Chapter Text
It wasn’t like Impulse was struggling for cash. The man had enough money to get buy somewhat comfortably, but the job had sounded interesting. And he was one for interest.
A group with no base of operation, working out of one’s garage and backyard shed. Self-proclaimed “ghost hunters,” but if anything they just seemed to be more of the identifying party, leaving the actual catching for someone else to do. Initial impression, it was a ghost hunter's YouTube channel, without the cameras and speculative events. People were friendly enough; they explained the equipment and when to use it well enough, but most of it seemed coincidental at best.
When he got the cash from his first job, however, his attitude grew a bit less hesitant. It was surprising how much someone would pay just to get told that they did or didn’t have a ghost in their house, and if there was a “type” to it. Most of it was still speculation at best, but that sense of knowledge, as bad as it was, seemed to comfort their client's grip on their wallets. Impulse felt a bit bad about the apparent ruse he had joined, but the surrounding others seemed serious about it, and he wasn’t going to try to crash their beliefs. The locations they went to were barely consistent, with campgrounds, people’s houses, even a high school– though the process was largely the same. Pretty routine once you do one.
For a few months, Impulse worked with the ghost hunters, watching the shed and garage upgrade into a little concrete building, random lockers shoved around, shelves almost at random, and the blue paint cracking off the walls. The group he worked with grew, several parties starting to go out by themselves to further-out jobs. This left Impulse with some less experienced workers who, frankly, seemed too scared of the idea of a ghost that they largely refused to leave the van outside of looking through the cameras he had to set up. For the first time since he started, he needed someone who would actually work with him.
“You want me to what?” Skizz frowned as his friend sighed. The night was like any other, the wind barely audible over the sounds of the TV. Impulse usually suggested having a movie niht or game night, and Skizz had offered his place for the two this time around. Now, the older man knew about his friend’s job, but he hadn’t expected it to get brought up today.
“It’s like ghost investigations.” The two sat on the couch in Impulse’s home, a movie halfway forgotten on the TV across from them. Impulse looked over to Skizz, head tilted. “You literally just go in with like, and EMF reader and a notebook and take photos of anything you find. And then you get paid,” he explained. “All the others are going out on their own, and I need someone who won’t sit in the van the whole time.” He could see the skepticism rising off of his friend. There really wasn’t a better way to paint the occupation without it sounding stupider than it already felt to say.
“And you can’t go out yourself?” Skizz shook his head, laning back into the cradle of his hands behind his head. “Dude, I already have a job–”
“Think of it like freelancing,” Impulse countered. “Fits your hours, you can do it whenever you want. Easy cash.”
The older of the two stood up, walking over to the kitchen. Through the sounds of rummaging, “I don’t know, man. I already work a lot as it is, I don’t have the schedule flexibility you have.” After a moment, an “Aha!” floated back to Impulse, along with the rustling of a bag opening. Skizz sauntered back into the room, a new bag of chips in his hand.
Impulse shrugged, sitting back. “It’s up to you. I’m just saying, it’s easy money.”
The two sat in silence for a while, watching the movie in front of them. After a minute, it was easy to tell that neither of them were really paying attention.
Skizz chuckled. “Imagine us as actual ghost hunters.” He shook his head. “That’d be ridiculous.”
Impulse worked by himself or with some rookies for about two weeks before he heard anything again. At this point, the agency had garnered enough cash to be able to start renting out a larger warehouse, which they would be moving into at the end of the next week. On top of that, the group had started compiling some “higher quality” items, to help emphasise a “better job done,” but Impulse found that what he had been using still got the job done without the extra cash spent. In all honesty, the job was getting a bit dull. The routine was the same, the words to the clients were the same, there was nothing new to it.
