Disclaimer: I don't own Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends. It is property of Craig McCracken.
A/N: I'm currently thinking about writing a full length fic based on the concepts of this oneshot and the preceding oneshot I originally wrote. If this gets a nice enough reception I'll start planning it right away. It is for that reason I like to think of this as another experimental fic, as I want to see what people think of my concepts.
Anyway, enjoy reading and don't hesitate to comment…
Malevolence
- Hostile attitude or feeling.
- Behavior exhibiting a hostile attitude.
I take no shape…
I take no form…
I am ageless…
I am eternal…
I have existed..
Since the creation of time.
You created me…
Your selfish…
Perverted…
Violent
Hedonistic…
Negative fantasies…
Gave birth me to me…
My origins gave me no name…
So I name myself…
The Void
People threaten me…
And my chance to become physical…
May be taken from me…
So now…
I must dispose of them.
I failed once…
I shall not fail again.
----------
The red-haired, long-legged, eyeball-stalked, basketball player parody of an imaginary friend found himself immediately rising from bed when a familiar shrill scream pierced the air. His eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness in the room, the moonlight shining through the window aiding them and after the effects of sleep finally worm off he sprung into action.
"Frankie!" he exclaimed, tearing the blankets off himself and tearing out the door.
He eyed the room at the other end of the hallway and ran towards it, seeing the door partially open. He opened it all the way to see the red headed girl sitting up on her bed, crying yet seemingly unharmed.
"Frankie?" Wilt queried, stepping into the room from the open doorway, "What's wrong? Why did you scream?"
The little girl, no more than five, sniffled and clutched her blanket to herself, her teddy lying right next to her. She looked up at him and replied tearfully, "I had a bad dream."
Wilt's face softened as he approached her bed and knelt so that he was at Frankie's level. He reached out to touch her and she immediately recoiled, immediately realising that she still felt scared.
"It's OK, Frankie," Wilt smiled as he stretched his arms towards her, "I'm here for you."
Frankie gradually shrugged off her hesitation and practically dove into Wilt's waiting arm, embracing his figment tightly around the neck and burying her head into his neck. Wilt looked appeased as he wrapped his arms around the child's body, feeling warm tears mars soak into his fur as she sobbed, holding onto him as if her very life depended on it.
"I…I thought everybody ran away from me," Frankie spoke softly, obviously describing her dream, "I thought the monsters were going to get me, and that you weren't going to save me from the monsters."
Appearing softer still, Wilt sounded sincere when he whispered, "That would never happen Frankie. Not in a million years. You know they're not real anyways."
Frankie continued, however she had stopped crying and now sounded inquisitive, "But…what if monsters were real? Would you run away from them?"
"And leave you behind?" Wilt sounded offended as he pulled back to look at her, where he smiled bug and tapped her nose in a friendly manner, "Not in a BILLION GAZILLION years!"
With that declaration Wilt noticed a smile on her reddened face and received another warm hug.
Malevolence
Many, many years passed, where it was by then that the Void begun to find itself manifesting more and more, where finally it was able to ascertain and make physical manifestations of humanity's most corrupted imaginaries and set them lose upon the Earth. They found themselves out of control, driven purely by immoral instinct. That is…to hurt, to corrupt, and to destroy.
There was one place on the Earth they both feared and loathed. Just that one place they would never bring themselves to go near…unless of course the Void commanded them to…
----------
When Mac told us what happened to him on the way to Foster the other weeks, I thought he was still feeling concussed from tripping into some garbage bins in the alleyway. Sure, kids tend to imagine Imaginary Friends as people, I mean, like human people, and have all kinds of weird magical powers. But stuff relating to demons, devils and other kinds of occult stuff…well…that seems…highly unlikely..
Until tonight, I mean. Now I know for sure Mac didn't hit his head too hard to be imagining these things. Heh, does irony fit somewhere in that last sentence?
It was night. The bright full moon shone down over 1123 Wilson Way, also known as Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends. The occupants of that old Victorian House was sound asleep, especially (for once) a certain miscreant azure-blue blob who was busy snoring away in his bunk, in his room shared by three other figments, dreaming of what his next half-crazed scheme would involve. And it often involved his creator and best friend and the oft-times the resident caretaker.
