Birthday parties should not be something to dread. They were never to me before this one. Before now, birthdays just consisted of cake, presents, and fun. And I thought this one would be no exception, save for the supernatural elements, but that just added to the appeal.
That is, of course, until a certain blue-haired maniac revived herself into the picture. Said maniac was completely silent as she rode in the basket of my trike. It was something I was incredibly grateful for, but at the same time, it gave me chills. What is Spooky thinking about? What is she planning?
"Okay, what's up with you?" I try to keep my voice calm as I finally address the girl's silence, and am none too successful. It's the thought that counts, I guess.
"What do you mean?" Spooky asks. Her tone is more high-pitched than usual, with an undertone that I just don't like.
"It's not like you to be this quiet."
"It's also not like me to be alive."
"… Whoa." If Spooky thought she could give me pause by bringing up her dark past out of nowhere, then… she's absolutely right. I squeezed the handlebars tighter, my fingers squishing uncomfortably due to the sheen of sweat I was leaving on the rubber grips.
"What do you want for your birthday?"
I could see what Spooky was doing. She clearly just wanted to make small talk to get rid of the oppressive silence. That, or she was trying to come up with a new plan of world domination based on my preferred birthday gift. Either way, I decided to play along, since the tension was (also?) driving me nuts.
"I think I'd like to have a laptop. There are some games and programs that only run on Windows that I wanna have access to."
Spooky is quiet for a moment, pondering this. Not gonna lie, it made me a little nervous. Eventually, she said, "I never really had a computer when I was alive. Well, uh, alive before. My parents had one, but it was big and loud, and they didn't let me go on it that much."
"That must've been quite a long while ago," I say before I can stop myself because that had just really sunk in for me. It was hard to genuinely acknowledge that the girl riding with me right now was actually much older than me, had been born way before me.
"It was," Spooky says. "Actually, uh, what year is it now?"
"Two thousand twenty."
"Whoa." I barely heard Spooky's reaction over the wind in my ears. "It really has been a while."
We arrive at the hill the mansion is on, and I stand on the petals to give my pushes more force to better propel us up the steep incline. "Remember what I told you," I reminded my passenger. "Stay on the trike until I come get you."
"SURPRISE!"
I jump so hard that I practically fly right out of my body. Almost every inhabitant is there when I enter the mansion, leaping out to greet me. Several cardboard cutouts pop up as well, having been decorated with streamers, balloons, confetti, and home-made banners. "Whoa! Holy crap, you guys! Wow! This is… you really outdid yourself here."
"Happy birthday!" My supernatural friends all exclaim, at least the ones able to talk do. Their smiles are creepy, but genuine.
"If you think this is good, you will not believe the main party room we sat up," Ben the puppet merchant informs me.
"I'm sure it's awesome, but actually, there's something I should—"
"We can finally start eating the cake," Ringu says with a sigh of relief. "It took everything I had to get Ron to leave it alone."
"Urgh… beef," said food demon mutters. He was standing slightly away from all the others, twitching weirdly. I got the impression that, if he had eyes, they'd be rolling back in his head. I quickly look away from him.
"I can't wait! But, guys, there really is—"
I'm interrupted a third time by Goopboy. He lets out an excited burble, holding a small wrapped present. The wrapping paper is covered in slime, but whatever's inside the box is probably safe. I hope.
"One moment," Cat interrupts. Maybe she noticed that I had something I needed to tell everyone. She was always observant. "It is traditional in most birthday celebrations to blow out the candles on the birthday cake before opening gifts."
And my hopes are dashed. I expected better from you, Cat.
"That's right," Ringu replied. "But we should probably wait for Taker to get here before we start. Where is he, anyway?"
Oh my god! I can't believe I didn't notice it until now, but the ghost teen was right. Taker was not among the entities present at my party so far. How did I not notice until now? The clay man was one of my best friends. I really should have noticed that he wasn't here.
Esmie, the little demon girl I met in the hospital area of the mansion, weaves her way between legs, making her way to the front of the group. She'd traded in her gown for a slightly oversized blue t-shirt with a slice of pizza on the front, and a rainbow glitter party hat perched between her horns. "I-I remember," she stutters, "Taker said something about getting one last surprise ready. He went deep down into the mansion… a-and never came back."
"That's not good," a random ex-GL Labs Worker said, stating the obvious. "There's still a lot of stuff in the mansion we don't quite know about. For all we know, this place is endless."
"Do you think he's in trouble?" I ask, starting to get worried.
The weird thing is, no one answered my question. They all went completely silent and still, as if time had frozen. And knowing the odd crap that goes on in this place on a daily basis, maybe it had. "Guys? Do you think he's okay?"
Still, no answer. It was then that I realized everyone with visible eyes wasn't looking at me. They were all staring unblinkingly at a spot behind me. And then, their eyes began to narrow. "Guys? What's—"
Goopboy slowly raises his hand, claws outstretched, the gift falling to the ground with a clatter. Deer Lord opens his robe, revealing several silently screaming faces. Esmie lets out a small gasp and hides behind the alien, whose chest-mouth is open wide. The spiderpeed's pincers begin click-click-clicking as it lets out a deep, gurgling growl. Cat's fur stands on end, and the walls begin to turn fleshy.
I suddenly got a really, really bad feeling. Hoping I'm wrong, I slowly turn around.
"O-Oh… uh… hi."
Yup, you guessed it. There, clenching fistfuls of her dress, eyes darting to and fro like an anxious rabbit, is none other than the ex-leader of the Mansion herself: Spooky.
A/N: Guys, I am so sorry that this chapter took so long, writer's block was a real pain in the ass. That, and I also got distracted by class, gaming, other fics, and who knows what else. But hey, the cool thing is I'm releasing this chapter on my actual birthday. Although it's my twentieth birthday instead of my seventeenth one. I still feel about twelve, though.