ATWN: Chapter 8

Eddy could feel himself starting to come back to his senses, but quickly realized something was not right. He was in another dream; a nightmare that he keeps having sometimes. He was standing in a place surrounded by mist or fog, the area felt very cold. He could also see and feel that he was back to looking like himself in his world; at least right now he did.

Eddy could see the fog starting to dissipate, only for him to see someone up ahead in the distance running towards him in a panic. He now knew for sure who this girl was.

"Amelia?!" Eddy questioned as she came over to him. Amelia currently looked like she does in her world, even though Eddy looked like he does back home in this dream. It was a very jarring sight.

He could feel her grabbing onto his shoulders as if to tell him something, "Eddy, you need to run! You gotta get away from here!" Amelia started to say to him, he could see tears start to form in her eyes, "You can't die here; you need to—!"

Amelia suddenly made a loud and painful gasp, widening her eyes for a short moment before closing them in pain, gripping Eddy's shoulders as she did. Eddy started to see Amelia collapse to the floor, widening his eyes in shock as he caught her before she hit the ground, falling forward a little bit. That's when Eddy noticed what was wrong; there was some sort of shadow-like object jammed into Amelia's back. It almost looked like a huge knife; she was stabbed very close to her heart. His face grew pale at the sight as a pit started to form in his stomach.

Eddy then started to hear a very loud, distorted laugh echoing around him, "It seems your Soulmate was too late to help you."

A huge shadow suddenly formed in front of Eddy and Amelia, looming over them both. He looked up to see if he could recognize who the shadow was, but he could not. The shadow had no physical form to take. He could not even tell if the shadow was from his world or Amelia's world.

"Who ARE you? Why are you doing this?!" Eddy shouted to the shadow with anger in his voice and eyes.

The shadow in front of him did not respond to his question, they only laughed at him again as Eddy could feel himself starting to wake up.

"AHHH!" Eddy screamed as he woke up from what happened, beads of sweat were forming on his forehead. He started to breathe heavily from the nightmare he had as he propped himself up from where he was lying down; it was the most vivid dream he'd had so far since they started, and this was the scariest one yet.

Eddy soon calmed himself down before glancing at where he was. He could see that he was still in the other world, lying on a bed in a bedroom with not much around him.

"Eddy?" called out Double D's voice from the hallway nearby as the door to the room opened, with Ed and Double D coming to check on him; they still looked the same as when they arrived here, "Are you alright? You made a very loud yell…"

"Does it look like I'm okay to you, Sockhead?!" Eddy snapped a little to him before putting his right hand to his forehead, "But yeah, I'm fine now. I think."

He could feel Ed start to give him one of his famous Ed-Hugs, but it did not seem as bone-crushing to him as it used to be back home, "We were all worried about you, Eddy!"

Double D made a sigh as he came over to his two friends, "Anyway, we need to meet back up with everyone else downstairs. The two of us learned a bit about the door that brought us here."

Eddy stared at him before remembering what he was talking about, "Oh… right."

Ed let Eddy out of his hug as they left the guest room to go downstairs. They could see Lily and Naomi sitting on the couch while Amelia was sitting in another chair nearby; Amelia had her head lowered a little, still feeling guilty about a few things that happened.

Naomi was the one who noticed the Eds approaching, "Welcome back."

"Hai!" Ed greeted her back with a wave.

Double D and Lily looked at Eddy, with Double D making a sigh at him, "Eddy, I think there's something you need to say to Amelia, correct? She did bring you back here on her own after you fainted."

"Yeah, yeah, I know," Eddy grumbled slightly before he walked over to Amelia. He suddenly started to feel nervous over a thought he had; did she hate him now for saying those awful things to her and her friends? He had a feeling they knew he was angry because he did not have the full context of what was going on, but it probably still hurt them to hear him call them stalkers, "Uh…"

"You don't need to say anything, Eddy."

Eddy perked his head up when Amelia spoke, "I know you're angry because we had to lie to you and your friends, and I don't blame you at all for feeling that way," she looked back to him with a sad smile, "You can go back home if you want. Both of those keys you found go to the white doors for each side. We tested them out already," Amelia then looked away from him, "And, well… I know when I'm not wanted."

"Amelia…!" Lily gasped to her friend as she and Naomi went over to her side, "You KNOW that's not true at all, so please don't say that!"

Ed and Double D were confused by what Amelia meant before her friends went to Amelia's side, but Eddy quickly realized what she was saying. The picture she showed him earlier had her and her boyfriend in it… Her ex. Amelia was alluding to him, 'Oh, ouch.'

Eddy made a stern face, "Listen, I still find it annoying that you three lied to us, but at least I now know why, so…" he crossed his arms while looking away, "I'm sorry about what I said," he closed his eyes, "But that's the ONLY apology you'll get out of me, got it?!"

Everyone stared at Eddy, all of them in disbelief; he made a genuine apology about something he said, the first one in recent memory. It honestly shocked them.

"… What?" Eddy asked with a furrowed brow when he opened his eyes again to look at them, noticing their silence.

Double D made a small smile, "It's nothing. Thank you for apologizing to them."

Eddy made a small glare to his hat-wearing friend before masking it away, "Don't get used to it," he replied before looking over at the white door in the room, "So, uh… You said this white door and the other one at the campground are connected, right?"

