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THE CHRONICLES OF THE FINALGAMER And Escape His Nightmare

"Reader one moment stop and think, That I am in eternity and you are on the brink." Unknown epitaph in Perth, Scotland

Arriving in the next world, he was greeted by the stench of swamp water as well as the feel of it sloshing around his ankles. Darkness reigned everywhere, even though he could feel the sun setting in against his back. Rays of dying orange painted through the thick gnarled trees half-submerged in water along with himself, struggling not to fall in upon falling out of the torn rift. The sensation of his entire organ structure upheaving itself still remained as awful as ever as James Campbell stumbled falling into the algae coiling around his waist. "HHHRRRRRRRRGHKHH! KHHH! Hhhhrrrrhkh...f-fuck's sake Kirie..." He stood up slowly shaking clear the swamp water from his nostrils thick and rancid before raising his arms to his head. He began to wade through the darkening marsh, his mind somewhat deprived of sleep from the trip as he tried to find some land before soon clambering onto a large root that had been coiled around with moss for a good seat. Fireflies buzzed around him curiously only to be swatted away by his claws, his jeans soaked through with the stillwater as he laid slowly back against the tree, his scissors still firmly against his back with satchel at his side a little damp from the swamp. "So...what shit does this universe have for me this time. Another rapetastic time with some slack-jawed beerbelly? Huge demons forming out of the swamp ready to devour anything that comes through? Is there anything ELSE you left out on how you basically controlled me for the last ten years huh?! ANYTHING ELSE KIRI-UGHH, AHKH-HRKH-AKHH!" He coughed suddenly into a heaving fit, feeling his body struggling to maintain himself with the swampy heat not helping matters certainly. Staring listlessly across the horizon of the setting sun, he found it strange that he had only come from the dawn of one world and straight into the sunset of yet another as he rubbed his head tenderly. He looked towards a clearer section of the water, devoid of algae to see his warped reflection. His eyes were glazed over, glassy and faded green fractured with red bloodshot pieces. His brown scales were no better, looking quite pale and flaky to the point of anaemic as the velociraptor could not even see his own purple markings across his snout, his tail wrapped gently around his legs. The sounds of chirruping beasts and fluttering mayflies left the swamp within a constant buzzing crescendo that made him not feel alone at the very least. "Fuck...look worse than I thought, like I'm dying of a disease or something. Maybe I should sleep...hhhh...nah...not yet. I need to find this ruby...this better be worth it Kirie, cuz if this was just some plan for you to have me die where no one else could see me ever again I'm fucking coming for you...after all the shit you put me through...then again..." He felt the scissors' handles with reminiscence, struggling to breathe softly with breath turning raspy. "If it hadn't been for...some reason to leave like that whole mist dream, I would have just stayed with Koopin until we both suffered...I guess...I guess I did make some friends and do some good out there, I mean...yeah." The raptor looked down upon his left arm still seeing the friendship bracelet with a gentle smile, his body glistening by the moisture from the air. "She's right...I'm just so tired of all this I just wanna rest...I don't really wanna keep up this shit anymore, I just wanna have a nice life, just go into a decent job, and have a nice house, and just live like a person should. Like me and Koopin did. Not this way, not like how Diana lived, or Leiah or anyone in the clan did...man...I wonder how Kruz is doing right now...maybe him...and Fayne maybe are all still together and I...just, I wonder if they all stayed together after I was gone, not like there's a clan without me honestly. I should have asked Kirie to tell him something but I just don't know what...nnngh...KHHH, EKHH, HRRRGHKH ohh jesus." He wanted to start crying from the exhaustion that he felt, his eyes blearing up with tears everytime he coughed harder until he felt pus from his lung spew out down his lips. "F-f-fuck...this...this better be not the end, I can't go like this. N-not...not after everything I had to...whatever. Just...whatever happens next I'll just go along with it cuz I am done with this, and I am tired as fuck." WHOZERE?! A voice came shrieking through the bayou, a bellowing female from the far deep south of America as James staggered against the tree. WHOZAT OUT THERE' PONTIFICATIN' TO THEMSEL' IN MAH SANCTUM!? COME ON OUT! He said nothing as the voice continued, pressing himself fiercely against the thick trunk. It was disturbingly loud almost piercing into his brain as if it were right next to his ear. Then he realised that it was someone's screeching telepathy. AH KNOW YER OUT THERE BOAH! AH CAN SMELL YER STINK, THAT BLOOD AN' PUS AIN'T EASY TO HIDE NOW COME ON OUT! AHM GIVIN' YOU THUH COUNT'A THREE TO COME OUT OR ELSE! WUN! TWO! She never said the number three, but instead responded by a fierce rippling shockwave that burst the water apart like Moses' fury, darkness that shattered through the algae like a torpedo splashing every tree within a 400-yard radius. James included as he struggled to resist his coughing fit amidst the slapping force of swampwater. THAT THERE'S ONLY BUT A TASTE OF WHUT YOU'LL GIT IF'N YOU DON'T GIVE YERSEL' UP! Who the fuck is this, thought James to himself, jesus fuck I do NOT need this, I just wanna find this dumb ruby and get out of thi-shit, shit, fuck, fuck, fucking telepathic. DAMN STRAIGHT BOAH! Something teared into the tree he was hugging his back to, severing the trunk into a carving charred split from halfway down its unseen canopy as a dark fire smouldered into the wood until nothing remained above the raptor's head. With a smoking torn tree now halfway gone, James glanced up for the first time truly to see the trees had interlocked their own branches to create a stifling ecosystem of thick sweltering heat, he heard the voice screech inside his head once again. LAST WARNIN', BOAH! THUH NEXT FIRE AHM BRINGIN' TO Y'ALL'S GONNA HIT MUCH LOWER THAN THET! "ALRIGHT I GIVE, FOR FUCK'S SAKE I GIVE DON'T SHOOT! I DON'T WANNA FIGHT I SWEAR I JUST WANT...J-JUST PLEASE DON'T SHOOT!" GET OUT BEHIN' COVER SO AH CAN SEE YOU! NOW! Slowly moving from the cover of the tree, he put his hands up cautiously with claws high in the air showing nothing inside them as he stood bravely vulnerable before the emptiness of the swamp. Staring in the direction the raw bristling power had come through, he staggered to not cough but soon failed as he retched violently fast from the foetid swamp water still dripping off his body as the voice cried still from the darkness. WHY ARE YOU HERE?! WHUT'S YER REASON COMIN' DOWN TO MAH BAYOU?! "I'M...I'M LOOKING FOR...I'M LOOKING F-FOR THE SLY RUBY IN THE SWAMP!" WHUT?! "THAT'S JUST WHAT THEY TOLD ME! I SWEAR I DUNNO WHAT THAT MEANS I JUST NEED HELP, I NEED-HRRRRKH! KHAA, AHKKH-HKKHEH, JESUS f-fuck my throat." WHUT'S YER NAME, BOAH?! "JAMES...C-CAMPBELL." The voice said nothing for a moment as he heard the sound of something ...so...yer the one ah bin waitin' on. Took you lon' enuff. Stay righ' where you are, dontchoo move one bit or else ah blast you a new asshole fer you, boah. "Um...okay."