However, based on the text that the man received later that day, the job would get a lot less boring. It was hard for Impulse to focus as the day seemed to drag on, rookies sometimes getting confident enough to leave the van, with limited rates of success, clients happy to hear that their house isn’t haunted. The hours seemed to tick by in slow motion. By the time the job was done, everyone except for the ghost hunter left in quick succession. The man waited patiently outside the warehouse door, watching the rest of the time tick by on his watch. He knew that Skizz’s hours weren’t the best, but it seemed to take forever for him to show up. The minutes still seemed to be running at half-speed. Eventually, a little car, short and green, pulled up beside Impulse’s white one, the only two vehicles in the lot. As the door opened, “--better be worth it, Impulse!” Skizz stepped out, shutting and locking the door behind him. “I want to see this–” he shook his hands next to his head, “ ghost hunting job you’ve found for yourself.”
Impulse chuckled, gesturing to the door. “It’s right in here, but we’re moving next week, so don’t get comfortable.” He held the door open, gesturing for Skizz to walk in. As Impulse followed in, making sure the door shut, he could almost feel the silent judging. Looking over to his friend, the skepticism on Skizz’s face easy to read. The warehouse was in no way impressive, the lights dingy, the new equipment held in random boxes they had stored out of the way, and the younger man sighed with that realisation. The more he talked about it, the less impressive the thunder of the job held. The younger man sighed. “It’s–”
Skizz held up a hand, silencing the man before he could speak. He looked around for a bit longer, pacing the area a small bit and investigating the various boards they had set up to help with job organisation. Then, he looked over his shoulder to his friend. “I didn’t know you guys had a couch,” he eventually stated.
“What?”
“The couch.” He leaned against the old set of lockers. “Almost felt too dead in here.”
Impulse just stared at him as the man started to chuckle to himself. It wasn’t surprising, the jokes, but it didn’t help make the job seem more serious than the man already thought. What was he supposed to do? “Why does our couch matter?”
“Because,” Skizz started, “If I were to spend time here, I would want a nice place to sit.”
Skizz stood up again, taking a step away from the locker. Impulse heard the locker clasp unlatch, and the scream from his friend as the man jumped back, a fake skeleton falling next to him out of the locker. It was a practical joke that some older employees used on the interns, with varying levels of success. Impulse couldn’t help but laugh, almost hunching over as a startled “YOU JERK–” echoed through the warehouse. Skizz was seething for a second as Impulse laughed, giving in after a moment and laughing too.
As the two calmed down, Impulse turned to his friend, stifling another laugh. “We usually only get the interns with that–” It took another few seconds for the man to truly catch his breath. “Listen, man, I get that this isn’t the most impressive–”
“Impulse,” Skizz interrupted, folding his arms. “You got me here in the first place. Consider that a win. You have my attention.” He shrugged. “So just go for it.”
The younger man frowned for a second, thinking about how to approach the topic. After a while, the gears clicked into place. Impulse grinned, looking over to his friend. “Do you want me to just tell you, or do you want the whole experience?”
Skizz leaned back in the passenger seat of the van as Impulse pulled up by the house they were looking into. The stars shone dully in the suburb sky, the light pollution of the surrounding urban area almost blocking them out. “Is it legal for me to be here?” He eventually asked, staring out of the windshield. He could tell that it was going to be cold outside.
Impulse shook his head with a grin. “Who’s going to know?”
Putting the van in park, he turned to his partner. “It’s not that bad, I swear. Since it’s so late, we’re going to set up for me to come back tomorrow, too.” With that, he exited the van, the door slamming shut as Skizz heaved a sigh, following suite. The back of the van creaked open, a sound familiar to Impulse’s ears as he waited for the ramp to fall, walking in as the doors swung open.
Skizz walked in behind him, looking around at the sparse setup. One wall was filled with various equipment, a desk shoved up against the end with a computer somehow safely stuck to the middle of it. The other side of the wall was bare at best, though Skizz could barely see markings in the wall for something. “You guys use all of this stuff?” he asked, grabbing a random item off of the wall to look at it. It looked to be some sort of microphone, yet considering the amount of dust on it, it wasn’t used very often.
Impulse looked over, a flashlight clipped to his shoulder. “Well, no, the van is filled for a full group. We just need enough for two.” The older man watched as Impulse grabbed some other pieces of equipment, namely a random glow stick and a thermometer.
