Much to Casey’s relief, the ghostly manager did not resemble the real manager. It would have been awkward to greet the old man in the future if the ghost had looked like him.

Instead, he resembled the wooden professor from the monster collecting game, sans feet. Since it was originally a game character anyway, Casey did not feel afraid in any way.

“Ah you’re here. Good. You’re about to embark on a wonderful journey, training your demon and capturing many more. Are you ready?”

Definitely not the same as in the game. Since she was getting a demon, does that mean that there were no elements? Casey shrugged. It didn’t matter either way.

“Take your pick. Do you want a scary demon, a cute demon or a fluffy demon?”

In front of her appeared three palm sized demons, looking like a Doberman, a Parakeet and a Ragdoll cat. Scary, cute and fluffy indeed. But they did not in any way look like demons.

Casey was torn. She mostly preferred dogs but the parakeet and cat were so cute! She looked at her brother with indecision in her eyes.

“It looks like it’s a choice between strength, agility and defence.” Derek gave his gamer’s assessment.

Casey was still torn though. She preferred heavy hitters but she really wanted something fluffy.

“I wonder if they evolve… maybe then it’ll be easier to choose…”

Derek sighed.

“You can try and see if you can catch others later. And if it follows the usual game mechanics, there’s no difference. In the early parts of the game.”

“What if this isn’t a game? What happens if it affects our life or death?”

“We either die in our sleep or we wake up.”

Trust Derek to be so pragmatic. Casey in the end went for the Doberman-like demon. She was a dog person after all.

“Choose Garm, Hel’s guardian?”

“Wait, they have back stories?”

Casey then pointed to the parakeet.

“Choose Cockatrice, the Basilisk’s rival?”

Casey raised an eyebrow. “How is that cute at all?”

“It might be cute to demons…”

She pointed at the fluffy ragdoll.

“Choose Bakeneko, the vengeful cat?”

In the end, Casey still went back to her first choice. Between a scaly cockatrice and a vengeful demon, she’d take her chances with the loyal hound.

When the ghostly manager finally released Garm, the demon flew and settled on her shoulder, like a little plush. It was actually rather cute.

“Are we done? I need to start hunting demons and sealing them.”

The demon on Casey’s shoulder gave a yelp and hid in her hair.

“Now look what you did…”

“Sorry.”

“Just a moment, young warrior…”

Derek raised his eyebrows. “He’s got another role?”

“This is like some sort of low budget movie…”

The ghostly manager gave a cough and continued as if he had not heard what the siblings had said.

“Young warrior. I beseech you. I have been looking after this sealed tomb for centuries and my powers are waning.”

“Thankfully he waited until he was done with mine before he started yours. Can you imagine him starting two different dialogues at the same time?” Casey muttered to her brother. Derek snorted at the thought.

“Take this sword and seal all the demons that you see. The fate of this world depends on you!”

Derek looked at the so called sword with distaste. While it did look like a sword, it was nothing more than a cardboard cut-out, possibly a movie’s promotional item. Derek was worried that it would break when he swung it.

“Maybe you can glue it to the broom handle to make it stronger…” Casey was also eyeing the ‘sword’ in doubt.

“Let’s search his office for glue or tape after he leaves…”

Derek had no choice but to come forward to accept the cardboard weapon. This dream was getting weirder and weirder.

But when he put his hands on the sword, the flimsy weapon gave a soft flash before it disappeared. On the back of Derek’s right hand was a somewhat crude drawing of a sword that appeared to have been done with a marker.

“When you need it, the demon slayer will appear.”

With those words, the old ghost disappeared.

“So, should we loot- I mean search the office?”

Derek asked as he eyed at the sword that looked like it was drawn by a five-year old.

“We might as well. Noob mistake not to.” Casey was trying to coax her hellhound out of her hair.

“Come on, come out. He won’t do anything to you…”

Derek meanwhile was opening the drawers of the desk, trying to see if there were any items that were of use. He was about to close the drawer when Casey called out to him.

“What’s that glowing thing in there?”

“What glowing thing.”

“The one in the desk. I can’t see from here.”

Derek stared at the contents in the desk, nothing more than some stationery and a few random pieces of paper. He was sure he would have noticed anything glowing, given the gloom in the office.

“There’s nothing here that’s glowing.”

Casey tsked and walked over. She reached into the drawer and pulled out an old fountain pen.

“This glowing thing.”

There was silence before Derek answered.

“Sis, either you’re crazy or I am but that pen isn’t glowing.”

Casey stared at him.

“It isn’t?”

“No.”

They looked at each other and came to the same conclusion.

