.

And then, as I thought about it, an idea occurred to me.

"Kimberly, can I see the writ of habitation for this place?" I asked.

Because writs were stored in thin air like our tropes, she immediately handed it to me. I read through it until I found the section I was looking for.

“Guarantee Against Encumbrances and Hostility: The described property shall remain free from lairs, nests, or havens of any adversarial entities. All hostile presences nearby will immediately vacate the vicinity and abstain from combative behavior.”

"This writ of habitation protects us and guarantees that there are no lairs at this base," I said. We had recently been researching monster lairs, but because their presence was a huge spoiler, the Carousel Atlas didn’t have much on them other than basic explanations.

"And?" Antoine asked.

"We looked through the Atlas for monster lairs, but did we check under the section on bases?" I asked.

We knew that there was a monster lair out by the Powerworks area, but we didn't know much about it. We had deduced that two members of Andrew Hughes' party had gotten killed in it. The Atlas was not well organized because it didn't usually have to be. We went to the Atlas at the kitchen table, flipped it open, and started looking through the tabs until we found a small section on bases, which were locations throughout Carousel where players would be safe from omens—things like Kimberly’s loft or Camp Dyer.

I flipped to it and started looking through to see if I could find a list of bases that other players had used. I was in luck. I found one.

I started moving my finger down the list. "Monastery, farm, cabin, apartment, house, cave," I read out loud. "There," I said. KRSL Powerworks Pavilion."

There was an entry on it.

Someone had used it as a base at least once.

It made sense; it was a vast compound that could be very easily secured and hold a lot of people.

I flipped to the section where the information on that base was located, hoping that I would find all kinds of helpful tips, but when I found it, I was deflated. It was a small section with barely any writing, and the information wasn't even first-hand.

CW had written:

"Had a conversation with a Stranger today. Pretended not to know who they were--Strangers hate to be recognized--but I know they live in a base up at the Powerworks Pavilion. Bought him a beer and he told me that his crew has to clear out of their base a few days out of the month and he spent the whole time at the bar."

"What happens every month?" I asked him.

"Full moon," he said.

Hmm.

-CW

I took in a deep breath.

Was that a spoiler? Or maybe it wasn’t because that information would have been found on his writ of habitation. Information from the writs was not a spoiler.

That’s what I told myself, at least.

If that wasn’t spoilers, it was great information. I knew a monster that came out on the full moon.

And I had been looking for it ever since I got to Carousel.

~-~

After that revelation, we stayed up and spoke at length about its implications.

"So what are we thinking?" Antoine asked. "The team got attacked by...werewolves, two were killed, and the rest fled into Itch?"

"That's my best guess," I said. We were making a lot of assumptions.

We were one step closer to figuring out what had happened to Andrew Hughes’ teammates, who had not entered Itch with him.

It wasn't really a priority, but in some ways, all mysteries felt like priorities in Carousel.

I lay back in my bed and stared out my window, thinking about everything we had accomplished over the past few days: our grocery run, our research, our teamwork.

I noticed that in the sky, the moon was almost full, and I watched it without thinking about anything particular for a long time.

Eventually, I saw something or someone fly across the sky, directly across the moon. A witch on a broom?

It snapped me out of it, and I rolled over and went to sleep.

We had so many things to do, and it would all start tomorrow.