Episode 35: Night terrors.
Arc: "Forgotten Princes"
Opening: Soul Eater – Opening (1).
. . .
"In this give-and-take relationship you cry as if in a tragedy drama,
and play the heroine"
— Vocaloid. Sekishinsei: Kamatoto Araryouji. (StarGar656)
. . .
Once the little 'show' was over, the apprentices followed the mentors towards a hallway full of rooms; at every three steps there was a room to both their left and right. The seven of them stopped in front of a room at the end of the corridor. The door was carefully detailed with strange and unknown figures – Greek gods, perhaps? No, that couldn't be it… The knob was made of silver and shone when the light hit a certain spot. The door itself was painted in white, which didn't really contrast with the shiny, gray knob. "Alright, this is your room…" Bill explained shortly. "There are four beds and whatnot, we don't really care about whatever you do, but we'd love to see no limbs missing once we come here again."
"Aye, aye, captain!" Danna saluted. Beatrice coughed and tried to hide her laughter. Keehnesi rolled his eyes rather dramatically and so did his brother, but the latter did so with a smile on his face. "Ok, so, can we go in, or is there anything else we need to know to, uh, survive and stuff? …Because I'm not really good at the whole survival thing yet. I mean, I always tried playing Undertale and even on the genocide route all I did was die. Man, I loved killing back all of those motherfu—" Beatrice coughed again, but this time it was to get the attention.
"Anyway, before we allow you to enter, Danna… are you sure you want to stay in the same room, or do you want a separated room?" She asked. Danna raised an eyebrow and crossed her arms, sounding as if she had just been offended.
"What? Just because I have a vag—"
"Okay, okay, I get it, you can stay." Keehnesi interrupted, sounding a little embarrassed. Danna smirked – she won. The demons left the children behind and went to attend other matters. The four of them entered the room and looked around, not wanting to miss any single detail. There were two bunk-beds, two lampshades and that was it. The walls were yellow and dull, like they hadn't been touched or even looked at in ages. The room smelled like medicinal syrup for some odd reason that no one wanted to know. Danna was the first one to take a step ahead and choose one of the beds – to which she ended up choosing the left upper bed.
"Aw, man, that's what I'm talking about!" She yawned.
"You're not going to sleep now, are you?" Daniel raised an eyebrow. "When we're on vacations you get little sleep. I swear to you guys and god himself, she once went to sleep at four in the morning and woke up at eight IN THE MORNING!" He turned to his friends. Asaph sneered and Dipper shrugged – he also liked to stay up late, but it was more to explore the journal and its depths than to trash-post on social media all day. Mabel never really stayed up late unless it was to read the "18 and plus" forbidden books that she thought Dipper didn't know about (he knew).
"Of course I'm not going to sleep. I just want to relax a little because PEN SWORD!" And after she screamed the last words, Danna whipped out her newest weapon and, in an attempt to point it to her brother, accidentally let it go and the sword flew across the room, landing near Daniel's head. His body muscles stiffened like a board as he tried to process the situation again. "Whooooops…" Danna mumbled. "Uh, sorry, Dan, it looks like the situation slipped out of my hands, he he…" She made a pun about it. Dipper and Asaph were snickering like crazy, but Daniel gave them a death glare.
"Alright, now we're going to sleep." He ordered, going to the bed under Danna's. Asaph and Dipper shrugged as they made their way to the other bunk.
"I'm going to stay awake for a while. I want to read my new book." Asaph explained as he grabbed the old book he had bought. The others nodded and turned off the lights, while Asaph was left with a small lamp near his bed. He passed his hand through the book's cover, made of real fur. He wondered what kind of fur that book was made of – whether it be an animal or a mythological creature, like a werewolf, it didn't matter now. Asaph slowly opened the book, trying to keep the suspense going, and read the first page: words and more words in demon language that he could not understand, but beside them was their translation in English. "What if…?" Asaph whispered to himself as he skipped to the letter 'K'.
"Will it…?" He asked himself again. "Can it be…?" He wondered. He finally found the page to the letter he was searching for. After looking at each word starting with 'K', he was starting to lose hope that the word ever existed. Maybe it didn't; perhaps his mentor, Keehnesi, simply invented the word. Maybe it wasn't even a word to begin with! It could be anything: his first words, an animal sound, or anything else, really. However, when he was close to giving up, the word popped up on the second page of the letter 'K'. It was there, on the upper left part, staring at him and mocking him. After what looked like hours of staring at the word, he finally decided to read it:
Keehnesi
Pronunciation: (Keen-sae).
Meaning: Traitor/outcast.
Of course, questions needed to be asked.
. . .
Dipper knew he was dreaming – it was obvious.
If he was awake, he would still be at the Nightmare Realm, or back to the shack, but he was nowhere. He was inside a dark room with no furniture; there were four mirrors hanging on each wall, looking as old as time itself. He could barely see anything in front of him, or see anything at all for that matter, and, to make things worse, the place was very cold, and he only had his t-shirt, shorts and socks on. Why did he even think sleeping was a good idea?! There were two flights of wooden-made stairs in front of him, and it seemed as if they were about to fall apart. It was typical scenario of a horror movie.
