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Demons don’t get out much. Besides band touring, that is. Whenever they’re involved in an activity that requires them to leave the Ministry’s premises, and that doesn’t relate in any way to their participation in the Ghost Project, it’s kind of a big deal for them. A few examples are the time they went to a nearby local animal shelter, when the ghouls went on a fishing trip with Copia, and when all the abbey residents took part in a celebration in honor of the band’s success, which was held at the closest town (the same that houses the animal shelter).
So, leaving the abbey for reasons unrelated to their jobs as musicians is quite exciting! Or, well, sometimes it is. Because, in all honesty, they didn’t really want to go on that fishing trip… Alas, their latest scheduled outing is a leisure-oriented one, amidst the booming of Halloween season. Even though the holiday holds a different cultural significance there than in the United States, some people in Sweden take advantage of the interest in the horror-oriented foreign tradition and use it as the perfect excuse to have some fun, or to make some money.
That’s what brings us to the matter at hand: the ghouls and ghoulettes going to a haunted house experience set up in one of the bigger cities located near the abbey grounds. They aren’t the only ones going, of course, as Siblings of Sin have been allowed to attend as well. However, the humans will be visiting the place in small groups scattered throughout a few days since only a certain amount of people can go in at once and the waiting list isn’t exactly a short one.
Yet since the Ministry managed to cut a deal with the attraction owners that will guarantee both parties’ reciprocal promotion and advertisement, they got to skip a few places on said list. And because of that deal, the ghouls and ghoulettes are allowed to go through the experience wearing their usual uniforms, masks and all. That despite the owners’ worry that their covered faces might ruin the reaction photo that will be taken near the end of the attraction’s route.
Although, not everyone is excited to go, already thinking of the entire ordeal as a lame waste of time even before getting there. Namely, Dewdrop, who’s sure he won’t get scared at all no matter what they throw at him. Also Mountain, who doesn’t share that belief but rather thinks he might not be able to fully enjoy the scary experience the same way the rest will given his partial deafness (which, when compared to demons’ enhanced hearing, is more on the level of humans’).
Still, their complaints are drowned by everyone else’s excitement. Well, Cirrus, Cumulus, Swiss, and Copia are the most excited while Rain and Aether are the most cautious of the bunch. They worry something might go wrong since they have never done anything like that before. In fact, they’re most concerned about the way Dew might react, fearing he might start a fire by accident despite the small ghoul assuring again and again that such a thing won’t happen.
By the time the eight of them make it to the entrance, after greeting the owners and posing for pictures, half the group is giddy with excitement while the other half just wants the whole thing to be over.
The experience takes approximately ten minutes to complete and it’s comprised of pitch-black corridors and rooms through which the only guiding factor are red dots glowing on the floors. Those form the path they are meant to follow and the one that will lead them through the maze of scares and shocks that awaits them ahead.
Once they are all given the instructions and rules to follow, they are ready to go in. However, not without an important reminder from the Cardinal that the demons are meant to keep present throughout the entire duration of the attraction.
“Now, remember, we’re all here to have a good time and get spooked!” Copia tells them, throwing his hands up in a mock-scare gesture. “But please refrain from hurting any of the actors performing inside.”
Although the pack of demons has never truly intentionally hurt anyone, as said before, it will be the first time they experience such a thing as people purposefully trying to scare them in such a context. Thus, the clergyman doesn’t know how the hellish creatures will react to that kind of stimulus. So, it’s best to remind them once more to keep their clawed fingernails and fangs to themselves.
“Don’t worry, Cardinal, we’ll make sure everyone is safe inside,” Mountain assures the man before covering his mouth as he yawns.
He didn’t get much sleep the night before, given he stayed up late reading one of the newest acquisitions the abbey’s library got ahold of. It was a romance book called Clueless Season.
In response to both frontman and drummer, Dewdrop scoffs before replying. “I mean, as long as no one touches me, no one should get harmed.”
