3

Saturday 9:30 am

It was late the next morning when Lily woke up. The TV was still on and was playing the title card on repeat but that wasn't what caught her attention.

Maddox's head was draped off the side of the bed with his legs beside Lily's head next to the headboard. Sage was star fished over Maddox and Lily bodies without a care in the world as she slept silently while somehow managing to ignore the multiple body parts stabbing her in the back.

Lily only rolled her eyes before slowly getting out of the bed and walking downstairs to the kitchen.

Music played quietly in the background to fill the dead air while Lily played on her phone at the bar until one of her friends finally woke up. She'd cuss silently under her breath every time she made a bad move on a game that made her lose but in the end, always restarted no matter how mad she was.

About thirty minutes later Sage walked in on Lily eating a bowl of dry cereal. She simply rolled her eyes and mumbled the word 'disgraceful' under her breath.

"Well if you can find something better you are more than welcome to have it," Lily said joking making Sage pout before taking the cereal box off the counter and shoving her hand in it before pulling it out a handful and plopping it in her mouth.

"Disgraceful," Lily mimicked with a smile to which Sage flipped her off before taking her cereal to the couch.

This was all normal. Sage was a morning grump like always, Maddox was sleeping in, and Lily was pissing Sage off already this morning.

It was like something had hit the reset button and no one was on edge anymore. As if last night was all just some scary dream and now that it was a new day everything would go back to normal and come next weekend they would all call a new number.

"What's for breakfast?" Maddox asked the second his foot touched the last step. His hair was sticking up in every direction while one hand rubbed the sleep out of his eye.

"Dry cereal," Sage huffed sadly as she shoved the almost empty box in Maddox's direction.

"Again?" He complained with a whine. "This is like the third weekend in a row."

"Well if you want to spend money on food and shit I'll gladly let you. In case you haven't noticed, I'm a broke college kid. You're rich compared to me."

"Never thought I'd live to see the day when I had more money than someone," Maddox said with a proud smile as he sat down on the couch.

"Mood," Sage chuckled with a small smile.

Lily was just about to open her mouth to throw a playful insult about how broke Sage was when a simple ringtone filled the air. The three thought nothing of it at first. Lily just politely shut her mouth so the person could answer the phone.

Maddox pulled his phone out his pocket with a small frown on his face. No one other than the people in this room would ever call him this early in the morning; they would all think he was still asleep.

The caller ID was unknown. Usually, he would decline the call and let it go to voicemail but for some reason, he felt like he needed to pick it up.

His heartbeat quickened and his lips suddenly felt way too dry. His tongue peeked out past his lips for just a second as his thumb landed on the accept call button before putting it on speaker.

For a moment there was nothing, just dead air coming through the speaker before the humming started. It was a quiet noise but it seemed to echo throughout Lily's silent home.

The girl's heads snap over to Maddox's phone when the humming reached their ears, making their heart rates pick up immediately.

The humming was the only sound other than beating hearts that could be heard before the familiar automated voice spoke over the eerie hum.

"All bad things come in threes. 555-666-7777-8," the familiar humming poured into Maddox's ears with an almost deafening pitch. "8-2-55-33-66," a speck of light blurring across Sage's face, she went to follow it with her eyes but it as already gone. "6-88-777-3-33-777," the feeling of being watched overcame Lily; out of pure instinct, she looked over her shoulder, seeing nothing but an empty kitchen.

As quickly as it came, the voice was gone and the humming took center stage yet again before the call was abruptly ended and the three were plunged into a terrifying silence.

No one spoke, no one moved; they barely even blinked as they all stared at the phone in disbelief.

Though her heart was beating out of her chest, Lily shoved the fear into the farthest corner of her head and put on a smile before addressing the other people in the room.

"So much for a stupid fake number." She said, her voice coming out shaky and uneven but her face showed nothing but confidence as she smirked to hide the fear.

"This isn't funny anymore," Sage yelled angrily. "You need to tell whatever friend you told to call Maddox and end this. It isn't funny!"

"Lily doesn't have any friends other than us." Maddox reminds Sage, his voice almost as void of emotion as the voice from the phone calls. His phone was still in his hand as he stared at it blankly.

"Then she paid someone to do it!"

"With what money," Lily asked in a scream, the smile still on her face just to keep her from showing the anger and frustration she was feeling. "We literally just established that I'm college kid broke."

"Let's all just try and calm down," Maddox says before Sage had the chance to fire back at Lily. "Fighting isn't going to help anything."

"Then what do you think we should do since you are so full of ideas?" Sage asked in an accusing voice.

The boy was quiet at first, thinking everything through before he spoke. If he said the wrong thing there was a possibility of making Sage blow up again and doing something that wouldn't be helpful.

"I think we should go back to that website, email some people, see if they actually went through this or if it's just a sick prank, and then regroup from there."

Sage huffed and stood up quickly before walking upstairs. Lily and Maddox seemed to be frozen in place. All they could do was watch Sage as she left with shock written on their faces.

Sage didn't usually act like this. She was the squad mom who kept everyone calm and collected in these situations while Lily and Maddox freaked out.