It was like a bad dream, you know. A bad dream you think you wouldn't be able to wake from, even though you're already awake, and yet things happen to you that usually should happen in your worst fantasies as a child, caused by watching movies that are rated ten or fifteen years ahead of you. You follow?
In her room and in her bed, Francis Bridgett Foster stirred in her sleep as something unseen disturbed her rest, indicated by her sighing, moaning and the sweat rolling down her face as nightmares assaulted her. The redhead exhaled painfully and opened her eyes, then groaned and slapped her hand to her face.
"Oh…good lord," she muttered, "Why me?"
She looked over at her alarm clock, seeing that it was 2AM in the morning. She pulled the covers away from her, revealing her usual pink nightie, and she sat on her bed with her legs bent before her as she rubbed her eyes of sleep as she tried to make sense of the dream she just had.
You know those old stories you used to hear from every other snot-nosed brat in the playground that the boogeyman used to live in your closet, under your bed or in the drain of the bat? And how your folks always remind you before bedtime that he doesn't exist just like vampires, elves and Eskimos?
She paused when she thought she heard heavy breathing from underneath her bed. Slowly removing her hands from her face she stepped out of bed, slowly stretching her still-tired muscles and hearing her bones creak in her thin frame. She then bent down beside her bed and reached for the blanket the covered the edge of her bed.
You know what…?
She pulled it upward to glance at whatever was hiding under her bed. Her eyes nearly bulged out of her head in shock when she saw what was hiding, growling under her bed.
She gasped, but no sound came out…
They're were a pair of dirty liars.
…as her throat had closed up in fear. No sound came out as she tried to scream as the abomination quickly stood on it's two muscled arms and sending the bed flying to the other side of the room; the loud heavy sound waking up nearly everyone on the same floor.
----------
"RAAAARGGGGH!" the gentle purple-furred bull-like figment Eduardo cried out in fright as he rolled out of his stop punk and landed on the ground with a loud thud, "You hear sound? Sounded like…crashing…"
"Coco coco!" the coconut tree/airplane/bird hybrid said her own name as she stated the obvious ambiguously, "Coco co!"
"Yeah, Coco!" the tall lanky red-furred figment Wilt cried, "That did sound like it came from Frankie's room!"
"Senorita Frankie in trouble!" Ed exclaimed in panic, "We must save her! Vamanos!"
"Yeah!" Wilt cried as he crawled out from underneath the bottom bunk, "Let's go, Coco, Ed…Bloo?"
However throughout all this commotion Bloo was still asleep, snoring.
"Bloo!" Wilt cried out loud.
The blob of a figment mumbled incoherently, "N…no…having best dream!"
"SENOR BLOOD!" Ed shouted as he begun shaking Bloo from his sleep, "WAKE UP! WAKE UP! WAKE UP!"
Dazed from his slumber, Bloo cried out, "WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHAT?"
"Coco coco coco co!" Coco exclaimed in a fury, "Coco!"
"QUIT SHAKIN' ME!" Bloo cried out, making Ed relax somewhat shaking him, "Jeez, you wake me up over that? Sheesh…honestly.…"
He crossed his arms.
"I'm sure whatever Frankie's gotten herself into," Bloo stated as a matter-of-factually, "She can get herself out…"
A pierce feminine scream rang out down the hallway, immediately causing every figment present to tense up.
"FRANKIE'S IN TROUBLE!" Bloo practically screamed as he jumped out of his bed, grabbed a baseball bat from the closet and ran to the door, "QUICK, GET OFF YOUR BUTTS AND FOLLOW ME…ARGHHHHHHH!"
He then begun shrieking, as if in a war cry, as he threw open the bedroom store and ran out.
----------
Frankie backed up against the wall near the door to her bedroom as the monster towered above her, standing where her bed used to be. Her wide in shock, she could only manage a whimper as the two fisted, muscle-bounded, bald-headed blue-coloured, red veiny figment that could only come from the darkest, most corrupted mind, looked down at her.