"It looks to be that way," Lily replied with a nod, "We can hop back and forth between here and there easily; at least when one of the two keys is used to open it. And we did notice that both worlds have the same time, calendar, and seasons; everything is in sync."

"It's so cool to do!" Ed chimed in with a big smile, "It felt like a big 'whoosh!' before we noticed we were back home, and then it whooshed us back here when we opened it again!"

"Huh… well isn't that something," Eddy stated with more intrigue. A thought then crossed his mind, 'Wait, this can be a great chance to do scams on new pigeons and get more money for jawbreakers back home!' Eddy smirked mischievously at the idea.

"Well, despite knowing we can go back and forth between them freely, there's something that's bothering me about this, besides why this is all happening in the first place," Double D started to say as everyone turned to him, "The cartoon show you mentioned before, the ones with my friends and I in it… Who is making the show for others to see?"

A heavy silence filled the room for a moment as they thought about what he said.

"You know, I don't think we even know who makes it," Amelia replied, "The show doesn't have any credits when it ends at the 30-minute mark except for a logo of one name; it's probably the animation studio that makes it…"

"Hey, you're right!" Naomi gasped, "I've always thought it was weird that the show doesn't have proper credits like every other show on the station; no voice actors, no animators, no producers… Nothing!"

"… That is rather suspicious, honestly," Double D stated to them, "But you said there's only one name on the credits, correct? What is the name?"

The three girls thought about it for a second, "I believe it's a company called 'Tri-Ultima Productions'," Lily said, "I remember trying to look up who they were a few times, but the only thing that came up when I Googled it is the show you three are in, which is listed on the station's page and nothing else."

"Fascinating…" Double D was in awe a little at the information he received.

"Well, that's cool and all, but there's something I wanna know," Eddy started to say as everyone turned to him, "What do we do now? Should we even try to tell anyone about all this weird stuff that's going on?"

Everyone was silent at that statement, "I-I'm not sure we should say anything about it to other people yet," Double D replied, "If we did, people might think we were crazy."

"That's a good point," Amelia stated, putting her hand underneath her chin to think before turning to Naomi and Lily, "Either way, you two should call your folks. If the two worlds are synced up like you guys said, that means it's Sunday morning right now. We spent Friday night and all of Saturday over there."

"… Oh my god you're right!" Naomi gasped as she looked over to where she left her cell phone down when she got here on Friday, "I'll call my parents and tell them I spent the weekend here. I hope they don't get mad at me!"

"I'll do the same as well," Lily stated as she grabbed her cell phone that was next to Naomi's phone.

"Won't your parents get mad at you for being away too?" Ed asked Amelia, noticing she was not in a panic to try and contact anyone.

"Who, me? Nah," Amelia replied to him, "My parents are usually away for the job they got to do, so they're not home right now. Thankfully, my grandfather lives in the house down the road. He usually helps me out whenever they're gone. He drives me to the grocery store every Sunday afternoon when I need anything for the week."

"That's nice to hear," Double D stated to her before glancing away for a moment, "At least you have a relative to help you when you're home alone…"

It only took a minute or two for Lily and Naomi to contact their parents, explaining to them they stayed over at Amelia's house for the weekend but forgot to tell them about it, "Hopefully they aren't too mad about that," Naomi stated with a sigh.

"… Hey! I just got an idea!" Eddy stated with excitement, much to the surprise of everyone at the sudden burst of energy, "You three should show us around! It's not often that you'd find yourself in a new world like this! I wanna see what's here!"

The three girls widened their eyes at his statement, with Amelia making a slight blush across her face, "I-I don't think our world is that much different than yours besides how it looks," Amelia replied.

"I beg to differ," Double D stated, gesturing towards the cell phones that Naomi and Lily held in their hands, "I've never seen phones like these before. Plus, you mentioned something called Google. I've never heard of that before now."

"… Wait, are you serious?!" Naomi gasped in shock, "I thought you guys HAD those sorts of things but never showed it on the show!"

Lily thought about it for a moment before asking, "What year is it for you in your world?"

"The year? I believe it's the same as yours; 2023," Double D replied, "Am I correct on that?"

"Yes, but… How did your world get so far behind on technology compared to ours?" Lily asked, "That feels super odd to me, especially since it's 2023 in both places."

"We can think about all that nerd stuff later!" Eddy interjected before making a smirk, "Let's take a look around!"

"Yeah! I wanna see everything!" Ed said with a happy tone.

Everyone looked at Ed and Eddy before Double D and Amelia both rolled their eyes while Naomi only chuckled, 'I have a feeling I know what's going through Eddy's head right now. I should keep an eye on him, so he doesn't get into trouble,' Double D thought.

Lily seemed a little silent, glancing over to Double D before a small blush came across her face, 'Double D looks exactly how he does in the nightmares I keep having…' she thought to herself before closing her eyes to think even deeper, 'But how is this possible? And why is this even happening anyway? I don't understand…' She then felt a small tug at her chest, 'I just hope nothing bad will happen from this. I don't think I could take it if my nightmares come true.'

Author's Note (December 18th, 2023): Oh snap! Something else is going on besides world-hopping shenanigans. What is it, exactly? Like heck if I'm gonna say what it is!