He soon saw someone approach him from the mist of the bayou's sweltering air. Someone whose shadow unfortunately fit the profile of "swamp rapist" that he was joking of previously and was soon starting to regret almost instantly. Fortunately the creature seemed less than eager due to the crooked sneer of distaste across her face. The grating voice had belonged to a towering female gator at least reaching seven feet. With huge green belly pendulous before her and thick luscious scales sleek with bayou sweat down to her club-thick tail, she was certainly fearsome with a well-developed strong arms like a wartime munitions worker. Her fierce jaws shone under piercing yellow eyes mounted by a red bandana with hair so black from the back of her head, that it shone blue in the dim light. She also wore a large necklace with what appeared to be a diamond from it, as well as a ruby in her belly button which James hazarded a guess as to being important to her identity. Claws on her toes and fingers were painted red, her body jangling slightly with gold rings on her ankles and wrists which accompanied the sleeveless pink shirt that said "I Don't Sweat, I Sparkle". James was too tired to be intimidated, or even to mock her shirt as she began with: "You must be sum kin'a interestin' individual if'n ah get sumbody pleadin' to help you from thuh othuh sahd." "Nngh...y-yeah?" "Nah often ah see someone possessed bah some bad juju lahk this, 'speshally onto thet level." "Yeah...you can see him can't you?" "Thet sum hella bad possessah you got on you, though looks lahk he took a real beatin', thankfully. That gon' make mah job easier fer y'all." "Wait...job?" "You wanna git rid'a thet thing dontchoo? Well..." She cracked her knuckles as if bracing for a rumble. "Ah bin waitin' on you fer at least thuh last seven months, you got no sense'a punk-tchoo-alitee." "S-seven...months?" "You dunno whut any of this is even abou' dontchoo, boah?" "No...I...s-s-someone just told me to go find the sly ruby in the swamp." "Ah don' appreciate bein' called 'sly'," she said pointing a finger viciously, "thet word leaves a most distasteful smell in mah mouth." "Right...s-sorry, just what I was told, that's it, I had a friend who was-" "Lemme guess. Twinsen." His ears struggled in disbelief at a name he had not heard in many years, slightly poking a finger into one of them to clean it out. "......that...was NOT the friend I had in mind but...do you mean like a guy in a blue robe, pinkish face, half his hair missing?" "Green lahk a chia pet, yeah, he wun'a them uh whutchoocallit...lemmings? Kept on ramblin' with mad quotes on weird things, ah know who yer talkin' to, who's this other friend?" "Her name's Kirie." "Purple ghost, big eyes, long tongue?" "Yeah, that's her!" "Righ', good, that's us all caught up, now let's gitchoo sumplace warm 'fore y'all start keelin' over an' dyin' of thuh swamp, city boah." "Yeah...thanks. Uhh, what's your name by the way?" She turned away from him, her tail sluggishly drifting across the water behind her. "Call me Mz. Ruby...that's whut evrybody call me." "Okay uh...mizz Ruby, I'm James." "Yeah, ah got that already. Sweet Jesus, thet demon musta been breakin' yo' head up even worse then ah thought to give you that sorta memory loss." "I was just politely introducing myself, for fuck's sake." "You talk to me lahk thet again, an' ahll put you into zombie servitude." "In what?" "...trust me, you don' wanna know." A cruel grin came across her lips as she made her way back towards her place, the raptor following with sluggish steps through the thick bleak half-water half-slime festering with strange creatures. Eventually he could not keep up with her, and she decided simply to hoist him over her shoulder and wade through the swamp with practiced memory along the strange roots. It was perhaps six minutes after that they reached her inner place, a sanctum most bizarre and disturbing to anyone who came near. Hollowed out from a huge cloister of trees all twisting together by the root, a home had been made out of four separate trunks just close enough to be connected by carved-open doorways hanging five feet above the water. Her claws dug into the tree entrance and clambered into the dark passageway. Four different rooms all sheltered from the elements, not even the water managed to seep in. The first room was the living quarters with one single seat; strange masks on the wall from various anthropomorphic animals with terrifying shrieks almost too realistic to be considered just simply sculpture; a large radio sitting in the corner powered with batteries and lastly a bookcase with a variety of concise literature ranging from autobiographies such as "Marie Laveau: The Soul of New Orleans" to more contemporary novels such as a children's series about a boy in a wizarding school facing off against a great nameless evil. James also spotted weirdly the Bible amongst this compendium, along with several dolls crafted out of various pieces of hair, scale and fur sitting on top of the bookcase. The masks frightened him especially, faces of people almost too alike from that of his own world as Mz. Ruby gently put him down onto the floor, which had at least a nice long rug woven of red, white and purple. "You wan' sumthin'?" "Huh?" "You look lahk hell, you oughta eat." "Um...wh-what you have?" "Ah got chicken." "That's good, yeah thanks." She did not even smile as he sat down on the floor whilst she walked to the other room, solid wood with the rest of the tree as the fireflies gave plenty enough light from the outside world. Insects flickered in and out of the house occasionally but they avoided James mostly. Even they could sense his tainted blood and wanted none of his darkness to infect them as she returned back to sit in her seat. "Chicken'll take a while to cook up." "Alright. Um...so...who exactly are you?" "Thet's a question with a lotta answers." "Well, what's your deal exactly?" "Mah 'deal' is ahm tryin' to help you, cuz ah wuz offered to bah this Twinsen from another place." "Okay. Why did he contact you?" "Well...cuz'a this."

She leaned over towards the bookshelf pulling out a rather familiar-looking book, one James clearly knew the moment he opened up its leatherbound brown front to see empty pages. All except one, with a picture crackling showing a place he had once seen. A small island far away off into the sea, with a ship and tower that almost made him drop it out of shock remembering the last time he held such a book. "WHU-JEH-OH! Wait...no...way, this...this was the book on that...um, Myst island right?" "Correct," said Mz. Ruby taking the book back. "Ah got near swept away bah sum strange librarian with a crazy hairdo, had sum kin'a name lahk Meen or sumthin', mumblin' about ah dunno whut...bu' he DID leave this. Lucky ah repelled him back with mah own magic cuz apparently ah wuzn't thuh first o' many places he tried to 'collect' from. Sumtahm after that, ah saw another weird cutie come crawlin' up through thuh book tryin' to communicate wi' me, a guy who called himself Twinsen, said he had a mission fer me. A mission involvin' YOU." "And what's that?" "A mission to save yer soul, boah. Sumthin' that's bin a long tahm comin' now ain' that righ'?" "...you...oh god...you, you're not joking are you?" "Ah ain' never jokin' abou' no soul-saving, boah." "J-just call me James please." "Bu' yeah, ah can save yer soul from thet demon. Ah been trainin' up fer it fer a good long while." "Why did he contact YOU specifically?" "Cuz ah wuz one of many dozens' people that got 'contacted' bah this weird Meen dude an' left thet book in this world...an' after he went an' tried a lotta other possible people, well he came down to me, thanks to help from that uh Kirie girl checkin' out all these other places. Heh...wuz a tahm ah woulda taken thet book an' had great ideas fer takin' over thuh world wi' thet kin'a thing but...that's ol' hat now." "Say what?" "Never mind." She placed the old book back on the shelf and laid back fully against her seat, sighing deeply with eyes closed relishing the peace briefly for a moment. The raptor felt like he was in a momentary existence, an odd slice of purgatory within a stranger place. The large gator now before him seemed nothing more than just a crazy bayou lady, but he knew by this point there was always more to people than meets the eye asking: "What kind of magic...do you do?" "Vodou," she said with eyes closed still. "Voodoo?" "Vodou...didntcha get thuh tipoff from mah place?" "Well...I didn't want to assume." "Thet's good, glad Hollywood hasn't ruined yer sense'a understanding." "I don't really know much about um...voodoo." "VO-dou. Christ boah." "Well you DO have a bible over there." "Thet's fer research, don' git me wrong. Ahm not one'a your Oklahoma types, preachin' to God to fix sum poor sumbitch bleedin' out on thuh roadsahd instead'a callin' fer an ambulance." "Heh...um, okay, so where are we exactly?" "Thet's classified." "Ah. Not even a state?" "Did you jus' fall outta thuh sky or sumthin'?" "Um, yes." Her eyes opened as she looked down upon him curiously, her large clawed feet rippling against the firm wood. "Well now...guess thet makes mah job easier when ah know you ain' gonna squeal to anybody." "Why?" said FG. "Are you in trouble?" "HEH! HHHHAH! Trouble, you hear thet?!" She said this to no one in particular above her, the raptor looking around oddly. "He asks if ahm in trouble, thet's rich...hhhhooooo