*Authors note: Okay, from now on I'll be aiming to upload new chapters sometime during the weekend: Friday Saturday or Sunday. Because, god damn it, I consider Friday part of the weekend. Don't like it? Too fucking bad, that's how it is an' it ain't changin'.
Chapter four: Of spies, dreams, and surprises.
Step. Step. Step. Duck. Step. Step. Don't get tangles in thorns. Step. Step. Be sneaky. Step. Step. Step. Step. Don't fall. Step. Don't fall. Step. Step. Don't fa- You trip and fall with a small "Eeep!" and a soft thud. You don't move and hope they didn't hear you. You get up and start following them again once you're sure they didn't notice you. Why does this forest have to be so freaking thick? Why did you do this at night? You get close enough to hear what they're saying.
"So do you really think it was one of /them/ she saw?" John says, looking around like whatever he's talking about will come out of the trees and try to kill him.
"Yeah. But didn't Bro say they were all dead?" Dave says.
"What if one of them survived and now she's trying to KILL US! Wait, how did Cassidy even see her? Unless she found the g-" John was cut off by Dave's hand covering his mouth.
Dave shook his head. "You know we aren't supposed to talk about that John. We don't want some dumb-ass finding out because you can't keep your trap shut." He says then drops all conversation.
Find out about what? Who's supposed to be dead? What did you see? WHATS GOING ON?! Ever since you got lost those two have been acting so weird. Dave's been spying on you, Johns been practically stalking you, and both of them interrogate you! Somethings up and you want to know what. So you made the mistake of trying to spy on them. They led you into this forest and you've almost died like ten times here!
You wish Bethy was here, she seems like she'd be good at this kind of thing. Or Jade. Or Bec. Yeah, with Bec you'd be able to get answers out of them easily. Ooooh, it'd be even easier if you could get Dirks help! He's scary when he's mad and can understand Dave, yeeeaaaah. You should get Dirks help.
They walk into a little clearing-ish thing. Well, it's more like the trees thinned out in a little circle-ish area. You draw blank on thoughts as the two just disappear. They just fucking disappeared.
You slowly walk into the whatever-it-is, slightly scared that they'll just come out of nowhere and do... something. You hear Roxy's voice come out of nowhere and almost screech before you remember that you're supposed to stay hidden. You look around for her, trying to be as quiet as possible, when you hear Dave talking to her.
"Hey Roxy. You two senior citizens find her yet?" but you still can't see him.
"Nnnnope! Who ever this chika is, she's damn good at hiding from us." Roxy says. Did she get a magical ring that makes her invisible or something?
"But if we don't catch her then she'll expose us and that scary queen will kill us!" John says. Oh my god he's invisible too!
"Don't worry Johny boy. Our peeps on the other side are makin sure that any ideas like that'll be squashed like a bug!" Roxy says. Wait, other side, ARE THEY DOING BLACK MAGIC?! Oh no oh no oh no you have to talk to Rose about this before they do something stupid... well stupider than practicing it in the first place!
You get out of there as fast as you can, but not before you catch a glimpse of Roxy. EXCEPT SHE'S A GHOST! You try to run faster and almost die about twenty times. By the time you reach the village you're a mess. Out of breath, with leaves in your hair, covered in mud and you think your make-up is smeared. You decide to clean up and wait to get more information before running around and accusing people of things this big.
Though, you might as well talk to Rose. Just to get her input in the whole thing or something. She seems to always know the right thing to do, even if she is a bit scary. Okay a lot scary when she wants to be. Hey, she'd be perfect to interrogate them! But you really wouldn't want to be there when she does.
You can't find her anywhere in the village, so you decide to hunt down Jade instead. Really those two know pretty much everything about each other, so she would know where Rose is! You find her out by the river playing with Bec.
"Jade! Hey, Jade!" You shout once you get in range.
"Hi Cassidy! What are you doing out here this late? Even if you are an insomniac, you still need your sleep!" She says in her usual hyper-active way.
"I could ask you the same question missy. But I'm trying to find Rose. Do you know where she is? I've searched all over the village but she's not there!" You say
"I think she went for a walk not too long ago. That's all I know, sorry. But why do you need to find her?" She says after thinking.
"Well, I need to talk to her about something I heard Dave John and Roxy talking about. I'm really worried about them." You say
"Why? Is Dave hurt? Did something happen?" She asks
"Oh, no! No ones hurt Jade. Its... just... it's nothing. Anyway, thanks for the information. I should be getting to bed soon though. Good night Jade!" You say with a smile then walk off. You don't want her worrying, but because of her crush it's a bit hard in this case.
