Author's notes: Another chapter of SICK!?... Nope. Better. This has been put here to tell you all that the first chapter of SICK's sequel, DERANGED, has been put up, and that it is going to be updated on a regular basis (now that I have time and succumbed to the plot bunnies), for your reading pleasure! I know that not all of you have me favorited as an author, but just the story, so I decided the best way to make the announcement was by posting this, along with a teaser, so that you need not go uninformed. So go, READ!

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Darkness. It's more than just an absence of light, it's an escape, the essence of evil in today's cultures, the embodiment of misfourtune, sadness, and hate. At least, that's how most people look at it.

I, however, don't quite see things that way. To me, darkness really isn't all bad. I mean, just think; how beautiful is it at night, when the scenery is void of all light? How can something so beautiful possibly be such a bad thing? It isn't, really, it's just that you've been taught to believe what you do. It all stemmed from the human's fear of the unknown, because you can't see what's coming at you in complete darkness. If you ask me, we are the most cowardly of all creatures, for that reason alone. Besides, light would ruin the surprise.

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Moving on, it's only two days until Christmas, and we've been here for a week now. We'll be staying until the twenty-eigth, because that's all the time Axel could get of work.

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The kitchen's cabinets came out from the wall in the center to create a closed-in feeling for the kitchen, jutting out to create a divider from the living room with an attached wall. That, I'd already noticed, obviously. But what I saw now, was that the counter went out a bit father than the cabinets, and what I had mistaken for a shelf on the last cabinet was actually more like a stair. Looking up farther, I saw that there was a decent-sized space between the cabinets and the ceiling, and a window shedding light boyond it, giving evidence that it was a crawl space, or a tiny little room up there.

I grinned at my discovery, pulling myself up onto the counter, and bringing myself to a standing position on it. Then, Igrabbed the top of the cabinet for support, and hoisted myself up onto the step, finding that it was pleanty sturdy, and began to hoist myself up.

"Hey!" Axel called, apparently looking up from the television to see me climbing all over a place usually used in food preparation. He raised an eyebrow as I continued to pull myself up, and crawl along the cabinets.

"I- I think... yeah! There's a room up here!" I called back, and soon I heard footsteps coming into the kitchen- three pairs, to be precise.

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Looking back, I should have known that an almost secret room in a cabin in the mountains could never have lead to anything good, but what can I say? Sometimes, I'm naive.

I should have listened to Zexion.