"People wept and swallowed their jewels/Entered as soldiers, departed as fools." — PM Dawn
Amity and Luz sat down next to each other in the mess hall, the chatter and banter from students at other tables swirling around them that were drowned out by their own thoughts.
Luz ate an apple along with what she thought was the equivalent of some vegetable mix with avidity. (She wasn't sure what kind of meat was on her plate, so she was sure to avoid that.) She looked around the room as well at the various other groups eating together until she found Boscha's usual table, the major difference being Boscha was missing from it. Her 'friends' chattered with one another save for Skara who was not her usual cheery self. She looked as though she were staring off into space with a look of concern and bewilderment on her face. There was just something…off about her today.
Luz looked back over at Amity who had barely touched any of the food on her plate.
"Uh, Amity," Luz leaned in closer to her and cocked her neck around, "What's bugging you. C'mooon, you can tell your friend Luz what's up."
"Gah," Amity was slightly startled upon finally looking up at Luz before shaking her head and feigning a smile, "It-it's nothing, Luz. I'm okay." Luz could now see Amity had bags under her eyes and a paler than usual complexion.
"It's happening again, isn't it?" Luz asked, some concern in her tone, "The nightmares came back?"
"Unfortunately yes," Amity looked down again, "I didn't say anything because I didn't want to worry you."
"You've still been keeping a record of them?"
"Yes," Amity sighed, "Though they'll sometimes get fuzzy after I have a chance to recover from them. Some of them have been gorgeous, while others…They're just horrible."
"Care to describe them?" Luz pressed.
"I'm not sure," Amity hesitated, "It's just that the more I think about them, the more anxious I become. I've got this paranoid feeling something's coming for me. In one of them, I keep finding myself in some lush, green menagerie with various birds and cats, but then I find myself leaving it to find it was a small oasis in a vast desert. I then come to this massive pyramid; I want to say this is your realm's land known as Egypt, but I see several floating obelisks surrounding it, which I know definitely doesn't happen there. As I approach the structure, I begin hearing this faint, high pitched laughter that grows louder and louder until I can't hear myself think. And one of two names appear in my head: either Nyarlathotep or Bill, which is oddly a much more common name but still…I'm just scared, Luz. What is happening to me?"
"Hey, it's okay," Luz reassured her, reaching out and grabbing her hand, at which Amity immediately blushed, "You're going to be alright. We'll find out what's causing all this eventually. And no matter what, I won't let anything bad happen to you."
"Thanks," Amity smiled nervously, "And Luz, there's something I've been wanting to tell you for some time, and I'm not sure how to say it."
"Tell me what?" Luz cocked her head to the side and grinned. She had a feeling of what Amity was about to say, but she wanted to actually hear her say it.
"Luz, I-" Amity began, but just then they heard a familiar voice.
"Hey, girls, I, oh…" Willow cut herself off, "Am I interrupting something?"
"It's okay," Luz shifted her attention to Willow while still not letting go of Amity's hand, all of this causing Amity to grow a brighter shade of red, color returning once again to her pale face, "What's up?"
"Have you seen Gus?" Willow asked, "I'm really worried. Boscha cornered him earlier, and she looked pretty angry about something. I wonder if it had something to do with Gus' dreams. Could Boscha be a part of this now, too?"
"Don't know," Luz replied, "but did you see where they went?"
"I didn't," Willow huffed, "I'm not even sure where they could have gone."
"I've got a tracking spell," Amity interjected, "that I picked up from a Beast Master track student the other day. Maybe it will lead us to them."
"Worth a try," Luz agreed.
*.*.*
"Now that we're all here," Boscha started as she paced back and forth in front of the boys, who were sitting on the edge of the dirt road, "We can discuss what's been happening. I'm going to take the liberty of telling you two some recent experiences I've had.
"Let's face facts, boys, you two aren't worthy enough to even be in my passing thoughts, let alone my dreams. The first time I saw both of you in my dream last week, I was a little annoyed but wrote it off as some passing subconscious thing for wanting to put you both in your place. And then when I saw you both again two more times, I figured there's something more to it. So then I thought to myself, maybe you two are conspiring against me and wanting to play some prank on me with a dream spell or something."