You keep smiling until she can't see you very well. Then change to a thoughtful frown. It's been an eventful night. But since Rose is gone there's not much you can do for now. You'll defiantly have to talk to Bethy about all this in the morning. Maybe she'll have some ideas about it. You see Jane coming out of Dad's cabin, you wonder what they were baking, and decide you should ask her advice on this little problem.
"Jane?" You say once you catch up with her. "If I tell you something, can you promise you won't freak out?"
"Of course Cassidy. What's on your mind?" She asks
"Well... I think that Dave John and Roxy might be practicing black magic!" You say in a rush.
She stayed quiet for a while before speaking again. "How do you know this?"
"Well. I was following Dave and John through the forest, because they've been acting weird, when they just disappeared! Then they were talking to Roxy who also wasn't there. Then they were talking about their people on "the other side". Then I saw Roxy as a ghost! Jane what do I dooo!" You say getting worried, and shit you just told her you can see ghosts.
"Ever think that maybe you're just... misunderstanding what happened? Why don't you just talk to them about it and get this straightened out." She says kindly.
"Well, maybe. I don't know! Thanks for not freaking out or anything on me. I just really needed to tell someone that." You say then yawn. Actually, it is pretty late.
You tell Jane good night and head to your cabin so you can go to bed. Now that you have a hope of your little problem not turning into a nightmare of course.
You snuggle down in your comfy bed, after changing clothes, and try to drift off to sleep. But you can't. Mainly because you're scared of what kind of scary ghosts are out in the night. But also because you're curious as fuck about what Roxy and them were doing. You really hope they weren't actually practicing black magic, then you'd have to get mean at them!
You finally drift off to sleep, and have one of the craziest dreams of your short life!
It was about you lying in a field full of dead and scratchy grass. Then you start floating, but you're not surprised at all. It's normal to float and fly. Jade, Jake, rose, Jane, Eridan, feferi, karkat, equius, Vriska, and Terezi are all flying too. But Bethy, Roxy, dirk, Dave, John, Kanaya, Gamzee, Aradia, nepeta, Sollux, and tavros are all on the ground. You fly really high, then you look down and see the ground and you start falling! You're falling way too fast, you yell at the others that are floating to help you but they don't even notice you. You look down again and yell at the ones on the ground to catch you, but Bethy just smiles and says "Welcome back!" then you hit the ground. But it's not ground anymore it's water... or not? It feels like... blood, but it's black so it can't be. some is white and then there's also yellow, purple, green, blue, and lots of red and, whoa even more pink. Then you're falling out of the water... blood... liquid. And you're on land again and feferis laying next to her and you're kissing Feferi! then you see Dave and Jade laughing together. You get up and run over to them but jade turns into sollux when you get close. Then Dave tells you to go find bro and make sure he's okay. So you heads to the forest, 'cause that's where he always is, and you see Bethy asleep on him. Dirk is fine, but Bethy doesn't get up when you tells her to. Dirk shooshes you and says that "Your supposed to be doing something important and go away can't you see she's trying to sleep" so you harrumph and leave them. You happen upon John laughing and karkat yelling at him. You shrug and walk off. Then you see Kanaya and Rose and rose wants to talk to you. "Oh Cassidy I'm so sorry to see that you've left us but I'm so glad that you can see the truth now. Very few ever can. Just don't let that old grumpy pink snake or the finicky purple tool find the black bird and you'll be fine, my dove. But beware of the cyclops and the open book, they have nothing but trouble for you." you nod and walk away. Then you're looking for something, something you're missing, something you forgot. You finds a big grey goat fighting a giant pink snake instead. It looks like they've been fighting for a really long time, so you just leave them be. Then everything's all black and white and grey. The trees are just ashes and the ground is covered in ash, but there's also white and black and grey sticky stuff all over everything. You feel sad at the sight of it. But you feel that you have found what you lost, and the truth of it made you feel worse. Then Bethy was standing next to you, covered in sticky black stuff and ash from head to toe, you could barely see her blue eyes behind her glasses it was so thick. She smiles and says "It's okay to forget, as long as you remember what you forgot." Then everythings falling away from you and now you're dressed up like royalty in a castle. You try to walk but notice sticky pink stuff covering your hands and get scared. You start running and trolls and humans are bowing, but the sticky stuff is spreading over you and dripping onto the floor. You see Equius, who is also covered in the pink stuff, holding a head that was cut off. Its a troll head with a shit load of hair and curved horns it's dripping the pink stuff. he says "There you are, my Queen." and bows.
