disclaimer: owns nada.
notes: back from the writing dead. who would have thought. i've been binging a lot of buzzfeed unsolved lately, which spawned this monstrosity. yikes. it was only supposed to be like 800 words.
notes2: do people even still use ffnet anymore?
a dedication: to j, who said, and i quote, "o,,,mg a legend" after i told her i was posting for the first time in 2 years.
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" The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown. "
— HP Lovecraft
i. so i heard u like ghosts
x
"This is horseshit."
Lucy turns violently to her partner-in-ghost-hunting, a severe and unholy frowny-pout hybrid on her face. She had pretty much coined that specific look at this point. It had been trademarked. She huffs her bangs out of her eyes and turns up her chin. "You know, Natsu, I just don't understand why you can't accept the fact that ghosts are real. They're here with us. Sometimes people aren't able to move on after death. Maybe they have a chip on their shoulder, or maybe there's something tying them to this world. If I can help them, then I want to."
Her eyes go a little distant, then, and he is reminded of her beloved and dead parents that he has never met. Her obsession with the supernatural and ghosts and all that nonsense ties back to Layla and Jude. The trail always leads back to them. Suddenly, Lucy violently flips her hair over her shoulder and takes the go-pro from his hands. "You're still a skeptic now, but you'll see one day. Maybe. If you're not such a jerk."
Natsu runs a hand through his hair and heaves a heavy sigh. He shoves his hands into his coat pockets and begrudgingly trudges on behind her. He does feel sort of bad. Kind of. They had, however, been at this ghost hunting thing for roughly two months, and it hadn't been the greatest experience of all time.
Lucy had recently decided to take up a hobby other than writing and scrapbooking. And, for some bizarre fucking reason, delving into the world of the supernatural was more lucrative to her than, say, taking up knitting. In hindsight, perhaps he really should've pushed a more demure time-killer. Like stamp collecting, or bocce. But, no, Lucy wanted to get into all the freaky shit that the world liked to hide, and make a video blog of it. This was how Natsu had quickly discovered that his friend was kind of a lunatic conspiracy theorist. Their friends had agreed that the blonde shouldn't be galavanting off into dark and unknown—and frankly, "eerie as shit"— places by herself. So that meant that one of them had to go with her.
Originally, he had agreed to this little vlogging shindig because he thought it might be funny. And boy oh boy, was it sure a laugh riot sometimes. Lucy was kind of a scared little girl at heart, and he took full advantage of this fact. Yeah, okay so it might have been kind of an asshole move, but he had to get his kicks in somewhere whilst she was dragging him to abandoned asylum hell through "possessed" houses and back. He chalked it up to a reward for himself after sleeping on cold concrete floors in drafty rooms where they could be mugged by vagrants.
It was also just funny as shit to see Lucy so freaked out sometimes.
Unfortunately, people seemed to be really into Lucy's ever vigilant research and presentation of all the weird crap that had gone on in the neighboring counties, along with Natsu's very heavy skepticism and general negativity. Due to this, they had somehow garnered a rather large internet following. People had begun sending in requests for the two of them (and sometimes another friend they managed to drag along) to check out places, crimes, or whatever freaky juju was going on. They'd even landed a contract with a YouTube channel, tragically. Consequently, this led Lucy to drag Natsu through brambles and briars and back alleys and broken buildings in search of the 'Truth.'
Truthfully, as much as Natsu complained, he didn't mind spending the time with Lucy. As much as she was psycho sometimes, that was only like 12.5% of her personality. Or possibly a bit of a larger figure. Anyhow, the blonde was actually one of the nicest, friendliest, most accepting people he knew. She also let him crash at her apartment sometimes, which made her pretty okay in his book.
The forest around them is oddly silent, with only the crunching of leaves beneath their feet echoing through the trees. Natsu has to admit, this place does have an Air about it. Now, was it haunted? Hell to the no.
A dilapidated building looms before them in a sketchy clearing, and Natsu audibly groans. Lucy gives him a shove, then adjusts her pink beanie before turning on the go-pro. The pompom on top wobbles, which makes her look like one of the most ridiculous ghost hunters he's ever seen. Lucy couldn't catch anything looking like that.
Now, maybe if the ghosts liked cute, naïve blondes—
"This is Fiorè Unsolved. I'm Lucy, and this is Natsu. We're here on the quest to answer the question: Are Ghosts Real?" At this, Natsu smiles brightly and shakes his head no, multiple times. Lucy elects to ignore him and keep going. "Last week we received a request to investigate the murders at the Phantom Lodge. I have to warn you, they're pretty….pretty bad."
Natsu quirks a brow. "I feel like I've heard about this story before. I remember some details. It's not great."
Nodding, Lucy lowers her voice. "That being said, let's get into the timeline."
They pause the video and turn off the camera there, because that's the part that they'll record later. At this point, they're just trying to get footage of the cabin. And of course, Lucy had wanted to come at night. Apparently, the setting 'added' more creeptastic appeal to the episode. This was also the time that they would try and 'commune' with the spirits. Aka, Natsu would taunt them to high hell, and Lucy would get scared out of her mind. It made for great footage, naturally.