boah, if you only knew...whut ah had been up to long afore you came to mah inner place." Mz. Ruby clasped her hands together as she leaned forwards severely, hair black as night traipsing across the back of her cheeks. "Lez jus' say thet, once ah woulda tried to befriend your darkness an' rule over it to teach thuh world a lesson...now, ah wanna make sure thet evil goes back to whence it came forevah." "You...you can do that?! C-can you...listen, I'm just...I'm just really confused, I don't know where I even am, I just...I've only got three months until this fucking thing takes me over completely and I just...I'm just so tired miss. I just..." James turned rather desperate in his voice at the slim chance of a hope reached out to him. "P-p-please...h-help me. He's a fucking monster, h-he's done things that I don't...h-he's...killed so many I didn't want to hurt I jus-" "Ah coulda toldya thet from thuh aura around you. Why dontchoo tell me abou' how you met yer shadowy friend in that there scissors of yers whilst we wait fer thuh chicken to fry up?" "Well...okay...it all started...maybe ten or eleven years ago. I was lost inside this mansion, I got hunted down by this kid wielding these giant scissors and he was trying to murder me! So I managed to beat him, and then I took his scissors." "Now why would you go an' do a dumb thin' lahk thet?!" "I DUNNO! I...I just...I just felt this thing, this...something pulled me towards wanting to protect myself, something to just have a weapon on me that wouldn't break or something." "Hmmmm..." "So I end up in this next place, and I meet this really good guy called Glenn. He taught me how to fight, taught me how to wield a weapon for the next three years, then I moved on and...I went from place to place, just trying to do my best and then I was in this...world of demons I guess and then THIS thing comes out. Starts murdering people. Ever since then I've been struggling, trying to keep it in me but it just got more stronger...I almost lost my friends, I almost killed the one I loved because of it...and I don't think he's ever forgiven me even though I know he loves me but he...he wants me to do better and as long as I have this thing I...I can't go back to him ever again...I can't..." He clasped his head desperately as his exhaustion overtook him once again, sighing deeply as Mz. Ruby said not a single word focusing intently with her fingers against her nostrils, breathing slightly. Her eyes were deep and piercing as he went into more detail, answering questions best as he could about the demon's particulars, his attitudes, his arrogance, his raison d'etre at least far as James knew if he had one. Sometimes she shook her head at some parts for his misfortune or stupidity and nodded at other parts for understanding it. After reaching up to here and now, she stood up wordlessly before bring back two plates of chicken, lusciously thick and roasted southern-style with fattening batter as he ravenously ate up what he could. Mz. Ruby tore chunks off like it was a family-style bucket of food, slurping down the flesh from the bone as James did the same with his. The two ate cleanly down to the bone before she sniffed and cleaned her hands on a napkin, pilfered from an unnamed family restaurant. "Now...lez git down to bizness." "Huh?" "Thuh bizness of your demon friend, thet's why you here aintchoo?" "Y-y-yes...I guess so." "Then lez not waste tahm, you only got three months left dontchoo?" "I...just, god I'm sorry I'm not more...excited about this, it's just I've had a lot of false hope the past few times, and it hasn't worked in getting rid of him." "Well thet's their problem, not me, cuz ahm gonna do things different wit'you. See thuh reason why all thuh past exorcisms been failin' on you, is cuz they try to rend thuh demon too apart from yer soul when he has his claws in deep. You don' cut out a tumour bah jus' rippin' it righ' out, you gotta weaken it first." "Okay I'm pretty sure it's not as simple as that." "Ahm a priestess, not a doctor, but ah know whut works concerning spiritual anomalies. Dontchoo?" "No...I guess not, wait priestess? Are you really some kind of voodoo lady." "VODOU!" Her eyes pierced bitterly into him sending James back with sudden fear. "S'not 'voo-doo' boah, it's 'VOH-DU', lahk thuh French!" "Seriously?" "Yer in mah territory now, you respect me an' mah ways or else ahll leave you to drown in thuh gotdamn bayou!" "Alright alright, voh-du, jesus christ." "Thet's better. Now, cum wi' me."

The large gator got up off her seat, taking James' plate along with hers as she dumped them in the kitchen sink, a surprisingly well-fitted room with a simple fridge, a sink and some cupboards planted into the treewall beside a large generator battery. But there lied two other doorways, one of which was her bedroom which he never saw, the other leading to the prime place of interest. A ritualistic circle upon a large sawed-through tree strump, the size of a winnebago with circular roof that was easy to remove above it. A large stone slab well cleaned in the shape of a rectangle was at the centre of it, along with a simple wicker chair seated on top of it which already made James nervous as he noticed the array of pots around him. Each one of them filled with some strange herbal ingredient or raw paste that made the entire room smell like a Moroccan kitchen. It was oddly pleasing to FG despite the grand sacrificial-looking central dais as Mz. Ruby explained. "Ahm gonna do sumthin' different wit'yoo, sumthin' thet nobody else you know has tried to, understand me? Ahm gonna send you into yer mind isself." "My what?" "Yer mind. Thuh only way you gonna have any chance of gettin' thet demon outta you, is bah first takin' BACK your soul fully from his clutches, regain it, fight him for it insahd yer own mindscape an' take him DOWN. Then once you do, you can then weaken him enough that you can force him STRAIGHT outta your body lahk a bad case'a gas!" "That's...some image." "It's thuh only way, exorcism's not gonna work without rendin' yer soul apart, then we gots to get you insahd an' confront thuh demon directly!" "Wait, you...are sending me INSIDE myself?" "Yup, thass righ'." James could only blink struggling to imagine that sort of idea, trying to at least before his exhausted state simply gave in partway. "Okay! Sure, I guess! Firstly, what? Secondly, how?" "Ah will perform a ritual, s'not really Vodou but ahm gonna borrow sum ideas from thet to make it fit. Twinsen an' ah devised it between us, ah dunno where he even figgered this out bu' he gone an' researched a heckuva lotta stuff from other worlds an' eventually we both devised bah a culmination of ideas from various places a way to gitchoo insahd yer head. It's not so much you gettin' insahd as more lahk...turnin' yer eyes inwards to look into yerself, on a spiritual level. Ah guess it's more lahk puttin' you to sleep an' makin' you walk through yer dreams, except...they're not dreams more lahk memories an' representations of yerself, all thet Jungian crap." "I see...okay, no not really, how is this gonna work?" "There are three things ah require in order to complete this, sumthin' ah spent devisin' over thuh course o' four years thanks to Twinsen. Ah need three pieces that represent different parts of your spirit. But YOUR spirit alone is not gonna do it, so we need both you an' two others in order to combine thet strength. Thuh Vessel, thuh Dormant, an' thuh Seeker." "...is that really vood-...vodou?" "Not in this case...but sum bits an' pieces ah take to help you on your way, mainly cuz Vodou has a lotta spiritual connections involved, so ah can make it fit." "Really? I always thought it was just putting curses on people." "Oh that happens in Vodou sure! Bu' only bah some bad bad people. If you got thuh power, you can do a lotta bad things bu' you gotta bribe or basically summon a bad spirit to do thet...thet's whut we call red magic, an' that is NOT sumthin' you wanna do. Trust me...ah know." She looked away partially as James realised nodding slowly. He didn't dare to ask any further as she went back onto the subject at hand. "So, we need them three items that represent you an' two others thet are connected to you from thuh course'a your journey. Thuh Seeker who hunts another for thuh truth, thet one represents thuh Mind isself. Thuh Dormant, whose great power lies untold within, they represent thuh Heart. An' thuh vessel, who carries a darkness insahd 'a him. that one represents thuh Body. Thet vessel...thet be you." "Wait...vessel? ......I think I've heard myself being named that before." "You contain within you an emptiness beyond most ah even seen, ah mean there's darkness an' light in all folks bu' not many people manage to cause a rift insahd them lahk an emptiness. Ah don' even know WHERE Twinsen even found this, but ah suspect sum research has to do with involvin-" "One who knows nothing can understand nothing." "NNNNGH!" A burning surge from his brain came forth as a voice echoed deep from beyond existence. He felt himself stagger against the stone slab and chair, stumbling over as his vision turned blurry, with Ruby catching him by the waist. "Whut happen?!" "Th-the...f-fuck...my head...hurts when I...hear some phrases, just things that happen." "Ah....thet thing, heard 'bout that from Twinsen actually, called it sumthin' weird fer you. Heh, weird, that's you all over far as ah can tell." "Wh-what?" "Sumthin' about