You wake up and see John about three inches away from your face and freak out a bit. You scream and scoot backwards until you hit the wall. John wakes up with a jolt and lifts his head out of a small spit puddle.
"John! Don't you know that you're not supposed to come into a sleeping girls house and watch her like a creeper!? How'd you even get in here anyway?" you sorta scream and sit up.
He gets up from his kneeling position. "Uh, your door was unlocked and I wanted to make sure that no one came in here to do anything bad to you!" he says still sleepy. If it wasn't for that and the bit where you're in your sexy pj's making it awkward, you'd might have not believed him so easily.
"My door wasn't locked?" you say, confused. You swear you locked it last night. But then, John isn't depraved enough to just sneak into your house and watch you sleep. "Well, whatever. Get out. It's not right to watch a lady while she's changing."
He gets a bright red blush on his face and stumbles over his words before he just leaves. You giggle and think how easy he is to embarrass. Hey wait, he was in your dream! You get dressed and do your make-up, dismissing the dream as just another crazy one. Well, craziest but still, it's not like it has any relevance.
You go outside to try and find Rose. No, you're supposed to talk it out with them before jumping to conclusions. You try to find Roxy instead. You keep looking. You look where you already looked. You find Dave instead. You walk up to him, mentally preparing yourself for his insults that are sure to come since John isn't around.
"I saw you last night." You say skipping the formalities and being as blunt as a potato.
"Well now, I didn't know stalkers just came out and admitted it like that. But you aren't all that subtle are you?" He says, trying to piss you off.
"In the forest. With John and Roxy." You say trying to remain tolerant.
"Hey now, what I do with John and Roxy in a forest at night is my own damn business." He says.
You don't catch the double meaning of that. "I heard what you were talking about with John. How I saw someone that could expose you and get you killed by a queen. Then something about a "g-" and Roxy saying something about people on the other side." You say with your anger raising at his stalling.
He stays quiet for a long while. So long you think he might have fallen asleep. Then says "Fuck, follow me." and walks off in a hurry.
Taken sorta by surprise you have to run to catch up, then to keep up you have to lightly jog. Stupid tall Striders and their tallness. He leads you to where Roxy and John seem to be waiting for you.
"David, You're late! Oh hi Didi, why're you here?" Roxy says, without her usual alcoholic bottle in hand.
"Roxy for the last fucking time it's Dave, not David. And she's here because she saw us." He says, sounding ever so slightly tense, or were you just imagining things again?
"What!?" John shouts then starts saying things that aren't really words until Dave covers his mouth and tells him exactly how uncool that was and how you have to be cool to be in a Striders presence or it's blasphemy and blah blah blah.
"Hmm, well that's a problem." Roxy says talking over Dave.
"I just wanted to know what you were really doing there is all." You say.
Everything gets really quiet until John be's John and says "Should we tell her?"
"Well, if what we've heard is true then she already knows about the trolls, why the hell not? So what exactly did you see that you need us to tell you the truth about?" Roxy says
"Well, when you all disappeared is what I'm really confused about." You say wondering what this has to do with trolls.
"Hmmm, well we disappeared because we were all on the other side of a door that you can only access from one side I suppose. But how the shit did you hear us?" Roxy asks.
"Uuuuuhhhhh." You say trying to come up with a suitable lie.
"Wait, how do you even know about trolls?" John asks
"Uuuuuuhhhhh... um... errr, I." You can't come up with a believable lie. "Wait, a /door/? That you can only see from one side? In the middle of the woods? You really expect me to believe that?"
"Yes. But if you don't, we could always give you a bullshit lie that your average idiot would buy for a nickel. Seriously, those fuckers have been swarming me. Throwing fucking nickels at me and begging for-" Dave says getting cut off by Roxy.
"Well, I suppose the 'how' on your part doesn't matter that much. We'll figure it out eventually." She says, like she already knows but just doesn't give a fuck.
You nod, seeing that you're not getting any other explanation and they won't question you any more. "So, assuming you're telling the truth, what does the door lead to?" You ask.
Roxy laughs a bit. "To the world the trolls live in, duh! We're here to make sure that they don't cross over and kill us all. Or something." She says indicating the three of them.
