For the people residing in the United States of America, it was a year so awful and so complex that it felt like a decade condensed into a single calendar.
A Global Pandemic
An Election
Protests in the Streets
And multiple other crises.
Yet despite all the mania and madness that swept across the nation like a bitter cold wind, mankind has survived to see another year.
Starting today, people around the United States are tuning in for an annual tradition that has existed since some of them were but wee children.
In the comfort of their homes, they turn on their television sets and tune to the channel that used to be the much more properly named Sci-Fi Channel.
There they are comfortably disturbed by the dulcet monotonous voice of Rod Serling as he leads everything on a marathon through...
...The Twilight Zone.
https://youtu.be/8fpxhQgmqy0
By the time they are finished running through this marathon, it will be a brand new year. A year that hopefully will no longer be in...
Is Unwanted House Guest still being made? Or did you guys stop it, I don’t know if you already said it but I’m just curious
It’s still being made. I have the ending all planned out and have already started gotten a start on it. Problem is I’m an adult and can’t devote as much time to writing as I’d like to. On top of that, I was in a car accident at the start of August and got two broken bones and a sprained ankle. And if that wasn’t enough, one of the bones is my fifth right metacarpal which puts my hand in a cast which means I can’t type on a computer. I can type on a phone okay, like I’m doing now, but to really format it right, I need my PC. Rest assured, I do plan to finish it. I don’t want to leave it incomplete.
My Roommate is an Apparition: WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A DAD - Part 2
Based on characters created by @reddpenn
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Oh man, am I late on posting this. So many things going on. Not to mention figuring out how to follow up the first part.
It seems people really like the first-person narration from “A-Pink-Ciation of Culture”, so I went with that again with this piece.
Almost DAILY, I get likes or re-blogs and the occasional follower despite not having posted anything since March. I’m very curious and would like to hear from you readers about what you like about my writing and what appeals to you. Eventually, I want to make a living off of writing, but until that time, I definitely could use any and all feedback.
Anyway, now that that’s out of the way, on with the story!
From the Diary of Lily, March 1st, 2020:
Okay, diary, I’m coming to you because I honestly have no idea where else to go to try and sort through the evening I just had with my Dad and Tulpa. I can’t put my finger on it, but something about tonight just... bothers me! It’s like I’m on pins and needles and can’t stop thinking about, well, a LOT of stuff. Just... hear me out and maybe it’ll make sense if I put this all down on paper (I.E. You). I just spent the last twenty minutes trying to talk things through out loud, but that got me nowhere so here goes nothing:
First off, my Dad came to visit a week earlier than what I had planned, and immediately sets up shop in my living room with his NES and copy of Castlevania III. Only problem was I hadn’t talked with Tulpa about his visit since I was expecting him until NEXT weekend. I kept thinking that the last thing I wanted was for anything weird to happen during his visit.
Which, looking back on it, was a really stupid thing to worry about.
I mean, Dad’s a pretty open-minded guy and he’s quite weird himself. He’s actually quite proud of his weirdness (embarrassing as it is sometimes). He tends to under-react to all kinds of things like it’s no big deal. I’ve even asked him why he doesn’t freak out about some of the stuff he comes across in real life or on TV, and he just tells me, “I’ve seen weirder.” (If some of the stories he’s told me are true, then he has. He really, REALLY has!)
For example: if Tulpa had come into the room holding a... I dunno, a plate or something, like would that really freak my Dad out? Pfft, No! He (maybe?) wouldn’t see her, all he’d see was a “flying saucer” (he deliberately would make that lame pun too), and then get back to his game. Then later, he’d try and tell me about the real flying saucers he saw years ago, or something.
Since I had assumed that Dad wouldn’t have been able to see her, it eventually clicked in my head that what I was actually worrying about was, “what would Tulpa think of my Dad?” He’s a huge Goofus that likes to make bad jokes, tell tall tales, and play video games! And even if he did weird her out, it’s not like she could go anywhere... right? I mean, she might avoid interacting with me because of him, but...
Oh...
Oh wow...
I just read what I just wrote and I can not believe I was being THAT irrational! ( Man, people are stupid sometimes; me included!)
Avoid me because of my DAD!? That’s gotta be the dumbest thing I’ve ever thought! It’s not like he LIVES here or anything! He’s not the one paying the rent; I am! And... I’ve gotten to know Tulpa pretty well these past few months, but... I guess I still have a lot more to learn about her. Case in point:
————————————-
So Tulpa tells me that she wants to meet my Dad, and after coming to my senses somewhat, I say she can sit in so long as she doesn’t touch anything (see flying saucer explanation above). A few minutes later, she walks in looking like the tall girl from Keep Your Hands off Eizouken (I had to look the name up; I couldn’t remember it for the life of me). By that I mean, she’s coming in as a tall, lanky, skinny, somewhat pale skinned girl looking to be about my age. She’s wearing some modest clothes and, if I’m being honest with myself, they looked kind of cute in that outfit they had on. It was a nice ensemble.
Then Dad says “Hi” to her.
...
Let me repeat that in case it hasn’t clicked with you yet.
My Dad GREETED her!
He! SAW! Her!
When I asked her about it later, she said to me that she thought that since he’s my Dad, then whatever it is that allows me to see her could be something my Dad has too. So far, her theory has been proven right, but... I’m not one-hundred percent sure, because Tulpa... well... she changed.
And I’m being literal here, too! She no longer had that transparency to her like usual. She had a nose! She had ears! She had five fingers! And she looked...
...well...
...good.
Tulpa said she had never tried doing this before, but figured that in the off-chance that her hunch was correct, she wanted to make a good impression on my Dad. (Why do I keep thinking about that old joke in movies and TV shows about the overprotective Dad that threatens the boy about to go on a date with their daughter?) She even went so far as to create her own “clothes”, saying she knew they’d be important. Considering that she doesn’t wear (or need) clothes any other time, I ask her how she came to that conclusion. I still have no idea what she meant when she suddenly bellowed out, “GOOD...! GRIEF...! HE’S...! NAKED!”
[Edit: It’s from Spongebob, because of course it was.]
So I’m not sure if Dad could see her because she purposely made herself opaque, or if he would have been able to see her if she wasn’t in her human “disguise” (and yes, I’m calling it a disguise and I’ll explain why a bit later, okay?). But either way, she walks in and my Dad just starts chatting away like so:
————————————-
“Hi there! You must be Lily’s roommate!” says Dad.
At this point, I’m kind of frozen solid on the couch, just watching and listening as everything unfolds in front of me like it’s being burned into my retinas. You know that saying about slow-motion train wrecks? Y’know, about how you can’t look away from them? This is probably why I remember the conversation so well.
“Heh...Hello,” she responds back nervously.
“I’m Lily’s Dad,” he says as if it wasn’t obvious, “Hope you don’t mind if we play some games out here.”
Tulpa shakes her head and stutters out, “No...N-not at all.”
“Great!” Dad responded with a smile that said, “Even if it was bothering you, I’m still going to take up the TV and play video games. So nyeh!” I’ve lived with him long enough to know that he’s not someone who would give up the TV without a fight.
(...gee... that kind of reminds me of someone now that I think about it...)
Tulpa then asks, “M-mind if... I watch?”
Dad gives her this big, goofy smile and responds with a, “Sure thing!” since despite him never admitting to it, he always liked having an audience around when he played games (or almost anything really) in hopes of “schooling” them. (Why he didn’t go into teaching, I will never understand.)
As soon as Dad turns back to his game and un-pauses it, Tulpa smiled, sat back, and looked content (Although it was a little weird seeing her smile with a nose to go along with it.) This snaps me out of my stupor long enough to scootch over to Tulpa and chat with her.
“You actually want to watch him play?” I ask her once more because the mere thought that she’d be interested in something outside of cartoons still hadn’t registered in my head, yet.
“Yeah...” she says as she starts to stare at the screen like she usually does during her cartoon time. “...sounded... familiar,” she said before looking up slightly while lost in thought, “...Simon... Belmont... Mega... Man... Kid... Icarus...” she said again as though that meant something. To me it just sounded almost like some kind of madness mantra, but...
“Oh! You mean Captain N: The Game Master!” my Dad chimed in out of seemingly nowhere.
“YES!” Tulpa said with excitement (worth noting that she doesn’t look excited very often, but when she does, she practically glows). “I remember...” she said before pausing to collect her thoughts and form the words she wanted to say. If I could have, I would have warned her about my Dad’s tendency to pounce on any hesitation in a conversation to take it over.
“Man, I haven’t seen Captain N in decades,” he said wistfully, “Surprised someone young as you remembers it. I was in High School when that show came on! When did you see it?”
“Ummm...” she hesitated, “...reruns... when I was... a kid.”
(As I’m writing this down now, I realize she was trying to hide her actual age from Dad. She looked to be in her early twenty’s like I was, but if she said she saw it when it came on the air originally, that’d make her over thirty years old at least.)
“Ahhhh! I see you have good taste in reruns!” Dad complimented.
“Th-thank you,” she stuttered back. As I listened to the awkward conversation of father-roommate bonding, I found my eyes constantly turning towards Tulpa. Not out of adoration or anything, but more like... studying her.
————————————-
On the one hand, she looked like the Tulpa that I had known ever since she became my roommate months ago. But on the other hand, they somehow weren’t. It’s kind of like when someone changes their looks a bit for maybe, I dunno, a night on the town, a job interview, a wedding, or something else along those lines. Only in her case, “dressing up” meant adding additional body parts she didn’t normally have.
(To be honest, I’m still not entirely sure what to think about that...)
I’ve always been a firm believer of people being themselves, and being allowed to be themselves. I can’t stand situations where people are unable to truly express themselves or feel comfortable. Way I see it, life is too short to be spent worrying over stupid stuff that makes people miserable just so they can come off as normal.
Sometimes it’s because of social norms and expectations; those unspoken rules of life that people are supposed to just magically “know”. Like if someone was going to a church or temple service, social norms say they need to wear their “Sunday Best” with stiff, itchy clothes that are dry clean only. If I was able to go to a sermon wearing a baggy college sweatshirt, sweatpants, and slippers, and NOT be judged like I’m some kind of crazy hobo, it would have definitely made something like that more appealing to me.
Now I have nothing against anyone that likes to dress up in fancy clothes and wear them out and about; I mean, everyone likes different things, right? The point is that if I’m going to do something that makes me uncomfortable, it should be because I wanted to do it for myself. I don’t think I should bend over backwards making myself feel bad (physically or mentally) for someone else’s sake. Sure, call me selfish if you must, but I just can’t advocate for doing something that makes you feel bad because you wanted someone else to feel good.
I’m just thankful no one in my family has ever tried to push anything on me. Sure, they’ve suggested things to me before, and of course made sure I didn’t do something stupid that would injure me or worse when I was too young to know better. But overall, my family has given me a lot of freedom to do what I want, dress how I want, and be who I want to be. Now that I think about it, I’m kind of lucky that way.
(I hope I’m making sense on this. Re-reading this, I’m not entirely sure if I do.)
————————————-
Anyway, I’m looking at Tulpa and watching them carefully, trying to figure out if they were comfortable looking like that or not. She’s just sitting there watching my Dad play Castlevania III, and he was now on the haunted pirate ship with Trevor and Sypha. He was breezing through at a pretty good pace and sharing an anecdote about how Warren Ellis figuratively gave him the “Turd Cape of Shame” on this old message board back when the Castlevania series on Netflix was just an idea back in 2007. (I still am not entirely sure if that story is true or not.)
“Hey Lily,” Dad asks suddenly out of the blue, “got anything to drink?” I offer him some lemonade, he accepts, and I go to the kitchen to pour him a glass. As I’m doing this, I hear Dad ask Tulpa, “By the way, I don’t think I caught your name. What was it again?”
“...Tulpa...” she says back to him.
My body freezes up for a moment as I realized that “Tulpa” is not an ordinary name. I mean the first time she told me her name, it sounded like some kind of Pokémon. Once again, that irrational fear of my Dad being weirded out or something enters my head, but is dispelled almost immediately.
“Tulpa?” my Dad says aloud to himself, “That’s a very interesting name.”
“T-Thank you...” she says back.
I walk in with a glass of pink lemonade and set it down on a little, folding TV dinner stand that was given to me when I first moved out for college. I slowly sit back down again as I keep an eye on Dad. His facial expression is the same as usual: relaxed. You could call it a poker face, but I’ve seen him play poker and he is BAD at poker.
“Anyone in your family Buddhist?” my Dad asks casually.
I step in, “Dad! What kind of a question is that!?” And I meant what I said too. Who even asks something like that!?
“I was just wondering,” he says before once again shutting up and focusing on his game.
This is one of the things about my Dad that bugs me to no end: he likes to be cagey sometimes. He’ll say something vague with the sole purpose of making the other person curious, confused, or both. It leaves, like, questions in the back of your head that just start gnawing at your brain and won’t stop chewing away at your gray matter until you finally ask him to explain what the heck he was talking about. He does this on purpose to “bait” people into asking him questions or to continue with what he’s saying. So annoying!
I sigh, “Why’s that, Dad?”
He gives a little smile and continues, “Oh it’s just that this isn’t the first time I’ve heard the name “Tulpa” before, that’s all.”
NOW he has my total undivided attention and Tulpa’s too as we both unconsciously lean forward. Practically in sync, we both say, “It’s not!?”
He’s still smiling as he says, “Nope. First time I heard that name was when I was doing some monster research for a Castlevania Wiki I had been working on a while back.”
Tulpa practically gulps, “M-M-Monster...?”
“Well not really a monster,” he says back, “more like... a supernaturally, artificially created person.”
(There are some times when my Dad can be down right spooky and creepy. This was one of those times.)
Full Metal Alchemist immediately pops into my head, and without even hesitating, I ask, “Like a Homunculus?”
“Nah, more like...” he says before pausing his game and turning to Tulpa and I, “...an imaginary friend.” Tulpa and I both tilt our heads in confusion. Dad picks up on this and by now, he is practically glowing at this opportunity to share some weird thing he just happens to know something about.
He explains, “So there’s this word in Tibetan called “Sprul-Pa” which means “Manifestation”, okay? And in early Buddhism, this is used as the explanation for how Gautama Buddha could travel to heavenly realms and come back again. You could say he created a clone of himself in the other realm and then transmitted his consciousness to it from his body on Earth. Kind of like a-”
By now, Tulpa and I were clearly on the same wavelength as she asks, “a Shadow Clone!?” at the exact same time I was thinking of it. Believe it!
Dad’s silent for a moment as he thinks to himself before finally going, “...uhhh... I guess... you could say that. I was thinking “Dream Body” but I suppose a shadow clone could work too.” My Dad used to watch Naruto with me on Toonami years ago, so he knew full well what a shadow clone was.
He turns to face us as he continues talking, “The thing with a Tulpa is that it’s something made from nothing. A Homunculus, using your example, Lily, requires having the materials necessary to make an artificial being on hand before you can create them. But a Tulpa is willed into existence out of nothingness. It is created from the thoughts of the creator; known as a “Thoughtform” in some cases.”
(WHEN did my Dad even learn this stuff!?)
“The difference between a Tulpa and an imaginary friend,” my Dad continued to say, “is that while an imaginary friend is just that, someone that exists in your imagination, a Tulpa is made when someone’s thoughts are so strong that they will their imaginary friend into existence.”
I look over at Tulpa, and she is totally absorbed in what my Dad’s saying.
“Now from what I’ve read...” Oh my God, Dad! What have you even been reading!? “...it’s very difficult for one person alone to have enough psychic power to will a sentient being into creation. But if you had enough people thinking the same thing, and thinking about it hard enough, then, hypothetically, a Tulpa could be created.”
“So what you’re saying is if enough people think Bigfoot is real, then they can actually make it real just by believing in them?” I snark.
“Yeah, pretty much,” my Dad replies without detecting my snark at all.
“Or like...” Tulpa chimes in, “...how Tinkerbell is saved... by believing in fairies and... clapping hands?” I was a bit surprised Tulpa knew that since I couldn’t recall Disney’s Peter Pan having that scene in it.
Dad thinks about it for a moment, and then goes, “Hmmmmm... yeah! That too, I suppose.”
Right about then, Dad gets a notification on his phone. He pulls it out, looks at it, gets a somewhat serious look on his face, and then stands up and says, “Hey, I gotta make a phone call real quick. Mind if I...” he trails off.
“Yeah, sure thing, Dad,” I say back. He heads down the hallway to the guest bedroom and closes the door as he makes his call. It’s now just Tulpa and me in the living room, and we were both feeling super awkward. I turn to Tulpa and say, “So... did you know anything about all that?”
Tulpa shook her head, “N-n-no. First time I... I ever heard of... of it.” I could tell she was feeling nervous. She had started stuttering pretty badly.