“And they won’t like, get mad at us for using it?” Skizz set his item back in place, looking over the rest of the things at his disposal. It seemed to be almost a random menagerie of items, from various cameras to flashlights, a set of notebooks, crosses, and bundles of herbs.
Chuckling, Impulse responded, “It’s literally our job to use this stuff.” He shoved his items into Skizz’s hands, going back to the wall to grab some other things. He had no idea what was supposed to be happening with the things he had been given, opting to wait until Impulse completed his own haul before moving outside.
He felt the wind basically blow through him, a chill starting in his spine. Impulse walked towards the house in front of him, only casting a glance back as he saw his friend shiver. “You know,” Impulse started with a parental tone, “it wouldn’t be as cold if you actually wore clothes with sleeves.”
“Says the guy in a t shirt,” Skizz scoffed in response. Impulse paused at the door for a moment, unlocking the door as his friend looked around the neighborhood. “You can just walk in?”
Impulse shrugged, pushing the door open. “One of the rules for us to come is that they can’t be here.” He flicked lights on as they walked through the house, stopping in the living room. Family portraits lined the wall, various knickknacks sitting on bookshelves and shelves. “It helps ‘clarify the readings.’” The ghost hunter pulled a notebook out of his back pocket, looking through the limited notes that the family had provided. Skizz leaned against a wall as his friend looked around, then sighed and followed as the man walked out of the house.
“You know,” Skizz started, mimicking Impulse’s tone from earlier, “communication is important when there’s more than one person here.”
He heard Impulse snicker for a second. “Sorry,” he responded after a moment. “Not used to having others here.”
“Yeah, well, I’m not just a thing holder.” He folded his arms. “Teach me your ways, homie buddy.”
Impulse nodded. He looked around the van for a moment, grabbed a camera and tripod, and then started out again. “So, you probably gathered that we’re investigating a potential ghost sighting.” At Skizz’s gesture of confirmation, he continued. “What we do here is actually pretty simple. Once we’re inside,” he gestured to the house they were inside as they made their way back to the living room, “generally the family gives us a description of what they’ve been seeing, where they normally see it, that stuff. That,” Impulse pulled the book he had used earlier out of his pocket, “is what I have written in here.” He set the camera down, switching the glow stick in Skizz’s hand for the book. The older man looked through it, eyebrows pinching the scar on his face together as he read through the limited information that his friend had been provided. The info was sparse at best, stating simple object movements, colder temperatures in the living room, and that their TV would shut off by itself sometimes.
“This information seems useless,” Skizz commented eventually.
“Almost useless,” Impulse corrected, setting down a notebook in the middle of the area. “The living room gives us a room to set up in.”
Skizz nodded, looking around the room again. The carpet in the area was tacky. “And then you just…?”
Impulse grabbed the glow stick from his friend, setting it down on the coffee table in the middle of the floor. He grabbed the thermometer from Skizz as well, placing that on a shelf at random. Onto the wall, he stuck a strange projector, the lights emitting from it wide and green. “I set up everything I need to get a video overnight, since this isn’t a rush job like some of the others, and I’ll come back tomorrow to finish up.”
“With?”
“EMF, spirit box, and then maybe use a smudge stick for some extra reassurance.”
Skizz frowned. “This seems a lot easier than I expected.”
Impulse shrugged as he started walking out of the house. “Honestly, most of the job when it’s like this is just reviewing the footage and seeing if anything changed.”
The black-haired man followed behind, hitting the light switches they had turned on as they exited the house, locking the door behind them. Skizz could see where the scam aspect that Impulse was concerned about was coming from. At the same point in time, he knew his friend too well to truly believe that Impulse would be knowingly scamming people. If the blonde found joy in the job, then good for him. He could feel the chill come back from earlier, that wind straight through his bones. Ahead, he saw Impulse shiver too. Neither had seen the weather forecast having the nighttime temperature so low for the day. They weren’t going to be out here for long, though.