"Dream spell?" Mattholomule chuckled, "I think you're grasping at straws, miss rich snot! I can't speak for nerd boy over here," he pointed to Gus with his thumb, "but I haven't even heard of such a thing. I doubt something like that would even be taught at Hexsi—"
"SHUT UP!" Boscha snapped, "I've got more to say. But then I heard Skara saying something about having weird dreams and seeing this yellow rune of some kind; but then all the Bard track started having the same dream about that stupid yellow rune, so I'm thinking there's something larger going on with our dreams. Then I see that same yellow squiggly on a tree in my most recent dream, and that confirmed everything."
"Uh huh," Mattholomule breathed, "and you brought us out here why?"
"YOU WILL SHUT UP AND LET ME FINISH!" Boscha growled, making a flame from circling her fingers and then holding that flame at the ends of her index and middle fingers, pointing it at Mattholomule, "OR I WILL ROAST YOU BOTH ALIVE!" She then retracted her fingers into a fist, causing the flame to dissipate into the air, "To continue, I think with all these weird collective dreams everyone's having, something bigger has to be going on. Sooooo, like it or not, the three of us have to figure out together what the crap this is leading us to."
"…Can we talk now?" Mattholomule asked after a pause.
"Yes, pion," Boscha squinted at him, "You have my permission to dialogue."
"I shouldn't have to have your permission, witch," Mattholomule grunted. Poor Gus just sat there listening to both of them. "Anyways, I've got my own thoughts about what's going on. Here's the thing. The human world is still fascinating to me, but I don't feel like I want to stop there. There are so many different planes of reality, each with their own set of different planets, different worlds to visit. By the mundane human standards, there's a lot of weirdness on the Boiling Isles; they have a lot of strange stuff. What I want to see is something weirder than that, something that transcends our limited understanding of this plane of existence. Something that's truly unnamed and unnameable."
"I've got something to add to that," Gus finally spoke up, "I was reading a book from the human realm by a guy named Carl Sagan. He was talking about how we perceive everything in three dimensions, but something else could possibly exist beyond those physical laws. Something in the fourth dimension that is beyond our perception. He described it as a model called a tesseract, a cube used to model the different directions some multidimensional object could take…"
"Yeah sure, I guess," Mattholomule curtly responded, "Whatever those dork words meant. I just want to see something really bizarre, and I think that kind of fed into my dreams. Whatever's in that house that we all saw, I think it might very well be the thing I'm seeking. Titan, if I could somehow contain it and bring it to the Human Club meeting, that would soooo blow everyone's mind…But seriously, you didn't answer my question about why you brought us out here."
"Fair enough," Boscha turned up her chin, "I recognized the farmland from the dream. It's a collection of acres my family owns. We helped them acquire the land through a loan…which of course they still need to pay back. But of course we expect no less; they are just lowly farmers after all. I suppose our society still needs the bottom feeding Plant Coven…and Construction Coven." She flashed a mischievous smirk at Mattholomule.
"Hey, you take that back," Mattholomule started up towards her, clinching his fist.
"Ah ah ah," Boscha wagged her finger, generated another flame to point at him, and snickered, "I could still fry you at anytime, roughneck boy, if you wanna get smart with me."
"Whereas I could pull some wood and stone to crush you at any time," Mattholomule growled, a smiling sneer on his face, "you wanna try me, snob?"
"Guys stop!" Gus shouted, producing two illusionary copies of himself to seemingly push both of them away from each other, "Okay, none of us like each other! We got that! But us fighting about it isn't getting us anywhere. You want to find out what's going on? We need to start working together and get this uneven caravan back on the path."
The two bullies withdrew their spells and sighed. There was a moment where a phrase Gus had once heard flashed through his mind, 'Evil very rarely gets along with evil.'
The reluctant group then moved along the pathway. All were in silence, none wanting to speak to the other. They proceeded down the pathway which, as each felt but couldn't express, seemed surreal to see in the waking world. Gus for one felt like he could enjoy the environment. The Fall season carried with it its own magic, the crisp air of the winds of change, the harvesting of a summer's growth, the idea of slow decay with the hope of regrowth in the next year. It was not a time of fear or mourning to him, as it might have been for some humans, but a time for the cycle of life to continue on to the next year.
Part of him wondered if his…best friend, Willow, felt the same. After all, she was now in the Plant track. He wondered if she was okay, if her studies weren't interrupted with worrying about him, and if she was okay with her handling these two jerks.
