Bomb: Locke and Valerian are walking on one side of the road, who do you hit?
Jude: both
Bomb: But then there are Dain and Balekin on the other side of the road
Jude: ah, trick question, I hit Valerian and Locke first and then we can torture Dain and Balekin together
Madoc: *proud*
Oriana: *slightly traumatized*
Taryn: *unfazed since she is used to this*
Cardan: *drunk and spouting poetry* my sweet nemesis, the words flowing out of your lips are making me wanna-
Vivi: *standing at the doorway, away from the commotion* so, if you're wondering why they are acting weird right now, I asked them to act nice during the dinner yesterday, oh and I locked the wine cabinet
Heather, who had met them only once before at the dinner: dear lords
Sometimes when I’m writing I feel like there’s a tiny Heather Chandler on one of my shoulders and a tiny Veronica Sawyer on the other, and they’re both telling me to write toxic yuri, but, like, if it’s not chansaw, they get extremely angry and start whispering chansaw scene ideas in my ear, so like, I can’t even finish the toxic yuri, because now I have to go write down this hot chansaw thing, and poor Heather Duke’s just sitting there in that forgotten one shot, mid cat and mouse game with Chandler, waiting for me to stop choosing Veronica over her, y’know, just like Heather, and it’s like, not even my fault, because evil Heather and evil Veronica just won’t stop coming up with ways they could be absolutely going buck wild on eachother.
Being the huge celebrities they were, Dirk and Heather often got requests to make videos about different topics or review certain products. Dirk never accepted, as he was actually kind of shy. He liked sharing his writing and his apps and games, but in front of a camera or an audience, he’d struggle quite a bit. His nervousness at the Starlight Accolades was twofold: he was afraid to lose face, but he also dreaded the acceptance speech he was supposed to give when he won.
Heather would, from time to time, accept such a video request. When she was studying for her Fine Arts degree, she had taken some Media Production classes, so she knew a little bit about editing already. She enjoyed making the videos and seeing the reactions more than she would admit.
But her videos were pretty enjoyable and one of her most recent videos even got nominated for a Starlight Accolade. She’d never go collect it though, because I forgot to send her.
----
The smaller media production unit was made by @ravasheencc. It is so much more practical (their apartment is big, but not big enough to place the normal media production desk) and it works like a dream!
Welcome back to Night Terrors! This chapter... hoo boy, this is where things get intense for Heather. Jeez... our poor girl’s been through a lot. Read on to see what happens!
Tag: @cosmicrealmofkissteria
Previously on Night Terrors:
“Goodnight, Ms. McMann. Enjoy your sleep.”
Mr. Fluunk shut the door, and Heather went to work making herself a fire. Maybe this library wasn’t as creepy as she initially thought…
Famous last words, Heather thought again as she struck a match.
Heather’s eyes opened, and she sighed quietly. This was the fourth time she’d woken up now. She lifted her wrist and checked her watch. The glowing hands told her it was now two in the morning. For the Gods’ sakes…
Heather sat up, then shivered. The fire in the hearth had died down. She got out of bed, pulled on the flannel shirt she’d been wearing with her outfit, and went over to the fireplace. She grabbed a few of the logs of wood stacked by the hearth and threw them on the fire, then stoked the flames with the metal fire poker. In a few moments, the fire flared up again. Some smoke flew out of the fire at her, making her cough and wave it away as it invaded her nose.
Setting aside the poker, she held out her hands to warm them. She rubbed her hands, sighing in relief as warmth washed over her.
Then a floorboard creaked.
Heather jumped and whirled around, looking out into the dark room. Nothing. No one. Scoffing quietly at herself, she turned back around to the fire. She hadn’t even heard the door open, why was she being—
Then another floorboard creaked.
Heather turned back around. “Hello?” she called out. “Who’s there?” Silence. “Fred, if that’s you coming to conserve body heat, just go get another blanket. I don’t care if it works, it’s weird.”
Silence. Sighing heavily and shaking her head, Heather turned back to the fire—and immediately shot to her feet and backed away.
Red smoke was pouring from the fire, billowing into the room and surrounding her like fog. A foul smell permeated the room, and Heather’s heart began to pound. She knew that horrible smell…
She bent down to grab the fire poker, and brandished it like a sword. “Who’s there?” she demanded, trying to keep her voice from wavering. “Come out right now, because this is not funny!”
Soft chuckling was her answer. It was quiet, but it was dark, and had an edge to it, like there was another, lower voice chucking along with it. The evilness of it made Heather’s heart race faster. She knew that laughter—knew it like the back of her hand.
“No… It’s not you,” she said aloud, but her voice wavered now. She began to stop around the room, pointing her poker around her at the red fog. “You’re not here. This isn’t real.”
