Chapter Text
Ocalt forest, located within the town of Arborwood, is known for the harrowing rumours surrounding its past. The stories claim that many cults claimed the forest as their grounds of operation over the years long ago, performing many horrifying acts. These cults supposedly worshiped ancient gods, gods that could destroy universes in the blink of an eye. Many animals and even unfortunate people would be sacrificed within these woods, haunting the land… or so the legends say.
In spite of these tales, the forest is located within one of the safest towns in the country, and the times in which these cults supposedly existed were long, long ago. Rich, elderly people regularly take walks through these woods, given the proximity to many of the mansions in which the residents of the town live. As far as anyone knows, no cults live in Ocalt forest anymore…
It was the middle of the night. Far off the beaten path that the common folk walk on a day-to-day basis, pikes lit ablaze outlined a straight path through the trees that lead to a large ceremony ground. Tents coloured dark red littered the outskirts of the vicinity. In the center of the grounds was an altar that stood on top of a raised platform, with stairs leading up to it...
Red hooded figures populated the area, kneeling on bricks caked with dried blood from previous sacrifices and making strange movements with their hands. A horrifying chant echoed through the grounds, as the many mysterious individuals shouted words in an alien tongue. The energy in the air was otherworldly, as if the very fabric between worlds was at risk in this place.
A man dressed in much more ornate robes walked up to the altar, his clothing blue with golden accents and a symbol of an eye on the top of the hood. Four similarly dressed people followed behind him, each with their own unique symbol on the top of their cloak: an hourglass, a brain, a pyramid, and a hand. The man with an eye symbol raised his right hand to the crowd, pressing his left hand down onto the altar, and his deep voice resonated through the grounds.
“Silence yourselves. We must focus and attune ourselves, so we can reach out to any gods who may be out there.” he said loudly, his booming voice bringing everyone nearby aside from the other four high-ranking members onto their hands. “We shall find a being to give us purpose. Our sacrifices shall not be in vain.”
“Yes, leader.” the crowd said all at once, lifting their hands off the ground and raising them into the air.
The ceremony grounds were silent as everyone present, including the leader, focused themselves deeply. The only noises that broke the silence were of the wildlife that still remained within the woods and hadn’t yet been sacrificed in a vain attempt to reach out to any wayward god. The moonlight shone brightly over the tense atmosphere in the area.
A sudden flicker of energy sent everyone present reeling, and the leader scrambled to regain his composure as the other four looked between each other in a panic. The leader tapped his hands on the altar a few times in a frenzy, then began to speak up.
“Acolytes… we have made contact with a god.” he spoke slowly, and everyone in the crowd gasped. The woman with the hourglass symbol stepped forward.
“It appears to be in distress, in danger. We must save it.” she said urgently. “Everyone, pray, and focus your strength. We may have finally found someone to worship.”
Everyone in the crowd clasped their hands together and began humming, the reverberations of the voices causing the magic in the air to condense and focus on top of the altar. Eventually, a vortex began to form atop it, the energy in the area enough to send an unprepared individual falling backwards. The humming only grew in intensity, until the power of the vortex was so strong that its noise overpowered that of the people praying.
At this point, the vortex was larger than the height of multiple people stacked on top of each other, and if one peered inside they could almost make out a golden sunrise over floating platforms in the clouds. The vortex was beginning to challenge the size of even the trees, and just as it reached maximum intensity…!
An explosion of yellow, dreamcatcher-esque particles and light sent everyone in the vicinity flying backwards, and an ear-piercing screech shook the very ground that the crowd once stood.
“I… lived?”
The sound of footsteps on grass caused a squirrel to dart away to a nearby tree, scrambling up the wood and onto a branch. Jacob was on another one of his nightly walks, it helped ease his mind after the stress of work and dealing with general mental health issues. The atmosphere in the woods was calming, the noises of wildlife soothing to him. Not that solitude was particularly hard to come by for him, but the natural environment was much preferred to the far too lavish mansion he lived in on his own.
He pulled his phone out of his pocket, it was 3 AM. He still had quite a bit to walk before he was done with his usual route, and he would prefer to get at least a little bit of sleep, so he decided to pick up the pace. In hindsight, it probably wasn’t a good time to go on a walk anyways, given that only a few hours ago a strange tremor struck the town of Arborwood.
Slightly speeding up along the path, he found himself stuck in his own thoughts again. It would only be a month until his parents returned after having been gone for almost 6 years. In that time, Jacob had matured from a teenager into a young man of 20 years. His parents were incredibly wealthy, through reasons he still had very little clue of. Something to do with real estate? Regardless, they lived lives of incredible luxury, travelling around the world and enjoying the most superfluous things life had to offer.
Before leaving on their grand journey of the world, they bought Jacob a massive mansion in one of the safest towns within the country, with every day-to-day expense paid for him. And thus he was left alone to do whatever he wanted, something that while appealing as a teenager quickly revealed itself to be a detriment as crippling loneliness soon followed. Not to mention the self-loathing, anxiety, and fatalistic mindset he developed as well.
He picked up a job as a stay-at-home programmer in an attempt to fill the void, but all it did was add even more stress onto his already miserable life. His hobbies didn’t really feel fun anymore either, not like they used to. He really wasn’t sure what to do with his life at this point.
His thoughts were interrupted as something in the distance caught his eye, something yellow and bright, floating in the air. He stood in confusion for a few moments, before slowly and cautiously making his way towards the strange floating entity. Stepping up to it, but not too close to stay safe, he got a closer look at it.
It was a circular yellow wisp of some kind, in a similar shape to that of a dreamcatcher, floating upwards slowly. Jacob rubbed his eyes to make sure he wasn’t seeing things, and pinched himself for good measure, but the strange entity remained. Too afraid to reach out and touch it, he simply backed away and watched as it slowly floated up. It was then that he noticed that even more of these particles were floating in the air nearby, seemingly rising out of the ground.
His fixation on the strange wisps was halted when a sudden rustling rang out from within the trees. His head darted up to the foliage above, but he couldn’t make anything out from within the blanket of leaves that covered most of the forest. More rustling sounded out and he began to start walking away from the area, hoping to avoid whatever was making that noise. The rustling continued, although it seemed to follow him where he went from up above.
He began to speed up, looking around in a panic and wringing his hands anxiously. The noises kept going, following him wherever he went, like a stalker. He could somehow feel something looking at him, watching him, judging him. He had now begun sprinting through the forest, nearly tripping over himself multiple times, scrambling to find an escape. By now, he had certainly gotten himself lost as he had left the marked trail.
Jacob’s scramble through the forest was finally brought to an end when his foot got caught on a root, sending him crashing to the ground. He landed face first, covering his face in dirt and grime, his wrists sprained after landing on his hands, and knees scraped on stones.
Struggling to lift himself up, the rustling continued in intensity, and as it got more and more intense and even closer to him, he braced himself. The rustling started emanating from directly above him, and as he opened his eyes to look up…
...a small squirrel jumped down from a branch right in front of him, going on to scurry its way along the path before disappearing into a bush.
“It… it was just a squirrel.” Jacob said breathlessly, before beginning to quietly giggle to himself. “Heheheheh, it was just a squirrel… hahahahaha! What was I even afraid of?”
Despite the pain in his wrists, Jacob lifted himself up and stared at the bush the squirrel disappeared into, continuing to laugh to himself.
“Ahaha! Ohhhh… that gave me quite a scare, hah.” he said. “Oh well, everything is fine now, heheh. There was no reason to be afraid at a-”
Jacob’s train of thought was cut off when a strange blade was suddenly raised to his neck and a hand firmly gripped his shoulder. His blood immediately went cold and his hands froze in place as his mystery assailant began speaking.
“What do you know?! Where are we, and what happened?!” the voice, clearly feminine, demanded. “Are you in league with Her?! I’ve slain many of your conspirators, and I can do the same to you, so answer me, creature!”
“I- I- I- don’t… I’m… I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Jacob stuttered out. “I-I have no clue what you’re talking about, please don’t hurt me, please!”
“Likely story.” the assailant said, inching the blade closer to Jacob’s throat. “You think just by changing your garments, you can fool me? Imbecile. Perhaps seeing the robes of your friends will jog your memory?”
The attacker released her hand on his shoulder and threw a red robe stained even darker red with blood in front of him. It fluttered to the ground and Jacob got a good look at it. It was completely unfamiliar to him, and the smell of blood that reeked off of it made him queasy.
“I’ve never seen that before in my life, I promise! Please let me go!” he begged.
There was a tense moment where the mystery assailant judged his sincerity. He was terrified, he could feel the cold steel(?) on his throat. After what felt like minutes, the attacker swiftly lowered the blade, and Jacob brought his hands up to his throat and closed his eyes, letting out a deep sigh of relief. The individual spoke up again, however.
“I’m not done. Let me see your eyes, I must make sure you’re not infected.”
Jacob didn’t know what she meant by being infected, but realizing he didn’t have much of a choice, complied. The mystery aggressor put her hand on his shoulder, and slowly he turned around to face her. When he had fully turned around, he opened his eyes and was face to face with something he had never seen before in his life.
A mask-like face shaped like a massive oval crescent with two vacant eyes and small, almost invisible mandibles at the bottom greeted him. Looking down, the strange being was outfitted in a crimson red dress, tapering off to reveal thin, bug-like legs. Jacob looked at the hand that was holding him, which could be better described as a claw, pitch black and chitinous. In her other hand, the being held the same blade that was raised to his throat earlier, a strange creation that looked almost like an oversized needle, thread looped around the end and all. All in all, she looked like an alien.
Her vacant eyes stared deep into his own blue ones, looking for any traces of orange that could signify he was infected. Finding no signs, she released her grip on his shoulder and spoke firmly.
“You appear to be clear of symptoms, thankfully.”
Jacob’s mouth was completely agape in shock. He suddenly stumbled backwards, falling on his rear. His eyes were wide open, staring at the strange being in front of him with pure confusion. Slowly, he spoke up.
“Wh… w-what are you?” he said shakily.
“Hmph. I could ask the same to you, creature.” the being said, sounding insulted. “I suggest you hold your tongue before saying more careless things, lest I cut it off.”
“A-ah… what is… your name?” he asked.
“I am Hornet, protector of Hallownest. And you are?” she replied tersely.
“O-oh. My name is Jacob. Jacob Davies.”
“Hm. Quite the odd name. A pleasure to meet you, I suppose.” she said, affixing her blade onto her back and extending one of her claws out to help him. “Get up.”
Jacob compiled and grabbed her claw, letting himself be pulled up onto his feet. She was surprisingly strong for how thin her limbs were. After getting back on his feet, he surveyed the area and began asking the major questions that were on his mind.
“So uhh… what was the deal with the whole ‘holding a weapon up to me’ thing?”
“I have been hounded by many of your kin in this forest. Robed individuals in some kind of cult have been hunting me and my siblings down. I think you can understand my paranoia when I saw you walking around.” she said.
“I-I guess… wait, a CULT?!” Jacob screamed.
“Shhhh! You might alert some of them! They’re undoubtedly still hunting for me.” Hornet whispered.
“A-ah, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…” he whispered in response. “We need to get out of this forest then, if it’s dangerous.”
“Absolutely not. My siblings are still in this strange place. One of them will likely be fine, but the other… is not in the best shape at the moment. We need to find them before we leave.” she replied, leaving no room for argument.
“W-well, what do they look like?” he questioned.
“You’ll know who they are when you see them, given your reaction to me.” she said dismissively.
Hornet suddenly began walking forward at a rapid pace, and Jacob scrambled to keep up with her as she navigated the forest with ease. She appeared to be focusing and listening closely to her environment. The walk was very tense, so Jacob tried to break the ice.
“So uhh… you don’t seem like you’re from around here.” Jacob said, immediately cringing at his own statement.
“No, I am not. I wonder how you figured that out?” Hornet said condescendingly. “I am assuming we’re quite far from Hallownest.”
“Hallownest? What’s that?” he asked, and Hornet stopped in her tracks and turned to him looking shocked, vacant eyes wide.
“How do you not know about Hallownest?! The rumours of that place spread across the entire world!”
“I-I’ve never heard of it…” Jacob replied cautiously. Hornet stared for a moment, before sighing and looking down.
“Oh Wyrm… how far are we from Hallownest…?” she said nervously, before shaking her head and regaining focus. “Er, where exactly are we?”
“Uh, we’re currently in Ocalt forest. It’s a woodland area in the town of Arborwood.” Jacob replied.
“Ah… I see.” Hornet said slowly, but resumed walking and spoke slightly quieter. “We really are far from Hallownest…”
“Hey, uh, once we’re out of this forest, I can try to help you get back home. Um, does that sound good?” he said nervously.
“Hm. Yes, it does.” she responded, staring him down with her empty eyes. “Thank you.”
“Ah, n-no problem.”
“Regardless, we must find my siblings. Follow me.”
The two trekked through the forest aimlessly in search of Hornet’s siblings, with Hornet maintaining a fast pace while Jacob struggled to keep up. As they travelled, his thoughts wandered. Who was this mysterious Hornet and what is this “Hallownest” that she came from? How and why did she get here? Who are her siblings? And what’s the deal with this cult she mentioned?
Jacob’s mind was racing as he tried to catch up with Hornet after falling behind. He just wanted to go to sleep and forget that this ever happened. Maybe this was all a really persistent dream. Even still, it felt so real. His night had taken a turn for the bizarre and terrifying, and it was only about to get worse.
Jacob’s stomach growled. At this point he felt deliriously tired, his muscles were sore and his mind was frazzled. Hornet seemed completely unfazed by what was likely an hour of searching, deftly navigating the trees and bushes. She seemed very seasoned at navigating, almost as if it was second nature, making it difficult for Jacob to follow easily. The grueling search continued regardless, although he noticed that Hornet was getting irritated and impatient.
“Gah, where are they?!” she growled, before turning to Jacob. “If we’re to find them we need to change plans. I’m going back into the tops of these giant wood plants, you stay here so I don’t lose your position.”
Jacob just nodded nervously, not keen on the idea of opposing the frightening alien woman he had been accompanying. Any questions he had about how she had such a good sense of navigation as to remember his exact position were eclipsed by his fear of being left alone and lost. Regardless, he said nothing as she threw her weapon into the air at an incomprehensible speed and shortly after zoomed up along with it. He simply stood there, mouth agape once again at the inhuman feats she was capable of.
Reluctantly, Jacob sat down in the grass and held his knees close to his face. Separation anxiety was already kicking in, despite not having known Hornet for all that long, not to mention the fact that she was about to murder him due to a misunderstanding. It made him wonder what the place she’s from is like, and what kind of person she is.
She mentioned she was a “protector”, perhaps that meant she was some kind of knight? Jacob wasn’t sure, but he could tell just by the way she carried herself that she was battle-ready. Not to mention the way she spoke, which was quite formal. He’d think she was nobility if it weren’t for her apparent ability to kill very easily.
Who were the cultists that she supposedly had to kill anyways? Arborwood’s crime rates were practically non-existent, the fact that a cult existed in such a peaceful town baffled him. And how would they have gotten away with it, and in a public forest to boot? He didn’t have any answers to his questions yet, so he elected to think about less serious things.
He sat there for many, many, many minutes, not-so-patiently waiting for Hornet to return. Every time he heard the rustle of bushes or leaves, he anticipated her return, only to be disappointed when rabbits and squirrels showed themselves instead. He knew that he shouldn’t worry, given that she seemed perfectly capable of handling herself, but he couldn’t help it.
His worried thinking was halted by more rustles in the bushes, to which he simply rolled his eyes, expecting more wildlife. What instead jumped out of the bushes surprised him. A strange creature with a large white mask-like face, vacant eyes and short, curved horns landed on the ground. They appeared to be around 4 feet tall, and wore a faded blue cloak around their small chitinous body, with a strange weapon attached to their back. Their appearance was very familiar looking, and Jacob immediately put the pieces together.
“Uh, hey. Your si-” he started, but was cut off when the little creature unsheathed their weapon.
Jacob immediately fell backwards and started inching away, however the creature began moving forward as well.
“Wait, don’t! I’m with your sister!” Jacob shouted, but the creature didn’t listen.
As they stepped closer and closer and he continued to try to get away, Jacob looked around in a panic, before staring the being head-on and bracing. They hopped into the air, blade raised high, and just as they were about to strike…!
“Ghost!” Hornet yelled, relieved.
The creature, apparently called Ghost, flipped around, sheathed their weapon mid-air, and landed on the ground running over to Hornet, who was standing there with her arms open. Ghost leapt into her arms, hugging her and nuzzling their face into her dress. Hornet patted them on the head as the two siblings embraced each other.
