Chapter Text
Cold, dark, lonely, and empty yet the feeling of rushing liquid around her and the self deprecating whispers around her were overstimulating. She felt like she was trapped in the ocean with the current constantly pushing against her unstable form in waves of intensity. She wasn't exactly sure where she was (or what she was currently) but she wasn't worried about that right now. Her priority was reaching that shifting, trembling blue mass a ways away from her. It didn't look like him, frankly neither did his outside either, but she was certain that was him. The part of him that she knew he really was.
She pushed forward through the thick atmosphere as hard as she could when a sudden strong burst pushed her back where she was followed by a distorted, echoing scream. She had no idea what caused that but it was going to be very annoying. What's important is getting to Scratch right now.
"SCRATCH!" She called out his name to no answer. Not even so much as an acknowledgement. Then she remembered how poorly sound travels through fluid. He probably just didn't hear her. Especially through all the horrible things still being said around them she was attempting to block out. The more she tried to push, the harder the waves pushed back. It seemed every time she'd get almost close enough, she'd be right back at square one. She groaned and put her head in her hands. The tingling sensation in her limbs was becoming worse and she noticed her form dripping behind her at a faster rate. She needed to get through to him now or there'd be nothing left of her to get through to him in the first place.
The Chen siblings were doing everything they could to get this rampaging creature under control. And with the loss of their resident plan maker and the one person who knew the demented ink stain the best, they were improvising to put it lightly. June had tried to salvage parts from the mangled trap to possibly make some kind of weapons but they were mostly using the large sheet of metal that used to be part of the base as cover at this point.
Libby had tried to offer the beast food but it was promptly ignored. She needed to regroup with the Chens to read her book of the paranormal with them and create a plan. Surely there was a page on ghosts becoming giant mindless animals. He wasn't exactly hunting them specifically but staying out of his line of sight was the safest option. She quickly ran out from the McGee's house and baseball slid across the road before he could notice her. Was the slide necessary? No. Did she scrape up her knees already barely covered by her damaged pants? Absolutely. But she felt cool while doing it and that's all that matters.
She sat up and huddled up next to the two Chens, "If we're going to find any information on how to calm him down, it'll be here." Libby ran her hands over the worn cover of her beloved pop-up book and flipped to a random page near the back. (The more dangerous stuff was always in the back.)
Ollie leaned over curiously as the tall girl quickly flipped through the pages, June kept watch with her blaster, currently low on ammunition because of plan B (which only served to anger the creature) and intent on making every shot count. The boy's eyes lit up at a certain page and he nearly knocked the book out of her hands, "Wait wait wait, go back! Go back!!!" He pointed and whisper-shouted.
Libby quickly went back a page and wondered how she missed the horrible, scrawling illustration of a massive black ghost, twisted and sinister, looming over a placeholder person for a size comparison. There were strangely no pop-ups on this page. It looked more like a research document or a journal entry than a regular page from this book. In fact, it wasn't even bundled up with the rest of the pages, it was stuck to the inside of the book by a thin sheet of double-sided tape. The subject of the page simply read "Corrupted Ghosts" with three underlines under the two words written hastily in pencil. The page read:
Corrupted ghosts are the most DANGEROUS ghost type. Regular human spirits that became completely warped by a consuming obsession with something from their time living, these ghosts will do anything and everything to finish their unfinished business so they can finally move on from their past. Items and offerings linked to their time alive may be useful, although extracting this information from them is difficult given their violent natures and inability to properly communicate. Do not under any circumstances engage this type of ghost. If you happen upon one, hide and pray it does not find you.
"This is completely useless!" Ollie cried frustratedly, "This doesn't help us at all! We don't know anything about this ghost when he was alive! And… if anyone did… it probably would have been-"
"MOLLY!" Libby shouted as she slammed the book shut and scrambled to her feet.
"Yeah I know. You don't have to sound so happy about it." The boy hugged his knees and pouted.
"N-no! Molly had this idea to get Scratch this soda from his past! She told me about a week ago that he's been keeping the empty bottle in front of his dollhouse right by the bedroom window. I'm gonna go grab that and hope it's enough to distract him for a while!" She spun around and sprinted for the house just in time to barely miss the ghost swooping down on her, his claws missing her by mere inches before he went back up into the air and got distracted by something else.
