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Song in the Dark

A Night in the Woods fanfic by Chris Shaffer

Night in the Woods is copyright Infinite Fall, story and original characters copyright Chris Shaffer 2020, all rights reserved

Day 4: Crossing Into the Waking World

Fresh tears streaked the fur on Eric's face as he woke up. He stared at an unfamiliar ceiling for a few moments and wondered if he was back in his college apartment, having dreamt his return home and experiences after. Feeling a couch under him quickly ruled that out. It was still dark in the room.

His nose twitched with smells both familiar and otherwise. Liquor he couldn't identify, popcorn. Some other stuff. He smelled people, too, though he had to close his eyes and focus in order to pick out the only one he knew: Diana. It was still dark enough that closing his eyes to focus was more placebo effect than any sort of sensory thing.

He sat up and looked around. He'd been sleeping on a couch in an apartment. The room was too dark to make out any real detail other than vague shapes casting awkward shadows. He checked his pockets, found his phone, and without thinking he blinded himself checking the time.

It was almost six in the morning. His lock screen reminded him he had an alarm set to go off in a little over an hour, and then he remembered he was supposed to start work today.

"Fuck," he muttered to himself in the dark room.

He slowly got off the couch and stood up, aware his shoes were gone. He couched down and felt around the couch to look for them. His head ached and then he remembered hitting his head, and the chase leading up to it. His arm throbbed where the man in the coat had grabbed him.

All Eric remembered after that was the dream. The gaping maw of the Earth in front of him. He shivered when he remembered the opening. It was like gazing at a black hole at the center of the galaxy. The dream felt more real than what had come before. Maybe it was the blow to the head, but he literally didn't remember how he wound up here.

Finally! The shoes! At least, he hoped they were his. They felt right in the dark so he pulled one on and it fit. Another shoe later, he was creeping towards the door.

"Eric?" came the whisper behind him.

"Diana?" he asked softly as he turned around.

The otter tiptoed out of her bedroom, and made her way over. She was dressed, as near as he could tell. He resisted the urge to use his phone as a flashlight so they could see each other.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"I'm not sure." He hesitated. "I don't remember how I got here."

"You showed up, out of breath, freaking out about something. You said someone got kidnapped, and you were on the run from the cops?"

Okay,_he thought. _That tracks with what I_do _remember. More or less.

"You also had a cut on your head, and it was bleeding. But we put some stuff on it and it seems fine now. Does it hurt?"

"It's pounding a little but nothing some aspirin and some more sleep couldn't hurt. Do you remember why I said I was running from the cops?"

"You just said you couldn't go home."

Eric frowned.

"Well, whether I could before, now I have to. I'm starting work today, and... look, thanks for taking care of me, and I'd appreciate it if I could buy you lunch to make the hassle up to you."

"As long as you tell me more about what's going on."

"That's kind of a given," he offered with a smile she probably couldn't see. "I should get home. My folks are probably worried, and I do have to get to work kinda early. Early for me, anyways."

"Yeah, yeah, I..." She yawned. "I should get some more sleep, too. Here's hoping you at least get to lay down again before work."

"Me too. Whenever you're good for lunch, just swing by the liquor store. I'll be there one way or another." He paused. "That sounds really bad when I say it like that."

"You want to do lunch today?"

"Diana, I really need to talk about what happened tonight. Sooner rather than later. Please."

"I'll... see you later, then."

"Thanks again," he said, before he opened the door and slipped out.

* * *

The sun still hid behind the horizon while Eric navigated his way home from Diana's apartment. It drizzled pretty heavily, not soaking the fox but leaving him damp enough he'd have to towel off before getting back in bed. He was so miserable from the walk he almost missed the police car in front of his house.

His ears laid back and he bit his lip. The cop car was empty, and he wasn't sure if that was a good sign or not. He moved to the front door and carefully opened it with his key and slipped in as quietly as he could.

His father stood just inside the door, talking in hushed tones with the mouse police officer from the night before. The black-furred cop had a clear plastic poncho over his uniform and his hat had one of those covers on it. His father wore a bathrobe and pajama pants.

"There you are!" Richard hissed. "We didn't hear from you last night. I was worried."

"I wound up staying over at Diana's and accidentally fell asleep on her couch," Eric quickly said.

"I figured it was something like that, after seeing you two yesterday, but then Pat here came by to tell me about last night, and..."

"Where's mom at?" Eric asked, cutting him off.

"Still asleep. So what happened?" Richard asked as he looked between Eric and the cop.

Eric's mind raced. He didn't think he'd win a contest of credibility with a cop who was already friends with his dad.

"I thought I saw some--"

"He was acting a fool, is what happened," the cop said with a frown.

"Hey, I was trying to explain," Eric snapped.

"Nothing to explain."

"Pat, please," Rich said.

A look passed between them, and the officer moved like he was going to throw his hands up and then thought better of it. The end result came out much like a shrug.

