He had a bad feeling about this. He already guessed where this conversation was going. He felt his stomach get tighter and his breath shorten.

“He was reckless and put his life and danger and, consequently, the rest of the group’s. Not being able to pull his own weight is one thing we can deal with -- we can teach people to do the simplest tasks. They can help, even if it’s nothing extraordinary. But him? He doesn’t care. He’s not thinking. He doesn’t realize how much his own actions affect the cohesion of the group around him. I mean, look at him! Look!” she ordered, gesturing in Isaac’s direction.

Noah sustained her gaze for a few seconds before glancing at his friend. What she said rang true: Isaac was lazily munching on a carrot, while the others were nervously standing guard, on the lookout for any kind of bad surprise that could spell death for everyone.

He lowered his head, closed his eyes and sighed. A shiver ran down his spine as he internally struggled, locked in a debate with himself about whether to think of himself first or to do what he felt was morally right. But he already knew the answer. He knew himself well enough to know that, at that point, all that was left to do was to accept that he would have to forgo self-preservation for his own sense of idealism.

After taking a deep breath, he opened his eyes and looked back at Kaycee.

“I understand what you’re saying, and I want to tell you that you have my respect. I agree that he hasn’t been the most helpful person around, nor the most aware, or even likable. However, I refuse to simply abandon him. Alone, he’ll die. He will need help. If he can’t join the Basin community, then I won’t either.”

“Well… It’s not an absolute. Maybe you can persuade him to change. I don’t believe he can, but I’ll make the call once we reach Basin. If you want to help us out until then, I will at least give you some supplies before we send you on your way, so the trip won’t be for nothing. Now, let’s search the house for the owner. I don’t like not knowing whether or not there’s someone else with us in here.”

Noah agreed, and they got on with their search. Ultimately, it proved unfruitful: as they went through every nook and cranny, they quickly came to the realization that there was nobody else in there with them. Their host had vanished.

“Nothin’,” Kaycee muttered to the rest of the group as they came back. “No trace of him. No trail of dust, no furniture that’s out of place… It’s like he never even existed.”

Although he was both frustrated and tired, Noah knew he did not have the luxury to relax just yet. It was better to have “the talk” and get it over with as soon as possible.

He waved at Isaac and Jacob, hinting that they needed to talk privately. They moved apart from the other three, who all had taken a spot in the living room to get comfortable; even if there were beds upstairs, they had opted not to split up.

“Hey. How are you two holding up?” he asked them.

Isaac shrugged, then nodded. While Jacob was as quiet as usual, his mannerism showed that he was agitated, unable to remain still and moving about as if he had been walking on burning coals.

“Okay, what’s up, Jake?”

“Well… It’s… I found this.”

He rummaged through his pockets and grabbed a smartphone and a pair of earbuds. The battery was full, and on its main screen, there was a single application that read as “play me!”.

“That’s a phone. What about it, does it have any games on it?” asked Isaac, now curious as well.

“No… It has something else on it. I’ll show you.”

Isaac and Noah each grabbed an earbud and listened as Jacob pressed the icon, causing the screen to go dark.

Both of their faces twisted in anger as they recognized that one laugh they never wanted to hear ever again. It took at least five seconds before the giggling stopped - time in which Isaac let out a swear, but Noah stopped him to listen to what the Jester had to say afterwards.

As the laughter faded, a figure appeared on the screen; alone, sitting in a chair, illuminated by a spotlight coming from the ceiling. Jacob shivered before squeaking out a few words.

“That’s him… But last time I saw him he didn’t have those eyes…”

It was unsettling. Where they expected a relatively normal person, at least physically, the mad clown had five ocular orbs, all seemingly functional: two were where they were meant to be, with a third one in the middle of his forehead. The last two were weirder, having a yellow tint to them and their irises looked reptilian. They were equidistant to the standard ones and to the central one.

To top it off, the man had an extra feature that Jacob had missed or didn’t mention: on the skin of their enemy was a glimmer, a reflection of light caused by small and subtle scales spread unevenly.

He spoke:

“You are oh so welcome for my help. The shadows were certainly about to devour you! No, no, I insist, no need to thank me. I know, it’s hard to believe, but I love the three of you with all my heart - especially you, Jacky-boy - and I want you to stay alive. For now, anyway…”

He chuckled once more. Almost simultaneously, they heard the sound of glass shattering coming from the second floor. Everyone gasped. Isaac and Noah especially were more than a little frightened. This was all too weird.

As Xavier, Karim and Kaycee rushed upstairs to figure out what had just happened, the Jester resumed his monologue.

“Now, it’s true, we’ve had our differences. You may not appreciate what I did to you… for you. But it was all for your own good, and I suggest you bite the bullet lest you want to be riddled with them, and soon. I am your friend...” the one-way conversation was interrupted by another lengthy laughter. “Not everything is as it seems,” he finished in a darker tone.

Jacob locked the phone’s screen. Isaac’s jaw almost fell to the floor. “He helped us? No fucking way. I don’t believe it.”

Noah snagged the device from his friend’s hands and threw it on the floor, shattering it in pieces. Everyone in the room was startled, looking at him with round eyes. He muttered a quiet apology and, when the shock created by the noise had passed, sat down against the wall. It was unlike him to snap as he had, but he recognized that he had reached his own breaking point. He felt the pressure from within. There was nothing he wanted more than to punch that damn clown - and the universe itself - in the face.

“You okay, dude?” Isaac asked.

“No, I’m not okay. I need to think.”

“Do you think he really tried to help us? Why would he do that?” Jacob timidly wondered.

“He’s a trickster,” immediately replied Isaac. “After what he did to you, and how he tried to kill us? He’s trying to get to us, to confuse us.”

Noah sighed heavily. In a way, what Isaac said made sense, but there was another plausible theory. Still fuming with rage, he forced himself to breathe deeply and relax, if only slightly, before explaining what was on his mind.

“Or… he’s manipulating us. Maybe he did help us, maybe he didn’t. But we can’t deny the fact that someone did save us out there, and that the Jester was expecting us. And I can’t get it out of my mind that, back in his mansion, if he really wanted to kill us… I think he would have had the ability to do so.”

His friends both stared at him.

“But then…” started Jacob, without finishing. Noah nodded.

“We have to ask, what’s his goal?” Noah said, completing the sentence.