I immediately dashed forward. I only had a single goal: to get the hell out of the damn house.

  Valina and Josh ran beside me. This made me remember why we had all gotten into physical fitness. Other than looking good, of course, it was for some bullshit reason like this.

  We ran through new hallways, and it would take seconds for the room to come alive with light.

  It didn't matter what new room we ran into—the snakes followed. I noticed they weren't attacking us, but it didn't matter. Quite frankly, if we hadn't seen Josh checking out some bottle of wine, we would've kept running.

  I pointed at the snakes and shouted, “Evil snakes!”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Relax. They don't attack.”

  I came to an abrupt stop. “What? They're snakes!”

  “Yeah? And do I look like I've been bit?”

  That was such a good point. Me and the two others calmed down, but cautiously examined the ceiling.

  My heart was beating quickly and for a moment I did nothing. Valina, breathing heavily, asked Yasin, “Where did you find that?”

  “It was in some cabinet. I was looking for an exit to check out the yard, got kinda lost. Thought I would help myself to some drinks.”

  “Oh...” She inched closer to him. “So... we drinking it straight from the bottle or we getting cups?”

  Josh said, “Guys, don't drink some strange drink. Bloody hell, I shouldn't have to say this.”

  Valina grumbled. “Yeah but...”

  She clenched her fist, then sighed.

  I said, “You definitely should stay away from alcohol.”

  “No,” Valina said, and didn't expand further.

  Yasin just kept the bottle in his hand. “But what if it's really nice?”

  Josh ignored him. I chose to ask something important. “You guys think they basically trapped us in this place? It shouldn't be this difficult to find the exit.”

  Valina took a seat on a white wooden chair. “God I hope not. I don't want to be like those slave hero MCs.”

  I agreed. “Maybe... since it's a different world, house exits appear fundamentally different from Earth ones?”

  Josh thought about this. “They look and talk human enough to be like us, in the sense they'll most likely do what's easiest. Having easy door access is among the easiest and cheapest, instead of some fancy shit.”

  Valina didn't completely agree. “But culture and doctrine can change that. What if having a straight door exit in homes is a taboo in their religion? Something like that.”

  That was scary to think about. I also took a seat. “We see they have speaker technology, but also use snakes as a form of house lighting. It's really possible house exits are some weird shit.”

  Yasin disagreed. “The temple exit was a normal door.”

  I said, “That's why we're talking about houses.”

  Yasin shrugged. “You guys are worrying your heads too much. They think of us as saviors and all that stuff. It would be dumb for them to get on our bad side.”

  He then casually walked back to the bedroom. Or the path toward it.

  I found myself agreeing with him. “When did he become so smart? Am I going crazy? Wasn't this guy super dumb?”

  Valina said, “Perhaps our overthinking is making us dumb, and the answers are simple.”

  I snapped my fingers and turned toward her. “You make a good damn point. But how are we not supposed to overthink when we're in this shitty situation?”

  Josh folded his arms and said, "Maybe we don't need to stop. When Yasin says something, we simply have to pay attention to it. We're involved with politics now, so we're gonna have to overthink there and then. Well, y'all will.”

  He looked at the archway with shark murals and asked, “Still want to look for the exit?”

  “Absolutely," I said.

  Valina agreed too, and so we spent about half an hour looking for an exit. Josh had lost his calm and was screaming at the top of his voice, “Let us out, you damn shits!”

  Valina and I were close to losing our minds, too.

  I took a calm breath and said, “This is some bullshit.”

  Valina agreed. “When that President shows his ugly head, we have to kill him.”

  We all agreed on that and made our way back to the bedroom. But we got lost a bunch of times.

  We found the room where we had met Yasin. Valina, with dead eyes, grabbed the bottle of liquor, ripped the cap open, and chugged gulps of alcohol down.

  Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Josh's eyes went wide, and he rushed at her. “Are you trying to die?”

  Instead of wrestling him, she simply shoved the bottle into his mouth. He grabbed the bottle to throw it away. But... his face relaxed, and he just drank away.

  He pulled back and licked his lips. A lot. Like, a lot.

  “Okay... maybe it's okay,” he said.

  I was about to ask for some, but he read my mind and said, “No alcohol for kids.”

  “I'm not a kid.”

  Eventually, we made it back to the bedroom.

  Yasin was asleep on the bed. The same bed we said was probably dirty.

  Valina stumbled toward it. “I'm so tired.”

  She collapsed onto it. Josh turned toward me, shrugged, and did the same.

  I grumbled but also got on the bed, But I used Josh as a cushion to keep as much of my skin off the bed as possible.

  He was irritated, but he didn't verbally complain, so that was dope.

  I woke up with the intense urge to pee. If I didn't pee, I couldn't fall back asleep.

  Without thinking, I rolled off the bed and immediately remembered I had fallen asleep near the edge.

  I hit the floor with a light thud.

  The snakes sensed my movements and began glowing. It was dim compared to earlier. After a couple of seconds, the snakes flattened themselves against the ceiling and became invisible. I wasn't sure how they worked. It almost seemed like they adjusted their brightness depending on how many people were asleep.

  That question ranked far below the more urgent matter of finding a bathroom.

  I stood up and headed toward the passageway.

  Valina had somehow ended up using Josh's stomach as a pillow. That made me wonder if I had been pushed onto the bed.

  I tried not to think about it. I needed a shower too.

  Josh had a girlfriend back on Earth—Aja—but since we were summoned to this world, he hadn't mentioned her once. Not a single word about missing her. Honestly, he hadn't missed Earth at all.

