Chương 259: Book Six, Chapter 21: The Real Night Terror

The rest of the scene was a non-stop onslaught. Isaac, teaming with Ruck and Ramona, managed to move through the rest of the demons and cut through them with ease. To Isaac's credit, he was really good at maintaining a level of fear that made him look more like a scared teenager fighting for his life than a badass, which was good for his character. Demons in skin suits, demons made of props, all lay shattered, their dark shadows emitting whisper-screams.

Eventually, when the last demon fell for the final time, Isaac dropped to his knees, supported only by his pizza paddle, and took a long breather. And then, finally, after what felt like forever, everyone was Off-Screen. I found the stairs that Isaac and Ramona had taken to get down into the pit, and I followed them all the way down. When I found Isaac, I said, "Couldn't have done it better myself." And it was true, because I didn't have the build for it. Ramona hugged me. But then so did Avery. And Ruck.

And as Avery pulled away, I saw a look in her eye. I knew what it meant. There was an awkward pause, and then I asked, "I've been down here before, haven't I?" She pursed their lips, trying to soften the blow. But she nodded her head. It didn't make any sense to me, but this hell felt too familiar. Not just the concept. The corners. The places. The demons. I had seen it all before.

"You've been here about six times," she said. I nodded.

"That sounds about right. Well, no, it doesn't, but here we are." I knew those nightmares were too real. I couldn't explain it, but I had a feeling of dread, something that didn't tie to any particular memory. Yet I knew something bad was coming. The demons had a trope called Night Terror that made it so you could only use your Insight tropes against them in the form of a nightmare. But I was starting to suspect that the details of how that trope came into play weren't so straightforward.

"Something bad is about to happen to me, isn't it?" I asked. Again, Avery nodded.

"Something bad always happens," Ruck said. Avery started to explain, telling me what had happened before. But before she could get more than a few words out, I heard the rumbling, and a memory I didn't even know I had started to piece itself together as I turned around. I remembered running but never being able to escape. There would always be something there, something to kill me before the night was over. And then I would wake up, remembering too little. My nightmares had been filmed in person.

Around us, all of the broken and defeated demons were moving. They weren't walking or crawling. They never actually had to. That was all part of a performance. They were floating. I knew what happened next. I had seen too many movies and TV shows not to.

"What's happening?" Isaac asked.

"Is it a boss fight? Why are we Off-Screen?" I looked at Isaac, but I didn't answer as a realization came to me. We both had one thing in common. Technically, we might have just been dreaming. We weren't dreaming, to be clear. Technically, we could have been. After all, my character was in bed asleep, as far as the audience knew. This whole trip could be nothing more than another night terror. Would I wake up in the morning believing this to be a dream? Barely remembering any of it? Again?

When had I even come down here? How? Had I been dragged here unwillingly, or did I go to sleep in bed and get teleported here? Isaac was in a similar boat, but for a completely different reason. Avery's Dream Girl trope had caused him to dream of warnings and cries for help. And what better warning than what was about to happen? Was it possible that both Isaac and I would die in hell and wake up in our respective beds believing that this was all just a dream?

As the demons started to come together, forming one giant amalgamation of skin suits and pizza parlor props, I believed that was the truth. I still couldn't see the red wallpaper properly, so I couldn't see its tropes. That didn't mean I couldn't read the writing on the wall, so to speak.

"If that thing kills us, we wake up, and it's all a dream, right? Isaac and I?" Ramona and the others' fate was sealed. But Isaac and I could just be dreaming right now.

"I think so," Avery said.

"You never really made much sense. You never remembered."

"Has Isaac been here before?" I asked. She shook her head.

"This is his first time."

"Let's hope it's the only time," I said. We didn't have time for this to all be a dream. We were in the finale. If this were all a dream, then it was all for nothing. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel.

"Isaac, get up," I said.

"We've got another fight on our hands."

"But we're Off-Screen," he said again, in disbelief.

"I don't think that thing cares," I said. The traditional notion was that Off-Screen monsters didn't try to kill you, but that was for the audience's benefit. The audience would never know about this. I had read in The Atlas that at the higher levels, entire battles took place Off-Screen. You would bring in players whose entire job was to go ahead of the story Off-Screen and thin out the mobs so that the On-Screen players would have a chance when they got there. But how could we have a chance against this thing?

It was humongous. Isaac would have to whack at it with his pizza peel for half an hour just to make any progress, and even then, it could probably reform. As the demons finished creating the amalgamation, its form defied all laws of nature. I couldn't describe it as a spider or a centipede. All the individual props had lost many of their distinctive features and started to blend together to create a giant, irregular praying mantis-centipede-spider. You could hardly call its legs "legs."

They jutted out in all the wrong directions, but they functioned just fine. If it were to stay still, it was possible that a person might not even notice it was some sort of monster. They might just think it was a strange sculpture, with skin suits hanging from it at various places, stitched together to form some incomplete cover. Electrical cords dangled from its hind area in a mass of copper wires and plugs, remnants of the various arcade machines that had once been components of individual monsters.

And therein lay the only real idea I had. The electrical cords. I looked around the pit. It was built to mimic the dining room above, and like the dining room above, it had its fair share of those strange stained-glass lamps growing out of the walls instead of the ceiling. I found a group of them, growing like mushrooms, and in their vicinity, I saw what I was looking for: extension cords. Upstairs, when they didn't have a plug-in, they would run an extension cord under the carpet.

