All MI characters property of Disney/Pixar, my characters belong to me, quote from Shinedown's song "Sound of Madness" and belongs to them.

Down the Rabbit Hole

Chapter I

I created the Sound of Madness, wrote the book on pain. Somehow I'm still here to explain that the darkest hour never comes in the night. You can sleep with a gun but when you gonna wake up and fight for yourself.

-Shinedown

"There it is." A young boy told his fellow friend as they stared at the old abandoned two story house upon the street corner.

"Okay, so are we ready?"

"Yeah, I guess so." The other kid answered.

The two gave each other a nod as they approached the house and slightly jogged up the sidewalk to the front porch. They opened the door as they then stepped inside. The boys walked slowly down a long hallway as they soon came to a flight of stairs leading to the other bedrooms. As the first boy attempted to make a step, his friend grabbed him by the arm, "Wait, do you hear that?"

They both took a moment to listen as they then heard it, it sounded like some kind of slow melody being played on a piano and it sounded like it was coming from down the hallway past the stairs. They continued to follow the sound until they entered some kind of music room but just as they entered than the playing stopped. Looking around, there was no body in the room.

"Let's just go!" the second boy whimpered.

"No, we're not leaving until we spot the ghost, remember?"

"Oh, so that's why you're here? Looks like I didn't prepare for company like I should have."

Then the boys turned to the sound of the voice when suddenly out of nowhere, a large creature, lizard like in appearance suddenly formed before them. The boys were silent until the creature laughed at them as he then jumped off of the top of the piano. The two screamed as they bolted out of the room and for the door, not looking back as they ran down the street. Both were unaware of the fact that this ghost had stopped following them once they had shot themselves out of the house. He watched them run as he then walked back towards the music room. Dipping the tip of his tail in a bucket of black paint, he made a marking on the wall that had joined a long group of others. "Oh Randall, you are good!" and with that said, he climbed on top of the piano and settled down for a nap until the next group of stupid kids would try to face the 'ghost'.

Randall Boggs was his full name but the humans only knew him as the ghost of the old mansion. It had been a couple of years or so since the day that he had been banished from his home. In the beginning, things didn't start out so smoothly when he was thrown through the closet of a swampland home where some hillbilly woman had mistaken him for a gator and practically beat the crap out of him with a shovel. When the mother and her son tossed Randall's body outside, presuming him to be dead, he decided to travel to another place until he could find himself a suitable home. Then that was how he came upon the small town known as West Port and the old house that he decided to call home. After discovering that his camouflaging ability fooled humans into mistaking him for a ghost, life in the human world became much easier. Here, he had no competition and really no worries; he learned how to get human food without having to scrounge through trash and dumpsters. Of course, life in the human world wasn't an entire picnic; there were other banished monsters that lived here in secret from the humans. While most preferred to be left alone and live in solitude, there were some that just goes to show that the word 'jerk' wasn't enough to truly describe them. Otherwise than that, life was pretty easy for the reptilious monster.

Life for one particular human, a young girl of the age of thirteen, was not so promising. She was dressed in basically a hoodie and baggy pants while she wore combat boots upon her feet. Her blonde hair had one small strand of red dyed hair that was always hanging down near the side of her nose in front of her face. The young girl's name was Lillian but the bullies at her school knew her by the informal name, "The Freak of the School." Lillian, unlike most girls her age, was interested in what would be considered part of the weird and unusual. The only thing that she seemed to like that most of her peers would consider normal was her strong love for music. She had taken piano lessons when she was very small and just kept at it as she got older. Sadly, no one seemed to understand her for growing up in this town wasn't easy for Lillian. She had no friends even though she tried making some but it wasn't that easy. The school bell rang and as usual, Lillian started the walk home. While she was walking, the school bus passed by her as some group of boys on the bus yelled out through the window at her, calling her the usual names that she was used to hearing. She chose to ignore them as she continued her walk. During part of her walk, she began to pass by the old two story house. Growing up, there were always people saying that it was haunted but she wasn't too sure. She stopped in front of the house as she then noticed what appeared to be maybe a dark shadow moving inside. Curiosity made her take that first step towards the porch but soon; reasoning took hold as she decided that it was best to forget it and continued walking home. She didn't realize that apparently a pair of dark green eyes watched her from inside, giving her his full attention as she passed. Randall noticed her right away for she was the same girl that at least from Monday to Friday would always pass by his place both on the way to and from school. For whatever reason that seemed to be even unknown to him, Randall seemed to find this girl to be more of interest than the other children whom he had seen around this town. After about maybe an hour's time, Lillian had finally made it home. She simply let herself inside as she soon found a note from her mother, simply letting her daughter know that she would be working late and probably wouldn't be home around three or so in the morning. You see, Lillian's mother was a nurse who worked at the local hospital. Her father, on the other hand, wasn't in the picture since the couple's divorce around the time that Lillian was about seven. "Huh, looks like it's just going to be me tonight then."

