"hElLooo" Wayne nearly shouted, noting that talking took a small amount of whatever energy he used to lift things, but never the less overjoyed at his first human contact in three weeks.

   The group of people, that Wayne now saw were about fourteen years old and consisted of two girls and two boys, simply glanced around. Each of them looked spooked by the sudden noise, and were warily searching the room. Their eyes, however, never locked onto Wayne, passing over him without any change as they scanned their surroundings. 

   "What was that?" The shorter girl asked. She was short at around 4'10, had dark red hair, a standard build, and a pensive and anxious look on her face. 

  "It was just the wind, Sharie. Don't get so worked up yet, we only just got here." The older boy replied off handedly, and chuckled at Sharie's indignant expression. He had black hair, was around 6'0, and had an arrogant demeanor about him.

  "That really sounded like someone saying 'hello' to me, Terrance. Maybe it's haunted!" The other girl said in a mocking tone, with a mischievous grin replacing the anxious one she had a moment ago on her slim face. She looked to be about 5'6, with blue-dyed hair sitting atop her head. 

  The other boy, looking to only be around twelve years old, looked the most worried out of all of them. "S-Stop trying to scare us! It was your idea to spend the night here, Beth, you don't have to try g-giving us a heart attack on top of it all." He stuttered out. He had a round build, a freckled face, and was about 5'4.

  "It's fine, Horace. There's no one here but us. What, are you afraid some little raccoon is gonna getcha?" Beth replied with a smirk.

  Wayne was confused. He was standing right in the open, two feet in front of the one named Terrance, and they weren't reacting at all. His voice did come out sounding oddly empty, like an echo, and did sound like the wind howling from the pronunciation, but he was right there! Thinking about the situation, he realized it was definitely another weird ghost thing. That was... troubling. Still, it might have been a good thing for him. Now that he wasn't over eager to talk to another person, he thought a little more about the situation, and came to the conclusion that they almost definitely would have run off if they could see him. They seemed to be a group of friends staying the night here in the 'spooky abandoned mansion' on a dare, or some publicity stunt. Wayne was sure he would have high-tailed it out of there if the first thing he saw was a floating transparent boy jump out of a wall and shout hello. When he was alive, of course. That begged the question, though... How would he make peaceful contact? 

  "Maybe we shouldn't have done this... we could still head back?" Sharie asked in a hopeful voice.

  Hearing this, Wayne panicked. He freaked out at the idea of having to wait who knows how long for anyone else to come here. Even if they didn't leave now, who's to say they wouldn't? They could just run off, without ever meeting him, and he'd be left alone again. So, Wayne took hasty action. He quickly shut the doors they came through and locked them. The sudden noise made all of them jump, and stare at the now bolted and locked doors. It got quiet enough to hear the drop of a pen as all five kids stared at the door in horror, one of them because he realized it would almost definitely scare the other four away. This only served to worsen his panic, and he quickly tried to think of any way he could solve the issue. Before he could, however, one of the visitors spoke up again. 

  "Uh oh." Terrance proclaimed, his arrogance gone like a fleeting dream. 

  "Maybe it was the win-" Beth started before being cut off by Horace.

  "No, Beth, I don't think it was. There wasn't even that much wind, and the doors locked." Horace said in an oddly calm manor, most likely because the implications hadn't sunk in.

  Desperate for a solution, Wayne thought of what would calm him down. His mother always used to play music for him on her violin. So Wayne decided to do something that, if he was in a calm state of mind, he would have immediately passed off as stupid. So, he flew over to his room as fast as he could, and started playing the piano. He couldn't play the violin, but he'd always been decently talented at the piano. He decided to play "Midnight Serenade", a piece with a nice and slow tempo and low strings. A mere ten seconds of playing went by before Wayne heard a scream and banging, stopped playing, and rushed back to the foyer. There, he found Horace leaning on the door, pounding it with his fist. 

  "It's haunted! We never should have come here! We're all going to die!" Horace screamed.

  "Horace, calm down! It's just someone playing a prank on us!" Beth yelled back, trying to soothe the panicking teen.

  It worked, slightly. Horace stopped laying into the door, at least.

  "A-A p-prank?" Horace asked.

  "Of course. I mean, what, there's slamming doors, the wind saying hello, and a piano playing? That's super cliché. I bet it's Kevin or someone trying to scare us." Beth said, gaining confidence as she spoke.

  "I'm sure it'll be fine, Horace, don't worry." Terrance added in, similarly trying to placate him.

  "Ok, who's doing this? You got us guys, you can come out now." Sharie called out, seemingly collected now.

  Hearing this, Wayne realized that this is exactly what one would expect from a haunted mansion. It was glaringly obvious now, but his paranoia about them leaving clouded his judgement. He still needed a way to talk to them, though, and if he unlocked the doors they would leave. So he considered his options. How does he make his presence known to these people? There was no way he could do anything without scaring them even a little, so he tried to come up with a solution.  He considered writing in a book with a pen, or trying his voice again, but he now realized they'd smash through a window before he could finish telling them anything through writing, and they'd pass off the voice as the pranksters. So he waited. They talked amongst themselves about whether or not they should leave, but ultimately decided to try and find the people who were 'pranking' them. He followed them as they explored most of the house, tacitly agreeing to not split up. After thirty minutes of searching, they gave up trying to find the pranksters responsible. They didn't find much, except a storage cellar filled with random trash for some reason. Luckily for Wayne, they also decided to go through with their original plan of staying the night. It turned out Wayne had been dead for half a year, much longer than he was expecting, and it was now the Day of Undeath eve, a day in which has supposedly been cursed by the god of life Torlan, where undead are strengthened and natural undead manifest much more commonly. Wayne supposed that he would be testing the validity of the former soon enough, though he had no reason to suspect it was false. He found this out when he learned they were going to stay in this house for Undeath eve as a stunt, and would stay until morning. Wayne watched as they decided to set up in his room, as it was the cleanest they could find. They didn't question why most of the candles were lit, and began to chat while sitting around their tents. 

  "Hey Beth, why did you choose this house in particular?" Sharie inquired curiously.

  "Besides it being scary as all hells? Because the Count family that lived here got murdered." Beth answered with a self satisfied and impish grin. This also had the effect of making Wayne stare at a wall listlessly, melancholy on his face, unbeknownst to Beth.

  "Wait, this is where the McMaythers lived?" asked Horace, his face full of wonder.

  "Why didn't they just give it over to the new count?" Terrance cut in.

  "They left it untouched as a memorial to the McMaythers , or so they say..." Beth replied, ominously trailing off at the end.

  "It is abundantly obvious that you want me to say it, but I'll do it anyway. Ahem, what do you mean, or so they say?" Sharie said in a monotone voice.

  "I'm glad you asked, Sharie. I heard they left it alone because it was really haunted, and they were worried about a ghost." Beth replied.

  "If there was a ghost and they knew about it, they'd just call in a cleric, or a ghost hunter." Horace refuted Beth.

  "Well, yeah, but we can pretend." Beth shot back.

  "Whatever, I'm tired. I'm gonna hit the sack now, see you in the morning." Terrance said, and shuffled into his little pop-up tent.

  "Night Terrance, I think I'll go to sleep too." Sharie said, before crawling into her own tent. 

  "Goodnight you two, I'll go to bed if everyone else is too." Beth said, before ducking into her shelter.

  "Night." Horace said, also crawling into his tent.

  Then Wayne came up with an idea. He wasn't sure if it would work, but he might as well give it a shot.