Impulse hopped back into the driver’s side of the van, the controls in front of him closing the back of the van as he started the vehicle. Skizz hesitated for a moment. There was something odd about the chill in his body. He couldn’t place what it was, but the feeling was fleeting as he sat down in the passenger’s side of the van. Maybe he was just tired.
As the two arrived back at the warehouse, Skizz heaved a sigh of relief as he exited the van, the weather outside seeming to have warmed up during the drive back. He waited at the side of the vehicle as Impulse left his side of the van, the engine shutting down as he pulled the keys. The stars seemed less visible here.
“So!” Impulse started as he walked around the van to his friend. “Thrilling, right?”
“Impulse, that was stupid.” Skizz watched his friend’s face drop for a moment. “But, if you enjoy it, I’m not going to diss on it.”
The two walked over to their vehicles, the brisk night air echoing through the breeze. It was a nice night, in all honesty.
“Would you want to join?” Impulse asked a bit suddenly, looking over his car to his friend. Skizz looked up at him, almost too surprised by the question to respond.
After a moment of sputtering, Skizz eventually responded, “Well– well I mean, I do still have my other job–” He hesitated as he looked into his friends eyes, and sighed. “Maybe on weekends? One day, just you and me?”
Impulse nodded, resting his arms on the top of the car. “I can do a day.” He grinned. “I won’t try and take up too much of your time off.”
Skizz officially started as a part-time employee as the company prepared to move into their new warehouse, and ended up helping the company movies his first few shifts. Impulse was glad to have his friend by his side, despite some of his coworker’s annoyance at their antics.
Compared to the old warehouse, the new one was massive, with an upper loft area, an arrangement of cases for their equipment, and an abundance of storage rooms outside of the main one. The windows at the top of the building gave the bricks a natural lighting, and the open area helped make the place seem more welcoming, despite the ghost hunting the occupants were to be journeying on later that week. To Skizz’s disappointment, the couch unfortunately did not journey with them, finding itself in Goodwill instead. Lockers were left behind, basketball hoops were installed up in the loft, and after about a week of consistent relocation, the facility was finally ready for more cases.
Impulse and Skizz consistently worked as a pair when the two worked together, falling into a steady rhythm as their combined number of cases grew. They learned to read the other’s actions, able to work on their job with a certain level of precision as they messed around with each other. Outside of getting the job done, they treated every shift like another hangout, goofing off or cracking jokes in the van, messing with the other while they set up for the next day, or gaslit the other as they reviewed their footage. On some occasions, one was stuck without the other, trying to encourage the newer rookies to come inside the house, or scaring them more into their van life just trying to have some laughs.
After about a month’s worth of jobs together, both were starting to feel the dulling that Impulse had felt before asking Skizz to join. The two were watching a football game, this time at Impulse’s house, the sun setting outside of their living room. Skizz sighed, throwing his hands back as he stretched. “I feel like we could get more out of this,” he eventually stated.
Impulse turned to him, a quizzical expression on his face. “Oh? How so?”
Skizz looked over to him, not bothering to return to a normal position. “Well, you asked me to join when this happened, right?”
Impulse just shrugged. “After a while, yeah.” the younger man looked to the TV. “But it wasn’t a whim.”
“I’m not saying this would be a whim.”
The two sat in silence for a while, the sounds of cheering echoing through the otherwise quiet house. Impulse thought on the idea for a bit, Skizz finally changing his position to something slightly comfier.
Impulse glanced over. “Who are you thinking?” The blonde reached out, grabbing a half-forgotten drink off of the edge of the table. “You have to have someone in mind.”
Skizz grinned. “I was hoping you would ask.” He sat forward, hands held in front of him. As he spoke, they waved around, punctuating his sentences. “At first,” the black-haired man started, “I was thinking maybe someone like Tango. We both know Tango, and it’d be funny to hear him scream if we pranked him.” he paused for a moment. “Then, I thought, ‘ who would be easier to scare with the same amount of effort?’”
