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A Hexed House
🕑 Added 2019-11-03 10:34:44 +0000 UTC
It was planned to be a suburban housing project. On the outskirts of town, partway into the forest, were empty lots of land that were once going to become suitable homes. As Hau’oli City grew within itself rather than outward, the project ceased to be, and so a lonely road surrounded by hanging trees lead incomplete into an abandoned part of town. Whatever had been worked on was left behind as it were, but years and years later, there sat one house in solitary completion. A two story dwelling, shaped like a compact cube like the other homes were once meant to be. Silent, still, and soulless -- no one lived there, no one traveled its way. No one but those who dared enter the home, to never be seen again.
“This is definitely illegal,” Junko whined. “The more I think about it, the more illegal it becomes… Th-This is trespassing! This is just your everyday trespassing!”
“It’s not illegal,” Anna sighed, “I’m pretty sure.”
“Pretty sure?! I-Is that all you can say? Because the cops are going to be pretty sure we’re criminals at this rate!”
“Someone would have to call the cops first, Ace,” Anna teased. “And ain’t nobody around here to do that. Unless you plan to snitch?”
Junko scoffed. “The last person I want the cops to see me with is a punk like you.” She groaned, her steps faltering behind Anna’s. “Y-You’re not worried? Even without your pokemon…?”
“Do I look worried?” Anna turned around but kept walking, displaying her cocky expression with open arms. “This is a test of bravery, ain’t it? No pokemon, no technology, just two girls being ghost hunters. What’s better than that?”
“I could think of a few better ways to spend an autumn night,” Junko complained quietly, looking back the way they came. The trees were thick, so even the street back to Hau’oli was out of sight, and the cool sea breeze failed to salt the air this far. There used to be the orange glow of twilight in the sky, but the canopy overhead filtered nearly all light, and by the time they reached the end of the road, the darkness of night had firmly claimed the old neighborhood. In this place, it was possible to leave the tropical nature of the Alola region and enjoy a normal fall season.
The duo had come far to visit this rumored location. Both were avid trainers that frequented Poni Canyon, but they had agreed to catch a boat to Hau’oli in order to complete this one dare. Neither could remember how exactly they both got roped into spending the night in an allegedly haunted house, but both had argued that the other was more cowardly than the other. Eventually, both decide to prove themselves. Junko, an Ace Trainer, always planned ahead and faced challenges boldly, whereas Anna, a Punk Girl, was ferocious and fearless, scarier and tougher than any ghosts -- so she liked to brag.
Neither would admit aloud how eerie the atmosphere was as they approached the house in question. Junko had surveyed the area, but found no traces of any pokemon, not even the ghost-types she anticipated. Anna stared forward, examining the outside of the house for any suspicious signs, but all she saw were the details of abandonment. The lawn was overgrown, making a humble patio appear like an island. There weren’t many windows, but the few there were had been boarded up or their glass was heavily fogged. The only fine aspect of the building was its white front door, clean and sturdy and shut closed, as if it were the final ward against intruders.
Anna neared the front door, getting as far as putting her hand on the knob, but she stopped there. She looked behind her, and Junko had yet to cross the lawn, hesitating. “I’m not doing this for my own health, ya’ know,” Anna said. “Ya’ comin’?”
“I-I am!” Junko squeaked and then hurried across the grass, clamoring up to Anna’s back. “Go, go! I-Is it unlocked? It’s locked? Oh, guess w-we can’t stay after all--”
The knob turned and Anna opened the door. There was no whine or creak that was notable as the entrance revealed a small foyer, the first dreary room of the house. “It’s unlocked,” Anna told Junko, restraining her smug smile as best she could. “Seriously, if you’re scared now, just head back to the city. I don’t want to hear shrieking all night lo-- Gwwahh!!”
Suddenly, Anna was forced into the hallway, and she immediately scrambled into one of the walls with a graceless thud. She anxiously looked in every direction, eyes wide open, until she heard Junko’s giggling. She glared at her, realizing that it was her that pushed her inside by surprise. Junko, laughing, entered the house after her.
“Who exactly is going to be shrieking?” Junko jested. “I couldn’t resist~ I’m sorry~”
Anna growled, turning away from her partner and looking into the shadowy rooms ahead. She just wanted to hide her flushed expression, even if it meant stepping further into the darkness. “We’ll see how much you’ll be laughin’ soon enough.”
“You-- You better not try anything, Anna! I mean it!” Junko went further in as well, keeping close to Anna. When she did, the light behind them began to thin. Both noticed and turned back towards the entrance, where the plain white door was closing all on its own. The girls froze, watching nervously until it shut completely. For the rest of the night, they were sealed within the haunted house.