"I thought I saw something. I thought I saw someone snatch a kid last night while folks were clearing out." Eric tried not to look at the cop. "It was probably just a prank, but I freaked out and made a scene and hit my head. It's a little blurry after that but I went to Diana's to let my head clear because it was close, and wound up falling asleep on her couch when I didn't mean to."

"I tried to bring him home, but he just kept pulling away and ran for it," the cop added, petulantly.

"I'm sorry for that," Eric forced out. "But I was panicking and dizzy and I guess I just went for the nearest person I felt safe with. No offense."

The mouse hmmphed and shot Rich a look as if asking if he had to put up with this. Eric almost scrambled to defend himself again, but bit his tongue at the last moment.

"Do you still feel up to going to work?" Rich asked after a moment's thought, his tone weirdly soft. He gave the mouse cop a look.

"Yeah, I should be fine. Just lemme lay back down for another half-hour or so until I'd have gotten back up anyways, see if my head feels any better."

"See, Pat, everything's fine," Rich said, suddenly all smiles. "Sorry to drag you all the way out here, let me show you out."

Eric shuffled upstairs without needing to be told. He distracted himself from listening to his father muttering to the cop by focusing on the weight of his damp clothing and fur, but as he reached the top of the steps and entered his room his ear flicked back just in time to catch one comment:

"See, he hit his head and last night's blurry. There's no problem."

He wasn't sure who'd said it to whom.

* * *

Eric didn't stop to look at the clock until it was almost 11 and he'd been at the store for a few hours. He hadn't worked at the store since graduating high school and going off to college, but it all came back to him quickly enough that he hadn't even consciously noticed. But it was simple enough; ring and bag purchases, occasionally stock shelves when things were slow or quiet. Business was brisk enough -- supplies for late Halloween parties and discounts on the novelty holiday liquors.

Unlike summers back in high school, he spent as little time as possible in the back room. His dad and Randall had gotten good at mostly ignoring each other during work hours, but if they were going to interact it would be in the stock room or break areas. The more time he spent behind the register the less likely he was to have to risk dealing with both of them at once. Not that he had much to say to either one in any case, and avoiding the back was also a good way to avoid awkward chit-chat.

He tried not to think about the conversation he'd had that morning, but that only led to thinking about what had happened the night before. Had he misheard Richard or Pat at the door? Had they been saying something else on the way out of the house as he'd shuffled back to his room? As the morning went on, it seemed more and more likely that in his fatigue and his head injury, he'd simply misunderstood what he'd overheard.

He snapped out of his unwelcome reverie when a customer stepped up, and it took him a moment to register they weren't carrying anything.

"Ready for lunch?" Diana said just as he consciously realized it was her.

"Yeah, just gimme a moment to make sure they know that I'm taking off."

Ten minutes later, the fox and otter were tucked into a corner table at a local hot dogs and burgers place. The walls were covered with random baby boomer bric-a-brac. Old-timey slogans on a sign, or a bible passage on a picture, stuff like that. Nothing overtly offensive, but it was like they wanted to make sure people knew they were someplace 'off the beaten path.' A bunch of biker stuff adorned a wall, for whatever reason. Eric didn't remember the last time he'd seen a motorcycle in town outside of special events.

"Okay, so what happened last night?" Diana asked, sipping at her soda.

He paused to gather up his words and found he slightly regretted this decision. A part of him was afraid to tell her what had happened, but he wasn't sure if it was because he didn't expect her to believe him or because he was worried about whether doing so would put her in danger. The last thing he wanted was to draw attention to her if there was something going on. Maybe, if he remembered what he'd said to her the night before, he'd know what to say to play it off as something else and just talk his way out of this.

Then he noticed the concern in her eyes, and with a sigh he told her everything. Not_everything_-everything, not any of the weirdness or dreams he'd experienced since getting back, largely because he couldn't necessarily find any connection there. But he told her everything that happened after the play at the Ol' Pickaxe -- at least, as much as remembered -- from the kidnapping to the comment he overheard on his way back to his room.

She stared at him for a moment.

"You probably just misheard one of them this morning," was the first thing she said.

"Yeah, I... probably did. But the rest of it... I know it seems crazy, or the sign of a concussion or something, but it happened. I'm certain of it. Unless you think someone's playing an elaborate prank on me. I mean, you've been here the last few years. Is there something going on that I've been missing, somehow?" He considered mentioning what the homeless cat up by the church had said, but didn't think she'd take it seriously.

"I don't think concussions cause you to hallucinate, but maybe the blow to your head confused you?"

"I didn't come up with that wholecloth, though."

"Is it possible you dreamed it and confused the dream with a memory?"

"No, because--" Eric paused as their food arrived -- fish and chips for her, a steak hoagie topped with cooked peppers and fries on the side for himself. He waited until the waitress left before he leaned in and lowered his voice. "I know I didn't dream it, because that's _why_I went to your place. I was afraid to go home. You yourself said I was going on about the cops. So either that all happened and I actually saw it, or I experienced something equally terrifying."

