It was past midnight, and a lone car approached an old, decrepit church in a long-deserted place, far away from civilization. The car had countless light units installed all over the body, but they were all disconnected except for two at the front. Jenny nervously navigated her car through the darkness while the two aftermarket light units lit up the dirt road leading up to the church ahead.
When she rolled up to the church's entrance, she turned off the car and extinguished her blanket of light, leaving just the twin full moons to illuminate the church building and the surrounding woods.
Circus and Tatters were the first to step out of the car.
While uninhabited for over two-hundred years, historical records still linked this location to the address that the pale thing wrote on Plural's wall. Although in current-day records, the address no longer existed, and any letter sent to the address would be returned to sender.
Circus wore most of her police uniform and immediately turned on her flashlight.
Tatters wore her cape, utility belt and umbrella.
The pair didn't seem nearly as discomforted as Jenny, who shivered as she closed the car door.
"Coming?" Circus asked and shone her light on Jenny.
Jenny, shaking, fearfully hopped over.
"Y-Yeah!"
Circus watched her with great intrigue.
"Are you scared?"
Jenny looked away and cradled her arm.
"N-No!"
Circus smiled and held out her hand.
"Well, I'm feeling a bit jumpy."
Jenny gave her a resigned smile and took her hand.
Then, Circus turned to Tatters and offered her other hand, but after glancing at the gesture, Tatters turned away and walked on ahead.
"I'm fine."
And so, the three walked towards the church's main entrance. A giant gate, looking like it hadn't been opened for centuries.
"Scholar's Guild," Tatters read the dilapidated sign.
Circus shone her light on the sign.
"Whoa! What a find! These guys are ancient!"
Jenny turned to the other two with question marks above her head, and Circus excitedly explained.
"The Scholar's Guild was one of the first guilds to be outlawed for their obsession with the Great Ones."
Circus had turned to her two friends but mostly looked at Jenny. She was pointing the flashlight up at her own face and had one of her hands raised as if they were claws. Jenny clutched her hands against her chest and looked spooked.
"It is said that after they were outlawed, they continued their research in secret. But not even five years later, they were mysteriously wiped out!"
"Eek!" Jenny yelped. "What happened to them!?"
Circus had a huge grin on her face and was clearly having fun. Tatters observed the situation with a frown.
"We may never know. All I do know is that some of the records in the Necronomicon are based on their work."
Unexpectedly, Tatters followed up with her own anecdote.
"I've heard tall tales about 'em."
Causing even Circus to react surprised.
"About how they used to visit my hometown," Tatters continued and walked up to the large door. "Something to do with communing…" she spoke while trying to kick the large door open, "with the Sleeping God."
But it didn't budge. Then, she turned to look at her bewildered friends.
"You mean Mr. Fishy?" Jenny asked.
Circus turned, surprised once again, to her other friend who seemed to know something.
"What kinda name is that?" Tatters asked.
"Uh," Jenny walked over to the door lock and flicked against it with her finger, causing it to fly open. "I met a giant… fish… under the ice… there…"
Tatters widened her eyes and grabbed her head with her hands.
"You met the Sleeping God!? He's real?"
Jenny nodded.
Circus, not as surprised as Tatters, walked through the door first.
"It's all real. We're living in a fairy tale…" Tatters muttered to herself and followed along.
"There was a record about Him, too," Circus explained as she investigated the church interior. "The Sleeping God judges people and grants them access to the dreamlands if they're worthy."
It was dark, creepy and long abandoned. Spider webs covered almost everything, suggesting they were unlikely to find anyone inside.
"That must be what happened to you, then," Circus turned around and addressed Jenny. "If anyone's worthy, it's you."
Jenny bashfully scratched her head.
"I'm starting to think I lost my access when I died. I haven't dreamt since," she explained.
Some clunking metal caught their attention. It was Tatters, holding and frowning at a strange-looking, rusty cylindrical cage.
"What're we looking for, exactly?" Jenny asked, scanning the place with her night vision. "There are no signs of life here, except for critters."
Tatters tossed the cage aside and walked over to Circus, who was shining her light at a staircase.
"Answers, then. Whatever it sent us here to find."
Circus turned around and shone her light on Jenny.
"We should split up."
Jenny felt a jolt travelling through her body when she heard that.
With an uneasy tone, Circus comforted her. "I-I can take the ground floor alone. You two—"
"No," Tatters interjected, "you're the only one who can't see him. I'll go alone."
Tatters stepped away from the stairs and headed towards the main altar in the distance.
"But you don't have a flashlight," Jenny argued, hesitantly.
Tatters looked back at her with a frustrated face.
"Neither do y—"
Then, Jenny blinked her eyes and made light come out of them.