uhhhh...'dimensional potency' or sumthin', ah dunno, he said you have a sensitivity to thuh flickerin' dimensional existence that lays beyond our borders." "Well is there a way to stop it from happening, because I keep seeing words now and again and I just get sick of it all just clicking in my head for some things." "Ah only deal on fixin' demons inside'a you, not splittin' headaches from dimensional whutchoocallits. Now...Kirie tol' me that you'd have three such items on you fer thuh ritual." "I...wait, huh?" "Lemme look inside your satchel." The raptor handed it over softly as she dug through gently, her ringed fingers caressing each and every item that was within. A small keychain with a lump of meteorite, a pack of playing cards with monstrous portraits and numbers facing each of the four compass points, a photograph of a strange innocent family with a smear of blood across the top of it, a horseshoe that smelt of fresh hay, a dagger shining of otherworldly steel with its lustre of holiness now faded from it and a metallic diode resonating of soft magnetic strength. Two items she took from the satchel. "This photograph...that ah can feel someone's heart insahd of it. This horseshoe...ah feel thuh urge to seek thuh truth...an' lastly sumthin' you keep with you...that's thuh vessel fer sumthin' else." She pointed at him directly, pointing specifically towards his neck as he looked downwards to see the stone black pendant. "Whut's thuh significant of thet there stone you got, James?" "It...it was a gift. From a girl." "Ohhhh...ah see." "N-not like that! I...saved her, and she gave me this as a gift. It's probably not worth anything." "Mebbe not financially, but spiritually...ah can feel thuh power of your needs radiatin' from it." "My what?" "Stop sayin' whut fer chrissakes, ahm tryin' to explain it to ye! This photograph, who's in it?" "My...boyfriend. He gave me it before I left, he has a copy too so we...wouldn't forget." "An' thuh horseshoe?" "That's Roy's. Roy was...a friend of mine, someone I...wanted to help." "Help with whut exactly?" "Someone killed his family. He blamed me, because the people that found him told him that it was me. The same people that gave me all this, all these powers because they made me some kind of experiment, it's all one bullshit conspiracy but he figured it out. He found that it couldn't be me, it's not possible! So I wanted to help him find the truth." "An' THAT'S whut makes him thuh seeker, good. Yer boyfriend ah assume'll be thuh dormant though ahm not sure why...ah can definitely feel his love in this photograph." "Really?" She nodded solemnly, placing the horseshoe and the photograph upon the stone slab at the foot of the chair before FG replied: "Wait...are you saying us three are all connected somehow?" "Aren't you? All'a yous are connected now James, you gots a long an' weird journey all weaved out behind ye, one you should never have undertaken in thuh first place." "What do you mean?" "Yer a thing that should never have existed, an' ah mean that with all due respect." "Um...thanks?" "Yer lahk a loose piece'a metal floatin' away down a stream in a forest, or a piece'a alien spacecraft done landin' in thuh desert despite no one ever seein' it, or a code'a numbers that don' make any sense jus' hidin' out within sum ol' book'a codices. Yer an anomaly that keeps tryin' to fit but never quite settling jus' righ'. Sumthin' that should not be...an' yet you survived everythin' to come here." "So what? I may not be any better than some beast but...don't I have the right to live?" "Thet is gonna be thuh question only YOU can answer...after this ritual now..." She placed her hand out towards him, claws opening out with her jewellery dangling bleakly. "Hand over yer pendant." "...why?" "Cuz thet righ' there is thuh most importan' thing in yer entire life. An' if you wanna go beat this demon, yer gonna hafta trust me." "I...are you really going to be able to help me? To stop my soul from being...taken by him?" "Ah can't stop him, thet's up to you. Whut ah CAN do, is give you a good sportin' chance to go take him down, so unless you wanna waste thuh last moments of yer life wallowin' in regret, you give me thet pendant now." With nothing else left to stop him and realising he had but a small pitiful chance with the unknown priestess, he cautiously gave it to Mz. Ruby before she placed it down in turn whilst nodding solemnly. "Alrigh' thet's good, now we're onto phase one of our ritual." "What's gonna happen exactly?" "Nuthin', fer abou' two weeks. Problem is, ah gotta contact a looooootta spirit energy fer this ritual, thet's where mah Vodou comes in. Ah have to make a lotta deals and appropriate sum ideas, it's not just thuh three pieces ah need. Ahm gonna need a lotta spirit power, an' ah needs a source to concentrate it in." "Did you...hold up, two weeks? This is going to take two WEEKS?" "Mmhmm! Thet's why it wuz vital we had you here afore yer three months wuz up, city boah!" "What am I gonna do for two weeks whilst you get all this ready, can't you have done it sooner?!" "Not without those three things of yers, plus ah actually need you here in order to fulfil all this. So, ah got thuh source, ah got thuh three items, all ah need are them spirits to assist me." "Is that going to be a problem?" "Nah nah...ah been itchin' to make sum good karma back on mah sahd anyway." "Karma?" asked FG. "Ah dun a lotta bad things previously...ah won't say no more." "Then I won't ask." "Good, ah appreciate it. Now...whut to do about you." The priestess turned towards him cocking her eye down upon him. "Ah don' wanna hafta deal with a demon chasin' me around." "I can't really stop him at this rate." "Bu' ah can. Ah got a bed fer you, sumthin' to repel him back if'n he ever try an' break hissel' outta you." "Oh, that's good. What sort of bed?" "Juuuust a few safety measures, a li'l salt, a li'l spiritual protection...nuthin' doin'." "Okay, long as he stays in me that's good. What are you gonna do during that?" "Contactin' spirits, makin' deals an' arrangements. This is gonna need a lot more power than just yer average broken heart." "I'm pretty broken all over frankly." "Ah know."

A look of sympathy came between them, Mz. Ruby turning soft in her eyes briefly at FG before she took him from the ritual room back across the way. It was strange how close the trees were to allow doorways swiftly between them, even though the ritual chamber was at a higher reach forcing them to scale a small slope between the kitchen and ritual room. The last room James had yet to see was a bedroom, not Mz. Ruby's but his own for the time being. It more resembled a prison than anything else, but at least it had a bed in it despite its rather intricate setup. A combination of both Christian and Vodou markings dotted the walls scoured in chalk with salt crisscrossing upon the wood ingrained finely into the bark itself, all of which would then create one single divine pattern of God. To anyone this would look as if a mad prophet were signing his last days within his confinement. But to FG he already felt the trembling hesitation of the demon within reacting at such a place, which admittedly made him smile at such feeling to give him a sense of odd peace. The peace one feels in their last months upon this earth. "This is nice." "Yeah?" asked Ruby. "I like it...he doesn't, so that's why I like it." "Good, ahm glad you do, cuz it's gonna be yer home fer the next two weeks." "I don't mind, I've been through worse. Least I have a bed, though I wouldn't mind something to read." "There's sum fantasy novels ah used to read, if you lahk readin' about wizards in school." "Better than nothing I suppose...sounds like kid's stuff though." "You'd be surprised, thuh further on it went thuh more mature it got...there's a lotta stuff ah can sympathise with in that boah." "Huh?" "...never mind, if you wanna sleep ah won't blame you. Ah only give you wun rule. Do NOT disturb me when ahm in thuh ritual room, or else you migh' set back our plans an' screw yerself up." "Alright," said James, "I understand. I'll just stay here." "Thas good. You gonna sleep now?" "Might as well." "Good, thet case ahll see you when you wake up. Remember, no goin' in thet ritual room. Ever." "I got it. Thank you, for all this." Mz. Ruby left the room as the raptor crawled into his new bed, which was definitely something that had been found on the street and despite its well-cleaned mattress and surprisingly firm sheets, there was a smell that never quite went away from it. Thankfully the salt in the room provided enough to clear his nose with everytime he breathed in, slowly resting himself. He woke up the next day feeling much more awake than usual, having had the best sleep in months without the monstrous Scissoraptor's influence altering his dreams and fears for his own amusement. Breakfast came in the form of traditional gumbo, a thick meaty stew comprised of celery, bell peppers, onions and okra mixed in along with shellfish and ham stirring altogether into one fattening and nutritious dish. Rice was also served in a ringed circle around the lumpy stew which James took ginger little sips of amidst the thicker chunks, whilst Mz. Ruby almost wolfed it down herself. "Roy would have liked this," murmured FG. "Hmm?" asked Ruby. "Roy...my friend, his mom's from Louisiana so uh...he told me about her gumbo." "Huh, he from this world or yours?" "Mine." "Thet thuh guy who had thuh