Saturday, 2nd February, 2104.
I've been on edge since my basement encounter over a week ago. I'm constantly on the hunt, consciously or not, to find another mysterious event like the one that happened, but strangely enough… Everything's gone silent.
It's weird. After an event like that , I would expect everything to go absolutely crazy - more power outages, unnatural occurrences, signals of the unknown showing up, those kinds of things. But for the past eight days, there hasn't been anything strange going on in the house - hell, not even a Mirror Man sighting. I've gone throughout the basements and the rest of the house on my own multiple times while borrowing Laurie's live feed, yet not one dot has popped up.
I know I should be calming down, but… I want to meet up with those… People, again. At least, I think they're people. Maybe I might even have Laurie find out why they're invisible and silent to us.
"Cora? Are you okay?"
"Em, I'm fine. There's nothing to worry about."
"You're drying dishes with a face towel. You're clearly frazzled about something."
Oh. Whoops.
"Okay, you got me. Something's been on my mind for a while."
"What about? Oh Corrie, you could've talked to me about this - you know I'm here for you."
Her face is soft and genuinely concerned, tripping me into calmness I haven't felt in… Weeks.
"I know Emmy," I sigh, "But you'd laugh at me if I told you."
She lays the plate down in the sink.
"…The ghost-glitch thing from our first day here?"
"…Yeah."
"I know it's been happening since we first came here."
"Wait, what? I thought-"
"I believed you the whole time Cora," she gently protests, "I just didn't want to admit it."
"Wha- why?"
"Cause I thought if I could hide that from you, I could hide it from my parents."
"Oh, Emmy… It's okay, you're safe here! You don't need to tell them!"
"I had to be sure, Corrie. If my parents hear about how I'm living in a haunted house, they'd pull me out fast. Regardless of how I'm going strong in my faith and your homeowner's say. Besides, I found your shared journal with Laurie and read it a few days ago."
"Wait, what?" I sit up straight, "How? It was perfectly hidden!"
Em rolls her eyes, but it's not condescending.
"A Portal-themed school notebook amongst a shelf of Edward the First's old sketchbooks? Really?"
Okay, in hindsight, that honestly was terrible.
"I confirmed it all with Laurie's live feed archives last night," She continues, "And made a few contributions to the journal thanks to it."
"… How the hell did I not notice those?"
"Language!"
"Sorry 'bout that. And for thinking you weren't paying attention to what was going on in the house. Should've realised I was being so rude. I should've talked to you more about it."
"It's okay, Corrie." She lays a hand on my shoulder, "That means I can pull it off. You wanna talk more about this after we get the dishes done?"
"Sure."
"Well, you weren't kidding when you made contributions to the journal," I read her neat handwriting as fast and as much as I can while lying on my bed, "I'm surprised I didn't even notice them since I update this thing every day. Wait, the Mirror Man's one of the dots? They've been able to get up here already?"
"Mmhmm," she leans back in my desk chair, "And I came up with a bit of a theory or explanation as to what's going on. Or at least, what I think is going on. I haven't written it down in the journal yet since it's a bit half-baked. At least, it helps with dispelling the haunted house myth if I ever have a chance to talk about it with mum and dad."
"Not that you need to talk about it with them. But go ahead…"
"Well, the three common elements you found, I think these things are giving off user codes, right? How can a ghost, a supernatural spirit of some sort, have a user code?"
"Let alone another two alongside it," I nod, "One on de… de-aging? Deaging? Whatever it is and how it's pronounced, and the other probably being a source code of some sort."
"Exactly, we're not dealing with supernatural ghosts-"
"Not that you believed in those actual ghosts in the first place."
"Well there's familiar spirits and soul fragments, but that's a whole other kettle of fish. As I was saying, I think we're dealing with-"
"Cora? Emily?"
"We'll be there in a sec, Laur! Sorry Em, what were you saying?"
"No, seriously! You need to get over here, now! "
"Wonder what she's found," Em stretches while standing while I push myself up from my bed, "And I'll tell you later. Laurie's probably got something big on her hands.
I grab a pen off my bedside table.