All this time, I knew Tulpa was an apparition, but I never thought about what kind of apparition she was. It never really dawned on me that an apparition could have an origin story. With Tulpa, she was just... kind of there for me, and I never really questioned it. Her being her somehow felt, I dunno... “natural”, I guess.
I never thought I really needed to learn more about Tulpa, anyway. I mean, outside of the occasional mischief, Tulpa was perfectly harmless. Worst thing she ever did was the Pinkening (still don’t know how she did that), but that was partly on me because I was being a big dummy. Overall, she’s always been friendly, kind, and fun to be around, and that‘s always been good enough for me.
“You, uh...” I start to say, “...want to talk about it later?” Tulpa looks ahead of her kind of blankly, and I immediately add, “It’s okay if you don’t want to, Tulpa, I just-“
“Talk about what?” She asks, now looking at me kind of confused.
“About...” I trail off as I try to find the right words, “...about what my Dad just said and about... I dunno... where you came from?”
Tulpa clearly hadn’t thought about it before. She leaned back against the couch and audibly sighed (I think that was the first time I ever heard them sigh!), before saying, “I... don’t know... Lily...”
“Don’t know where you came from, or don’t know if you want to talk about it?” I asked her.
She thought for a moment before saying, “Both...”
I wanted to say something more to her, maybe give them some kind of reassurance, but I just couldn’t as long as my Dad was here! The frustration of wanting to talk about something with someone, but not being able to because of other people being around, is just AGONIZING! If only Dad would hurry up and leave, but when he says he’s going to beat a video game, he’s going to beat a video game. Problem was he hadn’t even made it to Dracula’s Castle yet, so who knew how much longer it would be?
Then Dad comes back in and says, “Hey, sorry about this, but I need to get going.”
HAAAAAALLEJUAH!!!
“Oh sweet merciful powers that be, THANK YOU! “ I thought to myself. I was worried things were going to get all cringy like a bad self-insert fanfic. “Aww, that’s too bad,” I fibbed out of politeness. I mean, he’s my Dad and I love him and all, but... y’know...
“Yeah, I got a call from work and they need me to help out with something. ‘Fraid I have to cut my visit short, Lily.” My Dad powered off the Nintendo system and began packing it up. But then he suddenly stopped, looked up, then looked back at me and said, “Hey, you want to borrow my NES for a bit!?”
Dad suddenly leaving to take care of something for work happens every now and then, so that was no big surprise. But Dad suddenly saying he has to leave to take care of something and leave his NES in MY care!? THAT scared the pants off me!
“Oh my God, Dad... you’re not dying are you!?” I ask with a half-serious tone.
“What!? No! What gave you that idea!?” He shoots back.
“Because that’s the NES you’ve had ever since you were a kid! You have NEVER let anyone else look after it! EVER!” I remind him because it is one-hundred percent true.
His lame-sauce excuse was: “Hey, both of your uncles used to look after it!”
And then I remind him, “That’s because you all lived in the same house with grandma and grandpa! Y’know, because you were all kids and everything!”
“They still took care of it,” he pouts.
“Only after they sneaked into your room, de-hooked it, and snuck it over to their room! You know I’ve heard the stories at the family gatherings!, right?” This is all completely true.
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My Dad is the oldest of three, and at family gatherings, like around Thanksgiving, he and my uncles used to tell as many embarrassing stories about each other as possible like they were trying to one-up each other. Like, “Hey, remember that time you stuck a LEGO tire up your nose and had to go to the Emergency Room?”
And my uncle’s all like, “I WAS FOUR!”
Good times....
...now where was I?
Oh right! Why leaving the Nintendo was a big deal!
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“C’mon, Dad,” I plead, “The only way I can see you willingly giving away your Nintendo, even if just for a little while, would be if you were on your death bed and filling out your last will and testament. So go on, spill it, what’s up with that?”
My Dad just had this look of offense on his face like I had seriously wounded him with my words. “I am NOT that overprotective of it!”
“Yes you are.”
“Okay, I am,” he admits way too quickly, “but I just thought that you having it might be a good idea in case you finally get some free time coming up. Best way to enjoy it is to play it, after all.”
I chuckle, “Dad, the only way work is going to give me enough time off to sit on my butt and play video games is if some horrible catastrophe caused the art store to shut down. Like, I dunno, a deadly virus or something.”
[EDIT, APRIL 12th, 2020: ME AND MY BIG FAT MOUTH!
AAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!]
Dad chuckles and say, “Yeah... you got a point there. Still, I think between you and your roommate, you’re both responsible adults now who can get some enjoyment out of it. I’m sure I can trust you two to take good care of it,” he says before raising an eyebrow, “or is there some reason I shouldn’t leave it here!?”
“Relax! We can look after it, Dad. Nothing’s going to happen to it,” I say as I whip my head back so fast it could have made a sonic boom. Just as I suspected, there was Tulpa sitting down in front of the Nintendo about ready to poke it with her finger. “Isn’t that right, Tulpa?” I say while looking straight at her.
“Y-yes...” she mutters.
Dad smiles at the two of us and then suddenly, out of the blue, he gives me this big ole bear hug and pats me on the back! It’s the same kind of hug he gave me on my first day at school, when I was leaving for summer camp, and when I moved into my freshman dorm for college. It was the kind of reassuring hug that says everything is going to be fine. “Ohhhhhhh, look at you growing up and being all responsible! I’m so proud of you, Lily!”
“Dad! Can’t breath, Dad!” I say before he finally lets go.
“Oh yeah, tomorrow, when you get a chance, make sure to pick up a couple packages of toilet paper,” he says casually, “your bathroom’s running low and now would be a good time to stock up.”
[EDIT April 12th, 2020: HE FREAKING KNEW!
HOW!?!?!?]
“Thanks for the tip, Dad,” I respond before saying the thing that led to my Dad saying the other thing that would make my brain do somersaults for the next few hours and ultimately come to you, dear diary, “What brought up that little nugget of wisdom? Dad-ly Intuition?” (Yes, that pun was intentional.)
“Well I’ve always considered myself to be a little psychic here and there,” he says about twenty-three seconds before the door closes and forty-five seconds before my face faults, “and you’ve always been a little psychic too, haven’t yah?”
“Sure Dad, I’ll catch you later,” I say waving goodbye.
“Take care, Lily! Keep in touch! Love you, sweetie!” he calls back as he’s walking into the hallway heading out,
“Love you too, Dad” I say as I close the door and lock the deadbolt. With that family obligation out of the way, I was feeling much better not having to worry about next weekend, not having to worry about Tulpa and Dad, and could just chill and relax and-
It was right about then that my eyes shot wide open as I stared ahead of me at nothing in particular. The gears in my head started turning faster and faster as the past few months living here started to tie together. Tulpa looks at me, slightly concerned. She’s still in her “disguise”, but looks genuinely concerned. She waves her hand it front of me and my mind is working at warp speed, so it doesn’t even register.
“Are you... okay... Lily?” she asks.
I slowly turn to look her in the eye, and then ask her flat out:
- you join a zoom call. everyone’s mic is muted, but no one is talking anyway. you stare at the squares with faces in them. which is your face? you can’t be sure.
- the news is full of numbers. you try to learn what they mean, but the articles are full of jargon from fields you have no experience in, and you swear the numbers change when you blink.
- you wake up. you sleep. you wake up. you sleep. how many days was that? you have no idea.
- you go for a walk. a shadow follows you down the street, moving when you move, stopping when you stop. always the recommended six feet away.
- every day you get several emails from corporations you’ve never heard of. each company name sounds fake, too vague, too optimistic. “Stay healthy! :)” they say. “We’re committed to keeping you safe! You must stay healthy! We love you very much! We learned everything about you so we can keep you safe! Please believe us we love you so much we’ r e , s 0Rry:):)):))” You try to unsubscribe, but the link just takes you to a blank black webpage. Suddenly, you can make out your reflection in the screen. What’s that over your shoulder?
- you’ve been wearing the same clothes for days, but somehow there is laundry.
- You work from home, and have been for the last six years. You still have a job, still get a paycheck (meager as it may be), and still get benefits. For many, the pandemic has chaotically disrupted their lives. For you, it’s just Tuesday.
- The Internet stops working at your home. You call your Internet Service Provider to try and get it repaired. The phone tells you that there is a five hour wait time. Sunova…
- The streets are mostly empty. Storefront parking lots are practically deserted save for a few stores that remain open. You drive looking for signs of- WHAT THE F@!* BUDDY!? DID THE PANDEMIC CAUSE EVERYONE TO FORGET HOW TO F@!*$%# DRIVE!? USE YOUR DAMN TURN SIGNALS, STUPID!
- You’ve had a backlog of video games to play for the longest time. But now, the impossible is happening: it’s shrinking.
- You live in an apartment building with seven floors and several families. Many days, you could hear kids outside cheerfully talking and playing with each other. You still hear them, but now the noise of laughing children is coming from the hallways. And at all hours throughout the day and night. You really wish they’d shut up so you can sleep.
My Roommate is an Apparition: WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT TO HAVE A DAD - Part 1
Based on characters created by @reddpenn
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It was Saturday afternoon and Lily was dancing around in a baggy shirt, baggy sweatpants, socks, and jamming out to Michael Jackson’s Thriller; blasting it out from her computer’s speakers. She had been vacuuming the floor, washing dishes, gathering trash, and doing other reasonable adult chores with a spring in her step. Lily was feeling fantastic and even if someone told her that her car had been towed and had a $300 fine, she wouldn’t have cared and continue to dance.
She was, to put it bluntly: hyped.
Something she had been looking forward to for a very long time was coming and Lily could not contain her glee. On the wall, her calendar had a big red circle around March 7th: the upcoming Thursday. In the pantry were a wide variety of snacks, munchies, treats, and goodies (some of them were leftover from the Pink Panther marathon a few weeks back, but were never opened, so they were still good). Visions of possible ways to decorate the apartment to celebrate floated through her head as her heart beat with excitement. To most others, this Thursday wasn’t anything particularly special, but In about six days...
...Castlevania Season Three was going to premiere on Netflix.
————————————-
As Lily danced while she worked, a pair of eyes were watching from the walls. Lily knew they were there, but didn’t mind, since she knew those eyes belonged to her apparition roommate. Their name was “Tulpa” (since that’s what they said it was when Lily asked) and recently, Lily had begun addressing them by name as opposed to simply “Roommate” or “Roomie”.
“Hey Tulpa!” Lily called out to the pair of eyeballs embedded into the wall, “Hope you don’t mind the music!”
Materializing from the wall, the nose-less, ear-less, long haired, spiky-toothed being moved closer and stared at their roommate doing the “Boogie of Unreachable Back Itch” with a puzzled look on their face. The apparition couldn’t remember the last time they ever saw Lily look this happy. Usually, she wasn’t nearly this energetic on her days off when doing chores, so something good must have happened.
“Why... are you... dancing?” Tulpa asked quietly in their trademark raspy voice. Unfortunately, they were too quiet since Lily didn’t hear a word they said over the music coming from the computer.
“Lily...” her roommate called out slightly louder, “Why... are you... dancing!?”
Once again, Lily couldn’t hear a thing and her ghostly roommate was starting to get annoyed. They needed to do something to get her attention, and in a way that didn’t disturb the neighbors, frighten Lily, or result in something breaking. (The two of them had a very long chat about it after “The Pink-ening” back in February.) Eyeing Lily’s computer, Tulpa got an idea and hovered over to it.
One quick YouTube search was all it took to change the music to something Tulpa was more... familiar with.
“IN THE HEART OF TRANSYLVANIA!
IN THE VAMPIRE HALL OF FAME, YEAH!
THERE’S NOT A VAMPIRE ZANIER THAN
DUCKULAAAAAAA!!!”
*click*
————————————-
Lily stopped the music and looked at Tulpa with a half-smile on her face. “You rang?” she said jokingly.
“Why... are you... dancing?” asked Tulpa.
Lily chuckled to herself, “I’m glad you asked!” she said joyfully, “One of my favorite shows has a new season premiering this Thursday! Castlevania!”
“Castle... vania?” Tulpa asked inquisitively. Despite being an apparition with no physical organs or body parts, they did have a memory, and something about that name seemed familiar. Almost reflexively, Tulpa said, “Simon... Belmont?”
Lily raised an eyebrow and looked at her surprisingly knowledgeable roommate. “You know about Simon Belmont!?”
Lily was going to ask what Tulpa was talking about when her phone began to ring. Walking over, she picked up her smartphone and answered knowing exactly who it was on the other end. From the phone came a baritone voice that could best be described as “Overly Hammy”.
“YOOOOUUUUU HAVE MET WITH A TERRIBLE FAAAATE! A GREAT CUUUUUUURSE HAS BEEN PUT UPON YOOOOOUUUUU! OOOOOooooooooooo!”
“Hi Dad,” Lily answered with a smile.
“Hey sweetie!” came a cheerful voice over the phone, “Looking forward to this Thursday!?”
“You bet I am!” beamed Lily, “Did you hear they cast Bill Nighy to play Saint Germain!?”
“I did!” her father beamed back.
————————————-
As father and daughter chit-chatted on the phone, Tulpa looked over Lily’s shoulder with a slight look of envy. They could see how happy Lily was on the phone talking with her family. Tulpa, however, hadn’t used a phone in a very long time, and they were kind of amazed at how far phones had come. Any phone that let someone watch cartoons on it was the best phone ever in their book. Deep down, they wished they had one of their own. The apparition gave a breathless, wistful sigh as it watched Lily talk, but then Lily’s face was suddenly no longer smiling.
————————————-
“What do you mean THIS weekend?” she asked over the phone.
“Well I did say I was coming over the first weekend of March, didn’t I?”
“Yeah! March 7th and 8th, right!?” Lily asked starting to feel a little panicked now.
“Noooo...” her Dad trailed off, “I was talking about this weekend.”
“Dad! This is not the first weekend of March! It’s the last weekend of February!” Lily said with exasperation,
“Tomorrow’s March 1st, and a Sunday, right?” her Dad pleaded his case.
“Yeah! But the first weekend of any month usually means the first FULL weekend of any month! It doesn’t count if it’s half-and-half!” Lily stated as a sinking feeling began to form in her gut.
She could hear her Dad shrug over the phone, “Oh well, my mistake then.”
“YEAH!” said Lily, “I don’t even have the place cleaned up yet. I’m not ready to have company over!” Her roommate noticed that Lily was looking at them when they said that.
“Honey, you know I don’t care if the place is cleaned up or not,” her father said.
“I DO!” Lily almost shouted.
Despite her protesting, the apartment was actually looking good that Saturday. The vacuuming was finished, dishes were being washed in the dishwasher, trash had been taken out, the display cases for her rock collection had been dusted off, and the apartment was, for all intents and purposes, presentable. The real problem was that Lily hadn’t gone over her Dad’s visit with Tulpa yet to make sure they understood how to behave themselves.
“Look,” Lily began to beg, “Could you just stop by and visit next weekend? It’d work a lot better for me.”
“Yyyyyyeeeaaahhhh...” her Dad said while trailing off, “...about that...” As soon as he finished saying the word “about”, Lily began to feel a little nauseous as she whipped around to look at the front door. Beads of sweat were starting to form on her forehead as the dreaded noise she feared most came from her front door.
*KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK*
————————————-
Lily practically dropped the phone as her pupils shrank and panic began to set in. She turned to her roommate, and tried to grab their hand. Unfortunately, given Tulpa’s natural state of transparency, Lily’s hand went right through theirs. Realizing that wasn’t going to work, Lily began to frantically move her arms and make gestures to get Tulpa to hide.
Tulpa, meanwhile, wasn’t entirely sure what was going on, but picked up on Lily’s gestures and went into one of the bedrooms. Lily then closed the door and walked quickly over to the front door. She opened it up, and just as she suspected, there was her Dad standing right outside with his phone up to his ear.
“Hey, Hey, Hey!” he said with a smile, “Guess who’s here!”
Lily had to use every muscle she had to contort her face into a forced smile, “D-D-Dad! Hi!” There was no mistake that it was him. There were very few people who would consider a T-shirt that had an 8-bit pixel sprite with the caption “Uncle Vlad’s Wall Chicken” on it as “casual going out” clothes. It was a Christmas gift she had gotten him a few months earlier, and while she was glad to know it fit him okay, seeing him out and about in it was somehow incredibly embarrassing.
“May I come in?” he asked politely.
“Uhhhhh...” Lily stammered, “C-Could you give me a second. I just, ummm...” she trailed off while trying to think of an excuse, “...need to pick up some laundry off the floor. Yeah. Don’t want you stepping on any... underwear or socks or anything!” Lily’s laundry had already been cleaned, folded, and put away, including the towels in the linen closet, but her Dad didn’t know that, and she was banking on it.
“Sure!” her Dad agreed, “I did kind of drop in unannounced.”