“I am so glad you are okay…” Hornet mumbled, as Ghost simply hugged tighter.
Ghost was crying inky black tears that simply rolled off of Hornet’s dress and landed on the ground, eroding the grass that it came in contact with. Hornet rubbed their back slowly as they got their emotions out. Strangely enough, they didn’t make any noises as they cried, only silently weeping in Hornet’s arms.
Jacob on the other hand, sat awkwardly as the siblings comforted each other, not wanting to interrupt the moment in fear of Ghost deciding to continue with their original plan. He couldn’t help but admire the bond that the two clearly had, and silently wished he had something like that in his life.
Enough time passed and Ghost appeared to have stopped crying, so Jacob cleared his throat. The two turned to look at him, and Ghost seemed about to walk over, but Hornet held onto them and leaned in to whisper to them. After saying something, she leaned away and let go of Ghost, who walked away from her over to just a few steps away from Jacob. He stood up and looked down at the little being.
“Uh, hey-”
Ghost flinched back and unsheathed their weapon again. Jacob raised his hands placatingly and backed away. The two had a stare-off, his eyes locked onto their hollow eyes. Hornet sighed and stepped forward, speaking up.
“There is no time for this. We need to find Hollow.”
Ghost sheathed their weapon again and dashed over to Hornet’s side, jumping up and down in place and tugging on her dress.
“You know where Hollow is?” she questioned, to which they fervently nodded. “Please lead us to them immediately!”
Ghost nodded again, and grabbed her hand to lead her to where this supposed Hollow was. Jacob assumed they were the other sibling of Hornet’s. She looked over at him and put her claw on her hip.
“Well? We don’t have time to waste, let us go.” she demanded, and Jacob obliged, running after them.
They sprinted through the forest as fast as they could, with Ghost leading them through, Hornet being dragged along, and Jacob just barely managing to keep up with them. As they went, they found themselves avoiding strange dark greenish-blue vines that dangled from the branches. Jacob had never seen them in the forest before, and he got a bad feeling about touching them, so he did his best to avoid them entirely. More of those strange particles showed up as well, which caused Hornet to growl. As they made their way into a clearing, Jacob stopped in his tracks at the sight in front of the group.
A towering behemoth of around 12 feet tall tangled and suspended in those strange vines like a marionette leaned over in front of the trio. The being had a familiar crescent-shaped mask-like face with a large crack in it, and familiar hollow eyes. They sported a faded green cloak and noticeably lacked their left arm, and held a massive weapon in their right.
Hornet and Ghost quickly made their way over to this creature, who Jacob assumed to be Hollow. They turned their head to the two approaching.
“Hollow! What happened?” Hornet questioned, and just as she was about to try to get Hollow out of the vines, Jacob spoke up.
“Wait! Don’t touch those vines! I don’t like the way they look, you might get stuck in them too!” he shouted.
Hollow nodded lightly, as if the simple act of doing so was painful. It looked like they had been crying for a while, given that all of the grass underneath them had been corroded, assuming Hollow’s tears worked the same way as Ghost’s. Hornet lowered her hands and stepped away, before putting a claw on her chin.
“Could we slice through them?” she questioned, to which Ghost shook their head “no”. “Truly? I am assuming that means you’ve already tried previously, then.”
To demonstrate, Ghost took out its weapon and sliced at the vines. The weapon simply bounced off on impact, and Hornet grumbled. Jacob stepped forward and got a better look at the vines, which on closer inspection looked more like strange pulsating veins than vines. They may be resistant to sharp objects, but he felt there should be some way to break them. Suddenly, he got an idea.
“Maybe tears can dissolve them?” he asked aloud.
Everyone else seemed thoroughly confused at first, but they each realized what he meant very quickly.
“That could work. I’m surprised you noticed that so easily…” Hornet said. “Still, that would be rather difficult to execute.”
“Not really. You.” Jacob said, pointing at Hollow. “Think of what makes you the saddest, and lean over the vines.”
“Wait, n-” Hornet started.
It was too late to say anything, as Hollow had somehow already begun crying inky black tears. They tilted their head over the vines and the tears landed on them, beginning to corrode them slowly but surely. Hornet sighed and gave Jacob a glare, and Ghost stared at him, presumably glaring as well. Jacob looked at the both of them nervously, only able to assume what he did wrong. Regardless, the vines slowly melted, the blackness of the tears spreading all over them.
It wasn’t long before the vines were completely gone, and Hollow slipped from their grasp, landing on the ground with a thud. They landed on their knees, doubling over in pain, and Hornet and Ghost immediately went over to their side to help them up. Once they were stable on their legs, Hornet sighed again and turned to Jacob.
“Well, now that that is over with, I suppose I ought to introduce you all.” she said. “Jacob, these are my siblings, Ghost and Hollow. You two, this is Jacob Davies, the first friendly member of his kind I have met.”
Ghost simply continued to stare, while Hollow nodded to him and began using sign language with their one remaining hand. Hollow was using a form of sign language completely unfamiliar to Jacob, and he tilted his head in confusion. Hornet sensed he couldn’t understand, so she translated.
“They say that it is nice to meet you. They also say that… they are thankful for your help.” she said, saying the last part reluctantly.
“A-ah, it’s no problem.” he said.
They stood in awkward silence for a while, simply staring at each other, before Hornet spoke up again.
“Hmph. There’s no time to be fooling around doing nothing. We have to get out of this forest now.”
Hollow then signed something, and Hornet responded.
“Well, I figured that we could stay in Jacob’s place of residence. As long as that’s fine with him?” she said in a tone that implied that he didn’t really have a choice.
“U-uh, yeah, sure!” he said.
“Perfect. Then please lead us to your home, if you could.” she replied.
“Uhhh… that’s gonna be an issue.” he said, and Ghost and Hollow tilted their heads. “I have no clue where we are right now.”
Hornet let out a sigh and slammed her palm against her head, then walked past everyone and looked towards the trees.
“Well, we ought to start exploring around again.” she said.
“If we can find the path, I can lead us back to my house.” Jacob remarked.
The group began to march through the forest, with Ghost clinging to Hornet and sending cautious glances at Jacob, and Jacob helping Hollow avoid more of those strange vines. They had a long walk before they would find Jacob’s house, but little did they know that they were being watched…
The forest seemed impossibly large, as they had been walking for ages at this point. It was nigh otherworldly, how vast the place seemed. Jacob could’ve sworn it was a much, much smaller woodland than this. The others seemed relatively unfazed, but all this traversing was taking a toll on him, he had overexerted himself so much it hurt to breathe.
He continued to soldier on regardless, as taking the time to rest would likely not be a great idea if that cult Hornet mentioned was still lurking around. Not to mention he could’ve sworn he heard an extra set of footsteps behind the group, although looking behind himself revealed no one following them. Hornet appeared to have the same suspicion, doing the same thing every now and then.
Everyone grinded to halt when much like Jacob earlier that night, Hollow’s leg got caught on a root, sending them crashing to the ground forcefully. Hornet and Ghost immediately ran over to check on them.
“Hollow! Are you okay?!” Hornet yelled in a panic, something that seemed out of character for the calm and collected alien.
Hollow lightly shook their head “no”, and Ghost began patting them on the head.
“We’ll help you up, don’t worry.” Hornet comforted.
Hornet and Ghost struggled to lift Hollow up, and Jacob looked on nervously, not sure what to do. Suddenly, Hornet began speaking to him.
“While we help Hollow get up, look ahead, see if you can find anything.”
“U-uh, alright.” he said reluctantly, not wanting to be left alone.
Jacob hesitantly obliged and split off from the group, continuing to walk forward through the forest. He was kind of nervous being alone, but his exhaustion was overwhelming most fear he felt. Letting out a hoarse cough, he massaged his head to ease the splitting headache and then rubbed his strained eyes. He swore he could still hear that extra set of footsteps, but he had given up trying to locate the source.
He felt like at any moment he might pass out, and wished he had gone to bed instead of going for a walk. Even still, part of him was glad that this turn of events happened. He still had no clue who these aliens were, really, but he was glad to be able to help them. Even if they made him kind of uncomfortable. He hadn’t really planned ahead as to what they’d do once they got to his house, as he had no clue how to return them to their home, but he decided he’d do his best.
Stepping over rocks and roots, he spent a good few minutes simply walking forward before he spotted a clearing out of the corner of his eye. Dashing over to the area despite his aching muscles, he looked around, recognizing the area well. He was back on the path! He turned around and yelled at the top of his lungs.
“I found the path!”
Jacob then realized how far he had walked away from the group, meaning they likely couldn’t hear what he said. It appeared that he would have to wait for them to show up. He stood in silence for a few minutes, looking around every now and then, but Hornet, Ghost, and Hollow just wouldn’t show up.
It was then that quiet footsteps broke the silence. Jacob was immediately on alert, looking around desperately. He couldn’t tell which direction they were coming from, so he tried to make sure he was watching all angles. Maybe it was just Hornet? If it was her, he would’ve heard the steps of Ghost and Hollow as well. Suddenly feeling like his back was exposed, he flipped around to get a better look behind him.
Turning around was a large mistake, as right after he did the footsteps approached right behind him and someone harshly shoved him, sending him falling to the ground. His nose impacted the ground first, causing it to bleed. He rolled over to look at his attacker, and saw a bald, bearded man in red robes, holding a hatchet. Jacob’s mind immediately went back to the red robes that Hornet showed him and the cult she described, and his face went pale.
“There can be no witnesses.” the man said in a monotone voice, his strange orange eyes staring down at Jacob.
The man raised his hatchet and swung it down at Jacob’s crotch. Jacob rolled to the side just as the axe embedded into the ground, and as the man attempted to pull the hatchet out of the ground, Jacob began to desperately crawl away. He didn’t make it far before the man had the hatchet out of the earth and swung it sideways at him as he struggled on the ground, slicing his right leg open. He let out a pained screech as blood poured out of his leg onto the ground, staining the earth red.
He rolled over again despite the searing pain and pressed the cloth of his pants onto the wound in an attempt to stop the bleeding. The man approached and Jacob did his best to crawl away, however it clearly wasn’t getting him anywhere. In a last-ditch attempt to live, he screamed for help.
“HORNET! HELP ME!” he yelled desperately, and the man chuckled.
“That bitch and her braindead friends can’t save you.” he said.
“Are you sure?” a voice said.
In an instant, the man’s now shocked face was split open by a blade, and his head completely speared off, immediately severing from his neck. His head stayed suspended in the air by the weapon, blood dripping from where it was decapitated. His now headless body stood for a moment before eventually falling forward right onto Jacob, the bloody stump where his head was pouring blood all over Jacob’s shirt.
Jacob yelled in disgust and shoved the body to the side and looked down at his blood-soaked clothes, about to puke from the disgusting viscera everywhere. He was in complete disbelief that this was real.
A chitinous hand pulled the decapitated head off the blade and threw it down to the ground. Hornet kneeled down and looked at Jacob.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“M-my leg!” he screeched.
Without saying a word, Hornet lifted up his leg and looked for where the wound was. She ripped the pants leg off and spit into her hand, then rubbed it over the cut. He chose not to question that. She then began wrapping silk around it tightly, and even though it hurt like hell, Jacob stayed quiet.
“Your body is so strange, soft on the outside and hard on the inside. This really is an alien world.” she said quietly whilst bandaging him up.
“Ar- ow- are you some kind of b-bug?” he asked.
“And I’m assuming you’re not?” she said bemusedly.
“N-no, I’m n- owwwwwwww!” he shouted, unable to bear the pain any longer.
“I’m almost done. Cease your complaining.” she said sternly.
“Mmmmph…”
Jacob held his mouth shut as Hornet finished bandaging his wound. Getting up, she held out her claw to help him up. He took it and lifted himself up slowly, despite the pain. He leaned on her once he was stood up
“Can you walk?” she asked, pushing him on his own but still holding onto him.
“Uuuhhh… surprisingly, yeah.” he said, moving his leg up and down.
Hornet let go of Jacob’s hand to let him walk around. He stumbled a little bit, but he got his footing and was able to walk somewhat evenly.
“Wow… thanks Hornet!” he said.
“It is not a problem.” she replied.
“Hey uh… I just realized.” he remarked, and Hornet tilted her head. “Where exactly did that silk come from? Did you have it on you?”
Just as Hornet was about to open her mouth, the bushes rustled and Hollow came walking through, being led by Ghost. Hornet went over to Hollow’s side and checked up on them.
“Are you alright? I’m sorry for leaving, but I had a bad feeling.” she said.
Hollow signed some things and Hornet nodded her head.
“I’m not sure where we are. We could still be very far away from our goal.” she said solemnly.
“I actually know where we are!” Jacob remarked enthusiastically, and everyone’s heads snapped over to him. “We’re on the main path, if we go to the left and take a few turns we’ll end up at the exit to the forest right outside my house!”
“Excellent! Let us start going that way.” she said.
Just as she took a step forward, a drop of water landed on her head. Within seconds, it had begun heavily raining on the group. While Jacob was shocked by the sudden change in weather, Hornet was confused for other reasons.
“Rain? Where is it coming from? Aren’t we on the surface?” she questioned.
“It comes from the clouds up above us.” he replied.
“Hm.” she hummed, wanting to know more but refraining from being nagging. “Interesting.”
“Well, this is as good a reason as any to hurry up. Come on, let’s go!” Jacob said, waving at the siblings to follow him.
While Hornet immediately followed and Ghost followed her, Hollow stood still for a moment. They raised their hand up, letting the rain hit their chitin. The cold feeling it gave as it impacted and rolled off… they hadn’t felt this in a long time. It reminded them of better times...
“Hollow! Are you coming with us?” Hornet yelled.
Hollow snapped from their trance and nodded. They began doing their best to catch up, limping a little as they got back with the group. They all walked down the path for a while, following Jacob’s lead as he took forks in the road like second nature. The walk down the path was in complete silence, the only noise that rang through the forest being the pitter-patter of rain.
Jacob dearly hoped that no other residents of the town were walking the path at the moment, as most of the elderly people who lived in the town would probably have a heart attack at the sight of the aliens he had in tow. Even to the approximately five young people that lived here, not including him, he’d have to do quite a bit of explaining.
However, it had become very clear that there were far more inhabitants of Arborwood than he had once thought. The fact that there was a cult in such a harmless town still didn’t feel real. The fact that he was almost murdered by one member felt even less real. It was something out of the town’s local tales.
Jacob’s brain went back to the attack, and his blood went cold. Not only did he almost get murdered, but he witnessed the death of another human being right in front of his eyes. He stopped in his tracks for a moment and gripped his stomach, holding back the urge to vomit. Everyone else looked at him, but he recomposed himself and kept walking. He couldn’t think about that now.
After taking many turns and crossing bridges over rivers, the path made way to a larger path leading to the left and to the right. Jacob took a turn to the right, and they all walked down the new path as it twisted and turned through the trees. They were exhausted, soaking wet, and miserable, but as they took one last twist in the road, they found themselves standing in front of a massive mansion at the end of the path.
“We’re here.” Jacob said.
Notes:
Welcome to my new major fanfic!
This story's premise is based off of the fic "I've a Feeling We're Not In Hallownest Anymore" by Dogoo. That story was abandoned, but I loved the concept and always wanted to make my own take on it. Well, I've finally gotten around to it! This'll be a weird mix of horror and slice of life-type stuff, with some mystery, action, and maybe even romance(!!!) added in. I've got a general plan of how I want things to go, and I hope to see this one to the end.
The name comes from the Talking Heads song "This Must Be The Place (Naive Melody)".
This'll be a long one, so I hope you're all willing to come along with me for the ride!
As always, constructive criticism and general feedback are highly appreciated!
Hope you enjoyed. :)
Chapter 2: Acclimated
Summary:
The three siblings arrive at Jacob's home, and are given a tour of the place.
Notes:
Guess who's back.
Back again.
This Must Be The Place, everyone's 27th favourite HK fanfic is back.
Tell a friend.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
The shuddering acolyte walked towards one of the grandest tents on the grounds, stepping between two cultists guarding it. She looked around, most of the tents were destroyed in Her arrival, but the main tents stood, being infused with protective magic to protect the residences of the cult leaders. Cultists were everywhere, rebuilding the structures around the grounds and putting up new tents. New structures were being put up, as the general appearance of the grounds changed to the whims of the new god that the cult now worshipped.
Taking a deep breath and leaving behind the outdoors, the acolyte walked inside, tightly gripping a cloth wrapped around a round object. Inside the tent, the leader of the newly re-named Sect of Light was kneeling in front of a makeshift altar with a statuette of a crowned and winged being standing on top. He was whispering words to what seemed like nothing and waving his arms up and down.