Ding~... Dong~...
Lumiose, a city of illumination even at midnight. Artificial light shined from the buildings and streets, but where it could not reach was one particular apartment. The blinds were shut tight and the lights flipped off, but it only took the glow of a computer monitor to unveil the studio apartment and its tight size. Secluded from daylight was where the tenant felt most at peace, bathed in the darkness she loved and obsessed over. She sat there now, her nose deep into a conspiracy article involving otherworldly creatures -- a Hex Maniac such as herself was always up to date about occultic happenings.
Thus was why she couldn’t pass the opportunity to own such a peculiar dollhouse. It sat behind her on a coffee table, a cube-shaped building that had survived a few damages. It was slightly taller than two feet measured up to its roof, and latches along the side allowed for the house to be opened into. She had purchased it online, having accessed a strange corner of the internet to discover such a find. In the past, she had bought a wide assortment of random trinkets and things, all claiming to be haunted or imbued with magical energy, but there was never any real power behind them. Hex Maniac sensed that this was unlike the others, that this item truly did have a darkness associated with it.
Although it sat idle for many days, it soon proved itself to be the best purchase Hex Maniac had ever made online.
Ding~... Dong~...
Hex Maniac perked up, snapped out of the hypnosis that the conspiracies had put her under. There was that tone again, like a door bell’s ring. It sounded by itself without warning, just as it had the previous times. Hex Maniac pushed back her chair and turned to the table, her purple eyes swirling with wonder.
“M-More friends…?” she chuckled, her fingers anxiously coming together while a smile spread from cheek to cheek like breaking glass. Her bare feet touched the floor with the quietest steps, creeping through her darkened room so that she could kneel down in front of her mystical item. For now, all was silent from the dollhouse, but Hex Maniac knew for certain that soon, things would become exciting.
Hex Maniac leaned in towards the dollhouse, her lips shivering. “Friends…~” she whispered, twisting herself towards one window. She held her breath for the meantime, not wanting to alert whoever she had summoned. She brought an ear close to one of the walls, listening in as to visualize just who exactly was within the tiny home.
“Anna! I-I s-said don’t try anything~!” Junko whined into the ear of her partner -- she was grappled around her from behind, much to Anna’s annoyance. With the door closed, it had become pitch black inside the home, but the fact that the door closed at all was what worried Junko most.
“Th-That wasn’t me, yo! B-Back up already!” Anna pushed hard against Junko’s head, nearling slapping off her cap by its visor. Finally she broke free from Junko’s grapple, but she didn’t pry herself too far either. Her eyes shot to different corners of the foyer, but everything was dark from one end of the hall to the next.
“S-So that was a ghost?!” Junko asked, then immediately closed her mouth with her hands. “... Or it was the cops!” She jumped and pivoted in an instant, more afraid of the police than ghouls. “E-Either way, don’t you think I-- we should g-go? Th-That was actually weird, and… Anna? Eh?”
Dividing the wall of darkness was a ray of light, produced from Anna’s hands. She turned and had Junko illuminated, who immediately shielded herself from the bright light with her arms. “There. So much better,” Anna sighed in relief, turning the light elsewhere around the entrance.
“Punk! Watch where you aim that thing!” Junko hissed. She raised a brow, “Wait, wait-- We said no technology! No pokemon!”
“Pipe down. It’s a video camera, that’s all.” Anna held the camera up so that Junko could understand. She then settled the camera’s direction onto her partner, a hint of mischief in her giggle. “We can show all the others when we get out of her. Assuming you survive~”
Junko maintained one hand in front of her, blocking the light from her eyes. She scowled, “I shouldn’t have expected you of all people to play fair.” Her eyes widened at the lens. “Um, a-are you recording right now?” No response, only Anna’s grin. Junko charged at her, pushing her hand into the camera, “D-Don’t record me! I’m not ready! Anna!”
Anna giggled and moved back with Junko’s shove, bringing both of them deeper into the house. “Aw, doesn’t the cool trainer look so cute when she’s shivering?” Anna narrated, fighting to keep Junko in frame. “Are you gonna lose your cool this early? We just stepped inside, Jun--”
“... Friends…~”
Tickled by a chilling voice, both girls leaped into each others’ arms. The camera fumbled out of Anna’s grasp, falling to the floor with a thud and bringing the light down with it, but neither girl thought of the darkness after hearing such a hum. Wherever the voice had come from, it was hollow and wispy, crept onto them like an early winter that made the two quake where they stood.
