The warped and twisted wooden door opened with a virulent squeal as rusty hinges worked overtime to accommodate the sudden intrusion. Thick, heavy steps followed suit accompanied by squelching, goopy squeaks.

  The Lighthouse Keeper strolled into the room, using his dreaded lamp to illuminate his place of solace. Even with the lights on, the brightness cast by the lantern was almost blinding. The storm outside thundered and roared, drowning out his heavy breathing as he previewed the room at his leisure.

  Casting a curious glance at the bathroom, he slowly lumbered towards it, stopping just outside the room and peering inside. He couldn't remember if he had left the lights on or not. Nor could he recall placing the clothes on the floor.

  He steered the deadly light towards the darkened corners of the room, beneath the tub and under the sink. Once it seemed nothing was amiss and seeing no vermin scurrying about, he abruptly turned and headed towards his bed.

  His day had been long indeed, with many strange sounds to garner his attention. Those foul insects and fat rats had forced him to walk up and down those long and winding stairs. Safe to say, he was rather exhausted, and was looking forward to his nap.

  Placing his lantern on a hook with the eye going dark, he let out a wet, gargling yawn. It sounded like his throat was coated with phlegm. Or perhaps just smeared in the same slime that constantly poured from his boots.

  Sitting down on the bed, he swung his short but bulky legs over the edge, laying down in his dirty clothes. Normally he may have taken them off, but he was simply too tired to care. He needed sleep, and would have it.

  It wasn't long before his eyes closed and the snoring began. The sounds he made were unpleasant, like a drowning bear with sleep apnea.

  However, unknown to the Resident, his room had in fact been infiltrated by two vagrants. One, a small girl with messy black hair and ruby red eyes named Six, cautiously peeked out from the relative safety of the vent.

  She had been watching him the entire time with bated breath, but it seems like he didn't notice anything amiss. Or if he did, he certainly didn't think much of it. Looking around the room, she felt a pang of nervousness nearing panic when she couldn't spot her companion.

  But perhaps that was a good thing. If she couldn't find him, then neither could the slumbering monster. However, the rational part of her brain gave way to the emotional, and the emotional was worried that there was a Resident in the room and she couldn't see her friend.

  Slowly exiting the vent, she made sure to be completely silent. Thankfully, the shelf she was currently standing on didn't break or even make a creak. That was always a concern, but at least one of her worries were unfounded.

  Now if only she could find Harry. There were only a few places he could have hidden so quickly, with the most likely being right under the Resident himself. The bed would have been the easiest place to hide, and is where she would have chosen if she were in his shoes.

  She wished she could call out to him, but that would be about the worst thing she could do. So instead, she settled on waiting near the vent until he showed himself. Thankfully, she wasn't forced to wait very long, as less than a minute after her own departure from her hiding spot, she spotted that familiar mop of unruly hair peek itself out from beneath the bed.

  The rest of him soon followed, with the boy in question making sure to stand on top of some clothes so the floor wouldn't give him away. He would really hate to wake the big guy up from his nap. He'd probably respond in a similar fashion as Vernon, only the Lighthouse Keeper was much bigger than Vernon.

  Honestly, when the large creature first sat on the bed, Harry thought his goose was cooked. The bed bent down from the weight and was certain he was about to get flattened.

  Luckily the bed held, but it still gave a loud protest as it did. Once he heard the sound of snoring, or at least, he thought it was snoring, he abandoned his secret refuge. He's never heard snoring like that before, not even from his uncle or cousin, and quite frankly, he hoped to never hear it again. Every breath sounded like it was a struggle and it made his skin crawl listening to it.

  He couldn't wait to be out of this room. And if Six was right, and the eyes were the code, they should be able to leave sooner rather than later.

  Speaking of Six, Harry carefully made his way towards the end of the bed, peeking out from behind that nasty chest with all the stiff, moldy clothes. Looking up, he saw the relieved face of Six staring back at him.

  She pointed towards the safe and Harry gave a nod of understanding. She was going to make her way towards their objective, regardless of the looming threat snoring away on the bed. Part of him wanted to wait until he woke up and wandered off, but there was no telling how long that would take.