There were a few ornate tables on the sides of the tent, with various items of importance and even a glass of wine and bowl of fruit. Chairs sat in the vicinity and candelabras burning with magical flames stood in the corners. A grand rug sat in the middle of the tent, covering the brick floor.
The acolyte cleared her throat nervously and stepped forward. The leader ceased his hand movements and stood up, still staring at the statuette. The acolyte shifted nervously as the leader did nothing but stand there, completely still. He breathed in, held it for a moment, and breathed out. Slowly but surely he turned around, his hood adorned with an eye symbol hiding his face.
“Acolyte Zena.” he said slowly.
“F-F-Father Oculus…” she breathed out, on the verge of falling to her knees in reverence.
“What is it that you have come for, child?” he asked.
“W-w-w-well… i-it’s… it’s… ahh...” she stuttered.
“Speak.” he boomed.
Zena fell backwards, still clutching the cloth-wrapped object to her chest. Her still blue eyes were filled with terror and awe as she shuddered violently from simply being in the presence of her leader. Taking a deep breath and preparing for the worst, her scar-covered hands unfurled the cloth and let the object inside roll out in front of her.
It was a human head.
Father Oculus stared down at the head. It was of a bald, bearded man, with a massive hole going right through his face. Leaning down, Father Oculus gripped the severed head’s temples and lifted it up into the air, inspecting it in closer detail. He turned it around, looking at it from every angle, almost as if looking for a sign. Thoroughly uncomfortable, Zena spoke up.
“T-t-this is the h-head of the acolyte who reported spotting t-the three children of the worm, er, wyrm, at 4 AM last night. I-it appears he didn’t make it out a-alive… much like the others.” she mumbled.
Father Oculus kept inspecting the head in silence. For a second, Zena thought he was ignoring her, however she shook such insolent thoughts. She couldn’t tell what he was feeling, as the hood still completely shadowed his face. She was about to lift herself up when he suddenly spoke up.
“Not a major loss.” Father Oculus said coldly.
Zena sat there nervously, afraid to tell him the next part. She shifted in place and wrung her hands, and Father Oculus noticed her apprehension.
“You have something to say. Say it.” he said.
“W-well…” she started, before looking down and bracing. “He also reported spotting another human with them. All searches of the forest since then have yielded nothing. With the help of another person, they very well could have escaped town by now…”
Zena gazed back up, looking for a reaction out of her leader. He was completely still. His grip on the head had loosened slightly, but he didn’t make any sudden movements. Zena slowly got up from the ground and walked slightly closer to him, although too afraid to touch him at all.
“F-Father?” she asked meekly.
Father Oculus suddenly threw the decapitated head on the ground, and it hit the ground with a slap. His hands clenched into fists as he began to breathe heavily. Zena backed away slowly, afraid that she had incurred his wrath. She began wringing her hands again from the stress, but her hands then went to clutch her heart as Father Oculus lifted up his head, revealing his bright orange eyes, glowing in the dark of the tent.
“A-ah!” Zena yelped in shock.
Before she could react further, Father Oculus lunged forward and stabbed an ornate dagger into the side of her neck, immediately draining the life from her face. The stab wound bled as he jammed and twisted the knife deeper into her neck in rage, further mutilating the already dying acolyte. He swiftly yanked it out of her, and her limp body fell to the ground, splayed out.
The two guards who stood outside the tent walked in, before staring down at Zena’s corpse with indifference. One of the guards walked closer and lifted up her body out of the forming puddle of blood by the arms, looking at Father Oculus for directions.
“Preserve her body. Kinesis will appreciate the gift.” he stated. “And you, clean this rug.”
The first guard nodded and began dragging the corpse out of the tent, as the second guard then began rolling up the rug. Father Oculus turned around after they had both left and stared at the winged statuette, grabbing the glass of wine that sat on one of the tables.
“We’ll find them for you soon.” he said to the statuette in between sips. “That, I can promise.”
Jacob ushered the bug siblings through the front door, and after they had all shuffled through sopping wet, he slammed the large door shut. They stood in the entryway, the floor being spared the rainwater that was dripping off of them by the mat on the ground. Jacob silently grabbed and handed out towels to them from a nearby rack. While unfamiliar with the material the towels were made of, the siblings each grabbed a towel urgently and began to dry themselves off.
Whilst drying themselves, Jacob couldn’t help but stare at the otherworldly people he had brought into his home. Their dark chitin softly reflected the lights in the room, and their expressionless faces stared down as they dried themselves. He felt a strange mix of fear and awe, seeing such odd beings casually before his eyes. He didn’t know if he’d ever get used to their appearance. Quickly, he looked away nervously, realizing he was staring.
“Is everyone dry?” Jacob questioned.
“I’m not dripping, if that’s what you’re asking.” Hornet remarked bluntly. “My dress is still quite soaked. How inconvenient.”
“I can’t do anything about that right now, unfortunately.” Jacob said as he grabbed the now damp towels from each of the siblings.
Hollow signed something, and Hornet nodded.
“Yes, we must thank you for your hospitality.” she said.
“It’s no problem!” Jacob chirped as he took his shoes off. “Let’s get a move on, then.”
Walking through the doorway, the siblings were greeted with the grand foyer of the mansion and stared in awe. Tables, chairs, bookcases, and lines of plants and benches flanked a pathway through the middle that led to two staircases on each side. Each staircase led to the same point on the second floor. A massive chandelier hung in the center of the room, illuminating every inch of the area. There were 6 doors on the main floor, not counting the entrance, and 4 doors on the top floor.
Hornet leaned over and began whispering to her siblings as they all scanned the room in disbelief. Jacob grumbled at the reaction the foyer had elicited.
“I’m guessing you can’t see the dust everywhere from here.” he remarked.
The architecture of the room was unlike anything Hornet, Ghost, and Hollow had seen. It was marvellous yet unnerving to them, and only served to establish further that they were in an alien world.
“It’s almost like the palace…” Hornet mumbled.
Jacob stepped forward, waving at the siblings to follow. As they walked down the center of the foyer, Hornet found herself somewhat twitchy, unsure of what to think of this place. Ghost seemed to share her unease, drifting closer to her and reaching to hold her claw. She took it without a second thought. Hollow on the other hand was looking around in a daze, seemingly just as reminded of the palace as Hornet was. Jacob came to halt in front of the benches and motioned towards them.
“I’m going to go take a shower and get changed, I’d like you three to sit and wait here while I do, okay?” Jacob asked.
None of them knew what shower meant in this context, and why he was taking one of these things for himself, but Hollow quickly nodded. Ghost simply stared, and Hornet let out a huff.
“Fine, I suppose we can wait while you obtain a shower. But don’t be long, I don’t feel like sitting around for an age.” she said sharply.
“A-alright.” Jacob stuttered.
The siblings sat down on the benches, Hollow causing the bench they and Ghost sat on to strain. Hornet swept her claw over the bench she sat on, feeling the strange material and sending dust flying. Jacob walked away from the siblings and up one of the sets of stairs, before opening and disappearing through a door on the second floor.
On the other side, he made his way down the lavishly-furnished hallways. Pictures of various things lined the walls, including many of his parents, something that irritated him to no end. Dust covered everything around, as he hadn’t bothered to clean anything in a long time. He hardly cared for the superfluous knick-knacks that littered the house, as they and even the mansion itself were simply empty gifts from his parents. Just past the library that he never used, Jacob found himself in front of the door to his room.
He turned the handle and went inside, not even bothering to look at his very messy room and making a beeline right to the en-suite bathroom. Turning on the light revealed the pristine bathroom to him. It was one of the few places in the mansion he actually kept clean, for obvious reasons. He grabbed the set of clean clothes he had left in one of the drawers for emergency situations and set them on the counter. He lifted his shirt off, then looked down at it.
It was still stained with blood. The blood of another human. One that had died. Blood of a dead man. One that died right before his eyes. He watched the man’s life disappear in an instant. The head speared right off, ripped from the neck like broken bread. Blood gushing, empty orange eyes, mouth agape.
In a sudden panic, Jacob threw the shirt into the corner of the room and stumbled backwards, hitting his back on the counter and slumping onto the ground. He tried to calm his breathing but thinking about it only made him panic more. He wrapped his arms around his knees and shut his eyes tight, the image of the man’s head being speared off flooding his mind.
Tears had begun flooding out as Jacob felt the part of his leg where he was cut, reminded of seeing the hatchet being raised above him, about to slice him in two, he could almost feel the blood gushing out of him again, the unbearable pain, he wanted to scream. He wanted to scream so loud that everyone would hear. He wanted to scream until he died. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream. He wanted to scream.
It was almost as if he couldn’t breathe anymore. He was choking on nothing. As the memories had invaded every inch of his mind, he reached up and forcefully yanked on his own hair, shocking him out of his panic. He bit his tongue to hold himself from shouting in pain. His breathing still hadn’t calmed, but his thinking was averted long enough to gain agency of his own mind again.
Jacob slipped from his sitting position onto his back, before flipping over and clambering up to the counter. He turned the water on at the sink to the coldest setting, cupped his hands underneath it and splashed his face. While the water didn’t have enough time to get very cold, it still felt refreshing enough and helped calm him down a lot. He breathed out slowly.
Looking up into the mirror, he gazed over his current state. The bags under his brown eyes and his frayed brown hair said it all. Exhaustion was setting in after the long and arduous night he had dealt with, and the chaos was only starting. He had no clue what to do with the aliens that would now be living in his house, and his promise of helping them get home was quickly showing itself to be an impossible one to keep for someone like him.
He rested his head on the bathroom counter in defeat. Jacob was at a complete loss on what to do. He was clearly in no position to care for people living in his home, much less extraterrestrial bugs. Not to mention they, and by extension, him, were being hunted by a murderous cult. And his parents would be coming in a month, meaning he had to do something about the aforementioned extraterrestrial bugs soon.
“This is a waking nightmare.” Jacob mumbled.
He looked over at the shirt in the corner of the room again. He would deal with it later, he decided. Turning around, he turned on the shower and began stripping his remaining clothes off. He couldn’t help but notice that his pants were also stained with blood, his blood. The pants were quickly thrown into the corner along with the shirt, too grim a reminder for him to handle at the moment.
Jacob stepped into the shower, and the warm water immediately soothed him, as it always did. He took his sweet time showering, as he felt that he had earned it after the night he had. Luckily, whatever silk Hornet had used to bandage his wounds appeared to be water-proof, as they stayed firm on his cut despite the shower. The lavender-scented shampoo cleared the grime and sweat out of his hair easily, and before long he was fully clean from head to toe.
Reluctantly he shut the water off and grabbed for the towel hanging on the rack outside the shower. Once dried off he stepped out of the shower and changed into the fresh set of clothes, not bothering with deodorant. Now clothed, he grabbed his comb from a drawer and ran it through his hair, undoing the knots, albeit painfully. He looked in the mirror again, and he looked fairly presentable now, presentable enough to return to the bug siblings.
“Wait.” Jacob said, realizing that he was supposed to be fast. “Shit.”
Hornet sat impatiently, waiting for Jacob to return from getting a shower. How it was taking so long for him to obtain a mere object from his home baffled her, however she didn’t know much about it so she couldn’t say for sure whether or not procuring one was a difficult task. All she knew was that she was getting sick of waiting, and wanted to relieve her irritation, preferably with violence. Ghost also appeared to be restless, bouncing in their seat anxiously. Hollow seemed completely unfazed by waiting, and the knowledge of why it wouldn’t bother them made Hornet growl under her breath.
Ghost took notice of Hornet’s increasing frustration and stared up at her, to which she waved a claw dismissively.
“I’m fine.” she said curtly.
The little vessel tilted their head, before wiping some dust off the bench they were sitting on alongside Hollow. They then pushed off the bench and jumped down onto the ground, aiming to explore the area while that strange fleshy thing wasn’t around. Not much distance was made before Hollow used their only claw to grab onto Ghost’s cloak and lift them up into the air. Ghost flailed their limbs frantically in an attempt to break free from Hollow’s grip, while Hornet looked on at the display tiredly. Meanwhile, Hollow unflinchingly stared at the vessel’s antics. After pointlessly thrashing around for a short while, Ghost gave up and ceased their swinging, looking down dejectedly.
Hollow set them back down onto the bench and began signing.
‘That person told us to stay here and wait for him. We should do what he says.’ they signed, simply resorting to referring to him as “that person” due to a lack of a way to sign his name that they knew of.
Ghost crossed their arms and shook their head fervently. They then quickly unsheathed their nail in an attempt to get their point across, to which Hollow simply tilted their head.
‘He has been nothing but kind and helpful. Why shouldn’t we trust him?’ Hollow questioned.
Hornet scoffed and crossed her arms, to which the other two turned their heads to face her.
“I wouldn’t say for certain he is trustworthy. We are in an alien environment, anyone could be dangerous. However, staying with him is our best bet for safety and survival.” she said with a serious tone of voice.
Ghost shook their head again, seemingly frustrated that their siblings would not listen to them. They couldn’t understand why the two were so willing to entrust their safety to this strange creature. Ghost certainly wasn’t going to let their guard down. Hornet noticed their growing annoyance.
“Listen. You don’t have to trust him, I don’t either, but he could be useful to us. We need to make sure he likes us enough so as to be able to leverage his help. Acting hostile towards him will not do us any good.” she said frankly.
Ghost appeared to think over her words, claws resting on their lap. In their opinion, exploring this new world would be a much smarter idea, as any threats could easily be defeated by the siblings’ combined power. However it was clear to them they weren’t able to change the mind of Hornet and Hollow at all, for some reason. Making the motions of an over-exaggerated sigh, they reluctantly accepted, nodding to Hornet.
Hollow was confused that neither of their siblings seemed to trust Jacob. While they were still thoroughly uneasy over the situation they and their siblings had found themselves in, they felt much safer in Jacob’s home than elsewhere. He had come up with the plan that saved them from those vines, after all. Sensing the conflicting opinions on the situation, Hornet did her best to stay as pragmatic as possible.
“I promise we won’t be in this situation forever. At the very least, it’ll be until Hollow is back to a semi-healthy state.” she said. Hollow looked down.
‘I don’t know if I’ll be able to fight ever again…’ they signed.
Hornet stayed silent. She had obtained the skill of reading the body language of others very well over the years, so as to predict the actions of her foes, and she could see the emotional pain Hollow was feeling. They were desperately holding themselves from crying, and Ghost was doing their best to comfort them by patting their leg. Hornet wanted to help in some way, but she didn’t know how. She felt so distant, but was at a loss as to what to say that could help. Never in her life did she have to comfort someone and she didn’t really understand the emotions of others particularly well.
As a result, she just had to sit there and watch Hollow curl up on the bench as they suffered silently. She looked down shamefully. Hollow was repeating the words that had been ingrained into their mind, and reliving their own perceived failures over and over again. Their remaining claw clutched their face, and they wished they had enough strength to pry their own head off.
It was when a door opened on the second floor and Jacob came running through that all three of the siblings shook their thoughts and turned their heads over to look at the scrambling creature. He was now running down the stairs, mumbling “sorry” under his breath repeatedly and bordering on tripping and falling down the steps. Landing on the floor, he stumbled over to the siblings.
“I’m sorry! I-I didn’t mean to take that long, I g-got… distracted. Yeah.” he stuttered.
“Well, you could’ve been longer. Even still, you wasted a lot of our time. And it looks like you didn’t even manage to get a shower.” Hornet snapped.
“Uhhhhhh… w-whatever.” Jacob confusedly mumbled. “So uh, we didn’t really get a chance to… discuss anything too much. We should probably clear some things up.”
“Well, your species likely has a name. What is it?” she asked suddenly.
“Ah, well I’m what’s known as a human. We’re the only sentient species on the planet- well, thought to be, I suppose.” he said.
“...I see.” Hornet said, not quite liking the implications that arose from these “humans” being assumed to be the only sentient beings on “the planet”, whatever that is.
“Well, how about you three? What are you?” Jacob asked.
“Fine, I’ll answer this time. I myself am a spider, and my siblings are… well… it’s complicated….” Hornet said cautiously.
Jacob didn’t take notice of her reluctance to explain what Ghost and Hollow were, as the realization of where the silk that Hornet used to bandage him came from hit him. His fear of reopening the wound overrode the knee jerk reaction to wanting to remove the silk in response to this knowledge, however, so he reluctantly left it.
“Um, that’s, uh, great. Well, you said you’re from a place called ‘Hallownest’, right? How did you get here?” Jacob questioned.