It was about ten thirty when Lillian had just finished reading a new novel that she had bought from the bookstore around last week but despite that something was bothering her. She was certain that when she passed by the old house that she saw someone inside or at least it seemed that way. The thirteen year old shook it off, telling herself that it might have been her mind playing tricks on her. Still, it was bothering her just the same but she took notice of the time. It was about ten thirty-five now, her mother wouldn't be home for a good couple of hours. Her curiosity took hold of her as she decided to pull on her combat boots and head for the old house. One feature that was part of Lillian's personality was that little habit she had of not letting go of her suspicions and soon acting upon them, something that was always certain to get her in trouble at home. She made it to the old house as she for a few minutes just stood there, staring at the old structure with its rotted shingles. It was hard to believe that at one point, someone had lived in this house and had called it home but that was a long time ago. She took a deep breath as she slowly made the way down the concrete entrance way and took her first step upon the porch which creaked underneath her weight. She froze before pulling up her other leg and placing it before the other which resulted in another creak. Then she slowly placed her hand upon the circular doorknob as she then twisted it and opened the door. "Hello? Is there somebody here?" She called out into the darkness. She walked inside as she closed the door behind herself. Taking a few careful steps, she slowly made her way down the hallway and towards the staircase. It looked like every door was closed but suddenly the door that was farther down the hallway opened slowly, almost as if someone was inviting her inside. She walked towards it as she then entered; the room was none other than a music room. She glanced at one of the many bookshelves; it was loaded with books about songs for piano. Next to it was an old fashioned record player with a pile of records next to it upon the floor. She looked around at the walls, there were what appeared to be black markings that looked like tallies of some kind but what really caught her attention was the huge black piano that sat in the middle. She walked towards it as she then played a few notes from the basic scale upon it. The piano, despite its age, had a pretty good tune nonetheless. She couldn't help herself as she sat herself down and started to play a piano solo from a movie she once saw about a dead bride. The piano sounded like that it was in pretty good shape, Lillian really liked it. In fact she would give anything to have a piano like this but sadly her mother wasn't into the idea so she had to settle for her keyboard instead. After she finished playing, a voice suddenly spoke, "You play beautifully." She froze, as she then looked around, she didn't see anybody.

"Who's there, who are you?"

"Oh, just the residence of this house."

"What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean that I'm the one who lives here." Lillian then looked at the piano when suddenly that dark shadow she saw earlier had formed but she couldn't really see it that well in the dark. Be that as it may, whatever it was wasn't human and personally, she didn't feel like sticking around to find out. She gave a small shriek as she ran out of the room and out of the house. Randall sighed to himself, he actually enjoyed her playing but now after that little display of fear, she probably wasn't coming back anytime soon.

The next day at school, Lillian seemed a little on edge also not to mention that she couldn't help but wonder as to what that shadow was. She thought about it for a bit, maybe that thing was the legendary ghost that some of the kids at her school swore that they had seen. But if it was a ghost then why did it look like it had a physical shape? Logically, ghosts had no physical body but then how could she explain the fact that it appeared out of nowhere on her. All of these questions were racking her brain; she just couldn't figure it out. Suddenly she felt a crumpled up piece of paper hit her in the back of the head as she gave a mean look towards some kid in her class who only laughed about it. She made up her mind; she was going back to the house after school to see about this ghost. At three thirty, the bell rang as Lillian checked her backpack to make sure that she had what she needed. She had thought about going to the house that morning but had then changed her mind when she walked passed it. Inside her pack were candles, incense, and a book about performing exorcisms. If this thing was a ghost, she wanted to see if there was anyway to help it move on to the other side.

Sure enough, she had made it to the house again, just like she always did on her way to and from school. She walked towards it, with a little more confidence than last night. She entered the house and headed towards the music room, sitting down upon the floor, she began to set up her things. "Hello, are you possibly here because if so could you give me a sign?"

She waited but nothing happened, "It's okay, I'm only here to help you find the place where you belong."

She waited a bit as she then heard the piano play the basic scale by itself, the ghost was in the room.

"Okay, can you speak to me, are you a poltergeist or just a humble spirit."

"Well, to tell you the truth, I'm not even dead."

Lillian nearly jumped when she heard him or at least it sounded like a he.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I'm basically no different than you; I eat, sleep, and occupy myself with little things to do here or there."

Lillian wasn't sure about what he was saying, "If you're not a ghost then what are you?"

"A monster."

Lillian looked around, the fact that this thing was talking to her but yet she couldn't see him was frustrating, "Okay then, prove it."

