The gang ran into the room to see Cheryl sitting up on the bed, still in tears as she turned around to glance at them.
"Are you okay?" Daphne asked, moving toward her.
"I'm fine," she promised, faking a smile.
Vincent just now had noticed her knee was bleeding a little bit.
"What happened? How'd you get this injury?" he questioned.
Cheryl looked down at her knee, clutching it in an attempt to ease the pangs of the injury, which only made it worse.
"I… I hit it accidentally when I fell through the floor.."
"Wait.." Flim Flam added, holding the stained white sheets, "I think the blood from your knee got on these bed sheets when you landed here."
"Let me heal it for you Cheryl, " Vincent offered.
She nodded, and everyone watched as he put his hand over her knee, using his magic to remove the injury. In a split second, the blood on her knee was gone, and then he made the stain from the sheets disappear as well.
"Thank you," she sighed in relief.
"You're welcome," he told her.
"I think it's time for us to leave this place," Shaggy said.
"Yeah, let's go," Daphne agreed as everyone followed her out.
When she walked outside, Daphne felt the wind blow through her hair and the bright sun was seen high up in the afternoon sky.
"Wow, the forest looks beautiful again," she observed.
"Rit sure does," Scooby added.
"Looks like our work here is done," Jayden stated.
Daphne now focused her attention on Cheryl, who still appeared to be uneasy after her encounter with Maldor.
"I know how it feels," she began, "Being under the 'Sleep Of The Centuries' curse, not knowing if you'll ever wake up."
"Were you aware of everything going on around you too? But not being able to say or do anything?" Cheryl wondered.
Daphne looked away for a moment, then back at her, "Yes, and you shouldn't have had to experience it too."
She hugged her for a moment. "It's gonna be okay, I promise you," she told her before she let go.
Cheryl smiled at her, and shared a hug with Jayden.
Vincent headed towards the van, "We should head back to the castle now."
Everyone then piled into the van and then they immediately drove off.
Later that evening, Vincent was in his study room, accompanied by the rest of the group. Listening to them just talking and laughing about their past adventures with some of the other ghosts from the chest.
"You're seriously telling me that you got sucked into a comic book by a demon named 'Demondo?'" Velma puzzled.
"We did, and let's not forget when Zomba sucked us into that old movie," Daphne mentioned.
"Or like, when we got trapped in that weird mirror dimension by the Reflector Specter," Shaggy shared.
"We went through a lot back then. Hey, remember when we used to do song and dance numbers?" Flim Flam chimed in.
"It got quite annoying at times," Vincent noted.
Daphne checked her phone and saw that she got an unread text message from Fred, who was all the way in Honolulu, Hawaii working on a project for his mystery writing job.
"Shaggy, Velma, guess what? Fred just texted me. He says he misses us and he wants you, Scooby, and me to meet with him soon."
"Really? Man, I miss him too! We should totally meet up with him one day." Shaggy said.
"Exactly! I haven't seen him in a while!" Velma added.
"Who's Fred?" Asamad questioned.
"He's an old friend of Shaggy, Scooby, Daphne, and I," Velma told him, "We used to solve mysteries with him in high school."
"What if all of us went to go meet up with him one day?" Flim Flam asked.
"Rhat sounds like a good idea," Scooby responded.
"Can we do that?" Jayden requested, looking to Vincent for an answer.
Vincent took a moment to think about his answer. He hadn't exactly had the best experience with mortals besides the young group he was accompanied by. But at the same time, he didn't want to disappoint them.
After the room went completely silent for a moment, he finally said something:
"I'll allow it."
"Thank you," Jayden smiled.
"You know," Flim Flam began, "We really shouldn't have drifted apart. I mean, we were, and still are such a great ghost catching group."
"You're right. But we're not going to drift apart anymore. We're going to stick together," Daphne promised.
Everyone continued to have a great time. This was really the best part of being friends with one another. Just being able to talk and hang out with each other was worth it.
Vincent was satisfied to have them all here with him at this moment. Sure, there were 11 more ghosts to chase down and capture. Yes, the mystery of Scrappy's disappearance was still on their minds. But, he re-realized something today, something important.
He re-realized that he isn't alone anymore, and that he won't ever be alone again because of the gang. Which meant the world to him, even though he hadn't mentioned it to anyone yet.
They were his family after all.
"Well, they are going to stay with me for a while, and I will gladly accept that," he thought to himself.
Author's Notes: Episode 1: Sleep & Eternity is now finally complete! I just want to say a couple of things very quickly.
I know that the "trapping the ghost in the chest to break the spell" thing was the ending in the Zomba episode. I didn't remember that though until at least a week after I wrote and posted Chapter 4. I chose that way of breaking the sleeping curse because I wanted to have a different ending to my first episode. I do plan to have a different ending to my episode with Zomba when I write it in the future.
Also, Bogel & Weerd will have a bigger role in the next episode. I gave them a cameo in Chapter 4 because I was debating whether or not I should've included them in this episode or just until the next episode to include them. Fred will appear in the next episode as well. I realized I forgot to give an explanation for where he is in the author notes of Chapter 1 where Fred was, so I decided to explain it here in Chapter 5.
Lastly, Vincent saying that the singing and dancing got annoying at times is a reference to when in the 13 Ghosts series, the gang was singing "Row Row Row Your Boat" and Vincent was just like "this is beginning to get quite annoying."
Episode 2 will be published sometime in June. I don't know which day I'll begin writing it yet, but maybe I can start it on the first or second week of June :)