“I’m not sure. Ghost and I were in a battle to... save Hollow, and just as we defeated our foe, an explosion knocked us out and we awoke in that accursed overgrowth.” Hornet said, slightly lacking her usual confidence. “I suspect it had something to do with that cult.”
“Yeah, that makes sense.” Jacob replied thoughtfully.
Before Jacob had the chance to ask any more questions, Hollow smacked the bench to get everyone’s attention.
‘You’re not going to tell him the full context, are you?’ they signed to Hornet.
‘He doesn’t need to know about that.’ Hornet signed back with a glare, as Jacob was none the wiser to what exactly they were discussing.
Hollow’s head leaned down as Hornet continued to stare at them. Jacob was clearly confused, unsure as to why the mood of the room suddenly became so uncomfortable. He coughed into his hand, breaking the stare-off.
“Is everything okay?” he asked.
“Yes, everything’s fine.” Hornet responded all-too calmly, turning to him.
“Ehh… if you say so…” Jacob replied, unsure. “Well, I ought to show you around the house now. Maybe you could tell me more about that ‘Hallownest’ place later?”
“I suppose.” Hornet replied.
Hornet stood up and straightened out her dress, as Ghost hopped down from the bench. Hollow slowly attempted to get up, struggling to lift themselves off of where they were sitting and shuddering in pain as they tried. Hornet walked over to them and helped them, anchoring her arms around their sides to bring them up. Once Hollow was stable, Jacob motioned to the door opposite the front door, in between the staircases.
The group walked silently towards the door and after reaching it, Jacob twisted the doorknob slowly. The doorway revealed a lavish dining room, with a long, glass table in the center of the room, adorned with fine silverware in front of every chair. The entire room was illuminated by the moonlight shining through the massive window at the back, backlighting the unlit candelabra in the middle of the table.
“This is the dining room.” Jacob said, flicking a small switch to the side of the door.
“Quite gaudy.” Hornet scoffed as the room was magically lit up, which surprised her.
“Thank my parents.” Jacob droned.
Hornet observed the lights on the ceiling. She didn’t know what was powering them, as she couldn’t see any lumaflies within them, nor how they would be activated by a simple switch. Perhaps the lumaflies were incredibly small, or maybe some kind of glowing liquid was within the light. Going by the way Ghost was staring at them as well, she presumed that they were having similar questions. She made a mental note to break one “accidentally” another time to find out what was inside.
While the three shorter individuals were able to enter through the doorway easily, Hollow had to duck over uncomfortably to make their way through, although they still knocked their head on the doorframe. Now that everyone was through the door, Jacob began making his way around the right side of the table, running his hands over the chairs as he went and sending dust flying. The three siblings followed him down the room, unaffected by the dust being kicked up.
Once on the other side of the room and past the lengthy table, the walls opened up on both sides, on the right being the kitchen and on the left being the living room. The kitchen was similarly lavish to the dining room, with brilliant white marble countertops and ridiculously fancy appliances. The counters themselves were quite messy, covered in dirty dishes and food packaging.
“So that’s the kitchen. I’ll make all the meals for us for now, alright?” Jacob asked.
“What, do you think we’re unable to make food ourselves?” Hornet snapped, glaring at him.
“N-no, not at all, it’s just that you’re guests, I ought to be the one to make the food. Y-you know?” Jacob stammered.
‘You can cook?’ Hollow signed.
“They said: ‘You can cook?’.” Hornet said.
“Yeah, I can. Not well, but I can!” Jacob chirped.
‘Were you trained at all?’ Hollow asked.
“I doubt he was.” Hornet replied, causing Jacob to tilt his head in confusion at the sudden remark.
He turned around and walked into the kitchen, being followed by the siblings. The stained vinyl flooring was lit up as Jacob magically turned on the lights of the kitchen in the same way he had done for the dining room. Ghost scrambled their way up one of the stools that stood behind the counter and sat down as he opened the strange compartment up against the wall. Hornet stepped close and was suddenly hit with a wash of cold air, emanating from the compartment. She shuddered.
“In case you’re ever hungry, we got plenty of stuff in the fridge.” Jacob spoke casually.
“What is… a ‘fridge’?” Hornet questioned cautiously, unnerved by the strange device.
“O-oh, well it’s a machine that keeps food fresh and cold.” he said.
“Hmm… what strange magic…” Hornet mumbled.
Hollow walked forward past Jacob and over to the counter, picking up a medium-sized box connected to the wall by cords. It appeared to be empty inside, with a glass window on a hatch. Hollow turned the object around in their claw and inspected it, noticing writings on the front of it. Jacob turned his head and noticed them looking at it, and stepped over next to them.
“Oh, that? That’s a microwave. If you put something in there, and press the buttons on the front, it’ll heat up whatever was put in!” he said, then picked up a piece of bread from a nearby bread box and handed it to Hollow.
Hollow set the microwave down, opened the hatch, grabbed the item of what they assumed was food and stuck it in the microwave. They started pushing buttons haphazardly, but Jacob quickly stopped them. He shut the hatch and pressed a few specific buttons, and all of a sudden it lit up and began making a humming noise while spinning the food around. The two of them stood there for a bit, staring at it, before a “ding” sounded out.
Jacob opened the hatch and motioned to the bread inside. Hollow picked up the bread, and immediately noticed that it was much warmer. They were in disbelief of the power so casually displayed by a household object. Their awe was short-lived however, as Hornet’s shriek and a clatter caused them to drop the bread. Everyone whipped around to look at her and saw her holding an object that was pouring water onto the ground, seemingly after what appeared to be the cap of the object had fallen on the ground.
Hornet quickly flipped the object and it stopped pouring water out, but the damage had already been done, as the floor was now completely wet.
“Ah, the water filter!” Jacob said, walking forward to pick up the cap off the ground.
“I-I didn’t know that it would pour out!” Hornet yelled.
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Jacob muttered, picking up the cap and taking the water filter from Hornet’s claws.
After putting the reassembled water filter into the left-open fridge and shutting the door, he picked up a towel from a towel rack next to the sink and got down on his knees to dry up the mess.
“Sorry about this. I’ll just be a few minutes here, and then we’ll continue on with the tour.” Jacob laughed.
While he mopped up the water, Hornet looked on ashamedly, fiddling with her dress. Her usual indignance was replaced with mortification, she couldn’t bear to look at anyone in the room after such an embarrassing mistake. Despite priding herself on her skill and worldly knowledge, she acknowledged, albeit reluctantly, that she was completely out of her element in this strange world.
In spite of being so caught up in her own mistake, she noticed that Ghost was poking her repeatedly. She turned to look at the vessel, and she could tell by its body language that they were acting out of mischief.
“Ghost, not right now.” she mumbled.
Ghost continued to poke her, seemingly poking fun at her mistake. Hornet let out a long sigh, hoping that would stop them, but they didn’t seem to get the hint that she wasn’t in the mood to laugh about the situation. Finally, she had enough.
“Ghost. Stop.” she commanded.
Ghost shrunk back. Their arms went limp and they looked down and away from Hornet. She was about to say something, but then they began to rub her arm in what she assumed to be apology, that or comfort. Immediately forgiving the little vessel, she grabbed their claw in her own and gave a squeeze. Looking down at Ghost, she realized how close she was to losing them during the battle with Hollow and the Radiance. Silently, she mused that perhaps the situation they were in was a blessing in disguise. She squeezed their claw even tighter.
Jacob had finished mopping up the water on the floor. He lifted himself off the ground and set the towel on the counter, and then turned to face the siblings.
“Well, I think that’s enough of the kitchen, haha.” he chuckled. “Let’s head… to the living room next!”
Hornet nodded and the three bugs followed him out of the kitchen, back to the dining room. Crossing through the room and over to the left side, the wood floor made way to carpet as they entered the living room. The entire room was lit up by the moonlight coming through a wide glass door leading outside. Couches and chairs were circled around a large table in the middle of the room, and a flat, black, object that looked like a window pane was affixed to the wall.
Jacob walked into the room and began turning on various lighting fixtures around the area. The siblings wandered inside slowly, feeling the carpet underneath them. Hollow walked over to one of the couches and felt the texture of it while Hornet stared up at the flat object attached to the wall. Ghost meanwhile went to stare out of the glass door at the greenery behind the house’s backyard, taking in the surreal atmosphere of this new world’s strange nature. They really wanted to explore more.
Jacob was about to walk through a door at the southern wall of the living room when he realized the three weren’t following him. They each appeared to be deep in focus, and he let them take things in for now. That was, until Hornet started reaching up to the TV and tried pulling it down, to which he coughed into his hand to get everyone’s attention.
“Are we gonna continue the tour?” Jacob questioned.
“Er, yes.” Hornet replied hurriedly.
The three siblings walked over and gathered around Jacob at the door. He opened the door, and as they passed through they found themselves in a familiar-looking room. To Hornet and Hollow, at least.
“Is this a ballroom?” Hornet asked.
“Yes, it is. Completely useless to me.” Jacob deadpanned. “Let’s just keep going.”
The four of them shuffled through the ballroom quickly, despite the fact that Hollow seemed to take interest in the room. Regardless, they reached the door on the other side of the room, and upon going through (or in Hollow’s case, crouching through), they found themselves back in the foyer.
“We’re back here?” Hornet questioned.
“We’re gonna head through the door over there this time.” Jacob said, pointing towards the door near the opposite corner of the room.
‘What about the door over here?’ Hollow signed, pointing at the door to the right of them.
“Why are you pointing… oh! That door just leads to the garage.” Jacob said nonchalantly, despite the three having no clue what that was.
Jacob started walking forward through the foyer, and the siblings followed, and after passing the benches and the stairs, made it to the door Jacob had pointed out earlier. They entered and inside was a room that simply had a staircase leading down. Ghost ran forward and peered down the stairs, seeing a large room shrouded in darkness at the bottom. They reached for their lumafly lantern, only to notice they didn’t have it anymore, having lost it at some point that they didn’t remember.
Jacob stepped over next to Ghost and looked down the stairs too.
“That’s the basement. We’ll leave that for another time, it isn’t essential to our tour.” Jacob said, laughing nervously.
Hornet squinted at his odd tone, but shook her suspicion. Jacob stepped over to another door and waved at everyone to follow. He opened the door but didn’t step in and instead peered inside, and Hornet and Ghost both peeked in as well.
“This is the laundry room.” Jacob remarked.
“I do not see any cleaning equipment inside there.” Hornet said, confused.
“Those big white boxes do the cleaning. They’re called washing machines and dryers.” Jacob explained.
“Ah. Figures, you seem to have a machination for every little thing.” Hornet scoffed.
“Heh, you’re not wrong. It’s good for someone lazy like me.” Jacob laughed.
He ducked back and Hornet and Ghost followed, then he closed the door. Over to another door in the room, they all went through and saw a great deal of complex-looking machines scattered around. Before Jacob could say anything, Ghost sprang forward towards one of the machines and went to touch one of the moving parts.
“Don’t touch that!” Jacob yelled, and they reluctantly stopped approaching the machine. “Those things can be dangerous if you don’t know how to operate them, wait until I’ve taught you how they work before you use them.”
“What are they?” Hornet asked.
“Well, this is the gym, and these are exercise machines.” Jacob said.
“These are for exercise? They appear like elaborate torture devices.” she huffed.
“I suppose so.” Jacob chuckled.
While Jacob and Hollow made their way across the room to the next door, Hornet had to drag Ghost away from the exercise machines, as their curiosity started getting the better of their judgement. On the other side of the door, through a hallway and another door, a room whose walls and roof were made out of glass filled with dead plants greeted them. Jacob panicked, remembering that he had not taken care of this room at all, however cautiously began speaking.
“Uh, this is the-” Jacob started, before being cut off by Hornet.
“I know what a greenhouse is.” she snapped, catching him off guard.
“I... I was just trying to help.” Jacob mumbled.
Hollow was already inspecting the plants, holding the dead leaves in their claws. They were reminded of their mother slightly, reminded that she wasn’t there for them anymore. Those feelings of fear and loneliness were quickly pushed down like most of their emotions they had over the course of their life. Instead, they were simply disappointed to see this greenhouse in such neglect. They made a mental note to take care of this room while they stayed here.
The neglect of this room wasn’t lost on Ghost and Hornet, and while Ghost simply gazed around the room silently, Hornet couldn’t help but air her discontent.
“How did you so clearly completely fail at maintaining this room?” she questioned bitterly. “Were you somehow unable to water plants?”
“I… I don’t have an excuse. I just let everything rot.” Jacob muttered.
“Well, at least you acknowledge it and don’t try to make up excuses. I suppose I can respect that.” Hornet sighed.
“Mmm…” he mumbled.
Hollow continued to look over the plants. They took a peek in the watering can nearby, but the water was still and dirty. They knew they had a lot of work to do if they were going to restore this room, with the biggest hurdle being how to obtain any new plants. Unless…
Hollow looked back at one of the plants. It was completely unrecognizable to Hollow, and the fact that it had rotted didn’t do them any favours in identifying it. Regardless, Hollow gathered their focus, and with what little soul they had left, projected it onto the plant. As the soul infused with it, the colour of the plant shifted from a decayed brown to a life-filled green. The plant, which now was clearly some kind of flower, began to stand up, its vibrant white petals facing up to the moonlight. Hornet stared on in disbelief.
“That’s incredible…” Hornet commented.
Hollow let go of their focus as they ran out of soul. While the flower stood for a few seconds, it quickly began to wither again and returned to the state it was in before. They looked down at the flower again, and seeing their failure before their empty eyes, they held their head in their claw. Ghost walked over next to them and put their hand on their shoulder.
“Don’t worry Hollow, you did your best.” Hornet said.
Hollow stood up and turned around, appearing to let out a sigh, then turned to Jacob.
“Let’s just… go to another room…” he said awkwardly.
Jacob and the three alien siblings were back at the benches in the foyer, looking up the stairs.
“As easy as it will be for us, I’m not sure how we will get Hollow up these.” Hornet remarked. “They really aren’t in a position to climb stairs.”
‘If I go slowly, I should be able to make it up, right?’ Hollow signed.
“I suppose we don’t have any other choices.” Hornet said.
Ghost walked forward and began hopping up the stairs, and waved at the others to follow them. Jacob followed, and just as he went up the first step Hollow grabbed onto his hand. While he was startled at first, he then gripped their claw tightly and began slowly leading them up the stairs. They began taking cautious steps, and Hornet walked up behind them and put her hands on their waist to help them balance.
The four were making their way up the stairs slowly, and they were making good progress up half of the flight. They began to speed up their ascent as they found their stride, and it appeared they would be able to get up safely. That was until Hollow’s leg bumped into one of the stairs on the way up, sending them leaning forward, nearly about to topple onto Jacob. Jacob shrieked and pushed against the tumbling giant in an attempt to get them balanced again, however it simply sent Hollow leaning backwards, looming over Hornet.
Hornet braced, standing her ground and continuing to hold Hollow’s torso, pushing to keep them up. They were bordering on falling over backwards as Jacob hurriedly reached up and grabbed their shoulder with his other hand and pulled forward. Hollow’s legs were wobbling as they struggled to not lose their footing, however they slowly managed to stop shaking. Their balance gradually came back to them, being held in place by Hornet and Jacob.
“Are you okay?” Jacob asked, to which Hollow nodded quickly.
“Let’s take things slower.” Hornet advised.
Their ascent continued, although much more gradual than before. Ghost seemed to be getting somewhat impatient, although they understood that caution needed to be taken after such a close call. Even still, they couldn’t help but bounce in place hyperactively waiting for the other three to make it up the staircase. After very slowly making their way up the other half of the stairs, they had finally gotten Hollow on the top floor. Jacob and Hornet let go of them and they leaned on the railing, attempting to calm themselves.
“Well, now that ordeal is over.” Hornet sighed.
“I suppose we ought to continue with the tour then...” Jacob muttered. “...after Hollow is done taking a breather, of course.”
Hollow suddenly pushed off of the railing with their one claw and stood upright. Everyone else was startled but didn’t say anything as Hollow turned to them.
“Uh, you sure you don’t need a lil’ bit longer?” Jacob coughed, to which Hollow shook their head fervently.
Jacob shrugged reluctantly and began walking to the right, looking back at the siblings.
“Well? Follow me, we’ve got quite a few rooms to look at.” he said.
Hornet walked up behind him as he opened one of the two doors on the right side of the walkway, which led to an ornate hallway. Hollow appeared to force themselves to move as they awkwardly albeit quickly hobbled along behind the two. Ghost meanwhile stayed behind for a moment before quietly catching up.