They eventually came to the path to which the dream had lead them. The wooden planks underneath their boots felt all too familiar. Each clack on the wood sent a spark through their brain of a familiarity they were not ready to face. Still, they trudged onward, knowing whatever lay before was a necessity if their continual dreams were to finally end. The leaves around them still had their various hues of red, but this time it mixed orange, yellow, and dark brown, still fitting for the cycling Fall season.
They eventually came to the all too familiar small grove, and sure enough, the house was there. The main difference, however, was the paint was even more cracked than in their dream. The wood paneling was more splintered, and the overall air of dread was even more oppressive than what they felt in the dream, especially since it was in the real world now.
"I guess we better go in," Gus said, finally breaking the silence.
"You're welcome to go ahead, Mr oh-so-curious nerd," Mattholomule replied.
Gus then proceeded up the creaking wooden steps to the high, elevated front porch. It must have been about twenty steps before he reached the actual porch of the house, and it made him wonder what lay under the large brick foundation of the house.
He was about to knock, but the door creaked open on its own, as if beckoning him to enter. Gus pushed open the door and peered into the house. There was a musty smell that immediately filled his nostrils, the same smell he perceived upon entering his grandparents' house.
The first thing he noticed within the house was a small living room area with a somewhat torn couch and a faded carpet with patches of red stains here and there. Beyond that was an equally small kitchen area that looked as though there were yellow splotches etched into its linoleum tile.
Gus called out to see if he would receive an answer, his voice echoing off the old, moldy walls.
Nobody was inside.
He opened the door a little further and found that about 10 feet from the opening was another door. The odd thing about this one was that it looked like it had a fresh coat of blue paint on it, as though it had been recently serviced.
The other odd things about it were that there were about three padlocks placed on the door; no doubt the door handle with the built in keyhole would have been locked as well. And when Gus looked at the center of the door, he saw that same yellow squiggly rune from his dream painted in the same detail as before, and upon looking at it, felt that same headache coming onto his brain.
He quickly looked away and proceeded inside, beckoning the bullies to follow him.
"Talk about your fixer-upper," Mattholomule muttered, "But pretty soon, I bet I could have this place fixed in no time."
"Good luck," Boscha groaned, gingerly making her way inside, "This place is filthy. I can just imagine the type of hobo who'd want to live here…what exactly are we looking for again, nerd boy?"
"Some clue as to why we keep dreaming of this place," Gus replied, "I'm going to check upstairs, see if there's more to this house. It looked bigger on the outside."
"Guess, I'll look around down here for a bit," Mattholomule rolled his eyes, "This is not how I imagined my evening going. Having to work with two people that get on my last nerve…"
"I'll just…" Boscha began, "Stay here then…maybe there'll be something here…" She looked around the moldy kitchen as Mattholomule turned the corner down an adjacent aperture. She then walked over to one of the counters and lightly touched it; there seemed to be some damp, sticky film over everything, possibly the same yellow-orange substance that appeared in the corners of the countertop and tile floor, and the thought caused her to shudder. "Sooo gross."
Mattholomule found himself in a dining room. There was of course a large table as one might expect to find in such a room, as well as glass cabinets that housed various dishes, glasses, and other various antiques. He then wondered what would happen if he were to just take some of it, ditch this group of losers, and go see how much coin he could make from the haul. Still, he looked further around the room.
Cobwebs of course hung from the walls leading to the cabinets and chandelier overhead. On the table were various plates and dishes with decayed food, the smell of old fruit, mold, and bad meat filling his nostrils. It looked as though whoever had last been here had left their dinner in a hurry. He glanced over the plates and wondered what the meat was from, as it definitely didn't look like a creature he had ever recognized…
He decided to continue to look for whatever it was he was supposed to be looking for…and maybe pocket a couple of valuable things no one would miss. (This place did seem abandoned after all)
While Gus made his way upstairs, he thought he heard strange scraping noises underneath them. He thought it might be one of his reluctant, irritating companions, so he ignored it. He found himself in an open hallway with a bannister that guarded the downward staircase. There were rooms that lined the walls, as well as one behind him once he turned the corner at the landing.
He walked to each door and found that they were locked, except for the one at the far end, which lead to a bathroom. The turquoise walls looked to have some water damage, but for the most part, not as moldy as downstairs. The toilet was about what he expected, extremely grimy and filthy. He thought he saw something shiny in its basin, as though there were some hidden item there, but he decided against reaching in to investigate it.