Diana frowned. Eric could see her desire to argue with that logic struggling against an inability to do so. He took a couple of bites of his sandwich while she thought it over. His favorite place for this particular style of steak-and-peppers sandwich, called a "Monty sandwich" after the guy who originated it, closed down while he was away at school. So now a half-dozen other places in town made their own version, and he'd missed them. Even a mediocre copy was comfort food to him.

For a moment he wondered what Pastabilities' version would have been like.

"I don't know if anything... 'weird' has happened. I mean, you heard about the arm, right?"

"Yeah, I heard about the arm. Which, bee-tee-dub, definitely counts as weird." Eric paused to wipe his mouth with a napkin.

"I mean, that's mostly it, as far as I know. I mean, do you think they might be connected?"

"Let's assume, for the moment, that everything I experienced happened. What are the odds that someone got kidnapped by a mysterious figure in a long coat and a mining helmet and a disembodied arm turn up in the same week without there being some connection between them?"

"Okay, so say they're connected," Diana said, starting to sound convinced. "Say this is happening. Then what? I mean, if someone's missing, the cops are going to look into it."

_Unless one of the cops is in on it, covering their tracks,_Eric thought but kept to himself.

"Somebody's going to be reported missing, and that will at least get mentioned in the newspaper, regardless of what happens," the otter continued before taking another bite of her fish. "People will notishe," she said through her food.

"Yeah, but what if I wanted to look into it?" Eric asked. He'd been struggling with that question himself, and no good answers came to him. "It's not like we could go to Town Hall and check the County Cult Registry."

"You've been rehearsing that line, haven't you?"

"My point is still valid."

"We could check the Historical Society, or the library. See if anything turns up. I know there was some weird union stuff back in the late 1870's, kinda culty-sounding. Might be a place to start."

"Union stuff? Like with the miners?"

"Yup. Miners. Mining helmet. Maybe a connection there."

"That's... huh. It's a place to start." Eric took another bite of his sandwich. "Hey, Diana?"

"Yeah?" she asked between fries.

"First, thanks for talking to me about this and at least humoring me."

She gave him a warm smile. "Any time."

"Second, you have a car, right?"

She frowned slightly.

"I'm guessing you want a ride out to the Historical Society museum they've got?"

"It'll take me a couple of hours to walk there, and I'd rather not bug my folks for a lift. Things are tense with my dad as-is."

While that was true, Eric had another reason he didn't want to get a ride from his father, and they both knew it.

"I guess I can give you a ride. When do you want to go?"

"I dunno, are you working this evening when I get off work?"

"I've got the day off. Buy me dinner too and you've got a ride."

"Great, thanks," Eric said with a big smile as he dug back into his lunch, trying not to dread the few hours of work in the meantime.

* * *

"Are you sure I don't smell like booze?" Eric asked as he got out of the car.

"We just spent, like, twenty minutes in an enclosed car. I'd have noticed."

Eric frowned but decided not to argue with that logic. Instead he looked up at Shreigeist House, home of the Possum Springs Historical Society. It was an old manor house, four floors with an attic. One of a few buildings that had been there as long as anyone knew, it was also a museum of local history.

"I haven't been here since I was a kid," Diana said as she and Eric crossed the gravel parking lot to the front door where a plaque informed them that the building used to belong to a local business magnate named -- predictably enough -- Harrison Shreigeist.

"Same. Probably the same elementary school trip," the fox said as he adjusted his shirt. "Is it still open?"

Diana pointed to the sign. They only had a half-hour.

"Well," Eric began. "Either we'll find what we're looking for quickly or it'll be so buried in a labyrinth of secret rooms with questionably-themed keys that we wouldn't have time even if we got here a couple of hours ago."

The otter stared at him. "You got weird at college."

"College was normal. Coming home made me weird." He looked up at the windows. "I've got a good feeling about this place. It looks haunted."

"It _does_look haunted," Diana conceded as they went inside.

The house was quiet inside, distant creaky footsteps suggesting the presence of other people in the building. The foyer had a rack of pamphlets about local events and various other local attractions. A nearby desk presented a sign-in sheet and a basket of candy bars available in exchange for a $1 donation to the museum, with a nearby coffee can to accept said donations. It had a few singles and some change in it. The corner of the desk bore a bell with a note suggesting it was intended to summon assistance.

"Should we ring the bell?" Eric asked.

"My inclination is to say 'yes,' but something tells me you'd rather wander around and just look without a tour guide."

"If you'd rather not be here, I can probably manage my own way back to town," the fox said with a frown.

"No, no, it's not that. I mean, I'm kinda the one who suggested coming out here. But I just feel weird wandering around hoping to stumble onto some conspiracy."

"If there is a conspiracy, I wouldn't bet a lot of money on it being on the official tour."

Diana frowned and shrugged an agreement.

The fox and otter stood there in awkward silence for a moment, listening to footsteps creak around upstairs.

"That's probably someone who works here," Diana said.

"Y'know what, rather than drag them away from whatever, let's just wander around and if they find us they find us," Eric said as he stuffed a couple of dollars into the coffee can without taking a candy bar and walked further into the building.

The first thing that drew the eye as they stepped into the manor house was an old spiral staircase winding up through the middle of the building. The second thing was a sign blocking access to it, announcing that the staircase was closed for maintenance.

