8. Not So Sweet Dreams
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Egg Hunter: Cluster Headache

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Chapter 8: Not So Sweet Dreams

Content warnings for this chapter:

Spoiler

Homophobia, Transphobia and Child Abuse

[collapse]

 

Hunter refrained from slamming the door behind him as he returned to his bedroom then flopped face first into his bed. Chewing those tea leaves had eased the headache but that did little to help his mood. He felt so tired and he was sure that Mamata had kept his body awake for too long last night or maybe even stayed up the entire night just like Eternity had. 

 

There was more to it though than just physical tiredness from lack of sleep or mental tiredness from exhausting his psychic energy. He was used to those well enough to recognize them. Instead, there was a different kind of tiredness that was overwhelming him which he didn’t recognize. Almost like being emotionally tired or something… whatever it was, Hunter wasn’t sure what to do about it. 

 

Escaping back into his mind was one option, but he felt like he shouldn’t. Almost like that was some kind of easy way out. It was probably an option though. He didn’t feel like this when he was in his headspace. It had only started up when he returned to his body. That wasn’t really a long term solution though. 

 

Sure, he could send Mamata back to the front and make her deal with it for now, but she wasn’t going to be around forever… was she? Eternity was a complete outsider so it was only natural for him to leave as soon as they found his real body, if it really existed, but Mamata was different. She didn’t have a real body to go back to. She was born in Hunter’s mind for reasons unknown and so his body was her ‘real body’.

 

Hunter thought back to those websites about plurality that he had looked at with Zoey yesterday. He was definitely going to need to go over those again to learn as he could barely remember what they had even read about. The best that he could recall was some of the terminology, but what he really needed was going to be advice on how to live if this was going to be his new status quo. 

 

He pushed that thought to the back of his mind for the time being. A shower was probably what he needed to feel better. A nice hot shower… they were usually relaxing but for some reason Hunter felt… trepidation? The idea of getting naked and taking a shower was making him uneasy and he wasn’t too sure why. Maybe it was because he had two people who could see everything if they were feeling nosey. It was something that he was going to have to get used to at some point though.

 

Hunter rushed through taking a shower faster than he usually would. He didn’t relax under the hot water like he had planned to, instead throwing on a shower cap and then soaping up and rinsing off as quickly as he could. Both before and after the shower, he avoided looking at the bathroom mirror because the memory of Eternity's illusion was still stuck in his mind.

 

He felt off and he had a distinct feeling that seeing his reflection would make things worse. He hoped that the feeling would go away soon. Avoiding looking in the mirror wasn’t something he could keep up long term. It would always be there every time he went to the bathroom or took a shower and this was not something that he could foist off on Mamata.

 

Unlike him, Mamata actually was a girl. He didn’t know if she thought of herself as trans, but he didn’t want her to have to wash his body and get a real taste of gender dysphoria. Hunter knew well enough that looking at their own naked body triggered major dysphoria for a lot of trans girls. He couldn’t put Mamata through that just because he was feeling uncomfortable looking in the mirror.

 

Hunter~? Are you okay up there~?

 

Speak of the devil…

 

I’m perfectly fine… but if you wanted to front again, I’d be okay with that… as long as you take it easy until it’s time to leave, Hunter responded back to Mamata mentally as he toweled himself off.

 

Sure~

 

Hunter’s view of the bathroom was suddenly torn away as the helmet was lifted from his head. He was sitting in the captain’s chair on the bridge once more despite not even using it to enter his body.

 

“You alright~?” Mamata asked as she offered him a hand up. Seeing her once again brought up that memory of the illusion in the mirror.

 

“I already said I was fine…” Hunter turned to look over his shoulder, trying to break eye contact with her, and was rewarded by whacking his face into the gigantic headset. It didn’t hurt but it was more than enough to surprise him.

 

Mamata giggled at his accident and something in Hunter snapped. He had had enough of this damn, stupid Thing. It was ugly and ridiculous and why Eternity had thought that making it was a good idea was something he’d never understand. But most of all, this eyesore of a VR helmet was just another reminder that Eternity was doing whatever he wanted to Hunter and Hunter was getting sick of it.

 

Hunter grabbed at the headset which hung from the ceiling on a robot arm and he pulled with all of his strength. All of the frustration of Eternity remodeling his mind without asking, the illusion in the mirror which messed with his head, and the absolute gall to flirt with him only to leave him hanging or ruin the moment with an immature comment. Hunter channeled all of that anger into ripping this monstrosity into pieces…after a few moments of impotent pulling though, the headset was still fully intact.

 

Hunter weakly let go of the machine which foiled his attempt at venting his frustrations. It would have felt so cathartic…

 

With a wave of his arm, the headset as well as the rest of the captain’s chair vanished, erased from existence with only a thought. It was effective but unsatisfying…

 

“Umm~ How am I supposed to front now~?” Mamata asked as she stared at the gap that the chair used to occupy.

 

“Just… walk into the screen…” Hunter responded before a realization overcame him, “You uh, might want to hold off on that though until I finish drying off and getting dressed first!”

 

“Nah~ That’s okay~ I’ll take care of that for you~!”

 

That… wasn’t the response he expected from her. Part of Hunter was worried that getting dressed would trigger some dysphoria for Mamata, but he didn’t want to force her to stay here so he could do it himself. Instead, he just accepted that she would have to find out the hard way what dysphoria would feel like. At least Hunter had experience at helping girls going through dysphoria induced depression spirals.

 

“Okay then… just be careful. My body’s pretty exhausted right now thanks to you and Eternity.”