He began walking forward, until he stepped on something. Looking down, Dipper saw a piece of paper on the floor. There was something written in it, and even in the dark, he could clearly see the letters. It was an abnormality that he was able to read in the dark, but then again, he was in a dream, or nightmare, and everything was possible. Dipper bit his lip; did he really want to read it? Should he stay like this and wait until he woke up in the morning? Maybe he should do the latter, right? But Dipper just couldn't resist; he had to read the paper… Focusing on it, Dipper noted how the letters were blurry, but still readable.
Ỳ̴͠Ǫ̸Ú̵͠'̴͞R̵̢̧͘͞Ę ̧͜͞Ǹ̵̸͟͝Ǫ҉͡T̵͢҉̢́ ͜͏͟A̧̕͝L̷͠O͠͞҉҉N͞҉̵E͢͠.͘͜͏
Not… alone…?
Only one thing went through his mind then: NOPE.
"Okay, I'm out, can't do this anymore, need to go home! You hear that? I give up!" Dipper raised his hands in defeat and he turned around to do anything else other than explore the place he was currently in, but bumped against a wall. "Wait, that wall wasn't there before!" Dipper whispered and shouted at the same time in panic. Whatever was happening, he wasn't enjoying it. That was a thought situation to be in. "This is cheating…!" He groaned. Slowly turning around, with the paper flashing brightly like a flashlight in the night, Dipper bit his lip and decided to keep going. There were no doors on that area, just the flight of stairs. Destiny was definitely mocking him. Like he said before, and quoting it again…
…Your typical scenario for a horror movie.
He was already half-expecting something to jump out of nowhere and lunge at him with its might, like what had happened during that time… The remembrance of the event still gave him shivers. With no other choice, he sighed and turned around, ready for everything. His first steps weren't easy – the floor cracked and whined upon being touched slightly. Even tip-toeing didn't help it. Suddenly being in the mindscape wasn't such a bad idea. Just then, something told him to stop- no, it ordered him to stop. There were no words, but he felt it within his soul. It was like being controlled by an invisible force playing god.
The paper felt warm on his hand again and then he looked down, deciding it was probably a good idea to read it:
D̷҉̛Ò̴͘͠͝N̶̨'̛͟T̶̸̨͝ ̸̴̛̀L̡͟҉̷̧O̵̴̕͟͠O͜͠͡Ḱ͞͞ ̷͡A҉́͞T̸̨͘͢ ̸̡T̸̡͠H̶̢É̶̴̡͜ ̶̷̢҉M͏͏̶͡I̡̧͘R͘͜͞R̷̀͘Ơ̧͘͘R̨̀̕͏S̸̸̛
"What's in the mirrors…?" Dipper asked himself as he couldn't resist. At the corner of his eyes, he looked at himself in the mirror. But there wasn't only himself – there was something else. A pitch-black creature with blood red eyes stood behind him, with its gray teeth, grinning widely. "Oh, god…" Dipper murmured as he looked behind him. There was nothing there. He looked forward, still staring at the mirror at the corner of his eyes. The vision wasn't perfect, but it was clear that he indeed wasn't alone. 'Go forward, go forward…' he thought.
His steps were loud and noticeable, but Dipper couldn't care less about it. Once he stopped, the steps continued for two seconds before they also stopped. Dipper turned his head around slightly and caught a glance of what was the creature he had seen in the mirror. It was staring at him, still grinning. Dipper felt a lump on his throat and continued to walk. Now he could notice it: the sound of four feet and not two. It was following him. He had finally reached the bottom of the stairs and was ready to get up. Once he put his first foot on the first step, he heard a small whimper, followed by a word:
"Beware…" It whispered.
He put his second foot on the second step.
"The..." The second word followed. Dipper took a deep breath and tried to calm himself down; his heart was hammering in his chest and seemed ready to pop out at every second. He kept going up, and the faster he was, the faster the words would come out. "Child… Who… Dwells… Within… Another… Body…" And that was the end of it. Dipper had reached the end of the first flight of stairs. There were four more steps to go until he could escape that hell. He could still feel its presence there, because it was yet to give him the rest of the message. Right now, Dipper had so many questions: the child who dwells within another body? What could that even mean?! He stepped on the ninth step. "Beware..." It uttered. "Of… Am—… Cipher…"
Am Cipher? What? At this point Dipper was suppressing the need to blurt out random questions.
"It's over…" He sighed once he arrived in what seemed to be an attic of some sorts. There were three doors in front of him.
"CHOOSE" The creature roared. Dipper flinched but looked up fast enough to choose the middle door. Like Keehnesi had done before, his hand fluttered above the doorknob, wondering what he would see. Finally, he turned the knob around and opened the door to be faced with pure darkness. It smirked at him.
"GOOD CHOICE."
. . .
"LEAVE ME ALONE! LET ME GO!" Someone yelled in the absence of light, and Dipper knew it wasn't him.