“THANKS DAD!” Lily again almost hollered as she had to hold herself back from slamming the door when she closed it. She immediately ran to the room where Tulpa was and looked her square in the eyes. “Okay,” she began, “I know this is sudden, but my DAD is here! I’m going to need you to be on your BEST behavior while he’s here, okay?”
Tulpa blinked and looked at Lily with their usual vacant expression on their face. “...why?”
“BECAUSE... Because...” Lily trailed off as she tried to think of a good reason. Tulpa couldn’t be seen by anyone other than her, and she wasn’t entirely sure if other people could hear Tulpa either. But her ethereal roommate was somehow able to make the entire apartment pink last month all the way down to the toilet paper, and could hold and carry things in their ghost-like hands. “...I don’t want to scare him off!” was the best excuse Lily could think of off the top of her head.
Tulpa nodded, “...okay...” she said. Lily detected a hint of them sounding disappointed, but she’d find a way to make it up to them later.
“I’ll make it up to you later!”
[See? Told yah!]
Tulpa wasn’t entirely sure why Lily was acting so strange all of a sudden. She was acting as though her Dad would be able to see them even though they both knew that wasn’t possible. Despite this, Lily still seemed uncomfortable with the whole situation, and not wanting to trouble their friend, Tulpa nodded.
Lily followed up with a quick, “Thank you!” before turning around to dash to the front door.
————————————-
Opening the door again, Lily gestured to her father to come on in, “Make yourself at home!” she said like she knew full well just how cliche it was to say.
“Don’t mind if I do,” her Dad said with a smile as he walked in. It was then that Lily noticed the backpack he had on. She recognized it as the “Electronics” backpack her Dad carried whenever he was taking a laptop or any other electronic device with him to places. He headed straight to the living room, took his backpack off and began fishing around inside of it.
Lily gulped, “Did you bring-?” she began to ask before her Dad pulled out a family treasure from inside the backpack.
“Indeed I did!” he said proudly as he cut her off. In his hands was one of his most prized possessions:
A Nintendo Entertainment System.
It was the same NES that he got back when he was fourteen years old in 1986. He had been a video game fan ever since the early days of Atari and took meticulous care of his game systems to make sure they lasted and functioned for decades to come. Even in his middle-ages at forty-eight years old, he still had the same passion for video games as he did when he was a kid.
Only one question was on Lily’s mind which she had no trouble verbalizing: “Why?!”
Her Dad grinned a smug grin as he reached into the backpack and pulled out a small, black, plastic sleeve that contained an NES cartridge in it. It wasn’t just any NES cartridge either; it was Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse.
Seeing that cartridge gave Lily mixed feelings. She could remember the times growing up with her father when he would insist that she sit down and play video games with him. But it often wasn’t so much to play them as it was to lecture her about them. He would regularly go on and on about the history of video games, how significant they were to modern society and culture, nifty bits of trivia, and for Lily, NOTHING took away the fun from video games more so than trying to make them an educational experience. In the back of her head, she knew they weren’t all like that; she still had many good memories playing games with her father (and playing the same games her father was lecturing about whenever he WASN’T lecturing), but the look in his eyes told her that this was going to be another one of his signature talks.
“Dad,” Lily pleaded, “No. No, please! Can’t we just, I dunno, watch Castlevania on Netflix? Maybe check out the Japanese dub or something?” She knew exactly what was about to happen. He was going to connect the NES to her TV, put Castlevania III in, and then play it while talking about how the game eventually became the show she adored with voice acting by Richard Armitage and Graham McTavish. All this to “prepare” for the season premiere in a few days.
Unfortunately for Lily, her father shook his head and said, “Now I didn’t spend my high school years breaking down blocks for wall meat and whipping away Medusa Heads for nothing. C’mon! Don’t you want to see your old man defeat Dracula?”
The answer to that was an emphatic “NO!” from Lily, but she wasn’t about to hurt her Dad’s feelings. While it wasn’t how she planned to spend her Saturday, she figured that as soon as he got it out of his system, the sooner he could head back home. Plus, talkative as he was, he was still rather decent at playing difficult video games even at forty-eight years old. As long as everything went well, he ought to be able to finish the game in about an hour; two hours tops.
————————————-
Meanwhile, a pair of eyes was watching from the bedroom door (as in, within the bedroom door) as Lily’s Dad effortlessly hooked up the NES to the TV. Tulpa began to remember some of the people that used to live here also had video game systems like the one Lily’s Dad was hooking up. They were pretty interesting, and Tulpa was somewhat curious about them even if they weren’t cartoons. Eager to see more of what was going on, they poked their head out more and more from the door.
Lily sighed as her Dad continued to fiddle with the cables behind the TV, and turned around in time to see Tulpa who was now poking their head out in full view. Before Lily could say or do anything...
“AAUUGGHH!!”
Lily spun back around and looked at her father who looked like he had seen a ghost...
...but he was actually looking at the jumbled mess of pixels on the TV screen. “Aww man,” he groaned, “I thought I cleaned this already!” Turning to his daughter, he asked, “Hey can you reach into my backpack and grab the Q-Tips and alcohol?”
Sure enough, there was a bottle of Isopropyl alcohol and Q-Tips in the backpack, and Lily deftly fished them out and gave them to her man-child of a father. Or was the correct term “Child-Man”? Lily wasn’t quite sure but pushed that thought to the side as she said to him, “Hey, I’m gonna use the bathroom real quick! B.R.B.!”
“Okie dokie,” her Dad said as he happily cleaned the game cartridge pins. He always found something so cathartic about cleaning cartridges and getting them to work. It was almost zen-like.
Of course, Lily did not go to the bathroom. Instead, she walked right over to Tulpa’s levitating elongated neck and head, opened the door they were peeking out from (which pulled their head out of the door), and marched in with a mixture of disapproval, frustration, and worry on their face. “What are you DOING!?” she demanded with her teeth clenched and her voice lowered.
“Want to... see,” Tulpa said bashfully. Lily noticed that they weren’t looking her in the eyes.
“It’s just my DAD and his games!” pleaded Lily.
“I’d like... to meet... him,” said the curious ghost.
Lily turned to look at the door, then back to Tulpa, and raised her thumb like a hitchhiker to point to the door behind her. “Him!?” Lily said incredulously, “What for!? He can’t even see or hear you anyway!”
It was true that Tulpa could not be seen by anyone other than Lily, and Tulpa knew that all too well. Not a single living soul was able to see or truly hear them any time before now. Lily was the exception and neither of them had any idea why. But, the apparition thought to itself, the person out in the living room was Lily’s father. What if...
“AH HA!” Lily practically jumped from her father’s victorious cheer, “I GOT IT!” he crowed from the living room. Lily did a small face palm as the shout gave her flashbacks to when she was eight-years old and her Dad would practically scream at the top of his lungs every time he died playing Ninja Gaiden after Lily had gone to sleep. Few things were more terrifying than being woken up out of a deep dream by the shrill shrieks of your own father.
Lily turned to Tulpa and made a shushing gesture, “If you’re gonna watch, just... make sure not to touch anything so he won’t know someone’s there, okay!?”
Tulpa nodded, somewhat solemnly, as Lily stepped out to join her Dad in the living room. Inside the room Tulpa was in, there was a large mirror attached to a vanity table. The inquisitive incorporeal individual looked at its reflection in the mirror. They could see their matted hair and large googly eyes, as well as lack of facial features, and for the first time in its existence, began to think about its appearance.
No one before could see them, so what they looked like never really mattered. Lily was the first person who could see Tulpa, and she accepted them for just the way they were. That was something they really liked about Lily. At the same time though, they never thought about how they wanted others to see them if they could see them.
Tulpa thought about how Lily included them in the things she did, and how much they enjoyed spending time with Lily. Even if they weren’t watching cartoons, the time they shared was always fun and enjoyable. They wanted to get to know Lily better, and what better way than by getting to meet her Dad? Wouldn’t it be better if they were all together?
Sure he probably wouldn’t be able to see them, but...
...maybe he could?
And if he could, what would he think of them?
What would Tulpa want them to think of them?
Continuing to stare at themselves in the mirror, Tulpa made a decision. It was going to take all of their concentration, but “nothing ventured, nothing gained.” It began by taking a very, very, very deep breath. They sucked in as much air as they could, practically inflating themselves like a balloon.
Once they had inhaled as much as they could, they held their mouth shut and tried to squeeze the air out using whatever specters had for muscles. The human equivalent would have been if someone were to hold their breath, pinch their nose, and try to get their ears to pop. A small popping noise could be heard in the room, as Tulpa succeeded in popping out some ears.
————————————-
Back in the living room, Lily was resting her arm on the armrest of the couch, with face resting in the palm of her hand, and looking extremely bored. Her Dad was already sitting on the opposite end of the couch, navigating Trevor Belmont through Stage 1 after showing off how the game’s prologue fit the Netflix show’s narrative. Lily was, naturally, not paying attention to any of it as her mind was somewhere else completely.
“What am I doing?” she thought to herself, “Why does it matter if Tulpa’s out here or not? I mean, it’s not like Dad can see them or anything.” As she thought to herself, deep down she came to realize what her problem was. It wasn’t about her Dad meeting Tulpa, it was about Tulpa meeting her Dad!
Despite him being good natured and an affable person, he was still her Dad, and Dads by definition tended to be embarrassing as Hell! He had actually researched Dad jokes and has kept an arsenal of them up his sleeves ever since Lily could remember. He rarely ever acted like an average 48-year old man in public, and some times, Lily would feel ashamed that between the two of them, she would be considered the adult.
(During the Christmas season, he saw all the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1-Up Arcade Cabinets on display in Wal-Mart and would always turn them on and set the volume to maximum! According to him, he was trying to recreate the “arcade atmosphere” of his youth.)
But despite the occasional embarrassment, he was still her Dad, and she wouldn’t trade him for any other Dad in the world. He was always open minded, and whenever he didn’t understand something, he made an effort to try and understand. Like that time he asked her to show him her rock collection and tell him about all the different kinds she had and what made them so unique. He was always a cool Dad like that.
He raised her the best that he could and helped her with her homework. He drove her to places she wanted to go when she was little, and took her to theme parks, the zoo, science centers, museums... he was always actively involved in her upbringing and that meant a lot to Lily.
The sound of a door opening and closing could be heard from the hallway.
“I’m overreacting, aren’t I?” she thought to herself. “I should have just asked Tulpa to sit down and watch him play. I mean, misery loves company, right? And plus he-“
It was at that moment that Lily’s eyes began to widen as she realized she had just heard the sound of a door opening and closing come from the hallway. Her Dad turned around at the noise and Lily whipped herself around at breakneck speed. She nearly choked on her own spit at what she saw.
It was Tulpa.
It was definitely Tulpa...
...But they looked human!
They had a nose, two ears, and opaque, pale skin. Their hair still looked matted and unwashed, their eyes were still large, and their teeth still looked sharp even though they were a bit more rounded. They were wearing a turtleneck blouse and a long skirt that went all the way down to their ankles. On their feet were white socks which were probably there since Tulpa hadn’t really gotten the hang of manifesting realistic feet yet. And they were definitely female (or going for the feminine look).
They looked kind of like that one really tall girl from that really popular anime everyone kept talking about, “Hands Off My Aerosol Can” or something like that.
There was a brief moment of silence in the room that felt like it stretched on for an eternity (even though it only lasted a fraction of a second). Lily’s Dad was looking right at them, or at least, in their direction. Lily could tell Tulpa had “dressed up” to meet her father, but doubted it would have mattered since there was no way he could-
“Hi there! You must be Lily’s roommate!” greeted Lily’s Dad.
In a small cottage out on the outskirts of a forest in Wallachia, a rather gruff looking man with brown hair is sitting on a tree stump holding a large, leather bound book in one arm, and a small infant cradled comfortably in the other. He turns the page and points to something in the book.
“Here we go. Do you know what this is?” the man playfully asks the baby.
The baby responds with a few coos and other general baby noises.
“That’s an Ukoback! See the little spoon holding the fire there?”
The baby giggles.
“Yes! It is silly isn’t it! Burns pretty badly, but still silly.”
“Trevor!” a woman’s voice calls out from a small distance away, “Where are you!?”
“Over here Sypha!” Trevor calls out, calling out to the blonde haired woman behind him. She’s dressed in her blue Speaker’s robe to keep warm against the autumn winds as she walks towards her husband. He’s wearing the same fur cloak he had when Sypha first met him. As she suspected, she sees their son being held in Trevor’s arms.
“What are you doing out here?” she asks.
“Watching the baby, just like you asked me to,” he responds back.
“Yes, I can see that,” Sypha retorted, “I meant what are you reading there?” Sypha leans over his shoulder to try and see what he’s holding.
“Just a little something my father read to me when I was a babe. It’s somewhat of a Belmont family tradition.”
Sypha snatches the book from Trevor’s hand and looks at the cover. Her eyes grow to the size of dinner plates as she snaps at him, “THE BELMONT FAMILY BESTIARY!?”
“Of course! My grandfather read that to my father, and my great-grandfather read it to my grandfather... figured I might as well continue the tradition,” Trevor casually replies.
Sypha flips through the book and finds several illustrations of terrifying demons, hideous monsters, and abominations against God. Each page has detailed information on the specific creature’s weaknesses, strengths, and how to use them to one’s advantage in battle. Sypha’s eye begins to twitch as she glares at Trevor.
“Do you SERIOUSLY think anything in here is appropriate to share with a BABY! He’s not even 6 months old yet!” Sypha harped, “You’re going to give him nightmares showing him this!”
“Don’t worry. We already covered Nightmares on Page 83. They really aren’t that difficult to deal with,” Trevor said as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
“THAT’S NOT THE POINT YOU-” Sypha practically hisses before taking a deep exasperated sigh, “Aren’t there any other books you could read to him?”
Trevor looks mildly annoyed at his wife who is clearly upset with him. “Sypha, you know I still haven’t gotten the hang of the whole ‘reading thing’ yet. I mean, don’t get me wrong, your lessons have been a godsend, but I needed something simple to share with Ralph here.”
Sypha continued to glare at her bonehead of a husband, “You call THIS simple?!”
“It had more pictures in it than any of the other books!” Trevor protested.
Sypha began to question the wisdom in asking Alucard to send over some books from the Belmont family estate, and made a mental note to ask him to see if he could find any normal children’s books to send next time.
Believe it or not, this story is based on characters created by @tamarinfrog , @searching-for-bananaflies , @cafe-cardamari , @bottledupcomic , etc.
And based on the video games Splatoon, Splatoon 2, and Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion by Nintendo.
Without a minute to spare, Arnick began by running through the Salmon Run basics with his team:
Their objective was to defeat the boss Salmonids, grab the golden eggs that they drop, and bring them to the cylindrical container known as the “basket”, usually located at the bow of the ship. To make sure the team knew what Kind of Salmonids to expect, Arnick went through the employee manual quickly to show pictures of each one. When asked by Lajni about why they were taking the Salmonid’s golden eggs, Arnick stated that he was not the right person to answer that question and moved on.
If a team member was splatted, each one of them had an emergency life preserver that could sustain them until another team member revitalized them with a splash or shot of ink. If the entire team is splatted and wiped out, Mr. Grizz initiates an emergency recall signal that pulls everyone back to the company ship so they could reconstitute themselves. However, that was to be avoided at all costs due to how it would affect their performance score and pay rate.
Arnick explained how the Salmonids attacked in waves, and the Grizzco employee’s job was to meet the egg quota set by Mr. Grizz for each one of the three waves. Lajni asked why they attacked like that, and Arnick theorized that while Salmonids were quite vicious, they couldn’t stay above water for too long before needing to return to it in order to catch their breath both figuratively and literally. Arnick wasn’t entirely sure if that was true or not, but it wasn’t like he could just go up to a Salmonid and ask them. Most attempts by Inklings to talk to them resulted in a large frying pan (the Salmonid weapon of choice) to the face.
It was agreed Arnick was going to lead the team, using the argument that he was the oldest and most experienced (and not because he was an Inkling despite Aadi claiming otherwise). With some help from Nalini, Arnick memorized the words for “bow”, “stern”, “starboard”, and “port” in Octarian so he could issue directions, and he also brushed up on simple phrases such as “Follow Me”, “Retreat”, “Hold The Line”, “Return to Base”, and others. Nalini explained to her siblings what to do whenever Arnick called out a specific word or phrase. Aadi and Lajni seemed to understand, but Arnick wasn’t too sure if they would be able to remember every detail.
After a rushed fifteen minutes of planning, it was time to get to work and Arnick and the Octo-siblings were launched to Marooner’s Bay. Arnick steeled himself for he knew there was a lot of work to do.
