Chapter Text
Ebott’s Finest Dolls was not a place to be on a Sunday minutes away from midnight.
The abandoned doll factory left in the suburbs just outside of Ebott had to be the quietest place on the planet. No one in their right mind ever went there, not when the structure was on the brink of collapsing and there were doll heads and cloudy glass eyes scattered about. This is what kept security guards from ever accepting a job at this place. It's what kept the usual rebellious teens away. The stillness of it.
That’s why you loved it here. You weren’t exactly in your right mind to stay away. Not when there was shit to discover.
Granted, you probably didn’t have the tools necessary to steal anything bigger than a piece of rusted sheet metal, but that’s not what you were here for. Well, yes, the sheet metal, but there was a ton of other good shit that the journal said you needed.
Right, the journal! You swung your backpack off your shoulders and placed it gently against a crate. The journal was black leather, the insides filled to the brim with black, blue, and red ink in markings that seemed to make up a secret language. You had found it resting near the opening to a cave, the very same cave that led to a dangerous opening that many had fallen victim to. Ha, fallen. It's said that those who fall die the same. They either fall trying to climb back up, or lose themselves to the series of caves underneath the mountain.
When you came to visit an aunt many, many years ago, the opening in the mountain had been like a void that beckoned to you. With your aunt keeping a vice grip on your arm, you had no way of falling. But as you two had made your way back to her car after that hike, you had fallen behind to admire the scenery and spotted something dark against a leafy floor of reds and yellows.
The journal.
Without telling your aunt, you crawled into the backseat and flipped through its pages while your aunt talked over the phone with her friend.
The symbols were strange. Hands, faces, crosses, even a mailbox for fucks sake. How could one possibly know what this meant? Google knew, that’s for sure. And after a few months of deciphering the thing… it still made no sense. But that was years ago, before you applied to Ebott University and majored in mechanical engineering, only to find out years later that most of the translated writing was mostly mathematical, scientific, and some other weird stuff that made it seem like magic.
At that ripe age of twelve, that last magic stuff that took a majority of the journal made your head hurt. Logically speaking, magic did not exist. It was the stuff of myth, just like the monsters who harnessed it.
But then the myths came true, and suddenly that doll factory looked damn appealing.
Monsters had freed themselves from the mountain with the help of that child ambassador. A few years later, the world was gradually integrating magic into daily life. Before, magic was believed to be dangerous, and even your mother had warned against it in hopes you would obey. You did not. Nowadays, some restaurants feature magical foods that make human bodies do weird and cool things. Grocery stores now held foods with magic catered to anyone who needed, wanted, or craved it rather than just monsters, and monsters were more than happy to share and educate humans about their magic.
That being said, the notes started to make sense the more you opened your mind to the knowledge previously unknown to humans. And now that they made sense, you could finally start on the machine the mysterious owner of the journal had been trying to build.
You held the original in your hands, turned the cover, and stared at the dark ink. You had already memorized what each symbol translated to in the English alphabet. W.D. Gaster. What a cool name, huh? You placed it on top of the crate and pulled your translated copy beside it, a college-ruled notebook that had a Sesame Street sticker your younger cousin took the liberty of sticking on the cover. During your first few visits, you had found a raggedy broom in one of the supply closets one of the cleaners must have used before. You found it again, sweeping the dirt and debris away to make it safe to sit on the ground without needing a tetanus shot. After kicking at one final glass doll eye, you sat next to the crate and began to read through your notes.
Initially, you had believed the machine to be some sort of energy source, and essentially it was. It was capable of converting geothermal energy into magical electricity. But, the journal had described, it could also recycle that magic, which could essentially provide unlimited energy. Theoretically, of course. Some of the math was flawed or senseless, as if the owner chose not to apply his math or science to the real world without making hundreds of exceptions. But that was just it, you had already concluded that the owner wasn’t even human. Gaster- you had begun to refer to the journal by its owner’s last name- is a monster. Or at least he had been, before losing the journal.
You had found that journal years before the monsters freed themselves from the underground, and yet somehow it had come to your possession somewhere outside that barrier, to which monsters had no access to. It was strange, but that curiosity had redirected itself to the notes inside rather than the origins from which they came.
After scribbling down an illegible list of stuff you decided to start with, you left the journals on the crate and started roaming around the factory, flashlight in hand. The factory itself was huge, to say the least, and had multiple stories. But for fear of it collapsing, like your aunt had warned when it had first been left to rot, you kept out of the second and third floors just to be safe. For now, at least.
With a wrench and your multi-bit screwdriver, the only thing that could stop you now was a nut or bolt bigger than the size of your tools. No big deal.
The six other times you had come here to test who else was visiting the factory was by setting up small strips of tape in certain places and checking during the next visit if it was broken. You also did some research and learned that no one wanted to work here to keep it safe from bandits like you. Mostly because of how unsafe it was deemed. No biggie. No big deal at all. Haha.