"Wha…wha…wha…" she trialed off in fright, remembering how Mac had described the abominations that had stalked him the other week, "Are…you…?"
Her hand inched towards the handle of her door. As she slowly begun to turn it, still making eye contact with the brutish creature, it took one step towards her, it's hideous purple lips forming a large, cruel smile. Her throat begun less tight, allowing her to scream out loudly.
"WILT!" she screamed as she shrunk away from the door, tears cascading down her face, "HELP ME!"
The door was suddenly kicked open, revealing Wilt who had a determined glaze across his face. It soon gave way to shock and incomprehension when he saw the large nightmare figment whose touched the ceiling of Frankie's room as if it was slowly growing by the second. It looked away from the scared caretaker towards the lanky Imaginary friend.
"Er…Frankie?" Wilt said, absent-mindely as he pointed at the creatures, "What's tha…?"
He didn't have time to finish when the creature swung one of it's massive fists at Wilt, his arm phasing through the walls and ceiling, but when it made contact with the imaginary friend he was sent flying out of the door and smack into the opposite wall. The nightmare figment disregarded Frankie as it phased through the doorway and wall and into the hallway, just in time to see a still screaming Blooregard rush him, baseball bat in hand with Ed and Coco following close behind, immediately looking fearful at the sight of the creature.
Not caring that the creature before him was many times his own size, Bloo swung the bat against the creature's leg, not even managing to discomfort him. His gritted, battle-hardened look disappeared as his eyes widened comically, looking up at the creature now staring down at him with, face distorted in anger down at him.
Bloo smiled nervously, "Er…new in the house?"
The creature craned it's head up towards the ceiling and roared…
"GRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"
----------
Causing the human-sized rabbit figment known as Mr. Herriman to shoot up from his bed, cover still across his eyes…
"Good heavens! What in the world is that?"
….which protected them as the windows in his room shattered, as did every other window, glass instrument and utensil cracked and shattered, waking everyone up from their sleep.
----------
Bloo had literally turned white as a sheet, his normal blue colour replaced with deathly pale. The creature looked down at him and raised his left hand, supporting himself up right solely on his right hand, in preparation to squish the figment into a paste. He was interrupted when Ed, seeing how one of his friend was in danger, temporary grew a spine and charged at the creature, a forlorn frown on his face.
"RAAAAAHHHH!"
Bloo shrieked and ducked out the way. Coco squealed in anticipation and Wilt was just picking himself up and rubbing his aching head when he saw the purple-furred bull figment ram himself into the creature's right foot, causing him to holler as he toppled over and onto his side. The creature phased through the narrow hallway as he fell, knocking imaginary friends in the next room out of the bed.
Frankie worked up the courage to stand back up and exit her room, but felt herself frozen in fear when he saw Wilt injured, Bloo, Coco and Ed standing there close to the creature, whose top half was phased through the hallway way into the next room. She winced when she heard screaming…
"OH NO!" she cried.
The creature dragged itself somewhat fully back into the hallway, in it's left hand a bunch of other cute, cuddly looking figments in his left hand, where if he wanted to he could crush them in his gigantic hand and there was nothing Frankie or anyone else could to about it.
"Dios mio!" Ed exclaimed.
"HOLY…MOLY!" Bloo cried.
Wilt backed away from the creature in panic, back against the wall as for the first time in who knows how long he felt frightened. Frankie's mouth was agape as these twisted, malevolent events were in motion right before her eyes. Out of stress, uncertainty and unfamiliarity with something this malevolent in the world of imaginary tears begun to fall from her eyes.
"What…what are you?" she cried out to the creature as it turned to look down at her, smiling wickedly once again. The caretaker then screamed, "WHAT DO YOU WANT?"
----------
Immediately as Frankie scream rang through the house, the front doors into Foster's foyer were suddenly kicked open with such force that that left door broke off it's hinges and fell to the ground. Out of the pouring rain stepped another figment, one if which one did not look at hard enough could easily mistake him for a normal human being.
This new being walked into Fosters, appearing dark yet authoritative in his black leather ankle-length coat, pants, boots, gloves and broad hat, giving him the impression of a witch hunter. A black mask covered the lower part of his face, obscuring his nose and face from clear view. His hands were balled into fists as looked around the dimly lit foyer of Fosters.