"Way to preserve that history," Eric said.

"Come on, there are elevators."

The pair rode the elevators up to look in the exhibit rooms, heading up floor by floor. There was a room with exhibits around various events involving the local mines, history of the town, that sort of thing. One room held a light-up old-timey map of the town with a train that ran through it.

Very historical. Very educational. Also very boring, aside from an out-of-service animatronic of a miner that startled Eric with its long coat and weird hat. They never did find whomever it was they heard moving around.

Then the music started. The muffled music of a tuba.

"Do you hear that?" Eric asked.

Diana stopped to stare at him as he swiveled his ears to try and nail down a rough direction. An accordion entered the mix. It came from upstairs, and after a moment's focus he was sure it was the same tune he'd been hearing when he first got home. It wasn't the same tune he'd heard from the train, but he recognized the style at this point. The saxophone and the violin joined the ensemble.

"Hear what?" she asked.

That was the last thing he wanted to hear from her.

"You can't hear that? The music?"

"I can't, but then I don't have fox ears."

"It's like this old-fashioned dance music. Like, this four-piece band. Sax, violin, tuba, and accordion."

"Given where we are, someone's probably got a record player going. Playing some old favorites from 50-some odd years ago."

"It..." He focused. "It's not a record player. I can tell."

"Where is it?"

"It's upstairs."

"Then it has to be a record player or a cassette or something. Because I think the only thing above us is the attic, and that's all closed off to the public. I'm not sure any of the elevators go there."

"Well, one of them must go up there."

"Okay, none of the public elevators." Diana frowned. "Eric, I can't hear the music. Are you sure you're not just getting someone's radio?"

"Maybe. But the thing is--" He cut himself off. "I sound crazy enough, I probably shouldn't say any more."

"Yeah, because saying _that_makes you sound less crazy," she snapped.

"You think it's easy for me to admit that--" He leaned in and lowered his voice, the whisper coming out more like a hiss. "--I've been hearing things since I got home? Like, weird spooky music that's not there? I've been having these insane dreams. All of it since I got back from school."

"Maybe you need to talk to--"

"If you say Dr. Hank, I swear to--"

"I was going to say 'a professional.'"

Eric opened his mouth to say something and stopped himself before he let loose with something he would regret. The music continued. He sighed and shook his head, and glanced out a nearby window for something to look at. Something he saw out the window gave him an idea.

"I'm sorry, I'm getting nuts, and... I think we both need to just sit down, get a bite to eat, get our blood sugar up and all that. That's probably all this is."

Diana's ears laid back a bit. "Yeah, maybe." She didn't sound convinced.

"I dragged you out here for nothing, this is a bust," he said with a forced, embarrassed smile. "You go ahead and head back to the car, I'm gonna hit the head and meet you outside."

"You sure?" she asked. "We could go back, ring the bell, talk to whomever's working here and maybe they could help us."

"Nah, y'know what, I came at this all wrong. Maybe I'll get my own ride back up here when I'm not just getting off work and I can spend more time up here. Maybe I'll hit up the library first."

"Okay, if you're sure... I'll see you back at the car." Diana headed towards the nearest elevator, hit the button, and watched Eric look for a restroom until the car arrived and she vanished into it.

He waited until he heard the elevator moving downwards before he quickly rushed for the window. He forced it open and climbed out onto the fire escape. He took in the brisk fall air as he looked around to make sure nobody heard him before he climbed up the fire escape stairs to the attic level. The window framed what looked like an empty storage room with bare walls. The music sounded a lot closer, and he was reasonably sure it had been a continuous performance of the same tune over and over again.

The fox got his fingers hooked under the window and tried his best to force it open. He hummed along with the tune to help focus and the window came open, chips of old paint crumbling loose. He climbed in and the music stopped.

"What the hell...?" he whispered.

Eric sighed and ventured further into the building. In the void of silence he felt something drawing him in. It felt like someone in the next room suddenly held their breath for fear of being heard.

He stepped forward into the next room and stopped.

A painting rested on an easel. Half of it depicted a starry night-time sky and the other half looked like a purple evening sky over a horizon. A goat-shaped silhouette appeared to be leaping from the starry sky to the purple space, and... something about it seemed so familiar.

What was weird is that even though nothing about the silhouette suggested it was anything other than a goat, Eric could somehow _tell_that it wasn't one. That it was merely something goat-shaped, like someone had just decided to depict it that way.

He wasn't alone. Someone stood behind him.

He got the distinct impression they were actively trying to remove their presence from the room, like they didn't want to be noticed_but still wanted to be _heard.

"Take me back," a familiar voice rasped. "It's coming, and it will find me. I have to get away and only you can take me back to where I'm safe."

"This is a fucking dream," Eric whispered, his fur standing on end. "I'm not actually here, I'm having a dream. You can't be here when I'm awake. You _can't_be."

He tried to turn around, but he couldn't. His gaze was fixed on the goat-shape in the painting. It was drawn in by the hole in the center.