The two of them stare at the cabin, and Natsu could actually agree that this wasn't the ideal place to be. There was a reason that this place was abandoned. People had been killed here, in brutal fashion, and something about that just struck him the wrong way. Did that mean that the victims' ghosts were still here because they couldn't move on? No.
Lucy swallows, gripping the camera tighter. Natsu pulls his own go-pro out to film her. This was their two-way filming system. "I don't like this place," she shivers.
Natsu rolls his eyes. "You don't like any place that we go. It's par for the course. You chase after ghosts, but you don't actually want to find them."
She glares at him, and they're back to their old game of him taunting her almost more than he taunts the 'ghosts.' "Whatever, you piece of old bread. We're here on a mission."
"That's right folks!" he announces jovially, and he can almost see her pale in the darkness. "This is the part of the show where Lucy goes inside the murder house!"
He winks at her, and she looks at him like he might be the next victim of the Phantom Lodge. "Oh chill, weirdo. I'll go in with you so you're not completely alone in there with possible vengeful ghosts."
Lucy stares straight into the lens like she's on the office. "Oh my gosh. This is actually how we die tonight."
"Pfft," Natsu scoffs, then gestures grandly toward the supposedly haunted building. "Alright, fearful leader. Take it away."
His partner buries her face into her scarf, then turns on her heel. She begins to take a few tentative steps toward the entrance. "As we already know, there were three murders that took place here, all under mysterious and even unexplainable circumstances. Because of this, it is speculated that the Lodge was already haunted before the deaths. This theory is widely popular on the internet for various reasons, one of which being that there was never enough evidence to actually arrest anyone for the murders."
They make it to the porch. "So, wait," Natsu pipes in. "You're telling me that even after everything that happened, no one was ever actually indicted? Like, they just got away with it all?"
Lucy makes a face as she reaches for the doorknob. There's some lovely graffiti of the words '420 BLAZE IT' across the door. Natsu snickers at this. What a terrible place to get stoned. "Well, sort of. There were some suspects, which we'll get into later, but nothing ever came of it. There were also some bizarre leads that turned up being dead ends. All in all, when you look at the case in its entirety, none of it makes any sense."
Natsu moves the camera around the inside of the entrance as the door creaks open. "Damn, that could use some WD40. Okay, this is it. Lucy, are you ready to cross the threshold into Ghoulsville?"
"You're so funny," Lucy warps her voice to sound like a valley girl. "Shut up, Natsu."
She takes a hesitant step inside. Then another, and another, and another, until she's standing in the middle of the front room. A chill runs down her spine. Something isn't right. She's already scared. Everything just feels so…off.
"Hey there ghouls, it's us!" Natsu shouts, which prompts Lucy to smack him.
"Don't TALK to them, you dolt!"
He gives her and her go-pro a smug smirk. "I always do this. Why are you so surprised? You know, I feel very at home here," he nods, looking at the words 'GET OUT' scratched into a wall. Scratched. Damn. Punk ass kids, probably. Whaddayado?
Frightened, Lucy sends him a disbelieving glance. "You're insane. Are you actually trying to die?"
"Welcome to the part of the show where Lucy and I interrogate the ghosts for information regarding their whereabouts and hobbies," Natsu says cheerily.
There is a lot of footage of Lucy looking disgusted, just for the record.
"To kick off this glorious tradition, we're going to lock ourselves in a room with the ghosts!"
There is also a lot of footage of Lucy nearly losing her mind.
Natsu rolls his eyes as Lucy takes a step closer to him when there is a particularly loud creak somewhere upstairs.
"Hey, hey. Look at me. You're gonna be fine. You'll live. I promise."
x
After the filming is over, and they are out of that tragic and terrible place, Lucy sticks very close to Natsu, even in the car.
"So? Conclusion?" Natsu asks, eyes on the road, but flicking to the dash cam.
Lucy spares a quick glance in the side mirror, though they are long gone from the Phantom Lodge. "I….I don't know, for sure. What do you think? Haunted?"
"Absolutely not," he replies, almost before she's finished the word 'haunted.'
Lucy laughs then, only a lot bit nervous. But she's acting a little more like herself now. That's good, he tells himself.
She reaches for his hand on the gear shift, off cam. "But….I just couldn't help feeling that...that we weren't alone in there. There was something else in there."
There was something else, she thinks, and I felt it after we heard the cream upstairs.
Natsu decides to wrap up the episode, in characteristic fashion. "In any case, if you're looking for a remote location for a camping trip. Don't. Go to Yosemite or somethin', man. It's not worth it."
He switches off the dash cam, and they ride in silence for a bit.
"Natsu….can you….can you stay over tonight? On the couch, of course." She's not looking his way, but a smirk pulls at the corner of his mouth either way.
"Sure, Luce. It's no problem."
x
There was something else.
Natsu thinks back on her words, folds his hands behind his head, and turns his eyes toward the door of Lucy's bedroom.
Maybe.
x
[ look me in my eyes, tell me everything's not fine ]
x
tbc.
notes3: i don't even know, man. i uploaded this on my phone. it was a wild time. -15/10 do not recommend.