Just when everything went quiet once again, Dipper hit the ground. It didn't hurt, but he was surprised to find out that the darkness had a bottom, after all. He looked around and wondered what was happening. The voice that had screamed belonged to a male. The room was filled with the sun's light, and there was a circle of demons around him. On the middle, there were four demons: Bill, Beatrice and Keehnesi. All of them had their heads bowed down in shame. The fourth one was being engulfed in blue aura, held down against the floor by Beatrice's psychic powers. She seemed to refuse to look at him, as if a simple stare would turn her to dust.
The other demon was no older than an adolescent. He seemed to be seventeen and no more, no less than that. His white hair was disheveled and waist-length. Golden eyes were staring down at the multicolored demons with shame and regret, as if he had done nothing wrong, but still being disregarded by them nonetheless. His pale skin seemed to get even paler each second. Bill stared down at the demon with pain; no one could even look at him without a negative reaction. Keehnesi kept his composure – he showed no emotion at all; the lack of such thing made him look like a stone.
"You've brought shame upon our family!" She suddenly yelled, with her eyes turning from a comforting blue to a menacing yellow. The demon bit his lip and looked at the floor with tears in his eyes.
"It wasn't me!" He yelled, sounding desperate for help he sought so much in the power he consumed. "It made me do it! It was telling me that I had to do it!" Dipper no longer understood what was happening; who was 'it'? What was he seeing? Then, the adolescent started laughing maniacally. His eyes were no longer yellow; instead, they now were completely pitch-black and demonic. There was no iris visible, nor any white sclera: just black. "Yo U IdI oTs! yOu c An k IlL m E Al L YoU Wa nt, b Ut I wIl L nEv Er g Et rID oF m E." He warned in a demonic voice. All presences' eyes narrowed at him.
"That's it!" One of the demons said in a British accent. "This hybrid is a danger to our society! He is a psychopath, and must be eliminated, and you shall do it!" He pointed at Bill, whose eyes widened in surprise and shock.
"I WON'T KILL MY OWN CHILD!" He bellowed.
"You will, we will force you to." Another demon uttered as she stepped closer, until the previous demon with the accent held her arm and shook his head negatively. It was a signal to leave them alone. Bill's hands turned into fists as he tried to control his anger and sadness at the same time. Dipper stood up and tried to touch his mentor, but his hand went straight past him. However, as he did that, something happened: Bill shivered. It was like a ghost had gone through him. Dipper's eyes widened at that as he withdrew the hand and watched the scene unfolding in front of him. "Only a family member can kill a traitor!" The demon lady said.
"I will do it." Keehnesi offered as he stepped ahead. Bill gave him a broken stare. "It will be less painful if I do." Bill bit his lip but nodded, turning his head away.
Keehnesi stared into his nephew's eyes and the latter whispered: 'I'm so sorry' as he began tearing up. The pink demon inhaled deeply before extending his hand and preparing the attack that would kill his nephew, and there would be no turning back. 'I'm so sorry!' He whispered again, with a stream of tears, and sobbing. Keehnesi felt a tug at his heart; he couldn't do it; he couldn't kill his own nephew; the sweet child he once knew. What happened to that child? What had he turned into? Finally, Keehnesi decided: he would not do it. Why not play with his colleagues' minds a little bit?
He charged a pink beam and, hesitating for a second, aimed it at the one in front of him. His nephew took the beam gladly as his punishment, and vanished slowly. That was all Dipper saw before everything went black, and Keehnesi's voice echoed through his mind in an apologetic tone:
"I'm so sorry I couldn't save you, Amie…"
. . .
"Pine Tree, wake up!" Dipper was harshly awoken with Bill shaking him violently. He was startled for a minute and then looked around, confused. He was in another room, and the worst part: he was carrying a knife. What the- "Ok, Pine Tree, what the hell are you doing with a goddamn knife in my room?" Oh, so he was in Bill's room, and with a knife! Well, what an unpleasant situation to be in… His first reaction was to drop the knife, and the second was to freeze completely. "Pine Tree, I demand an answer." Bill said, louder this time.
"I didn't do anything on purpose, I swear!" Dipper tried to defend himself, but wasn't sure if Bill was buying any of that. He was dreaming – what was he even doing with a knife? Bill took a deep breath and then a sigh.
"Alright" He said, grabbing his apprentice and throwing him on his bed.
"Uh, what is that?" Dipper questioned.
"Tonight you're sleeping with me, and I will make sure you won't harm anyone." Bill answered. Dipper raised an eyebrow. "I am being serious." He grabbed a chair and put it near the window, watching the night. His eyes seemed to glow even more at the moonlight. Dipper tried to forget the thoughts and the dream he just had, but couldn't help but focus on the latter. All he could think of was the last sentence: I'm sorry I couldn't save you, Amie. Who was Amie? Was he Bill's son? Just then it clicked:
The boy from his other dream! The one whose creature from his nightmare had killed!
All he could do was sigh; Bill, what have you signed me in for? He thought.
"I still don't know that answer." The mentioned demon responded, making Dipper's heart skip a beat, until he remembered:
Oh, yeah, the telepathy stuff.
A/N: I don't know what I have done, but welp XD bye!
Awakened Niwana, off.