Chapter 3: It Gets Worse

Love is the triumph of imagination over intelligence.-- Falco


Fox stared at his room, he couldn't believe his eyes. Perhaps he was seeing things. He rubbed his eyes quickly and looked into the room. Nope, still unpacked. He was getting a little freaked out when he heard a faint sighing coming from his parent's old room. He was terrified, yet his overwhelming sense of curiosity forced him to take cautious steps towards the room. After all, he may have heard wrong.

He peeked into the room, and seeing nothing out of the ordinary, ventured in. He looked at the serene surroundings, the pictures hanging neatly on the walls, the bed made with a tender touch, the full length mirror sitting opposite of the bed, and the long, white, see-through curtains rustling slightly from the draft the air conditioning vent made. Fox walked up the dresser, and picked up a picture of him and his parents.

It was taken at a picnic, not long before they died. His memories faded slowly back to that day, and he was just about to tag his mother, when the faint sigh could be heard again. Fox jolted from that summer's day into the room, and looked around for the origin of the sound. Nothing caught his attention right away, until he saw the sheets from the bed slowly moving up and down, as if someone, or something, were breathing beneath the sheets. Yet, there was no bulk one would normally see when someone lies in a bed. He took a few steps closer when he saw something under the quilt take form; it seemed to slowly rise from the mattress.

He took in a sharp breath. Then, the body-figure stopped, and the only movement that could be detected was the slow rising and falling of the sheets next to where the head appeared to be. Fox's hairs on his tail stood on end, as he slowly walked backwards towards the door. Fingers with green skin and a few patches of orange fur came out from under the covers, and griped them tightly. Then, the sheets flung back, and on the bed was what appeared to be his mother. On of her eyelids was gone, so a large, bloodshot eye stared at him nonstop before rolling out of it's socket. The skin on her muzzle was ripped off, showing the bone, and her tongue lolled out of her mouth. Some of her left side was missing, decaying flesh and organs were all that were visible on that side. Fox's scream pierced the whole house.

The stench of death was over powering, Fox put his collar up to his nose before turning to run. But his dead mother was blocking the door, staring at him. She reached her hand out to him, with a look of concern on her face, but that look turned to malice in the blink of an eye as she swung her outstretched hand at her son, hitting him across the face.

"Augh!" he cried out in pain while his hand touched where he'd been struck. She raised her hand to do it again, but this time, Fox ducked under her arm, going through the area where her left side should've been, and ran down the loft and down the stairs. He reached the door, and tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. He looked over his shoulder to see his mother, or what had been his mother, crawling on the wall, headed downstairs. Her stare fixed upon him, and she moved deftly across the wall.

She was almost upon him, when his door swung open, and Falco stepped in. Fox, who had been leaning on the door, was thrown onto the floor. Falco looked around for a second, and then spotted his captain behind the door picking himself up.

"Well, it's about time you started groveling. By the way, the others are going to be a little late. They had to stop and get something."

Fox peered up at him. 'I think I'd rather deal with corpses than him,' he thought to himself. He suddenly remembered the corpse of his mother, and turned his head to look up the stairs, and spotted her, or it. It was just clinging to the wall, with that undeterred stare.

"What are you looking at?" Falco asked coldly, turning his eyes in the direction of Fox's. Falco emitted an ' oh my God' under his breath, and walked towards the stairs. He stopped in front of them, and looked up, looked directly at the apparition. Instead of screaming over it, though, he merely smashed a spider that'd been crawling on the wall.

"I hate spiders. You should call the exterminator out here." Falco shuddered, looking at the spiders guts.

"Wait, you mean you don't see that?" Fox yelled, pointing at the creature clinging to the wall. Falco looked to where he was pointing, and turned his head back to his friend and shook it. The avian then gave a concerned look towards his friend.

"Are you ok?"

Fox couldn't believe he was asking that. How could he not see the creature that was right in front of him? Fox just nodded his head, and let himself be led into the kitchen. He sat down, and lit a cigarette. Maybe he was hallucinating, after all, he hadn't gotten much sleep lately. ' Yeah, you know what, that's it. This is all just some sort of delusion caused by sleep deprivation.' That thought certainly made him feel better about the situation. Falco poured some beers into mugs that had been kept in the freezer for the past two days, and handed one to Fox.

He drank it quickly, and poured himself another one. He was just about to take a drink when he noticed something odd. Falco had stopped moving. The bird was frozen stiff. Fox waved his hand in front of his friend's face, but no response. The same voice he heard on the phone earlier came out of nowhere then.

"You thought just because your friend was here, I'd let you go? Ha! You are such a fool."

Fox looked around, and realized the origin of the voice was the foyer. He picked himself up, and rounded the corner quickly. There was nothing there.

"Stop playing games with me! What do you want?"

"What do I want?" the voice echoed, "I want you to die!"

The voice cackled after saying that last thing.

"That makes no sense, what would you get out of my death?"

"I just want to watch you suffer as you draw your last breath. Ha ha ha! And don't look so upset, it makes perfect sense once you understand."

Fox felt heavy after hearing that. No way could this thing have killed his mother. He'd seen her die in an explosion. How could he have done it?

