"Hey! New girl! Right on time!" Plural waved.
Tatters turned around to see Circus standing at the gate to Plural's backyard and dropping a large bag on the grass. Her eyes were wide, and she stared at Tatters, who was manning the barbeque with Plural. Tatters raised her spatula and gave Circus a casual wave, but Circus didn't look so casual.
Suddenly, she broke into a sprint with an intense look on her face, coming straight for Tatters.
"Something's wrong with her," Tatters said while dropping the spatula and taking a step back.
Plural wasn't so worried.
"I think she wants to…"
But Circus was fast, and she leapt into a diving motion in an attempt to tackle Tatters to the ground. Tatters was faster and jumped into the air to completely dodge the maneuver, leaving Circus to faceplant into the grass below her.
"Oomph!"
"Everything okay?" A confused Jenny asked.
She was sitting at a wooden picnic table with Saturn, and the two were playing a card game. Circus was the last one to arrive.
"N-Not bad, partner," Circus mumbled while getting to her feet.
Tatters, looking puzzled and alarmed, took a step back.
"Is the witch still controlling you!?"
"No, no. I'm all me," Circus responded.
Tatters, in her confusion, gave everybody else a glance, like she was the only one who didn't understand what was going on.
Then, Circus broke into a second sprint. Once again, Tatters took a step back and braced herself. But something changed about Circus' movement.
"That won't work twice!" Circus shouted.
As a result, Tatters aborted her jump. And when Circus leapt again, she jumped to the side, catching Circus' leg with her foot and throwing her off balance.
But Circus recovered and rolled on the grass until she got to her feet in a single smooth motion. Then she looked back at her target.
"Neither will that," she said with a confident smirk.
"S-Stop it!" Tatters pleaded in a panic.
After that, Tatters ran, and Circus ran after her. Neither was faster than the other, so they ran in circles around Plural's roomy backyard.
"Aren't little kids just a joy?" Saturn commented.
Jenny watched intently, moving her head back and forth as the two ran in a circle around the picnic table. They didn't seem to ever run out of breath.
"Kids!" Plural eventually called out. "Be seated!"
Immediately, Tatters obeyed and stopped in her tracks, allowing Circus to finally catch her, tackling her to the ground and hugging her.
"Yay! Got you!" she yelled while hugging Tatters from behind. "I'm so happy you're back!"
Tatters, on the other hand, reacted like she was being licked by an oversized dog.
Meanwhile, Plural stood over them holding a plate of meat in one hand, and incessantly pressing the tongs in her other hand closed. The subject of her death glare: the vixen that was rubbing its cheeks all over her darling.
Then, Jenny decided to help out and flew above the two, grabbing Circus and carrying her up into the air.
"Haha! I'm flying!" an ecstatic Circus yelled.
But she was overreacting, and Jenny only carried her half a meter above the ground and shortly lowered her onto the picnic table's bench.
"Seated!" Jenny announced.
Pleased, Plural hopped over to the table and put the plate of meat in the center. Then, she took place next to Circus, turning her head to Tatters and tapping on the spot next to her, making sure to separate the two.
"A toast!" Plural exclaimed.
She held out her chicken skewer towards the center of the table.
"To never losing our superpowered friends again!"
Saturn and Circus joined her, touching her skewer with their own and exclaiming together.
"Aye!"
Then, Jenny frantically looked around in a panic and eventually landed her eyes on something in Plural's living room. Gently, she teleported away from her spot, then back immediately, holding Plural's TV remote.
"Aye!" she repeated and touched the other chicken skewers with her remote.
Plural, unbothered, turned to look at the last person to join.
Timidly, Tatters joined last with her own skewer, looking embarrassed at being the subject of a toast.
"To… that…" she mumbled.
"And…" Saturn added, "to at least a month with no trouble."
"Aye!" the others all exclaimed in agreement.
Then, the four humans dug into their food, and Jenny studied them with great interest like she was watching a nature documentary. Eventually, she returned her eyes to the TV remote in her hand, which had a bit of sauce on it.
"Curious?" Circus asked her.
"I tried it when I was younger," Jenny replied.
