REAL WORLD: PART THREE Homeward Bound ... - Whoa is (Not)

It won’t take too long. Follow me.
Ted watched as the pen and paper floated up into the air and moved towards the door, hovering by the open
doorway and waiting for him to follow.
Hesitantly, the teen got up and went towards it. Beyond was almost pitch darkness; the light from the
room’s table lamp only spilled partly out the door, reflecting off the white surface of the paper, which flapped
a little further off.
Ted glanced back into the room. The others were all soundly asleep.
With the paper, Eddie beckoned to follow. Ted made up his mind and obeyed.
It wasn’t that dark after all, he realised. The paper and its surrounding area seemed to give off a faint blue
glow, enough for him to see it and follow it.
“Where are we going, dude” he asked as they turned into yet another dark corridor, but Eddie wasn’t able
to answer. Ted looked back, but all he saw was the same blackness that he saw in front. He raised his
hand to his face and was barely able to make out his fingers. The only thing he could really see was the
paper, still moving onward. He had no choice but to follow.
Suddenly, his foot struck the bottom of a step and he tripped, yelling in pain as he fell and his head hit the
edge of a higher step.
A staircase.
All sense of adventure suddenly gone, Ted felt his way in the dark back on to his feet, wincing as he rubbed
the emerging bruise on his head.
Back in the first room, Neo jolted awake.
He sat up uncertainly, not knowing what had woken him, when his gaze alighted on the sofa where Ted had
been sleeping and he saw that it was empty.
Neo had a bad feeling about this. Getting off his sofa, he went over to the blue one to check to see if the
teen was indeed not there. He wasn’t.
“Ted” he called out softly.
“Yes, ol’ chap, I’d rather like a cup of tea,” Marty murmured, in the midst of a particularly British dream. He
rolled over and let out a small snore, then smiled as in his dream he received the requested cup of tea.
Neo went over to the open doorway and stood there for a moment, squinting out into the darkness.
“Ted” he called out again, a little louder this time. His voice faded off into the silent dark. Neo went back
into the room and stared at the lighted table lamp for several moments. There was a pen on the table, but it
didn’t look particularly suspicious.
He moved back to the doorway again, still stuck in the dilemma of whether or not to go out to look for Ted.
The teen might be in danger; but this was a proven haunted house, after all, and although Neo would have
died rather than admit it, he still retained from his childhood a fear of the dark. And this was dark dark, and
furthermore if he went out there he wouldn’t be able to convince himself that the things going bump in the
night were merely a figment of his imagination, because in this universe such things existed, and it was fact
that this place was home to at least two ghosts who might not be as friendly as Frank made them out to be.
Neo returned to the room again and paced a bit. He wandered over to the blue Chesterfield sofa; Ted’s
jacket was draped over one side of it, and Neo checked out the contents of the pocket, more to stall for time
than anything else.
Wallet, house keys, tissue paper, a pen, some strange thing Ted’s aunt gave him, torch, a rather knotted-up
piece of string…