  And if they took too long, who knows what kind of nasty surprises would show up. Better to risk some danger now than more danger later.

  Harry moved in front of the chest, wanting to be as far away from that lantern as possible. He didn't want to risk the thing coming to life and turning him to stone. He felt much safer out of its sight.

  Above him, Six began her trek across the top shelves. It was pretty much just a long, twisted board that ran the entire length of the room. There were several obstacles along the path, like that creepy monkey whose grin made it look like it was planning something nefarious, but that shouldn't be much of an issue as long as she was careful. She was far more concerned with the wood simply shattering beneath her. Something like that was sure to wake up the sleeping giant.

  Carefully stepping over some blocks, ones that had the eyes crossed out strangely enough, she continued to tiptoe her way across the narrow path. Her next obstacle was a bottle, one that was just begging to be broken and shattered upon the floor. But his desire would not be granted by Six, who painstakingly lifted it up and set it back down behind her.

  Part of her did wish to toss the object right into the Lighthouse Keeper's face, but she knew better than to give into such impulse. Besides, with the monster's head encased in its own glass prison, the bottle probably wouldn't do much anyway.

  Besides wake him up that is, and that's just about the last thing she wanted.

  Eventually, she came to that accursed monkey. She swore its grin grew wider and wider with each step she took. When she reached it, she leaned down to pick it up, as gently as she could. She wasn't sure what would cause the cymbals in its hands to start making a racket, so she erred on the side of caution.

  Harry watched, nerves biting at his every sense as he watched her move at a pace a snail would laugh at. But if it kept Sleeping Not a Beauty from waking up, it would be well worth his frayed nerves.

  Six sighed with relief when she eventually set the mischievous looking toy down. So far, so good. That had been the part that worried her the most. Those things had a tendency of being unpredictable, going off for reasons no one could figure out. She counted her lucky stars this one seemed to behave itself. Whether that would remain true on the way back was anyone's guess.

  The last part of her journey saw her needing to make a jump. The safe they were looking to crack was the only part that was on a separate shelf, as the path to it had broken at some point. That didn't exactly instill confidence in her. But if the wood could support the safe, it should be able to support her landing on it.

  So, taking a deep breath, Six leapt across the gap, landing on the narrow shelf. The wood beneath her gave a languished groan but managed to hold together. The Lighthouse Keeper gave a little snort, making their breathing come to a halt. If he woke up now, it would be disastrous. Six had nowhere to hide.

  But after a few very tense seconds, the Resident seemed to relax, returning to his regular booming snores. The pair released sighs of relief, especially Harry. Had he woken up, he might have needed to distract him somehow, which probably would have led to a chase scene.

  But with the green skinned creature once more slumbering peacefully away, if you could call it that, Six returned her attention to her prize. Staring at the keypad, she frowned when she didn't recognize any of the numbers. Harry was right. But maybe they would translate to the same thing. And if they did, then the keypad would look something like this…

  789

  456

  123

  0

  The buttons beside the 0 were probably an enter key and a back key. So if she was right, all they needed to do now was figure out the order. Thinking about it logically, which wasn't always a good idea in the Nowhere, she had a pretty good idea of what it was.

  The door was the entrance to the room, the starting point as it were. Now if she pictures the safe as the ending point, that means the television was next. So that would make the first two digits of the code 1-5.

  Door-1

  T.V-5

  Next was the bathroom, which had the adhesive eyes at the bottom of the tub.

  Door-1

  T.V-5

  Bathtub-8

  From there, the next number would come from the painting with the eyeballs on fire.

  Door-1

  T.V-5

  Bathtub-8

  Painting-7

  That means the final number was the number of books with eyeballs on the spines.

  Door-1

  T.V-5

  Bathtub-8

  Painting-7

  Books-3

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  So then the code should be 1-5-8-7-3. Feeling more than a little apprehensive, she imputed the first number, the keypad giving a little beep. Looking down at the sleeping monster, he continued to dream blissfully unaware he was about to be robbed.

  She wondered for a second what those things could possibly dream about, but quickly shook those thoughts from her head. Now was not the time to get distracted by idle thoughts.