As the three followed along, while Hornet and Hollow would listen to what Jacob had to say, Ghost let their mind roam as Jacob’s words slipped into the background of their consciousness. Even still, they couldn’t help but stare at him, anticipating some kind of threat.
“...this is one of the guest rooms. You can stay in this one, Hornet…”
Despite their siblings’ words, they couldn’t help but be reminded of their first experience of this strange world by his supposed “kindness”. Their neck still hurt...
“...this is the art room, and this is the music room. Both pretty self-explanatory…”
His actions reeked of some kind of desperation, his words laced with lies, his mannerisms full of cowardice... or at least Ghost thought so. How their siblings weren’t picking up on these red flags was beyond them.
“...over that way is the spa, and over here is the other guest room. Hollow, you could probably use this one…”
Despite their distrust of Jacob, Hornet had a point. There were undoubtedly greater threats out there, such as that strange cult in the woods. Now that they thought about it, if Jacob is genuine, they better hope the cult doesn’t catch wind of them and their siblings staying here.
“...that’s the nursery, this is the master bedroom that they stay in, and just around the corner is a closet and the kid’s bedroom. Ghost can sleep in here cause… well, y’know…”
Ghost cursed their inability to speak, as they wanted to hurl some of the swears that they had learned on their journeys at that comment. Granted, if they did Hornet would probably reprimand them for improper language.
“...this is the entrance to the attic and this is the observatory… oh! I should show you guys this, I think you’d find this pretty interesting!” Jacob said.
At those words, Ghost became interested. They had been very intrigued by the sky of this world, and the strange bright objects that shone in the air. Hollow also appeared quite interested and despite her dismissive attitude Hornet was clearly interested as well. Jacob opened the door quickly and dipped inside followed by the siblings. The inside was rather cramped, however a staircase to the side led up to a more spacious area with walls and a ceiling of glass.
After slowly getting Hollow up the small stairway, Jacob and the three siblings were face to face with a view of the skyline over the vast forest. A telescope stood facing the setting moon and fading stars. The bugs were in awe at the sight of the darkness slowly retreating past the overgrowth, a sight out of an unbelievable fairy tale. As the moon lowered out of sight and the sky brightened, Ghost walked right up to the glass and pressed their face against it.
“Damn, we were up all night…” Jacob remarked, before turning heel. “Hey everyone, turn around!”
Ghost removed themselves from the glass and followed Jacob’s suggestion, and their siblings followed suit. It was much brighter on the other side of the sky, and something shining was peeking behind the view of strange buildings in the distance. While Jacob was grinning, expecting the siblings to be awed by the coming sight, the three of them had sudden feelings of dread forming at the cores of their beings.
Suddenly, a blinding ray of light shone down upon the four of them. Jacob had to avert his eyes, but Hornet and Ghost had much different reactions, unsheathing their weapons and bracing themselves for battle. Jacob glanced over at the two siblings and immediately noticed their weapons.
“W-wait, what are you doing?” Jacob hurriedly asked.
“It’s Her.” Hornet mumbled.
“What are you talking about, that’s just the sun!” Jacob shouted. “Put away the weapons!”
Hornet halted for a second in confusion, but then noticed Hollow, who was staring up at the strange light in the sky and had begun backing away slowly. Their limbs began twitching, and quickly afterwards their legs gave out, sending them falling to the ground on their rear. They raised a claw up to block the light from their eyes, which had begun to ooze inky void tears.
Flashes, memories, horrors, the years of aching agony, they all flowed through Hollow’s head as terror gripped the core of their being. Just when they thought they had been rid of Her blight…
“Hollow!” Hornet yelped, dashing over to their side to block the light from their eyes.
“Guys, guys, it’s just the sun!” Jacob assured. “There’s no need to be upset!”
“What is the sun?” Hornet snapped, clutching the weeping Hollow.
“It’s a giant ball of fire, millions of kilometers away from this planet. The warmth it gives off and the light it provides is what lets life on the surface thrive. Without it, we wouldn’t be here right now.” Jacob explained.
“A-ah, I see.” Hornet mumbled. “Hollow, it’s okay, it isn’t Her.”
Hollow’s shuddering and crying didn’t stop, but they did remove their claw from their face to get another glimpse of this “sun”. It simply stood there in the sky, peeking out behind the buildings and glowing warmly. Hollow could feel the warmth seep into their void. While reassured, knowing it wasn’t Her, they really didn’t want to stay in this room any longer
‘Can we go back to the hallway now?’ Hollow signed with shaky claws.
“Of course.” Hornet replied, before turning to Jacob. “Hollow would like to leave this room.”
“Ah, alright. Let’s get you down the stairs then.” Jacob said.
Notes:
I don't really have an excuse for how long it took for this second chapter to come out, but it's here now!
This chapter is a bit lacking in action at points, but it was necessary to establish the house as a location, given that we'll be spending quite a bit of time here.
Constructive criticism and general feedback are highly appreciated!
Hope you enjoyed. :)
Chapter 3: Curious
Summary:
Jacob goes out to run a few quick errands, and the siblings discover human leisure activities.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
“So, uh, what was the deal with that?” Jacob coughed.
“Please… don’t ask, it’s a sensitive subject for them.” Hornet replied wearily as Hollow looked away, itching a scar on their chitin.
“Ah. Er… my bad.” Jacob mumbled.
Hollow looked back at Jacob and patted him on the shoulder lightly, to reassure him that it was alright. It startled him a bit, but he put his hand over their claw and smiled up at them. He still found the touch of the bug siblings’ chitin strange, it felt so unnatural and otherworldly. Even still, the contact was reassuring, as bizarre as it was.
Having returned to the hallway after the ordeal in the observatory, Jacob and the siblings only had a bit more of the top floor to go through before they had seen almost all of the house.
“Well, only a little bit left of the tour to do. After that we can… figure out what to do next, I suppose, haha.” Jacob laughed.
“Well, lead the way. We haven’t all day.” Hornet said impatiently, gesturing down the hallway.
Jacob held back a snarky comment with regards to the fact that they quite literally did have all day, given that the sun had just come up. Instead, he motioned for everyone to follow him as he turned a corner and went through the hallway, and they all followed. Not long after, they found themselves passing another door to the left.
“That’s my room. I’d… prefer if you didn’t go in there at all, ‘kay?” Jacob said, giving the siblings a glance as he kept walking.
“I’ll respect your wishes.” Hornet responded, albeit now curious what was inside.
Reaching three more doors, one on the left, another on the right, and one straight ahead Jacob stopped and then spoke up again.
“This door here is to my office. I do my job in there, so if you have to go in there for some reason, be very careful not to damage anything.” he cautioned. “This other door is the library. If you guys want, you could check out some of the books in there later!”
‘That sounds like a good idea. Learning about this place we’ve found ourselves in should be one of our top priorities.’ Hollow signed.
“I agree, we’ll have to remember to investigate the contents of that room soon.” Hornet affirmed.
Jacob opened the door that was right ahead of them and walked through, followed by the siblings. Looking around, they were back in the foyer.
“Well, that was the tour. Those are all the places you’ll need to know about while staying here.” Jacob said, rubbing his eyes as exhaustion had begun setting in again.
“Well, what do we do now?” Hornet questioned impatiently.
Ghost jumped forward, getting everyone’s attention, and began patting their thorax where there would be a stomach feverishly while hopping up and down. Jacob leaned down to look at them and smiled.
“You want to eat?” he asked, to which Ghost began nodding.
“What? But Ghost, you can’t even…” Hornet started irritably, but stopped when she saw the way they were staring at her, seemingly pleading. “...Ugh, fine.”
Ghost was elated and clapped their claws excitedly, before bolting down one of the flights of stairs and off to the kitchen. The other three exchanged bemused glances, but then began following after them.
Getting Hollow down the stairs as opposed to up was much easier, but they still had to be careful and take things slow. Filing into the dining room one by one, they could see Ghost sitting in the furthest chair, staring right at them expectantly. Hollow walked over and took a seat next to them, while Hornet followed Jacob into the kitchen to see how he’d make the food.
“I’m just gonna make some toast for us, something simple.” Jacob said off-handedly.
Before Hornet could ask what “toast” was, Jacob leaned down and swung one of the cabinets open, grabbing a shiny grey box with a thick black string attached to it. He set it on the counter, forcefully shoved one end of the string into a hole in the wall, and reached over to a container. Inside was some kind of object split into multiple pieces, and the smell of it immediately hit Hornet’s senses.
It seemed to be food, and it smelled delicious. Hornet realized how long it had been since she ate.
She had to resist the urge to reach out and devour it right away, but when Jacob grabbed as many pieces as he could hold she felt a primal urge to take that food from him, her food, by force. She bit down hard on her tongue to prevent her from hissing, and Jacob didn’t even notice her frustration, luckily.
Jacob set most of the pieces on a plate, but took the rest and placed them into the grey box’s slots. Pulling down on a lever on the side, the pieces of food dropped inside and the insides of the box lit up.
“What exactly is that little machine?” Hornet asked.
“That’s a toaster. Essentially, it ‘cooks’ bread.” Jacob replied matter-of-factly.
“I see, so that’s what that delicious smelling food is called. ‘Bread’.” Hornet mused.
“Already a fan, huh?” Jacob laughed.
“Machines that can cook and cool food… what kind of magic are ‘humans’ capable of…” Hornet mumbled quietly to herself.
She couldn’t recognize any of the telltale signs of soul magic around these machines at all. How they were operating was a mystery to her, her only guess is that it had something to do with that strange string that connected to the wall. Some great power somewhere must be allowing these machines to work.
Now that she thought about it, she couldn’t help but wonder what kinds of higher beings inhabited this world. That ‘sun’ that was in the sky had to be some kind of product of a higher being, there was no way it wasn’t, she believed. Now curious, Hornet tapped Jacob on the shoulder.
“Jacob, what kind of higher being do you believe in?” she asked.
If Jacob had been drinking something, he’d have spit it all over the walls. It took a moment for him to process what she had said, but when he did he glanced behind him with a look of confusion.
“Uh, Hornet, that’s a bit of a faux-pas to bring up religion around people like that…” he said cautiously.
“A fah… what?” Hornet questioned, squinting her eyes at him.
“It’s a… nevermind. I don’t believe in any higher being, for the record.” Jacob answered with a sigh, looking back at the toaster.
“You don’t align yourself with any higher beings?” Hornet further questioned.
“I don’t believe that any exist.” he said succinctly.
While Hornet could understand not aligning with any higher being, the fact that Jacob didn’t even believe that they even existed utterly flabbergasted her. Did higher beings not take an active role in this world, to the point that their existence could be disbelieved? The weight of how foreign of a world she was in seemed to only increase with every new thing she saw and heard.
With a loud shift, Hornet’s musing was disturbed by the ‘toaster’ having finished its job on the pieces of bread. Jacob picked up a small pair of tongs and grabbed the now toasted bread and set the pieces on another plate. Reaching over across the counter, he then nabbed a cylindrical container of some kind of brown paste and uncapped it.
Another incredible smell emanated from inside the container, one that Hornet thought was even better. Jacob scooped a lump of the paste with a utensil and lathered the bread pieces with it one by one. Glancing back at Hornet, he noticed her staring right at the food and let out a short laugh. He had a feeling he knew what question she wanted to ask.
“This brown stuff is peanut butter.” Jacob said with a grin.
“It smells utterly delicious.” Hornet replied breathily.
“Aaaaand it’s ready!” Jacob announced, presenting the plate of coated bread to Hornet. “Go start eating at the table, I’ll bring toast to your siblings in a moment.”
“A-alright.” Hornet said, resisting the urge to eat it right there.
Hornet walked back to the dining room with the plate of toast in hand. Hollow and Ghost stared on with interest at the food she carried with her, watching as she put it down on the table and took a seat.
‘What is that?’ Hollow signed.
“It’s ‘toast’ covered in ‘peanut butter’.” she answered. “Jacob will have yours done soon.”
Before long, Jacob came into the dining room with two more plates of toast, and set them down in front of Hollow and Ghost. Without any hesitation, Hornet picked up a piece of toast and bit into it.
The flavour was unlike anything Hornet had ever tasted. She usually preferred the taste of meat under any circumstance, but this “peanut butter” was like a holy grace upon her tongue. The toast’s fate was sealed as Hornet devoured the rest of it fiercely in what seemed like a split second. Jacob couldn’t help but laugh nervously at how viciously she ate.
Ghost and Hollow both picked up pieces of toast themselves, however their approach was quite different. Instead of eating, they chose to shove the food into their eye sockets. Jacob’s face twisted into a look of absolute horror as the toast sunk into their now ebbing and flowing chitin, like an unsuspecting animal into quicksand. Not long after the toast was all gone, having been fully consumed by the two.
“I… I…” Jacob started, completely still. “...What?”
Ghost simply turned to him and gave him a thumbs-up of approval for the meal. Even though Hornet knew they couldn’t taste anything, she supposed they liked the feeling of their void being ‘“full”. After a few moments of shock, Jacob slowly blinked.
“I’m just… not gonna ask.” he said quietly.
“Are you not eating? You didn’t make anything for yourself.” Hornet questioned.
“I don’t need to eat, I’ll be fine.” Jacob brushed off.
“Hm, if you say so.”
Jacob had been rushing around the house restlessly for a few minutes now, getting things in order. He had decided he was going to leave the house to do some errands so that he was prepared to accommodate his new guests properly. He quickly organized a list of things to do out on the town, and had since been making sure everything was taken care of so that the siblings would be okay to stay alone at the house. The siblings were exhausted simply watching him dart around everywhere.
Stocking the bathrooms, making sure food was easily accessible, eventually Jacob made his way to the foyer and began putting his shoes on.
“So, everything should be in order. If you’re hungry while I’m gone, take whatever out of the fridge.” he said, out of breath. “Two rules while I’m gone, don’t leave the house and don’t break anything.”
“Why can’t we leave the house?” Hornet asked, crossing her arms in frustration.
“Uh, I don’t know if you remember, but there’s a cult hunting you three down. Plus, I can’t have any random people seeing you and reporting me or something.” Jacob grumbled.
“They wouldn’t be an issue.” Hornet said menacingly.
“I don’t care, don’t leave the house.” Jacob snapped.
Hornet huffed loudly, but Jacob simply brushed off her annoyance as he slipped out of the door with a loud “goodbye”.
Now outside of the house, the sun shining down on him, he ran over to the garage door and opened it with a keypad on the side. The door lifted and revealed Jacob’s red car. It was a relatively old model, having been bought by his parents for him. In spite of that, it was quite expensive back when it was put on the market, and looked quite fancy.
Jacob hated the thing, finding it far too tacky, but it was what he had so he put up with it. Jumping inside the vehicle and putting his keys in, the engine took quite a bit longer to start than usual, but eventually it flared up and the fan turned on, blasting him in the face with cool air.
Putting it into gear and gently pushing on the gas, Jacob slowly drove out of the garage and down the road that led from his house. The road was surrounded by lines of trees, but after going down the road for long enough, he was out of the forest and turned onto the street.
To say the sight of Arborwood’s suburbs was idyllic would be an understatement. As Jacob drove down the streets through the town, he was inundated with the most picturesque images of life. Children ran and played in the front yards, jumping through sprinklers and playing basketball on their homes’ driveways. Elderly people went for walks, waving at parents mowing their lawns or simply sitting and enjoying the weather.
White picket fences and flowers in gardens being tended to by hired gardeners, chalk drawings for games of hopscotch on the sidewalk, neighbours exchanging pleasantries, it was almost as if joy itself flowed through the air instead of oxygen.
But Jacob couldn’t look at these sights without feeling a sense of unease. With the knowledge that he had gained over the past day - the cult, the siblings - to see people going about their days as if nothing was wrong put him off. What would these streets look like if people were aware of the dangers nearby?
The children, the elders, and everyone in between, all smiles and laughter… all the while horror crept over the horizon.
Jacob reached absentmindedly for the play button on the car’s media player. He let out a loud yawn, the adrenaline that had been fueling him fading fast. Now that he thought about it, it probably wasn’t a good idea to be driving while so sleep-deprived. Pressing the button, whatever he had left in the CD tray began playing through the speakers.
“Sunshine, lollipops and rainbows
Everything that's wonderful is wh-”
“Nope. Not in the mood for that right now.” Jacob deadpanned, turning off the media player.
Jacob slumped back into his seat as he let his instincts guide him down the roads, pondering what he’d do with the supernatural situation he found himself in. After he had the siblings fully settled in, what would he do then? He was utterly clueless in all this, just along for the ride. Maybe he could find some kind of scientist to hel-
“HEY!”