“Dewey!” Cumulus and Cirrus reprimand in unison.
“What? I won’t attack anyone on purpose, it would be just self-defense! I can’t help that.”
The lead guitarist’s argument makes everyone else sigh in exasperation before Aether tries to alleviate the mounting tension. After all, they are supposed to be there to have fun. Or, at least, the Cardinal figured a haunted house attraction would be fun for them to experience.
“Just try your best, will you?”
“Whatever,” Dew says as he crosses his arms in front of his chest.
“Alright, in we go now,” Copia ushers with a little impatience before their conversation can drag any longer. “Let’s have some fun!”
“Oh boy, here we go!”
With Swiss’ last exclamation, raising his fists in the air, the musicians finally step through the dark entrance that will lead them into the obscure maze. That’s how they disappear from the view of the few Siblings waiting for their turn, getting swallowed by darkness.
If all goes well, they’ll have a great time and no one will get hurt in the meantime.
Despite their enhanced eyesight, the demons can’t see shit. They thought the darkness shrouding the corridors wouldn’t be that dark, but as soon as the entrance door closes behind the group, they all realize that the only thing they can see are the red dots glowing on the floor, forming a dotted line that moves forward and disappears after turning a corner. And because of the disorienting obscurity, they all need to take a few seconds to regain their bearings. Also, the ambient noises aren’t helping at all.
From everything stereotypically spooky to more original sounds, the surrounding sound system does a stellar job of instilling fear. Wind blowing, doors screeching open or closed, critters scurrying around, faint growling, eerie music, and even whispering voices that make one believe they are hearing things that aren’t real. All in all, the ambiance created is truly terrifying, and without taking into account the fact that they haven’t truly started the walkthrough.
Seeing how everyone else is hesitating, Dewdrop decides to take the first step forward, instantly feeling a hand clamping down on the back of his coat. Before he can even question who dares to touch him, Rain whispers a soft “sorry” behind him, letting him know he’s the one holding onto him. In response, Dew huffs in mild annoyance yet doesn’t complain any further, being silently thankful for the reassuring presence the bassist inadvertently provides.
The lead guitarist would sooner drop dead than admit he’s scared on edge because of the spooky silly attraction.
So, the row of musicians goes like this: Dewdrop, Rain, Cirrus, Cumulus, Swiss, Aether, Copia, and Mountain. It was somehow implicitly decided that the drummer would take the rear since his poor hearing would make him more susceptible to being startled. Although, they didn’t even consider the fact that one or more of the surprises might come from behind. Still, no one has yet complained about their arrangement.
Although, Mountain does complain about the slow pace they are going at.
“Guys, this is supposed to take ten minutes at most, not thir–”
Before the earth ghoul can even finish his sentence, he gets interrupted by a loud scream that seems to come from everywhere at once. The unexpected noise that breaks the otherwise creepy but calm atmosphere is enough to startle more than half the group. Cumulus, Aether, Copia, and Rain almost jump out of their skin and shout in surprise while Swiss and Dewdrop start laughing at their reactions. Cirrus manages to hold in her chuckling, not wanting to upset her bestie, and Mountain gets even more annoyed at being cut off so rudely.
Once they all manage to calm down, they resume following the red dotted line, more alert than they were a couple of minutes ago. Also, Rain isn’t the only one clutching to another band member for dear life anymore, as Cumulus has attached herself to Cirrus’ right side and Aether and the Cardinal have linked arms even though that forces them to walk sideways when the hallways or corners become too narrow for them to traverse at the same time. They manage anyway.
The spooky ambiance serves its purpose as the demons get so focused on trying to anticipate oncoming scares that they fail to notice everything else taking place around them. Namely, the actors and performers getting ready to enter the scene. One of them takes advantage of the group’s stalling before entering a room to open a small latch attached to one of the sidewalls and push their arm through until they manage to get a hold of someone’s arm in order to yank it.
Given the dark vision goggles they use, they can see perfectly in the dark, and the first participant to fall victim to the attraction’s employees is none other than the Cardinal himself.