“Wh-Wh-What… w-w-was that…?” Anna asked. Junko didn’t respond, shaking too much to speak. Anna swallowed and slowly separated themselves, cautiously squatting to retrieve the camera and its precious light. “That… was the wind, right? Y-You heard the wind too?”
“Wind…” Junko didn’t believe that at all, but it was a more calming thought than to think that it was ghosts. “Y-Yeah, th-the wind… Maybe that was… the house creaking…”
Anna agreed with a frantic nod, just so the issue could be dropped. After standing again, she aimed the light all around the house, covering each of its corners. It was never held steady, always shaking in her grip. “A-Anyone there?” she spoke to the shadows. “Yo, j-just come out…”
Junko grew a slight smile, always one step behind Anna. “It feels better… knowing you’re freaked out, t-too…”
Anna scoffed, “I’m just lookin’ around for anything weird, Ace. I don’t want to get attacked by a pokemon or somethin’.” She continued to shine her light onto the household while moving in further, taking a turn to be in the rectangular living area. It was no place to be living in, not without a single piece of furniture or decoration. There was only a dusty ceiling fan, motionless, and a long window, too dirty and cracked to peer out of. Yet, when Anna’s light gleamed over the glass, she thought something had moved, something more than just a shifting shadow.
“D-Did you see something?” Anna asked quickly. Junko had been looking the other way, but she flipped around to examine the window as well. Where the light was pointed, however, there was no movement. Anna had blinked, and all was still. “I… I thought…”
“You’re gonna give me a heart attack, Anna…” Junko had both hands over her throbbing chest, tip-toeing out of the living room and more towards the kitchen. There were empty cabinets, shelves, and counters, some of which incomplete in construction. What caught Junko’s eye, however, was a backdoor -- and a thumping from behind it.
Anna had moved to the window, but it was only pitch outside. She stepped away, but kept her attention on it. “Let’s… keep explorin’,” she suggested. Then, she too heard a knocking, and her light was turned in Junko’s direction. “Are you tapping something? You better be tapping something.”
“I-I-It’s… n-n-not me…” Junko pointed to the door where the uneven rhythm continued to beat. The knocks were mild in volume, but never consistent. “Should we… ask who’s there…?”
Anna stepped in front of Junko, keeping the light firmly on the door. Hesitantly, she neared closer to it, her hand lifted forward but flinching back at every knock. She swallowed, then took hold of the knob. A twist, a push, but it wouldn’t open. It budged only an inch before shutting close once more, unable to be pushed that far again.
“S-Something is pushing the d-door closed!” Anna explained. “Um… Uh…!”
“J-Just open it, Punk!!” Junko charged the door and slammed into it, her panic getting the best of her. Anna, not expecting this maneuver, yelped out of fear, which only made Junko panic more. Both girls began pushing the door together, Anna choking the doorknob while Junko punched the door, but still it couldn’t open.
Junko gave up and pushed away from the door. “It isn’t gonna open,” she muttered. “P-Perhaps something on the other side is blocking it…”
Suddenly, the light of the camera flashed over Junko, blinding her as she squeaked in protest. The light wasn’t aimed for her, but at the window behind her. Anna pointed, “L-Look! Something--!”
Junko turned and squinted at the window. Similar to the others, it was too foggy and cracked to get a clear view outside, and several wood planks had been nailed around it, yet another restriction. “What?! What was it?! I-I don’t…”
Anna growled. “I swear, I-I swear something was there… Like, something was watching us…”
The light whipped everywhere as Junko had quickly made a contest for Anna’s camera. The two argued, trying to pull the camera into their own arms. “You’re just screwing with me!” Junko cried. “Let me have the light, let me!”
“Yo! Girl! You’re gonna trash it at this rate!” Anna grunted as she failed to keep a hold on the camera, letting it be stolen by her partner. “Fine! Whatevs! Just don’t break it, yo, I borrowed that from my sister.”
“Borrowed, sure.” Junko rolled her eyes, adjusting the camera and aiming it ahead. She stared through the playback screen where she could witness how bad her own shivering was. Eventually, the light returned to the backdoor to highlight a certain fact. “... It-- The knocking… stopped…”
Anna glanced behind her, then back to the rest of the house. She crossed her arms. “Yeah. Guess we scared it off. Probably just a, uh, rattata or somethin’.” She looked away nervously and creeped away from the door. “Where to now, Ace? You’ve got the light.”
But Junko was not given a choice. Before she could answer, another noise began worrying the duo; a scratching sound, long and grinding, as though a heavy object were being dragged across the second floor. The two girls gawked up at the ceiling, instinctively gravitating back to one another.
“I-Is that… another rattata…?” Junko asked, praying for a yes.