horseshoe?" "Yeah......Hm." He stopped eating briefly as his stomach suddenly sinked before the gator noticed. "Whut?" "Just...wishing I could hear him again frankly." "He dead?" "Yeah...well...probably." "Hmmmm...mah condolences." "So uh, what kind of world did I fall in?" "Whut you mean?" asked the priestess. "I mean like, what species live here, what kind of technology are we using, stuff like that?" "Species you got all kinds'a types, wolves, gators, frogs, bison, lizards...raccoons, turtles, mountain gorillas, peacocks, all your typical animals." "Huh...so it's basically my world then, what about humans?" "Hyooman? Thuh hell is thet?" "Heh, you answered my question right there, never mind." "Uh...oooo-kay, whutevah, technology well uh...ah never really dabbled in that kin'a stuff, but ah mean, you got thuh radio over thar." "I saw," said FG nodding towards it, "is anything good on?" "Sentimental evangelist bullcrap, political hogwash an' thuh latest in autotune classics thet'll be fergotten bah thuh next three compilation albums." "Hah, again just like my world...maybe not so much the evangelist stuff." "No?" "Religion's not really big in my world, it's like being a vegan. People respect your choice, maybe a restaurant gets mad at you but they can't say shit about it, long as you're not being a dick and forcing people to join the same menu as you, ain't nobody's got a problem." "Heh...thet's sumthin' ah would appreciate in mah world." "How did you first get into...Vodou?" "Mah family. Ah wuz born into thuh family way, we're all mystics an' ah wuz able to communicate with thuh dead especially. People don' really lahk when you do thet." "I bet not." "Momma weren't pertickulerly pleased with mah constant abuse of thuh spirits, always tryna raise thuh undead." "Wait...you mean like zombies?" "Uh, yeah? Where else you think thet name come from, boah?" "Oh...right, is that really a thing in Vodou, like raising the dead?" "It's not MEANT to be...but you can do it, they jus' don' really want you to but you can get a personal servant'a sorts if you bring in a necromancer...lahk me, to then reanimate sum body without any sense of will on its own. A real zombie's just a mindless slave...from a religion created bah slaves, you see a connection goin' on here?" "Damn...slaves huh?" "Mmhmm." She said no more and ate up her food, gulping as she almost took the entire spoon in her mouth whilst FG took gentle sips. The oddly spicy mixture was intriguing, but not something he preferred in truth as he allowed his hunger to completely take over before asking up towards Mz. Ruby: "So, you don't have any servants around you for any of this?" "Ah'd rather not do that shit again. Got me into a lotta trouble, much more than it's worth." "How much trouble?" "Life imprisonment." He stopped dead in his scooping of gumbo looking up at her, the gator barely blinking as she said this. "Wha...r-really? You're a convict?" "Technically still am...even though ah escaped." "How...did you get out?" "That's sumthin' only me an' thuh Loa can ever know about. You may not be able to put me back into thuh clink, bu' ahm no fool. If ah were any kin'a fool, ah'd be straight back onto mah plan to take over Mexico with an army of ghosts." "Hahahahha...hah...aaahaha..." She was dead serious, evident by her cold look as he went back to eating his stew before she soon finished up her feast and decided to stand up, stretching her arms heftily showing the flab beneath her shoulders. "NNNNNNGHHH! Alrigh'. ah think ahm gonna git onto thet ritual whilst you stay here, ah need to set things up. Go read sumthin' off thuh shelf if you git antsy real easy." "Alright then...can I listen to the radio too?" "Sure, if'n you can fahnd thuh station." The brusque lady walked out of the room as she began her preparations, whilst James decided to keep his hands busy and fiddled with the radio best as he could. For the most part, Ruby was right for he only heard bizarre pseudo-religious junk, the occasional "hawt tunez" out of Canada or incredibly vapid commercials for something everybody wanted but nobody needed. Eventually he caught himself onto the actual public news channel to try and make sense of this current world. "A grand heist in Aberdeen, Scotland, was foiled today by Interpol as the final chapter of the Hatton Gardeners' career. A senior group of jewel thieves all within the ages of fifty-to-eighty, the group of pensioners had schemed to swindle a grand total of fifty million dollars' worth across the United Kingdom hitting such places as London, Cardiff, Manchester, Liverpool, Edinburgh, Dundee and finally Aberdeen. Inspector Carmelita Fox, representing Interpol, was at the head of the squadron taking down the group after a sixteen-hour operation throughout the port city. We now turn over to our correspondent, Jack Hitchens, now Jack what's going on?" "Well Dan, I can tell you that it is the early morn here and everyone has finally managed to unwind. The Hatton Gardeners' hit the King's Museum before being set upon by Inspector Fox and the local constabulary, starting at 2am and ending at 5am...local time." "Was anything taken from the museum this time?" "No, Inspector Fox's team had them right on time but they made a daring escape through the local university before stealing the school bus, which then went on a rampage throughout the city heading towards the A90. Then it crashed, and they stole another two taxis before nearly hitting the city's limits around the south neighbouring exit." "I would suspect a bus is not exactly the best getaway vehicle." "Not even in mornings Dan. I'm standing at the Storybook Glen entrance where thanks to the local constabularies, the Gardeners have planted their last claim, as it were." "Can we get a response from Inspector Fox over the entire incident?" "I think I can, she's JUST finishing up on arresting the group, two of which have been injured and are being rerouted towards the local hospital under heavy guard. Inspector, Inspector Fox!" The sound of rushing feet before the reporter found a smooth woman's voice, calm and resolute with something of an indeterminate European accent. "Inspector Fox, Jack Hitchens correspondent for PBS South, how does it feel after managing to capture the Hatton Gardeners?" "I am very pleased," replied Inspector Fox, "it has been a long two years chasing them down and while it is not the most exciting adventure with a rather...strange ending to all of it, I was very impressed with the local police in their cooperation, of which I am thankful for." "To think they started as a small low-tech gang in London relying more on ingenuity rather than budget, how did the final catch come to be?" "The university of Aberdeen had many willing students allowing us to make a setup and create a false advertising scheme to lure them in. We spent sixteen hours setting it all up thanks to the various departments and in the end the chase only cost us three. We managed to block them off and they collided into the children's playground of which I am very thankful was not even open yet, so there were no casualties to civilians." "And may I say that it's good to see you back in action after the Cyrille Le Paradox case a few years ago, which was the last most successful case you worked on." "Not as successful as you think..." "People most know you now as the face of Interpol after your strenuous years for being the head of operations on the infamous case of the Cooper Clan who pervaded the world over with their antics. But lately things have been surprisingly absent on any reports concerning the Cooper case." "That case is not related to this in any matter, if you want to discuss it then you speak to me in my office." "But, whilst you're here do you have anything to-" "NO. That case is...closed...indefinitely, now if you'll excuse me I have a job to do. Thank you." Dead silence. The studio was nervous until Jack came back on with: "......Jack Hitchens, PBS, signing off from Aberdeen, back to you Dan." "Thank you Jack," said Dan, "next up is the weather report concerning Rhode Island's coming storm which people have nicknamed 'Hurricane Cthulhu' due to recent internet photoshops of discerning cloud patterns-" "Turn thet shit off," snarled Ruby. "OH, sorry." The raptor clicked off looking rather sheepish at the lady gator as she waddled her way back to her seat. Exhausted completely with her eyes looking heavy, she slumped thickly like a deadened weight sighing with a hand pressed deep against her face. "Rough time at the ritual?" "Thuh beginning's always thuh hardest part." "But we're uh...still good?" "Mmhmm. Ahm gonna lie down here a bit, you can read or sumthin' back in yer room." "Okay. Hey, uh, they caught some thieves over in Scotland, that's pretty neat." "Ah don' listen to news much. Not mah problem." "Alright, suit yourself." Cautiously escaping the room, he briefly perused through the shelves before picking out part one of the children's series involving the young wizard at his new school. Thankfully the writing was exceptional enough that he lost himself easily into its well-paced narrative and comprehensive setting, enough that James admittedly felt some sympathy for concerning the start of it. He was a slow reader, and by the time he reached up to seventy pages he began to fall asleep. The heat along with his own tiredness of his weakening spiritual being had him rather taking more than just a few naps throughout all two weeks of his stay.

