level 1.5

Abby slowly regained consciousness, shivering on the floor of a dimly-lit room. 

"Mom, can you turn off the AC?" Abby shouted. No reply. She asked again a little louder this time, confused. " Mom? " There was nothing but dead silence. Feeling somewhat uneasy, she sat up. When she opened her eyes she saw not her brightly decorated pink bedroom, but instead a dark room with ancient brick walls. Suddenly, the events of the past few hours flooded into her mind, and she shuddered with horror as she remembered the strange game, the forest, the house, the lady in the bride's dress, and her friends who she'd last seen in the room covered with glowing red patterns.

Worried, she called out. "Polina? Vicky?" Yet once again, there was no reply. Determined to save her friends and trying without success to ignore her dread at being left all alone, she looked around to find a way out of the room.

Floating red candles lit up the room. With shock, Abby noticed a little girl standing in the distance staring silently at her, and she wondered if she had been there the entire time, feeling a little creeped out. The girl wore a white, flowy dress, her hair tied into two buns with white strings with tiny bells attached. Her face had a sickly pallor, and her eyes were pitch black, not reflecting any light. She held in her hands a flower basket filled with white roses that had what looked like blood stains on them. Looking more closely, Abby saw that the roses were not real roses, but made of paper money which people burnt as an offering to their ancestors to use as currency in the underworld. Now, however, they folded into roses in a little girl's hand. 

Abby was shocked. When she was younger, she once went to burn paper money for her dead dad and had been too scared to hold the sheets of paper that reminded her far too much of death, yet this little girl who looked no more than five years old is holding a full basket of roses made of them as if it was some casual thing. It was impressive, and at the same time creepy.

Abby looked at the girl in amusement, without her brain understanding her hair stood up and she got goosebumps all over her body, she asked herself why was she doing that, her brain can't figure it out. She wasn't scared in her mind but her body's reaction can't lie. Abby was convinced that there is something wrong with the girl.