Wait, the hole in the center?

But there wasn't a hole in the painting. He couldn't see one.

He felt one.

The goat-shaped hole. That's what it was. The goat-thing was a hole, a hole in the center of everything.

_There's a hole in the center of everything, Eric,_he remembered from one of his dreams.

The painting both depicted an entity and... a passage? The thing coming from the starry sky to the evening sky?

Was this the singer?

Eric vaguely became aware of a roaring sound in his ears, like the ocean. Like TV static way too loud. It was the thing behind him, the thing sometimes shaped like a wolf girl in a mill worker's uniform and also sometimes a skeletal monstrosity in a patchwork cloak.

It was shrieking at him, demanding his attention.

A clanking sound came from the elevator. All other sound stopped.

Someone's coming.

"Fuck," he hissed to himself as he scrambled and ran for the window. He clambered out of it as best he could and closed it behind him, and ran down the creaky fire escape. He skipped the window he'd initially taken out there in the first place and just kept moving down as quickly as he can. The stairs shook and rattled, and flakes of rust fell off the upper levels onto his fur as he reached the bottom.

The stairs stopped and he'd have to jump. But it wasn't the jump that held him up, but the sight of Diana waiting for him. She frowned, her arms crossed in front of her chest. She looked pissed.

"I considered leaving you," she said, loud enough to hear. "It's been twenty minutes. The place is closing."

Twenty...?

"Okay, Diana, I'm sorry, just... look, I still owe you dinner, and I'll explain everything. Even the crazy stuff."

She snorted.

"You'd better explain everything. Because the only reason I'm not leaving your ass here is because this isn't just you being a goof. There's something actually going on here, isn't there? Like, above and beyond what happened last night."

"Yes. And I don't understand it and I can't explain it, and please can we just get out of here before they find me out here and I get arrested," Eric said in a panic, the sentence just kind of tumbling out of him.

Diana took a couple of steps back and gestured to the ground in front of her. Eric shot her a grateful nod and climbed over the railing to drop down the ten feet or so to the floor. Leaves crunched under his feet as he steadied himself.

When he looked up, Diana had already headed back towards the parking lot. He almost tripped over himself trying to catch up.

* * *

"Have you considered talking to a professional about all this?" Diana asked as Eric finished telling her about the dreams, visions, and the wolf girl.

The two of them sat on a bench out in the square in Towne Centre, eating burgers and fries out of styrofoam containers bought from the Clik Clak Diner.

"For about a minute," he conceded. "But I'm not sure there's anyone around here I can talk to, not really."

"Yeah." She frowned and poked at her fries.

"And even if that wasn't the case, I'm not sure who I'd need at this point. Psychologist? Psychiatrist?" He took a sip of his drink. "Exorcist?"

"Actually, there's a thought."

"I was kidding about the exorcist thing."

"No, no, hear me out." She ate a fry. "Pastor Kate."

"You think I should go up to the church?"

"I don't recall your family being particularly religious, and even if you were I'm not convinced there's any sort of spiritual advice she could give that would help with this. But her job is talking to people. That's gotta count for something. I mean, worst-case scenario she gives you food for thought, I bet." With that, Diana took a bite of her burger as if to punctuate her suggestion.

Eric thought about the last time he got 'food for thought' while up near the church, and shuddered.

"I'll think about it," he said as he took a bite of his own burger. "What do you think I should do in the meantime? Like, if I have another vision or a dream or something?"

"Maybe just go with it? Take notes or something if you can?"

Eric frowned. "You _do_believe me, right? That I'm experiencing these things?"

"I... I want to. I do. But you have to admit, this is all very strange. But that doesn't mean I don't take it seriously. _You're_sure you're experiencing this, that's what matters."

"That's..." he began, intending to finish with _'not really the same thing'_and thinking better of it. "...good enough, I guess."

He realized how that sounded and offered a weak, apologetic smile. She just shrugged and went back to eating her food, and he did the same. An awkward silence settled over them as Eric went back over the day, trying to figure out where he went wrong.

Maybe I should have given it a day or two before talking Diana into taking me to the historical society,_he thought. _I'm pushing all of this way too fast.

"Hey, you should have let us know you had plans for dinner, buddy," Eric's dad's voice said, out of nowhere.

The younger fox jumped, startled, and turned to see his father walking down the sidewalk from the direction of the liquor store. He almost dropped his food, scrambling to catch the container and the rest of his burger.

"Sorry, I'm used to having to fend for myself, I didn't think--" he immediately started. It was true, though; he wasn't used to having to be 'home for dinner.' He either cooked for himself, ate at school, or hit up some fast food restaurant.

"Hey, don't apologize to me, but your mother's probably cooking dinner right now." Richard frowned. "Should I tell her you're not eating with us?"

"I -- we'll see," Eric stammered. "By the way, I don't know if you remember her, but this is Diana. Diana, Richard," he quickly said, trying desperately to get the subject off of himself.

"I think we met once or twice. I saw you yesterday in the store. Cliff's daughter, right?" the older fox said as he stepped forward to reach out to Diana. She took his hand and shook it, nodding affirmatively. "I think Eric said you kept an eye on him last night after he had some sort of freakout?"