Jacob was startled out of his thoughts and instinctively slammed the breaks, but it wasn’t fast enough. The car slammed into a teenager who was crossing the road, sending the youth tumbling to the ground. Jacob cringed as the young man yelled in pain, howling out expletives. Looking around nervously, he could see all of the people in the vicinity giving him dirty looks. He couldn’t help but shrink back into his seat.
Slowly but surely the teenager lifted himself off of the ground, and Jacob rolled down the window to lean out of it.
“Hey, uh, are you okay? Sorr-” he started cautiously, before being cut off.
“H- ugh- fuck you, asshole! I hope you choke on a fucking chode, you dickweed!” the teen shouted, subsequently skulking off.
Jacob didn’t have time to respond before the light went green and he had to keep driving. Rubbing his head and letting out a groan, he had begun driving through the commercial district of the town. Shops of all kinds lined the street, but looking at his list, there was one place he had to go first.
“Michelle’s Fabric Shoppe”
With a turn of the wheel, Jacob pulled into the parking lot behind the shop and parked his car in one of the empty parking spots. Once the car was parked and turned off, Jacob let out another groan and slammed his forehead on the steering wheel. After sufficiently letting out his misery, he got out of the car, made sure to lock it, and walked around to the front.
The bell above the door rang as he stepped inside the building, and the smell of lavender and mothballs immediately assaulted his senses. It wasn’t unpleasant, but caught him off guard. The inside of the store was somewhat rustic, but it felt homey, enough to make him not notice the people outside of the store staring at him.
Behind the counter was a woman who looked to be in her 40s, looking at her phone idly. Jacob cleared his throat and got the woman’s attention, who he assumed was Michelle.
“Oh hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii! How can I help youuuuuuu?” she said in an energetic and friendly tone of voice, the kind that you would speak to a young child with.
“Hi, I’m looking for fabrics that would be good to make clothes out of?” he responded, unsure.
“Ooooh! We got those! We got those!” Michelle answered with enthusiasm. “What colours would you like, and how much?”
“I’ll take some in green, red, and blue. And as many as you can give, I plan on making a lot of clothes.” Jacob replied.
“Gotchaaaaa. A bit of a clothing guru in the making, eh? Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!” she joked.
“H-heh, I suppose.” Jacob laughed, incredibly uncomfortable.
Michelle went into the back room, leaving Jacob all alone in the store. He rested his arms on the counter and leaned his head down, sighing dramatically. After around 10 minutes, Michelle came back out to the front with a massive stack of cloths and fabrics, heaping them on the counter.
“That’ll be $120.25 for all this.” Michelle said, to which Jacob cringed a bit.
“Here you go…” he replied, handing a credit card from his wallet.
“Thank you! Let me just put all these in a bag for ya.” she chirped with a wink.
Once the fabrics were bagged, Jacob took his card back and coughed a quiet “thank you”. Leaving the store as quickly as humanly possible, Jacob was about to head back to his car when he noticed a gardening store across the street, and thought of Hollow. He decided that he could make one extra stop while he was out. Buying seeds was a lot less awkward and time-consuming, and soon enough Jacob was on his way back to the car.
However, he just about dropped the bags he was holding when he caught sight of his car. He couldn’t help but shout curses at nothing after seeing the way his vehicle had been defaced. Keyed into the driver-side door were the words:
“U SUX”
Jacob stomped over to his car, opened the door, and slammed it shut as he hopped in. Choosing to grace the steering wheel with his forehead upwards of 10 times as opposed to the one time earlier, he stopped once his head felt incredibly sore. He sat there for a while, wishing he was dead and buried, but eventually he got over it long enough to get back to finishing the errands he had planned.
Next stop was the post office, but the misery of having to drive around with such a message etched into his car was incredibly humiliating. Jacob could feel people staring at him, but he desperately tried to ignore everything around him and just focus on driving. Given how frustrated and impatient he was feeling at the moment, it was hard resisting the urge to run red lights, but after some time he was parked in front of the post office.
The post office was full of people going to and fro, reminding Jacob of the fact that he didn’t do well with crowds at all. Shoulders sagging, he lumbered over to his mailbox and opened it with a key. It was hard to focus thanks to the crowd noise and his crushing sleep deprivation, not to mention the feeling he was being watched, but with enough concentration, his vision un-blurred and he was able to read the mail he got.
A great deal of junk mail was in the mailbox, enough deals to make a car salesman blush. Some mail from the government, which he would probably forget about within hours. The pictures that he had been waiting for, which seemed to have bent at some point during the delivery - just his luck.
One last piece of mail, a letter addressed to him from… the Bahamas. Undoubtedly from his parents.
Resigned to his fate, Jacob opened the envelope and pulled the letter out. Written in horrifically gaudy cursive, he knew it was his mother who wrote this letter.
“Dear beloved son Jacob,
Your father and I are so utterly enthused for our fated reunion with our precious baby boy. We hope you have been doing well, and keeping the mansion we gifted you in tip-top shape. We expect to return to a home as brilliant as the day we gave it to you!
It sure would be wonderful to come back to see you with a pretty lady! I hope you haven’t been too antisocial lately, make sure to uphold the family name and keep appearances high! You always were a bit of a disappointment when it came to making friends, I sincerely hope - for your sake - that you’ve gotten better at socializing.
As for us, things have been the same. Your father is always busy somehow, although these days he seems to be even busier. How strange! His cough has been getting worse these days too… I’ve been consistently increasing our alcohol bill day by day, but luckily those kind men pay for most of my drinks. How thoughtful!
I must say however, I have run into some annoyances recently. When I was lounging on the beach yesterday, this RUDE man insisted I stop, as he claimed, ‘littering’. The nerve to accuse me of such a thing! I rightfully told him off, and…”
Jacob had had just about enough of reading this garbage. He crumpled the letter and stuffed it into his pocket, intending to burn it when he got home. While he felt as though he shouldn’t be surprised at the contents of the letter, to see how little his parents truly cared for his well-being once again still stung a bit.
He was quick to shuffle out of the post office, in lower spirits than ever. He had one last stop to make, the grocery store. It was located a bit further away from everything else in town, near the outskirts, so it would be a longer drive.
Back on the road again, Jacob’s sleepiness was getting worse and worse. It was hard to focus on the road, things were going blurry frequently and he had to prevent himself from closing his eyes. Luckily for him, there was a coffee shop near the grocery store, so he could stop by there quickly.
He had been taking the route along the fields on the edge of town, and was flying past the lampposts as he barreled down the empty roads. He pulled down the window again and let the wind in, causing his hair to rustle. With what little energy he had left, he was making solid progress towards his last stop.
Unfortunately for him however, while driving along, the lights and panels in his car suddenly turned off and it suddenly became much quieter in the car. While concerning, he didn’t think too much of it in his deliriously tired state. He figured he could make it to the coffee shop and figure out what was wrong there.
Glancing over to the side, he noticed he wasn’t passing the lampposts as quickly as he had been before. The car was moving slower, and slower, and slower. As the car was coasting to a halt, he pulled over on the side of the road. The car eventually stopped dead in place, and it took Jacob a moment to register what had just happened.
He tried restarting the car, taking his keys out and putting them back in, but the engine didn’t turn on. In a panic, he slammed the dashboard a few times in an attempt to get it to work, obviously to no avail. Without any other ideas, his forehead met the steering wheel once again.
He wanted to cry, so badly.
"Well, I suppose this was a dead end, because apparently I can't read!"
Hornet, Hollow, and Ghost were in the library, intending to learn more about this new world. The library had what seemed like thousands of books, as every single wall was lined with literature of all kinds.
All of the books were filled with pages similar to that of silk paper, but with a distinctly different feeling to the touch, all bound in various kinds of materials depending on the book. Hornet wasn’t sure what material these paper-like pages were made out of, but the sheer amount of books implied it was a common material in this world. Back in Hallownest, silk paper was a very sought-after commodity.
With so much knowledge in the room, it was a prime opportunity to discover more information… but there was one large problem.
They couldn’t read the text in the books.
Hornet must’ve scanned the binds of every book in the library, and not once did she see text she could understand. It was all written in an unknown language, consisting of strange symbols she had never seen in her entire life. Neither Ghost nor Hollow could understand the writings either, and so they were stuck.
Dejected, the three returned to the living room, and sat around on the couches, unsure what to do. Not being able to leave the house severely limited their options, which more than anyone else frustrated Ghost to no end. They sorely wanted to explore this world, going wherever they wanted to and finding a way back to Hallownest.
Hollow didn’t seem to mind waiting around, but Hornet was irritated that they were all wasting time on absolutely nothing. With a huff, she stood up and paced in a circle around the living room.
“Well, what do we do now?” Hornet questioned impatiently. “We can’t simply laze around like imbeciles, we have to do something.”
Ghost pointed at the glass door leading to the backyard, to which Hollow shook their head.
‘We were told to stay in the house. We will stay in the house.’ they signed rigidly.
“Hollow… you don’t need to obey everything someone says, you can make your own choices now…” Hornet said somberly.
‘That person told us to stay here, they trusted us to stay. We should not disappoint them.’ Hollow signed in response.
Ghost tried to convey some kind of message by flailing their arms, but Hollow looked the other way and ignored them. The smaller vessel did their best to get in Hollow’s face and make them pay attention, but Hollow was determined to block out their sibling’s insistence.
Hornet observed their siblings’ bickering silently before remembering something that they could do while Jacob was gone.
“Why don’t we investigate that basement? Jacob didn’t show us that part of the house, perhaps that would be of note to peruse.” she remarked.
Ghost seemed excited by this idea, hopping off of the couch and running over to Hornet to tug on her dress. They nodded their head fiercely and pointed out of the living room, already eager to get to exploring. Hornet glanced at Hollow, silently asking them if they wanted to come along.
‘You two go. I would like to rest.’ they signed, slumping back against the cushions of the couch.
That was all Ghost needed to see, as they had begun dragging Hornet out of the room. Hornet gave a small bow to Hollow before letting her smaller sibling drag her off to elsewhere.
Hollow was now alone in the living room. Their entire body was draped over the couch lazily, and for a moment they let their thoughts drift…
FAILURE. FAILURE. FAILURE. DONOTTHINK. DONOTSPEAK. DONOTHOPE.
breaknotheirshallcostsealthatarethevoidyouknighttolightoftoarethinknovesselyoutowillcryplaguesgreatnomindtoonoandblindinggodthehollowdreamsyouthevoicesufferingborn
They decided to stop letting their mind wander.
Their focus drifted to the large flat object affixed to the wall. It looked like an opaque window pane, pointlessly hanging on the wall. Hollow figured it had to be there for some reason, but they didn’t know what it was. Sitting up and lifting themselves off of the couch stiffly, they stalked over to the pane and began inspecting it.
It was connected to the wall through some strange strings, but aside from that, it didn’t seem like there were any other features to it. Hollow tried feeling along the edges of the pane, and to their surprise they could feel bumps on the right side. Just as they pressed one…
The pane suddenly lit up bright, causing Hollow to stumble backwards and fall on their rear. As quickly as they could, they lifted themselves off of the ground despite the pain and assumed a battle stance at the sudden light. They had assumed they activated some kind of dangerous machine, but as they focused on the pane past the glaring light they could make out moving images of some kind.
Instead of any signs of danger, Hollow could hear pleasant, albeit utterly foreign-sounding music. It was akin to the screech of a belfly, but warmer, less shrill, and somehow soothing. Once it was clear they weren’t in any danger, Hollow eased.
The pane displayed an aerial view of what appeared to be a city, one with architecture very different from that of the City of Tears. Hollow could not understand what this machine was. The moving images didn’t seem like paintings at all, they looked so realistic that they could almost jump through the pane and end up in that city.
Utterly entranced, Hollow sat back on the couch and tilted their head as they absorbed the surreal sight in front of them. Text appeared on the screen, but Hollow still couldn’t understand the language of this world.
The screen faded away from shots of the city to an interior view of a kitchen similar to the one Jacob had. Standing right at the center of the screen behind a counter was a human dressed in formal clothing, hands clasped and staring off to the side. After a few seconds, the human turned to face the screen.
“Oh, hi! I didn’t see you there.” he said with a smile, and if Hollow’s eyes could widen, they would have. “Welcome back… to Anthony’s kitchen!”
Hollow gave a timid wave to the screen, still completely flabbergasted. The magic this world was capable of seemed immense already, but this was on a completely new level.
“Today I’m going to be showing you my secret recipe for pancakes, sooo… don’t tell anyone! Haha!” Anthony laughed. “You’re gonna want to remember this one to impress all of your friends at your… pancake party. Yeah.”
Immediately intrigued, Hollow stared on with rapt attention. The thought of impressing their siblings and Jacob with a well-prepared meal delighted them greatly, and they had already decided that they wanted to follow this human’s advice. How thoughtful of Anthony to teach Hollow about cooking!
Anthony pulled a bowl out from underneath the counter and set it on top, before going over to his fridge and taking some items out.
“First, you’re gonna need two eggs.” he said, cracking and opening them one by one.
Hollow was quite confused to see eggs being used, given how reviled eggs were back in Hallownest. Very few people enjoyed the taste of those supposedly rancid things. The eggs Anthony was using were quite different-looking than the ones Hollow had seen too, they supposed that was what human eggs looked like?
“Next, you’re gonna need some butter- aah!” Anthony started, before the stick of butter slipped out of his hands and onto the floor. “A-ah, well, looks like the butter ran away on us! Haha!”
A twang of pity bubbled in Hollow’s chest. Even if a great deal of food was formerly a sentient being, it was still tragic to witness the butter attempt to escape its fate. Why couldn’t Anthony have put it out of its misery before beginning to cook? They tried not to let their distress show however, as they didn’t want to make Anthony worried.
“Well, don’t tell the people I’m gonna serve about that! Haha.” he joked, picking up the butter off of the ground. “I clean this floor… sometimes, it’ll be fine.”
Anthony glanced off-screen at something, putting his fingers up to his lips.
“Next we just add some milk…” he said, pouring it into the bowl. “Aaaaand that’s all the wet ingredients! Next are the dry ingredients.”
Anthony grabbed another bowl from underneath the counter, got the needed items from the cabinet, and started pouring things in.
“Flour, sugar, baking powder…” Anthony said as he poured arbitrary amounts of each ingredient into the bowl. “You can use measuring cups, but I prefer to just… eyeball it. You know, because I’m a professional.”
That step seemed particularly difficult to Hollow, as they didn’t have any of the requisite eyeballs required for such a task. Even still, they would try their best, to impress their siblings and Jacob.
“Now, here would be when we mix the wet and dry ingredients but… I have one special ingredient to give this recipe an extra kick.” Anthony said with a cheshire grin.
He took a small baggie of light green powder from his pocket, and poured the mystery ingredient into the dry mix, winking at the screen impishly.
“...Well now that we’ve got everything sorted, let’s mix the dry and wet ingredients!” Anthony chirped as if nothing had happened, slowly folding the wet ingredients in.
While whisking the ingredients together, Anthony sipped from a flask he pulled out of his other pocket. Hollow noticed that every now and then he would stop sipping and pour some of the contents of the flask into the mix. Hollow simply assumed it was another secret ingredient.
“Well, it’s all mixed up. Just like me on Saturday nights, haha!” Anthony quipped. “Time to make those pancakes!”
Frying the pancakes didn’t take long, and eventually Anthony had a massive plate covered in over a dozen pancakes. The shot cut to the interior of a dining room, with multiple people of all ages, from children to adults, all sitting anticipating Anthony’s food. Anthony walked in with the plate of pancakes, earning oohs and aahs from his culinary audience.
“Dig in!” he cheered, setting the plate down on the table.
As everyone got to work eating the pancakes, the smooth music swelled as credits began to roll. The last words Hollow could hear were:
“These pancakes have such a unique taste!”
Now that the show was over, Hollow bowed to Anthony as thanks for his teachings. They’d have to find time to make those “unique” pancakes at some point, maybe put in even more research by watching the magic window pane. Unsure what to do next, they looked around the room. Their gaze landed on a strange tablet on an end table, and reaching over to pick it up, they saw it was covered in many buttons.
Pressing one at random, the moving images on the pane had changed.
Hornet and Ghost slowly inched their way down the stairs into the basement. It was incredibly dark, and while Hornet could see well in the dark, Ghost could not, so she had to lead them down the stairs carefully.
At the bottom of the stairs, neither of them were sure how Ghost would navigate with it being so dark, but Hornet had an idea. Looking at the walls next to them, she noticed a switch similar to the one Jacob would flip in most rooms. Flicking it on, the lights in the basement all lit up at once.
