It was only six-thirty when Will left his room; the sun had only just set. His room had been brightly illuminated by candles. Had to be, for Will had spent the last hour staring at the fish that he had recently acquired. Will hadn't decided what to name him yet; Horace had taken the name Fishy, though Will wished that he wouldn't have. That would have it Will's fish perfectly!

At six-thirty, Will left his well-lit room to get a cracker that he could break into little pieces and feed the fish with.

As he exited his room, he was silenced by how dark the rest of the house was. "Oh, wow…Dark."

He ducked back into his room and grabbed the two seemingly brightest candles. Then he decided to go out and brave the dark.

Horror stories that he had heard all his life flashed through his head. I'm going to get eaten by a monster. The same monster that ate Halt.

"Halt?" Will called into the blackness. He continued walking.

"What?" Came Halt's groggily irritated voice from the general area of where the couch would be. Apparently, Halt had been asleep.

Will knew that it was just a trick from the monster, though. It wanted Will to believe that there was no danger so he'd let his guard down. Will knew better, though. Halt would never go to sleep at only six-thirty!

Carefully, Will walked in the general direction of the couch, candles in hand. They didn't do a very good job of illuminating things, though. All they really succeeded in doing was casting shadows on the walls that creeped Will out even more.

At one point, one of the shadows actually moved, causing Will to jump a foot in the air, but he didn't make any noise. It was important not to let the monster know that he knew the truth.

Will was staring at this shadow when he tripped over the couch and dropped one of the candles on top of Halt's sleeping form. Unfortunately for Will, Halt was not the kind of person who could sleep through having a burning candle dropped on him.

Will's fish ended up being released back into the river where Will found it, because Halt kind of blamed the fish for him being woken up at what was really almost midnight. He was soon eaten by a trout that Halt caught later that week for his dinner.

Fishy, Horace's fish, went insane when his telepathic connection with Will's fish was broken. Horace knew none of this, of course, and just found it amusing to watch his fish spaz out.