"Dad, please," the fox said, the insides of his ears blushing a bright pink. He hated having that reaction, like that made this cute and hilarious rather than awkward.

"Alright, alright, I won't embarrass you any more. Just head home whenever you do, and I'll have your mother set aside your share of dinner. Take your time, just don't stay out too late again. Or if you are going to stay out late, at least call."

"I'll keep that in mind," Eric said, ears splayed slightly.

"But you were half-dead this morning," Richard continued as if the younger fox hadn't said anything. "You can't keep that up. You're an adult, I shouldn't lecture you..." He put his hands up placatingly. "But you're not going to get anywhere like that at the shop. Got it?"

"Yeah, yeah, I got it."

"Good seeing you again, Diana," Richard said with a nod before wandering off without waiting for a response.

"Ugh, sorry about that," the fox said.

"It's alright, it was just awkward. My dad's the same way."

"And I really did forget my mom's cooking dinner. That makes me sound like an asshole, I'm sure."

"Well, you're used to being the swingin' college bachelor," she said with an amused smile, reaching for a tension breaker.

"Hey, now."

Her smile dropped. "Sorry, I'll stop.

"I should probably go in a minute, anyways," Eric said as he looked at the rest of his burger, and then up at the sunset.

"Well, before you go, any more excursions on our little adventure?"

"I legitimately don't know. But I think tomorrow I might have a word with the pastor and see what she has to say. And we'll play it by ear from there. Maybe we'll try the library some time, or go to the Historical Society again and just ask someone who knows the town's past."

"Assuming that nobody noticed you sneaking into a restricted area and fleeing down the fire escape."

"I'd like very much to assume that."

Without another word, Eric stood up and tossed the rest of his food in a trash can. His appetite was shot.

"Thanks for at least listening, though," he asked. "Even that much was a big deal."

"Hey, any time. Just let me know if there are any developments or anything, okay?"

"Yeah, will do," he said with a smile as he headed off towards home, blissfully unaware of the concerned look Diana directed at his back.

* * *

"I'm back!" Eric called out when he got home and hung up his jacket. He heard noises come from the kitchen and found his parents in the middle of eating some sort of casserole.

"You could have told me if you had plans," Lyn said as soon as he came in.

"Yeah, it wasn't 'plans' as such, it was... well, it was complicated. Also, cell service doesn't exist here, so I wouldn't have had any way to let you know."

Eric's father ate silently, an unreadable look on his face.

"There are ways to call, though," his mom said. "Pay phones, or the store phone if your dad's not already there."

"Okay, okay," the younger fox sighed. "I'm sorry, I was getting together with Diana after my shift and we lost track of time and got into a bit of a fight and I wanted to buy her dinner to make it up to her."

"Do I know Diana?" she asked.

"Cliff's daughter," his father chimed in between bites.

"I went to high school with her, we sorta reconnected yesterday." Eric went ahead and sat down at the table rather than loom over it.

"Are you having anything? Your dad said you ate already."

"I only had a bite, gimme a minute and I'll grab a plate."

"Don't feel like you have to for our sake," Richard said. "You don't have to pretend, just for us." Something was off about his tone.

"Wait, what?" the younger fox asked. "Is there something I'm missing?"

"Richard?" Lyn asked.

"I know you've been looking at jobs and apartments," Richard said, looking at Eric.

The younger fox's ears folded back.

"I was just curious to see what there is in town since I got back," Eric said, not technically lying. "You guys don't necessarily need to be covering my room and board just because I live in town again."

"Well, we don't mind," his mother began.

"But what about the job listings then?" his father interrupted.

"I was just... trying to get the lay of the land, business-wise."

"Don't lie to me, Eric," his father growled.

"Okay, then, if we're going to have this conversation..." Eric gripped the table like he was afraid of being cast away from it. "I don't know if I want to be stuck at that liquor store the rest of my life. Maybe I was looking for other options, or maybe a second part-time job I could take to get the cash to move back out of town."

"But you just got here!"

"_Eventually_move back out of town. Look, dad, there's no future in--"

"Not if everyone keeps leaving! Not if the kids just keep going away to school and not coming back! You've got an education and a business ready to drop into your lap when the time comes, and you want to give that up?"

"Maybe the store isn't where I need to be right now. And what do you mean 'drop into my lap?'"

"What the hell does that mean? 'Not where I need to be right now.' What if I need you? The store needs you? The town needs you? Do you know how important you are?"

"Wait, the town needs me? Dad, is there something going on I need to know about?" Eric asked, frowning.

"Hey, guys," Lyn said, reaching out to grab Richard's shoulder. He shrugged her hand off.

"I can't manage the store and the Ballards without you, Eric."

"Just hire somebody, then. Somebody who needs the job and wants to be there."

"So you don't want to be there."

"Not like this, no."

"How did this even start?" Eric's mother asked as she grabbed Richard's shoulder even more firmly this time, trying to break his train of thought.