June stared at the McGee's door as it slammed shut, "I hope she doesn't get herself eaten too."
Ollie turned to her and gave her a stern look.
"What? Is wishing for someone's safety and well-being suddenly a crime? No offense, but this plan is really stupid."
Her brother sighed defeatedly as he leaned back and slumped down against the metal piece behind him. This honestly was a really stupid plan. But it was all they had left.
The same thing over and over and over and over , she was getting exhausted. She knew he was stubborn but not this stubborn. The writhing blue form across the way from her was looking even more distressed and even less like her friend. The tingling had turned to stinging and itching which made the overwhelming pressure of the waves whenever she'd push forward even harder to tolerate. She rubbed at her arms as she began to curl in on herself, finally listening to what the various voices were saying around her:
"You ruin everything."
"Nobody knows you, not even yourself."
"What kind of ghost can't even remember his own name?"
"She forgot you, everybody did."
"You're good for nothing."
"Both of them are better off without you."
"You're a nobody."
She gasped loudly, the last one really hit her as tears flew from her eyes. It was louder than the others and sounded like multiple different people have told him this before. Out of all of those terrible things, that was the worst one. It filled her with… sadness. How could he believe something so untrue? It's not true. It's not true. It's not true . She could feel herself getting more determined every time she repeated those three words. She could feel a second wind coming. Pushing through the intense pressure, she dug her metaphorical heels into the metaphorical ground and never took her eyes off of the remnants of her friend ahead of her.
"I don't c-care what you think, Scratch..." She started to speak with a shaking, uneven voice, "... Or what anyone else has told you."
She kept pushing forward, another scream came with another harsh wave. "You HAVE a name. We gave it to you and you accepted it."
The whispering around them started to hush as she pushed harder and got closer to the trembling shape in front of her, "YOU'RE A MCGEE ," she yelled, vainly hoping she was close enough for him to be able to hear her now, "And whether you believe it or not, there are people still around who CARE ABOUT YOU SCRATCH!!!" She reached out her hands towards the scared blue form, almost able to touch him.
"I might not know who this friend was or what she meant to you, but you have got to snap out of this, buddy!" Her voice broke and tears streamed down her face and floated away behind her like the rest of her slowly degrading form, "FINDING HER IS NOT WORTH DESTROYING EVERYTHING YOU LOVE!"
She finally touched him and suddenly the terrible pressure was suddenly gone. She pulled the amorphous blob into the tightest hug she could as if she was afraid someone was going to take him from her. Familiar features started to slowly reform and his condition restabilized as she hugged him and her joy spread throughout him. She squeezed her eyes shut and muttered these words almost too quietly to hear,
"... I love you, Scratch… and I want to help you… but you gotta let me first…"
A deafening silence rang out. There were no waves, the "air" felt lighter, and there were no more of the terrible whispers. After a few moments, she heard quiet weeping coming from her friend she noticed she was still clinging to, their liquid-like forms mixing and melting into each other at their points of contact, making a warm green color. She loosened her grip on him a bit as he choked back some sobs and began to speak facing away from her.
"... You… you've lost friends before, right? B-because of… moving so much?" He asked with a quiet voice like he was afraid to ask. It sounded almost as if saying the word "moving" was physically painful.
Just hearing his voice again sent a wave of relief through her, "Y-yes, of course… why?"
"... When did it s-stop… hurting … to think about them…?"
The sincerity in his voice when he asked the question was almost crushing. She simply resumed her position of wrapping him in a massive hug from behind and answered softly, "... It didn't."
He sighed. That obviously isn't what he wanted to hear. "I'm sorry… f-for all of… this. I never wanted you to worry bout me. You've got more important things to think about than me having a pity party."
"Hey now, don't say that! It's okay, Scratch! I know this has been really rough for you. But for right now you need to focus on what's in front of you. And if you want, I can even round up our friends, fire up a couple internet searches, and we can see if your friend is still around anywhe—"
"Adia." He interrupted with a gentle and calm voice, "... Her name is Adia." Even lacking most of his details she could feel his face lift up in an attempt to smile.