Nevertheless, she carefully moved her tongue towards the sauce on the remote and scooped a little bit off. For a moment, she sat there with her tongue stuck out and the sauce on the tip. Jenny looked at it, then at her friends who were watching her now, like she'd become the subject of the nature documentary.
Eventually, Jenny grabbed a bit of paper towel and wiped her tongue clean.
"Well?" Plural asked.
"Warm," Jenny answered, "that's it."
"What happens if you swallow it?" Circus asked with her mouth full.
Jenny pointed her finger at the inside of her mouth and made an exaggerated puking gesture.
"Really? Even just that smudge?" Saturn asked.
Jenny nodded.
"I'm not supposed to eat or drink anything at all. My insides need to be…"
She looked down at her own lap.
"… pristine."
She looked around at all her friends, who were giving her that look they had whenever they were reminded that Jenny wasn't human.
"Speaking from experience, heh…" she added bashfully.
As the others ate, Jenny wiped the TV remote clean with her paper towel, then spent some more time watching the nature documentary.
Plural was next to speak, addressing Saturn.
"By the way, bestie…"
Saturn raised his eyebrow and turned around in his seat to look behind him. Jenny let out a small giggle, and Saturn turned back around to point at himself with a curious face.
"Didn't you have something to discuss? Something about the coming weekend?" she asked with a teasing face, ignoring his little act.
In response, he blinked his eyes and found all others on him, like he'd just been checkmated.
"This weekend? The summer fair?" Circus asked like she was swooping in to save the day.
"Uh, yeah. Actually," Saturn said and turned to her. "Heard you're on duty."
Circus nodded.
"So," he spun his skewer around in front of him, "why don't the four of us go too?" he asked the others.
Plural grinned at him and gave him two grateful thumbs up.
"Why not," Tatters commented while working on her second chicken skewer.
Then, all eyes went to Jenny, who was staring into the distance and zoning out. Saturn raised his hand and waved in front of her face, causing her to blink and return to reality.
"Yes!" she yelled.
"Yes, you wanna go?" Saturn asked.
Jenny nervously nodded.
"A-Alright," Saturn said and relaxed again, continuing to work on his skewer. "Saturday it is."
♦
Later that night, Circus dropped her large bag on the dinner table inside, then unzipped it to reveal the book it was concealing.
"Is that the book with all the monsters?" Plural asked.
Circus nodded and stowed the bag away. Meanwhile, Jenny took the book and moved it in front of herself, then traced the hardcover with her finger. The book had the title "Necronomicon" on it and was embossed with rustic-looking patterns of tentacles, snakes and other creepy things.
"We found your ghost," she said, moving her eyes to Tatters.
Tatters widened her eyes in surprise, then looked at her friends.
"Is that why we're all here?" she asked, startled.
Then, Circus sat back down and slammed her hands on the table, excitedly addressing Jenny.
"Will you do the honors?"
Jenny grinned, faced the book and stuck out her hand.
"As you wish…"
She closed her eyes, and her hair started glowing blue. Then, to everybody's surprise, the book started glowing the same color as her hair. Jenny strained her face like she was deeply focused, until the book slowly opened up on its own. First the hardcover, then the pages that followed. One by one they opened like Jenny was using telekinesis to do so, until they reached the desired page Jenny apparently wanted to show.
This display gave everybody pause. Saturn's eyes were wide as he stared at the girl next to him. He was the first to speak.
"You… You can do that?"
"That's not on the wiki!" Circus yelled. "What was that!?"
"Huh?" Jenny responded, surprised at the reactions.
"Whaddaya mean: 'Huh?' You were totally showing off!" Tatters yelled next.
"I… Maybe…" Jenny said with red cheeks.
Jenny nervously looked at all her friends, who looked at her in anticipation of an explanation.
"It's not very useful. This is the most I can do with it."
Everybody still stared at Jenny in wonder of her new telekinesis powers.
"C'mon guys," Jenny said as she impatiently wiggled her fists up and down.
"Nah, you were showing off," Saturn said teasingly.
Jenny grunted, closed her eyes and started playfully hammering his chest with her fists. She seemed to be holding back, because his body wasn't disturbed by the impacts.