  Carefully imputed the remaining numbers, Six then pressed what she believed was the enter key. A notion that was aided by the fact that there was a green strip above the symbol. But when she hit it, it gave a deep, onerous buzz.

  Eyes darting back to the Lighthouse Keeper, she returned her attention to the device when she saw he wasn't getting up any time soon. She frowned at the error message, or what hse assumed was an error message, wondering what she did wrong.

  Was it the code itself? Was it the symbols on the keypad? Both? She didn't know, and that frustrated her all the more. She felt certain they had figured it out, so what could they have missed.

  Looking back down at Harry, she shook her head. He frowned, likewise curious about what the issue was. Looking around the room, he searched for anything that they could have missed. Anything that resembled an eye.

  Starting from the door, he slowly and methodically went over every single square inch of the room. The television was still there sitting on the stand, looking completely innocent, like it didn't scare the life out of him earlier.

  From there he scanned the wall, but there didn't appear to be anything. Next was the bathroom, and he doubted they missed anything in there. Or at least he hoped not, because he didn't feel like walking back inside that mess.

  Following the path, he gazed at the painting, shuddering at the sight of it. Had someone drawn that in the real world they would have likely been taken in for psychiatric help. But more importantly, he didn't see anything else.

  He continued his search which came to the bed next. But there was nothing there besides a monster. He didn't see anything when he hid beneath the bed earlier and he somehow doubted he would find anything on the Resident himself.

  Moving on, his eyes landed on the lantern, which almost seemed to be glaring back at him, even though the 1 eye was completely dark. He just couldn't shake the instinctive fear it instilled in him.

  Next was the book case, but he didn't see anything either of them could have missed earlier. Just those same books with all the freaky drawings in them.

  Last but not least was the recliner and the table. But once again, there didn't seem to be anything amiss. Just the same, nasty, moldy chair as before.

  After inspecting the whole of the room, he couldn't find anything that seemed remotely eye-like besides all the ones they found before. It was looking like this might be a dead end after all.

  But then, the Lighthouse Keeper gave another loud snort, startling him. Harry looked over at the creature as it started coughing in its sleep before it hacked up a loogie, the foul green and yellow substance splattering against the glass surrounding his head.

  Harry shuddered as he watched. It was almost as gross as Vernan and Dudley getting into a farting contest after eating Mexican food. It didn't happen that often, as they believed British cuisine to be the pinnacle of culinary delights, but when it did, it always ended up with one or both of them having shat their drawers.

  And guess who had to clean it up? Here's a hint, it wasn't Petunia.

  Looking away from the napping monster, his eyes once more landed on the lantern. For some reason, his gaze lingered on the device, his mind whispering some secret to him he couldn't decipher. But like a strike of lightning the pieces finally clicked into place.

  Eyes widening in realization, he swiftly looked around the room again. Once he returned to the lantern, his face split into a grin. Those sneaky little devils. Without the Lighthouse Keeper, there would be no way to solve the puzzle, because the final number they needed was a mobile one.

  Looking up at Six, he started waving his arms to get her attention. She had been glaring at the keypad, trying to figure out what she did wrong when she noticed the near manic motions of her companion. Thinking something must be wrong, her entire body went on high alert.

  When he noticed he had her attention, he started pointing to the lantern, a big grin on his face. Looking at it, she was confused by what he was trying to tell her, none of the tension leaving her body. Looking down at him with a tilt of the head, Harry sighed in annoyance.

  He sucked at charades. But it was a skill he was going to have to develop if they wanted to survive.

  Holding up his index finger, he pointed to his eye and then the lantern, hoping Six would understand.

  The girl in question furrowed her brow as her mind worked to deduce what he was trying to tell her. One, eye, lantern… Looking back and forth between him and the object in question, her own eyes slowly widened at the realization. The code didn't contain 5 numbers, it contained 6!

  If the lantern was one of those numbers, then that would mean the code was really 1-5-8-7-1-3. That had to be it, because if it wasn't, Six was definitely going to drop that bottle on the Residents sleeping head in frustration.

  Ok, not really, but it was an enjoyable thought.