Impulse could see the anticipation on Skizz’s face, and gathered that this was turning into a guessing game. He sighed a chuckle, leaning back to think through their mutual group of friends. It would be easy to convince Tango to join, but then there would be similar scheduling conflicts to what they have now. But who would be easy to scare? And then the gear clicked. Impulse frowned, leaning back forward to set his drink down. “You don’t mean–”
“He’s the perfect choice!”
“Scar???”
“He just got new leg braces too!” There was a chaotic joy radiating off of the older man. “He can actually, like, walk around with us! Do you know how easy it would be to scare him???” he laughed, Impulse shaking his head with a chuckle as his friend composed himself.
“And then,” Skizz continued, “I was thinking, ‘who is a perfect match to Scar?’ and you’ll never guess who’s coming to mind.”
The blonde did a double take. “No way.”
“Yes way buddy.”
“You’re going to try and get Grian?”
“Why not?” Skizz leaned back, using his hands as a headrest. “England is way more haunted than here, man! It’ll be like he’s back at home.”
“I can see Scar, but you think we could convince G?”
Skizz just leaned back further, closing his eyes. “I don’t see why we can’t try.”
Silence.
“You get to ask G,” Skizz stated abruptly.
“C’mon man–”
“My idea, you get to do it.”
“That is not how that works!”
Skizz chuckled, “here, how about this. I will call Scar at the same time you call G, and we’ll convince them together.”
Impulse looked over to his friend. “What do you want to say?”
“I don’t know, something like–”
“Ghost hunting?” Grian’s shock at the question echoed through the static of the call. “ You want us to join you two in ghost hunting?”
“Grian, hang on–” Scar interjected. “ They have me curious. Ghostbusters style?”
Impulse sighed, glaring at Skizz for the job comparison. It hadn’t been hard getting the two brunettes on a call with them, but the blonde hadn’t realised just how stupid the job sounded when he wasn’t explaining it to Skizz. “No, and it isn’t exactly ghost hunting.” He could hear Scar’s disappointed sigh through the phone. “It’s more of a ghost investigation.”
“ Like those stupid youtube videos?”
“Well–”
“ Oh yeah, I’ve seen a few of those! Grian, weren’t you and Mumbo going to do one of those?”
Skizz interjected, “It’s not that bad, guys. Trust me, I had the same skepticism that you two have–”
“Oh no,” Scar responded, “ I’ve been on board since you said ghost hunting. But I’m only doing it if Grian does it too.”
“Thanks for the high stakes, Scar–”
Skizz groaned. “But, I let Impulse show me around and we’ve been working together for like, the whole summer.”
The two sat in a somewhat tense silence as they waited for Grian to respond. They were in Impulse’s living room, after about ten minutes of planning on how to properly describe the job, in which Skizz had thrown any preparation out of the window. “It’s mainly looking into potential ghost encounters that people have had, and then from there using our equipment to determine whether or not a ghost is there, and if we can immediately tell what type it is or not.”
“ There are types???” the two could hear Grian sigh. “ So you’re ghost hunters, but not ghost hunters, but ACTUALLY you’re investigators with ways to tell a specific type of ghost?”
“That sounds about right to me,” Scar added on, giggling as he said it.
Impulse started, “I know it doesn’t sound–”
“ Sound the best, no.” It was easy to tell from his tone that the brit was not impressed with what the two had offered. “ Ghost hunting– really?”
“Yeah…” Impulse eventually responded.
“ Here, I’ll tell you what. Let me think on it.” Grian sighed. “ If I think its something I would be interested in, I’ll get back to you. But for now, it’s a no. Don’t exactly fancy the idea of ghosts too much, even if they aren’t real.”
The two could practically hear Scar nodding along in the background. “ When Grian agrees to join–”
“If I agree–”
“Just let me know, and I’ll pop over too!”
Skizz nodded as the two on the phone finished talking. “Yeah, just let us know.”
Sighing, Impulse nodded too. “Hey, thanks for letting us ask–”
“Impulse,” Grian started, “ This isn’t a you thing. It’s a me not being fond of ghosts thing. But I’m still going to think about it.”
“Right. Still, thanks for letting us ask.”