The most disturbing aspect, though, was the bathtub. In it was a large black plastic bag humans would typically use to take out their garbage, lying sideways and apparently filled to the brim with…something. He wasn't about to untie its ends to find out. On top of the garbage bag, however, was something much more interesting: an elegant, pristine silver key that seemed to set itself apart from the rest of the dilapidated house. He reached for the key when he noticed something written on the tile wall. It read as follows:
Fohyhu erb Jxv, L iruhvdz wkdw brx zrxog eh khuh, vr L ohiw wkh vloyhu nhb khuh iru brx wr ilqg. Brxu guhdpv, dv zhoo dv wkrvh ri pdqb rwkhuv rq wkh Erlolqj Lvohv, duh vorzob euhdnlqj lqwr brxu uhdolwb. Lw'v olnhob wkdw vrph srzhuixo irufh lv wublqj wr euhdn lqwr wkh zdnlqj zruog, dqg dw ohdvw rqh ri brxu iulhqgv lv lq gdqjhu ri vhuylqj dv vrph vdfulilfldo yhvvho iru lw. Wklv nhb zloo doorz brx wr wudyho wr wkh Guhdpodqgv iurp wkh zdnlqj zruog dqg ilqg wkh vrxufh ri wkh sureohp. Jrrg oxfn wr brx dqg brxu iulhqgv. SV: Gr qrw orrn lq wkh edvhphqw ri wklv krxvh. Vrph xqqdphdeoh whuuru gzhoov grzq wkhuh. — D. Ghuohwk
Gus had no idea what any of this meant; it was written in the common alphabet, the same that the humans used, but it was like none of their languages. Then he remembered something about codes, something known as the Caesar Cipher, where one would have to move three letters behind what was written to decode it. (Several of these codes appeared at the node in the human world known as Gravity Falls, Oregon) Unfortunately, he did not have time to decrypt it and knew he needed to take this key.
He reached over to grab the key, and upon doing so, the black trash bag immediately twitched and thrashed about for a brief moment. Gus fell back on the floor, fully startled but still holding the key. He rose to his feet to back away to the doorway, and found the bag had stopped moving. He slowly backed out into the hallway, not blinking and still staring at the bag.
"Uuuuh, guys," Gus called out nervously, "I found the thing I think we were supposed to find, so we better go!…Guys?"
*.*.*
Moments earlier, while Gus was doing this, Boscha was looking through some of the bottom cupboards and trying not to gag at the stench when she heard something creak behind her. She spun around to find that the blue door that had been previously locked was now slowly opening, its rusty hinges slowly grinding. She also noticed something none of them hadn't before that was possibly always present from the beginning; on the mantlepiece in the living area was a bust of the human goddess Pallas Athena, its eyes seeming to follow her around the room. On its shoulder was a small stone raven whose eyes likewise followed her.
"Well, this isn't creepy at all," Boscha muttered to the empty air, rolling her eyes. Still, she knew she needed to look at what's down there; if it meant finding whatever they were supposed to find here and get her out of this crud hole faster, it was worth it.
She walked over to the door and found some lettering carved on the inside that read the following:
L kdyh wkh ergb ri d slj
While she found this weird, it only served as a distraction to her goal. She looked through the door to find it gave way to some old wooden stairs leading to the darkened basement below. The first thing she noticed, however, was the overbearing stench that came from within. It was some cross between moldy vegetables, rotten meat, and ammonia. She thought she could hear flies down there was well.
She spun her finger in the air to generate a fireball, partially to see and partially to defend herself if something unsavory were to attack from those stygian depths. She thought she could make out what looked like some dead animals, possibly goats, but it was hard to tell. In truth, she didn't really want to know what it was.
And that's when the terrible thing that dwelled below lumbered out from the darkness, and her mind reeled at the sight of it. She could not, however, pull her gaze away from it, though she did feel that her fireball dissipated from her hands, returning the bottom level to darkness. She could still however make out the thing, whatever it was, in the low light, still not looking away. It, likewise, stared back at her, not breaking its own gaze.
"Oh, miss three-eyed snobby princess," Mattholomule called out as he made his way back to the kitchen, "Did you find anything yet?" He saw her across the room, standing at the now opened door in the living area. "Helloooo! Do you hear me in there?" Boscha seemed to still ignore him, forcing him to get further annoyed and investigate what could be so fascinating beyond the door. He poked his head around the door, brushing the elbow she had raised for some reason. For a brief moment, he was somewhat pleased to be this close to a girl, even if she was a snot. Of course this mild euphoric feeling was quickly extinguished when he saw what was below. And likewise, he found that he could not look away from the unknown terror below.