———————————
As Nalini flew through the air, she had a nagging thought at the back of her head. During their planning session, It was clear to her that Arnick had a very hard time with saying certain things in Octarian. But at the same time, if Arnick’s grasp on the Octarian language was so flimsy, then what was with that sudden outburst he had when they first met him? His Octarian, while foul and explicit, was grammatically correct, so why was he having such difficulty with it after that? When they all landed, these thoughts were quickly pushed to the back of her head. It was time to get to work.
<COVER GROUND!> Arnick shouted, indicating that now was the time to ink the terrain as much as they could before the first wave appeared. Nalini found herself armed with the Grizzco Blaster which quickly covered large swaths of ground with its rapid fire rate. The rapid popping noise it made with each burst of ink reminded Nalini of the sound made from bubble wrap and found it helped calm her nerves.
Looking around, Nalini could see Lajni splashing around with the Grizzco Slosher. This was her first time going out and using a weapon of any kind. She had a large smile on her face, and appeared to be having a ball as she sloshed ink around with a carefree attitude. Nalini found herself smiling at the sight, but stopped and turned away once she saw Arnick nearby.
*PSSHHOOO*
Arnick fired a shot off in a seemingly random direction and appeared to be keeping an eye on everyone; like he was studying them. His cold, steely eyes reminded Nalini of the Elite Octoling drill instructors she had back when she was in training. They were ruthless, strict, and did not accept failure. Trainees that couldn’t keep up with them were left behind and dropped like a sack of potatoes. Nalini felt a knot form in her stomach just from the thought that Arnick could be anything like them.
Meanwhile, Arnick was equipped with the Grizzco Charger: a Bamboozlr Mk 1 that had been modified by Grizzco. Unknown to Nalini, Arnick’s sour face wasn’t directed at her and the others, but because he had a strong disdain for his Charger. He thought Grizzco had gone too far in their modifications of the traditional and historical weapon. While he did have to admit that the charge speed and power output of the Grizzco Charger were impressive and useful, he would always ask to himself, “...at what cost?”
Nalini turned and saw Aadi who had gotten the Grizzco ‘Brella. He was rapidly shooting across the beached ship to cover plenty of ground and seemed to be enjoying himself. Upon seeing his sister looking his way, Aadi smiled and waved before giving her a big thumbs up.
Nalini couldn’t help but think how grateful she was that the work schedule for today included all of the customized Grizzco weapons. With Lajni or Aadi equipped with these, it would help them get used to the Salmon Runs as well as provide extra protection from the Salmonids. Despite Arnick’s quick thinking and planning, there was the still the possibility of disaster. If anything happened to her siblings, Nalini would never forgive herself. She was going to look after them and leave absolutely nothing to chance.
Unknown to her, she wasn’t the only one feeling that way.
———————————
On a small rock outcrop a ways away from the decrepit freighter that was quickly being covered in ink, three Salmonids wriggled their way to a small punch clock. One by one, they took their time cards and punched in for work. Each one then slipped their way to their respective musical instruments: a cello, timpani drums, and a DJ Turntable. They were the band known as “ω-3″ (pronounced “Omega-3″) and it was time for them to give their fellow co-workers their marching orders.
The leader of the band made his way over to his cello and took a moment to sit down. He was well in his fifty’s and couldn’t play his best unless he was perfectly comfortable. He grabbed his instrument and plucked the strings once or twice before picking up his bow and running it across. He grimaced and immediately began to tighten the strings to make sure everything was tuned properly.
*SCRRRRAAAAAAATTCCCHHH*
The band leader whipped his head around and glared at the band’s DJ. He was snickering but shrugged his flippers like he had no idea where that sudden and very LOUD record scratch came from. The obstinate little guppy loved messing with his superiors, much to the leader’s dismay.
After turning to the right page of sheet music, the cellist picked up his bow and signaled for them to begin. At the timpani drums, the percussionist Salmonid picked up two grilling forks with fresh corn on the cob attached to the ends of them and began to pound away at the drums.
*BRUM BUM BRUM BUM BRUM BUM BRUM BUM*
———————————
<GET READY!> Arnick shouted as the rhythmic drumming began to echo across the water.
Moments after he said that, a pair of bulbous eyes popped out of the water as one of the Salmonids known as a “Chum” wriggled out of the water and started to head towards the Grizzco employees. It had a crazed look in its eyes, a pair of overalls on its fish-like body, and a frying pan held in its flipper. Shortly after it came out of the water, another one popped up.
Then another...
Then another...
...and another still.
<STERN!> Arnick hollered to indicate where the Salmonids were coming in from.
<I’M ON IT!> Aadi hollered back enthusiastically. It was finally time for him to show what he was made of. Since Nalini had spent so much time caring for him and Lajni, he figured it was time he returned the favor and showed that he could help out too.
*BLAM BLAM BLAM*
Aadi rapidly fired away and took out Chum after Chum. When each one was splatted, they dropped power eggs that Aadi greedily snagged and stuffed in a pack on his back. These would provide an extra bonus for him once work was finished. <HA! This is a piece of cake! We’ve got this in the bag!>
Arnick heard what he said and looked at him with a bug-eyed expression. He was about to say something before cutting himself off and then face-palming himself. The last thing the group needed was a jinx, and Aadi just had to open his big mouth.
Sure enough, a shadow loomed over behind Aadi, and he turned around just in time to jump out of the way of a much larger frying pan being held by a “Cohock”. He looked very much like a Chum, but was much, much larger and fatter. He was quite slow to move too, which only emboldened Aadi.
<MISSED ME!> Aadi teased as he blasted away at the Cohock to take him down. With still a good amount of ink left in the Grizzco ‘Brella, Aadi was feeling very confident...
...at least he was until an even bigger shadow loomed over him.
Aadi turned around and saw a massive Salmonid standing right behind him. Aadi didn’t even hear the beastly thing creep up on him, but now he was looking up at its angry and intimidating yellow eyes. It was covered in armor plated scales from top to bottom, and was biting down on something that looked like an oxygen mask for deep sea divers. It snarled at the Octoling boy and continued to march towards him.
Aadi fired away at it, but the ink from the ‘Brella just bounced right off the non-stick coating of the thing’s scales. Once it was close enough, the monster began to inflate something on top of its head. It looked like a large green trash bag with some strange markings on it. Seeing it, Aadi gulped and suddenly found his confidence starting to wane.
<STEELHEAD!> Nalini yelled as she raced towards her brother. She could see the Boss Salmonid filling the massive ink bomb on top of its head, and Aadi needed to get out of there and fast. A small school of Chum and “Smallfry” (who were too cute for their own good what with their little spoons for weapons) blocked her path, but she blasted her way through and made a mad dash to try and stop the Steelhead before her brother got to know the business end of their massive ink bombs. Even with their emergency life preservers, it still hurt a lot when splatted on the job.
But before she could get there...
*PSSHHOOO*
A long stream of ink flew above Nalini and Aadi’s heads and struck the ink bomb dead-center. The bomb became unstable as the large Steelhead looked up in terror as he knew exactly what was about to happen.
*BOOM*
With an explosion of ink, the Steelhead vanished and in its place were three, sparkling golden eggs.
<GET THE EGGS!> Arnick shouted from afar as he ran towards the two older Octolings. Aadi wasted no time in grabbing an egg and had already began heading back to the basket before Arnick could yell, <RETURN TO BASE!>
Nalini arrived, and grabbed an egg at the same time Arnick did. Each egg was large enough that the Grizzco employees could only carry one at a time. She began heading towards the egg container at the bow of the ship, eager to deposit the golden treasure. Much to her surprise, somehow Arnick had gotten there first. He dropped his egg off and then ran off without a word.
Nalini deposited her egg and thought to herself, <How did he get here so fast? I took the most direct route back!> She could see that they now had three out of the fifteen eggs needed to make quota, and then realized that Lajni was nowhere to be seen. This worried her immensely since she promised herself not to let her or Aadi out of her sight. But just as she finished that thought, a platform on the starboard side of the ship rose up with Lajni and Arnick on top of it. Arnick was sniping off pursuing Salmonids, while Lajni used her slosher to power the propeller that provided the platform propulsion. Both of them had golden eggs in their possession. The team was now a third of the way to meeting their quota.
<Lajni!? How did you...?>
<Saw a “Stinger” pop up and Arnick helped me take it down,> Nalini’s little sister said nonchalantly. Looking over the starboard edge, Nalini could see one remaining golden egg from where the Stinger once stood. A “Snatcher”, a Salmonid that looked very similar to a Chum save for different fin color, picked it up and hauled it back to the water before anyone could stop it. She blinked a couple of times as she tried to process how Arnick was able to get to Lajni so fast. And for that matter, how did he know where she was?
<NALINI!> yelled Arnick, <PORT!>
This snapped Nalini out of her momentary daze as she followed Arnick to the Port side of the ship. Arnick immediately leaped off the edge and Nalini followed suit. Before she could hit the ground, she heard the sound of tires screeching and then an engine exploding. Arnick had just stopped a “Scrapper” in its tracks. The makeshift vehicle was stalled as the Chum inside of it began to frantically try and get it moving again. Nalini knew just what to do: she dashed behind it and took it out with a few shots from her blaster. Three more golden eggs appeared and Arnick and Nalini both grabbed one.
<RETURN TO BASE!> Arnick ordered while pointing to the propeller powered platform behind them that went straight to the egg container. Nalini began to run over to it, but saw Arnick march down along the side of the ship towards the stern. Nalini wasn’t sure what he was doing, but following his order, she quickly rose to the top of the bow and put her egg in the basket.
To her surprise, the counter on the basket now showed eight eggs total. She didn’t have time to think about where they came from. She looked down towards the stern of the ship and saw a massive “Steel Eel” chasing after Aadi. Nalini wasted no time and shifted into her octopus form to swim down the ink path they set up earlier with hopes to get to the large metallic monstrosity to stop it in time. She knew if she could get to the rear of the Steel Eel where the Chum was controlling the snake-like contraption, then she’d be able to take it out with her blaster.
But once again, before she could get there, the Steel Eel suddenly collapsed and exploded, revealing three more golden eggs.
<THANKS ARNICK!> Aadi hollered back before grabbing an egg and running back to the basket. Nalini reflexively grabbed one of the eggs, but her mind was somewhere else altogether.
<What’s going on?> Nalini thought to herself as she carried another egg back to the basket, <Can Inklings split into two or something!? It’s like he’s in two places at once!> She quickly deposited the twelfth egg, but felt a strange mix of emotions inside of her. Wasn’t she supposed to be the hero to save Lajni and Aadi from danger? Was she actually getting envious of Arnick because he kept getting to the Boss Salmonids first?
Nalini didn’t have time to think beyond that as she shook herself out of her funk and immediately ran back down to the stern where she could see a “Flyfish” floating around. Piloted by a tiny Smallfry, the Ink-Seeking Missiles it could launch would make things extremely complicated if left alone.
Her brother had caught up and was now running beside her. Nalini called out to him, <Aadi! Throw a Splat Bomb into the missile container once it opens up!>
<YOU GOT IT!> he said confidently, apparently having gotten a second wind after looking petrified by the Steelhead from earlier. Once they were close enough, they could see the Flyfish open its missile launchers and prepare to fire. Nalini and Aadi both grabbed a splat bomb from their belts and tossed them at the Flyfish.
They both landed in the right missile launcher.
<Aadi!> Nalini said worriedly.
<Oops,> Aadi said with a blush, <Sorry, sis.>
Suddenly, another splat bomb flew through the air and landed in the left missile launcher.
*BOOM*
Nalini looked to her side, half expecting to see Arnick saving the day once again, but saw Lajni instead. The Flyfish crashed to the ground, releasing still more golden eggs to pick up. Lajni smiled at her siblings, <Looks like all that time spent playing Basketball paid off!> she said proudly.
Nalini felt so proud of her little sister and smiled, but then turned deathly pale as she saw a small antennae with a flashing sphere at the end of it move right underneath Lajni. Nalini instantly recognized the “Maws” that had just made its way right underneath her sister. This Salmonid was capable of eating an Inkling or Octoling whole, and the only way to stop it was to feed it a Splat Bomb. None of the Octo-Siblings had any left after taking care of the Flyfish.
Nalini had been splatted before in previous Salmon Runs, and the best way she could describe them would be “painful”. The hurt that came with being splatted can be quite excruciating depending on how someone is splatted. Nalini’s first time being eaten by a Maws left her somewhat traumatized. The feeling of the sharp teeth piercing the skin, as her whole body popped like a balloon, was something she would never forget.
Now it was her sister’s turn to know how it felt, and there was nothing Nalini could do about it. She worried that being eaten like that could scare her away from Salmon Runs, or worse. Lajni had never even been a turf war before!
As the adrenaline pumped through her veins, time seemed to slow down for Nalini. She caught every moment as, just before the Maws leaped out of the ground, Lajni suddenly seemed to trip and fall forward onto her face. Right behind her was Arnick who had shoved Lajni out of the way. With the sensation of time being slowed down, Nalini saw the look on Arnick’s face and gave a small gasp.
There was absolutely no fear on Arnick’s face. Nalini couldn’t even detect a single hint of anger or frustration. His eyes were still the same stern, strict eyes he had always had, but they were eyes of determination. His mouth was closed, showing no gritted teeth, making what he was doing seem almost effortless.
Then the Maws breached the ink-covered surface and threw Arnick into the air. Arnick was now gritting his teeth, but still showed no sign of fear. Despite wincing in pain, he still had a fierce look of determination on his face as he began to swing his body around so he was facing the toothy Titan. With a snap of its jaws, the Maws splatted Arnick whole.
<ARNICK!> Nalini screamed as the adrenaline rush wore off. Time seemed to move normally again when she rushed over to grab her sister. She needed to get Lajni away from the Maws as quickly as possible. Suddenly the Maws’ eyes bugged out as its cheeks and face began to swell. Before shoving Lajni out of harms way, Arnick had also dropped a Splat Bomb right where the Maws was about to appear. Right as Nalini got to Lajni, the Maws exploded in a shower of ink.
The three Octo-Siblings looked at the large splotch of ink where Arnick had once stood. Nalini couldn’t believe what she had just seen. An Inkling sacrificed himself to save an Octoling.
Back in the training camps, Nalini was often taught about how ruthless, selfish, and cruel Inklings could be. During test exercises, the Elite Octolings in charge wouldn’t hesitate to abandon or sacrifice the Octarians under their command if it meant succeeding in their mission. Nalini was told that there was no place for weaklings who could be taken down so easily, and that if she wanted to survive, she had to rely on herself and herself only. It was the only way she could become strong like an Elite Octoling.
But Nalini always hated that.
She and her fellow trainees were all taught that there were No heroes. There was the enemy, your comrades, and yourself. They explained to the trainees how they should never expect help or aide from any of their comrades. Above all, the mission was the top priority, and the second priority was to protect their superiors. A superior could count on a subordinate to follow their orders, but a subordinate was to have no such expectations that their superiors would ever help them. Like they were told, they were their superiors, and they were not heroes.
Nalini decided that if there were no heroes, then she would become one. Even if she was only a hero to her younger brother and sister, that was enough for her.
When Nalini first met Arnick, she feared that he would act the same as the trainers she had before. He had the same serious and stern look on his face. He had the same posture of superiority and dominance that the elites did. He also could swear, curse, and berate just as well as the Elites.
Bur he wasn’t like them at all.
He somehow was always there to help her, Aadi, and Lajni during this first outing. Compared to the Elite Octolings that were in charge of training and instructing her back at camp, Arnick was practically a beacon of selflessness and courage. He may have been crass and strict, but no one without compassion would have done what he just did. There was no doubt in Nalini’s mind now that Arnick was a hero.
And now he was gone.
<GO!>
Nalini could almost hear him barking away like usual.
<I SAID GO ALREADY!>
Even though she had only known met him about an hour ago, she could hear his voice loud and-
<WILL YOU THREE IMBECILES STOP GAWKING, GET THE EGGS, AND MOVE ALREADY! WE’VE ALMOST MADE QUOTA YOU IDIOTS!>
Nalini looked down and saw a small life preserver floating on the ink with a Grizzco company flag attached to it. The spirit of a rather angry looking Inkling was staring at the three siblings. And he just spoke perfect Octarian.
Lajni and Aadi both looked relieved to see Arnick okay. Nalini fired her blaster at the preserver, and in the ink that splashed on it, a rather annoyed looking Arnick emerged, brushed himself off, and grabbed one of the golden eggs left by the Maws.
<If you have enough time to stand around and gawk, then move your arses and GET THE EGGS!> he said loudly with annoyance.
Lajni and Aadi grabbed the other two eggs while Nalini had grabbed one from the FlyFish. It was then that Nalini finally understood why Arnick was having trouble speaking Octarian earlier.
The trouble wasn’t that Arnick couldn’t speak Octarian...
...it was that he couldn’t speak Octarian POLITELY!
All four of them made it to the bow of the ship and deposited the eggs in time to make quota. The music that had been playing in the distance died down and the Salmonids that were still out of the water turned around and began to meander back to it. The first wave was over.
