First off, I apologize. I am around 4 episodes behind on Welcome to Night Vale, so I may have messed up while writing this. My apologies.
Second, if I mischaracterize a character, feel free to tell me!
I hope you enjoy!
-Moony
Chapter 1: Unfortunately Delivered
Carlos sighed as the water rushed over his shoulders. The last few experiments had not gone well. They were currently testing a batch of invisible corn for illegal chemicals. This is very difficult, of course, due to the invisible corn being…well, invisible. Because they are not exactly sure where the corn is, Carlos and his team often guess the location of the samples. Today, someone guessed that the corn was hovering over their bloodstone. Well, it wasn't. It turns out that bloodstones actually explode when copious amounts of chemicals are dumped onto them. Weird.
Leaning into the water spray, Carlos soaked his hair with the shower waterfall. As he reached over to grab the bottle of shampoo (a government issued bottle that had "shampoo" written in black sharpie over a label that said "olive oil") a noise rang through the house. Carlos stopped. Soft thudding noises could be heard, slowly growing louder, slowly approaching. A door creaked open. Footsteps, Carlos thought. The noise is footsteps. The thumping grew louder, louder, louder still. Suddenly, when it seemed as if the maker of noise was right next to Carlos, the noise stopped. Shaking it off as one of those "Night Vale things", Carlos turned once again to the pouring water. He reached for the shampoo.
"Carlos."
Carlos stopped. Straightening his back, he turned in a full circle. He didn't see anything besides the shower. The noise sounded like a whisper: just his name, said once. Again, he heard the voice say "Carlos." The voice was deep and familiar, but it held a strange apprehension. Slowly, he reached forward, clasping the shower curtain in his hand. In one quick motion he yanked back the fabric, just enough for his torso to peer out of the stall.
"Hi, Cecil," Carlos said, looking at the man in front of him. He normally loved seeing his boyfriend, but he really did need to finish shower before he did anything else. Leaving dangerous chemicals on your skin can have horrible consequences. He was about to politely ask Cecil to wait until his cleansing was finished when he noticed something…different. There was fear upon Cecil's face. Cecil almost never got scared, and even then, he rarely showed it. Something was very, very wrong.
Wrapping a purple towel around his waist, Carlos stepped out of the shower. "Cecil, what's wrong?"
"We need to go," Cecil replied, caution lacing his speech. "Something bad has happened. We need to leave."
"What?" Carlos asked, suddenly very confused. "What event could warrant our departure in the middle of my show-?"
"I opened a package, a box," Cecil interrupted. His voice was a harsh, gruff whisper. "I don't know who it was from. It was anonymous, but whoever they are, they must be sick to try and pull this on us. We've done nothing wrong and we get this in return? No. The Sheriff's Secret Police will find out any minute and they'll come for us. We need to run."
Carlos stared at Cecil's face. He was going pale, all color leaving his cheeks. He truly looked terrified. "What," Carlos began, "…what was in the box?" Carlos' eyes met with Cecil's.
"Pens."
"Shit."