"Hope it's something good. Away from those fantastic contributions of yours, I'm over writing 'no activity detected' in those pages."
"Goodness gracious, this is off the charts!"
"All of this, happening in the basement level below us…" I mumble, "Just like last week."
"Except more enthusiastic?" Laurie offers.
"Yeah, that."
"Well," she continues, "What are we gonna do about this?"
"We can't do nothing!" Em shakes her head.
"We could try communicating from here.".
But I disagree with Laur and head for the door.
"Cora?"
"I think," a smile creeps on my face, "We should just go down there."
"But-"
"Sorry, but I'm not staying here to chit-chat," I singsong out of Laurie's room towards the basement door before calling back. "You coming?"
"Oh, for goodness sakes, Cora…"
Not a peep is heard from us as we sneak into the basement.
Laurie's resized one of her holos to be concealed away in the palm of her hand at the lowest brightness possible, enough to give us a small view around, but still dark enough to creep me out.
"They're nearby the right wall in a group," Laur whispers, "Maybe they're having an argument or something. Weird, they pretty much burst through a door like lunatics and made such an electrical mess."
A door, eh?
"Em, did you shut the door behind you?"
"Yeah?"
"Good. I know there's an out-of-place cabinet that's actually a hidden door. You'll stand in front of the entrance and I'll take the hidden one under guard so they won't escape."
"You said in the journal that they can't teleport or go through walls or doors, right?"
"Yep."
"Cor, what do I do then?"
"Careful, Laur!" I struggle to keep my voice below a whisper, "Not too loud! Now, you've got the hacking job of all this."
"As usual." She rolls her eyes.
"I'm counting on you to get them audible or visible. Or both. Either way works."
"I've been trying to figure out the coding based on my archives, but it's all in the experimental stage. I don't know if it will work… But I'll give it a shot."
"Okay… You in position, Laur?"
"I'm good. You, Cora?"
"Almost."
I push my glasses as close to my face as I can before hand-finding my way to the fake cabine-
Creeeeeaaak.
Uh oh.
"Laurie, now!"
I slam the secret door shut with all my body weight as Laur resizes and splits her holo into two with the speed and fluidity of Bruce Lee. The brightness of the screens illuminates every aggressive typing and tapping movement, her face furrowed in concentration.
One of the split-screens is a map of the electric grid, and I glance at the four white dots going haywire all over the room again . Two are scrambling to get through my door, one of them's trying to run through Em's door making the lights go nuts, and the last one is pacing the area frantically.
(Honestly though, I don't know how to feel about two possibly sentient electric beings literally in me as they try to fight their way out of here.)
I can pretty much imagine the screaming almost too vividly.
"How are you holding up, Emily?"
"Not bad! Are they trying to get out?"
"Of course we're trying to get out!"
"Cora? Why did your voice go deep?"
"I didn't say that!"
"Huh?!"
"Matt, please, calm down, we can get a way out when… Wait, You can see me? All of you?"
Em flicks the light on again.
My jaw hits the floor.
"It worked!"
Shivers scream down my spine.
For a start, my not-invisible new friend in front of us looks… Familiar.
Too familiar.
He looks like my dad. Green hoodie, brown slightly sideswept hair and dark eyes… Except this guy doesn't have the stubble, grey streaks and the slight extra hair length.
"Um… Is everyone okay?"
My heart's a pounding alarm bell; he even sounds similar to dad.
"A-are you though?" I manage.
"Yeah, I think. The others…"
"I'm working on it!"
"Thanks Laurie. Hope they'll appreciate it."
"Your sister?"
"Mm-hmm."
"Huh. Kinda didn't look like it, but I guess it's good to know."
"Heh, yeah. I guess."
I clench my trembling fists tight to my sides as I walk an invisible tightrope.
Whoa… This guy's tall. Just like dad. Well, not exactly dad's height, but…
"I-I'm sorry."
"For what?" he tilts his head, "You didn't do anything."
"For… Scaring you."
I force myself to hold eye contact before the man chuckles.
"From a week ago? It's fine. You looked more scared than me."
"Well," Em interjects, "In that case, you should apologise to those two for scaring them."