“Two simultaneous games in the same scenario. What glows for you might not glow for me.” Derek said at last.

“Yeah, I think so too. Let’s keep looking.” Then she sighed. “Now both of us have to go over the same area because what glows for you might not glow for me and vice versa…”

Luckily it was not a very big office. They continued to look, Casey opening the filing cabinet in the corner. She hadn’t even begun to look through it when Derek called out to her.

“Hold up!”

He hurried over. Casey guessed that there was something of importance to him so she stood aside for him.

Derek reached out and pulled out a cardboard shield. It looked like another prop. Before they could get a proper look, there was another flash and the shield disappeared. On the back of his left hand was another crude symbol, this time of a shakily drawn round shield.

“It didn’t glow for you, right?”

“No.”

“Then at least that proves that our games don’t overlap.” Here Derek eyed the miniature hellhound that was still hiding in his sister’s hair. “So you can come out, you dumb mutt, I can’t hurt you.”

Garm was finally convinced and came out of hiding. It shook itself before it started barking at Derek. The barks were nothing more than high-pitched yips, there was not sense of intimidation at all.

“Hush, don’t bark in my ear.” Casey used a finger to rub the head of her new demon pet. The demon angled its head, seeming to enjoy the petting.

“Hmmm… should I name you?”

“Isn’t Garm already a name? I don’t think you need to give it another name.”

“You have a point. But I was thinking something a little more intimate.”

“Don’t. I remember the ridiculous names you gave your pocket monsters.”

“They weren’t that bad…”

“Teddy bear? Cutie cat? Bunnikins? And I remember you named the fire type ‘Hot Stuff’.”

“Stop. I get it…”

While they were talking, the hellhound suddenly leapt onto Derek’s shoulder. It wagged its tail, nuzzled against his face and gave it a few licks before it leapt back to Casey’s shoulder.

They both looked at it in bewilderment.

“What was that all about?”

“No idea. Let’s keep looking.”

They continued to search but could not find anything else that was glowing. But they could pick up and place certain items in their inventory. Since Casey had picked up a pen, she wisely decided to stash some notebooks into her inventory.

Derek didn’t see anything else that was of use to him so he did not bother.

Satisfied with their haul, the siblings finally left the manager’s office. Back at the lobby, they decided to study the movie posters opposite the manager’s room.

“Anything strike you as odd?”

“Not really. I don’t remember any of these movies but we didn’t really watch that many movies as kids.”

“So we just take down all the posters like at the concession side?”

“What do you mean ‘we’?”

“Fine, you take down all the posters. I just remembered we didn’t look for a screwdriver just now. I’ll go back in.”

Derek watched his sister go back into the manager’s room. There was a tool box in the back cupboard, with the cleaning supplies. But because they had been so busy looking for things that glowed, they didn’t pay attention to the items itself.

He shrugged and turned his attention back to the posters. His sister had her little demon with her, she should be fine. She was going back into a safe zone after all.

This time, the posters were a mix of action, thriller and romance but Derek could not tell if there was an odd one out. These movies were from his childhood days and he didn’t think that he’d watched any before.

But that didn’t stop him from just removing the posters straight away. There was the strange diagram on the other poster backs earlier. There could be some here as well.

He was not disappointed and soon found an unconnected pattern on the board after he had removed the poster. Throwing the poster into his inventory, he worked on the ones beside it. It wasn’t long before he had removed all the posters.

Standing a distance away, Derek tried to make sense of the strange patterns on the wall. No, it was too disjointed. He’d have to unscrew the pieces and try arranging them on the ground.

“Where’s sis by the way? She should have been out by now…” After all. They both saw where the tool box was. And it wasn’t as if she didn’t recognize what a screwdriver looked like.

He turned to go back to look for his sister but felt something grab his forearm. He looked down in shock to see a hand reaching out from the poster he had been holding.

“Whoa!” he hurriedly let go of the poster in shock, shaking himself out of its grasp.

The poster was floating in front of him now. It had been a romance poster so he had let his guard down, but with a title like ‘Reaching for you’, he should have known.

The hand that had ‘reached’ for him had looked pale and feminine earlier but now, it was like a creepy black talon. Derek looked at it in disgust.

It looked like this was one of the demons that he would have to defeat and seal but how was he supposed to do that?

He backed away from the poster, which was twisting and curling, as if something was trying to get out.

Was this one of the demons he was supposed to seal? How? Where’s the tutorial???

He unconsciously clenched his hands, mostly out of nervousness. That was when his hands started to glow.

He stared at them in disbelief as he raised them up to have a closer look.

Why did he feel like there was something in them? He slowly opened his hands to have a look.

These were… Game controllers?