“Perfect.” Hornet remarked.
The basement looked quite similar to the living room, with multiple couches and chairs scattered around, but this room had a large fireplace to the opposite of the stairs. All in all, it didn’t look like there was much of note down there. However, there were 3 doors in the room, so they had options on where to go next.
Hornet and Ghost walked over to the closest door, the one to the left of the stairs. Hornet tried twisting the doorknob, but the door didn’t budge at all. It was locked tight, and despite her shoving it multiple times, it stayed locked.
“Well, I suppose we aren’t getting in there. Inconvenient.” Hornet grumbled.
The cool air that seeped from underneath the door would remain out of their grasp, and thus the two walked across the basement living room to the door right of the stairs. This room was open, and peering inside Hornet was surprised to see what was within. She flicked on the light, and what was illuminated to Ghost’s eyes was a large room filled with tables and gadgets.
While they both recognized the sight of a chessboard, other things in the room were not as familiar to them. A blue, striped table with a net of some kind separating it into halves, a green table with holes in the corners, shelves covered in boxes of all shapes, and strange multi-coloured boards on the walls.
An entire wall was dedicated to these strange boxes, large in stature with window panes on their fronts and colourful imagery on their sides. Another wall was lined with long partitioned lanes.
The two had no clue what to make of this room, but Ghost was the first to wander forward to get a closer look at things. They walked up to the blue table and noticed a pocket on the corner, inside being two paddles and a small ball. Ghost stepped up to one of the sides, feeling the table’s material. It was strange, felt somewhat flimsy, and they needed to grab a stool to get up to the height of it.
Having an inkling of what to do, they grabbed a paddle and the ball and whacked it in an attempt to get it to hit the net. It bounced over the net instead and fell on the ground, rolling away underneath the green table. A few seconds passed as the cogs in Ghost’s brain clicked into place…
They suddenly turned to Hornet, who had been watching on silently, and began jumping up and down whilst waving their paddle in the air and pointing at the table.
“Fine. But we can’t play this stupid game for long, we have to keep looking around down here.” Hornet relented begrudgingly.
Reluctantly, Hornet trudged over to the other side of the table. She looked expectantly at Ghost, but they simply pointed behind her at the ball that fell. With a growl, she turned around and got on the floor, reaching underneath the green table to get the ball. It was uncomfortable, but she finally grasped the small ball and got back up.
She quickly tossed the ball to Ghost, glancing away and crossing her arms afterwards. Ghost caught the ball easily, and then tossed her a paddle to play. Without even looking, she caught the paddle and sighed loudly.
Without warning, Ghost served a fierce shot, bounding over the net at a speed a human would be incapable of sending it. Hornet reflected the barrage swiftly, sending it back into Ghost’s side slower than she received it. Ghost was able to take advantage of this slower speed to send it flying even harder than before, forcing Hornet to respond with more aggression.
The two bounced the ball back and forth like trading blows in a battle to death, leaning back and forth and angling shots in an attempt to get past the other’s defences. Oddly enough, the fierce competition put Hornet in her element…
…That was until Ghost slammed the ball with ferocity, sending it careening past Hornet’s defences. Ghost jumped for joy as the ball flew across the room and landed in the corner. Hornet was silent. Ghost celebrated silently for a few moments, but just as they were about to step off of the stool and move on…
“We’re not done here yet.” Hornet growled, slamming the table.
Ghost glanced up at her, before giving a small nod.
The game was on.
Hornet served the ball this time, and she was immediately ruthless with her approach. Her movements were graceful as she moved to and fro, swatting off the ball whilst doing twirls and jumps with elegant precision.
Ghost’s approach was much different, standing mostly in place and leaning around rigidly in response to Hornet’s movement. Even despite the different styles, the match had no sign of ending as both sides struck with increasing fervour.
…56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61…
…82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87…
…138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143…
…263, 264, 265, 266, 267, 268…
The intensity was only then just hitting its apex, as the ball bounced back and forth at incredible speeds. The noise of impacts was deafening, but neither opponent slowed down or lost their focus. Everything was a blur, they were moving so fast that someone observing would see it all as mad flailing.
Hornet had grown impatient, eager to end this fight and settle the score. Knocking the ball back on Ghost’s side of the court, she brought her paddle back behind her as far as she could, prepared to strike the ball with all of her strength. Ghost hit it back, and with two claws on the paddle, Hornet slammed the ball with incredible might.
The ball did not bounce, instead it was sent careening right past Ghost’s head right towards the wall. Ghost could only turn around and witness the ball soar through the air, before crashing right into the wall, making a small hole right through it. Ghost turned back to see Hornet leaning over the table, twirling the paddle in her hand smugly.
“Consider the score settled, then.” she said.
Ghost started clapping for her and jumped off of the stool to shake her claw.
“Good game.” Hornet said warmly, shaking claws.
The two siblings then hugged each other tightly, Hornet patting Ghost on the head. Hornet’s eyes closed as she silently thanked whatever higher beings existed in this world for letting her still have her siblings through all of this. As long as she had them, she’d be okay. She didn’t realize how much she needed someone to care for until she had her siblings back…
Her eyes fluttered open again and she released Ghost from her hug, claws going to rest on her hips. She was about to turn away to see what other games they could play, but then she remembered how the match had just ended.
“Oh no.” Hornet muttered.
Ghost was confused, and turned around to see what she was looking at…
The hole.
The hole that she had smashed into the wall was staring them right in the face, and it wasn’t something they could easily fix. Dread crept through Hornet’s being, unsure of what would be incurred from Jacob by this.
“What do we do…” Hornet wondered.
Ghost suddenly ran off, and while at first Hornet thought they were just going to flee the scene, they approached one of the circular, multi-coloured boards on the wall. The board was unfortunately out of their grasp due to their height, so they waved at Hornet to help them.
Hornet plucked the board off of the wall surprisingly easily. It wasn’t nailed into the wall, and she wasn’t sure how it stayed on due to that, but regardless, it was convenient. Walking over to the hole in the wall, she peered inside and could see the ball jammed in. She pulled it out, then pressed the board over the hole, and like magic it stuck to the wall.
Despite looking incredibly out of the place on the wall, the board covered the hole perfectly. Hornet stepped back, satisfied. She just hoped Jacob didn’t plan on going down here any time soon. Turning back to Ghost, she gestured towards the room.
“What would you like to try next?” she asked.
As it turned out, the car battery needed to be jumped. Jacob sat on the side of the road for an hour before a tow truck finally showed up, far later than they said they’d arrive. Turns out they went to get coffee, and the sight of them sipping from their cups while he was so sleep-deprived almost drove him over the edge. After getting towed to the local car repair shop, Jacob sat around for a further half of an hour waiting as the mechanic jumped the car and checked it out for any other issues.
After rattling off all of the issues the car had, which would cost a couple thousand to fix collectively, Jacob gave the mechanic the okay to fix it all for him. He was also offered a fresh coat of paint to cover the keyed area, but that would have taken even longer to deal with, so he declined.
Another hour or so of waiting, utterly exhausted but unable to sleep from stress, eventually the car was ready to go and Jacob could finally get on the road again. He was a walking corpse at this point, but he was able to hold out long enough to get to the coffee shop. He didn’t usually order black coffee, but he hoped something as bitter as possible would help wake him up.
The taste of the coffee made him cringe, but the feeling of the caffeine entering his system made him down it all incredibly quickly. He was already feeling much better by the time the coffee was all gone, and elected to buy another one to drink later today when the effects wore off.
The grocery store was nearby, and before long Jacob was wandering the aisles, adding more and more to his shopping cart. He was stocking up on as much food as possible, and as wide of a variety as possible, to accommodate his guests. Eventually, his cart was so full he had to go as slowly as possible towards checkout.
“Well, you’re buying an awful lot, aren’t you!” the elderly woman behind the checkout mentioned.
“Y-yeah, I am. Haha.” Jacob mumbled.
“What for?” she asked, beginning to scan the items.
“Uuuuhh, I’m… I’m having a sleepover?” he said with uncertainty, immediately cringing at his choice of words.
“A… sleepover?” the woman questioned, looking incredibly confused.
“Y-yeah, you know, my friends are staying over for a few days.” Jacob reasoned.
“Ohhh, I see!” Who are your friends? Are they from town?” she asked chipperly.
“N-no, they’re visiting from… Canada.” Jacob coughed out.
“Ooooh! Exotic! Are you sure you’ll be able to understand them?” the old woman laughed.
Jacob stared.
Making his way out of the grocery store as fast as he could, he stuffed all of the groceries into the trunk of his car and hopped in. All he had to do now was get home.
Oddly enough, Jacob was able to make it to his house without any incident, and before long he found himself backing into the garage. Groceries treacherously in hand, Jacob opened the front door. Part of him was expecting the worst, to see the entire foyer in ruins as a result of the siblings’ behaviour.
But what instead greeted Jacob was the siblings sitting on the benches casually, discussing amongst themselves in the completely unchanged foyer. They didn’t seem to have noticed him yet, nor as he approached them after setting down the groceries and kicking off his shoes.
‘And so a thieving creature stole her map! Luckily I was able to spot the beast, and she was able to reclaim it.’ Hollow signed enthusiastically.
“I’m glad the young girl was able to get her map back. You’ve done an incredible deed today, Hollow.” Hornet praised. “Thieves are scum, I hope the beast got the public execution it deserved.”
“Heyyyy, uh… what’s going on?” Jacob asked cautiously.
“Oh! Greetings Jacob, glad to see you back. We were just discussing the time we had while you were gone. We all had a wonderful day so far.” Hornet said calmly.
“T-that’s great! I’m glad you had such a good time!” Jacob beamed.
Maybe he could trust the siblings alone after all.
MAY 2ND file for JACOB DAVIES:
Subject seen leaving home via car at 8 AM.
Subject strikes ALEX HUXLEY (see May 2nd Alex Huxley file) with vehicle. Subject seems distracted, either under the influence of vices or sleep deprivation.
Subject enters MICHELLE’S FABRIC SHOPPE for the first time ever. Leaves with excessive amounts of fabrics.
Subject enters MARIGOLD GARDENING SUPPLIES. Has not been entered in over a year by subject.
Subject returns to defaced vehicle (see May 2nd Alex Huxley file, alongside related files pertaining to his friends).
Subject enters post office. Checks mail. Not out of the ordinary.
Subject’s car malfunctions while driving. Is towed to ARBORWOOD CAR REPAIR.
Subject buys multiple coffees, confirming sleep deprivation theory.
Subject enters local grocery store, leaves with excessive groceries.
Subject returns home. Last seen turning onto the road leading to residence.
…
OVERALL STATUS AS DECIDED BY MONITORS: HIGHLY SUSPICIOUS
Notes:
I hope this chapter was as entertaining to read as it was to write!
I can't guarantee chapters will come as quick as this one did going forward, but I'll do my best.
Once again, constructive criticism and general feedback are highly appreciated!
Hope you enjoyed. :)
Chapter 4: Deceitful (Part 1)
Summary:
A mysterious signal tempts away the siblings, and a revelation is had.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Despite being reminded of how many different food options Jacob had around the house, Hornet seemed insistent on having toast and peanut butter for lunch as well. Jacob just went along with it, it was much easier to make than anything else after all. With lunch in Hornet’s belly and in Ghost and Hollow’s unspeakable horrors, Hollow seemed eager to drag their siblings over to the magic pane. Quite literally.
Their excitement radiated out in their body language as they turned on the magic pane, and even though Hollow had described it to them, Hornet and Ghost were still baffled by the sight they saw. The pane was truly like magic to them, a portal to other places in this strange world. An ad for a law office was playing, and while mundane to Jacob, the siblings seemed entranced.
“Ah, you've figured out how to work the TV, huh?” Jacob commented. “Show me the remote real quick, I wanna see what’s on the channels.”
Jacob grabbed the remote from Hollow and switched through channels quickly, waiting until he saw something that caught his eye.
Click.
“A celebrity chef has been sent to state prison today for-”
Click.
“Buy Maxima Jewelry today. Maxima Jewelry: Make your wife love you again-”
Click.
“Our dish soap kills 100% more germs than the competition-”
Click.
“Last time on Execution City-”
Click.
“I know you’re cheating-”
Click.
“This house is like, soooo beautiful-”
Click.
“Ugh, there’s nothing good on.” Jacob grumbled. “Suppose that’s cable for ya.”
The siblings would have settled for any of the channels that Jacob was flipping through, each one seeming just as interesting as the last. They figured Jacob must’ve been very well acquainted with the “tee vee” to find so much of the information on it uninteresting. He simply kept flipping through channels with a sigh, head resting on his other hand lazily. Hornet was tempted to yank the remote from his grip so he’d stop, but after a few moments, Jacob finally stumbled upon something that intrigued him.
“The ocean blue is filled with all kinds of wondrous species…”
“This should be interesting.” Jacob mumbled.
As panning shots of underwater caves and coral reefs played on the screen, a soothing voice relayed information and statistics about the oceans. Jacob’s house guests found themselves even more enraptured by this channel, the aquatic environments depicted even more foreign and magical than what they had seen so far.
“71 percent of our planet is covered in water, and in this water is a bountiful world waiting to be discovered…”
The words of this mysterious voice only raised more questions than it answered for the siblings. They had not yet truly fathomed the size of this world, nor what places outside of the locale they were familiar with looked like. Hornet could only infer from listening eagerly that the world they were in was composed of islands of some kind, amidst enough water to flood the entirety of Hallownest thousands of times over.
The scope of her own insignificance in this unfamiliar plane weighed on her, although all that did was motivate her to become something significant. She rose from the ruins of Hallownest as its protector, and there was no doubt in her mind that she could take on whatever this world would throw at her.
“Jacob, how large exactly is this world?” Hornet asked suddenly, facing Jacob.
“Er, you mean the planet, or like, the entire universe?” Jacob responded, unsure exactly how to explain the scope of either option.
“The uni… what?” Hornet tried repeating with a look of confusion, before shaking her head. “Just, the size of this place you humans live in.”
“Well… very very big. There are like, 195 countries I think.” Jacob muttered.
“Countries? Is that what you call kingdoms?” Hornet inquired.
“No- well, I guess?” Jacob coughed.
“What kingdom are we in now?” Hornet questioned further.
“We’re in the, uh, ‘kingdom’ of the United States of America.” Jacob replied awkwardly. “It’s essentially a… ‘kingdom’ of a bunch of smaller ‘kingdoms’ working together.”
“Quite interesting.” Hornet remarked, turning back to the screen.
Whilst talking, the two had missed some of the broadcast. The narrator had begun covering the different types of creatures that could be found in the ocean, from “fish” to “squids” to “coral” and everything in between. Much like everything in this world, the creatures were surreal-looking in every aspect. The three bugs couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the strange “jellyfish” creatures and the Uomas from back in Hallownest, but aside from those, all of the species they saw were utterly foreign.
As much as it was an enchanting sight to see all of the underwater vistas that these “oceans” held, it was quite strange to see life flourishing in the water. No bugs lived in the water back in Hallownest, some could survive in it - albeit for a short time - but none could live in it. It meant certain death to be submerged in the stuff for bugs… Well, normal bugs, that was.
The four of them sat around the TV for around 30 minutes, simply absorbing the information being displayed. Most of it was knowledge Jacob already had, however some of it was new to him, such as the social hierarchies of clownfish.
Eventually the music in the background began to take on a more sinister tone, as the oceanic depths displayed began getting darker and darker. The ominous atmosphere was cut through by the soothing voice of the narrator, almost as if inviting the viewers into the dark depths.
“We have seen many species so far, but none as mysterious as the creatures that await in the deepest depths of the ocean…”
Shots of harrowing oceanic beasts of all kinds flashed on the screen as the tense string arrangements swelled, text appearing on the screen again while the footage descended into the watery abyss. The over-dramatized horror gripped the siblings with fear, while Jacob simply rolled his eyes at the theatrical presentation. Although he could swear there was some kind of noise in the background…
…it sounded like a baby crying.
While the narrator had begun speaking, Jacob was completely distracted by the muffled infantile wails that seemed to be coming out of the speakers, and it appeared the siblings had noticed as well. The four of them exchanged uncomfortable glances, unsure what to think. Even Hornet was unnerved.
‘Why is that noise happening? I don’t like it.’ Hollow signed shakily.
“I don’t know… Jacob, why is there a child crying? Is this normal?” Hornet asked.
“I don’t know. M-maybe someone had their baby in the recording booth?” Jacob mumbled.