———————————
After two more waves of the Salmonids coming after them, it was finally time for a break. Mr. Grizz was VERY pleased with their performance and congratulated them all for an excellent job. Back on the company ship away from Marooner’s Bay, Arnick leaned up against the wall of the cabin for the bridge, took off his hat, and wiped the sweat from his brow. He had ran more than usual compared to past Salmon Runs of his.
Lajni and Aadi soon walked up to him with big smiles on their faces.
<YOU WERE AMAZING!> Aadi cheered.
<THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR HELPING US!> Lajni beamed.
Arnick smiled at the two of them and then made the mistake of trying to talk back, <This dumbass enjoyed helping you little brats!>
Lajni and Aadi looked very confused as Nalini walked up behind them, laughing. <I thought so!> she said as soon as she could stop giggling, <You can’t say anything politely, can you?! Not even about yourself!>
“Errr...” Arnick said with a small blush, “...no.”
“It is alright,” Nalini responded in Inklish. “Sometimes, rude talk necessary to do job well!”
Arnick looked to the side and gave a half-frown as if to indicate, “Hmmm... I don’t know about that.”
<Politely?> Lajni asked.
<I was wondering why he had so much trouble talking earlier when we were introducing ourselves,> explained Nalini, <It’s because Arnick doesn’t know the right way to speak politely in Octarian. He didn’t want to offend us before.>
<Really?> Aadi said as he turned to Arnick. Arnick gave a small nod back in response. <Ooohhhhh! Well, that’s okay! You helped us out so much on the Salmon Runs, I don’t mind if you say mean things!>
<Me neither!> chimed in Lajni, <We know you’re not trying to be rude.>
Arnick glanced sideways with a look that clearly said, “Ehhhhhhh...”
“You are good man, Mr. Stilton,” Nalini said with a smile, “Please still be taking care of us.”
Before Arnick could reply, the bear statue radio piped in and the voice of Mr. Grizz announced, “Okay folks, break’s over! Time to get some more of those eggs!”
Arnick put his hat back on and once again looked stern and serious. However this time, he was smiling too. <Okay you dummies,> he said cheerfully, <Let’s take this job and work it!>
Lajni and Aadi were still snickering when they stepped on the spawn point to go back to Marooner’s Bay.
Should probably mention that this is based on characters created by @tamarinfrog , @searching-for-bananaflies , @cafe-cardamari , @bottledupcomic , etc.
And based on the video games Splatoon, Splatoon 2, and Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion by Nintendo.
Arnick let go of the Octoling Girl’s hands, walked over to the bear statue shaped radio, picked it up, and began shaking it like a deadbeat that owed him money. “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND!?” he shouted.
“What’s the problem?” asked Mr. Grizz.
“The problem, SIR…” Arnick said with disdain, “is that if I understand correctly, you expect me to teach three rookies, who barely speak any Inklish, and turn them into Salmon Running savants, using sink or swim tactics, in nothing more than a few hours! Yet that can’t possibly be right because you’d have to be COMPLETELY MAD TO THINK THAT’S POSSIBLE!!!”
“Oh it’s not that bad-“ the bear statue said before Arnick cut him off.
“YOU! WHAT’S YOUR FAVORITE COLOR!?” Arnick barked while he pointed an accusatory finger at the young Octoling boy.
<Uhh…> the poor boy stuttered, <…what did he say?>
<I think he asked you what your favorite color is, but…> the oldest Octoling said before trailing off.
“OH MY COD!” Arnick wailed while once again screaming at the statue and shaking it like a Polar-Roid Picture, “SOME OF THEM DON’T EVEN SPEAK INKLISH AT ALL!! HOW CAN YOU POSSIBLY EXPECT US TO COMMUNICATE IF WE ARE LITERALLY SPEAKING TWO DIFFERENT LANGUAGES!!!”
“Oh I’m sure you can figure something out,” the voice from the statue said, “I mean you’ve worked with Octolings before, right?”
“BECAUSE THEY SPOKE INKLISH YOU IRKSOME URSINE!!”
Arnick bellowed while once again shaking the statue like a Magic 8-Ball that said his chances of winning the lottery looked dim.
The youngest Octoling girl looked up to her big sister and asked, <Is… Is he okay?>
<I’m… not sure,> she said with hesitation, <he’s using Inklish words I’ve never heard before.>
“Whoa! Whoa! Easy there, kid! You don’t wanna break the radio and have it deducted from your pay now, do yah?” Reasoned the statue. Arnick stopped bear-handling the statue, but still wanted to give it a few more shakes for good measure. “That’s better. Now look,” Mr. Grizz explained, “I understand this isn’t the ideal situation or anything, I get that. Really, I do! But you’re a smart guy, and one tough employee to boot! If anyone can make this work, it’d be you!”
Flattery was not going to get Mr. Grizz anywhere with Arnick at this point.
“So just chin up. Be professional. And do your best! You got this, kid,” the statue encouraged, “now why don’t you go over there and meet your co-workers. Make a good first impression on them. Okay? Okay. Grizz, out!”
The radio shut off and there was an awkward silence that filled the air. Arnick set the wooden bear statue/radio down on the small table it was originally sitting on. He looked unnaturally calm and serene.
While showing no emotion on his face, Arnick reached into his pockets as though he was looking for something. Seconds later, he began looking around the boat after not finding what he wanted in his pockets. His eyes settled on a fold-able wooden chair that was sitting peacefully on the main deck. Arnick nodded to himself as if saying, “Ahh, yes. This should do it.”
Before describing what happens next, it is worth mentioning that Arnick does have some experience with the Octarian language. After living with Tetrox for a few years now, he naturally picked up on some words here and there that she would mutter under her breath, or slip out in normal conversation (which was rare because she spoke spectacular Inklish). Arnick had also done a little self study on how to speak Octarian off and on again over the years.
Now that Arnick was going to be working with three Octolings in a team, his knowledge of the Octarian language began to surface to the forefront of his mind.
…unfortunately, all of it was language that should never be spoken out loud in public.
<COD!
DAMN!!
FFFFFFFFUUUUUUUUU~>
———————————-
<HOLY SEA COW!> Aadi said with a mix of awe and surprise.
*SMAAAAASSSSHHH*
Nalini’s tentacles were pointing straight up well before the foul-mouthed Inkling slammed the wooden chair against the deck railing. She dove to cover Lajni’s ears as if hearing the steady stream of Octarian obscenities and euphemisms would melt them off her head. Nalini hadn’t heard such a cascade of curses and swears that flowed like a river since her days in Octarian boot camp.
The Inkling was now jumping up and down on the wooden fragments of the former chair, kicking a piece every now and then like he was punting a Clam Blitz Ball. Nalini tried to focus on what he was saying over the sound of the crunching wood and could make out, <-AUDACITY OF THAT POMPOUS FISH MONGER WHO NEEDS TO HAVE A HARPOON SHOVED RIGHT UP HIS-> before tuning it out again. She looked over to her brother who seemed rather impressed with the Inkling for what Nalini feared was for all the wrong reasons.
The Inkling then picked up a chair leg that somehow was not yet smashed and then began hitting it against the railing. One thing was very clear to Nalini:
…this guy had some anger issues.
About two minutes later, the Inkling had finally stopped raging and was now trying desperately to catch his breath. Being that angry took a lot of energy, and it showed! Finally getting a breath in, the inking turned around and began to walk towards the three siblings.
Lajni and Aadi quickly dived behind Nalini’s back when the inkling approached them. He coughed, cleared his throat, and then tried to explain in broken Octarian, <Sorry… I was… upset…>
Nalini wasn’t entirely sure if she should answer him in Octarian or Inklish at first, but before she could decide, Aadi’s instinctively blurted out, <Upset? I’d hate to see him when he’s->
<AADI!> Nalini scolded him with a shushing gesture. She turned and addressed the Inkling. <Is everything okay?>
<Yes…> the lanky Inkling said. It looked like he wanted to say more but wasn’t sure how to say it properly. Nalini was surprised he was having this much trouble communicating after rambling off nearly every single Octarian expletive, curse, and swear word just seconds ago. <Hard… explain…> he continued before Nalini cut him off in Inklish.
“It be easier if I speak the Inklish?” Asked Nalini.
“Yes, thank you,” said the Inkling, “and my apologies for earlier. Just to be clear, I was not angry at any of you. I was angry at Mr. Grizz since I think it is highly unfair to all of us to be put in this difficult situation.”
Nalini blinked as she processed what the Inkling had just said. He was speaking very formally, but also using words she wasn’t familiar with here and there. She smiled back, looking to make a good impression (and relieved to know his anger wasn’t because of who they were or anything), “It is understandable, Mr. Sixwayfrumsunday”
“My name is Arnick,” said the Inkling.
“Eh?” Nalini squeaked while suddenly feeling very embarrassed, “Ah… I… I am sorry about-”
“No, no. It’s my fault, really,” Arnick interjected, “I shouldn’t have let my usual snark and sarcasm get the better of me,” said Arnick, “Given our respective language barriers and cultural differences, I can see how you could misunderstand what I was saying. I’m sure my diatribe of foul Octarian language didn’t help either.”
Nalini understood roughly half of what Arnick said. She was now beginning to have serious doubts about taking Lajni and Aadi with her today. She hadn’t considered the possibility that they would be paired with an Inkling since she had been on all Octoling teams on her last four runs. She thought that was the way things normally went, but apparently, on those first four runs, she just happened to get lucky. She began to wonder if there was a way out of this, and said, “Maybe… Running Salmon… Not such good idea today, Mr. Arnick.”
“Stilton,” Arnick corrected.
Nalini was once again surprised, “Eh?”
<My name is Arnick Stilton,> Arnick said in Octarian to make sure that he was clear, “You can address me as Arnick, if you wish.”
Nalini was feeling extremely embarrassed. She thought she was pretty good at Inklish, but after speaking with Arnick for just a few minutes, she felt woefully inadequate for handling this situation. She looked down at the ground and could feel a small tear form in her eye.
<HEY!> Aadi shouted at Arnick, <WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY TO MY SISTER!? YOU MADE HER CRY!>
<AADI! STOP!> Nalini ordered.
<But Nalini…> Aadi said with a figurative tail between his legs.
<He didn’t say anything mean! It’s just…> Nalini paused as he she admitted what she didn’t want to admit, <…I’m having more trouble understanding him than I thought I would.>
Lajni chimed in, <Even after all those classes?>
Nalini nodded, <I’m just… so embarrassed right now. That’s all. So don’t be mean to Arnick, okay? He wasn’t being mean.>
After the tantrum Arnick threw, Lajni was skeptical. <Really?> She asked innocently.
<Yes, really,> Nalini confirmed before turning to Arnick, “I am sorry. My brother… he get too… excited sometimes. Please be forgiving him.” Nalini then wrapped an arm around Aadi’s shoulder and said, “This… is my younger brother. His name is Aadi.”
Arnick extended a hand for a handshake, “Good to meet you, Aadi.”
Glancing at the boy with the Afro, Arnick could see the look in Aadi’s eyes. He was glaring at Arnick as though he wasn’t too sure about him. Given Arnick’s recent behavior and attitude, Arnick couldn’t really blame him for being suspicious. Not to mention how he’d react if he knew about Arnick’s past of being very anti-Octarian.
“I am sorry. He no speak Inklish,” Nalini explained.
The weight of the situation began to sink in for Arnick. Given that Aadi couldn’t understand a single word Arnick said, there was no way to give him any reassurance that he was a decent fellow. Arnick then turned to the youngest of the three Octolings who looked like she had just turned fourteen and finally got her humanoid form. She seemed scared, but curious, and didn’t show any signs of distrust like Aadi did.
“This is my younger sister. Her name is Lajni,” Nalini introduced.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you Lajni,” Arnick said while extending a hand.
This time, Arnick put on the most cheerful smile he could muster to try and put the young girl at ease. After some hesitation, Lajni stepped from behind her sister and shook Arnick’s hand. Arnick’s smile became even more genuine as he began to feel like he was making progress.
With introductions out of the way, now was the time to get down to business. With two teammates that couldn’t understand any Inklish, he needed to work out something and fast before their shift started. Arnick immediately marched over to the table and was about to take a seat before realizing his seat was the one he had pulverized into sawdust a few minutes earlier. Grabbing the other chairs and putting them around the table, he called out, “Nalini, could you bring Aadi and Lajni over here? We’re going to need to work something out and fast, or we’re all going to be fish food!”
My Roommate is an Apparition: An Apparition A-Pink-ciation of Culture
Based on characters created by @reddpenn
From the diary of Lily:
------------
When I was little, I used to talk to my stuffed animals all the time. They were my soft, cuddly friends who were always there for me, and even though they never spoke a word, I always imagined I could hear what they wanted to say. Even as an adult, I still treat inanimate objects like they’re people too. In fact, everyone does at some point or another in their adult life. Anyone who has ever argued with their car that refused to start knows what I mean.
But recently, I realized that sometimes people can do... well the opposite. That sometimes we don’t treat people (who are actual, real people) like they’re people. It’s not something we consciously think about, but it’s more like we forget that, well, people are people. I know this sounds really dumb, but I felt like I needed to write about this after a... well after an “argument” I had with my roommate.
I’ve lived with my roommate for a few months now, and I thought I had gotten to know them pretty well. They like to watch cartoons (like, seriously LOVES them) and we had worked out a TV viewing schedule to make sure that we got along together. But the other day, I realized that I wasn’t necessarily treating them like they were their own person. I didn’t mean to do that, but it just kind of happened, and...
...well it gets really complicated because, technically, they aren’t a person.
I mean, they aren’t human; they’re an apparition.
It made me think about all those stories about monsters and ghosts. Like a ghost used to be human, but then they died, and their spirit became a ghost. Do we still treat the ghost like the person they were when they were alive? Outside of a few exceptions, the answer’s a definite yes.
But what about an apparition? It’s kind of like a ghost, but it’s not. I mean, it’s not the soul of someone who died or anything. They just sort of exist. (Would Slimer from Ghostbusters be an apparition or a ghost?).
------------
So anyway, reason I’m bringing this all up is because of what happened last weekend. I was channel surfing through the Cable Guide and as I’m flipping through, I pass by Boomerang (you know, the cable channel that spun-off Cartoon Network to hold all the older cartoons?) and all of a sudden, my roommate appears out of nowhere (literally) and practically grabs the remote out from my hands.
“Hey! What gives!?” I say to them.
They immediately change over to Boomerang and my TV screen is suddenly filled up with the color pink. At the same time, my roommate starts “doot-ing” along with the song and goes, “Doo-Doot! Doo-Doot! Do-Doot-Do-Doot-Do-Doot Do-Doot-De-Dooooooooo-Doo-Doo-Doo-Doo-Doooot”. I have no idea what they’re doing, but then the cartoon starts up and it’s the Pink Panther.
Rhetorically, I go, “What’s this?”
“Pink... Panther...” my roomie says.
And then I make my first mistake by saying, “Huh. Never seen it before.”
Now if I had been paying attention to them, I probably would have seen the face of shock they were making. “You... NEVER... saw it!?” They gasped.
“Nope. Must have been before my time,” which was totally true. I mean, I later found out my Dad used to watch it when he was a kid. It wasn’t on TV when I was growing up. (Why am I defending myself for not watching a specific cartoon?)
Anyway, roomie asks, “Watch... with me?”
And then I, being a total dumbass, say, “Nah. Think I’ll get some dishes in,” before getting up and walking away.
If I had stayed put for just a few seconds longer, I would have heard them asking, “...please?” (In case you’re wondering, they told me about that later.)
------------
Yes, I hurt its feelings. Yes, it was insensitive. Yes, I am sorry. But like I said, the thought didn’t even cross my mind back then. As far as I knew, as long as my roommate had their cartoons, they were happy. It didn’t occur to me that they cared about anything other than the cartoons themselves.
For the next week, my roommate made sure I knew, now and forever, that this was not true.
My first clue that they were mad at me was later that evening when I went to the living room to watch my usual shows. It was my turn on the TV, and usually I have to pry my roommate away so I can watch what I want to watch. But that night, the instant I walked into the room, they changed the channel to what I wanted, put the remote down on the couch, and left the room without saying a word. I thanked them, plopped myself down, and went straight into couch potato mode.
This should have thrown so many red flags in my head, but for some reason, it didn’t. Maybe I was being too self-absorbed at the time? Maybe I was just tired and thinking, “Aww man, I gotta work tomorrow!”? No matter the excuse, mistakes were made, and I started paying for them the very next morning.
My “haunting” kicked off with waking up to find most of my rock collection missing. I have a particular affinity for pretty rocks and gems (I’m kind of a rock nerd) and have my favorites out on display. But that morning, the only rocks that I could see were the pink ones. Someone had pilfered almost every pebble from every pedestal to perturb me. (I saw a chance for alliteration and took it! So sue me!) I was still waking up and too tired to care about it at the time (me making excuses again) and had work, so I got ready to go and left.