There was a big machine that you later learned was the furnace meant for the traditional ceramic dolls. Of those things, you were not a stranger. Lined along some of the racks were cracked, eyeless dolls with faded skin and molded, ceramic hair. It took everything against your better judgment to not raise your wrench and send the heads flying. Your mother had brought one of those things into the house in hopes of getting you into them, but despite the frilly dresses you genuinely thought looked nice, those unblinking glassy eyes were unsettling in every way.
No matter. The furnace was rusted and no doubt the screws that kept it together would also be tough to remove. There were a few things inside that you needed. Mainly the heat exchanger and the burners, seeing as how buying them new wasn’t something you wanted to do. You made a mental note to bring vinegar next time to see if it did anything with the rust.
After moving on to the next few machines, a shifting shadow in the hallway a few feet away from you caught your attention. Your blood turned to ice as you turned slowly to face it, aiming the beam of your flashlight toward it. Oh, it was just the tape. The tape… that was blowing in the breeze. You cursed silently, praying that your mind would stop conjuring up images of a murderer slashing down the tape to get through. No, it must’ve been an animal, right?
How had you not heard anything earlier? Fuck, this was way scarier than you first thought. You moved closer as if possessed by the first dumbass to die in every horror movie and aimed the flashlight at the hallway.
Empty.
A sigh of relief escaped your lips as you spun on your heel, only to crash into something solid, tall, and very much alive.
Before a startled scream could make it past your lips, you felt a hand grip your shoulder and another over your mouth. Oh, stars, this cannot be happening right now. The other person had a tight grip on your shoulder, and in that moment you decided to bite the assailant's hand, but they spoke before you could make your decision.
“Don’t scream,” he said, his voice strained, and then in disgust, “did you just lick my hand?”
You did lick his hand, but only later did you realize what you licked was not skin, but bones. When the assailant took his hand off to wipe it on his sweater, you took many steps back, screwdriver in hand as a makeshift weapon.
You got a good look at him with your flashlight pointed straight at him. For one thing, the bony hand made sense. This guy was a skeleton. A tall skeleton with an eyepatch over his right eye, and the other eye bathed in a pale pink light with a small dark pupil. If his eyes didn’t make him look crazy, the fangs with a cigarette hanging out definitely did.
It took everything in your power not to scream again. “Who are you and what are you doing here,” you finally said, brows knitted together as you watched him take the cigarette out only to crush it on the ground with the toe of his shoe.
“Pa- Cash,” he said. You caught that first mistake and hoped it wasn’t for the sake of keeping his real identity secret. “My cousins call me Cash.”
“Okay, Cash, why are you here?”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” he said with a scoff. You wanted to laugh when he said that, ‘cause he just told you his name. “What are you gonna do? Call the cops? What’ll you say when they ask why you were here?”
He had a point. Maybe you could lie. “I’m here to hunt ghosts.” Fucking smart, you deserve a medal. “Ghost Hunting. For ghosts. Hunting them.”
“Ghost hunting,” he repeated.
“Exactly.”
“That’s fucked up.” He narrowed his socket at you, crossing his arms. “Why do you want to hunt ghosts? To keep them captive in a zoo or some shit?”
You drew your eyebrows together in confusion. “To help them cross over. Why else would I be ghost hunting?” Why were you elaborating on something you weren’t even doing? What would he say when he noticed you had tools meant for assembling and not ghost hunting?
“What are the ghosts crossing?”
This was getting confusing. Did monsters not know about ghosts? After a few silent seconds, the truth hit you.
“OH!” You dragged a hand over your face. “Some monsters are ghosts. Right. Forgot. I see your confusion.”
“Duh,” he said, laughing as he rolled his pupil. He sounded like he was mocking you, even as he frowned and asked, “Why would I be confused?”
Oh boy.
It took about an hour to fully explain the concept of ghosts to him. You even pulled out your phone to show him real ghost hunting videos, showing him that people did it for fun and others for a living. The two of you had ended up seated on a stack of metal beams left in the hallway. For a moment you debated your sanity. You came here intending to salvage the factory's equipment for parts, only to explain the concept of ghosts and spirits and ghost hunting to a skeleton monster who you should’ve been wary of. He was a stranger after all. You would’ve been dead in the eighties, that’s for sure.
“So, you’re not hunting them, you’re just trying to prove they exist,” he said slowly, as if trying to make sense of his own words. You nodded as he scratched at his cheekbone with a disinterested glance at you. “That’s gotta be the dumbest thing ever. Ghosts do exist, always have.”
You shrugged one shoulder. “Okay, but those ghosts you’re talking about aren’t human. I’ve seen plenty of ghost monsters, but never a human ghost."
“Still stupid.” He glanced at you, his hand reaching into his pocket for something. “Is this what humans do with their lives? Do you do this for a living?”