“Bye guys! Oh, Finny you should say bye too–”
“Later, mates.”
Impulse frowned as he looked at the phone, the call ended. While it was the answer he was expecting from the brit, it didn’t mean he couldn’t be upset about it. Him and Skizz had debated asking in the first place for about a week, specifically trying to think of how to convince Grian to join. Though, it was good that it hadn’t been a no. A maybe left doors open for the future.
That future was around a month after the two had initially asked, when Impulse received a simple text from the brit, We’re down for ghosts, tuesday?
Skizz about cheered when Impulse showed him the text, earning him confused looks from the other agency employees around him. The others working were finishing up their day, leaving the two friends alone as they all clocked out. Grinning like a mad man, Skizz waited at his car for Impulse to join him.
“I told you he would warm up to us!” The older man exclaimed, leaning against the side of his car. “We are simply too good at being cool for him to ignore.”
Impulse shook his head with a chuckle. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. What do we want to do with the other two when they get here?” In Impulse’s head, he was thinking of a similar job to what he had initially shown Skizz, where he could slowly introduce the ideas while still getting some interaction.
As if reading his thoughts, Skizz just shook his head. “No, we aren’t going easy. I know you want to.” He grinned, the scars across his face moving as he spoke. “I vote we go a full night job. Scar would get a kick out of it.”
“We don’t want to scare them off–”
“If we only have them for one job, I want it to be a good one.”
Impulse looked around the now empty warehouse. It wasn’t the worst idea, but he didn’t want his friends to be stuck in the van because they decided to stake out the place in the middle of the night. That was the sticking point, really. Would the two be able to handle a house at night? He just didn’t know.
“I want them to have fun,” Impulse eventually stated, sighing as he said it. “If they’d have more fun, with a stakeout–”
Skizz walked over, patting his friend on the back. “Impulse,” he started, “you worry too much. They’ll have fun.” He shrugged, looking around the area. “If not, then sucks for them.”
The younger man could only nod in response. He was sure it would be fine. It wasn’t like the ghosts they were looking for were real. With that thought in mind, their fun became a waiting game, the few days they had to waste before the two would show up.
Tuesday seemed to take forever to arrive. The surrounding air was getting colder, the leaves were starting to fall off the trees, and weather forecasts were starting to add snow to their predicted phenomena. The day in particular was brisk, clear skies lending no warmth for the day ahead. Both Impulse and Skizz worked with a certain impatience, Impulse working with various other employees, and Skizz waiting for the time to be over at his other job. They were excited about the thrill that the night had to offer, even if there wasn’t much actually going on in the house. It was the principle of the idea, being able to show their friends the paranormal thrill that they had learned to love. Eventually, the hours seemed to tick by just enough to where everyone started leaving for the day, either to their own various worksites, or to their houses for the night off.
As those employees left for the day, Impulse sat just outside the door, waiting patiently for his friends to arrive. He had coordinated earlier with the two about when they should arrive, the best time for all of them landing around 6:30 to 7:00 PM. With that, Skizz had time to go home and eat something, and the other two had some cushion on their arrival times, where, knowing Grian and Scar, at least one of them would be late. Thinking about it, Impulse chuckled. It would most likely be Grian, considering his past track record.
Around 5:45, as Impulse walked back outside from a quick snack, the first of the crew pulled up, Skizz’s little car parking itself next to Impulse’s. With a quick wave and the lock of a car door, Skizz joined his companion at the door, waiting for the other two. Impulse raised an eyebrow, looking at Skizz’s choice of outfit. “Do you really have to?” He asked, gesturing to Skizz’s exposed arms. The man was wearing a muscle shirt and vest in the cold autumn air, which was growing colder by the second.
Skizz rolled his eyes, folding his arms. “Sorry if it’s not up to standard, man,” he responded with a chuckle. “If it actually gets cold, I brought an actual jacket too.” After a moment, the black haired man looked at his friend. “Mr. T-shirt,” he scoffed.
The two laughed as the orange lights of sunset started descending on them. Within the hour, the sky would be almost pitch black, and the group would be able to carry on with their assigned tasks. All they needed to see was the two joining them for their escapade.
