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It was early.
It was so early, and Gem’s phone was ringing.
She doesn’t even look at the caller ID before answering the call, inhaling sharply before groggily answering, “Hello?”
“Gem!” the voice on the other end of the line says far too loudly. She pulls the phone away from her face slightly.
“Yes?” she asks. She glances over to her alarm clock, and the numbers 4:36 are glowing on them. Gem groans and rolls over.
“It’s Impulse,” the voice tells her. “We got the job with that new company. Ghost Huntin’ Distribution or something. Our first mission is tonight at nine.”
“Impulse, disrespectfully, it is 4:30 in the morning,” Gem replies. “Could this not have waited until later?”
There’s a pause, like Impulse hadn’t considered that. Gem smiles to herself a bit.
“Oh.” She laughs at him. “I’m glad I called you first.”
“What, rather than Grian?” Gem teases. She can practically hear Impulse roll his eyes as he groans.
“Go back to sleep.” And with that, he hangs up.
Gem happily rolls back over, tossing her phone onto her nightstand and closing her eyes. If she had been more awake when he called, she wouldn’t have been able to get back to sleep due to sheer excitement.
Luckily, she’s able to get a few more hours of sleep, waking up closer to nine. The GIGGS group chat is exploding with messages, but Gem finds her banana and tea more interesting.
She ends up checking it thirty minutes later only to find that it was mainly full of Scar being physically unable to spell any word. At one point he even misspelled I. The letter I.
Gem just sighs before messaging back, asking for the location of the house and the file information. Scar is still trying to spell one singular sentence correctly when Impulse sends it to the group chat, apparently having forgotten to do it originally.
She sips on her tea as the file loads on her phone. It probably would look better on her laptop, but she does not want to go grab it right now.
Name: Cleo Atlantis
Age at Death: 42
Address: 6 Tanglewood Drive.
Notes: Very aggressive and constant hunts. No known way to calm down before, during, or after hunts. Has threatened the children of this family on multiple occasions, forcing the family to temporarily move out of the house. Hunters will likely get three pieces of evidence.
Gem simply sighs. She is the team’s medic, so when they have aggressive ghosts, her friends end up hurt or even dead. Helping with their injuries was easy but bringing them back to life was a completely different thing that required magic.
The magic was exhausting and somewhat painful. She could maybe revive two people, but her limit was honestly just one. Once, she tried to bring back three people, and she was out for almost an entire day and on bedrest for two weeks.
Showfall Media was terrible to the GIGGS group. Their health, physical nor mental, was ever cared about. Scar died over 47 times before Showfall Media stepped in and actually gave the group safety precautions.
Now there’s a lawsuit. Showfall Media has good lawyers, but the GIGGS group has hundreds of hours worth of evidence.
Gem is pulled from her thoughts by her phone ringing once again. This time it’s Skizz, and Gem can’t help but smile a bit.
“Hey Skizz,” she greets as she answers the phone, peeling her banana.
“Gemstone!” he exclaims. “Impulse, Scar, and I want to go out to lunch later. You down?”
“Obviously,” Gem answers. She takes a bite of her banana while Skizz explains the menu and what the place is like.
“We’ll pick you up around one and then I guess just hang out until we have to go to the house,” Skizz tells her. Her heart drops a little.
“Sounds good,” she replies. Skizz pauses, somehow noticing the slight shift in her voice.
“Do you want me to come over?” he asks. Gem can’t help but smile.
“I’m good,” she says truthfully. “Just nerves.”
“This company isn’t like them,” Skizz promises. “Impulse and I have a friend who’s worked with this company for years, and he is how we got the job. He wouldn’t have got us this job if it was anything like Showfall Media.”
Gem breathes in relief. She has a vague idea of who this friend is since she’s overheard them talking with this friend. The first time they spoke, it was after Gem died and needed their medic to revive her, but that’s a different story for a different time.
“Thanks, Skizz,” she replies. “I’ll see you later.”
“Yup, see you,” he says, then the call ends.
The next two and a half hours fly by for Gem. She ends up reviewing the file at least fifteen times. Can you blame her for being nervous?
Gem knows that Skizz is driving purely because he almost hits her front porch again. She heads outside when she hears the tires squealing down her street. Impulse and Scar are hanging onto the car for dear life. Meanwhile Grian is sleeping peacefully.
“You’re never allowed to drive again,” Impulse tells Skizz. There’s pure terror in his voice, and Skizz laughs.
“I tried to tell you, man,” Skizz replies, shrugging and climbing out. “Sorry about your yard, Gemstone. I’ll get it fixed.”
“Thanks.” Gem climbs into the backseat, shoving Grian into Scar. He doesn’t wake up.