“I don’t have to answer that."
“Ghost hunting.” He laughed, removing a pack of cigarettes from his pocket. “So, human ghosts aren’t like a common thing up here?”
“Dude, no,” you said, but then something else crossed your mind. “How do you not know about this? Monsters have been up for a while now.”
“I’ve only been here for a week, dude , ” he said, slouching against the wall. But he quickly straightened himself when he realized what he said, as if he’d said it by mistake. “I mean, uh, I-”
“Oh, you’re a Newcomer? That makes sense.”
He froze. “Sure,” he said, relaxing again. “That.”
It made perfect sense. Newcomers were a population of the underground that still feared the surface or didn’t want to come up too fast. They waited a bit for the commotion to die down before they joined the other monsters up on the surface. It was quite common for a monster to be seen still adjusting, and they were deemed Newcomers to let others know to be patient. It worked well.
“A week, huh? You mentioned cousins earlier. Are you staying with them?”
He nodded quickly. “Yeah, I am. That’s, uh,” he paused and cleared his throat, which only pushed a barrage of new questions to the front of your brain. “That’s the reason why I’m here actually. It’s all… overwhelming. They're overwhelming.”
“I get that. Family can be overwhelming.” He lit a cigarette.
That’s how you two ended up talking for hours into the night. He seemed closed off at first, hesitant to share anything about his family at all. You would talk about your family struggles, and he would open up more when he related, offering up a comment or two. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. He didn’t reveal too much about himself that’s for sure. Eventually, he went on to complain about one of his older cousins, a stick-in-the-mud skeleton who was too competitive and hated jokes and pranks and anything fun.
“If you met him, you’d hate him. Trust me,” he said with laughter, smoke pouring in wisps from his teeth. His laugh was a nice sound to listen to. It was slightly scratchy or raspy, in a pleasant way.
You laughed in response, elbowing him softly. “Hey, what if I’m into stick-in-the-muds?”
“I’d say you need a mental evaluation,” he said as he elbowed you back, albeit a little too hard. You could feel the sharpness of his bony elbow underneath his sweater sleeve. “Nah. Black hates humans. He thinks they’re weak. And dumb. And a bunch of other insults I don’t care to remember.”
“Tell him you met a ghost hunter at an abandoned doll factory. I’m sure he’d love that.”
“Yeah, actually, I’d rather not,” he said, turning away to blow a cloud of smoke.
You paused, curious as you asked, “Why not?”
“They don’t know I’m out here,” he said with a shrug. “So, if you run into a skeleton asking if you met anyone named Cash last night, I’d say don’t be a snitch.”
“That’s the type of stuff serial killers say.” You bark out a laugh as he dragged a hand over his face. “Yeah, I’m sure a bunch of skeletons are just dying to ask me if I met you last night.”
“Was that a pun?”
“What part?’
He started to laugh. “You’re the worst ghost hunter I’ve ever met. You haven’t hunted a single ghost since you’ve got here.”
“The only ghost hunter you’ve ever met.”
“Right.”
You stood up and he joined you. Talking with him had been fun, the conversation flowing with barely any awkward pauses. You checked the time on your phone, realizing you only had three hours of sleep before you had to be up and ready for work. Cash was busy examining the creepy ceramic doll heads arranged on stacked trays by the furnace. He grabbed one and turned to you.
“Heading out, dollface?”
You roll your eyes as you nod. “Yeah. Ghost hunting will have to wait until next time.”
“Your welcome for the interruption,” he said cheerily, waving the baby head at you as you walked to your belongings on the crate. “I think I’ll stay here a bit longer.”
You packed away your screwdriver and both journals, thanking the stars he hadn’t mentioned them or noticed them. You put your backpack on and turn to him, the beam of your flashlight bathing him in yellow light. He stared back at you.
“Well,” you said.
“Until next time,” he said, tossing the baby head on the top of the highest tray and cringing as you heard the crack of ceramic. “Say, what does a ghost hunter need a wrench and a screwdriver for?”
You shrugged as you opened the entrance of the factory and glanced back out into the darkness of the desolate parking lot, biting on the skin of your cheek as you struggled to think of a proper excuse. “Interrogation tactics. Gotta make ‘em fear you.”
“Geez, now I feel bad for the ghosts. Whatever, see ya later, dollface.”
You look at him, only now realizing how out of character it is for you to be making friends in abandoned places in the middle of the night with no one around to hear you cry out for help if anything happened. But nothing bad happened. If anything, the worst part would be the fact that you had spent the night making friends instead of starting on that project of yours. Shit. Whatever.
“See you later, Cash. Next time I’m putting your ass to work, though.”
He barked out a laugh. “Absolutely not.”
“Someone’s gotta hold the net for those ghosts,” you said as you waved goodbye.
Yeah. Hopefully, he won't be there next time, though. You had to start on that machine eventually.