As it turns out, Grian was the first of the two arrived. The Brit arrived in a car of equal size to Skizz’s, though it looked bigger when compared to the size of its driver. The red car pulled up on the other side of Impulse’s car, the lights flicking off as Grian exited his vehicle. He seemed better dressed for the weather, compared to the other two, the usual red sweater he wore almost black in the dim atmosphere around them. He offered a wave, walking over to join the other two.
“Right,” Grian started, “Where’s Scar?”
The other two shrugged, Skizz mumbling something about him not having shown up yet. At the news, Grian shook his head, holding it in a hand. “He told me he would beat me here! He bet five dollars on that!”
Almost as if on cue, a rumble sounded down the road as a motorcycle rolled into the parking lot, sleek and black and small compared to the other three vehicular occupants of the area. The bike parked next to Skizz’s vehicle, and as the engine’s roar whimpered into silence, Scar waved, forgetting for a moment that he still had his helmet on. He walked over to the three, and, upon remembering that he was wearing his helmet, pulled a 180 to leave his helmet on the handlebars of his bike.
“I took a wrong turn a bit ago,” Scar eventually commented as he joined the group, an awkward smile on his face. “It took me like ten minutes to realise I was going the wrong direction.”
The three looked at each other, then back to Scar. Skizz walked over, throwing his arm over the man’s shoulders. “Scar, buddy, always a pleasure to see you, I want to show you the amazing tools we use for the job.” As he spoke, he essentially dragged Scar with him, walking the green-eyed man into the warehouse.
Grian shivered, looking around the area. “Is it just me, or does something feel off?” He commented, stopping his scanning to look at Impulse. The older man looked around, trying to see whatever his companion might have been looking for.
“I can’t really feel anything,” Impulse responded after a second.
“Right.” Grian stood next to his friend. “So, I just want to set the record straight on this whole business.” The two turned around, walking into the warehouse after the first two. “So people call you, thinking they have ghosts, and all you do…”
The first thing Scar felt after seeing the ghost was cold. It wasn’t like the cold he had felt outside, nor was it like what he had felt in the house. It was just… cold. Like going outside in below-freezing temperatures, waiting around for too long and then remembering that frostbite was a thing. He pulled his jacket tighter around him, but it didn’t seem to aid the chill. He was a lot of varying things at the moment, though confused seemed to be the main emotion. All the lights in the house were off, which he thought felt a bit off. There was a distinct memory of turning the lights on, conversation about a breaker–
The lights flashing as Scar tried running away from the ghost. At the memory, the man recoiled, repulsed even by the memory of the thing. As he thought about it, he considered the idea that it could have been some type of prank the two actual employees had played on him. He wouldn’t put it past them. Scar frowned, looking around the room after a moment. Had the house had so much fog in it?
“G, did you see anything on the camera?” Scar could still hear the static of the radio, almost like an echo inside his head. He frowned at the statement, looking through the hallways for a moment, looking for his friends.
“Not really. The boards were being weird.” Right, the boards. Scar hadn’t exactly been paying attention to that part of the conversation. He saw the front door open– thought he wasn’t exactly sure when it had closed– and Grian walk into the house, turning to walk through the other hallway. Had the man just not seen him? He was standing right there, for God’s sakes–
Through the muffle of the walls, Scar managed to hear Grian ask about seeing… something… the green-eyed man couldn’t exactly catch most of the words. As he heard them walk closer, out of the room, he assumed, he heard a distinct “And he isn’t answering.”
Scar took a step towards the group as they walked back into the hallway, waving at them as they looked his way. “Hey,” he called out. “I saw the ghost! I think there’s a real one here!”
The smile on Scar’s face faltered as the three ignored him, Grian walking into the living room. Was there a reason that they were ignoring him? He thought over his actions of the day as the shortest of the four flicked the living room light on. He was late, sure, but not by that much–
He watched Grian visibly pale, and Scar frowned. The light wasn’t that bright. To be fair, the light being on hadn’t exactly changed his vision. Turning around, Scar looked into the living room, confirming that the light was in fact on. Weird. The man kept turning to look back at his friends. All three of them were standing together, the same concerned expression on their faces.
