Chapter Text
Noelle couldn’t help but feel a bit anxious as the car rolled closer to their destination. The houses thinned out, and mother nature gradually took back what was rightfully hers. The pavement gave way to dirt road, and towering trees long overdue for a trim started to shade their drive. She’d spent way too many late nights watching ‘cursed’ videos and reading creepypasta’s. She knew logically any place cheap enough to buy outright with just her inheritance from her late father wouldn’t be the best, more like sketchy at best, but she still felt like she was entering a horror movie.
“Um, Susie? Are you sure this is the right way?” she couldn’t help but ask, just to make sure.
“Uhh…” the larger woman squinted her eyes at the GPS. “Yep. road’s still lit up on here, so…”
“Y-yeah…” Noelle nodded. “It’s, um, pretty far from campus though, huh?”
“Yeah, travel’s gonna be a pain in the ass.” Susie agreed. “But, we can afford gas money, right? Not like we have a mortgage to pay, right?” she softly punched Noelle in the shoulder.
“Fahaha! True enough I suppose.” She looked behind her out the back window to make sure Kris and Berdly were still behind them, and of course they were, just like the last twenty times she checked.
“What? Think they swerved into the forest or something?” Susie asked, noticing her girlfriend checking yet again.
“I-I don’t know! Knowing that Kris is driving, probably!”
“Yeah, fair point.”
Finally, the car approached their destination. And it looked… pretty much exactly how Noelle expected it to look.
The paint was peeling badly from the walls, weathered by rain and snow over the years, and shingles were missing at some spots on the roof. The walls themselves were lined with wild plants that grew high enough to partially cover the first story windows, grasping to reclaim the rotting house. What was probably once meant to be a front garden had been replaced with overgrown wildflowers, the brick berries around the raised flower beds partially crumbled away. A grand fountain that had stopped running decades ago at least was covered in moss, the statue of a mermaid holding a vase on top of it missing an arm and her head. All of this was seen through the bars of a rusted gate, slightly falling off its hinges. The modern ‘for sale’ sign covered up with a piece of tape that read ‘sold’ looked completely out of place.
Yeah, they got what they paid for.
“You have arrived at your destination.” chimed from the GPS, only clarifying that this towering mess was their home for the rest of university, and probably longer, given the housing market. But they could probably fix it up!
The two stepped out of the car, stretching themselves out, and taking a deep breath of fresh air. Moments later, the sound of two doors slamming shut alerted them to Kris and Berdly coming to join them.
“Sooo…” Kris hummed, strolling over casually. “This’s the new place?”
“Uh, yeah, sorry…” Noelle sheepishly muttered.
“C’mon, what’re you apologising for? Look at all that free moss!” Kris put one arm around Noelle’s shoulder, using the other one to gesture at the fountain.
“Oh hell yeah! I didn’t even notice that! Free moss!” Susie cheered.
“Please don’t eat that…” Noelle knew her pleas would land on deaf ears, but tried anyway.
“My apologies for interrupting your little impromptu grocery list, but we have a problem.” Berdly cut in. “How are we going to open the gate?”
“Uh, by pushing it open, dumbass! There’s not even a lock!” Susie answered.
“No no no! Not happening!” Berdly firmly shook his head. “That thing’s entirely orange, you’ll give yourself tetanus if you look at it wrong!”
“Oh sweet! I love tetris!”
“Stop trying to get a reaction out of me, Susan.”
“Alright, alright! Fine, I won’t touch it with my hands.” Susie waved him off as she walked towards the gate. “Cover your ears, seriously.” she warned, giving the group a chance to block out the noise before she kicked the gate as hard as she could. There was a loud, clattering bang, followed by an ear splitting rusty screech. But once it was over, there was no more gate in the way.
“Grab our bags and get in?” Susie asked. She was met with agreement by the disoriented group, and soon enough everyone’s luggage was piled on the front porch. ‘Soon enough’ as in nearly an hour and moving the cars closer later, but they got there!
Surprisingly, unlike the gate, the doorhandles were fine, not a speck of rust on either of them. That was weird, given that the double doors themselves weren’t looking too good, paint barely still visible as it chipped off the wood. If the realtor was going to replace the handles, couldn’t they at least fix up the doors a bit too? But maybe the doors weren't as much of a lawsuit waiting to happen as a rusty door handle, so who knows?
Noelle took the keys out of her pocket, shuffling through them until she got the right one into the key hole, and opened the doors for everyone. She was expecting a cloud of dust to hit her in the face, or at least the smell of it to invade her nose, but instead was met with complete normalcy.
The doors opened to a large main room filled with couches and coffee tables. Wide doorways on either side of the room made it easy to see they led into a dining room and a gaming room respectively. At the far end of the room was a staircase that led up to the second story, said second story visible from the first due to a balcony floor plan. On either side of it were smaller doors that led further into the house. Above them was a large crystal chandelier, although it wasn’t much use to them, given it had spots to place candles instead of lightbulbs.
Kris absentmindedly flicked the lightswitch near the door, only realizing what they had done once the more modern lights along the walls flicked on.
“Oh shit, I was not expecting that to work.”
“It’s so big…” Berdly marvelled, looking up at the ceiling.
“And fully furnished, I forgot about that!” Susie took a dive onto one of the couches.
“Wait, susie, don’t-” but before Noelle could warn her, she landed, sending… nothing into the air.
“Huh? What’s wrong?” Susie asked, looking up at her girlfriend.
“I-I just thought there would be a dust cloud or something, you know?” Noelle explained. She ran her finger over a table, and it came back spotless: “but I guess the Realtor put more effort into cleaning up the inside than the outside!”