Hex Maniac’s giddiness was difficult for her to keep under wraps. Bouts of giggling had to be contained with both hands muffling her voice, and she leaned away when that wasn’t enough. Her feet badly wanted to kick in joy -- Friends! More friends! she cheered to herself, even her mental state riddled with laughter.
The question burned within her. Who had become her friend now? That mystery always intrigued her the most, the excitement of discovering new people. For now, she chose to stay quiet and eavesdrop on her subject, a knack of hers when it came to many things.
Sitting on her knees, Hex Maniac only had to lean forward to put an eye up to one of the glass windows. That purple eye widened with surprise when she saw a flicker of light moving within, illuminating not just one, but two friends. This is a first, she thought, her grin shivering with anticipation. She wondered what purpose these two had in the house, but then she noticed that the light they held was in fact a camera, likely recording the whole scene.
Hex Maniac sat up and away from the dollhouse to think, just as the light inside was about to shine on her. “I wonder… a-are they ghost hunters…?” Collecting ghost-type pokemon was one matter, but seeking out actual spirits of the dead was the next league of occultic interest. Rarely had Hex Maniac ever found enthusiasts like her, and here were two, appearing right within her own haunted item.
They don’t have a clue! Hex Maniac giggled, They have no idea how mystical this house actually is… but, there aren’t any ghosts in there, from when I checked…
Ideas swirled in Hex Maniac’s head, conjuring up a way to entertain her friends. She moved softly on her knees over to the other side of the dollhouse. A finger was then raised, pointed towards the backdoor with its long, purple nail. Another giggle was choked back before she let the finger tap the door. Once, she decided, wouldn’t be enough, and so she struck it again and again, tilting her head eagerly to see how the two might respond.
They must be freaking out…! Hex Maniac bit her lip. They must think an axe murderer is outside the door waiting to skin them…! Oh, this is so fun~! The tapping continued until there was a push against her finger. The door was opening, but that would spoil the fun too quickly. In response, Hex Maniac pushed back. By just keeping her finger rooted there, the backdoor couldn’t open. Each bump against her fingertip tickled her, testing the limits of how long she could keep her amusement in control.
Requiring an update on their situation, Hex Maniac leaned around the corner of the dollhouse to peek in once again. Through the kitchen window, she could see the duo crowded around the door and banging against it to no avail. It’s just a finger, she thought, they can’t even move my finger, heheh…
Unexpectedly, the light was cast onto her, right into her eye. Hex Maniac blinked and pulled away, rubbing at what was now sore. Despite the incident, she was in high spirits to continue this prank, her smile ever present. “They really are spooked,” Hex Maniac whispered. “Hmm… What now…?”
While thinking of what else to do, Hex Maniac rested her hand upon the dollhouse’s roof, inspiring her next plan. Putting her nails to use again, she dragged her hand over the top. The scratch produced a low, grinding tone that vibrated through the interior. The noise, she expected, would draw their attention upwards, but there were grander tricks she wanted to play.
“That’s a big rattata,” Anna remarked, stepping towards the relative safety of the living room. “I think we call those raticate, actually.”
While Anna was enduring the wall-rattling sound with only a shiver in her posture, Junko was wrapped around the camera, aiming its light to the staircase. If anything, pokemon or not, was going to come down those stairs, Junko was going to see it. However, after a full minute of bearing the grinding, nothing had neared closer -- to be content with that or not, neither were certain.
“M-Maybe we should… ch-check it out…” Junko proposed nervously, glancing back at where Anna stood. “I-It might just be a tree branch.”
“We’ve got ideas for everything, don’t we?” Anna chuckled. “Ain’t nothing stoppin’ you from going up, Ace. Bring back a souvenir.”
“Eh? A-Aren’t you gonna come up with me?”
“No. No, actually. I’m gonna keep watch, uh, down here.”
“What?!” Junko beamed the light onto Anna, forcing her to defend against it. “B-But the dare…!”
“Yo! We never agreed on having to look for ghosts. The dare was to just spend the night here. If the ghosts want to haunt us, they can come down here to me.”
The grinding still didn’t cease. A particularly long stroke sent a paralyzing chill down Junko’s spine. “F-Fine! Stay down here… I can’t think while that noise is giving me a headache…” She swallowed, turning the light back towards the staircase and timidly approaching it. Before the first step up could be taken, she had to gather all of her courage.
Each step created a whine in the wood, a different pitch for every level Junko rose. At the height of the stairs, the trainer shed light across the room twice over, scared by how the shadows danced away. Like the rest of the house, there wasn’t anyone around, nor any signs that someone had been there. The emptiness of the second level was even eerier than the bottom. Most notably, the grinding sound was right overhead, and it continued like a taunt to Junko’s ears.