The clergyman doesn’t even have time to register what’s going on before it’s too late and he feels a hand encircling his forearm, pulling him hard to his left. The forceful pull is so unexpected that he would have ended up crashing against the wall from which the hand appeared if it weren’t for the fact that he’s holding onto Aether, who pulls him back as soon as he feels the man being yanked as well.
Nevertheless, the effect is the desired one and Copia lets out a terrified yell that seeps paranoia into most of the others in the group.
“What was that?” Aether asks as he tries to comfort the shaken Cardinal glued to him.
“S-someone grabbed me!” Copia exclaims, alarmed. “Was it you, Mountain?”
Given that the offending hand came from his side, the frontman reckons Swiss wouldn’t have been able to pull it off since he’s walking in front of him. That leaves Copia to suspect Mountain as being the possible culprit as the tallest ghoul is the only one behind. Despite knowing that the attraction employs live actors and performers, they have yet to figure out the hand belonged to someone else given that they don’t know there are latches on the walls nor can they see them. They are expecting full bodies to appear and scare them, not just limbs.
“Why would I grab you?” The drummer asks deadpan.
“Well, someone did!”
The Cardinal’s agitated outburst only serves to unnerve the rest of the pack even further, resulting in a trembling Cumulus burrowing further into Cirrus’ side.
Why would literal demons be scared by any of that beats us all, really.
“I’m so scared!” The shorter air ghoulette squeaks out.
“Just calm down, for fuck’s sake, it’s not that bad.”
Despite Dewdrop seemingly trying to calm the others down, his irritation only fuels the fire even more, making the group’s restlessness grow. And, of course, Swiss takes the opportunity to provoke the lead guitarist even further, trying to get a reaction out of him.
“That’s ‘cause no one grabbed ya yet,” the multi ghoul accuses with a wide, toothy grin that somehow manages to reflect the red dots on the floor.
“I’ll grab you by the fucking balls and squeeze them until you go blind if you keep bothering me.”
“Oh~” Swiss coos in mockery. “So scary.”
“Swiss, stop.”
As Rain tries to get both arguing demons to settle down, Mountain urges the group to carry on forward once again, seeing that nothing else scary will happen until they proceed with the tour.
“Can we move on?”
At last, the drummer’s words seem to be enough to spur the group into motion again and they resume their journey. Although, now they are more careful about getting too close to the walls.
They manage to get through a section of the maze without further incidents, only getting bothered by the continuous stream of disturbing sounds. That is until Dewdrop steps onto unsteady ground.
“What the fuck?”
The demon questions out loud as soon as the floor beneath him gives slightly, looking down despite only being able to see the shining red dots. To him, it’s clear that whatever ground there is moving forward might be suspended from somewhere.
“What is it?” Rain asks behind him.
“I think there’s a bridge in front of us.”
“A bridge?” Cirrus asks as well, being unable to fully grasp the fact considering she can’t see it at all. “Does it have handles or something? Otherwise, we could fall!”
Wanting to figure out exactly that, Dew flails around his arms in opposite directions until he catches ahold of chains. “Yeah, there’s a chain on each side. Just wave your arms around until you hit them.”
“Okay,” Cumulus answers, voice shaking a bit. “We can still see the dots, so we should follow them more carefully until we reach the other side.”
“We should also separate a little, to avoid tripping and such,” Aether reminds them all, gently untwining Copia’s arm from his own.
“Everybody, be careful now!”
With the Cardinal’s last warning, Dew retakes the step forward he recanted after he first felt the change in sturdiness. Then, he takes another, keeping his grip tight around both chains. And as he makes progress through the bridge, he’s followed by the rest of the band members.
By the time they all make it onto the long bridge, walking slowly on top of it to avoid falling off the sides, the creaking piece of thick wood starts to shake all of a sudden, effectively putting a damp on the musicians’ balance.