He looked upwards to where the calamity was occurring, eyes grim. He bent his knees and like a human-sized flea he bounded upward towards the ceiling of the large expansive foyer and phased through it.
This was just as the creatures was just about to squeeze the life right out of the figments it held in it's massive hand just to torment Frankie. Before it could follow though, however, the Confesssor phased out of the floor…
"ARGHHHH!" Frankie shrieked.
"WHOAAA!" Bloo cried out.
…and put a gloved fist up through the creature's jaw, not phasing however but with a sickening snap of bone and squelching of flesh. As the imaginary beings the creature had captured ran off screaming, Frankie, Bloo, Ed, Wilt and Coco watched as the creature thrashed about madly with the human-sized figment currently assaulting it.
"Hey!" Wilt exclaimed as he rushed over to Frankie, "Is that the imaginary friend Mac described?"
"Yeah!" Frankie answered loudly, eyes wide, "The Confessor."
The Confessor pulled his fist of the creature's jaw and instead grabbed it by both sides of his face, and in an impressive show of strength no doubt his creator imagined he would have he pulled the creature downwards through the floor and back down onto the lobby. The impact was loud as they landed the creature on his back and the Confessor on top of him.
The creature looked up and stared at the Confessor who stood on top of him, his fist bared and ready to plunge into the creature's chests, until the sounds of long feet thumping approaching the foyer's stairs drew his attention.
In his nightclothes, Mr. Herriman's mouth was agape and he dropped the candleholder he was carrying as he looked on in clock at the massive nightmare creature lying in the foyer with a human-sized figment standing on top of it, poised to destroy it.
In true fashion, Herriman recovered and demanded out loud, "WHAT IS THE IS MEANING OF THIS? WHO ARE YOU…?"
He cut himself short with a gasp as the creature quickly got up, knocking the Confessor off his chest, and lunged towards the rabbit figment. It's fist was about a few inches from pummelling him to death when the Confessor got up, pulling his left glove off to reveal the Yin-Yang symbol and ran at the creature, and with a flat-palm struck it's back.
The creature froze in it's tracks, motionless, before it suddenly imploded, squeezing itself into a tight black sphere before it disappeared in a white flash, blinding Mr. Herriman.
"GAH!"
Grunting in pain, he rubbed the spots out of his eyes and once they cleared he found that both the creature and the Confessor had disappeared.
"My word!" he exclaimed as he bent over to pick up the candleholder , "That can not have been the figments Master Mac described!"
He spun around as heard faint footsteps, and nearly dropped his candleholder in shock once again when he saw Frankie, slowly walking down the stairs towards him, all wide-eyed and practically traumatised; with Bloo, Wilt, Ed and Coco following close behind.
Mr. Herriman was startled by her appearance, "Miss Francis?"
She could only nod, and respond quietly, almost catatonic, "Mac…didn't just imagine seeing…those things."
----------
Meanwhile several floor upward in the kindly Madame Foster's room, a heavy draft was coming in from the open window where the Confessor sat. His back turned to the old lady in nightwear as he watched the rain pour down from the sky. Madame Foster sat in her rocking chair facing the window, with what appears to be an old tome nestled in her lap.
"So," she smiled at the Confessor, as if he was an old friend, "How's the search for James?"
The Confessor growled at her upbeat cheerfulness, which the present situation didn't call for, "Not going well as I hoped. It's been so many years I fear he is beyond saving."
She frowned, albeit annoyingly, "Did you really have to cause such a ruskus downstairs, Confessor? I could have heard you down the road."
He looked over his shoulder as if she was insane, judging from his wry eyebrows, "You cannot tell the difference between what kind of sound me and the Void figments make?"
Madame Foster then chuckled, "Oh…of course, silly. It's just that I heard you enter the house. It seems I'll have to pay for a new door."
The Confessor snorted, "Hmph…this house is a smorgasbord for the Void. And you knew that when you built it."
"Yet I always count on you to put them in their place if they should cause trouble?" Madame Foster sounded cheery.