It was four days later that things would come to a greater connection between them as the morning came with large hefty sandwiches for them to eat. Made of round sesame bread with a mixture of various hams and vegetables, the food resembled some sort of burger, except the outside was crusty and the inside was soft as heaven. The raptor relished eating it all as he sat with Mz. Ruby once again in the living room with her in her seat and him back on the floor of the living room, a hearty smile coming to her lips more than usual today. Her shirt was different today, now blue on the upper half and red on the lower half, with a small white square in the very centre showing a palm tree protected on all sides by fierce golden lances. James was greatly enjoying the unusual sandwich-like feast much more than he did the gumbo smiling in turn with his host. "Mmmmph, what is this?!" "Muffuletta," replied Mz. Ruby. "Damn nice, where do you even get food out in this place?" "Nearby town. Ah do stuff fer people an' in return they give me food an' stuff. Nobody ask questions abou' me, ah don' ask any questions back." "What sort of stuff you do for them?" "Paintin', fixin', cleanin' houses, odd jobs this 'n' thet. Just keepin' up a real community spirit, helps when ah don't got any benefits." "Why not?" She turned towards him with a look of derision, cocking her head sardonically. "Escaped convicts don't git no paycheques, boah." "Oh, right...sorry. "Hmhmhaha, least you don' give a shit." "Well technically I am a convict too." "Yeah?!" "Well I mean, wanted for illegal street racing and uh...technically I should be in prison for a few...murders." "Oooooooh. Bit of a bad boy arentchoo?" Mz. Ruby freaked him out slightly with a knowing wink and a cruel set of teeth glinting towards him as he gulped nervously. "I-i-i'm not...really proud of it, except the street racing." "Where you from, bah thuh way?" "Well...not from this world." "Ah know thet but you seem pretty up on mah world so..." "Well...I mean guessing by the accent I'm in America." "Eeeyup." "Well in that case, I came from another Earth, practically the same places I guess so I was born in London. Then I ran away and went to Chicago instead." "Chicago?!" cried Mz. Ruby. "Thuh fuck you wanna go to thet place for?!" "I didn't choose where the container took me that I snuck into, back when I was fourteen." "Ahh...heh, you done tahm too?" "Not exactly," replied James, "I was with a foster family, they were good to me but the...people around us didn't really like 'my' kind of people." "Whut, reptiles?" "No...non-humans." She cocked her head at him before eating halfway through her muffuletta, tearing through a wide piece of salami like paper. "Whut are these humans lahk?" "Like hairless monkeys without tails." "Ugh, soun' disgusting." "Ehhh, there's just a lot of conflict in my world between the humans who first evolved there and the anthros that came later. It's weird, there's so many different types of anthros, but all the humans are pretty much the same boring five-fingers tail-less freaks...and yet they give US shit about being unnatural." "Heh, so you ran away cuz you got beat down on?" "The whole street I lived in made fake reports about me being abused just to have us tossed out of their little white-fence row." "Damn," murmured Mz. Ruby, "thet's nasty." "So I ran away...ran away from everything like I always did for the first eight years of my life...nine, no...ten I guess." "So how did you end up travellin' across dimensions?" "It's...a long story." "Ah got tahm." The priestess leaned back heavily upon her seat to get comfy creaking thickly underneath her weight with belly bulging forth, the shining ruby in her midriff displayed prominently. "Spirits aren't gonna be here thuh next few hours, so might as well play catch-up on all this." "Alright. I was raised in a bar in Chicago, this lady looked after me, kind of made me a surrogate son." "Huh." "She wasn't a great person. She was ruthless, a criminal mobster, ruled the whole street with a firm fist but made sure everybody looked after each other. She banded all the street gangs into one group, made them into her gang and sort of made this weird socialist group out of all stealing from the rich and just handing it out to everybody." "Hah, ah lahk this lady already!" "She could be cruel though, like really cruel if you messed with her. I still like her though, I can't fully hate her but I know she's not the best person, but she at least tried to make amends for it. So one day, I got kidnapped by this sorta-military-not-really kinda group, made me part of an experiment to put all these nanobots in me. Turns out they sorta give me powers like crossing through other dimensions." "Huh," said Mz. Ruby, "so it wuzn't magic that ah felt when you came down into mah place." "Yeah," replied FG, "I just hopped from place to place." "Whut kin'a places?" "...sure you wanna hear?" "Ah got tahm an' ahm in a good mood, so use it." "Alright haha...okay so..." James leaned back against the wall slowly as he did his best to remember everything up to this point truncating as short as he could. "First got caught by space pirates on Planet Zebes, then rescued by a merc team called Star Fox, then ended up in a nice little place called Crossville full of animals that I basically ruined a lot of stuff in. Then got sent to an asylum along with the two detectives called Sam and Max because they were also kind of crazy, then I escaped without them. Ended up in some races with these F-Zero gravity vehicles on the real junior circuits for like strictly amateurs, almost crashed and died, had to escape AGAIN because I pissed off the wrong people." "Ahm startin' to notice a theme here." "Had a nervous breakdown on an island for like a few weeks but I swear it feels longer than that, I think I might have been living amongst an actual tribe of feral raptors like REAL dinosaurs from the past." "Ah huh." "Then I hop around a couple places like a city called Hillys which then got invaded by some things, then met a nice kid who was actually a prince in some kingdom called Radaxian, then I end up in an even nicer place called Dream Land where I helped some cute little sailor guy who got adrift back home." "Dream Land huh? ...you sure you not takin' any narcotics, cuz ah seen hear a lotta stories lahk thet-" "Nope." He smirked back as she grinned at him, continuing from his memory. "Then I'm in that mansion where I got this demon, then I trained for three years in the Kingdom of Guardia with Glenn who quite frankly was the second-best influence I ever had in my life, next to Koopin." "Mmhmm." "Spent a few months on a pirate ship with one of the best friends I ever had in my life called Kruz before we mutinied because the captain was...insane." "Righ'." "Then I'm in some town called Onett where some kids thought I was an alien and I was roped into helping them win a videogame tournament." "Sound stupid." "It was, but I had fun. Then I was in a place called Cyrodiil where I got that pendant from. This sweet little girl called Dar-Ma got into some bad straits with some uh...well, let's just say I think I found Hell in that place, but I got her out and it was safe. Then I went to a town called Silent Hill and the LESS said about that the better." "Why?" "You...don't wanna know, trust me, I'd rather not remember too much of it." "Alrigh'," said Mz. Ruby nodding respectfully. "I was fucked up after that place, like broken and beaten down, then I'm in this place full of actual demons where I meet this really nice girl called Felicia, and a couple of her friends help me because well, the demon in me starts getting out and...killing people." "Hmmmmm." "I went through a mansion of ghosts and almost died like literally, then I spent four years in the best place I ever spent my life, the Mushroom Kingdom." "Okay now ah KNOW you bin takin' sumthin'." "I'm serious!" said FG. "I know it sounds weird but it's a beautiful place, it's like the happiest brightly-coloured innocent place in ANYWHERE. And that's where I met Koopin who I fell in love with...not sure why he even wanted me." "Cuz yer a bad boy...mebbe he wanted sumthin' less innocent." "I...don't think so." "Hmhmhmhuhuhuhu...issat all?" "No, not yet, then I had to leave four years after because the demon in me got antsy again...almost killed Koopin...I ended up in a prison at that Myst Island, got trapped in a book by that Meen dude-" "AH, ah know this part, you can skip ahead." "Okay, so then I was in...Kanto, this island where I met Kirie fully for the first time, and she asked me for something, take down this criminal leader over what I now know was...personal vengeance for her really. That was the real start of all this shit happening to me." "Whut, about thuh demon?" "No...more like something else." He felt a flicker of fear run through him as he tried not to remember the anomaly, before continuing on his story. "Then I was in some city overrun by zombies-" "Oh lawd." "Yeah, and uh, these ones were MUCH more deadly and not just soulless servants trust me." "Seriously? City full'a zombies huh? A CITY?" "Yeah." "Thet...hm..." Now it was Mz. Ruby's turn to feel a sense of distaste come running through her as she looked slightly away towards the masks on the wall, before FG caught her attention by asking: "What's wrong?" "Nuthin' just...rubs me up thuh wrong way, carry on." "I end up on another island, helping these two robots that call themselves badniks wanting to get a piece of their master and give him what for after being abandoned. Then...I end up in this big galaxy, like huge, on a Citadel in space where I end up fighting a terrorist group with a bunch of friends." "Damn you really are a troublemaker! Izzere any world you HAVEN'T left without causin' sum trouble raptor boah?!" "I'll get back to you on that." "Hhhuhuhuhuhu!" She chuckled, and James had to admit that he did too after realising this question before a sense of bitterness came over him. "It didn't end well...had to leave, I went out onto this wasteland, this alternate Earth where everybody got nuked to shit, like total bleak apocalypse." "Damn." "Wasn't all bad, some people were nice, helped me back up, I saved them in turn and well...I got friends still." He pointed at the friendship bracelet on his left bicep happily. "And then I spent about...two years in Ivalice I think, this great kingdom, very medieval but I made lots of friends, they're all just one clan together and well...that's the last thing I remember before being in like...a castle in the rain about since a week ago after landing here and now I'm here talking to you." "Thet sounds lahk a real dumb story some kid would write up." "Hey, it happened." "Ah guess it did. Alrigh', ah think ah better check on thuh ritual, why dontchoo go read or sumthin'?" "Sure, actually I've been meaning to get back into that book I borrowed?" "Oh well you have fun wi' thet, ahll tell you if anythin' ever comes up."