“Unholy shit!” Swiss shouts, doing his best to keep himself from falling.
Behind and in front of him, the others are in similar states of distress, trying to stop themselves from toppling over and falling below. After all, they have no idea how elevated the bridge is from the actual floor, so they want to avoid at all costs falling and injuring themselves. Or getting someone else accidentally pushed down, given how they resist using the demon –or man– in front of them as a stabilizing object.
“Just go, go!” Aether yells above the others’ shouts and yelps.
Without a second thought, the fire ghoul pushes through and follows the red dotted line until his feet make contact with solid, concrete ground once more. There, and while momentarily forgetting about the possibility of hands or other things appearing from the sides, he rests his back against one of the walls and takes a deep breath before letting the others know it’s safe where he’s at.
“I made it, hurry up!”
“Coming!” Swiss replies as he gently pushes Cumulus forward.
Once they all make it to the other side, they take a moment to catch their breaths and compose themselves before even daring to move again. But when they are rounding the next corner, Copia feels movement behind him before he and the other demons in front of him hear something passing above them. The sudden appearance of something moving overhead startles everyone all over again, and various curses can be heard being either uttered or yelled.
“Mountain, are you okay?” The Cardinal asks with worry, turning around despite knowing he can’t see shit.
“Yeah, I crouched because I thought I was gonna get hit in the head by whatever flew over us,” the drummer explains as he stands back up.
“So now, not only the walls and the floor ain’t safe, but the ceilin’ ain’t either?” Swiss questions with a mixture of confusion and affront. “The hell, man? This place is fuckin’ with ma mind.”
“It’s fucking with all of us,” Dewdrop growls in displeasure.
“Let’s just keep moving,” Aether says, refocusing their attention. “The faster we move, the faster we’ll get out of here.”
The musicians continue their journey, being wary of everything around them. By that point, they are all paranoid, even the ones who at first saw the attraction as something boring to experience. They manage to make it “safely” into another room, having survived what other sounds and apparitions they encountered.
The worst one was the sudden lighting of a small space adjacent to the hallway they were walking through, which had an acrylic pane as a separation. Inside it, not only were there flashing lights, but someone dressed in a nun’s outfit and wearing zombie-like makeup that jumped at them as soon as Dew and Rain passed in front of them. The screaming and scratching of the window were enough to send everyone into a frenzy and almost run away. Although, if one were to ask the fire ghoul about it, he would adamantly claim he got pushed by everyone else and that he didn’t get scared at all.
However, now they are about to be faced with something worse since there will be no barriers between them and the situation that’s meant to terrify them next. And it’s one they won’t see coming until it’s “too” late.
As soon as Mountain steps through the threshold, being the last member to enter the rectangular-shaped room (not that they know the room’s shape), a door closes behind him, effectively setting a point of no return. Also, the loud slam jumpscares everyone and makes them turn around at the same time. And even though they can’t really see much, they notice that the red dotted line that trailed behind them is no longer visible.
“Did a door just close? Can’t we go back into the hallway?” Cirrus asks, right hand finding Cumulus’ left one and gripping it tight.
Mountain, being the closest to the now obstructed entryway, tentatively walks with his arms held in front of him, following the dots until his hands touch a solid barrier where the entrance should have been.
“Yeah, it’s closed; we can’t go back now.”
“Then it means we can only keep going forward,” Copia reasons wisely, yet in a redundant way.
After all, they can see the dots moving in one direction until they disappear sooner than expected. That means there’s either a corner up ahead, or they ran into a dead end.
“Why would the door even close?” Swiss inquires, scratching the top of his mask to no effect since no one can see the gesture.
“It could mean that something’s about to happen here or in the next room that they don’t want us to get away from,” Mountain theorizes.
“Please, we haven’t chickened out yet and we aren’t going to,” Dew scoffs. “What can be worse than what we have already gone through?”
With perfect timing, once the lead guitarist finishes asking his rhetoric question, mechanical noises can be heard coming from somewhere behind the walls.