Moving along the walls and into the corners, Junko explored the second floor, but only as far as her bravery would allow her. She peeked into rooms through the cracks of their doors, but her investigations ended there. A corridor lead to a pair of bedrooms, but also illuminated was a sliding glass door at its end. There was a balcony, Junko recalled, and this had to be the door to it. From the distance she was at, the ray of light only revealed the night’s darkness outside the glass, shrouding a view that, on design, would have been lovely.
The grinding stopped. In the middle of its own off-beat rhythm, it ceased to continue after one scratch. Several seconds passed where Junko didn’t even think of it, but when she did, she completely shuddered into a corner.
“Y-You don’t have to s-stop…” Junko explained to the invisible spirit she had imagined. “D-Don’t mind me… Keep doing th-that scratchin’ thing…” She chuckled in choppy breaths, realizing then, I’m talking to myself, I’m~ talking~ to myself~...
A thump of her heart -- the sense that she wasn’t actually alone ailed her. From above, a different sound permeated into the halls, an airy sound like deep, muffled ventilation. Breathing, Junko thought, and then did her heart sink, Something outside is… breathing…
Cracked into the silence was another melody; Aheh...heh...heh…~
Junko’s throat swelled. She slumped into her corner, swinging the light left and right. “A-Anna…” she quietly called out, looking to the playback screen for support. “Um, err, Anna…?”
On the screen, something rolled by. Junko held her breath and watched, a skitter across the bare floor, towards the staircase she had come from. It was screws and nails, leftover from construction, moving on their own from the crannies of the room. Nothing touched them, not even a draft, their motion seemingly coming from nothing.
“Ahhahh… Uuahhh…” Junko jittered, her nose only an inch from the screen. She zoomed in on the nails, keenly watching as they trickled right down the stairs with louder clangs. “A-A-Anna…!”
The camera was getting heavier, like wanting to drop from her grip. Junko leaned back, but she was wanting to move forward, pulled towards the same path as the nails. Her balance felt like it was vanishing, and it was. Ghosts weren’t stressing her to tumble ahead; gravity was. A slip of her foot awoke Junko to this reality, that the floor was tilting -- the whole house was.
“Anna!” Junko yelped. She stood up, but the incline was too steep. Her feet fell out from under her, her butt thud against the floor, and she began sliding forward with no way to halt. “Anna!! Annannannannannannanna!!” Racing towards her was the way downstairs and its risk of a nasty fall.
At the last moment, Junko rooted her feet and launched up, grabbing the railing overlooking the staircase. Like a net, it saved her from falling any further, a needed relief as the house kept tilting in that direction. Junko’s face pressed into the wooden bars, spattering worried gasps as she peered through to the first floor. Down below was a mess of noises as drawers, cabinets, and doors all swung open, spilling out with stray contents that fumbled around the floors and walls.
And shot from all that commotion was a screech. Anna’s voice came in a scream, a response that terrified Junko with its volume. The situation downstairs was all the same with Anna as its victim, running from one side of the house to the other as the world flipped around without explanation. Her screech ceased with a heavy slam, rushed flat into the opposite wall. She peeled herself from the surface, but the weight of gravity on her back pinned her in place.
“Okay! Haunted! It’s haunted! Got it!” Anna yelled into the wall. She turned to the staircase, hoping Junko’s screams weren’t for a worse matter. “Junko! Wh-What did you do?! Put it back, yo!”
Junko blinked. She glared and shouted down the stairs, “Put what back?! What makes you think I did this?! I was just sitting when--” A sensation twisted within her, and so to did it within Anna. Everything was rotating back the way it was, faster than it had been shifted in the first place. The familiar sound of junk rolling across the floor started up again, a signal that this was yet finished. Instead of returning to normal, the house tilted the other direction, threatening to be just as steep.
Too stiff to brace herself, Junko failed to stop herself from rolling backwards. Her face thwacked into the floor as she flipped over herself, like a runaway wheel charging hard into the wall she started at. A worse slam than before knocked a breath of air out of her, but against this corner, she quickly pushed up to her knees to gather some semblance of balance.
“Wh-Why is this happening…?!” Junko pulled herself to a nearby window, but there were no answers to be seen. She tried to sift past the darkness outside, but as she did, the house began to tilt again, drawn back where she had rolled from before. Her legs became wheels that could barely keep up with the sudden incline, but she was thrown entirely off her feet when things were twisted to the side without warning. According to the hectic shouts from the rest of the house, Anna was suffering just as much.