"Right." She squeezed him tighter, "We'll worry about all that scheming later. Right now, let's just worry about getting you straightened out. You're kinda destroying our street right now-"
"O-oh corn, I am?!?" He asked frantically as he pulled away from her grasp. He turned to look at her and screamed a little in surprise, pointing at her, "And you gotta get out of here pronto! L-LOOK AT YOU!!! You look like you could fall to pieces at any second, why didn't you say something???"
She laughed and rubbed the back of her head with her hand, "Guess we both gotta work on that, huh…?"
Libby stormed out of the house holding the bottle above her head and stood in the middle of the street, "IS THIS WHAT YOU WANT, DEMON?!?" she shouted at the ghost in defiance.
He made a visible reaction after seeing the bottle and charged at her. She set the bottle down and quickly dove out of the way in time for him to quickly circle the small bottle. He inspected it closely and laid down just to look at it. As he laid there, the humans took note of his manic growls and screams slowly dissolving into weeping. Libby almost felt bad dragging the old glass into this knowing what it means to him but if stopped his violent tirade, then so be it.
After a few moments, his body began to slowly melt and completely liquify until two unconscious forms were left laying on the road. The three kids quickly ran over, relieved to see Molly and questioning if they had finally done it.
One was Scratch, back to his usual, smaller, softer form, and the other was Molly. She looked pretty beat up but not too bad for being eaten by a living acidic tar pit. The skin on her arms and legs were visibly red and irritated with a few abrasions here and there while her hair was caked in the awful black ectoplasm. There was also some coming from her mouth. There was a concerning amount coming from her mouth. Nobody could see her chest move either.
Scratch came to first, clearly feeling mentally exhausted from the whole thing, clutching his head in his hand and propping himself up with his other. He looked over to his left and saw her completely still, lifeless body beside him.
"... Molly…?" He asked breathlessly as he quickly got up, hesitated for a second in panic, and began to firmly press on her chest. Viscous black liquid began to pour out from her mouth until she was able to breathe and become conscious long enough to sit up and cough out the rest herself. The other three humans could barely wait before they rushed to her and tackled her into a group hug. When the two girls had let go, Ollie still remained beside her, holding her hand tightly and kissing her face all over. Molly protested, clearly embarrassed by the flagrant display of affection in front of everybody but did nothing to stop him.
Scratch, however, was not nearly as eager for a reunion as everybody else. He was absolutely mortified to put it lightly. He could have seriously hurt her and everyone else today and for what? Some girl he knew years ago and a couple of missing memories? He thought he had lost everything when because of his own stupid mind, he almost truly did. The idea made his stomach do summersaults. He hugged himself, backed up a couple more feet, and watched the kids laughing and smiling together. He couldn't even look for very long before the overwhelming shame made it painful to watch what he almost took away. He could practically feel the burning presence of the empty Surly Sid's bottle behind him sitting idly on the black stained road, reminding him of everything he just did.
Molly picked up on his terrified expression and reserved body language immediately. She first tilted her head and looked at him with a blank expression, then she smiled and threw her arms open as an invitation to him.
"What're ya doin clear over there, silly? Get on over here and join us! You're missin all the love standing over there!"
Scratch's eyes grew wide and he tried to fake a smile and come up with an excuse as to why he shouldn't, "W-well I just… I don't think I—" before he could finish, Libby had already grabbed his arm and yanked him over, placing him right in the middle of a new group hug.
His heart began to race. Danger. I'm a danger. I ruin everything, I can't be around them, I'll hurt them. What if I start turning again…? Even as he tried to wriggle free, they just tightened the hug even more, making sure every inch of him knew he was loved. He didn't understand it. Anyone else would have told him to stay away, that he's a monster and that they hate him for what he did. Anyone else would have told him to apologize and to never open up again, afraid of something like this happening again. But not Molly. Not any of them. None of them said a word. In fact, all of them were smiling as if they were finally fully relieved. None of this made sense. But oftentimes the most confusing moments in his afterlife were the moments he treasured the most. This time was certainly no different. Trembling, wracked with sobs of relief and happiness, he slowly wrapped his arms around his friends, not even daring to wrap any tighter than a loose hold, still afraid of hurting them.
"... Molly?" The ghost said, voice still a little hoarse from all the screaming he did.
"Hmmm?" Molly responded with unmatched sweetness in her voice.
"... You might wanna throw those in the wash before that stuff starts eating through your clothes."
"... Ohhhhhhhh yeah, I didn't even think about that-"