Now I’m not sure how they did it, but my roommate did something to my car radio. I turn it on and all I get are tunes by Henry Mancini. Fifty percent of the time, it was the Pink Panther theme, twenty-five percent was the theme from A Shot In The Dark (I had to use Soundhound to figure out that one), and the rest was a mix of some of his other work. It didn’t matter what station I tried changing it to! Although I did learn that Mancini composed Baby Elephant Walk, so that’s something.
By now, I’d already figured out what was going on (roommate did it), but couldn’t really do anything about it because I still had work to go to. As if the daily grind working at an art supply store wasn’t hard enough, I had to work while having the dang Pink Panther theme stuck in my head all day. Not even the music that played over the store radio could get rid of it. (Given the quote un-quote “music” they play over the speaker system, I eventually considered it a good thing.)
Then I came home, and that’s when things REALLY escalated. First words out of my mouth after I walked in was, “Hey, I’m hoooOOOOOLY~!” Every single wall in the apartment, from the living room, to the kitchen, to the bedroom, and even the bathroom...
PINK!
All of them were painted PINK!
Like strawberry frosted doughnut pink!
As I’m gawking at the interior design sugar rush nightmare, out walks my roommate from around the corner. Immediately, the first thing I noticed was that they had feet. (Normally, they don’t have feet; they just kind of “hover” or “emerge from the ground” or something.) They had their eyes closed, head held up, and made a point of showing off these noodle legs they had constructed by skipping every other three steps.
They were doing the Pink Panther shuffle.
They walk out of my line of sight and I run over to have a word with them, but by then they disappeared. I look around and all I see is more and more pink. From behind me, I hear a mix of snickering slash wheezing. Like you ever hear of this cartoon dog named Muttley? They were laughing like him. And of course, I turn around, and the only thing I see is more pink!
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I knew that my roommate could be ornery at times, like that time I tried to get an idea of their daily routine by setting up a webcam, but this...
I mean, where did she even get the paint? (Upon reading back here, I realized I referred to them as a ‘she’ even though I’m not sure if they are a ‘she’ or not. Yeah, I can edit it to a more neutral pronoun, but something tells me I ought to point this out instead of editing it, for some reason.)
I was half tempted to get back at them by painting the walls back to their original color (they do sell paint by the gallon where I work, and I get the employee discount), but realized they’d just paint(?) the walls pink again. Like I’d turn around after thinking I finished only to find the work I did completely undone. I could just picture my roommate doing that and finding it hysterical.
Anyway, tacky as the pink walls were, I didn’t get too angry about them. For starters, my lease agreement said that I couldn’t paint the walls without landlord approval. But my lease agreement also acknowledges that my apartment may be haunted. If the landlord ever brought it up, I’d just tell them the “ghost” did it. Second, these pranks my roommate was pulling were kind of amusing and didn’t really bother me that much. (I mean sure, I wanted my rock collection back but I doubted my roommate would have thrown them away. They know how much they mean to me.)
The one thing I was putting my foot down on was that I wasn’t going to ask my roommate what was wrong. I got the hint, sure, but I wanted them to know that if something is bothering them, they need to, y’know, actually say something instead of leaving spooky pink clues. They were being a butt, and my hope was that when they saw how much the pink wasn’t bothering me, then they’d finally open up. This went on for about a week with me going about my daily routine only to be surprised by the occasional pink interruption.
Like on Wednesday, I go to the fridge to get something to drink, and all I find in there is Pink Lemonade. It actually wasn’t that bad, but I have no idea how my roommate actually got it given that they never leave the apartment. Thursday, I get a notification saying a package arrived, and find my roommate used my debit card to order the entire Pink Panther cartoon series on DVD. And earlier on Tuesday, I got a call from my landlord asking if I knew why someone had called in an order, in their name, to have Owens Corning insulation installed. In case you weren’t aware, that’s the pink insulation who has “you can guess who” as their mascot.
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So, Friday rolls around, and by now, the entire apartment is pink. Like EVERYTHING. The furniture, the electronics, the toilet, the sink, the appliances, the TV, and everything in between has been made pink somehow. I’m not sure who out there still makes pink toilet paper, but apparently my roommate has either some special powers I don’t know about yet, or they got connections.
At this point, since my roommate had yet to approach me about “The Pink-ening”, I began playing the reverse-psychology card. I came home and got to making dinner. While some of this was a bit more expensive than what I usually spend on food, I figured it was worth it if it meant getting my roommate to talk to me. My menu included delicious smoked pink salmon, some crab linguine with a nice amount of pink to it for a side dish, and some mashed red potatoes that turn out nice and pink if you got the right recipe. To wash it down, I picked up a glass of pink lemonade from the fridge, and in the freezer, some strawberry sorbet.
I get down to eating at my pink table, with a pink wooden chair, pink napkins, pink silverware, pink glass of pink lemonade. It took a little more effort to put this together, but I made an exaggerated point of showing off how good this pink meal was and how much I was just enjoying all this pink.
About halfway into my meal, I get a feeling that someone’s standing behind me. It’s hard to put into words how you know someone’s there especially since my roommate doesn’t really eat or breath. It’s like the hairs on the back of your neck become sensitive like cat whiskers and can just... feel that someone’s there. Usually sends a chill down my spine when that happens, but this time, I was ready and waiting for it.
“Care to join me for dinner?” I say without turning around. If I had, they probably would have vanished on me again like they had been doing all week.
“Looks... good...” they say in their ever so familiar by now raspy voice.
“Got something you want to talk about?” I ask between bites. There’s a brief pause as my roommate thinks to themselves.
“...yes,” they finally answer.
“Okay. Pull up a chair! It’s been a while since we just, y’know, talked and stuff,” which was true.
The instant I said that, I realized that even before the “week of pink” began, we hadn’t spent a whole lot of time together outside of our usual TV time. I had long since figured out that my roommate wanted me to watch Pink Panther with them, but I just thought they wanted to show it to me to show off how (subjectively) good the cartoon was. Only then did it hit me that they wanted me to watch it with them because they wanted to watch it together with me. It was like they were hoping for some roommate bonding time or something like that.
Now, it wasn’t like we weren’t talking to each other before this. I greeted them whenever I saw them, and let them know whenever I came home or was leaving. but we hadn’t actually talked, like... “talk-talk” in a few weeks. Instead, the conversations over the last few weeks were like the kind of conversations a person would have with their pet cat or pet dog. Like you’d talk to them, but not really expect an answer from them.
I had been treating her like a pet more than a person. (Did it again! I’m thinking I’ll ask them later what kind of pronouns they’d like me to use, or if they’ve even given any thought towards gender or anything).
My guess is that my roommate picked up on this themselves, and just like a disobedient pet who is bored, lonely, or other, they made a mess of the place. Maybe they were thinking that if I was going to treat them like a pet, they would act like one too?
Of course, I didn’t mean to treat them like that. I don’t think anyone really does mean it when they do. It just kind of happens without thinking about it. The whole reason I’m writing this down here in you, diary, is so that I can make a mental note slash reminder to be careful of doing that kind of thing. It’s especially important to remember when interacting with other people, like my co-workers or the store customers. (Unlike my roommate, they can’t get on my case by making my entire apartment pink.)
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Now where was I? Oh yeah, our talk. I think I remember the most important bits of it. It went something like:
“So, whaddya wanna talk about?” I ask between bites of food.
“Pink...” they say to me. I wait a moment, expecting them to say “panther” after that, but it when it doesn’t arrive, I step in.
“Yeah! Pretty amazing what you did with the place! I didn’t know things could even get this pink!” which was one-hundred percent true.
“...Thank...you...” they say with a smile. I can tell that was not the answer they were expecting as I could have swore they turned and blushed. Although I couldn’t tell because of how pink everything else was.
“Although,” I add, “I don’t think the landlord is going to like the apartment being this pink. If it stays like this, they might kick me out. And we wouldn’t want that, right?”
Now my roommate, the apparition, actually looks shocked for a moment. The thought hadn’t entered their head, and for a moment, they looked a little scared. “N-n-n-no...” they stuttered.
“Well, I’m sure together, we can get this place back to the way it was before the next time they have an apartment inspection. Whenever that is,” I reassure them.
“Yeah...” my roommate nods.
“Say I got some time off this upcoming weekend. Want to watch some Pink Panther with me?” (Oh my God, you should have seen the smile on my roommate’s face when I asked this.) “I see I have the DVD collection now, apparently,” I say with a wink, “and we can even watch the movies together too.”
“...movies?” they ask.
“Yeah, the Pink Panther was a movie first before it became a cartoon. It was a live-action movie, but... well some of it’s like a cartoon here and there. Lots of slapstick comedy that I think you might like.” They were practically beaming and agreed immediately.
After Friday’s dinner, we watched some of the cartoons (which are actually pretty funny) and for the upcoming weekend, we’re doing a Pink Panther movie marathon with cartoons mixed in to spice it up. I also found out that my roommate doesn’t just watch the cartoons, but actually knows a thing or two about them. Like how Friz Freleng, one of the directors and creative minds behind the original Looney Tunes cartoons, was involved in the Pink Panther’s creation along with a new studio after he left Warner Brothers. I don’t know how my roommate came to know so much, but it’s pretty cool.
Anyway, I got me some sweet, pink treats to snack on during the movie marathon. The apartment is still pink as can be, but my roommate said they’ll take care of it once the marathon’s over. Exactly HOW they plan to take care of it, I have no idea. Oh well. No use pinking too hard about it.
Based on the video games Splatoon, Splatoon 2, and Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion by Nintendo.
And includes a cameo of a character created by @tamarinfrog , @searching-for-bananaflies , @cafe-cardamari , @bottledupcomic , and more!
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Twenty minutes earlier, in the Salmon Run Ladies Changing Rooms, a slightly older Octoling girl had just finished styling a younger Octoling’s tentacles into a ponytail.
<There you go,> said the older of the two girls, <All done.>
<Thanks, Nalini,> the younger Octoling said with a smile to her older sister.
<Ready for your first Salmon Run?> Nalini asked.
<Well...> the younger Octoling hesitated. <...kind of. I’m a little nervous, though.>
<Don’t you worry, Lajni,> Nalini said with a smile, <I’ll keep you safe.>
Lajni gave a warm smile back to her older sister just as another Octoling with an Afro barged in with a self-assured grin on his face. <Not to worry, sis!> the boy boasted, <I’ll take care of those Salmonids so fast, you won’t even know they’re there!>
The two girls’ faces blushed a crimson red as they rushed towards the Octoling boy. <AADI! WHAT ARE YOU DOING!? THIS IS THE LADIES ROOM!> Nalini shouted as she began to drag the boy out.
<YEAH! You can’t be in here!> Lajni said as she pushed against her older brother.
<Okay! Okay! I get it! You can get your hands off me!> Aadi complained.
The door to the Ladies Changing Room opened with a shove as Nalini dragged Aadi out by his shirt collar. The three were now all dressed and ready to go, but Nalini still had a few words to say.
<You’re lucky no one else was in there, otherwise you would have been in even more trouble!> Nalini scolded, <Don’t you know it’s rude to enter places you aren’t supposed to be in!?>
<I’M SORRY ALREADY!> Aadi whined, <How else was I supposed to check on you!? You two we’re taking forever in there!>
<You could have texted us from your OctoPod!> pointed out Nalini.
Aadi looked like he had just been hit over the head with an epiphany, <Oh... right! I forgot about that!>
Nalini sighed and looked at her two younger siblings. While Lajni was fourteen, and Aadi was fifteen, the two of them still acted like little kids. A smile spread over Nalini’s face as she remembered what brought them all here today.
At seventeen, Nalini was the oldest of the three siblings and had taken it upon herself to look after her beloved little brother and sister. After the first failed attempt to capture the Great Zapfish, and after escaping from his snow globe prison, D.J. Octavio began recruiting Octarians left and right. Nalini signed up for training to become an Octoling soldier in hopes of supporting Lajni and Aadi and keeping them from having to serve in the Octarian Army.
Before Nalini completed her training to enter active combat, D.J. Octavio’s plans were thwarted and he was defeated a second time. Soon after, the influence of the Squid Sisters and their music spread throughout Octarian society; moving the hearts of many. Even though D.J. Octavio had kidnapped and brainwashed Callie, one of the Squid Sisters, she bore no ill will towards the Octarians and made great efforts to foster peace between them after her rescue. Finally, the Tartar Sauce incident brought Inklings and Octolings together against a common enemy; forging a new era of peace and prosperity for both species.
Nalini never completed her training, and deep down, she was glad that she didn’t. She could now spend more time with her family and take comfort knowing that Lajni and Aadi would never have to fight in a Great Turf War like their ancestors did. The three Octoling siblings even began making trips to Inkopolis to make new friends and try new things. It was a good time to be alive.
Unfortunately, taking care of two younger siblings required money. While the Turf War League was the best way for kids and young adults to make money in Inkopolis Square, Nalini wasn’t comfortable with it since she couldn’t stand the thought of slinging ink against fellow Octolings, or even Inklings. The Grizzco Salmon Runs, however, let Nalini put the training she received to good use, and make some money without raising a weapon against her people or the people that made up her new friends.
After four Salmon Runs, Nalini still hadn’t made much money, and her younger brother and sister were eager to help her in her work so that they could get by. Lajni just turned fourteen, and Aadi had been wanting to show off what he could do ever since he was twelve. This was going to be Nalini’s fifth Salmon Run, and the first for Aadi and Lajni.
The three Octolings stepped onto the Spawn Point that would launch them to the Grizzco boat that was off the shore of Marooner’s Bay. Lajni, feeling a little nervous, took Nalini’s hand in hers and held on to it with a little squeeze. Nalini squeezed back to let her sister know everything was going to be okay. A few seconds later, the spawn point powered on and launched the three Octolings to their destination.
In what seemed like no time at all, the three Octolings appeared on a different spawn pad several miles away from where they started. Lajni felt a little woozy and clutched her sister’s hand tighter than before to make sure she didn’t fall down. As she regained her bearings, she took a look at who her older brother and sister were staring at. In front of them was a tall, lanky Inkling with purple tentacles. He was wearing the exact same uniform they were wearing and had a no-nonsense expression. His eyes widened when he saw the three siblings and Lajni thought she saw the color drain from his face.
Lajni stepped behind her sister, feeling embarrassed that she didn’t know how to speak Inklish. Aadi did the same as Nalini was the only one who had studied it, and she wasn’t entirely fluent either. The eldest of the three Octolings swallowed hard as she extended a slightly nervous hand in greeting.
“Heh-“ Nalini stuttered. “Hello. I am Nalini. It is... pleasure to meet you.”
The tall Inkling reached out, firmly clasped Nalini’s hand in theirs, and gave it a hearty shake. His grip wasn’t too tight or too loose, and his shake could be measured as precisely in the middle of the two extremes: “trying to tear your arm off” and “I don’t even care enough about this greeting to move a muscle”. It was, for all accounts, a genuine handshake. Nalini would have felt more reassured by it if not for the Inkling’s slasher smile that was stretched across their face and the shrunken pupils.
“HI!” he said loudly with a hint of madness. “I’M SCREWED SIX WAYS FROM SUNDAY! PLEASED TO MEET YOU!”
Based on characters by @tamarinfrog , @cafe-cardamari , @bottledupcomic , @searching-for-bananaflies , and how many more blogs of theirs?
And the video games Splatoon, Splatoon 2, and Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion by Nintendo.
———————————
About an hour later, at a spawn point on a small boat floating in a sea of dark green water, Arnick materialized out of seemingly thin air. Long distance transport was always a bit disorienting, but Arnick got his balance and sea legs in quick order. He’d done his fair share of salmon runs already (earning enough to keep Tetrox from eating him out of house and home), but it had been a few months since Arnick last took on a Salmon Run job.
“Hey! Welcome back, kid!” came the grizzled voice of Mr. Grizz. Arnick looked over to a small table where a little wooden bear statue with a radio antennae sticking out was sitting. Like everyone else, Arnick had never seen Mr. Grizz first hand, but his voice was unmistakable.
“Good evening, Mr. Grizz,” Arnick replied professionally and politely.
“Surprised to see you here,” said the voice coming from the bear statue, “Last I heard, you and your team just hit the big league! That not working out for you?”
“Hmph,” Arnick huffed but with a half-smile, “I had no idea you followed Turf Wars.”
“Only when some of my best employees are out there playing,” the statue complimented.
“I’m flattered!” Arnick responded with a smile. Mr. Grizz was being awfully nice today. Almost too nice. “But contrary to what you may be thinking, being in the highest echelon of the Professional Turf War League has been nothing short of a smashing success!”
“You don’t say?” questioned the bear (statue), “So what brings you by today?”