“What’s happening now?!” An alarmed Aether asks.
“I don’t know!” Cumulus replies, clutching Cirrus’ torso. “But it doesn’t sound good.”
Disoriented by the darkness and the loud noises coming from all around them, the group breaks formation and some of the ghouls stumble around. Nevertheless, it is Swiss the unfortunate one to discover what’s truly going on as his back hits one of the sidewalls and he feels it pushing him forward.
“Oh, shit. The walls are closin’ in.”
“What?!” Several band members shout all at once, full-blown panic setting in.
“The freakin’ walls are closin’ in!” The multi ghouls repeats with more urgency.
“What do we do? There’s no escape!” A desperate Cumulus exclaims.
“There has to be some door or window we can go through,” Aether reasons, palming the moving wall in front of him. “They wouldn’t just trap us here to get crushed to death!”
The rhythmic guitarist’s insistence on the owners’ goodwill pushes Cirrus to make the others a proposition of a course of action. However, despite being her own idea, she doesn’t sound too convinced by it. Her offer gets rebuked by Swiss, though.
“Maybe if we just wait it will stop and some other door will open.”
“Fuck that, I ain’t waitin’ for ‘what ifs.’”
“There’s gotta be a way out, find it!” Dew yells and they all scramble to follow his order.
Just like Aether and Swiss, the rest of the group starts to feel the walls in search of any crevices or open spaces they can squirm through. All the while, the space they’re occupying keeps shrinking more and more, making their anxiety grow exponentially. It would seem that any kind of reasoning ability has left them in the face of terror because it would take them just a second to realize they aren’t in fact going to get crushed to death.
Still, their frenzy does make the performers laugh.
Nevertheless, Dewdrop saves the day when, while investigating the wall opposite the room’s closed entrance, his right foot doesn’t collide with anything. He realizes that there’s nothing stopping his foot, so he kneels down and feels around the area where his shoe went through without trouble. He makes out a cut-out on the wall of slightly rectangular shape, an entrance to a crawl space.
“Guys, there’s a way out!” The thrilled fire ghoul announces. “We have to crawl through it, though.”
“Crawl?” An unsure Cirrus echoes.
“Whatevah, I don’t care about gettin’ on my hands and knees as long as I can avoid becomin’ a pancake.”
“Everybody, get into the hole!”
All the demons heed the Cardinal’s order as they huddle near the small exit, squishing together as much as they can, given the narrowing space around them.
“Who’s going in first?” Copia asks, not wanting to be the first.
“I don’t really want to crawl around this maze,” Cumulus complains. “What if there’s something crawling around there too?”
“Well, there’s no other way out, so we have to go through there,” Mountain counters, sounding exasperated.
The earth ghoul’s words brook no room for argument, so Dewdrop takes the initiative and crouches down on all fours. That’s when he’s finally able to see the continuation of the red dots.
Taking a deep breath, he starts to crawl.
Without another word, the rest follow suit, maintaining the same formation they had since the beginning of the tour. As they exit the shrinking room, they fail to notice the walls stopping altogether before starting to retreat to their original placement. After all, they are too focused on the current portion of the maze they are traversing. Which, of course, is flooded with noises of things scurrying about.
“What if there are rats in here?” A disgusted Cumulus questions.
“Rats?” Copia asks in wonderment before expressing his joy in Italian. “Meraviglioso!”
“What did he say?”
Given that most of the demons don’t know Italian, Swiss voiced the question almost all of them were wondering.
“He said ‘wonderful,’” Aether answers in Copia’s stead.
“Cardi, no,” Swiss scolds, addressing the man crawling behind him. “Not wonderful!”
“Why not? They are lovely creatures.”
The Cardinal’s bewilderment is so genuine that the multi-instrumentalist doesn’t have the heart to get into an argument with him about the issues regarding rats. He doesn’t really get the chance to do it either since Dewdrop catches everyone’s attention.
“Hey, I reached the end!”