Without logic or pattern, the house continued to shake and shift. The motions conducted the duet of the two women’s screams, both panicking in their futile resistance against such extraordinary forces. As though a tornado had been conjured there in the building, they were tossed and tripped with no indication of what would come next. The rare chance the floor stood even was always a tease, and the house would immediately rock violently again.
All of the twisting and turning had launched Junko into the bedroom corridor. She was faint from all the stumbling around, struggling to trust any of the walls to lean against for support. In her arms was the camera, its light pushed into her chest until she corrected it. Ahead of her, or rather above her, was the sliding glass doors to the balcony, illuminated by the device and having been opened during the chaos. The house creaked dangerously, and the incline deepened, inviting Junko to the end of the hall.
Junko stepped back, but to no avail. Gravity slid her forward, and just like before, it claimed her. She squeaked and flailed, forced into a mad run forward. “Anna!!” she yelled, only for her voice to escape the house and dwindle away.
Anna clung to a support beam, huddled tightly around it to avoid yet another fall. She chanted to herself a wish for protection, but that ended when Junko was heard disappearing. She gawked up at the ceiling, where she earlier heard the rapid footfalls of her partner, but now there was nothing. Twitches took over Anna’s body, “J-Junko…? Ace…?”
The suspense for a reply was killing Anna, and that concern only grew when the house shook loudly. Anna was thrown to the floor painfully, but when she opened her eyes, her surroundings were surprisingly steady. Flat, even, and no longer rattling, all the disorienting movement of the house had ended. Once the mess of items had settled into place, there was a horribly hollow silence to unnerve her.
“... Junko…? A-Are you up there?” Anna groaned while regaining her bearings, looking to the staircase for any signs. “You broke the camera, didn’t ya’? Th-That must be it…” She crawled forward, but only a few paces. Once onto her feet, she fretted back that much, back into the support beam. “... Listen, y-yo, it’s okay if you broke it, j-just tell me you’re good up there…”
The house shuddered. Instinctively, Anna fell to her knees and grappled the support beam. Her heart drummed with the fear of it all starting anew, but the house did not tilt in any angle. Outside the walls, metallic clacks could be heard by Anna, four in total. A countdown, she assumed, for some other horror to begin, and being surrounded in darkness, Anna had no chance to prepare for what was to come.
Suddenly, there was fresh air flooding into the first floor, gusts that twirled through Anna’s pink hair. She had bunkered down further, but as the house had yet to move, she curiously glanced at what was unfolding above her. The ceiling, she realized, was becoming distant. It was rising, cleanly broken apart from the foundation of the home. A crescendo of shivers claimed a babbling Anna, struggling to comprehend what weird world she had been sent to where this could even happen. She blinked, and yet the wonder continued; the second floor was entirely divided from the bottom.
Anna opened her mouth, and there was a scream -- not her own, but Junko’s. From where the second floor was suspended in midair, Junko squealed in unending astonishment. She was thrown against the balcony’s railing, dangerously close to flipping right over it as the house maintained an angle in that direction. The fall under her was vaguely deep, much like all of the surroundings outside the house now. No longer were they somewhere in the Hau’oli woods at a dreary lot of construction, but drowned in some unnatural darkness where only the faintest glow existed in the most outer edges of this blurry dimension. Yet all this terror was a backdrop to the most distressing detail of all. Only then had Junko strained her head back against gravity to begin comprehending the silhouette that overlooked her, a shadowy figure that Anna openly gawked at from her cowering position.
Curls of purple cascaded down the slope of a behemoth form. Where dark fabric ended, it became a ghostly pale color. The whiteness took the shape of a grinning face, complete with two huge eyes that swirled with the utmost fascination. Breathing, shaky and light, confirmed that this creature was alive and awake, observing well the two minuscule victims caught in its unreal trap. Helplessness befell them as they stared in disbelief at her, the haunting woman that held the upper half of the house in her hands.
Hex Maniac huffed, “Heh heh… heh… Sur-- S-Surprise~...! I-I scared you!”
Junko twitched, a response of shock that nearly caused her to slip from the railing. Overhead like a mountainside, Hex Maniac hovered over her, her breaths ventilating over the house. A stutter was Junko’s best effort for speaking back to the giant, a concept that swept away her mental stability. She still did not believe this was real, and so she aimed the camera’s light onto the person, tracing the shape that she could make out. On the playback screen was the same picture, the same smile.
“What… is happening…?” Junko muttered. “Who is this…? What did this…?”
Anna had collapsed onto her back, still gazing past the exposed edges of the walls around her. In the shadow of this mysterious woman, she had never before felt weaker -- her, a Punk Girl, known for her rough and tough personality, was left trembling by this impossible situation. Using the support beam to stand, Anna gathered her resolve; she truly was in an unnatural circumstance, just like they had joked about before committing to this dare.