By her leave she went, and James went back to his bedroom with the same book he had been reading the past few days and finally managed to finish it. He was starting to appreciate books intensely since after arriving here and decided to start on the second one whilst he was waiting on the ritual results. It was odd that he had barely ever stepped outside of Mz. Ruby's place, realising he had no reason to for it was all the same swamp, all the trees mixing in as one seamless panorama of crawling festering heat. The only excitement that came was around three days later when suddenly a commotion had come from the ritual room. The sound of screeching unholy from beyond the realm of existence as James rushed down by instinct, stopping himself just short of the room's barrier. "SUUURAAACHHHHYYYYAAAAAAA!" He stepped back petrified by the sight of the priestess suddenly staggering against the stone slab, violently shaking all over as if some invisible creature were assaulting her from within. Her voice had reached a sudden depth of fury from unholy origins, but that was not even the most disturbing part of all this. All through his journey through the other worlds, he had been able to translate anything with various pieces of technology upgraded into his nano-unit within his brain. Except this. Whatever now possessed Mz. Ruby to scream and vomit dryly upon the floor, was not of any language he could begin to understand beyond mortal realms. "HHHRRRRRUUUUUUUUAAAAKAAAFUU! HOSI ASZHINOAH KHHIEROH BU FANYI! KHROH! KHHHROHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAGHH!" Her shrieking was frightening to hear, keeping James away as she fell onto the floor stumbling hard with trembling fingers and eyes burning deep with a mixture between red and black. Like blood steeped within oil her sight flickered back and forth between the mortal and spirit realm, shuddering hotly as she desperately looked towards James forcing him back with but a single gesture. "ZOH! QUOH XHHHHAKHRIN AH!" James said nothing staying well away from the room as per her orders, too terrified of destroying a good week's worth of spiritual summoning as he watched Mz. Ruby stumble her way over towards the side of the entrance door. Something lunged out of her throat, snapping wide teeth of bristling white from her tongue as the raptor fell with horror as his heart raced. Her eyes blinked sideways, red slits briefly consumed black as she screamed once more upon grabbing part of the ceiling. "ZOH! ZZZZZOH, KHROH HANUU FRAH! KHROHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGH!" Something grated against the solid wood, the ceiling slowly sliding off as Mz. Ruby's claws grabbed tightly onto the side rim of the circular thick wood. As if slowly pushing a giant manhole cover, she forced with all her strength physically until stopping just short of the granite slab as the rain from outside poured in. She finally stopped screaming, staring up towards the perfectly covered canopy blocking the sky but not the rain amidst the porous thick heat. Warm water dropped thickly down upon her cheeks and black hair, her eyes unblinking to reveal her own normal pupils once again. The raptor gasped at the sight of her, standing beneath the raindrops as she murmured something slightly, eyes closing once more as she exhaled deeply up towards the sky. James saw something escape, or perhaps it was just a cold breath but he was not sure. The priestess did not even turn towards him as she said: "Thank you." "Huh?" "...fer followin' mah wun rule. NEVER...step into thuh ritual room, ever, until it's done an' ready." "R-right...are you...alright?" "Juuuust a li'l baka tryin' to sneak into mah ritual, dontchoo worry none." "Baka?" "Demon...heh, more lahk a devilish little imp, thuh rainwater scared him off so he ain't gonna do nuthin'." "That uh...fit for all demons?" "Nope, jus' thet wun luckily." "Right right...um...I'll just get back to my room and...read some things." "Nah nah, we ain't had breakfast yet...jus' lemme enjoy this rain fer a while, ahll join you in a bit." "Okay." It almost felt like yesterday he had landed in this place, being some sort of guest in the swamp-raised little shack formed of four trees knotted together by the root as he sat back onto the living room floor waiting for Mz. Ruby. He tried to consider how weird this particular place was, feeling as if he had been thrown to some distant pocket of the universe until the two were finally having some more food, muffuletta once again. He noticed that on certain days she was more exhausted causing her to fix up the thick sandwiches instead of gumbo stew which took plenty more preparation and focus. He also got a good look at today's shirt, light mint with a thick red font inscribed saying "It's Not Easy Being Green". "Can I ask you something?" he asked politely. "Depends," replied the gator. "How did you...start being a convict in the first place?" "Didn' ah hear you say thuh first day or so thet you wouldn't ask?" "Oh...I did? Um, s-sorry just that well I um...told you about my past so I thought-" "Ah fell into a bad crowd, you wanna be mah psychiatrist?" "I'm just asking because I told you about my problems I thought well just...you know, making conversation." "Heh, true, quite true. Nobody made friends wi' me cuz ah wuz all 'creepy' so ah started tryin' to raise thuh dead so ah could have sumbody to be with. Mah family did not approve, neither did anybody else, so ah jus' got mad at evrybody. Ah started stealin' stuff, breakin' into places, started carin' less abou' whut people expected of me an' jus' went hoarding mahself a personal squad'a undead, an' then it wuz thet point ah got recruited bah sum large group'a criminals thet wanted to take over thuh world. Ah admit, wuz interestin' at thuh tahm, all ah had to do wuz kill sum old thief retired." "Why?" "He had this book, held all thuh secrets of his family clan, thuh leader of our group had sum huuuuuge family vendetta against him, lahk we talkin' Civil War kin'a vendetta." "What civil war?" She stopped eating before she gave a look that only a news anchor could give if they were asked to report on their son's disappointing school report card. "......are you serious righ' now?" "I was never good at history." "Heh...righ', well yer not even from this world so anyways, this book wuz important to git, so we went up to this ol' thief's house an' murdered him. Brutally, but whut we didn't know wuz thet he had a son. Orphaned. "Wait what?" "Yeah. Bad mistake, cuz you know whut happened? Kid grew up, came down all thuh way to mah bayou an' beat thuh crap outta me! Sumbitch killed mah turtle pal too when ah wuz fightin' him, dodged all mah Vodou lahk it wuz nuthin'." "Jeez. I mean, you DID make him an orphan so uh-" "Ah did get whut ah deserved, if'n that wuz whut you were sayin', got sent in thuh clink, got life imprisonment fer acts of murder, necromancy, larceny, turns out there IS a law agin resurrectin' thuh dead, ah didn' see thet one comin'!" "Hahaha, wow really?!" "In Haiti yeah." "Are we in Haiti now?" "No. They'd fahnd me down there, ah can't git back home lahk this." She leaned back with her eyes tired for a moment, closing them to pinch the bridge of her snout thickly with a bestial groan of tiredness. "Point is, ah did mah tahm fer it, an' now you's gonna help me git a good deed." "Really?" asked James. "Is that why you wanna help me?" "Someone asks fer yer help out of another dimension, you don' say no." "I guess that's true...just that, if you're looking to help people just to make yourself look good, then that's kinda shitty when you put it like that." "You wan' help or dontchoo?" "I do just, don't take me up like a charity case, I want legit reasons." "Is testin' mah power enough of a reason fer you?" "Yes, actually that doesn't sound as bad." "Heh...good." "This is a really good sandwich by the way." "Heh, thank ye...lotta tahm on mah hands nowadays to learn new stuff." "So uh...I'm not gonna ask HOW you escaped from prison but I do wanna know...why the change of heart if you were so into this whole plot you were part of." "Call it an epiphany from one of thuh Loa. Tol' me to change mah ways, learn to love thuh world an' that ah wuz usin' mah Vodou thuh wrong way. So...ah changed. Ah can hurt ya sure, but ah can heal you too." "So what are you doing here then?" "Tryin' to be left alone...didn't exactly wanna help you bu' lahk ah said, when sumbody calls you from another dimension, you oughta step up an' lissen." "Fair enough...but I appreciate it, like really, you don't even know me and you're trying to help me with something that, basically I've been suffering for the past eight years." "Heh, well, ah mean-" "No seriously. Thank you. I mean that, Mz. Ruby, I mean I don't even know you, and you've got no real big reason to help me so I just...thanks for all you're doing to help me on this."

