The walls of this library were either covered, or made of, flesh. On the shelves there were still a few books, with bright pink and yellow covers and titles like "WORK" and "The Joys of StrexCorp", but also plenty of bleeding human organs, some completely unrecognizable.
Carlos quickly closed his eyes in terror and went through his usual routine whenever Night Vale horrified him; cleaning his mind, breathing deeply, trying to consider how scientifically interesting this was and clinging to Cecil. But to Carlos' surprise, Cecil clung to him even harder than that one time Cecil caught him eating a non-Wheat-and-Wheat By-Products-Free cake.
"Oh, no… no… not again…" Cecil mumbled. "Carlos, we need to get out of this wretched place! This is not Night Vale!"
Carlos gently kissed Cecil, calming him down, then out of the corner of his eye Carlos saw what looked like a smashed human head and a blood covered arm. "Yes, getting out of here sounds like a pretty good idea." They started running back outside, only for Carlos to stop suddenly and say, "What do you mean 'again'?"
"Do you remember that sandstorm from a few months ago? Did you listen to my show that day?" Cecil asked, still very distraught. "The black, almost indigo, vortex? That horrible, horrible place? This is this place!"
"Yeah, I listened to it…but it's been a while… the thing I remembered the most was…that man…" Carlos' mind begun to connect the dots. "Cecil, I think this is Desert Bluffs!"
"Really? It's not as bad as I imagined" Cecil returned to his usual nigh-unflappable self for a moment. "Of course, this is pretty horrifying. But I just thought it would be much worse."
They started going towards the door again.
"So what makes you think that this is Desert Bluffs?" Cecil asked.
"When you went through the vortex, someone else came from the other side." Carlos opened the door. "And he said he was from Desert Bl-"
They weren't outside the library of either Night Vale or Desert Bluffs, they weren't outside at all. They were in the middle of a room. The walls were completely covered in posters, which were mainly white with words like "Lies" or "DON'T believe in a smiling god" written on them, but if you looked closely, it was clear that they were covering bloody walls similar to those in the library. There was a bed, with bright, eye-hurting yellow sheets that had a pattern of orange triangles with an 'S' in the middle. There was a desk, covered by a table map, with a few textbooks and papers on it. Carlos guessed that if he removed the map, he'd discover that the desk was made of guts, bone, flesh and other…pleasant…materials. Above the bed, there was a clumsy, self-made wooden shelf full of books. The floor was covered in rags and discarded clothing.
"Some sort of teleporting accident, I guess?" Carlos said, looking around the room. He whipped out his Smartphone. "I have done research on similar phenomenon in Night Vale before. Hold on, I think maybe I have something in my email… or maybe someone on my team put it on Google Docs."
"Oh, you look so brave when you're in science mode!" Cecil forgot where he was again for a second and leant against the poster-covered wall, which made a blood-filled squishy noise. "And you can focus on it so well in spite of being in this…vile nightmare."
"Well…um… I'm used to… um…" Carlos struggled with a good way to say it. "At least that doesn't break too many rules of physics."
"…the rules of physics…" Cecil replied mockingly.
"You're taking it pretty well, too" Carlos said, remembering that was one of the few times Cecil had to deal with something outside of his odd definition of "normal", after all.
"Only because you're with me, Carlos," Cecil said, and held Carlos' hand tightly.
"T…thanks…" Carlos mumbled, blushing and returning to his phone. "Dammit! The connection here is crap!" He knocked on the phone a couple of times. As a scientist, he knew that that in no way affected the ability of the phone to receive Wi-Fi signals, but as a human being, it certainly helped his frustrations. "I would suggest going someplace else." The room didn't have any visible doors, but that probably meant that they were also covered by the posters… or at least, Carlos hoped so. "But, if this whole place, Desert Bluffs or whatever it is, is really all covered in gore, then I think we should probably stay here as long as we can."
"So, at least until whoever lives here comes in," Cecil added.
Carlos suddenly noticed the books on the shelf. They were same books from the Night Vale library. He grabbed the copy of "The Best of H. P. Lovecraft" and quickly called,"Cecil! I need you here!"
Cecil looked over Carlos' shoulder, as Carlos quickly turned0 the pages and mumbled about how much he hoped he was not wrong again. All the little "Favorite book of a teenager" details were still there, as was what Carlos was looking for; Cecil's name.