She made a sprint to the entrance, quickly cutting a turn and smacking into the front door. “Forget this!” Anna exclaimed. “The dare’s over! I-I didn’t sign up for this!” Sweaty palms slipped around the doorknob frantically until finally it was opened, with such swiftness that Anna immediately tripped and fell painfully onto the ground -- not the dirt she anticipated, but hard, polished wood, a cool and flat feeling under her bruised hands.
Anna looked up and around the changed world. The foggy darkness around her and its slightest illumination, the lack of a moon or any stray winds, the simplicity of the house behind her and how easily it was broken apart in the woman’s grasp. It dawned on her that this world was not so foreign, and that this was no giantess come to ravage the house. Behind her was not the abandoned construction project she and Junko had entered, nor was this the outskirts of their Alolan city. It was a dollhouse, trapped on an island of a table, and they were its dolls, the toys to be played with by this massive woman that they did not know.
“S-So…? Were you s-scared?” Hex Maniac whispered to Junko, tilting her head with eager curiosity. She giggled, “Y-You must have been… You’re s-still shivering so much… Did you th-think it was ghosts…? Hehe… I-It was me, a-all along! I-I’m pretty good at pretending to be a-a ghost, don’t you think…?”
Perhaps half the words said processed in Junko’s head, but no more than that. The ringleader behind the spooky noises and the surreal tilting was the doing of a gigantic woman, which made no more sense than it having been ghouls or monsters. This was the reality, however, and if Junko were grateful for any of this happening, it was that she had the camera with her to capture it all on tape. The playback scene was a barrier between her and the truth, but even that security was bound to be broken by Hex Maniac.
Suddenly, the gargantuan expression came rocketing closer. Junko yelped as a wall-sized smile breathed at her, an exhale out Hex Maniac’s nostrils that nearly blew the tiny trainer’s cap off her head. A huge pool of an eye studied her, centering on the camera that she clutched. “Ahh, I-I hope your video has come out well… I wonder, d-do I look like a monster in it…? Hehe… That sounds… fun~...”
Junko shuddered, unsure how to respond, or if she was even expected to. Just as she glanced at the camera and what it had framed on screen, the house began to move in a thrust upwards. Junko squealed again while Hex Maniac’s face followed the shifting house perfectly, constantly observing how her visitor kicked and yelled. She held the second floor of the house over her head, tilted in her direction so that Junko was forced to look down at her.
“P-Put me down! Put me down, p-please, please! The entire house, j-just put it down…!” Junko wailed, her eyes shut closed while the world around her spun. A plummet awaited her if she were to slip now from the railing, a dive directly into Hex Maniac’s overjoyed smile. She dared not move, but the camera in her grip was uneasy and flimsy.
“Is this scary?” Hex Maniac asked, earning a terse cry in response. “D-Does it look like I could eat you…? Do I look like a big monster wh-when I hold you up like this…?” Hex Maniac giggled in stutters, feeling the fear resonating from Junko but remorseless still. To her, these were innocent games to be played between new friends, and to continue her fun, she proceeded with the act. Her mouth opened wide and gradually, teasing Junko with the pit that was her throat past the rows of deadly teeth and behind a waving tongue drenched in saliva. A long breath rose from Hex Maniac’s cave, a warm scent that drifted up to where Junko panicked.
“Don’t eat me!! I-I’ll do anything!!” Junko bargained with the gaping mouth, but Hex Maniac only pulled her closer. Amidst all of her fretting and shaking, the camera fell looser in her sweaty fingers, until finally a jolt of the house’s movement caused the device to jump out of her grasp. She made no attempt to grab it again lest she topple over the edge, and so she only gasped as the ray of light spiralled away from her and down to the enormous woman.
Hex Maniac flinched as the light beam spun out of control. In a blink, the miniature camera fell past her face and into her bosom. Her breasts caught it with a bounce back up, tossing it over the hill-like slope of her chest in a continuous tumble. With her hands full, Hex Maniac could only watch where the ricochet would let it land, which happened to be right where Anna stood in front of the dollhouse.
Anna shielded herself, broken out of a trance by the sight of her camera flipping towards her. After rolling off the dress around her breasts, the camera flew right towards her at a reckless speed. With her arms up, she managed to catch it at the last moment, but not without being pushed off her feet and falling back onto her rear. She scuttled back into the front door, using it as a support to lift herself up with the camera hectically pointed towards their shadowy captor.