"She's just stressed. She didn't mean any of it." Maddox said though he didn't know if he was talking to Lily or himself.

"I know," she said back numbly before shaking off the watched feeling that still hadn't disappeared. "We should probably get up there before she starts yelling at us again."

Maddox only nodded before leading them up the stairs.

Once they were back in Lily's room they all went straight to work. Their fingers moved lightning fast over keyboards and touchpads looking for any helpful comment on the website, but there was nothing.

The same post with different user names filled the screen. All of the names from the day before stayed in the same order, with the same-year-old time stamps; the only difference was what the comment was saying.

" 'There's nothing you can do. Play the game or die in vain'." Sage read off in a defeated voice.

"How are we supposed to play if we don't know the rules?"

"Resist the tempts," Maddox answered blankly as he stared at the computer screen, still scrolling for answers even though his mind screamed him to stop. "The dude said we had to resist the 'tempts' to make it out alive."

The group was quiet for a while. Lily sat on her bed, staring at the phone was turned off in her lap. Sage laid on her back on the floor, her fingers playing with each other on her stomach.

Maddox's small gasp broke the silence as he stood up quickly with his laptop in hand. A small smile shone on his face as he put the laptop down on the bed and motioned a confused Sage over to them.

Her confusion quickly turned to a sense of relief when she was on the screen.

Maddox had scrolled all the way to the bottom of the page, to the very last comment.

It had no name and no time stamp and no profile picture. It was just an empty comment with very few words.

"This is a hint. You only get so many so use them wisely. Stay together if you want to survive. All or nothing; if one leaves you all lose. Four days is all it takes, when the clock strikes midnight on the fourth day everything will be over."

"This is it!" Lily shouted excitedly, nearly splitting Maddox's eardrums in the process. "All we have to do is stay together and we win the game!"

"We're together all the time anyway so this should be easy." Maddox pointed out with a small sigh.

"If we aren't 'tempted' to leave the group in the middle of the night while everyone else is asleep."

"We could handcuff ourselves to each other at night," Lily suggested. Sage gave her a doubtful look.

"You flop like a fish in your sleep and Sage gets up every hour to pee like an old man."

"And Maddox kicks people," Sage said as she shot him a rude look for the insult.

"Then what do you two suggest?"

Everyone was quiet as they thought. Maddox always thought with a think frown on his lips while Sage and Lily just stared into space until an idea came to them.

"Maybe we should just go to the cops," Sage said with a small shrug.

"And say what? We summoned a demon and now it's going to try and kill us all, please send help? They would lock us up in the nearest loony bin in three seconds flat," Lily pointed out.

After a few minutes, Maddox just sighed and looked up at the girls. "Handcuffing seems like the best way to go while we sleep. And unless we have to go to the bathroom we have to stay in the same room."

"We're all going to hate each other after this is over with."

"Not feeling too lovingly to you as it is," Sage all but spat.

"What did I do?" Lily asked in an offended voice.

" 'Oh Maddox why don't you call a demon so he can fucking kill us. Oh, you don't want to do it? Fine, I'll do it myself and kill you two just by being in the same room while it happened.' "

"Sage, stop," Maddox warned, sensing this was about to get out of hand quickly. "Neither of us did anything to stop her so it's not like we're not to blame either."

"Whatever," she huffed with a small eye roll.

She was confused about where all these snappy feelings were coming from. She didn't actually blame Lily and wasn't even really irritated at either of her friends. It was just like there was something inside of her telling her what to do and say while she sat in the background and just complied.

"I'm hungry for real food."

"Me too," Lily agreed as she picked up her purse. "Let's go get something to eat before we all starve to death."

Sage only shrugged as she followed her friends down the stairs and out the door.

The second she closed the door behind her she felt the overwhelming feeling that she needed to get away from the group, only for a few minutes then she would come right back. Just long enough to take a deep breath without them staring down her neck.

The magnificent ball of light flew in front of her face again, but this time when she followed it with her eyes it stayed there, begging her to come forward and follow it.

Her foot inched forward just for a second before her mind caught up with her body. She jumped back as if the ball had burned her without even touching her.

She looked up and around her, taking in her surroundings as if to make sure she hadn't wandered far.

What had seemed like at least a few minutes had really only been a few seconds. Maddox and Lily hadn't even made it to the car yet or stopped bickering about what they were going to eat.

Trying to seem as normal as possible to avoid any suspicion, Sage jogged to catch up with her friends before sliding in the backseat of the car. She had hoped to forget all about the strange light that seemed to show up at random but it seemed to be back to following her at distance and showing up at random times.

She wondered if it would ever actually go away after all thins was over or if it would be like a scar and would always be there even years after this terrible experience.

Deep in the back of Maddox and Lily's mind, they thought the same thing but never choose to dwell on it for more than a few minutes, fearing the answer they might come up with.

Maybe the real answer was worse than anything they could ever imagine and none of this would ever really end. Maybe there wouldn't be an end after this.

Maybe they all lost the game. Maybe they all died at the end like some of the others.

Whatever thoughts they could come up, in the end, would never be able to compare to the future that was waiting for them.