*.*.*
"Guys!" Gus called out again as he backed down the hall, eyes fully on the bathroom door. Nothing came from it, though, as he finally reached the downward stairs. He slowly proceeded down and, looking around the corner, found his disagreeable companions. They both seemed to be in a trance, staring downward into nothingness.
"Uh, guys!" he called out again, taking another step towards them. Still no response, and the silence continued to make him uneasy. And he heard his voice murmur out again softly, "Guys…what did you find?…"
In an instant, they both jerked their heads about, as if coming out of some dream, and looked over at Gus.
In unison, they began shouting something like, "What are you doing? We gotta get outta here! Quit standing there, ya stupid dork! We gotta move!" At least that's what it sounded like they were trying to say, but it mostly came out as incoherent babbling to Gus.
In the same second, the two people who would have otherwise been his bullies were now grabbing him by the wrists and dragging him out of the front door, the three of them quickly sprinting down the rickety steps. Gus looked back for a brief moment and saw…something, though he couldn't make out what. He caught glimpses of what he thought could be either black smoke or weird gnarled tendrils, paired with what could have been either tiny eyes or mouths with needly teeth. Was it a large spider, a squid, or just billowing smoke?
It just didn't make sense what he was looking at, but he wasn't about to stick around and study the thing as it lumbered up the stairs and through the open doorway, giving what could have amounted to either a high pitched screech or a deep gelatinous moan with some electric tinge to it. The sound didn't even make sense to his ears.
The three just kept running back towards the woods. The sun had nearly set at this point, bathing the sky in a blood red sheet that terminated in the now shadowy tree line of the forest, adding to the ominous, agitated situation as the unspeakable thing chased them from the house.
As soon as they finished their scramble into the woods, Gus looked back again at the house and found those same dark tendrils quickly overtake the house before forcing it to collapse in a cacophony of crumbling wood, bricks, and grinding metal. In less than 5 seconds, the house was nothing but a pile of ruins in a small, smoking crater.
Mattholomule fell back on the ground, while Boscha held on to a try to give her leverage as she bent over and began vomiting into the bushes.
Gus accidentally dropped the silver key in a small pile of leaves while panting to catch his breath.
"GUS!" he heard a familiar voice from behind him with the sound of footsteps and crunching leaves with it, "There you are!" It was Luz, Willow, and Amity jogging towards him before stopping.
"Thank Titan you're okay!" Willow shouted, brushing past Luz and wrapping her arms around Gus' neck. "I—we were really worried about you! What happened?"
"So apparently, Boscha and Mattholomule were having the same dream," he responded, "And it lead us here." He squatted back down the grab the key again. "I think we found something important, as well as…what did you both see down there?"
"So…many…dead…goats!" Boscha managed to say in between wretches before standing back up and lumbering back towards them, her stamina clearly depleted. She fell to her knees in front of where Mattholomule was laying.
On any other day, Willow would have enjoyed seeing Boscha break down, but not like this. None of this looked right.
"Dead goats?" Gus questioned as he finally found the key in the pile, "Was it a chupacabra or something?"
"NO!" Mattholomule sat up, grabbed Gus by the collar, and pulled him close, his eyes still wild with terror, "No, it wasn't anything like that! It seemed to be everywhere and no where at once in that black pit…it was a gelatin…a slime…a vapor…but it had long spindly arms…tentacles…mouths and eyes…shapes I don't even want to remember, something ten times worse than anything I faced in detention…Gus, it was unnameable!" With that, Mattholomule closed his eyes and passed out, his head falling directly into Boscha's lap.
Boscha started crying uncontrollably, something not even Amity had ever seen her do, her spirit and mind finally broken. It felt almost out of character for her, but what empathy she now had buried deep within her was now coming out as she wrapped her arms around the head of the now equally broken Mattholomule.
Gus finally stood up and let the two troubled bullies rest, clutching the silver key tightly.
"Something's clearly off with our dreams," Gus said, his eyes glancing over his three friends, "It's pretty clear it wants to either attack us through our dreams or make our nightmares become reality." He looked back down at the shining key in his hands, the red evening sunlight causing it to glisten with a crimson glow. "But I think with this, we might get some answers."
Happy Halloween, everyone!