Tatters moved her eyes away from the comedy act, and to the open book, then gasped when she saw the illustration.
"It's him, isn't it?" Circus asked with a grin.
"Yeah," Tatters muttered in disbelief.
She looked up at Jenny. As did everyone else. Her hands were interlocked with Saturn's, like they were play-wrestling, and Jenny looked back at them as if she was caught stealing candy.
"How?" Tatters asked.
"How what?" Jenny asked while gently releasing Saturn's hands.
"How'd you…" Tatters started.
In the meantime, Jenny pushed the edge of the book across the table so Tatters could read the contents.
"… find a book with him in it?" Tatters mumbled as she took a good look at the depiction of the creature.
Circus elaborated. "The Necronomicon contains records of all sorts of monsters and strange creatures. But in this world, it's fiction. Like an encyclopedia of horror stories."
"In this world?" Plural asked.
Jenny continued.
"This book exists in the dream, too. But in there, it's more of a holy text. And…"
Jenny bashfully rubbed her cheek with her finger.
"Including this guy, I've already met three of them."
Tatters looked at Circus, then at Jenny.
"You're saying this shit's real?" Tatters asked, prompting question marks from Jenny.
"The dream stuff," Tatters clarified.
Then, Plural raised her hand.
"Yeah, I thought all that was just a dream in your head."
Jenny looked conflicted.
"I… thought so too, but—"
Circus interrupted her.
"The dreamlands are well-documented and very real. Jenny here is proof of that. As is your ghost parasite."
Jenny still looked conflicted but didn't correct Circus.
"Parasite?" Tatters asked.
Circus nodded and pointed at one of the two pages of the open book.
"It's latched onto you, feeding on your negative emotions."
Tatters followed her finger and read the short text. It described the creature as feeding on despair, and it was particularly attracted to people in distress.
"But it only appeared after I came here. And I've been doing better than ever," she argued.
"Yeah," Circus said with a sympathetic tone. "It's been latched onto you since you were little, would be my guess. The only reason it's tormenting you now is exactly because you haven't been feeding it lately."
Tatters' eyes widened. Truthfully, if it was going to latch onto anyone, she'd be the perfect candidate. It made sense.
"He's been with me my whole life?" Tatters muttered under her breath.
Plural gave her a sympathetic look and hesitantly rubbed her back. Tatters read the contents of the page in silence. This was possibly the most interested she'd ever been in a piece of text, like she was reading a medical diagnosis about herself, including her blackout on that awful night.
Around her, the others talked, but Tatters wasn't processing it. Saturn raised his hand and asked something with a confused tone. Plural laughed at him. Jenny whispered something in his ear, and he reacted like he finally understood something.
"He's a dreamer?" Tatters asked, looking up at Jenny.
"So it says," Jenny replied, rubbing her chin like a detective.
Saturn raised his hand for the second time. Circus excitedly pointed her finger at him and spoke.
"Yes! S—"
"Why don't we just kill the original guy?" he cut her off.
"Hmm, hmm," Jenny closed her eyes and gave him an agreeable nod, then twitched and reacted in shock. "K-Kill!?"
"If he's a dreamer, his real body should be out there somewhere, right?" he explained.
"Says here he was first spotted over two-hundred years ago," Tatters said while anxiously fidgeting with her braid.
"But the book's fiction," Saturn retorted.
"Even if he's out there, how would we ever find him?" Tatters responded without pause.
Saturn stared at her and tapped his fingers on the table, unable to give her a good answer.
"Hmm, hmm," Jenny nodded once more, back to rubbing her chin with her eyes closed.
Then, the lights in Plural's house went out with a bang, causing Jenny and Plural to shriek and wrap their arms around their respective comfort buddies.
"D-D-D-Dark!" Jenny stuttered in fear.
In reality, it wasn't all that dark, with the moonlight shining into the room.
"It's just a power cut," Tatters said, giving a judgmental look to Plural, who was holding her tight.
"W-Why is the power cut!?" Plural asked, scared like Jenny.
Circus was the first to act and moved her chair back to get up.