Then just like last night, the shadow formed before her but this time since there was light out, she could actually see it. She stared in astonishment as the creature appeared to her sitting upon the piano. She slowly walked up to him as she looked him over. He was large, no doubt about that but he was purple in color that seemed to change into blue near the end of his body. He had what appeared to be eight legs with three fronds upon his head. His body shape, eyes, and even legs looked like that of a lizard. She took into notice his sharp teeth but she couldn't understand how he could suddenly appear like that.

"How did you do that?" She asked him.

"Like this." And with that, Randall grabbed her sleeve of her hoodie, she watched as his hand suddenly changed black to match the color of it. When he let go, his hand changed back to normal.

"Whoa, you can change colors, camouflaging with anything just like a chameleon!" Randall smiled at her comment; she was pretty smart to figure it out that quickly.

"So that's how people think you are a ghost. What you can do gives the illusion of that."

"Well, you catch on pretty quick, don't you?" he remarked. Lillian felt kind of silly; she was planning to perform an exorcism on someone who wasn't even dead. Then something occurred to her, "Some of the kids at my school talk about how they've seen you but they're always scared off by you, how come you're not trying to attack me now?"

Randall rested his head on one of his arms as his tail flicked around, "I've seen you pass by my place almost everyday. Also, I liked your playing; it was pretty good and obviously much better than mine. I was hoping you would have played more yesterday but I accidentally scared you off." Lillian smiled, this thing whoever he was actually found her playing to be quite pleasant. "So do you have a name, mine is Lillian." "Randall Boggs but you can just call me Randall." He answered her.

For the next hour or so, Randall answered all of Lillian's questions, where he came from, why he was here, was he male or female just so she could make sure. Then he had questions for her, "Where did you learn to play like that?"

"Well, I've taken piano lessons when I was little and I just kept at it, I guess the fact that I love music is the only thing normal about me compared to my other hobbies."

The creature stared at her a little strange, "No offense but you seem pretty normal to me."

"Well, no one at school thinks so. Most of them just call me a freak because I'm into what they call weird stuff."

Randall shook his head, "Just because you have different likes from them doesn't make you a freak." Lillian couldn't help but smile, he was probably the first person, well individual actually, who didn't see her as a freak for once.

"You said that you came here because you were banished from this Monstropolis place, why were you banished." The lizard like monster stared down a bit; she could tell that it was uneasy for him to talk about it.

"You don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"No, no, it's okay", he told her as he slowly began, "I was banished because of what I was doing although my banishment wasn't official but it was banishment nonetheless. In my world, we use the screams from children as an energy source, kind of like how you guys use electricity. In order to collect the screams, monsters who are known as scarers must go scare children by going through a portal through their closet door."

"Oh, is that how come sometimes kids believe that they have monsters in the closet?" she asked.

"Yep, that's where that little fear comes from. It's considered a job where we live, anyhow, I wanted to get ahead in the company and so I built a machine known as the Scream extractor."

Lillian looked at him a little funny concerning the name, "Think of it like a huge vacuum that would suck the scream out of a child, I was caught by Sullivan and his buddy Wasoki for trying to use it on a little girl and my scheme fell apart if you will so they banished me for good. I was a pretty nasty guy before in my world so now I live here."

The girl tried to process this, "No offense but a machine like that sounds more likely to kill a kid than really extract anything."

Randall nodded to show her that he agreed, "You're probably right, since my banishment I've been thinking about it and the design, chances are it would have led to the death of many children if it was approved so maybe it's good that it wasn't. Of course, trying to get it approved by the board of directors is close to impossible since the monsters fear of children-."

"Whoa, wait a minute, are you trying to tell me that you big, scary monsters are afraid of little kids?"

"Well, I'm not anymore but others still may be. We have this strange fear of children being toxic and that touching them could lead to us dying."

Lillian started laughing, "I'm sorry but that's the biggest load of crap I have ever heard."

Randall smiled a bit, "Yeah I know which is another good thing about being banished, you discover out here that it's not true."

"Then what led to you guys believing this?" she asked him. The monster shrugged his shoulders to show that even he didn't know himself. Lillian looked over at a Great Grandfather clock in the room, it read that it was now six-thirty, "Is that clock right?"

"Yeah, most of the time. Why?"

"Because I better get home in case my mom gets off early today, if I'm not home at least before she is then she's gonna kill me."

Randall watched her with a somber expression, "Will you come back again?"

"Yeah, sure, if you want I could come back tomorrow after school?"

"Okay then, I'll be waiting." She smiled as she headed out the door. When she exited the house, she was unaware that another creature was watching her from the trees across the street. His sharp fangs bared as his canine like ears twitched a bit, he watched her for a minute but then turned his attention towards the house. He gave a low growl as he then turned tail and bolted into the woods.