"Emily!"
"Heh, your friend?"
"Goodness, of course!"
"Eeeem!"
She's got a cheery grin as she makes her way towards us, and half of my panic falls off. At least, I think it does.
"Friends don't let friends live away from their families for the first time alone, hm?"
"Oh yeah," Mr Familiar nods, "I did that with my friends when we just turned legal. God, that was a while back… Say," he then looks back to me, "I never got your name by the way."
"I'm Cora," I hold my hand out for a shake, "It's… Actually nice to see you."
"Edd. Edd Gold Senior, actually. You haven't seen Eddie Junior around, have you?"
His right hand passes through mine, but that doesn't startle me.
Edd Gold… Sr?
Oh. My. GOD.
"She seemed calm when Edd was talking to her - I'm not sure why…"
…Emmy?
"Uggh…"
"Oh, thank goodness, she's coming to."
I squint my eyes open to green walls.
"E… Emily? What time is it?"
"About… Three in the afternoon, Cora. I'm not sure what happened, but-"
"You passed out!"
"Thanks, Laurie."
"Goodness, I'm glad I was nearby so I could catch you from fainting, Corrie."
I sit up from my bed, rubbing my eyes before pulling on my glasses.
"I'm… Aware that I fainted. I think… I think I had a huge panic attack. Geez, it's been… Seven years, was it? Didn't think it would happen again from that one time."
"From your first day at work," Em recalls, "Something hadn't felt right about the whole premise."
Come to think of it, it still doesn't.
Anyway.
"Is… Is Edd around?"
"Just outside with the others," Laur nods towards the door, "I managed to get the code working for them too. Buuuuut, they can't touch us, physically. None of the guys can. They can only touch the walls and floors."
"Oh, thank goodness it's codes and holograms," Em sighs in relief, her voice low and quiet, "Means my theory has some merit to it. It would've been a lot more messy if it was a familiar spirit or soul fragments."
"I bet, Em… Wait a min. The others?"
"Yeah," Laur nods, "Edd's one of four guys. They all look kinda familiar."
"Hey, Laurie, right? Is everything okay in there?"
That doesn't sound like Edd…
"It's alright Tom, not to worry!"
Tom, as in Thomas Richwells?!
Wait, four guys, two being Edd and Tom, then that means...
"Laurie," I whisper, "Check the user tags again. Did they clear up?"
"Okay, okay, I'm looking- what in the name of five hundred freddo frogs?!"
/:user_edd_gold_i
/:user_tom_richwells_i
/:user_matt_hartgrace_i
/:user_tord_lawson_i
I. Knew it.
"How… Who… What?"
"…Where's the journal?"
Em passes it to me with a pen, and I open up to a blank page, writing something big, bold and scribbly on it - but the message is still clear when I show it to them.
The both of them gasp, Emily covering her mouth with a hand.
"Oh my goodness!"
"Holy tide pods in a tumblewasher!"
"Shh!"
"Seriously, is everything alright in there?"
Not Tom or Edd, but kinda high pitched… Can't be Thorfrid since he'd probably sound more Norwegian than English…
"We'll be out soon Matt! So much for…" Em rubs her forehead, "Well, what's next?"
I run a hand through my hair, then straighten my hoodie and push up the sleeves.
"We continue life as normal."
"Normal?!" Em's eyes widen.
"After today?!" Laur squeaks.
"Not the normal we had before," I stand and slowly pace the room, trying to keep my voice quiet as possible, "We need time together with these guys, I'm talking actual quality time. Almost a whole month of them being around whilst mute and invisible didn't start any sort of relationship between us. I want to get to know them better."
I stare at the open journal in my hands, filled with the past month's notes and the boldly written fresh discovery of today.
"We also need time to recover from all that's happened," I continue, shutting the journal, "and I'm not just talking about today. We need to get re-used to everything. Everyone will need it."
"Oh, dear."
"What's wrong Em?"
She glances to the door before motioning me and Laur over to her.
"How on earth are we going to tell this to my parents?" She whispers, "Everything was going alright, but I'm not sure how I'm supposed to deal with this now. And for that matter, shouldn't you two tell your parents?"