Expressing even more annoyance for her laid-back attitude, he interjected, "It came for your grand-daughter. The Void feels threatened by her."
Dropping her mask of happiness, Madame Foster responded solemnly, "I will never understand why. She could never threaten the lives of anybody, let alone something as…unsettling as that."
"But to it she does," the Confessor replied, "Just as it was afraid of Mackey. Now…"
He shuffled himself so that he was squatting on the windowsill.
"…I must go. I seriously hope that you have a plan for the future Madame Foster, just before your clock finally stops ticking."
As he was about to leap from the window, Madame Foster sighed and got up from her chair.
"Before you go."
He looked over his shoulder again, then turned to fully face her. She was smiling once again.
"While you're here, I wish to confess."
The Confessor looked at her contemplatively, before getting off the window and standing, towering, before her. With the tail of his coat flowing behind him like a cape, he crossed his arms as waited for her to continue.
She cleared her throat before she stated, "I established Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends so that wayward imaginary friends can have a hope for the future when their creators unwisely discard them due to the number that makes up their age. I never imagined…"
Madame Foster paused, thinking about her words, before continuing.
"…that everyone else's combined heinous thoughts would try to stop me for it. And for that I feel sorry for them, not to them."
The Confessor nodded his understanding.
"They would not understand what you just said," the Confessor said, "That what makes us perceive them as evil. Likeise the Fosters name would be something detestable to them."
He tipped his hat at Madame Foster and leapt out of the room through the window and into the night, the rain and the blackness obscuring his receding form, leaving Madame Foster alone in her room. She then walked over to the window to close it.
----------
The sun rose in a short manner of hours, and many more hours after that it would be late into the afternoon. Close to three in the afternoon to be precise. And around that time the brown-haired eight-year old boy dressed in red and white would be walking to Foster's House, though not with peace of mind with seeing his closest friend once again.
As he approached the gates he couldn't help but think back to events of two weeks ago. And with that he shuddered with fright, before stepping through the gates and up the path to the front door. But just before he could open them they bursted open and out shot his azure blue imaginary friend, immediately latching himself to him and hugging him tightly.
"B…BLOO?" Mac cried out in surprise, "What's…?"
"THOSE THINGS EXIST!" Bloo was in hysterics, "THAT BIG…THING…WALKING ABOUT ON HIS FISTS, LIVING UNDER FRANKIE'S BED!"
Cringing as Bloo shouted in his ears, Mac forced him off himself and cried, "Calm down, Bloo. What…you mean they were here?"
"LAST NIGHT!" Bloo exclaimed.
"Bloo!" Mac now shouted, "Stop yelling, or I'll go deaf!"
Now sounding hoarse, Bloo replied, "It would have torn the house down if it didn't pass through the walls, and it nearly got Frankie."
Mac's eyes were now even wider, "Frankie?"
The boy made his way into the house and the main living room, to find a dead-tired Frankie Foster dressed in her usual attire lying on the sofa, with Wilt standing close by as if standing vigil for her.
Three O'clock. Mac's here…right on time as always..
Here's hoping someone from outside the house believes me, because we sure as heck didn't think much about what he said, cause' stuff like that isn't meant to exis…
"Ah…Frankie?"
Laying on the sofa with a wet flannel on her head she stopped muttering to herself and looked over to see Mac standing beside her, a look of concern on his face.
"Are you OK?"
She smiled weakly, "I'll be fine, pal."
Mac looked down at his feet, eyes tracing the ground as he mentally searched for something else to say.
"So…was that thing the same one that came after me?"
She was quiet for a few seconds, an awkward silence covering itself over them. She then sat up, letting the flannel fall from her forehead as she reached forward and embraced Mac, her sudden and warm embrace startling him. He in turn didn't make a sound, immediately becoming embarrassed as evidenced by his blush, but he quickly adjusted and hugged back, nuzzling into her shoulder.
'I guess things won't be the same after all,' Mac thought solemnly, eyes now becoming half-open as he and Frankie hugged on another quietly.
----------
I fail yet again…The result…
Driving those two closer together…
Damn them…damn them…
So once more, I wait another day…
But rest assure, Confessor…
I will suffer no trespass.