Wait, a door to Bethy? Maybe you two can meet up finally! Er, face to face. Um, in person? Who cares, you'll finally get to see her! Ho, but these guys control the door, so you must be sneaky. John says your name and you realize that you've been quiet for too long to be anything but suspicious seeming. "Oh, sorry for spacing out like that. But at least now I won't have to have Rose interrogate you!" You say and walk over to Bethy's post before they can respond.
Ooh, maybe you should surprise her with a visit! Yeah, she's always so calm and unflustered about everything. But if you just show up out of the blue, there's no way she won't be surprised! Ooo this gon' be guuud. You sit down next to her rock and look around. Weird, she's usually here by now. You wait a few more minuets. You wait a few more. You realize you've been waiting for half an hour. You start to get worried when a troll with pretty green lipstick comes and takes her post. You get even more worried when that one troll, Gamzee you think, comes up and they start talking. He looks less high than the last time you saw him.
"Have you succeeded in locating her yet, Gamzee?" Says the girl troll.
"Sorry Kanaya, it's like she all up and disappeared or something. Why do you think she's hiding from us? It's not like we'd do anything bad to her!" Gamzee says.
"I'm truly sorry Gamzee, but now that it's been confirmed that she's an Omega we have to kill her. No matter how fond of her you are we must not let any of them survive. Lest we run the risk of exposing our selves and having Her Condecse find out. In truth, Gamzee, it's either her life or thousands of others dying in the inevitable war." Kanaya says. Hehe, trolls. Have funny names. Wait, they're gonna krill Bethy! Uh, kill not krill.
Gamzee takes a seat on the rock and looks so sad that you just wanna hug him. "But... You're right Kanaya, but can't we just keep it a secret from the others? Like we have been, saying she's just a weird ass mutant when people get close to figuring it out and saying humans don't exist and... they won't figure it out with us doing that right?" He says, but he looks like he already knows the answer.
"Once a secret is known, it has a way of spreading against ones will. We already know it Gamzee. It's bound to make itself known now. But you need to go back to guarding the Princess before Eridan does something he'll regret later. I'll take care of it." She says
Gamzee just nods and walks to where you assume Feferi is. You sit there trying to process what they were saying. Bethy has to die. Because if people find out she's an Omega a war will start. But why do humans matter? Unless... Bethy's actually a human in disguise! But where could she be hiding? Well, she's always going on trips to the forest that surrounds this place in both worlds, but you'd get lost if you tried to find her by your self. Jade could help, but she'd get curious and demand an explanation before too long. Rose wouldn't demand an explanation, but she'd just figure it out herself. Roxy is out, because she'd ask way to many questions. Jane almost never leaves the village. Jake would believe any lie you could come up with, but you don't want to lie to him. Dirk would be curious but not ask, and even if he did figure it out he wouldn't try to psychoanalyze it like Rose would.
You get up to go find Dirk. There is no way you're going to just let Bethy die like that! You find him helping out your local blacksmith. It's kinda odd that you never see him resting, or just doing nothing. After a lot of hassle that could have been avoided, you find yourself in the forest with Dirk looking for Bethany.
"So, you're looking for something. Something I'm not supposed to know about, and I'm here to make sure you don't die or get lost as fuck." He says.
"Yes!" You say. He stops and looks at you like you've just said the stupidest possible thing, then just keeps walking.
"So what exactly can I know about this thing that's eating up my time?" He asks.
"Ummm, well the thing's a she and if I dont find her the someones going to krill her!" You say.
"Are you going to stop the krillers if you do find her?" he says.
You half-heartedly glare at him for saying "krillers". But it occurs to you that you have no idea what you'll do once you find her. You also realize that you're going up against trolls, who fight every day. "Uhhh. I don't know." you say.
You try to think about it, but every option just seems way too stupid to work. When you come back to reality without a plan, you find that Dirks been leading you somewhere. You ask where you're going but he cryptically says "To your friend." and nothing else.
Not long after that you see the small clearing thingy again. You see the door Roxy was talking about, but it's more like a rip. Everything on the other side is mainly colored orange and black. Dirk walks in and gestures for you to follow.
You do with mild curiosity, and once you're relatively far away from the door his words come back to you. "To your friend." he had said. How did he know she's your friend? How did he know about the door? How does he know where she is? How does he know that she's on this side of the door?!
You suddenly think that Dirk wasn't the best choice you could have made. You no longer know if you can trust him.
You realize that you can't escape from him, no matter how hard you try.