"I'm guessing he snooped through my laptop," Eric said.

"We paid for that laptop."

"Not an excuse." Eric stood up and leaned on the table. "But I'm not gonna deny it. I don't have the stomach to help you fight some stupid, petty war with the Ballards. I'm not here to be your trained monkey."

"You don't even know what--" Richard began, standing up as well before Lyn tightened her grip and pulled him back down into his seat.

"Okay, look, either stop this or go take a walk," she snapped. "That's both of you."

"I'm not budging," Richard said. "I know what I need to do and I'm prepared to make some hard choices."

"And what does that mean?" Eric asked, eyes narrowed.

"What I'm saying is that you're gonna be at the store on time tomorrow morning or you're out. Both there, and here."

"Wait, you're going to throw me out?"

"No we're--" Lyn began.

"If you're going to act like this," Richard snapped over her objection. "Either you go to work tomorrow or you have your stuff out of the house before I get home from the store."

Eric opened his mouth to say something, stopped, and then realized he was gripping the edge of the table hard enough to hurt his fingers. He shook his head and stormed off.

"Where are you going?" his mother asked.

"To take a walk, clear my head, and make some decisions," the fox said as he stormed out to the sound of his parents arguing with each other.

* * *

Eric didn't really look up from his feet until he realized he was surrounded by trees, with no trail in sight. A breeze drifted across his path to send a scattering of leaves dancing along the forest floor. The setting sun cast the day's last orange beams between the trees as purple and blue settled in across the sky. The fox looked around and saw no sign of houses or road.

When he stormed out, he didn't have a destination in mind. He barely remembered making the choice; he just remembered things getting blurry and then he was outside. He's reasonably certain he turned a left and walked to the nearby edge of town (in the opposite direction of Towne Centre, the boarded-up husk of what was once Pastabilities, and the abandoned Food Donkey), but he couldn't be entirely sure of that.

Eric thought a moment. Yes, he definitely turned left leaving the house because he took the long way around the construction going on. Things got blurry past the construction, but even then that meant from where he stood, he should have been able to see the bridge that ran over the creek near the town sign. Or the sign itself, for that matter. Maybe even the train tracks or the highway through gaps in the hills. It was just trees and some nondescript hillsides in the distance. No landmarks.

He reached into his pocket to pull out his phone, because he lived in a world where everyone carries a magic box with satellite maps and such. But then he looked at the screen and remembered that world was miles away. He was instead in Possum Springs, where getting signal would mean having to hike out to the highway. Depending on where he was, that was at least a few miles away, and in any case he didn't know in which direction. Also, it would have meant walking further away from town -- which seemed counterproductive.

"Shit."

I'll call Diana-- goddammit, no. Still no signal. Fuck! Why did I come back here?

He tightened his grip on the phone and fought down an urge to smash it against a nearby tree.

Even if I could, he thought to himself.I've been bugging Diana too much lately. But anyone else I was actually friends with has already left town and not come back. Like I probably should have.

He looked around the forest, really feeling alone for the first time in a while. He'd never needed much in the way of friends, but this was one of the few times he'd keenly felt the lack.

Okay, so what do I do? He looked around. I could just turn around and start walking and hope that I haven't made any major turns between here and a landmark I'd recognize.

For lack of a better idea, he did just that. He turned around and started walking, looking for any landmarks or even any conspicuous footprints in the dirt. It had drizzled that morning so the earth still had to be soft enough in places to leave tracks, right?

He began to hum. He didn't pay attention as to what he was humming, just something to go with the rhythm of his steps. The tune echoed in his ears, and he stopped. He realized he was humming whatever mysterious tune he'd been hearing out in the woods, in the tunnel...

He sang, instead. Not a song he particularly liked -- he didn't listen to much music -- but something that had stuck in his head from some fan-made video game music video. Something sappy. He didn't know the lyrics well, and instead went from singing a line here and there ("...keep me inside the pocket of your ripped jeans...") to drifting back into humming or whistling parts of the song.

The breeze made him aware of wet fur on his cheeks -- something about the song, or the video through which he'd heard it, or the video game the video had been about -- had shaken something loose and he had to stop and wipe a tear from a cheekruff. He didn't get 'into' music much, so it always surprised him when a song had any sort of real effect on him. It was a weird sensation, like running your tongue over your teeth to discover one feels slightly crooked.

He shook his head to clear it, the song forgotten, and started walking again.

Something that didn't feel like leaves crunched under his feet. He looked down to see snow around his shoes. Not fresh snow, either. It was the kind of snow that's lingered long enough to be worn down by bits of rain here and there, tiny shells of ice resting on top of it, broken only by the occasional animal footprint or forest debris shaken loose by the wind.

It hadn't snowed at all this year, yet. He was sure of it. Even if it was some freak weather thing, just a small patch of snow, this had at least been a couple of inches deep and here long enough that _someone_would have noticed and the papers would have made a big deal. It was barely past Halloween. Snow wasn't unheard of this time of year, but he'd know if it had snowed. Even if it was before he got home, his parents would have said something.