The little gremlin’s announcement is loud enough to be heard by the rest, which brings some much-needed relief to the group. Still, their “nightmare” isn’t over yet.
One by one they crawl out of the small corridor, stretching a bit once they stand at full height again. And even though they don’t know it yet, they are nearing the end of the maze.
They make it into another room, and instead of closing walls, this one has ones made of paper. It takes just one step being given forward for red lights to flood the room and the “walls” beginning to be torn down on each side by a multitude of hands. From the gashes made, faces pop out, ones that are drenched in blood that seems to seep out of every orifice the people have.
The visitors aren’t sure what the actors are supposed to be characterized as, yet they don’t care either as most of them flip out and start to push their way forward, urging those in front of them to either move along or get out of the way. That’s how they all end up jogging their way out of the room, hoping that the creepy performers won’t follow them into the darkness.
As they make a stop further down a corridor, in order to catch their breaths yet again, Dewdrop takes the opportunity to make fun of his bandmates as he (according to himself) is the only one who hasn’t gotten scared since they started.
“You guys are a bunch of pussies, getting scared by cheap crap like thi–”
He doesn’t get to finish his sentence before he lets out a deafening screech that forces all the others to cover their ears.
“Are you okay?” Aether asks with concern as soon as Dew shuts up.
And it’s not really the fact that the lead guitarist got scared that perplexes them, but by what he got scared. Of course, Swiss doesn’t miss the opportunity to mock him for it.
“I can’t believe you got fuckin’ scared by a–”
“Shut the fuck up! I didn’t get scared, it just startled me!”
Despite his ardent defense, no one believes the fire ghoul.
“Sure, Dewey, whatever you say~” Cumulus coos in a mocking way.
Seeing his bandmates’ carefree and joking attitudes toward his embarrassing little moment of weakness, Dewdrop sees no other way out than to threaten the life of the other demons and the clergyman. As long as word doesn’t get out about the incident, he doesn’t care what he has to do or say to ensure secrecy.
“If any of you ever mentions this again, I will kill you.”
“There’s no need to resort to such drastic threats…”
Copia tentatively tries to de-escalate the situation, knowing that Dew’s calm is a sign of the ghoul being earnest in his promise to unalive whoever spills the beans. Yet even though the Cardinal takes him seriously, the rest of the pack seems unfazed regarding the matter. Clearly, they are more used to Dewdrop being that way and finding themselves at the end of such death threats than the man is.
“Can we just move along?” Mountain asks before complaining. “I’m hungry.”
“Yeah, we better get out of here before Dewey makes our ears bleed,” Cirrus seconds before sticking out her tongue in Dewdrop’s direction, which he misses completely.
And, of course, her comment ignites the fiery rage inside the lead guitarist all over again.
“What did I just fucking say?!”
As fire ghoul and air ghoulette get into a heated argument, the rest watch –or rather hear– in mild amusement before trying to stop them so they can finish the maze once and for all.
“And I thought nothing could be worse than the escape room,” Rain mutters to himself.
The bassist is reminded of a particular excursion they made when touring the States last time and in which –while taking advantage of a day off they had in Los Angeles– they went to one of those famous escape rooms. Although at first, all seemed to be going well, let’s just say that the experience ended rather…sourly for them.
But, that’s a tale for another time. Now, we ought to focus on the haunted house experience they have yet to finish.
Speaking of which, after seeing from behind the scenes what Dewdrop’s fiery reaction was at being made fun of, the performers in charge of scaring and chasing visitors refuse to do so to the band for the remainder of their time there. Thankfully for all of them, though, the tour is about to end.
After the fight between Dew and Cirrus simmers down, the group resumes their journey ‒still sticking close together‒ until they make it to the next and final room. The same is rectangular in shape, with most of the space remaining unoccupied by visitors since they are guided by the glowing trail to remain close to one of the walls. There, seeing not only the red dotted line come to an end right beneath a bright-red, neon outline of a door that has a red “exit” sign above it, they all finally relax and make a beeline for it. Yet before the fire ghoul can reach the end of the maze, a bright white light turns on, illuminating the entirety of the room they’re in.