“As it so happens, I’m in need of some extra funds to cover some personal expenses,” Arnick explained honestly without going into too much detail, “and doing a few Salmon Runs should get me what I need by the time I need it.”
“I see,” the bear statue said as the person behind the statue thought to themselves. Mr. Grizz remembered the time when Arnick led a Salmon Run team to capture more than 100 Golden Eggs in a single wave. It was one of the most profitable days in the company’s history, so Mr. Grizz had a special task in mind for Arnick today. “In that case, I think I got just the thing!”
“Oh?” Asked Arnick.
“This is a special job that I’ve been saving for when someone...” Mr. Grizz paused briefly to find the right encouraging word, “...talented stopped by. And lucky for me, here you are!”
“You’re much too kind, sir,” Arnick thanked his employer. He knew Mr. Grizz was buttering him up for something, but wasn’t sure what the mysterious voice behind the bear had up its sleeve. Arnick then looked around and realized what was missing from the boat. “It seems my fellow team mates haven’t arrived yet. There wasn’t anything wrong with transmitting them here, was there?”
“Not at all,” said the voice coming from the wood carving, “They’re still back at the changing rooms getting their assigned uniforms.” Arnick was wearing the very same standard issue uniform. It consisted of green rain slick boots, orange overalls, a white T-shirt underneath, green rubber gloves, black suspenders, and a cap with the company logo on the front. But it was something Mr. Grizz said just then that gave Arnick a clue to what the person behind the bear was up to.
“Getting their assigned uniforms?” he asked with a very strong emphasis on the “getting” part. “You don’t mean...?”
A boisterous laugh came through the speaker on the statue. “Sharp as a tack as always! You got it! They’re new hires!”
Arnick felt his heart sink. There were few things in life more frustrating than dealing with rookies. Trying to manage a randomly assigned group that’s fresh on the boat was about as easy as herding Judds. Arnick spoke the first thing that came to his mind which was, “Mr. Grizz, did I do something wrong? Have I upset you in some way!?”
“What!? No!” the bear exclaimed then explained, “Remember that time you and your pals got me a hundred golden eggs?” asked Mr. Grizz, “Back then, you guys worked together like a well-oiled machine. I want to see if you can work that kind of magic again with some fresh faces.”
Arnick did remember, but he also remembered that he was partnered with everyone else in Team Toxic on that day. The only reason they worked so well together was because of all the training and combined experience they had. Arnick raised an eyebrow, “Is this a test?”
“More like a performance evaluation,” the bear (statue) emphasized, “You whip these kids into shape and there’s a nice big bonus in it for yah!”
“Hmm...” Arnick mused to himself with a frown. While working with new recruits would make things more difficult, the potential bonus could be worth the effort. But on the other hand, he only had until midnight to get the funds he needed. Then again, Mr. Grizz wouldn’t be pairing Arnick up with these new recruits unless he thought Arnick could handle it.
Then a small smile began to spread as Arnick’s eyes seemed to sparkle as it dawned on him: this was a LEADERSHIP position! No being bossed around by Belladonna! No mockery from Tetrox! No cold shoulders or dismissals from Cyanthia! Finally, Arnick would be working with people that actually respected him and acknowledged his capability as a leader!
“Alright,” Arnick said confidently after he made up his mind, “But don’t expect me to go easy on them.”
Behind Arnick, the spawn point powered on as the three newbies materialized. Arnick turned around and felt his heart sink even further, all the way to the toes of his feet. His pupils shrunk and a cold sweat broke out over his forehead. He knew being in charge of new recruits would be difficult, but these weren’t just any new recruits...
...they were all Octolings.
Mr. Grizz responded to Arnick over the radio, “I wouldn’t have it any other way!”
Based on characters created by @tamarinfrog (a.k.a. @searching-for-bananaflies , a.k.a. @cafe-cardamari , a.k.a. @bottledupcomic , a.k.a. OH MY GOD Tammy, just how many more blogs do you have!? I mean, I’m not one to talk, but...)
And the video games Splatoon, Splatoon 2, and Splatoon 2: Octo Expansion by Nintendo.
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A brief primer on Unwanted House Guest:
Began this Fanfiction series back in the Fall of 2015.
Multiple entries in the series were submitted to Tammy’s blogs for posting.
Feel free to search Tammy’s blogs for “Unwanted House Guest” for previous entries in the series.
Now on with the story!
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“YOU WANT HOW MUCH!?”
Arnick shouted from nearly the top of his lungs. Every Inkling and Octoling in Inkopolis Square turned to look at the small bench near the lobby entrance for Turf Wars. There, everyone saw a tall, lanky, Inkling male with purple tentacles wearing a replica hero jacket and with a Legendary Cap on his head. It was an older cap with some sewn on patches and a hole to let the Inkling’s tentacles out through the top of the hat. Upon recognizing who it was, about a third of the people turned back to minding their own business because they were rather accustomed to the ear-splitting din that Arnick Stilton was known for.
“You heard me, chum,” Murch shot back, “100,000 G! Take it or leave it.”
Arnick was gritting his teeth, clenching his fists, and looking like his hat was going to pop off his head. The 21-year old Inkling had been searching for months for a very particular item. He regularly browsed through Annie’s Online Shop, checked every retail store daily since Squiddoween, and constantly asked about it from the local (shady) “gear specialist”: Murch. After going for so long without any luck, Arnick even went so far as to try and craft it himself, but couldn’t get the ability chunks necessary to finish it.
Now it was being held ransom by a puny little one-eyed street urchin.
“You have any idea how hard it was to find this thing, chum?” Murch continued with a small hint of indignity, “Spyke had to ask somebody who knew somebody who knew somebody whose cousin’s sister-in-law’s brother’s uncle happened to have one tucked away in a box at a garage sale out in Calamari County!”
“Yeah, right...” Arnick said in about a 50/50 split between disbelief and sarcasm. He grabbed his iSquid and opened up the app for his bank account. His winnings had increased since Team Toxic’s recent entrance into the highest level of professional Turf War. This was a great honor as they were now being matched up against the most experienced players; some of who had been engaging in Turf Wars for decades. But Arnick still had rent, utility bills, credit card payments, grocery expenses, and other debts that needed paying.
Doing a quick check of his bank balance, Arnick saw that he had exactly 567,902 G in the bank, but by Arnick’s calculations, only 50,000 G of that would be considered “available”. Sure, Arnick had the 100,000 G in his bank account, but if he spent it now, one or more of the payments Arnick had scheduled to go through could bounce. This would lead to a Non-Sufficient Fund (NSF) fee from the bank, and a whole new level of headache that Arnick did not want to deal with. (Especially since Tetrox gave him enough of a headache anyway. Arnick couldn’t count the number of times she’d swiped his credit cards to buy ridiculous things online).
“Hey,” Murch called up to the tall, penny-pinching grouch, “you want this or not?”
“Yes of course I want it, you pipsqueak!” Arnick said with frustration in his voice (which was nothing new), “Is there any way I can pick it up tomorrow?”
“No can do, chum,” Murch said with a shake of his head, “I’m a busy guy here and gear like this is hot stuff! If you don’t buy this, I’m going to have to trash it.”
“WHAT!? You said it yourself this thing was difficult to get, and you’re going to throw it away just like that!?” questioned Arnick.
“Look, chum, I only got so much inventory space here,” Murch said gesturing to his case sitting on the bench behind him, “I can hold this for you up until midnight tonight, but after that, this gear is gone.”
Murch then raised his solitary eyebrow as he took a peak at the precious gear in the case. “Still,” he said, “why would an uptight guy like you want this bo-“
“SSHHHHHHHHHUSH!”
Arnick hissed, almost shoving his hand over Murch’s mouth to keep him quiet. He then looked around him, cautiously, to see if anyone had seen or heard anything. Everyone in the Square was either staring at or side-eyeing Arnick, but mostly because his outbursts were giving them a scare. No matter how many times Arnick blew his top, the folks that inhabited Inkopolis Square would still jump from his outbursts. (Many of them were getting rather tired of it.)
“What was that for, chum!?” Asked an annoyed Murch.
“I don’t want anyone finding out I’m getting this, you dimwit!” Arnick pleaded.
“Why wouldn’t you-“ Murch’s single eye popped wide open as it hit him. He then slowly turned towards Arnick with a big, smug smile on his face. His eye now had a look to it as if it was saying “I see what you did there”. Arnick had seen that look before and dreaded what was coming.
“Ohhhhhh,” Murch said with a sneaky smile, “this is a gift for someone, isn’t it?”
“Your point?” Arnick snapped back, feeling rather annoyed.
“You sly sea dog!” Murch said while giving a small elbow jab to Arnick’s leg, “Don’t you worry about a thing! Your secret’s safe with me.” His gesture was meant to be a knowing jab to the ribs, but given Murch’s height, Arnick’s leg was the best he could reach.
Arnick looked left, then right, then left again. By now, the eyes of the square were no longer on him and Murch. Arnick guessed that everyone was likely thinking: “OH MY COD! WHAT WA- Oh it’s just Arnick! False Alarm!” before going back to whatever it was they were doing. (He was right too.) In a quiet voice, Arnick responded with, “It had better be safe, or so help me, if this gets out...”
“Relax, chum!” Murch said with a smile, “all I need is that 100,000 G and you won’t hear a peep out of me!”
Arnick growled to himself. He absolutely hated the idea of having an overdraft fee affecting his credit score. But at the same time, he had been searching for this gear for so long that he just couldn’t let it slip through his fingers. His mind raced through possible solutions when suddenly the hour changed and the new Turf War maps were announced by Inkopolis’ latest shining stars: Off the Hook. The volume on the large Jumbo-Tron size TV in the square cranked itself up for the news segment.
“Y’all check this out!” the energetic Pygmy Inkling named Pearl called out over the airwaves, “Our sponsor Grizzco is now hiring for Salmon Runs!” She then looked over to her co-host, the Octoling named Marina, who was looking into the camera with a big smile.
“Big Money? Big Prizes? I love it!” The cheerful Octoling expertly said after reading it from the teleprompter. Arnick was certain this was an obscure reference to something. He also wagered that line was written by his old nemesis: “that guy named Steve”. Arnick recalled Steve saying something about how he was taking on some additional work responsibilities at the Turf War League the two of them bickered (and it was always bickering). Arnick didn’t have the foggiest idea what the reference was to, but he didn’t care...
...he just got a brilliant idea.
Turning to Murch, Arnick smiled unusually wide. “100,000 G by midnight!? No problem!” Arnick said confidently, “Hang on to it and I’ll be back with your money in no time.”
“Alright,” Murch nodded, “But remember, when I say midnight, I mean Midnight! If you ain’t here by 12:00 on the dot, then this...” Murch hesitated when Arnick gave him the stink eye (while still smiling, no less) to remind him to keep this under wraps, “...gear goes bye-bye.”
Arnick gave him an enthusiastic thumbs up and a toothy grin that almost sparkled. “Smoke me a kipper, I’ll be back for breakfast!” Arnick said assuredly before spinning around and marching towards the Salmon Run Office.
Murch called out, “YOU DO KNOW IT WILL BE TOO LATE BY THEN, RIGHT!?”
Arnick turned around and hollered back, “IT’S A FIGURE OF SPEECH!”
My Roommate is an Apparition: Saturday Morning Cartoon Complaints
Based on characters created by @reddpenn
————————————-
There once was a lonely apparition that haunted an apartment in an old building. No one knew where it came from, how it came to be, or why it was there. In fact, nobody knew the spooky specter actually existed since nobody could see it. Eventually, the apparition met someone who could see them, and they were no longer lonely. But before that, there were a few instances where the incorporeal creature made contact with human beings.
This is one of those stories.
It was September 20th, 1997, and Terrence “Terry” Vanderbrook was working as an operator for a local CBS Network Affiliate. He spent his days making sure that people calling into the station were directed to where they needed to go, and also screening out any unwanted calls. Regardless if they were folks calling in to speak to the news team about breaking news, people wanting to partner with the station for a special event, or for any other reason, Terry took care of them all.
One call, in specific, would go down as one Terry would remember for the rest of his years. (Mostly because he wasn’t sure if it actually happened or not).
“Thank you for calling your local CBS station, W.O.-“ Terry began to say before being cut off.
“Where...?” came a voice that sounded like breath on the wind.
“I’m sorry?” Terry asked.
“Where... are they...?” the raspy voice asked.
In the couple of years Terry had been a phone operator, he received more than his fair share of crank calls. Some were very obvious from the get go, while others were subtle and not quite as apparent. On occasion, a call might start off sounding like a prank, but actually turn out to be a legitimate call. Terry learned that the hard way after being berated by a 76- year old woman who was calling to complain about a breaking news report interrupting Diagnosis: Murder. On that day, Terry learned never to underestimate the appeal of Dick Van Dyke to seniors.
Still, uncertain if this was a prank or not, Terry did exactly what he was trained to do: proceed in a professional and courteous manner while trying to obtain more information to determine the needs of the caller. (At least until he was sure whether this call was genuine or not.)
“What can I help you find today?” Terry responded with a smile in his voice (as outlined in the Employee Handbook for Telephone Operators, page 12).
The raspy voice spoke a little louder to get its point across, “Car... TOONS!!!”
“Cartoons?”
“Where. Are. The. Car. Tooooons!?” the voice demanded.
Terry looked over at the small calendar on his desk. It was Saturday. “Oh! You mean the Saturday Morning Cartoons?”
“Yesssssss...” the voice said with a hiss.
“Give me one second,” Terry said as he began to type away at the keyboard to his Windows 95 work computer. Connecting to the network’s server, Terry began searching for and pulling up the schedule for the day’s channel listings. A memo had circulated around the office not too long ago about changes to the channel lineup this fall, but Terry hadn’t paid too much attention to it. He still hadn’t gotten the hang of the search function for his e-mail just yet.
“I’m... waaaaaaaaaiiiii... tiiiiiiiiinnnnngggg,” the voice said as nasally and obnoxious as possible.
“Hang on, kid, I almost got it,” Terry shot back. At this point, he figured the caller was some kid, probably sick in bed (which would explain the raspy voice), hoping to watch their Saturday Morning Cartoons and having trouble with it. (Terry was way off the mark, but he didn’t know that).
While the inter-network speeds within the CBS station’s computer network were much faster than the new 56 Kbps speeds Terry got on his dial-up modem back home, it still took a while to get to the shared network folder that contained the spreadsheet containing the day’s programming lineup. With a double-click, Terry opened up Excel 95 and saw...
“Oh...”
Terry bit his lip and breathed in through his teeth. He always hated calls like this; calls where he had to be the unfortunate bearer of bad news. The person on the other end of the line NEVER took it well. It would lead to lots of yelling, screaming, and demands to speak to his manager. And that was when Terry was speaking to full grown adults, so he was rightfully concerned about the kind of tantrum a sick child could produce.
“I’m sorry,” Terry said with regret, “but it looks like the CBS Kidz programming block has been replaced with CBS News Saturday Morning and a rerun of The Andy Griffith Show.”
————————————-
Due to the nature of the apparition’s existence, it was debatable whether or not it was actually “alive”. Considering the facts, it had been “born” a few years ago and hadn’t “lived” for very long by the time it made this phone call. Furthermore, during the time in between, it experienced emotions such as happiness, sadness, inquisitiveness, and many more.
But this was the first time the apparition became truly angry!
The apparition was frowning. It’s worth mentioning this, because before now, the apparition had never, ever frowned. Its face was no longer smiling, or expressionless like a confused child, like it had been for every day since the apparition began its existence. It was consciously moving the non-existent muscles on its face to move downward to express just how angry it was. Its sharp teeth were on full display like a snarling beast. To say it was not a pretty sight would have been an understatement.
The ethereal hand that had been twirling the coils of the telephone cord was now clutching the phone book as tightly as it could. Visions of cartoon characters expressing their anger whirled through the apparition’s head as it began to conjugate steam out of its non-existent ears. The apparition could not find the words to express the outrage it felt, so it did something else to vent its frustration.
It made a wooden chair suddenly fly through the air at one-hundred and twenty miles per hour into a wall.
*CRASH*
————————————-
The sound of wood smashing and splintering could be heard over the phone, and nearly made Terry jump out of his chair.
“WHOA! Kid, are you okay!?” Terry asked with genuine concern.
“BAAAAACK!!!” the apparition practically screamed. Its voice had distorted and sounded sinister; carrying a demonic reverb.
“...BRING! THEM! BAAAAAACK!!!”
“Poor kid,” Terry thought to himself, “they are definitely not taking this well.”
If it had been anyone else other than Terry taking that call, the horrific voice over the phone likely would have scared them out of their pants by now. But he was a veteran at handling the phone and this was not the first time someone used a voice distorter on a call. It was the first time a kid had used one (as far as he knew), but Terry had seen the toy commercials for “YakBak” on TV and knew that any kid with one could do funny things to their voice.
