A Paradise For Ghosts

"Hello? Are you there? Boss, open up it's me." Just outside of the haunted house, stood a young girl knocking harshly on the front door, and judging by the look on her face, it seemed as though she had been standing there for a long time

"Hhhmm," still tired and a little confused, Daniel pressed the pillow closer onto his head, drowning all other sounds into the background.

"Boss, it's already 9:30 am, I've been standing here for 30 minutes can you please open up." The girl pleaded as her voice turned into a mixture of frustration and helplessness.

"That voice, isn't that Elena? Why is she here so early in the morn-, oh no I'm such an idiot, I completely forgot." Amongst the things that manager Miles and Daniel discussed yesterday was the work schedule for the employees. Even though Daniel couldn't quite remember everything, he vaguely recalls hearing that Elena and Jack are supposed to show up at 9 am every morning.

Daniel quickly hopped out of bed and bolted towards the door as he thought of ways to apologize, however if he had taken a closer look he would've realized that something was missing from the room.

When Daniel opened the door he could see Elena pacing back and forth as she fiddled with her phone. It was clear she was frustrated as she was pressing rather harshly on the touch screen.

"Elena I'm so sorry, I guess I was so tired I must've overslept," Daniel quickly tried to come up with an excuse as he remembered the description that the black phone had given Elena. Even if he had ten times the amount of guts, Daniel didn't want to provoke any more accidents after all that's happened to him.

"Boss do you know how long I've been standing here for? Its been 30 minutes already, and It's so cold outside I was getting ready to live the rest of my life as a popsicle." Elena felt wronged as she remembered how he had left her outside the haunted house.

"About this, I'm really sorry, why don't you head inside and I'll go fetch you a cup of hot coffee." Even if the staff break room didn't have a coffee machine it didn't mean that Daniel couldn't go to the food plaza and fetch one from one of the stands there.

"Ok!" Elena's eye lit up as she quickly forget about the past 30 minutes.

Daniel rushed back inside to put on a jacket stained with blood, that he had found inside one of the boxes in the storage room. Unfortunately Daniel didn't have a change of clothes, aside from the ones he had worn when he signed out of New Hope. The institute had a rather strict policy when it came to what patients were wearing, as some colors and shapes would trigger certain patients. In order to make it easy for themselves, New Hope provided their patients with clothes, which Daniel thought were surprisingly comfortable. However, this also meant that Daniel had to return the clothes when he left, leaving him with only one pair of clothes.

Since there were so many different clothes just laying there, Daniel thought that he might as well take advantage of the opportunity and borrow a few of them, even if most of them were unusable,. Granted, Daniel also felt rather awkward at walking around while wearing a jacket stained with what he thought was fake blood.

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"I can't believe they charged me $4 for a small cup of coffee," Daniel grumbled as he stepped back into the haunted house. As soon as Daniel stepped into the staff break room, he saw Elena holding the black phone in her hand, turning it over as if she were inspecting it.

"Hey boss, which brand is this, how come I haven't seen this type of phone before."

Daniel nervously hurried over to snatch the phone from her hands as he thought of an excuse on the spot "That's because it's foreign."

"Wow, where can I get one of those."

"This was the last one," Daniel smiled wrily as he wondered why this girl was so curious. Before she could continue Daniel tried to distract her by changing topics, "so where is Jack anyways."

Elena brought her finger to her chin and thought about it for a while before answering, "I'm not sure, he never showed up for work this morning."

"Well did he say anything"

"Nope."

Deciding it was best not to ask, Daniel moved on and went into the HH manager app to check what daily missions were available.

Daily Missions: 3

Easy: It won't be much of a haunted house without any employees, why don't you hire some helpers to assist you. (1/2)

Medium: Aren't you curious what happened to the last owner of the haunted house? Why don't you ask around and see if you can find out more.

Nightmare: Ever wanted to speak to the dead, well why don't you head up to the third floor. It seems that the previous owner left a big surprise in one of the cabinets.

The easy mission was replaced by another mission, and it seemed as though Daniel had already completed half of it.

If only Jack could count as my employee, I would've already been able to finish the mission. That guy didn't even bother to show up for work this morning.

Alas, no matter how much Daniel wished there was simply nothing he could. Jack was supposed to be the help that manager Miles had found for him, but he didn't even listen to him, and there was too little that he actually knew about Jack. However, Daniel wasn't about to let this opportunity go to waste, so he quickly tapped on the normal mission while Elena wasn't looking and resolved himself to ask her about the previous owner. Even though he could've chosen the Nightmare mission for a better reward, Daniel didn't feel as though he was ready for what was locked in that cabinet.

Before Daniel could even ask her about the previous owner, Elena had at some point leaned closer to the windows and gazed at the field just to the left of the haunted house. "Say boss, is that a dog bone in the backyard?"

"A dog bone?" Daniel was confused and he remembered that he did indeed get a bone just last night, but he had placed it right next to him on the bed.

It should've been inside, but now Elena said that she saw it outside, this doesn't make any sense.

"Yeah, it's right outside, half-buried in the ground. I don't remember seeing it yesterday though"

Daniel ignored her and approached the bed as he threw the sheets into the floor. The bed was empty, there was nothing there.

It's really gone, but how? I clearly remember it was right next to me when I went to bed last night, did I move it and not remember?

"Hey Elena, when you came in, did you see something on the bed?"

"Aside from that weird phone, I didn't see anything else. Why, did you lose something, and before you say something I haven't taken anything." Before he could even accuse her of anything, Elena had quickly defended herself. Daniel wasn't planning to accuse her of anything but this just proved that even if she was a bit of a clutz, it didn't mean that she was naive.

"No it's not that, I just thought I'd left something here," Daniel didn't want their relationship to be awkward, so he quickly tried to clear up the misunderstanding.

Elena turned to the window as she once again pointed at the bone, "boss, about the bone,"

Before she could continue Daniel thought up of an excuse, "that's just a prop I placed to make the haunted house a little scarier. Anyways there's something I wanted to ask you."

"What is it boss?" Prying her eyes away from the field, She turned to Daniel as she gazed innocently into his eyes.

"What can you tell me about the previous owner?"