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Battat never got enough sleep. He relied on his debilitating caffeine addiction to make it through his obscenely long workdays as "Mike." Due to some combination of the previous two factors, plus the fact that there was something undeniably and inherently wrong with him, he was crazy. Not just conspiracy theorist crazy (he once tried to prove that Kris was secretly a character from a popular video game), but also straight-up hallucinating crazy. The hat man never scared him, because he thought it was a Shadowguy, but he couldn't explain everything so easily.
He thought he heard something while he was giving Tenna his antenna massage, but he was too busy to wonder about it. He heard a noise behind him while he was performing Tenna's shock therapy, but he ignored it. He heard a sound like claws against plastic while he was tidying up Tenna's nose drawer, but when he turned to look, nothing was there.
If he was being haunted, he didn't have time to worry about it. He had props to order, sound effects to play, and bedtime stories to read. The hauntings only got worse, like the ghost wanted his attention. Scratch marks appeared on his bed frame. Laughter echoed from Ramb's secret video game room on late nights. And sometimes, when it was very, very dark, Battat caught a fading glimpse of a grinning face.
No one else seemed to notice. He'd asked, of course, as covertly and inconspicuously as one can ask something like that, but no one had seen or heard anything unusual. It was because they didn't stay up late enough. He had a theory about this, that there are special witching hours in the middle of the night, when the veil is thinner. His theory hadn't gotten far enough to explain what the veil was, but he knew it was thinner.
The theorist part of him, the part that needed knowledge like his body needed caffeine, urged him to stay up till the witching hour on purpose. He could gather more data on the haunting, maybe get a fresh corkboard and start piecing together a theory. His head was already buzzing with questions. What did this thing want? What powers did it have? Did it have weaknesses like ghosts did in movies? There was only one way to find out.
It was a normal day until Battat got off work and staggered through the hallway, alone and free. A light here was on the fritz, and it would be any day now until Tenna noticed and made him fix it. Suddenly, with a soft electrical hiss, it went out.
That didn't faze him. He'd seen worse technical mishaps. But it was very, very dark in the space between one functioning light and the next. Something smiled from the darkness. He couldn't make out the edges of a form, but its grin was wider than he imagined its head being. An asymmetrical pair of eyes stared at him. One yellow, the other pink.
"Who are you and what do you want?" Battat said like he'd caught the thing trespassing. He'd heard it was the proper way to address a ghost.
"A friend," came the reply in a layered and echoing voice.
"Is that answering the first question, the second one, or both of them?" The thing laughed in response. That's what he gets for asking. "Okay, uh, one question at a time then. What do you want?"
He thought he heard the ticking of a prize wheel, but it passed. "Can't I drop by for a friendly visit?"
"You're freaking people out," he said.
"I didn't know you were multiple people." The grin widened.
"No, I mean, other people, who aren't me, are getting worried, what with all the creepy stuff going on," he said untruthfully.
It laughed again, longer and more distorted. "You're very funny, little die. You should know your friend better than that. I don't show myself to just anyone."
"What, what do you mean, die? I'm not a Pippins," he said, lying again. He was still in costume.
"You're like a little layer cake. Microphone on top, die underneath, but what's in the third layer? More die? More microphone? Maybe a deep emptiness? Who knows until the cake is cut?"
He didn't like the sound of that, but he ignored it, just like he ignored his needs to eat and sleep. "Why me? Why aren't you haunting someone else?"
The "friend's" presence moved in closer. Battat could almost feel the touch of its fur. Wait, fur? "You're one of my favorite kinds of people. Driven by desire, curiosity in your case. Insane enough to do anything for it. And, of course, very, very lucky."
"Lucky?? You think I'm lucky? I work my butt off for Tenna, seven days a week, three hundred sixty-five days a year! If I'm lucky, then—"
"Ah, but how did you get this job? You were the right person in the right place at the right time. So many little factors came together to make you who you are today. Isn't it beautiful?"
"How did you know that?" Battat frowned, and somehow the mask of his costume frowned with him. "Have you been watching me?"
"Not in the way you think," the "friend" said, its tongue snaking around its sharp teeth. "Would you like to know what I mean?"
"Yes," he said before he could change his mind.
His head turned in a direction that didn't exist, and he saw you reading these words. He broke out in a cold sweat under his costume as the "friend's" distorted laughter rang in his nonexistent ears. You're seeing the framework of his world, and it's words on a screen, with imagination filling in the gaps. I can tell you that Battat's stomach was twisting, or that his limbs were shaking, but you'll never see the way his face paled under the mask. You can see him, but you can't see him. He couldn't see you, but he could see you.
His head spun, and not in a good way. He couldn't tell where the "friend" was anymore, behind him, in front of him, next to him, all of the above and more. He couldn't tell up from down. He fell through every direction at once until he passed out.
When he came to, he was lying on the floor in a dark hallway. No one else was around at this time of night. Had he fallen asleep? He must have had a nightmare. He ignored it, just like he ignored the judgmental glances from the other Pippins, and climbed to his feet. It was finally, finally time to go to bed.