Hex Maniac turned her smile to Anna, having remembered her when the camera fell. “S-So many friends… So cute, too…!” She blinked back to Junko, connecting the two in her thoughts. “Ack… I’m so bad at m-making friends… I-I haven’t really introduced you to, err, this…”
“Wh-What do you mean?!” Junko cried, hoping to spur a real dialogue with the giantess and, potentially, reach some resolution. That shine of optimism was tarnished within Junko when the second floor of the house began moving in the air again. She screeched as the structure began descending, imagining the worst when in truth, it was being rooted back where it belonged. The upper floor connected on top of the second, settling into place with a disorienting stop. Along the outer walls, Hex Maniac flicked four latches to lock the two halves back together.
Anna watched as this was completed, dumbfounded by how intricate and real this all was. She mumbled it aloud, but not so she herself could hear her say it, that this was a dollhouse. The allegedly haunted house on the outskirts of Hau’oli was indeed cursed, acting as a devious portal that had shrunken her and Junko together, and then left them here, within the confines of a dollhouse owned by a weird woman. Their humanity had been forfeited, and they had become mere toys -- all because of some silly dare.
While observing the house be reconstructed, Anna was ill prepared for the hand that came for her. Easily was she swept into a strangle of fingers that roped her entire body. She fiercely contested being grabbed, squirming and grunting with all her strength, yet Hex Maniac’s casual grip on her was too much to break. She was effortlessly lifted into the air, higher than the house’s roof.
“Anna!!” Junko gasped, witnessing her friend be taken into Hex Maniac’s claw. She reached an arm out to grab her, but she was far too distant. It was impossible to save Anna, just as it were impossible to escape, yet for both matters the trainer felt obligated to try. When rescuing Anna proved unlikely, she made a dash for the sliding door. She hoped to find refuge back inside, but Hex Maniac had noticed this attempt as it began. The sliding door was flung open and Junko ran inside, but racing up behind her in the hallway were two serpent-like fingers. They caught her by the skirt, dragging her to the ground and reeling her out onto the balcony. A fist swallowed Junko then, silencing a scream just as it chirped up.
The fingers uncurled from both hands after being brought together. The two women were reunited at last, spread out across two platform-like palms. Junko sprung to a seated position, looking first to Anna beside her, but her friend could only gawk upwards. She followed the gaze to where it studied Hex Maniac high overhead, the huge obsessive eyes bouncing between each captive.
“Wel-Welcome… to my apartment,” Hex Maniac greeted, lifting her hands slightly higher. “Y-You’re in Lumiose! All the way in Kalos… I wonder where you all keep coming from…?”
“Kalos?! Th-The Kalos region…?!” Junko shook her head, a crack of laughter escaping her. “Th-That can’t be right, we were just in Alola! This… has to still be in Alola…!”
“Wh-What is this?! None of this makes any sense!!” Anna yelled, fingers gripping at her scalp. She shot a look behind her, far down below where the house was on the table. She nervously looked all around, to the distant corners of a dimly lit apartment, but Hex Maniac’s giggle drew her attention right back to what was looming above. “I don’t want this… I don’t want any of this…!”
“P-Please, miss,” Junko choked, putting her hands together in her plea up to Hex Maniac. “W-We want to go home! We’re s-sorry for going into your home, w-we’ll never come-- Eep!” They were swung into movement again as the giantess rose to stand, her heavy vision briefly taken off the two as she looked elsewhere around the gigantic chamber.
“There’s so much we can do! S-So much I can show you!” Hex Maniac said, disregarding everything the women had said to her. It was unclear if she couldn’t hear them, couldn’t understand them, or simply didn’t care, but she made no effort of helping them. She danced to the end of her apartment, between the bookcase and her bed, and bathed her newest additions in the filtered moonlight. The pair were hugged together in her combined fists, pushing and grinding against each other in their efforts to slip free, but they were locked into place by Hex Maniac. It was a lesson taught bluntly, that they had no power to surmount something so huge.
“I-It’s okay! Y-You must be scared, hehe,” Hex Maniac chuckled, “b-but that’s, err, what you wanted… wasn’t it?” Her smile faded, but crept back just as fast. “I-I love ghosts a-and mysteries! And I love h-having friends, too… I’ll keep you both safe from anything. W-We’ll have lots of fun, a-and I’ll find new ways to scare you, too! Won’t that be nice? We’ll b-be friends forever~...!”
Comments
arris
"I wonder where you all keep coming from...?" Hex, just take a chill pill and listen to your new friends. Well not completely listen otherwise they won't be your friends anymore. The open ending and Hex's dialogue make it seem like she is no stranger to these encounters. If that house ever goes for sale in real life then she may have a lot more friends. Or if people take it over for a house secret college house party.