"Besides," Jenny timidly walked over to the altar instead, "he'll probably come after you."
Shaking, she gave Tatters a terrified smile and raised her fist. Tatters hesitated but eventually conceded, giving her a reassuring nod and bumping her fist back.
"Call out when you need me," she said, then headed for the stairs.
Jenny turned around, swallowed and walked towards the altar while the other two ascended the stairs behind her.
To her left and right, there were rows of seats, like in a church, and Jenny walked down the middle of the aisle.
"Where are you, mister ghost?" Jenny uttered. "S-Still dreaming?"
While still relatively dark, the moonlight shone inside through the mosaic windows. That, combined with Jenny's exceptional sight, night vision and eye-flashlights, meant she could make out every single detail of the place.
The pillars around her were adorned with familiar statues, the kinds Jenny remembered seeing in the dreamlands for the first time. Great Ones, most likely.
The centerpiece at the altar was a large statue of a man Jenny recognized all too well. To erase any doubt, there was a plaque at the bottom.
"His envoy"
The man had pointy ears and an oddly long neck. Unlike the unkept version of Him she'd personally encountered, this one was wearing fancy chains and ancient robes.
In front of the statue stood a chair with a dead body in it. Jenny leaned forward and investigated the body from different angles. If it had been here for decades, it was in remarkably good shape.
Jenny felt there was something off about it. Whatever it was, it had a dreamlike quality to it, like it was somehow connected to the dreamlands, like Mr. Fishy and Tatters' ghost. Furthermore, something about the body called out to her, begging her to make contact. There was no mistaking it, however, that the corpse was dead.
Hesitantly, Jenny reached out, lips pressed together.
Then, she gently poked the corpse's shoulder.
Upon contact, Jenny felt a strange sensation going through her body, as if touching the corpse had completed an electric circuit, followed by a strange sensation that somewhere out there in the cosmos, two eyes had opened up and fixed their gaze on her.
A freaked-out Jenny pulled her hand back and let out a shriek.
♦
"You think they wore these on their heads?" Circus asked, holding another one of those cylindrical cages.
It had a hole in the bottom big enough to fit over someone's head.
"Looks uncomfortable," Tatters responded.
The first floor of the church was a cluttered mess, like it was used to store random junk. Trinkets, small statues, those cylindrical cages and other occult relics.
"Have you seen him yet?" Circus asked.
Tatters returned a questioning look.
"The ghost," Circus clarified.
"No," Tatters replied and looked around at the shadows. "Not since he wrote on the wall."
Circus dropped the cage on the ground and grabbed another trinket.
"If he can carve into the wall, can he attack us too?" she asked while looking at the item.
Tatters stayed silent for a second before responding.
"He's never done anything to me or anyone else. Not… directly…"
Circus glanced at her friend through the corner of her eye.
"What was it like? That night…"
Tatters, facing away from her, appeared uncomfortable with the topic.
"It was like being a passenger in my own body."
"But you saved Plu," Circus dropped the trinket and stood up.
"It was all I could think about."
Hesitantly, Circus walked closer to Tatters, who still had her back turned.
"You think it'll—"
But she was interrupted by a shriek from Jenny downstairs.
Immediately, Tatters ran towards the ledge and jumped over it, breaking some wooden benches during her landing, from the sound of it. Circus followed and grabbed the hand rail, looking down at the long drop. Too high. She grunted and ran over to the staircase, taking the safe route like the lowly mortal she was.
When she reached the altar, Jenny and Tatters were staring at something behind a corpse in a chair. Tatters held out her arm to stop Circus from getting too close.
"What is it?" Circus asked.
Neither of them responded to her question.
"Are you telling us…" Jenny stuttered at the invisible entity in front of them.
Tatters clenched her teeth in anger.
"You fucker! Bringing us all the way here for this!"
Then, she grabbed a piece of broken wood from the floor and jammed the counterweight of one of her wires thought it, then threw it straight through the large statue behind the chair. While it burned a clean hole in the statue, the piece could be heard bouncing off the ground behind.
A surprised Jenny looked at Tatters, then at Circus.
"It's gone," she explained.
"He was right there?" Circus asked. "Just now?"
"Yeah," Jenny answered. "Touching the corpse."
Then she looked at Tatters and reached out to touch her arm.
"It's him," Tatters snarled in frustration, "he's already dead."
"Yeah," Jenny said in a defeated tone.
Circus looked at the corpse as the realization dawned on her. This is what it wanted them to find. The original guy.
"That means…" Circus muttered.
"He'll dream forever," Jenny concluded.
"How is that even possible!?" Tatters asked. "Did he die while dreaming?"
"Guess that explains why he's so special," Circus noted.
Jenny turned her attention back to the corpse. There were no signs he was murdered, like an old man who died in his sleep.