His sincerity was evident from the bleak clarity of his cracked pupils to which Mz. Ruby smiled softly at. But not too much as they continued eating busying themselves with either reading, eating, or in Mz. Ruby's case, ritualistic preparing for the next week. Seven days of strange intermediary naps with the odd meal or bookreading, along with violent rending screams or weird guttural conversations from one side down in the ritual room. James turned nervous but he trusted Kirie's decision, knowing that she had good intentions always. In truth, he was not even sure of that after all she had put him through, but at this rate he was so accepting of any kind of solution that he was willing to go through with it all especially after hearing Twinsen's name involved. He started to wonder about the Watcher whom Kirie told him about, what his very nature was and why he took such an interest in James especially. What great evil did Kirie mention that was apparently so fearsome that some apparent higher being wanted to make a pawn out of the strange dimensional-travelling raptor? He laid in bed half the time thinking of this as he stared up at the odd chartered scripts and symbols that kept Scissoraptor at bay, having not heard a single thing from the darkness inside of him. He appreciated it immensely, for all the strangeness of being at this Vodou priestess' place, he was getting immensely good rest. The day finally came when in the early morning of a thick sweltering rainstorm, Mz. Ruby approached him at his bed. "It's tahm." The raptor nearly shot up almost immediately as his eyes almost bulged with increasing anxiety, hands fidgeting nervously all of a sudden. "R-r-really? Oh jeez." "Come on, down we go kiddo." "A-a-alright...um...god I only just got through half the third book." "Seriously? Ah woulda finished the fifth bah this tahm." "I don't read fast, come on." "Yeah ah bet." She took him down towards the ritual room which due to its increasing sense of forbidden nature only turned FG more fearful for what lied within after her great preparations. "Ah should warn you thet," she started, "when you start goin' insahd yerself, you gonna be feelin' a lotta hurt." "I guessed that." "Not just cuz of you goin' into yerself, but also cuz you'll be seein' memories you don' even remember, memories you thought you never even had bu' got all locked away deep inside yer own heart, all of which you'll be seein'." "So what exactly's gonna happen?" "...honestly? Ah really do not know." His confidence wilted, but it was only a grim sense of determination and futility that saw him through as he approached the main altar of the room, seeing the wicker chair still atop the stone slab. The sounds of rain trickled to a furious beat down upon the outside world, fiercely hammering onto the walls of the carved out trunk as he slowly looked up towards Mz. Ruby. "Siddown on thet seat." He sat onto the chair dutifully, noticing the slab beneath now had odd bloodstains that had certainly not been there before. "Ahm gonna be performing a pre-ritual, before thuh actual ritual, s'called a 'Lave Tet'." "Ah huh?" "We gonna wash yer head, clean it out with all thuh junk an' evils you might have, though we won't be gittin' ALL of it out jus' yet, more lahk a li'l cleanup duty." "That's it, just wash me up?" "A li'l. Ahm gonna be makin' four different prayers, then ah wash yer head seven tahms, then ah take thuh chair away an' you lay down onto this slab when ah tells ye to." "The slab with...the blood on it?" "You see any other slab roun' here? Relax, thet's jus' chicken blood." "I...see, wait, no that's-" "Sumbody gotta feed thuh spirits, so unless YOU wanna offer them sum tofu, city boah!" "Okay okay I just...jeez, sorry I'm...I-i-i-i'm just nervous, I've got no idea what I'm going to be doing." "Ah know, ahm jus' tryin' to tell ye thet you got nuthin' to worry about, long as you keep fightin' against thet demon." "I'll try." "No. Don't try. DO." "Right, I gotcha." "Now...any questions?" James noted the old book to the side asking nervously: "What exactly are you going to use the book for, if you have everything set up with your vodou?" "Twinsen gave me a set of instructions to connect thuh power of this Linking Book, as he calls it, into you, thereby allowin' your sense'a self to go into you directly. Thet's whut all thuh spirits need to do, to help me achieve this. Ah had to pull in a lotta favours just to git all this to work, an' now they gonna help me send you straight to yer own state of existence. Thuh cleansing is to prep you, thuh three items are to strengthen you when yer insahd yerself, thuh book here is to send you actually INTO yerself an' thuh spirits are here to make thet happen. Got it?" "I...oh-kay, that's...well if you're that certain it'll work I'm ready when you are." "Good, let's begin. Question though, you religious at all?" "No, is that a problem?" "Nah, jus' don't be surprised if ah start recitin' thuh names'a saints, s'all part'a the ritual." "Saints? Um...okay then." She went over to the pots in the room and began to assemble various ingredients of unknown quality into a single dish, pouring water straight after to turn the contents into a slightly off-colour volume as she placed it behind FG. Much to his surprise, she began to recite in French perfectly, but even more to his bewilderment as the rain continued hammering outside, she recited from memory the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary and the Apostles' Creed in order. James said nothing, barely even knowing what they were as she recited each and every prayer correctly, but it was the fourth one that seemed most appropriate to the ritual as she began singing each stanza. She was not the best singer, much to James' chagrin as she cried with gusto: "L'ange de Seigneuuuuur dit a Mariiiiiie, qu'eeeeeelle concevoit en Jezukriiiiiii, la Triniteeeeee lui a choisiiiii, elle est Concu du Saint Espriiiiiiit!" The priestess clapped ten times exactly in a certain rhythm. "Veneeeeez mon Dieu veneeeeez, veneeeeez mon doux Sauveuuuuuur, veneeeeez regneeee en mollllll, au centerrrrr du mon Coeuuuuur, venez mon Dieu Veneeeeeez!" Another ten claps from directly behind him. But with each clap made, James felt a tingling sensation at the back of his neck. "Vous quiiii viveeeez dans la souffraaaaaance, faites de toujouuuurs votre devoiiiiiiir, ne courez paaaaaas en desespoiiiiiir, la gloire de Dieuuuuu couronne l'esperaaaaaaance!" Ten times more, her hands clapped together as James felt the rippling pull of something near. "Graaaaaace Marie Graaaaace, Jeeeeeesus pardoneeeeez nouuuuus!" The sound of her hands began to fade, as if falling into a dark void beneath the world as she started reciting the names of Christian saints, both male and female. James wasn't listening, feeling himself slowly drift out of the world existence as his eyes started flickering. Once she exhausted this, she began to recite the names of the Vodou with even greater veracity and importance, specifying each and every one of them as with each name that came through James felt his world fall deeper beneath. He had not felt like this since the horrible drugging back in the wasteland which terrified him to remember, except this was most certainly not chemical and affecting his body, but rather that of his spirit. He felt it start flickering, reacting somehow as she finally finished. "Mwen sotiiiii la priiiiere pou Mysterrrrre la yo..." The raptor felt something leak upon his head, a warm slightly thick watery substance began dripping all over every side as Mz. Ruby washed his head clean with the smell of herbs permeating his senses. With a firm yet strangely soft cloth, she repeated the process seven times exactly never going below the neck as James sat still. Every time she cleaned him thoroughly, the smell became so thick that he almost felt like he was being buried in a field of flowers. Thick and clogging up his nostrils more and more like the earth damp with salt and sweet being covered over his body. With every sweep of the wet cloth, he felt the world turn darker around him. Piece by piece, he felt his physical body stop responding to him as if a slow numbing virus was overtaking him and yet it was peaceful. He almost imagined it being what rigor mortis felt like, his eyes rolling slightly upwards as Mz. Ruby finally finished. "Stand up." He did as she ordered him to without even asking. "Step off thuh slab." He gently stepped down as she put the chair away before sweeping over a white cloth on top of it. His three items as well as the faint stains of blood were now covered as she commanded: "Lie down on thuh sheet." James could not even see where the sheet was yet somehow knew where to lie upon it, placing himself perfectly as the priestess hung a wick above his head on the wall, floating in oil which kept it constantly lit. The light he could see barely from his eyes fading still away, briefly illuminating the wooden structure to a red luscious deep ochre. She then pulled out two things from a nearby table. A small pouch, and the book reminiscent of Myst Island's literology. "Now, you have been cleansed James Campbell...thet's all mah Vodou can do fer you to keep you safe. But now...this is when things start to get nasty." "Mmmmhhhh...wh-...what do you mean?" "Shhhh-sh-sh-sh...look at me. Look deep into me, see how far you can git insahd afore ah send you to sleep. Jus' keep lookin'..." He gazed into her eyes as he felt a tingling come across his entire form, shuddering from the deep sensation of both cleansing as well as whatever else this ritual went beyond of. Without warning she blasted a puff of smoke into his eyes blinding him briefly, her hand having dug into her pouch sending an odd blast of colour across his vision. Her eyes began to intensify as so did his in turn, feeling the drowsiness overcome him, his eyes not irritated somehow as the dust settled in. Visions began to blur as her voice melded with two males oddly reminiscent. "Rest not upon this mortal shore young soul, for you will soon depart into your storms of darkness, and you must always stay strong to your vessel. Through the sea of your despair, you must travel forth, and find the demon...the demon shall not hunt for you...but you shall hunt for his lair." The raptor watched shadows pass between his vision, one tall and completely black, the other a short dimming green with pale yellow outlines. The three voices began to recite ever louder as somehow the three items from beneath the sheet pulsated with an odd strength deep from within. _"And so you travel through a city of the past, through clouded forests and the warmth of darkness. So you shall find your sins lurking amidst iron horses, your deep desires and greatest needs within dreams unspoken. Across the sea you must traverse, down into the depths where light once shone where you shall meet your other half, hidden amongst the ancient leaves. Go, James Campbell, go forth to your destiny...and embrace eternity." _ Her eyes suddenly became pitch black, nothing existing within them and soon James reflected them, but not like the pure evil blackness in his possession. It was truly nothingness, utter and complete lack of existence as his mind began blurring with terrifying images of red and orange, wires and sinew tearing apart, snatches of horrors as he fell into himself. His thoughts disappeared. The sound of his heart beating was the only comfort he would ever feel.