  Quickly returning to the keypad, Six input the numbers one last time. She swallowed some saliva as her small finger pressed the enter key. Half expecting to hear that buzzing sound again, signifying failure, she almost didn't hear the beep of success. But she certainly saw the safe open with a quiet hiss.

  She slowly opened the door the rest of the way, just in case something decided to pop out at her. But nothing did, and when she opened the safe fully, there she saw it, a large brass key laying on the bottom. Her shoulders sagged in relief.

  They did it!

  Looking down at Harry, she gave him a thumbs up which he returned with a beaming grin. Reaching into the safe, Six gave a little grunt as she removed the heavy object. All that was left now was to figure out which door it went to, the one on the second floor or the top floor.

  Actually, before that, they needed to find some way to get the key down. She could give it a little toss, of course, and try to hit the recliner below her, but that ran the extremely high risk of missing and waking up the big guy. And it would be very rude of her to interrupt his beauty sleep. He looked like he needed it.

  But that still left them with a conundrum. Looking down at her friend, she figured there was only one real solution to this problem. He could alway try and lure the Resident away by making noise on a lower floor, but him sleeping was convenient. It meant they didn't have to worry about him for a while. So as much as she didn't want to rely on it, they didn't have much choice in the matter.

  He would have to use his magic.

  Getting his attention, she tried to indicate that she needed his help to lower the key. She pointed to him, then to the key, and then to the dumbwaiter. It took him a minute to understand, but when he did he gave her a firm nod.

  Focusing on the power within him, he pictured it forming a hand and grabbing the key. Thankfully, while the object was heavy for them to carry, it wasn't so heavy as to impart a significant strain as he lifted it into the air, at least not immediately.

  Six watched as the key beside her rose up, wobbling a bit, before beginning its gradual descent. Harry didn't want to risk dropping it, so he made sure to stay in complete control. This did have the unfortunate side effect of draining his magic reserves, if that was even the right word.

  His goal was to get it all the way into the dumbwaiter, but if he couldn't manage that, to have it close enough to the ground he could safely drop it without alerting Mr. Tall, Dark and Gruesome.

  He could have simply brought it to the ground, but the floor was very creaky, so having to go and get the key and then take it to the dumbwaiter was just as risky as what he was doing. There really weren't any good options.

  Things were going pretty well until he reached the halfway point. It was there that he began to get a headache. But he didn't let that stop him. His friend was counting on him to do his job and he was going to do it.

  At of the way there, his head was pounding. Sweat fell down his face and stung his eyes, making him blink them away furiously. His entire body started to ache, like he was engaging in an intense workout.

  With just a few feet to go, the key started to shake, tipping to the left and rib, bobbing up and down as he struggled to maintain control. Six bit her lip as she watched him struggle but there was little she could do. Anxiety built within her as it finally reached its destination after nearly a minute of floating. The key fell onto the cold metal, a dull clink masked by the rolling thunder outside.

  Harry let out a sigh of relief as he collapsed onto his backside. He leaned back against the trunk, uncaring about the nasty contents within. His entire body felt weak, like he hadn't eaten in days. His arms already looked like noodles but now they felt like them too.

  Seeing this, Six started to make her way back. There really wasn't any reason for her to stay here. Part of her wanted to just hop down onto the recliner, but she somehow doubted that would be a quiet endeavor.

  So she backtracked, easily clearing the gap with nary a sound. Next was that accursed, smiling monkey which thankfully didn't make any noise on the way back either, but she could still feel his eyes watching her as she went.

  From there it was a simple matter to return to the vent and make her way back to the bathroom. She climbed down the chain and landed on the clothing Harry laid out with a dull thump.

  Now that she was back on the ground, she quickly but quietly made her way to her resting companion. Harry watched her approach with a tired, but happy grin. But when Six entered the bedroom proper, she halted as the floor beneath her creaked. Eyes widening, they shot towards the still sleeping Resident.

  Sighing with relief when he didn't so much as budge, she pondered how to get over there when she remembered all the clothes that were in the bathroom. Taking them one by one she gradually made a path. Once there, she held out her hand to Harry, which he gratefully took. Six helped him to his feet, steadying him as he swayed.