“Listen,” Terry said calmly, “I understand you’re disappointed, but that’s no reason to break things and throw a fit. You might hurt yourself or make yourself even sicker.”
————————————-
The frown had vanished from the apparition’s face. In its place was a look of sheer confusion. This was definitely not the reaction the apparition was expecting when they made this phone call.
The last time the apparition used its scary voice was back when the previous apartment tenants were talking about getting rid of their TV. To keep that from happening, the apparition practiced hard on finding the best voice it could mimic that would “persuade” the residents living there at the time to keep it. It even figured out how it could project its voice into any electronic device with a speaker to create an even more haunting effect (and to make sure the people there could actually hear its demands).
It worked, but it worked a little too well.
Shortly after the apparition began to actively haunt its oblivious roommates, the tenants packed up and moved out in a hurry, leaving their furniture and appliances behind. This included the 32” CRT TV that the apparition was fond of, and a landline telephone. The apparition didn’t care much for the phone line since they were happy just having the TV all to themselves twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. (Plus, they didn’t have anyone to call or talk on the phone to, anyway.)
At least they were happy until about a week ago, when the Saturday Morning Cartoons were a complete no show for the first time in years.
But the apparition had seen shows come and go, television programming blocks change for no apparent reason, occasional weather alert bulletins interrupting their cartoons, and some of their favorite cartoons canceled. They learned patience, understanding, and compromise from these experiences. Just because there were no cartoons that week didn’t mean that there wouldn’t be cartoons next week.
Two weeks without cartoons, however, simply would not do.
The apparition scoured the apartment for a phone book, concentrated on solidifying its fingertips to turn pages, located the phone number for the TV station, and dialed. It took a lot of effort for a ghostly being to make a phone call, and it was not about to let its efforts go to waste.
If the scary voice didn’t work, they’d have to take a different approach. It was time for Plan B.
————————————-
“...Sorry,” the apparition apologized, “...please... bring them... back?”
Terry sighed. He had kids of his own, and dealing with them could be a real challenge; especially when he couldn’t give them something they wanted. Once they realized throwing a tantrum fit wouldn’t work, they start trying to “bargain” just like the kid (who wasn’t actually a kid) that was on the phone.
“I’m sorry, kiddo, but it’s out of my hands,” Terry said using his “sympathetic Dad” voice, “I know it stinks, and if I could bring them back, I absolutely would.” After some frantic scrolling through his work e-mail inbox, he finally found the e-mail he was looking for. “But, thing is, we got to follow the rules from the FCC, so-“
“Eff... See... See?” the voice interrupted to ask.
“The Federal Communications Commission,” Terry explained, “You might not have learned about them in school yet, but they’re a part of the government. They make the rules we here at the TV stations got to follow, and one of those rules is to show three hours of educational programming, and the cartoons we had, well...” Terry tried to find a way to let the (not) kid down nicely, “...they just weren’t educational enough. That make sense?”
————————————-
It did not make sense. The Apparition had no idea what the heck the person on the other end of the phone line was talking about. All it knew was that they took away their cartoons and they weren’t going to give them back.
Taking a look at its transparent fingers, the apparition decided it was time to take matters into its own hands. They had tried scaring the person on the other end of the phone and they had tried asking nicely, but now it was time for plan C.
The apparition plunged its fingers into the tiny holes of the phone receiver. The phone was eventually engulfed in the apparition’s being and soon after that, the receiver began to slowly suck the apparition into it.
If someone walked into the room at that moment, and if that person could also see the apparition, they would see the lower half of a person’s body up to about their waist with the upper half crammed into a phone. It looked like a cartoon where someone had taken the receiver of a phone and hit someone over the head with it so hard that it jammed them inside.
Meanwhile, inside the phone, the apparition’s upper body stretched as it squeezed its way through the telephone cables. It wasn’t easy, and the apparition had never tried anything like this before, but it was filled with determination. Following the voice of the person on the other end of the phone, the apparition could feel itself getting closer and closer to its destination.
It smiled a sharp, toothy grin and created sharp claws on its hands in preparation for its arrival. Soon it would wreak havoc against those who had wronged it. They would rue the day they had taken away their source of Saturday Morning joy! It could see a light ahead of itself, and once it finally reached it, the apparition took its mangled, clawed hand and...
————————————-
*scritch*
“Ow,” Terry said as he pulled the phone away from his head. Something had just scratched him. Looking at the phone receiver, Terry blinked and then blinked again as he came to comprehend what he was looking at.
It was a very small, tiny hand with what looked like long fingernails poking out from one of the holes on the receiver. It flailed and strained as if it was trying to reach out but couldn’t get itself through. The closest thing Terry could liken it to was if a mouse or hamster had somehow gotten into the phone and was sticking its paw through the holes on the phone.
It was kind of adorable.
After a few seconds, the hand retracted into the phone. A second after that, Terry could have swore that he saw a tiny head poke out of one of the holes on the receiver. It had long hair, large eyes, no nose, and looked rather irritated. It struggled as it tried to pull itself out of the phone, but it just couldn’t budge.
Terry was quite sure he was seeing things. He wasn’t sure if it was because of something he ate, or from not getting enough sleep. The thought never entered his head that he was looking at a supernatural being that had shrunken its upper torso, shoved and stretched itself through the phone line, and was now trying to crawl its way out the other end. That would have been silly.
After a few more seconds of struggling, the apparition seemed to realize that this was not going to work and silently admitted defeat to itself. It looked up at the (relatively) gigantic face of Terry who was casually looking at the apparition without an ounce of fear, shock, or horror showing on his face. Without really thinking, Terry just looked at the tiny head poking out and just shrugged as though saying, “Sorry, can’t help yah there, bud”.
Dejectedly, the apparition pulled its head back inside the phone as Terry absentmindedly waved goodbye to it.
————————————-
Back in the apartment, the apparition pulled itself out from the phone and sighed. It held the phone up to its earless head to hear what the man on the other end had to say.
“So, uh...” the man said before a hesitant pause, “...I know this is going to sound crazy, but...” another pause as the man on the other end tried to put what just happened into words, “...did you just try and travel through the phones so you could claw at me?”
The apparition looked to the left, then looked to the right, and if it was capable of it, it would have broken out in a nervous sweat. Sheepishly, the apparition responded, “...yes,” with the same tone of voice a child would use if they had been caught eating cookies before dinner.
A slight pause before the man followed back with, “...didn’t really work out for you, did it?”
Again, sounding like a child that knew they were totally busted, the apparition responded, “...nooooo...”
There was another pause on the phone before the man on the other end eventually said, “Well... better luck next time.”
This call was starting to get extremely awkward as the apparition had no idea what was going to happen next.
After about a minute of silence (which is considered taboo among telephone operators) the man on the other end finally asked, “Is there anything else I can help you with today?”
This was a battle the apparition had thoroughly lost, and it knew it. It was time to throw in the towel. With a depressed sigh, it responded back, “No... thank you”.
————————————-
Despite not being sure what exactly he just saw, Terry leaned forward in his chair and decided the very least he could do was offer some encouraging words. “I know you’re disappointed, and I get that. I really do. But other TV channels have cartoons too. You can always watch them there.”
“...yeah...” the voice responded.
“It’s not like all the cartoons in the world just suddenly vanished, right?”
“...I suppose...”
Terry was ready to wrap this call up and had his closing spiel all set to go. “We appreciate you caring enough to call in today and while I may not have been able to help you, I do hope you feel better soon. Okay?”
There was a moment of silence before the voice responded back, “...okay...”
“Thank you very much for calling CBS, and have a good rest of your day,” Terry said earnestly.
There was a click signaling the phone on the other end had disconnected. Terry hung up the phone on his end, leaned back in his office chair, and looked up to the ceiling.
At that exact same moment, the person they had been talking to just a minute ago thought the exact same thing as he did.
You awaken in the back of a shaking horse drawn cart, your vision is blurry until you blink away the languid lingering fingers of unconsciousness. Then you hear a voice, it takes you a moment to process it through the thick fog of your recently awoken mind but you think you heard "Hey you. Youre finally awake."
You don’t remember what happened in the last 48 hours, and when you come to your senses, you’re sitting on a cold porcelain bowl in an unfamiliar bathroom stall. You feel relieved, but also at the same time have a sinking feeling you just shat so hard you gave yourself short term amnesia. Your only real comfort is that you made it to the bathroom okay.
What appears to be your coat is hanging off the hook on the backside of the stall door, and you’d like nothing more than to get up and start filling in this vacant gap in your memory. You reach out and discover that in whatever haze you were in, you made the big mistake of entering a bathroom stall with no toilet paper. Smooth move. Looks like you’re not going anywhere until you find some paper to clean yourself up.
You call out, “Hey, anyone got any toilet paper I can use?”
A voice comes from the stall next to you, “Wish I could help you, but I’m out too!”
You almost ask yourself “how could this situation be more awkward?” before stopping mid-sentence to prevent you from jinxing yourself.
“It was a dark and cloudy evening on the twenty-ninth of November.
The end of a Black Friday the likes few would remember.
In an art supply store that can be found somewhere.
A person named Lily almost pulled out their hair.
With sale after sale, and all the price drops,
Poor Lily was tired. She wanted it to stop.
She dragged her feet one after another, with muscles so sore.
It felt like she walked a thousand miles to fall down at her door.
But now it was over, and at last she was free.
To veg out on her couch, and watch shows on TV.
But before she could indulge in being a couch potato,
There was still the matter of her roommate who...
...
Who...”
Lily tapped the pen against her chin as she tried to come up with a good word that rhymed with potato. Her head rested on a cushion against the arm rest of her couch as she slouched back; crossing one leg over the other. One of her spiral notebooks rested in her lap as she turned her head to look at her roommate.
The ghostly apparition stood motionless with a gaunt expression. Their eyes were wide with tiny pupils that somehow weren’t necessarily bloodshot, but at the same time, also bloodshot... but without the blood part. Their unkempt long hair fell down over their nearly non-existent shoulders and down their back, if you could call it that. Anyone who saw them standing next to them would likely jump out of their skin. If they could see them.
They were watching Spongebob Squarepants on Nickelodeon.
It was a rerun of the first episode, and the falsetto voice of Tiny Tim began to fill the apartment.
“Things that bother you Never bother me!
I feel happy and fine!
Living in the sunlight!
Loving in the moonlight!”
“Hav...ing... a... wonder... ful... time...”
Lily could tell the apparition was trying to sing along with its raspy voice. It sounded more like muttering under their breath, but it was clear what they were doing. It had to be difficult for it since they didn’t necessarily have lungs, vocal chords, or any other body parts usually involved with singing (as far as Lily knew). But despite that, it was still happy, bobbing their head slowly from side to side as they tried to keep up with the song.
Lily couldn’t help but think it was adorable; like a Pre-Schooler trying to sing along with their favorite cartoon.
It was the apparition’s scheduled cartoon time, and Lily had just come home after a very long morning, day, and night at work. As exhausting as working on Black Friday was, Lily was thankful to have a nice place to return to where she could unwind and relax. She was also thankful that the rent was surprisingly cheap too; what with the apartment being haunted and all.
She remembered the look on her landlord’s face when she signed the lease. It was a mixture of horror, surprise, and joy in response to finally finding someone willing to rent the apartment. Previous tenants would often report of strange things happening when they lived there. Their TV’s would turn on by themselves at random times. Sometimes the channels would change on their own, and whenever the tenant tried changing it back, they could hear an ethereal whisper demanding that they change the channel.
But Lily weren’t afraid of no ghosts, and took one of her first steps to independent living with dirt cheap rent.
A spooky chuckle came from her roommate as they watched Spongebob completely ruin Squidward’s day ...again. If not for the fact that Lily could see the pale, see-through entity that made that noise, she probably would have found the laughter rather creepy. But she didn’t, and in the spirit of the season, Lily mentally noted how she was thankful that she could see her specter of a roommate.
This train of thought led Lily back to one of the questions she had been asking herself for the past couple months: Why could she see the apparition when nobody else could?
Several possible answers ran through her head. Maybe she had secret powers that she wasn’t aware of? Maybe she was the “chosen” one, selected by the mysterious wraith to be the only person that could see them? Or maybe there was something about them that made them kindred spirits in a way? And if so, what tied them together?
Lily’s train of thought was derailed by the sudden commercial break on the TV, signaling that Spongebob had ended, and Lily knew what that meant. It was finally her turn to have the TV!
“Okay, show’s over. Now it’s my turn to watch something.”
Lily’s roommate gave a disappointed sigh as Lily snatched up the remote and changed the channel to CBS. It was prime time and time for some Hawaii Five-O. Sure it wasn’t the most mentally stimulating television program out there and one could argue it had the same level of intellect as Spongebob, but it was what Lily wanted to watch and watch it she would!
Or at least that would have been the case if not for a tiny spanner in the works. What greeted Lily after changing the channel was not Hawaii Five-O, but a familiar sight that Lily had not seen for a long, long time. Bongos could be heard as the word “Special” spun around colorfully on the screen before resting in place and showing “A CBS Special Presentation”.
A bright blue background with images of snowflakes falling appeared on the TV screen, accompanied by a calming, familiar, song.
“Fahoo forays, dahoo dorays
Welcome Christmas, bring your light
Fahoo forays, dahoo dorays
Welcome in the cold of night.”
“No kidding...” Lily said to herself in amazement. She hadn’t seen How The Grinch Stole Christmas in years. And it wasn’t the live action remake with Jim Carrey or the newer animated movie with Benedict Cumberbatch either. It was the genuine, original, Chuck Jones animated TV special with Boris Karloff narrating.
Lily remembered watching this on TV with her parents when she was little. It was one of the many Christmas specials that would air instead of the usual TV programming at night, and was just the thing for a 8-year old to enjoy before being tucked into bed for a 9 PM bedtime. Fond memories of the Christmas Tree in the living room, glowing with lights, and a stack of presents underneath it came flooding back to her in a wave of nostalgia.
It wasn’t Hawaii Five-O, but Lily wasn’t about to complain. In fact, she thought it was the perfect way to usher in the holiday season after the shopping turmoil of Black Friday. But as she kicked back to relax, she took a look at her roommate and couldn’t believe her eyes and ears.
“Every Who... down in Whoville... liked Christmas a lot.
But the Grinch... who lived just North of Whoville... did not!” said the apparition.
Its face was practically glowing with a warm smile that stretched almost from ear to non-existent ear on her face. Normally, Lily’s roommate was literally quite clear. Its transparent body made it easy to see right through them. But as it gazed at the Christmas Classic playing on the TV, Lily could have sworn that she saw a faint light beginning to emanate from her roommate.
The apparition’s pale, translucent skin looked like it was becoming opaque. A soft, warm glow radiated from its body as though it had just swallowed a night light. And all the while, the apparition spoke along with Boris Karloff’s narration word for word.
“The Grinch... hated Christmas!
The whole Christmas... season!
Now... please don't ask... why.
No one... quite knows the... reason,” the apparition quoted as it did its best to keep up with Boris Karloff’s pace.
“Wow! You’ve got the whole thing memorized, don’t yah?” Lily said with a smile.
The apparition turned around and smiled back at Lily, but this smile was different from before. Their smiles were usually filled with sharp, pointy teeth with an almost maniacal look to them. This smile, however, didn’t stretch across the whole of their face. Furthermore, while their teeth were still pointy, they looked somewhat smaller; almost human, even. It was a soft, warm, friendly smile.
It turned back around and continued to watch the TV classic, and as it did, Lily sat upright and scooted over to one side of the couch.
“Hey,” Lily called out, “care to join me?” She said while patting the seat next to her on the couch. Without taking its eyes off the television, the apparition walked backwards, somehow, onto the couch and then proceeded to sit next to Lily. “C’mere you,” Lily said as she took a throw blanket resting on the back of the couch and draped it around herself and her roommate.
Despite her roommate’s lack of substance, Lily felt warm and comfortable under the blanket. She could feel the faintest touch as the apparition’s head limped to the side and came to rest on her shoulder. It still quoted and sang along with the Christmas classic, but quietly so as not to disturb the viewing experience of their corporeal roommate.
It was peaceful, calm, and comforting. As they watched, Lily looked at her notebook that was now sitting on the floor. The movement of inviting her roommate to the couch had knocked it off. Looking at it, Lily figured out what to put down to finish her little post-Black Friday stress relief poem.
“... But before she could indulge in being a couch potato,
There was still the matter of her roommate who would not let go.
But as mysterious and weird as her roommate might be,
There was something about it that brought a warm smile to Lily.
And so the two sat on the couch in front of the TV,
Enjoying their time together as it was meant to be.”
Lily made a mental note to write that down once the show was over...
andulkaphoto
tangentwithtanner
theartofmadeline
dailybridgerton
janainaart
discoholicmusic
jacobvanloon