The laughter grew louder, and some of the red smoke began to solidify into a shape. It was the shape of a woman, with glowing white eyes.
“No!” Heather swung her poker at the shape. It passed harmlessly through her. The laughter grew even louder as the shape began to float towards her. Heather kept swinging the poker at her as she frantically backed away. “Stay away from me!” she screamed.
The shape’s laughter bore into her ears, bouncing off the inside of her skull. She swung wildly at the shape, but once again it passed through her, and this time slammed into the wall.
“LEAVE ME ALONE!” Heather shrieked as she backed away. It was getting harder to move. Her lungs were constricting, cutting off her air, and old phantom pains were shooting through her body. Her back ran into the wall, and she could only watch in terror and panic as the red shape came closer. Then, with a final cackle, it lunged at her.
Heather screamed and shut her eyes as she waited for the end. But the end never came. In fact, the laughter was gone. The silence was almost deafening. And the smell was gone. Daring to crack an eye open, Heather opened them fully to an empty room. No malformed shape. No red smoke. Just a merrily crackling fire, and a dent in the wall where her poker had slammed into it.
Breathing heavily as her heart pounded, Heather hesitantly stepped away from the wall, keeping her fire poker out in front of her. Everything she’d seen was gone. But… how? It had been so real… there had really been red smoke, and there really had been a smell—she could still remember the odor—and there really had been a laughing shape with glowing white eyes made of the red smoke.
Suddenly the door banged open. “Heather!”
Heather screamed and whirled around, raising her poker ready to strike. Fred and Scooby screeched to a halt and Fred held up his hands. “Whoa!”
Panting, Heather’s heart wildly raced as her mind whirled to catch up. It was just Fred and Scooby Doo… bursting through her door and scaring the daylights out of her.
“Gods, Fred,” Heather managed as her shoulders relaxed and she dropped her poker. “Do not ever do that again! You scared the hell out of me!”
Fred kept his hands up placatingly. “Sorry, Heather… We just heard you screaming.”
“We thought you were in danger,” Scooby piped up.
Still breathing heavily, Heather looked around. “I… I thought I was… There was something in here.”
“What was it?”
At Fred’s question, Heather didn’t answer for a moment. How could she tell them what she saw without sounding completely insane? She wasn’t Shaggy and Scooby; they all considered her a much more rational person. “… It doesn’t matter now. Forget it.”
“But—”
“I said forget it, Fred!” Heather snapped.
Suddenly, a scream came out from the hallway. Velma.
Fred, Scooby, and Heather immediately took off out of Heather’s room and into the hallway. Velma’s screaming grew louder. “Help!” she shrieked. “Help! Daphne, Fred, Scooby, Shaggy, Heather, help!”
They finally met her halfway down the hall, and Heather was immediately struck by Velma’s appearance. Mainly because Heather had never seen Velma this shaken before. Had she run up here all the way from the library?
“Relma! Rare you okay?” Scooby asked her frantically.
Heather grabbed her shoulders and shook her lightly. “Velma, calm down! What did you see?”
“Ghost train!” Velma screeched in panic. “Mr. Peaches attacked me and then there was a ghost train with Mr. Burlington and the other people we saw in the painting and then Mr. Peaches jumped on the train and they all vanished through a portal!”
Now, normally Heather would have shaken her harder to try and get her to calm down even further. But given what she herself had just experienced in her room, she was more inclined to believe that Velma was telling the truth.
“Raggy!” Scooby suddenly shouted in panic. “Rhere’s my Raggy?!”
He turned and bounded down the hall. Fred, Heather, and Velma ran after him. “What is he talking about?” Heather asked Fred.
“We tried to get into Shaggy’s room when we came in from checking the van,” Fred explained, “but the door wouldn’t open. We thought he just fell asleep.”
Oh Gods… Heather didn’t even want to think about what was possibly happening.
Scooby came to a door at the end of the hallway and leapt at it. The door burst open with a bang, and Scooby burst into the room… then skidded to a stop. Heather, Fred, and Velma ran into the room and looked in.
Heather’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open, joining Velma in gasping aloud.
Fred gazed in horror. “It’s… It’s… horrible!”
For there, lying on a couch in front of the fire, asleep with their arms around each other… was Shaggy and Daphne.
Me: *feels like crap all day, logs on zero times, does almost nothing but sleep because ick*
Heather, im’ing me: Gina deserved better
Me: *LOGS ON TO IMMEDIATELY START YELLING ABOUT BELLAMY AND GINA AND ALL THE THINGS THAT IRK ME ABOUT GINA’S STORY (or lack thereof)*