The loudness of the screaming grew louder and louder, to the point that the voice of the narrator was nigh inaudible. Jacob tried turning the volume on the TV down, but it didn’t make the crying sound any quieter. Having had enough, Hornet stomped over to the TV and pressed the button that Hollow had used to turn it on.
The TV went black, having been turned off. The crying didn’t stop.
Jacob followed suit, getting up out of his chair and walking over to the glass door. He shifted it open, and the sound of crying became unmuffled. Ghost and Hollow got off their seats as well, approaching the door as well.
Cautiously, Jacob took a step out into the backyard. Around the backyard were many gardens, some picnic tables, a grill, and a pool covered by a tarp. He couldn’t see any children around the vicinity as he slowly stepped through the yard, glancing around in paranoia. The siblings followed him outside, feeling the fresh air of the outdoors on their chitin again.
Jacob looked all around the area multiple times, even inside of the grill, but he still couldn’t find anything. The crying only got more frantic and desperate, and with an ear closer to the environment, it sounded like it was emanating from the woods. Hollow must’ve noticed as well, as they directed their lanky arm towards the trees and pointed out.
‘The wilderness. It’s coming from there.’ they signed.
Jacob stared into the forest, unable to see anything past the labyrinth of foliage. Anxiety and fear of the unknown gripped him, he didn’t want to be anywhere near the woods ever again, not after what happened last night. While he slowly backed away, Hornet and Ghost began approaching the overgrowth tentatively.
“What are you doing!? Don’t get closer, it isn’t safe!” Jacob growled, attempting to be heard over the sound of the unseen screeching infant.
Either having not heard him or deliberately ignoring him, Hornet and Ghost gazed deeper into the forest. Sharing a glance, they both nodded to each other, before jumping into the woods past the trees and disappearing from view.
“Hornet! Ghost!” Jacob shouted.
Despite his fear of the forest, he started to run after the two frantically. He was about to delve into the mess of trees when Hollow gripped onto his shirt and yanked him into the air, stopping him from going any further. They turned around and started to walk back towards the house, holding the flailing Jacob up as they sat down on one of the picnic tables.
“Hollow, let go of me! We gotta go stop them!” Jacob yelled, to which Hollow simply shook their head.
Ghost led the way as the two siblings creeped through the trees, following the child’s voice that seemed to be leading them deeper and deeper into the forest. While neither of them were certain what this phenomena was, their curiosity and concern motivated them to pursue the trail of wails. The screams led them twisting and turning around trees and rocks, over roots and flowers, and it felt like they would never reach the source.
The siblings had lost track of time at this point, and while Hornet was starting to feel like they should go back the way they came before they got lost, Ghost kept leading the way eagerly.
“I believe we should turn back. We’ve been chasing these cries aimlessly for ages now.” Hornet huffed, keeping up with her small sibling.
Ghost shook their head without even turning to look at her and continued to trudge along. The shrieking had begun causing ear fatigue, seeming closer than ever, and Hornet reluctantly kept walking alongside her shorter sibling. She could only hope that they were close to this wailing child by now.
All of a sudden, the forest went silent as the cries dissipated, and Ghost stopped in their tracks, before jumping down to hide behind a bush. They frantically gestured at Hornet to hide with them, and while confused, she obliged given the urgency of their body language. Kneeling down behind the flora, the two peeked their heads out slightly.
The sight of a human in familiar red robes stood in the distance, looking the opposite way from the siblings and holding a bright torch. Their posture was slouched as they glanced side to side, looking out for anything in the forest. Hornet could also see some tents even further in the distance, meaning the two had stumbled across some kind of encampment.
“The cries led us… here?” Hornet whispered in confusion.
The cultist turned around and looked in the direction of the siblings, causing them to duck behind the bush again.
“Alright, we need to come up with a plan.” Hornet said with a sigh.
Ghost made vague gestures with their claws, but stopped when they realized Hornet had no clue what they were trying to convey. They gestured to Hornet for her to decide on a course of action.
“We could attack from above. I’d lift you up into the foliage and we’ll land down on them. I stab them in the head and you get the jump on anyone else who could be around. Does that sound optimal?” Hornet whispered as Ghost nodded in response. “Alright. On three, we’ll go up.”
Once they were sure the cultist had turned around again, Hornet readied herself to throw her needle up. She counted to three much faster than Ghost had anticipated, and the two suddenly rocketed up into the trees, pulled by Hornet’s needle and string.
The movement was not silent, causing the cultist to spin around at the sudden fwish that reverberated through the forest. Acolyte Hannah peered through the foliage, looking around for the source of the noise whilst making grumbles of irritation. She couldn’t see anything, so she stalked over to where the noise came from. Still nothing.
With a huff, she trudged over back to where they had been standing previously. Ever since Her arrival, she had been forced to keep watch in this exact spot until she physically could not stay awake any longer. Most cultists would take the job with blind determination due to their eternal devotion to the cult, but she really didn’t have it in her.
Her father had been part of the cult, and as a result, she was born into the entire farce. She couldn’t voice her displeasure at all, lest she be murdered swiftly.
“If I find those siblings, I’m gonna strangle the life out of them.” she grumbled.
Her next words would have been “I just want to go home”, but a certain blade impaled through her skull and down her throat made vocalizing and thinking a bit difficult. Her death was immediate.
Hornet and Ghost were pulled down by a string and landed down on the cultist’s body, knocking it to the ground. With a squelch, Hornet yanked her needle from the cultist’s head and readied herself for more trouble. Other cultists who had also been keeping watch around the area very quickly noticed the siblings, as they made quite a bit of noise with their entrance.
All eyes were on the two bugs. After not even a second passed, the nearest cultist screamed at the top of their lungs.
“IT’S THEEEEEEEEEEEEEM!”
Cultists from all around swarmed towards the siblings, torches, axes, machetes, and all other sorts of weaponry in hand. Some crawled out of the tents at the sudden ruckus, ready to join in battle. As the cultists began to approach, the siblings took the initiative and lunged forward.
Such a move was not expected, and multiple unlucky cultists found their heads detached from their shoulders in an instant. Ghost’s wide nail slash cleaved through their necks like nothing had even been there, leaving their bodies to crumple to the ground lifelessly.
As those cultists fell, even more rushed forward, foolishly unpreturbed by the deaths of their comrades. They had very little strategy aside from simply overwhelming the siblings with numbers, which led to many more of them getting slaughtered like cattle.
Hornet threw her needle forward, skewering a cultist straight the chest. She then let herself be pulled by the string right towards the cultist, and kicked them off of her weapon, sending their profusely bleeding body flying backwards. The body flew straight into a group of cultists who had been standing behind, toppling them and covering them in blood.
Hornet’s risky move came at a cost however, as a cultist was able to close the distance and swung their machete towards the bug. Hornet jumped back, only to end up within reach of another cultist about to impale her with a pitchfork. Ghost jumped in and butchered the threat, cleaving their torso in half, allowing Hornet to stab the other cultist swiftly.
The rest of the cultists followed suit, being hacked apart one by one. Some were close to getting strikes in on the siblings, however the two were far too skilled of fighters to be overcome by untrained humans. The grass was coloured with blood and covered with remains, and before long only a few cultists stood alive in the campground.
“Shit… it’s over… we’re done for… and he abandoned us…” one cultist said between shaky breaths.
“We still have something. Something for a last resort.” another said, before breaking into a mad sprint away from the battle.
Hornet leapt forward to put down the escaping cultist, however another one lunged in front of her and swung their axe at her abdomen. Ghost swiftly jumped in and clashed weapons with the cultist, allowing Hornet to grab the cultist’s head and throw them to the ground. They grunted and tried to lift themselves up, but it was too late, as Ghost went in for the finishing blow and cut open their back.
While a few more cultists tried to take the opprtunity to catch the siblings off guard, they were quickly disposed of thanks to Hornet’s needle. As the last bodies slumped to the ground with their guts spilling out, it seemed all of the cultists had been dealt with.
Hornet stepped back and glanced over at her and her sibling’s handiwork. Ripping a piece of cloth off of a dead cultist’s robes, she got to work cleaning the blood that painted her needle.
“Hmph, that was pathetically easy. They didn’t even get a scratch in on us.” she huffed.
Ghost sheathed their nail and looked around. Unsure as to what to do now, they elected to kick around a blood-splattered rock as a distraction while Hornet thoroughly cleaned her weapon.
“I suppose our next order of business should be to investigate these tents.” Hornet remarked idly. “Now that all of them are dead- …wait.”
Ghost looked up at her as she let go of the cloth. Her body language was tense as she slowly scanned the area, and Ghost had grown concerned as to what was wrong.
“We killed the one that was trying to run away… yes?” Hornet asked, readying her needle.
Before Ghost could even process what she had just said…
BANG!
A deafening noise rung out through the forest and Ghost was impacted with an object at absurd speeds, cracking their head open and sending them careening to the side. In a panic, Hornet looked over to the source of the noise and saw that cultist peeking out from inside a tent. He brandished a strange metal object, pointed at where Ghost had just been, and for a split second he made eye contact with Hornet.
He turned to point their weapon at Hornet…
But she wasn’t there.
A long, tense moment passed as the cultist silently cowered, hands shaking. It was hard to breathe, but after enough time, he felt confident it was safe. He lifted himself off the ground slowly and took cautious steps out of the tent and over to the blood-soaked battlefield, walking in between the corpses of his fellow acolytes.
He peered down at the body of Ghost, oozing what looked like ink out of the massive crack in their head. They laid there, lifeless.
“I got one of them… I got one of them… I got one of them!” he repeated to himself as if in a trance, a wide grin spreading across his face. “Hahahaha, I got one of the fuckers!”
Dropping his gun to the ground as he cackled hysterically, the cultist leaned down and gripped his knees. The adrenaline was wearing off and his breathing was labored between shrieks of laughter. He could only imagine what would be bestowed upon him for bringing Her one of the siblings, and dead at that. He’d have some much power, so much influence… maybe she’d even…
“My life is complete! I’ll have everything!” the cultist shouted.
He didn’t notice the tingle around his neck as he laughed and laughed, ignorant to the shuffling of foliage up above him.
His euphoria swiftly ended as he was yanked into the air by his neck on a nigh invisible string, letting out a horrified cough. Wrapped tightly around his neck, he felt the pressure stopping his airflow and he desperately scrambled to pull the string off of him.
Consciousness began to slip from him, and in his final moments he glanced down at the body of that bug. His panic left him, instead replaced with a smug confidence knowing that even if he died, he had still won. That thing was dead, and he was the one to pull the trigger.
The cultist went limp, having suffocated to death. Hornet jumped down from the trees and landed on the ground gracefully, before looking up at the hanging corpse with disgust.
“Your life certainly is complete.” she remarked spitefully.
Running over to Ghost, Hornet kneeled down on the ground and put her hand on their arm, giving it a light shake.
“Will you be okay? You can heal that, right?” she asked, concerned.
Ghost gave a small nod and Hornet stepped back to give them space. Ghost began to focus their soul, and the cracks in their head began to seal shut slowly but surely. The flow of void hemolymph stopped and not long after all damage that had been done by that weapon no longer remained.
After shakily lifting themselves off of the ground, Ghost hobbled over to Hornet who held them steady.
“I’ve never seen a weapon like that… we need to be more careful from here on out.” Hornet mumbled, then stomped on the strange weapon, rendering it useless.
Once it seemed Ghost had fully re-adjusted, Hornet let go of them and gave them a pat on the head. She put her hands on her hips and looked over to the many tents around the area.
“Well, let’s pilfer these tents for any leads.” Hornet said.
The two walked over to the tents and began to look through them. Most of them were filled with nothing of interest, clothing, provisions, weapons, bedding, and the like. While Hornet wasn’t looking, Ghost consumed most of the food that had been left behind as they went from tent to tent.
Inside one tent were strange, bladed metal clamps on a rack. They looked to be some kind of trap, so Hornet stood clear from touching them, although that didn’t stop Ghost from trying to take the things with them. Hornet had to drag the vessel out of the tent before they hurt themselves.
Near the back of the encampment was one much larger tent. Its deep green was a contrast to the other tents in the area, which were all a deep red, and the two siblings had a feeling that it was of some importance. Pulling the drapes of the entrance to the side and stepping inside, it was quite a cluttered environment. Tables covered in amulets, weapons, and other important-looking items strewn around, it seemed to be the base of operations for this encampment.
There was also a human sitting on a chair, facing away from the entrance.
Hornet and Ghost were immediately on guard, drawing their weapons and holding their ground. The green-robed individual didn’t move a muscle, but the siblings didn’t relax. They began to inch closer to the person, needle and nail at the ready to butcher the cultist the moment they got up from the chair.
And yet, the cultist did not move. Even as the two bugs were in striking distance, they sat in that chair without budging at all. Hornet reached out with her empty claw to grab onto the shoulder of the cultist, and just as she touched their robes and gave a shake…
…the cultist slumped over to the side and fell off of the chair, blood gushing out a slit in his throat and a knife cradled in his limp hand.
Hornet and Ghost both jumped back in shock as blood drooled onto the ground in globs and the lifeless face of the cultist greeted them. It took a moment for them to regain their composure, but Hornet was quick to peer over at the table the chair was facing.
On the table were only two things; a letter and a small, purple lens in a golden ring.
While Ghost poked the corpse that laid on the ground, Hornet looked closer at the letter. Of course, she couldn’t understand the text, however it was clear it was written in a much different language than the one she had seen on the TV. The symbols were completely different, however regardless which of these foreign languages it was in, it did her no good towards understanding the text.
Hornet gently picked up the lens so as to not break it, and brought it up to her eyes to inspect it. While it looked unassuming at first glance, peering through it strained her eyes and gave her and headache. It didn’t seem to do anything, as it didn’t magnify nor reveal anything unseen by the naked eye.
She was about to put the lens down and ignore it, but an idea came to her. She held the lens up against one of her eyes and looked down at the letter through it…
…and everything made sense.
The symbols had not changed, by all means Hornet couldn’t have been able to read the text, but she just understood. The contents of the letter seemed so clear to her, she could make out each word as if it were written in her native language.
Pulling the lens from her eye and looking back, the text was once again unreadable. Hornet had no clue what kind of magic this lens was operating on, but it was clearly quite useful. With this lens, the siblings could understand anything they wanted to read.
“Ghost! This magic item makes this writing legible! We could try to use this on the books in the library in Jacob’s home.” Hornet said.
Ghost ceased their poking of the dead body and ran over next to Hornet, eager to see the item in action. Hornet handed the lens to them, and they jumped onto the chair so they could use it on the letter. They held the lens up to their eye and began reading, and Hornet couldn’t help but laugh at their eager body language.
That energy suddenly faded as Ghost continued to read, their arm going limp. Hornet was confused and concerned, now realizing she hadn’t actually read what was on the letter. Whatever was on it had clearly distressed her sibling, as Ghost’s claws were clenched and shaking.
Without any warning, Ghost shoved the lens into Hornet’s claws and stormed out of the tent. Hornet was left standing there, unsure as to what had happened. Clearly, she had to read what had upset Ghost so much. She grabbed the letter and began reading closely through the lens.
“To Bishop Knoth, leader of Outpost #27,
Let it be known that you are on thin ice. As one of our essential 30 outposts, your current duty is rather simple. Keep an eye out for the children of the Wyrm and apprehend them should they be found.
I remind you of this, because your outpost has done an utterly horrific job of accomplishing this task. May I remind you that it was one of your members who failed at apprehending the Wyrm-spawn after witnessing them? Not to mention the general incompetency of the ones that you are leading being a persistent issue for many years now.
Father Oculus is incredibly irate, and you wouldn’t want to earn his unending fury, would you? He would almost certainly end you if he found out you were the one in charge of that miserable sect, you know.
So here’s my ultimatum. As long as you don’t screw up again, I can promise that you won’t have to face Father Oculus. One more mistake on the behalf of either you or your outpost, and I can guarantee you will meet a fate infinitely more agonizing than any form of earthly torture.
We are now Hers, as she is ours. Her guiding light is merciful, so we must adhere to her whims. She expects a job well done, and as a result, we shall serve her these Wyrm-spawn on a silver platter.
Praise her, our Radiance.
From Father Neurosis.”
A fear that Hornet had for a while now had just been confirmed, and she felt sick to her stomach.
“S-so she did live, then. Damn it all!”
Notes:
I've had about half of chapter 4 finished for a few months now, so instead of releasing it as one large chapter, I decided to split it up into two and release the first half of it.
Apologies again for the wait, I gain and lose motivation very dramatically.
As always, constructive criticism and general feedback are very appreciated.
Hope you enjoyed. :)
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