“He’s been asleep since he got in,” Skizz explains. Grian slumps against Scar’s shoulder who doesn’t really seem bothered by this predicament.
“I vote we leave him in the car when we get lunch,” Scar suggests. Grian sits up, glares at the center console, then shifts his glare to Scar.
“Absolutely not,” he replies.
“Have you been awake this entire time?” Scar questions. Grian rests his head on Scar’s shoulder once again, but his eyes remain open.
“No, I woke up when we pulled into Gem’s yard,” he answers. Scar nods and awkwardly pats his head, earning a tired smile.
They arrive at the restaurant they chose for lunch, and as soon as they’re seated, they order. It takes much longer than expected to get there, so it’s already half past three when they get seated.
“What if we don’t get to the house on time?” Grian asks as soon as the waitress walks off.
“There’s not much we can do. Plus, it’s not like anyone’s going to confirm whether we get there on time or not,” Skizz replies. “There’s a super cool thing called lying. Not sure if you’ve heard of it.”
“Shut up, Skizz,” Impulse mutters. He sips coffee that is both hot and cold, face contorting in disgust and confusion.
“Why are you drinking coffee when it’s almost four in the afternoon?” Gem asks. She rests her chin in her hands and stares at him, unblinking.
“You.” Gem gasps in offense, shooting straight up.
“Hey!” she exclaims, accidentally drawing the attention of other patrons and not caring. “I am absolutely lovely.”
“Combined with Grian and Scar?” He laughs and sips his hot/cold coffee again. “No thanks.”
Gem resorts to kicking him under the table. Impulse just sips his coffee again.
It takes a while for the group’s food to get there, so they busy themselves with colouring sheets Grian stole from the front area when no one was looking. After they eat, they’re finally ready for the two hour drive to the house.
“Remember, the ghost is very aggressive,” Impulse reminds them once they pull up. He pops open the trunk, and everyone starts grabbing gear.
Gem usually stays out in the van, but this time she was going to head into just the foyer and drop off any equipment they might need but can’t carry. Once she drops off the last item, she heads back to the van to set up a makeshift medic area on the floor. She turns on the computer and waits for someone to set up a camera.
“Test?” Grian’s voice comes out of Gem’s radio, startling her. “Can you guys hear me?”
“Loud and clear,” Impulse replies. His voice is slightly cracklier than his. “I also found the ghost room. It’s the nursery.”
The lights outside the house flicker for a moment before coming on. Gem unclips her radio from her belt and presses the button.
“Who just turned on the power?” she asks. There’s silence for a second, which worries her.
“That was me!” Skizz’s voice answers a minute later. “Sorry, I was having radio trouble.”
“All good,” Scar replies. Gem nods and clips her radio back onto her belt. The computer suddenly links to a camera in the nursery.
A few minutes pass, and at the same time both Skizz and Impulse shout, “We got freezing temps!”
Grian cheers through the radio, but he sounds a bit more distant, so Gem assumes she’s hearing him through someone else’s radio. She pulls out her tablet and hits freezing temperatures which eliminates quite a few ghost types.
Gem glances at the board that tracks their sanity. Right now, the collective sanity from inside the house is 67%. She sighs in relief, knowing they were safe from a hunt.
“Did anyone grab those crucifixes I left in the foyer?” Gem asks. There’s no response for a moment.
“Impulse got one!” Skizz replies. Gem nods despite him not being able to see her.
“I don’t think we’re getting EMF,” Scar says a few minutes later. She marks off EMF 5 on her tablet which unfortunately doesn’t get rid of much.
“Same with spirit box,” Grian adds. Once again, she marks it off, leaving them with four ghosts.
“I put a book down,” Impulse explains. “Will let you if it writes anything down.”
“Can you imagine putting the book down and suddenly you just see trigonometry?” Skizz jokes. There’s silence for a moment, then explosive laughter comes through her radio.
“The ghost actually did some sort of trigonometry!” Grian shouts over the laughter. Gem laughs too as she marks ghost writing which leaves them with two ghosts, and suddenly the radio goes silent.
“Guys?” Scar says quietly. Gem looks at the board and scrambles to grab her radio.
“Hunt!” she shouts into it. “Hunt! Hide, now!”
There’s dead silence, and it terrifies Gem. It’s not like she can do anything; the door was locked now that the ghost was hunting.
The ghost must’ve burnt through a crucifix without anyone noticing, which was honestly really odd but not completely improbable.
She looks at the camera, hoping to see something, anything, but there’s nothing. It’s too hard for her to see anything anyway.
After a second of thinking, she whips her head around to the board that tracks their sanity. They were still in the 60s.
“It’s a demon,” she whispers into the radio. “Once this hunt ends, leave.”
A few seconds pass, and Grian screams through sobs into the radio, “It got Scar! It got Scar!”