“Guys, please.” Scar gave an awkward chuckle. “I’m sorry for being late, you don’t have to give me the silent…” Scar followed their gazes, looking down at the ground behind him. “. . . treatment . . .”
Was that what he looked like? Scar knelt down, looking at the unnatural position of the body in front of him. His own face stared back at him, eyes dull and lifeless. It didn’t seem right, looking at himself the way he was. He reached out, for what reason he wasn’t exactly sure. To close his eyes? Put himself in a more comfortable looking position? Just, to touch something? It didn’t matter. He felt his hand pass through his own face, a disorienting, staticy feel. Scar reeled back, falling backwards onto the ground. Nothing felt right, he was cold, and he just wanted to talk to his friends.
Looking back, he was confused to see that the three were gone from the living room, gone from the house. Were they just going to leave him there? He couldn’t be dead. There were so many things that just felt wrong in this situation, and he wanted to know that he was fine. Maybe this was just a dream? Didn’t feel like one. Scar stood up, the leg braces that had followed him into this abyss silent as he walked out of the house, hesitating at the door. He didn’t know what was going to happen, what could happen, any of it–
“Do you want us to just leave Scar in there?” He could hear Impulse’s concerned tone as he grew closer to the van, warily making his way to the vehicle they had all arrived in. It seemed like the only safety at the moment, even considering his less than stellar situation. The three appeared to be in an argument, and clearly the scarred man was the topic of debate.
He watched Grian falter in his point, a subdued “well–” being his only response.
He watched Impulse scoff, folding his arms as he spoke. “Right. I’ll go in and get Scar,” the blonde declared. Impulse unfolded his arms, gesturing to the other two. “You two can sit in the front of the van and when I come out, you can drive us to the hospital.”
Skizz stood up from his leaning position, any word he was planning on saying stuck in his mouth as Grian practically shouted at Impulse, “You want to go back into the murder house to get Scar??” He threw his hands up, starting to pace. “What happens if you die too? Hmm?” He pointed abruptly at Impulse, who was looking less and less confident in hi decision as the Brit spoke. “Do we go and try to get you too?”
“No!” Impulse looked to the side. Scar could tell that Grian was making good points, though the green-eyed man didn’t exactly appreciate that they were about him. “If I don’t make it out–”
Grian gave a frustrated cry, holding his head in his hands. He groaned, looking up after a moment at the other two in the van. Scar could tell how upset all of them were.
“Right,” the Brit eventually started again, “Here’s what’s going to happen.” Grian folded his arms. “We go to the police. Tell them that something dangerous in the house killed our friend.” Scar winced at the statement. “We let them handle it.” He practically glared daggers into Impulse. “We are NOT being heroes right now. He is dead, and he is gone, and we are not risking our lives for a dead body.”
He understood that Grian was right, of course. Scar could feel the chill surrounding him, he saw his own corpse– but it still hurt. It hadn’t been his intention. Though, it was hard to tell if there was anything he could have done regardless of the situation.
Watching Skizz nod, Scar habitually took a step back to get out of the way of the man as he walked past Grian and Impulse. As he hit the bottom of the ramp, Skizz looked up at the two. “You two hang tight in there,” he stated, lacking the usual emotion he held in his voice. “I’ll drive us there and you two hop out.”
Scar wanted to follow Skizz, normally he was the one to make everyone feel better, but as he watched the two sink into sitting positions opposite of each other, he felt like he couldn’t leave. Besides, what would he even do? Could he even enter the cab? Scar walked over to the two, sinking down beside his British friend. It just wasn’t fair, he thought. He hadn’t meant to kill the mood.
Grian shivered next to him, looking to the area where Scar was sitting. The engine revved as Skizz’s door slammed, and Scar sank into himself. He didn’t feel good at all. It was just…
Wrong.
When his vision blacked out, he figured it was over.