"He does look… old," she said.
Then, Tatters grabbed the wire that ran from her belt to the hole in the statue and stretched it to the side, so that the wire touched the corpse's neck.
"This was all just a trick. He's playing mind games," she snarled.
When she pressed the button on her retractor device, the piece of wood returned through the hole in the statue and beheaded the corpse on its way back. Jenny and Circus had both raised their forearms and taken a step back, startled by the sudden act of brutality.
In silence, the head slowly fell to the ground and rolled away.
Jenny moved her foot out of the way to avoid touching it, then turned her attention to the palm of her own hand, staring at it with unease.
Tatters, meanwhile, lost her balance and fell over, knocking the corpse in the chair over in the process.
"T-Tat—"
"Hey!"
The two girls hunched down and touched her shoulders.
"What happened?" Circus asked and shook her right shoulder.
Jenny, on the other side, slowly retreated her hand and backed away with a look of dread in her eyes.
"Something's wrong with her," she muttered.
Circus looked up in alarm and pulled her own hand back, too. Next thing she knew, she found herself ten meters down the aisle on the ground, surrounded by blue sparkles and with Jenny crouched by her side. Her hair-antenna was going off, flashing a red light and pointing at Tatters' body—from which emerged a large, blue flame, shooting straight up and destroying the roof of the church.
"Blue flames," an astonished Circus muttered, "they're real…"
"Why now?" Jenny complained in frustration.
From above, pieces of the church's old roof came falling down, and Jenny erected an energy shield to protect Circus. Tatters' still-collapsed body was still emitting blue flames, which seemed to be incinerating any pieces that came close enough.
"It's gonna come down," Jenny said while looking up in a panic.
"Then we have to get her out!" Circus replied.
"But I can't touch her like this," Jenny said, frustrated and frantically looking around for solutions until settling her hand on Circus' shoulder.
Next thing she knew, Circus was outside the church, behind Jenny's car. Jenny dropped her to the ground and gave her a nervous smile.
"I'll just be a minute," she said, then disappeared into blue sparkles.
Circus blinked, and in confusion, looked over the hood of the car to see the church already starting to collapse. Whatever Jenny was planning, those blue flames were lethal even to her, and Circus was powerless to help. All she could do was watch as the ancient building came down on top of her two friends.
In the wake of the collapse, a dust cloud came out, forcing Circus to duck behind the car and cover her nose, waiting for it to settle before taking another look.
While she waited, her phone vibrated. It was a message in the group chat from Plural.
"[Plu]are you girls winning?"
For a moment, Circus stared at the message, wondering what to say back. When she concluded that the only possible answer was that they were losing, she opted to put her phone away without responding and took another peek at the church ruins.
The dust had settled enough to see a single energy shield surrounding Tatters. Around ten meters away, Jenny appeared from the rubble, flying into the air with her brilliant, blue hair, holding out her arm in the direction of the energy shield.
When she saw that Tatters was still in one piece, she swung her arm to the side and dissipated the shield.
Circus looked at Jenny, and Jenny looked back and gave a happy wave. Then, she noticed the dust coming off her head and shook it off her body like a dog shaking water out of its fur.
On the ground, Tatters was getting up. Circus excitedly stood up and ran over, only for Jenny to come down and stop her from coming too close.
"Not yet," Jenny warned.
"What's wrong with her? How can you tell?" Circus asked.
Jenny pointed at the beeping antenna on her head, then squinted her eyes and studied Tatters closely. The blue flames weren't appearing anymore, but they'd been fast and unpredictable, so getting close was deadly.
"It's hard to describe," Jenny explained. "She looks different, in the same way her ghost looks different."
"I-Is he there, too?"
"…"
Jenny looked puzzled.
"It's like he's possessing her."
"Oh! Like the blackout thing? Is it happening again now?" Circus asked.
Up ahead, Tatters turned around and looked at the two girls with hollow eyes, like she was sleepwalking.
"Eek!"
A spooked Jenny pulled Circus down so they hid behind a piece of debris, then snoozed her hair-antenna so it wouldn't stick out.
"D-Do we just wait it out?"
"I don't know," Circus replied, "isn't this kinda bad? Is it gonna keep on happening?"
Jenny, looking troubled, poked her head above the piece of stone to check on their possessed friend.
"S-She's still looking at us…"
Alarmed, Circus joined her and peeked.
"Do you think she'll hurt us?" she whispered.
Jenny, wide-eyed and scared, didn't respond, so Circus turned to Tatters and asked the question directly.
"Are you gonna hurt us?"
In response, Tatters took a single step in their direction. Her facial expression didn't change and gave them little comfort.
The two girls crouched back down to hide behind the piece of debris.
"Now what!?"