  I knew he had always been excited by the idea of another world, but I would've expected him to worry about her at least.

  Thinking back on it now, though, their relationship had never been particularly healthy.

  Aja once told him, “I don’t like how Valina hangs around you.”

  Josh's response had been:

  “What are you talking about?”

  “She’s too touchy. It makes me uncomfortable.”

  “You’re bugging.”

  Real romantic stuff.

  I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but looking back, the relationship was a mess.

  Aja had threatened to kill herself if he ever left, and I supposed he resented her for that.

  The ceiling lights brightened as soon as I entered the hallway.

  I opened the nearest door.

  Bedroom.

  The next one.

  Empty.

  The next.

  Empty again.

  Door after door was nothing but unused rooms.

  I wondered if the place had been designed by someone who hated bathrooms. Like that Punisher actor guy that despised naps.

  I really needed to pee. Pissing myself was not an option. The last time that happened was when I was drunk out of my mind, and that shame never left me.

  For a moment, I even wondered whether they had toilets in that world at all.

  I refused to dig a hole in the ground like some prehistoric human.

  Just as I opened yet another useless room, I heard something weird.

  It sounded like a dying screech. The sound echoed faintly through the hallway.

  It was unpleasant.

  I immediately turned around and went back to the bedroom. I had a mixed relationship with horror movies. I loved how scary they were, but I was easily terrified. There was one thing I learned from them: if you hear some scary shit in a strange foreign place, you run like hell.

  I violently shook Josh and forced him awake. He opened an eye and glared at me.

  “What the hell do you want?” he asked.

  “Bathroom,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I need help finding the bathroom," I clarified.

  "You woke me up for that?”

  “Well, not just that,” I added. “I heard something weird. Like… some kind of snake sound.”

  He groaned.

  “Then why didn’t you wake Yasin? He’s the one who isn’t scared of snakes.” he asked.

  “You're my big cousin. Like, the big homie.”

  After an exaggerated sigh, he nudged Valina's head off his stomach and stood up.

  “Let’s go...” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  We entered the hallway and went bathroom hunting.

  I heard the weird screech sound again and Josh and I both stopped.

  He looked at me and asked, “You heard that too?”

  I nodded. “Yeah.”

  He crossed his arms. “Shit. I really hope this place isn’t cursed.”

  That thought had also crossed my mind. The last thing I wanted was to deal with ghosts.

  Josh crouched.

  “Stick to my back,” he said. “We’ll cover each other’s sides.”

  We moved forward awkwardly, searching door after door.

  Eventually, we found a golden door. Behind it was another door. And behind that one was a bathroom.

  I felt relieved. The idea that this place lacked a bathroom was starting to feel real.

  It even had a shower, though the walls around it were strangely high. It looked like someone had tried to combine a shower and bathtub without fully committing to either idea.

  Then I saw the toilet.

  Or what was apparently meant to be a toilet. It was a metal cylinder. That was all. There was no comfortable toilet seat.

  Apparently, I was expected to hover over it. Several seconds passed as I wondered what kind of dumbass designed this 'toilet'?

  And worse, I didn't have a better option.

  I told Hessien to leave and close the door.

  Before he left, I added, “Wait outside.”

  He responded, "Yeah, yeah. Hurry up. My stomach’s not feeling great either.”

  "Maybe you shouldn't drink weird alcohol," I responded.

  His eyes went wide.

  I stepped toward the metal cylinder and prepared to lift my skirt.

  Then I heard the same weird sound from before. This time, it was unmistakably coming from the toilet.

  I cautiously looked inside the toilet. And that was when I saw it.

  A massive, wet, writhing blue vine.

  I was stunned and couldn't understand what I was looking at. Why was it in a toilet?

  Then panic set in. I rushed toward the door and left that hellzone of a bathroom.

  Josh asked, “What is it?”

  I panted as I said, "There's some weird shit inside there."

  He understood quickly. "Oh."

  Then he calmly entered the bathroom. "Show yourself, dude. I'm gonna kill you."

  "What? It's in the toilet," I said.

  He looked at me, confused.

  I repeated it again. "Toilet. The weird thing is in the toilet. Well, a monster to be specific. A monster disguised as a plant."

  He glared at me and said, "Hahaha. Very funny. You took a shit, and you're calling it a monster? You're so gross."

  "I'm serious."

  He rolled his eyes and approached the door before closing it. "Sure. Anyway, I need to take a shit too."

  "I'm not joking!" I tried to push the door open.

  "Stop! My pants down!"

  Josh ignored my yelling and kept me at bay by mentioning he was practically naked.

  Still, I tried to warn him. What more could I have done? Unfortunately, I was quite the jokester back on Earth, so it wasn't out of the ordinary to prank him. It was similar to that 'the boy who cried wolf' story, I suppose.

  Standing over the strange cylindrical toilet, he took what he would later describe as the dump of the century.

  The relief didn't last long. When he looked around for toilet paper and saw none, he was quickly given a reason for the lack of it. He felt a splash of liquid on his buttocks.

  He was confused, wondering where that water had come from.

  That was his downfall. The next second, a jet of warm, thick liquid hammered against his butt. Josh rushed out of the path and fell to the ground. He saw the stream of purple gooey-like liquid on the floor. Felt it flowing down his legs. And he smelled it. An earthly scent, mixed with pig pen.

  Josh pulled the door open, eyes wide. His pants and Spiderman boxers were down to his knees.

  He pointed at the toilet with a trembling finger. "There's a monster in that!"