Cecil yanked the book from Carlos' hands, but before Cecil could examine it more closely, the book dissolved into sand. Cecil's mysterious headache came back, this time so horribly that it left him lying on the floor in a fetal position.
Carlos did a quick medical examination of Cecil, but with the lack of tools he had in this weird and rapidly-turning-into-sand room, he couldn't find anything wrong with him. So either Cecil had nothing physically wrong, and whatever was causing the pain existed beyond that realm, or whatever was wrong with Cecil was just not detectable by things Carlos has learned during basic first aid courses. The first option was a ridiculous, supernatural theory and the other was pretty logical. So, considering Night Vale, that meant that the first option was probably correct.
The room completely dissolved and turned into a pile of sand, which blew away in a sudden gust of wind. They were in Night Vale again, on a street not far away from the Dog Park. Everything was unusually peaceful. Carlos hoped for a second that Night Vale just managed to sort itself out and all that panic and fuss was just him taking the weirdness of Night Vale too seriously again. But Cecil's pain didn't stop, and the sidewalk and buildings had a strange, sand-like feel to them. Carlos helped Cecil to his feet, while considering everything that had happened so far. Carlos really wished that he had kept notes, because there was a lot of stuff that needed connecting and his original theory was off the table for now, but... whatever was responsible, it seemed to be sentient and it seemed to be focused on keeping them from finding out… something.
"Okay, I know you're trying to trick us!" Carlos shouted at the sky. Even if it turned out he was horribly wrong and everything was okay, he really wouldn't embarrass himself, since shouting nonsense at the heavens was an acceptable hobby in Night Vale. "But I am not going to sto-"
Carlos felt Cecil clutching his hand, they looked at each other. "WE'RE not going to stop, until we find out what you are and what are you doing, and you'll find out that YOU. DO NOT. MESS. AROUND. WITH. A. SCIENTIST'S. BOYFRIEND!" Carlos paused, then face-palmed "Okay, that was a stupid thing to say, I swear it sounded better in my head."
Suddenly, Cecil's phone made the inhuman screech of a soul being confronted with its insignificance versus the eternity of the void, which meant that Cecil had a new message. Carlos took out the phone, although he was pretty sure that it had exploded in front of his eyes a while ago.
The message read, "Unfortunately, the outsider is right."
And then another message appeared. "Cecil, we need to talk. Come to the Dog Park. Bring the outsider."
"Eh, excuse me!" Carlos shouted at the sky again. "But 'the outsider' would like to point out that, thanks to you, Cecil can't really go anywhere!"
"No, no, it's okay, Carlos" Cecil said suddenly. "I feel better, a lot better, actually!"
Carlos glared at the sky. "…We should go, then…" Carlos said, very unsure, dusting his lab coat "I mean, Night Vale IS in danger… I think." He sighed. "This is a very confusing day."
Suddenly, Carlos' phone also received a message. It read: "Besides, THAT was all your fault, outsider".
"Yeah, we really need to go," Carlos swallowed.
They ran to the Dog Park, and found that its sleek black gates were open, and behind the gates there seemed to be a sandy desert. They stepped inside.
"Huh, that looks nothing like what Dana described," Cecil said.
Carlos just clung harder to the gun in the pocket of his lab coat. Of all the ways he expected his investigation of Night Vale to go horribly wrong, that… was pretty far off. He would've been less nervous if it was a big action-filled climax, or something like what had been going on earlier. However this peacefulness and relative normality was driving him nuts.
A short figure, wearing a dark robe (though a different one from what was typical of a Hooded Figure) approached them. Carlos instinctively pulled out the gun.
The figure seemed to shake its head, lifted its hand and the gun melted into sand.
"Carlos, did you really think that was going to work?" The voice was… familiar, albeit higher pitched and squeaker and younger. "And you were holding it all wrong, anyway, you never used a gun before, huh?"
The figure removed its robe in a quick motion. Its face was identical to Cecil's but younger and covered with pimples, and its hair was messier. It was wearing bright clothing covered with occasional blood splatters. It grinned a dorky braces-filled grin and said, "So, like I told you; Cecil, we really need to talk."