"Where are your breakers?" she asked Plural.
"Under the stairs," Tatters replied.
Circus turned around and walked over to the stairs, opening a door and fiddling with the breaker switches.
Then, violent footsteps resounded from the first floor of the house, prompting another shriek from Jenny, whose hair-antenna started pointing at the ceiling and beeping. Saturn and Plural didn't seem to react to the footsteps, instead focusing their spooked eyes on the alarm on Jenny's head.
Tatters stood up, forcing Plural to let go, and walked in the direction of Circus while staring at the ceiling with her teeth clenched.
"It's not working, something's wrong," Circus yelled from under the stairs.
"What's wrong?" Plural worriedly asked, darting her eyes between Jenny and Tatters.
"I'm not sure," Circus yelled from under the stairs.
"Don't you guys hear that?" Tatters asked at a lower volume.
"I do!" A scared Jenny confirmed.
Saturn and Plural gave each other a worried look.
Then, everybody looked at the wall when something started scratching it.
"T-There he is!" Jenny whispered in fear, and her alarm pointed straight ahead.
She was right. The pale thing stood next to the wall, and he was using an overgrown fingernail to write something. Perhaps Saturn and Plural couldn't see it, but they could see the writings slowly appearing on the wall.
"The fuck!? There's really a ghost?" Saturn whispered in fear, now with his arms wrapped back around Jenny.
Plural was frozen in her seat, with her hands half stretched in Tatters' direction, but she was too far away to reach.
"He's telling us something," Tatters whispered.
"Gee, I don't know what's wrong. You might have to call a guy, Plu!" Circus yelled from under the stairs, still fiddling with the breaker switches.
Everybody froze, and nobody dared interrupt the pale thing. After all, perhaps he was giving them valuable information.
When he finished, he turned his head to look at Tatters with that same crooked smile. He'd changed slightly in appearance since the last time she saw him. This time, he hardly had any neck to speak of, and his head simply transitioned into his sagged shoulders.
"All done, asshole?" she asked in anger.
"What? Are you talking to me?" Circus turned around and asked.
The pale thing simply exaggerated his smile even further in response. Tatters took that as an affirmation and charged into a kick, using her powers on her sock and shoe to try to get a hit in. But as expected, the thing disappeared before she could make contact.
"Whoa!" Circus yelled.
The moment the thing disappeared, Jenny's hair-antenna fell back down and the lights in the house turned back on.
"What was that all about? Did I miss something? Who's the asshole?" Circus asked in confusion.
A shaking Plural raised her hand and pointed at the writing on the wall.
"It's… an address," Tatters noted.
Circus stepped closer to investigate, then looked back at the others at the table. All with terrified looks on their faces. She turned to Tatters, who returned a typical stern look.
"Wait…" Circus said. "Did the ghost write this!?"
Jenny anxiously nodded her head.
"Something paranormal was happening and I missed it?" Circus asked.
Then, some silence.
"I… didn't really wanna disturb his mojo," Saturn explained.
Plural got up from her seat and examined the writing up close.
"It's a complete address, though."
Then, she moved her finger across the engraved text.
"Ugh, my wall," she sobbed.
"It's not that far away," Jenny said.
She still had both her hands wrapped around Saturn, suggesting she was able to locate the address just by reading it.
Everyone understood what Jenny meant, and there was some more silence in the room, until…
"Okay! Let's go!" Circus yelled.
"Hold on! You're just gonna go wherever he tells you?" Saturn asked.
"I vote trap," Plural said with one hand raised and the other covering the writing on the wall.
"They're right," Tatters said.
Circus looked at her like her heart was broken.
"Jenny and I will go," Tatters said, eyeing Jenny for approval.
Jenny happily stood up and looked pleased with the decision.
"NO!" Circus screamed with her hands against her head.
Then, she grabbed Tatters' shirt and pulled her close.
"Please! Let me come with you! I live for this stuff!"
Startled, Tatters gave a questioning look to Jenny, who responded by shrugging.
"O-Okay!" Tatters surrendered.
"Yay!" Circus exclaimed and hugged Tatters tightly.