  Once he was sure of himself, he gave her a nod, signifying he was ready to go. His head was still throbbing, but it wasn't any worse than when Dudley decided he wanted to be a pitcher and started throwing balls at Harry's head. Thankfully, his cousin was far too lazy to stick with a sport that required even the smallest amount of exercise.

  With Harry back on his feet, the two gathered up the clothes and started to make another trail leading to the dumbwaiter. It took some time, but it was worth it to remain completely silent.

  Once they reached their destination, Six gestured for Harry to go first. Shrugging, he did just that, hopping up and grabbing onto the ledge. Unfortunately, he underestimated just how tired he was and found himself struggling to pull himself up.

  Six figured something like this would happen, which is why she opted to remain behind, so she could help him up. Once he was inside, Six jumped up and pulled herself inside as well.

  Six looked down at the brass key sitting between them. It took far more effort than she would have liked to find it, but she couldn't help the swelling of pride she felt at having solved the puzzle. Now that they had this, they could finally leave this room.

  Looking at her friend, who gave her a nod, Six quietly closed the door. As soon as she did, they started their descent, both of them breathing a sigh of relief.

  "You ok?" Six whispered, still in stealth mode. She hadn't even pulled out her lighter to give them some light. Not that they particularly needed it, as they were on a one way trip, but still, sitting in total darkness wasn't exactly pleasant either.

  "Yeah. Bit of a headache, but I'll be fine," he whispered back. Six nodded, relieved that nothing else was wrong. Neither of them knew the consequences of overusing that power of his, and neither were particularly keen to find out.

  "So, which door do you think this opens?" Harry asked, kicking the large, metal key. It looked to be in pretty good shape. Much better than most other objects they run into around here. Maybe because it was placed in a safe?

  "Hm, there are only two doors left, so it's a coinflip. Why don't you choose?" she said. Harry raised an eyebrow at that.

  "So you can blame me if I'm wrong?"

  "Didn't you do the same with the crank earlier?" she shot back.

  "Touche," Harry responded. That seemed like so long ago now. Time worked in strange ways in the Nowhere. What takes minutes can seem like hours, and what takes hours can seem like days. But then, the reverse is also true. Nothing was constant.

  "In that case, let's go for broke and head for the top," he suggested, with Six nodding in agreement. Not that he could see it.

  "That would be my suggestion. Let's hope we get lucky," she said, and Harry couldn't agree more.

  Their ride came to a stop, and the two shared a glance in the dark. The last time they were down here a giant centipede monster tried to eat them. There was no telling what they would find on the other side.

  "You lift and I'll look?" Harry suggested, which Six agreed to. Harry dropped down to his stomach while Six gently raised the door. Harry squinted as he looked into the kitchen, only for his breath to hitch at what he saw.

  "What is it? What do you see?" Six asked.

  "I can see what happened to our friend from earlier. But it doesn't look like he'll be causing us any more problems," Harry answered. Not sure about what he meant, but figuring they would be fine, she lifted the door the rest of the way up.

  Only to stop and stare at the sight of the monstrous bug trapped in stone, forever frozen in a desperate lunge. If Six had to guess, it was probably trying to attack the Lighthouse Keeper himself.

  Looking down at the floor, there was also a distinct absence of those other creatures as well. Which made sense considering the lights were on, but it was better to be safe than sorry.

  "Looks like the coast is clear," Harry said. Six nodded as she picked up the key and sat on the edge before dropping down. Harry followed soon after, heading for the door. Which was closed.

  The two shared another look before sighing. Six dropped the key before helping Harry reach the handle, the door swinging inwards. He then made sure to hold the door open for his friend as she gathered the key, just in case.

  The two then walked to the stairs, and Harry could already feel his dogs barking at him. He really hoped this key opened the door at the top, or he would be very upset.

  "Come on, let's get started," Six said as she tossed the key onto the next step up. Harry groaned but quickly made to follow, cursing lightly about, "Bloody stairs."

  One thing was for certain, Harry never wanted to be a lighthouse keeper.