“Bring him to me now!” Gem shouts into the radio. She runs out of the van to rip open the front door.
Somehow, Skizz is already there, holding Scar. They both run to the van, and Skizz lays Scar on the makeshift mat Gem made.
“Get me the necklace,” Gem demands as she kneels and straightens out Scar. Into the radio, she shouts, “Grian, Impulse, out, now!”
“We have ultraviolet!” Impulse relays.
“Get the hell out of there!” Skizz yells. The anger and terror in his voice scares Gem.
“Understood. Grian’s still upset,” Impulse tells them. Both Skizz and Gem ignore him.
He hands her a gold necklace with a heart pendant. She grabs the heart in her right hand and places her hand on Scar’s chest.
“Formidulosus verba ad terrent te,” Gem mutters. Her eyes glow yellow, and her hair starts floating around her. The pain in the back of her head grows as she repeats louder, “Formidulosus verba ad terrent te!”
After she shouts the incantation one last time, her entire body hurts more than it ever has. That gave her even more proof that this was a demon.
When you bring someone back the dead, you feel the pain they did before they died. Demons gave people the most painful deaths, and now Gem was experiencing the pain Scar did during his last moments.
Scar inhales sharply, and Gem collapses onto the floor. If she were standing, it would’ve been a rough fall, but since she was kneeling, it was more like she slumped over. They’re both breathing heavily, and Gem weakly lifts her hand to give the necklace back to Skizz.
“Drink,” Impulse prompts, lifting Gem’s head up gingerly and pressing a bottle to her lips.
She sips the drink slowly until it’s gone. Since her eyes are closed, she has to completely rely on sound. Next to her she hears Grian whispering to Scar about how he also needs to drink the liquid.
It was disgusting, some sort of faux grape flavour, but Gem doesn’t have the strength to do anything but swallow the terrible drink.
“I’m calling the company to tell them what happened,” Skizz tells everyone. Impulse props Gem up against the wall of the van so she’s not lying on the floor, and Gem hears Skizz walk out of the van.
“Sounds good,” Grian replies. His voice is a bit scratchy from his crying earlier, but he luckily seems to be doing much better now that Scar is alive.
“Is Gem okay?” Scar asks as soon as he finishes his drink. Gem opens her eyes slightly just so she can see him and reach out.
“I’m right here,” she whispers. Already she was gaining her strength back.
“Good.” Scar grabs her hand, and they both smile weakly at each other before closing their eyes again to block out the light. “I was worried.”
“So was I,” Gem admits with a laugh. She can tell from past experience and her current strength, she’ll be fine in around ten or fifteen minutes.
“Are you two doing okay?” Skizz asks when he comes back in a few seconds later. Gem opens her eyes and waves at him with her free hand. This time she keeps her eyes open since the lights are bearable.
“I’m fine,” Gem replies, only lying a little. She has an awful migraine now, and if she stood up, she’d fall over, but otherwise she’s truly fine. “I think Scar needs another twenty minutes or so.”
Instead of responding, Scar gives a thumbs up with his free hand before dropping his arm over his eyes. He’s still laying on the matt.
“The company said that they will be paying us triple for this incident, and we’re all on break until you two are fully recovered,” Skizz explains. Gem’s eyes widen, and Skizz gives her a knowing smile.
“Weird,” Scar mumbles, then he giggles to himself.
“Well, when Scar is ready, we can head back to my house and watch a movie if you guys want,” Impulse offers. Gem gives a thumbs up because she knows that her head will hurt if she nods.
“No one is staying awake long enough for a movie,” Grian points out with a yawn. “Perfect idea.”
“Good,” Skizz says. Scar gives a thumbs up too.
Twenty minutes later, they’re on the road again. Gem ends up falling asleep, barely waking up when they get to Impulse’s house only to fall asleep on his living room floor.
When she wakes up the next day, she’s on one section of the couch. On the other, Scar is sitting up with Grian. Gem stretches and sits up, staring at them.
“Morning,” Grian greets groggily. “We just woke up too. Impulse and Skizz are making breakfast.”
Gem doesn’t reply. She just gives a thumbs up before laying back down, headache still slightly bothering her.
They all eat breakfast together with Gem not saying a single word and still looking pretty disheveled. Grian and Scar leave shortly after breakfast to return the van and head back home. Gem and Skizz stay at Impulse’s for a little while longer.
“Go get some rest,” Impulse tells her once the other two leave. “You know where the guest bedroom is.”
“I’ll check up on you in an hour,” Skizz adds. Gem just smiles and waves them away.
She heads down the hall to the guest bedroom that was more hers than anything else. It was pitch black in there since she usually only used it the morning after bringing someone back to life.
Gem falls asleep seconds after laying down and pulling the blanket around her.