“Yes, I must say, if the inside is in such good condition, I can quite easily ignore the outside!” Berdly stated. “In fact, I pity anyone who turned down such a deal! The saying is right, don’t judge a book by its cover.”
“Well, I guess if everything’s in order for the time being, should we get our stuff inside? At least into the main room, and then figure out supper?” Noelle asked.
“Yeah, I guess.” Susie sighed, leaving her comfy resting place hesitantly. “But like, we don’t have to worry about supper at all. Order pizza, eat that for supper and breakfast, go shopping in the morning. Easy!”
“Well, I can’t fault her, her logic is sound.” Berdly agreed.
“Are-are you sure?” Noelle asked. “I mean, mom would kill me if I ate junk two meals in a row, and Tories wouldn’t like Kris doing that either…”
Susie placed a hand on her shoulder, leaning down. “Noelle, what’s your mom gonna do from six hours away?”
A sudden look of stunned realisation came over the blond girl's face. “Holy shit! I can do whatever I want!”
“Hell yeah you can!” Susie celebrated with her. “Now let’s get our stuff inside here, and get some junk food in us!”
Susie, Noelle, and Berdly hurried towards the door, Berdly looking over at Kris. The enby stood still, seemingly deep in thought based on their slightly scrunched face.
“Kris? Are you coming?” Berdly asked, snapping them back to reality.
“Oh, yeah, sure.” They nodded.
“Dude, are you okay?” Susie asked.
“Yeah, this place is just so big. It feels like someone’s watching me, waiting to just… jump out!” They mock pounced at Noelle, causing her to scream and jump back.
“Kris, what the hell?! That’s not funny!” The smallest girl yelled, though there was a barely surprised chuckle behind her words.
“Yeah, dumbass! Making Noelle scream is my thing!” Susie punched them in their arm harder than she would ever jostle Noelle.
“Oh my god, can we please just get our stuff inside!” Noelle pleaded.
The group walked back outside laughing, still not at each other's throats at this point in their roommate relationship.
Though only Kris knew that their little ‘episode’ wasn’t just the set up to a joke. They genuinely froze in place for a moment at the feeling of being watched. But like they brushed off, it was a big house, bigger than they were used to. It was just instinct or something to feel a bit paranoid in an open space.
It was nothing.
💐
From the balcony overlooking the main room, ‘nothing’ watched them move their luggage into the house. He hummed, and stood up from leaning over the balcony, throwing his jacket over his shoulder as he walked back, giving himself a bit of space.
And let himself fall backwards into the floor, diving into it like water.
Like water, there was resistance. It wasn’t a free fall as much as it was floating lower and lower, a tingly feeling he’d long gotten used to surging through his body with every floor and object he phased through.
Finally, he landed in the impromptu meeting room, otherwise treated as the basement. All six pairs of eyes turned to him as he returned to his feet.
“Flowery! Flowery!” Aqua ran up to him, tackling him into a hug that nearly knocked the bisected man’s top half from his legs. “Is the boring lady gone? Are these humans we can play with?”
Flowery placed a hand to her head, ruffling the little girl’s hair, careful to mind the red bumps on her body. They didn’t hurt when they were touched as they did in the last days of her life, but they could be uncomfortable if she didn’t expect them to be touched, so it was best to be safe.
“That’s what I’m here to talk about actually! Smart on you for figuring it out!” he booped her nose, causing her to giggle. “Go sit back down with Seth, okay? We have some things to talk about as a group.”
“Okay!” She quickly returned to her caretaker's side.
“That was different than letting her down gently. Is she actually gone?” Seth asked, crossing their arms under the piece of wood jammed through their chest.
“Well… I guess I have to be the one to deliver the news that” Flowery flipped his hair with his hand for dramatic effect. “The realtor is gone! There’s a new group of humans moving in as we speak!”
“Yay!” Yellow clapped his hand together.
“No! Not good! Not good at all! I want them out!” Orange growled, her expression just that much more menacing with the blood dripping down her face from the bullet hole in her head.
“N-not good?! Oh, I’m awful sorry for bindly cheerin’!” Yellow apologised, pulling the noose around his neck tighter, only for his hands to be gently led away from the rope by Blue’s near skeleton thin hand.
“And that’s the best part, Orange!” Flowery clarified, tuning out his friend’s umpteenth spiral. “Now that we’ve got someone new here, someone who isn’t privy to our little tricks, we have a clean canvas to work on! Never again, until the next person moves in of course, will we have to deal with the unammused scowl of a stubborn woman who's grown used to our activities! Finally, after years of her sporadically coming in to meddle in our afterlives, we have fresh meat to scare out of here, and yet again know peace in our own house!”
His declaration was met by cheering and clapping, and he took the closest thing to a bow he could without his torso falling off of his legs.
Green approached him, the spectral fire engulfing parts of their body thankfully not being able to jump onto the notebook they passed to him.
“When do we start?” it read.
“Well… I say we spend tonight observing them! Getting to know our targets the best we can. Then, we start scaring tomorrow, and have them out of here by sunset!”
“It sounds like a marvellous plan.” Blue agreed. “Shall we use the time the humans are asleep to discuss our findings and plan our attack?”
“That’s a wonderful idea, Blue!” Flowery nodded.
“Now,” He held out his hand in a metaphorical gesture towards the group. “Shall we begin our people watching?”
And of course, the answer from the antsy ghosts was yes.
It would only be a matter of hours before they were yet again free from sharing their house with invaders, provided nothing went wrong, of course, but why wouldn’t it? Every other ‘permanent’ resident of the house was easily scared away.
There’s no way this group could be any different.
Right?