The thing was about to speak again when he heard Falco cough from the flow of his beer. He headed into the kitchen, and eyed him. Falco looked at where Fox had been, then straight at him.

" How'd you move so quickly? You need to teach me that trick."

Fox was slightly surprised at this. Apparently, Falco hadn't noticed at all that some time had passed while he was in mid sip. At the risk of sounding crazy, Fox inquired if he'd heard anything. A shake of the head gave him his answer.

" Only you can hear me." It said in his ear this time. He turned quickly to see Peppy standing behind him, laden with bags of snacks, ushering in Slippy. Peppy looked at him for a moment.

" You should get more sleep, you look like you've seen a ghost." He chuckled as he greeted Falco, poured himself a beer, and sat down. Slippy was fiddling with a bag of chips. Fox marveled at how oblivious they were to the goings on in the house. A cold chill ran up his spine as he felt a presence in the room. A low whispering sound echoed in his ears as his friends' faces slowly turned from delight into intense pain as they clutched their throats. Horrible gasping sounds came from their mouths, as their tongues lolled, and drool dripped down their chins.

Fox tried in vain to save them, but all he could do was pull and fight against unseen hands. They slowly stopped moving and twitched a little as they fell to the ground, in a semi-peaceful sleep, as tendrils came from the walls and held Fox against it. A black wisp of smoke filled the room, pouring out of his unconscious comrades' mouths. It took the form of a male cat, about thirty something years old. His fur was a light grey, his eyes blue. He wore a soldier's uniform that his father had worn, and an exit wound with dried blood around it adorned his forehead.

" Hello, Fox McCloud. It's nice to see you face to face, so to speak. I'm sure you're concerned for your friends, but I assure you, they will be fine. Afraid I can't say the same for you, though."

Fox looked into its eyes. They were completely empty of any known emotion. The cold chills got worse.

" What………are you?"

" A ghost, genius. Although, I prefer to be called an apparition, sounds a little less childish. In case you're wondering why I did this, I suppose we have to go back a bit. I'm Gregory Leggett, and your father and I were friends and teammates when he was in the force before the first Androssian war. You're father was arguably the best damn pilot and soldier in our class. He volunteered for missions, allowing himself to be captured and tortured for our further knowledge of Andross's plans. However, after a while, a paper trail started to form behind your father….some information didn't sync up. Not to mention, his information on Andross's movements and headquarters was never correct—we were always one step behind. I investigated James for a period of two years, and I had found out that your father was in league with Andross the whole time…..giving that ape top-secret insights to our inner workings, assault strategies, and future plans— "

" Stop it! You're crazy, my father is no traitor!" Fox had all he could stand. He couldn't believe that this thing was trying to convince him that his father would betray his country—his son—like that.

" Allow me to finish. I confronted him about it, and threatened to reveal his discretion to General Pepper, unless he came clean himself. He agreed, and wanted me to pick him up the day that he was supposed to turn himself in for treason. He waited until my back was turned—don't interrupt—and shot me in cold blood. I can still hear your mother screaming, and see you in her arms as a baby. I was buried under this house, in the basement. Your father, the honest man that he was, told Pepper that we'd made plans to come and inform him of a massive assault Andross was planning, but I'd never shown up to get him."

Fox stared in disbelief. He didn't believe this story. He tried to loosen the tendrils grip on his wrists without raising the suspicion of his captor. He failed, as the tendrils felt like they had cut off the circulation slightly. He bit his lip as the pain shot through his arms and worked its way into his shoulders.

" Don't believe me, huh? Well, then, how about if I were to tell you that your father isn't dead? He faked it, making sure there was a credible witness—", he pointed to Peppy's sleeping form," so that no one would question his death, so he could continue to serve Andross, helping him build armies. He even managed to get information from your ship's computer and the robot, to keep Andross updated."

" That's bull. And even if this were all true, why haunt me and not him?"

The cat leaned back for a moment, a slightly impressed look on his face. " Always asking questions, that's why I like you. You see, my soul is tied to this house. I need a vessel to leave here, and guess who the lucky body belongs to?"

Fox felt his face get hot all of a sudden. The pain no longer mattered, he had something new to focus on. " If you're tied to this house, how'd you learn all that?"

"Land of the living, so bound by your bodies weaknesses. When you're dead, all knowledge comes to you at your call."

" Yeah, I'm sure it does. I'm not going to be your 'vessel', so either let me go, or kill me."

Gregory looked at him, " I'm afraid you've no choice in the matter. Now, then, be a good little boy, and submit your body to me. It won't hurt—well, maybe a little, but not for long."

"Get bent!"

" Do it, or your friends die."

Fox looked at the faces of his friends as they slept. He couldn't bare to see them hurt, let alone killed, on his account. He lowered his head, and thought for a moment or two. If he let this……this thing take over, and if it's story was true, his father would die. If he didn't, he'd lose his friends, who were like family to him. If the story was false, he'd have some demented creature running around Corneria with a brand spanking new body.


Hey, thanks for reading this renovated chapter. Let me know what you think now.