When this place copied the upstairs, it copied the extension cords. They shot out of the wall like vines. But did they have electricity running to them? I wasn't sure. But the lamps around them did, so I just had to believe. This was Off-Screen, so the audience wouldn't have an opinion one way or the other. How did the rules change under those conditions? I didn't have time to think about it.

"Isaac, get its attention and then try to back it against that wall with all the lamps," I said.

"How do I do that?" he asked.

"Make fun of it," I said. He even had a trope for debuffing an enemy with insults. The question was: what was this demon amalgamation sensitive about? I tried to think back, but I came up blank. Isaac leapt into action and ran toward the abomination.

"You're not exactly proving Elidel wrong here, you know," he said loudly to the creature.

"Didn't he cast you into the fire because he saw you as a failed creation?" He gestured toward the creature generally.

"I mean... he kind of had a point." Oh, right, Isaac's character's family was religious. Had he been reading scripture without me explicitly telling him to? Maybe he was growing as a player. Whatever the case, he definitely had the creature's attention. It lashed out at him. Isaac had focused on Moxie and Grit, both more so than Hustle, so that meant he could definitely capture its attention. And he could take a hit, theoretically. But dodging? That was a different question.

I couldn't see the thing on the red wallpaper. I didn't know its Plot Armor. I couldn't see anything. It was still dark. I started to run toward the back wall, where the extension cords lazily hung down to the floor. I grabbed one, hoping that there would be more slack, and I got lucky. The cord pulled further out of the wall. Behind me, Ramona had followed. I hadn't meant for that. She grabbed another extension cord and did the same thing I was.

As much as I wanted her to stay safe, it occurred to me that she might be safer than I was, because she wasn't potentially just having a nightmare. Any damage she took would be permanent. And I didn't care how big of a rules lawyer these demons were, a fate worse than death did not allow them to kill. Not permanently. Even as we pulled, the extension cords could only go so far. We needed the creature to get closer. The amalgamation, in one swift motion, knocked Isaac twenty feet, tumbling end over end.

He didn't get back up. Something was sticking out of his suit. A spike. A knife. Something shiny. His Dead indicator on the red wallpaper began to light up, flickering fast. But then I heard something. My headphones were around my neck so I could kind of listen to what might be happening On-Screen. And what I heard was Cassie.

"Elidel," she cried out, in tears, "please, something is happening. Isaac is in trouble. I don't know where he is. He didn't come home. I have the worst feeling. Please help him, wherever he is." She was sobbing for a few seconds before she began to speak again.

"He's my brother. He's my little brother. If something's happened to him, I don't know what I'll do. Please, Elidel, whatever it takes, take me instead." Her crying intensified.

"Take me instead," she added again. The amalgamation had lumbered over toward Isaac's body, almost close enough for us to reach. It picked him up with something that looked like a hand… but a hand from a child's drawing. Cassie continued to pray toward the God of this storyline. She was using it as cover, activating her Anguish trope, which would have told her that Isaac was injured and given her the ability to share his pain in hopes that he might survive.

I imagined she had once again activated her Empathic Shield to increase his Grit. She was doing everything she could to help him survive, all the way up above. He hung limply from the hand of the creature in his fire ferret costume. I pulled on my extension cord, but it wasn't long enough.

"Hold this," I said to Ramona, handing her my cord. And then I ran toward the beast, toward where its massive cables dangled. I needed one that had a plug end on it. Actually, I needed two. This creature was composed of so many different props, many of which used electricity, that it was hard to pick as the creature moved. But as it contemplated whatever it was about to do to Isaac, it was perfectly still. I grabbed two of the cords dangling from the mass and ran back toward Ramona.

I handed her one and then grabbed a cord from her, and we both plugged the monster into the power cords. There was a reason I put so many points in Savvy. Sometimes, you just need a silly plan to work. And it wasn't like the audience would know either way. The creature came to life as electricity flowed from the power cords into its own cords. Lightning jolted between its jutting limbs, and soon it caught aflame from the electricity. It dropped Isaac, and he fell ten feet to the ground.

Ruck was on him, dragging him to safety as fast as he could. I didn't know if my plan was going to work, if the electricity would be enough. Then I heard a crackling voice. Not coming from my headphones. It was Isaac.

"What kind of demon can be hurt by fire?" he said, pushing through the pain.

"Don't you live in hell?" And as he said that, the electrical fire grew. He had just debuffed the monster again with an insult while simultaneously activating his If He's Still Cracking Jokes trope. He sat up, right there where Ruck had laid him, and pulled the metal barb out of his suit.

"That was a close one," he said, looking over at me as Ramona and I walked over to him. Of course, the barb hadn't missed him originally, but that's how healing worked in Carousel. Revealing that the metal barb had missed (even though it might not have), instead of just having him regrow internal organs. The amalgamation shrank and pulled back. As it moved, the electrical cords came unplugged, but the damage was done.

The fire was still ablaze as the gigantic creature sank against the wall, crumbling as black smoke filled the sky, screaming into the void. I patted Isaac on the back. Then I turned back to Ramona, and I kissed her.

"You know the audience isn't watching, right?" she said, talking through a lump in her throat.

"I guess we'll have to do it again later," I said with a wink. We watched as the amalgamation burned, and all the props turned to ash. Except for one. What remained from the very center of the creature, something I had not even seen before, was a safe. Not a fancy safe, but the kind that you would drop money into in the office, so that it could be deposited later. The door to the safe hung ajar.