The combination between them letting their guard down upon seeing the exit sign, bright lights turning on all of a sudden, the sound system coming alive once more after a few minutes of practically utter silence in which they could only hear their footsteps and breathing, coupled with what they see is enough to scare all of them.
In fact, it comes as such a shock, that Copia ends up fainting.
“Cardinal?!” Aether calls, alarmed, picking the passed-out man from the floor as the rest of the pack of demons hurries out of the room.
The quintessence ghoul is left alone to carry the clergyman out while the rest catch their breaths in the lobby, being given odd looks by the Siblings waiting for their turn. Once Aether makes it out, with some difficulty, carrying Copia bridal style, he gets assisted by the other humans, who take the Cardinal and lay him down on the chairs they were using up until then.
In the meantime, the other musicians start to ask about what happened, general concern growing amongst them at seeing their frontman unconscious.
It took five minutes for the man to come to himself, in which both demons and Siblings, alongside some of the workers and owners of the place, waited around to see if it would be necessary to call for medical assistance or not. Luckily, it wasn’t.
While the Cardinal takes some time to recuperate, the ghouls and ghoulettes take the opportunity to get a copy of the photo that was taken of them inside the last room of the maze. That way they all be able to get back to the abbey sooner than later, allowing the singer to rest comfortably at home. Also, they all want to see everyone else’s reaction to what they saw in there.
The picture itself is nothing short of hilarious, plastering every single one of the eight musicians’ reactions. Mountain is standing stock-still, looking down instead of at what was the source of all the horror. He’s actually staring at Copia, who appears pictured mid-fall, seemingly imitating Mountain’s pose but at a 45°-degree angle from the floor, right about to face-plant onto it(and the only reason why he didn’t get hurt while he planked on his way down was the cushioned floor he fell onto). Behind the falling Cardinal, Aether is carrying (bridal style) a screaming Swiss, who jumped right into the rhythmic guitarist’s arms in his stupor.
Cumulus is hiding her face against Cirrus’ chest, who is hugging her as if trying to protect the shorter ghoulette from whatever they were facing. Next to them, Rain looks like a deer caught in headlights, knees bent slightly and arms folded in front of his chest, ready to try to push back whatever was in front of them if it ever came closer. Behind him, cowering despite his continued claims of bravado, is Dewdrop, attempting to use his best friend as a shield.
As soon as the little gremlin’s eyes fall on the picture, his anger flares up again and he snatches it from Aether’s hands.
“Give me that!” Dew demands before setting the picture on fire and letting it burn until only ashes remain.
“Hey!”
Swiss’ complaint is futile as the photo is already gone and the perpetrator is walking away from them, satisfied with his destruction of the evidence.
“What a waste, I really wanted to keep it,” a disappointed Cirrus laments.
“No need to worry, I got a second copy just in case this happened.”
Mountain’s reveal comes as unexpected since he wasn’t with the pack when they were getting the picture or while looking at it. As it turns out, he waited until they were all reviewing it to ask for another one. Also, thankfully for them, no one else saw Dew setting fire to the picture with his bare hand, nor was the fire big or prolonged enough to cause the fire alarm to go off.
Upon hearing the good news provided by the drummer, the other keyboardist can’t help but exclaim excitedly before being shushed by the others.
“Really?! Oh, you’re our savior, Mounty!”
“Yeah, but let’s keep it away from Dew or he will really kill us all,” Aether cautions as he looks over his shoulder.
Since Dewdrop is already waiting by the parlor’s entrance away from them, wanting to leave sooner than later, they all breathe a sigh of relief and the earth ghoul pockets the picture safely inside his coat. They will later show it to the Cardinal and try to figure out a way to put it safely on display in their common room in order to avoid it getting ruined by Dew as well.