Had they said something and he just hadn't noticed?

Wait.

He looked up and the sky was dark. He saw stars glittering through the canopy of trees whose leaves had been replaced by snow.

_It shouldn't be this dark yet,_he thought.

Yeah, but you've also been losing bits of time,_another voice in his head whispered. _An hour the other day. Twenty minutes in the attic earlier staring at the--

No. We are not talking about that.

Who's 'we' in this, Eric?

"Okay, shut up. Just shut up," he muttered. "I'm not going crazy, this is just... this is just stress. And me needing someone to talk to and not having anyone, because I'm terrible at making friends."

He wanted to sit down, but the snow everywhere made that a distinctly uncomfortable proposition.

"I must be dreaming again. This must be one of those weird dreams again. I must have actually stormed upstairs after the fight, or gone back inside and fallen asleep and now... now I'm wherever I go in those dreams I've been having." He cleared his throat and spoke up. "I know you're out there! Following me! Stalking me! Wanting me to 'take you back,' whatever that means. Just come out here and menace me and we can be done with it!"

He stood there, listening silently for a few minutes. He thought back to the Harfest play.

"Haggard witch!" he called out. "Horrible to look upon!"

A breeze rattled through the branches.

"Okay, I thought that would get her attention," he muttered.

He shrugged and went back to walking, snow crunching under his shoes. The wind grew even more bitterly-cold as he went, and he zipped up his hoodie to keep out the chill. This didn't feel like his usual dreams, but then what were those dreams supposed to feel like? Either way, it had to end eventually, and he wasn't yet sufficiently freaked-out to force it this time.

He saw a shape through the trees, and immediately made a beeline towards it. At first it looked like a small shed, but as he approached it resolved into a tree that had a pair of birdhouses carved into the trunk. Something about it seemed familiar, but that could have just been dream logic for all he knew.

Owls with glowing eyes sat in the holes, staring outwards. He'd assumed at first that they were alive, but as he got a closer look he realized they were wooden carvings of owls, with something in the eyes to produce the shine in the dim light. In the distance, there was a faint red glow that could have been one last flash of sunlight, conveniently positioned such to outline the carved tree with a halo of soft light against the dark. In the snow next to the structure a scrap of rotted, torn cloth that might've once been a priest's hat broke up the otherwise flawless field of snow.

"Anyone here? Did you lose your hat?" he called out, looking around.

Something about this doesn't feel right. It's too quiet, and yet... Wait.

"Hey!" he yelled out, hearing his voice echo through the trees. "Can anyone hear me?"

He could speak. In the dreams, he'd try to speak and no noise would come out. Also, by now, the girl in the sawmill uniform, or the witch, or whatever, would have appeared.

Where am I?

He closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, focusing on the sounds of the forest around him, ears swiveling as he looked for literally any sign of people, or civilization, or what.

Silence. Deathly silence.

He started humming, just out of the need for there to be some noise. He hummed a single note like someone running a wet finger over the rim of a large glass. Some part of it echoed and reverberated through him. He opened his eyes.

Everything was still as it was, but he was now noticeably aware of a path through the trees. It was like he was now standing in the right spot that they just happened to line up with a clear path in the middle. The note he hummed wavered and shifted, and became the melody he'd been hearing from the unseen band, and this time he embraced it.

He began walking again with the meandering tune running through him. He felt like a leaf carried on the breeze, like the sound coming through him was the wind blowing over a vast hole and casting unearthly notes into the wilderness. But he walked on, not stopping, letting his feet carry him, just trusting in whatever led him that he was going to somehow get home before he died.

Eric let some instinct carry the humming along, the tune rising and falling seemingly at random, and at some point he became aware his mouth had opened and he was singing a wordless hymn of some sort. The trees blurred next to him as if he'd been running, but his gait remained the same as before. The song grew louder and louder in his ears, vibrating his skull, until it reached a point where he had to fold his ears back and just stop, make it stop--

His feet crunched on leaves. The snow was gone. He looked back, and there was none behind him. As if it had never been. The air was warmer now -- not warm-warm, but the same way that seventy degrees in the fall or winter is practically beach weather while it might make you shiver during the summer. The sky was still dark, but he saw lights in the distance. He moved onward and for the first time in who knows how long thought about pulling out his phone to check the time.

It was after eleven. He'd been gone for hours. But it hadn't felt like hours, he was sure of it. What happened? Had he sat down in the woods and fallen asleep, or hallucinated, or both?

He focused on approaching whatever was ahead of him, and found himself on the hill above the abandoned Food Donkey.

He realized this was the same hill where he first heard the mysterious melody from when he arrived back in town. He'd heard it coming from the woods from which he'd just emerged.

Eric shivered, and not just because of the temperature. He quickly rushed down the hill and climbed over the fence between him and the rest of Possum Springs. The town was silent as he passed through, almost like whatever was out there knew to stay out of his way. He kept his head down and his hands in his pockets while a chilly autumn breeze chased him all the way back to his dark house. The only protestations came from the stairs as he returned to his room and passed into the darkness of a deep sleep.