"Hell no."
"Corrie!"
"Sorry. But mum and dad, as much as they were being weird about it, aren't going to learn about this whatsoever. Especially dad, knowing him."
To my left, Laurie nods.
"No way dad's going to get his hands on our new mystery."
"Listen," Em huffs, "I get not telling your parents, but-"
"You don't have to tell yours either."
"Cora!"
"I mean it Em, you don't have to tell them anything. Or at least," I tap my chin, "the whole thing. You can say that I accepted some new housemates to stay with us and that they're a little camera-shy."
"Well… You're not wrong."
"I might even take some blurry-but-clear photos to help you prove it. We can handle it. You can handle it Emmy," I smile, trying to be encouraging, "You've done it before, you can do it again!"
"I hope so…"
"And we'll take our time with this new situation, like I said. We won't try solving this mystery all at once, so we can spend time with the guys and also give you space to make sure you can get away with it, Em."
"Actually," Laur butts in, "Do you think the guys would get suspicious if they found old photos of themselves on the walls of a house you own, Cora?"
Good point.
"We'll take them down and hide them so they don't suspect a thing," I decide, "There must've been a glitch or something which stopped them taking a decent look at what was already here. And I don't want to tell them the whole truth about us either. Wouldn't be good to shock them on their first day of living back here."
"Hellooooo?" A Nordic-sounding voice calls outside my room, "Everyone okay in there?"
"I'm guessing that's Thorfrid?" I cock an eyebrow.
"Yep, but call him Tord." Laur nods, "Weird to think he kinda sounds like Uncle Thor."
"I suppose. But we can't keep these secrets forever." Em shakes her head, "From everyone we've talked about. We'll have to tell them at some point. Our parents and your ancestors."
"Now's not that point, but it's not gonna be permanent. In the meantime, we can handle this. Right?"
Laur and Em share a glance before nodding.
I smile, standing and walking to the door, letting my hand rest on the door handle.
"Besides," I wonder aloud, twisting the knob, "When was normal ever normal?"
Look into the past, what do you see?
The Red Save vigenere will hold your key.
IPAI vv fiz wvempxzhmotb pur griptsswf nidd qeezftz opbvd du wxf nidvr eyt zgloxrl qwpbkf, iks kfsjvp iosq vv qwl ricbeh vt soazjywxl, vl bhhxrz fu avil jb fbwxr cklvfxug lu tsrgqlc, vf qbaq cvhijwoiom eal fbwcvgiki, hbh gprh, hg xum qghuiqqxc zocf, "pb qywrta cgva xum apyyrrap psz xuqkvz hs gpb qpfxu, iks hzp gpfcng fbzk tujiywmh pb xum kxnvx." [Fwmwvqpra Xyhl, 646]br /
Fhb qwl heym lu owwgwon mcvza x klfc fboduu fhttpyy etifczh xum piysez wc ipai, nva iv gszm bmasrg ketjyw vbp xyfifqpipppr nidd, orq, wc psz xuqkvz rsam fc ph, ef uxcf ow uqpivfc uip ihyia wsty, wx fmzjysw nva qpbhf blvlhlrz, xck rsra kda opywt iosq gw papd ejiv xuhs gpb pimwf wc /
- Hbrn Slbusrn, Bet Hzikqxs, Icsx Wkt.
The only thing that stays constant, is change.
-Heraclitus.
A/N: WHOO! Act One complete! And boy, it's been a time. For me at least. I've been busy since university started up again and I've gotta work for it. Animation is rewarding, but hard, man.
So I'll take a release break! I won't be uploading next fortnight's friday, but the one after that. Hopefully. Most of Act Two isn't edited yet (since I am slow, tired and working more often now), but I do have chapter 8 ready to go. Maybe in the next few weeks I can knock out 9 and 10. God, I could do with an editor or beta-reader...
But yeah. The character list is updated, the first act is done and I've got to prep a commission for the next act's cover. See you (hopefully) on the 16th of April with the start of Act Two! Pray for me y'all, things are going to ramp up.