 

“Figures~ But don’t worry~! I’ve looked into self-care, so I think I can manage to help our body feel less tired~” 

 

“Right…Just don’t do any psychic stuff until I say it’s okay to.” Hunter warned.

 

“Yeah yeah~ Sure thing, Mom~! I’ll make sure to be home by bedtime too~” Mamata sassed back with an eye roll as she stepped through the screen and into the body.

 

That comeback made Hunter pause. He wasn’t acting like his mother, was he? That couldn’t be! His mom was a control freak and he was just… feeling entitled to make choices about his body. There wasn’t anything wrong with that… he was here first. It was his body…

 

It was his body, his head, his rules! But… other than warning Mamata against using up his psychic energy, it wasn’t like he was actually some kind of control freak. He couldn’t even think of any rules to impose at the moment.

 

A glance back at the gap where the captain chair had sat reminded him that it would probably need some sort of replacement. That was something that he could do to assert his influence over his headspace once again!

 

The original chair that Eternity had made was blocky, outdated, and ugly, which meant that Hunter would have to make its replacement the complete opposite! Sleek and modern and more importantly it needed to be comfortable!

 

With a bit of concentration, a new chair appeared in the place of the old one. One that was white, shiny, and looked like it belonged more in an Apple store than the satellite that Eternity had made. Hunter couldn’t help but facepalm at the realization that it stuck out like a sore thumb and almost looked worse than the original one. This was actually harder than he thought. With another wave, his new chair vanished and Hunter once more thought about what would actually look good in its place. In the end, he decided to make a chair that matched the other two stations on the bridge, only this one was a bit bigger and with more padding. 

 

He threw a clean desk in front of it for the time being. He could vaguely remember that Eternity had created a glove with buttons on it to go with the chair, but Hunter had no clue what functions were supposed to be on it. Whatever they were could be figured out later and just added as buttons to the countertop.

 

The final thing that Hunter created was a replacement for the headset itself. Rather than a clunky VR headset the size of a truck tire, Hunter decided that the simplistic route might work for this part. In the end, Hunter created a thin silver band which looked more like a halo than anything else. Hunter held it above the new chair and let it go and watched as the ring hovered in the air by itself.

 

Hunter took a moment to admire his work. This time it looked much better than his first attempt. When he finished confirming that this one didn’t look any more out of place than the rest of the bridge’s decorations, he finally felt satisfied. This was something that he made and it was a symbol of his authority over the headspace. It wasn’t much, but it was a small reminder that he was the one with the final say about what got to exist in his headspace.

 

Hunter started heading to the elevator to go back down to the kitchen, but he couldn’t help taking another look at his handiwork. To his surprise, at some point when he had turned his back to it, Mamata had appeared in the chair. The halo that he created had expanded itself and now floated around her head, circling over her eyes and ears. 

 

It surprisingly looked even better in use than he had expected and the small rush of achievement that he felt from that put him in the mood to make even more adjustments to the headspace. That could wait a short bit longer though… first, he needed to make sure that Eternity knew not to waste his energy again.

 

As Hunter stepped out of the elevator into the kitchen, he decided that that was going to be the next change he would make. Maybe replace it with stairs? At the very least he was going to get rid of that ‘Out Of Order’ sign.

 

The thought was interrupted when he finally saw Eternity again, who was now laying face first in the pile of unicorn pancakes. Whipped cream was splattered all over the table and as he got closer, he could see that someone had drawn a smiley face in the whipped cream.

 

Hunter let out a sigh and gently patted Eternity on the back to get his attention, “You good there buddy?”

 

“Muhhuh? Oh, hey babe… I’m fiiiii-” Eternity had barely lifted his head up before it fell back into the mess of food, “I’m fine!” He jolted back up and combed his hair out of his face with his fingers, spreading the cream around even more as he did.

 

“I’m not buying it…” Hunter said as he willed the mess of pancakes to disappear. The plate of pancakes as well as the cream that was all over the table vanished, but the action did nothing to clean up the food that was on Eternity’s face. “You look dead tired, and I imagine that that psychic trick you pulled earlier took more out of you then you expected.”

 

Hunter summoned a towel into existence and threw it at Eternity’s face, “It also took a hell of a lot out of me, so I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that again in the future!” He said in his best attempt at a stern tone.

 

“Mmmyeh… noted.” Eternity said with a thumbs up and he weakly rubbed the towel across his face once then dropped it to the floor. It didn’t do much for his face but Hunter figured that with how easy it is to erase anything in here, cleanup wasn’t that much of a hassle anyways. 

 

“Can I get some help back to my room?” Eternity asked. He looked at Hunter with what might have been puppy dog eyes but it did little to invoke much sympathy out of Hunter. Instead Hunter silently hoped that the kid Mamata agreed to babysit would be less of a messy eater than Eternity was.

 

Hunter rolled his eyes, “Can’t you just walk? Or float your way over if walking is too much effort?”

 

“Float? Whaddaya mea- Oh yeah!” Eternity stood up from his seat and immediately fell face first into the carpeted floor of the kitchen.

 

Who even puts carpet in the kitchen? Probably the same kind of sociopath that puts carpet in bathrooms… At least it probably cushioned the fall a bit. Knowing that there was no real risk of Eternity getting injured by the fall, Hunter couldn’t help but break into a small fit of giggles. 

 

He usually wasn’t one for schadenfreude but giving the circumstances he couldn’t stop the smile from creeping onto his face. The irony that Eternity could do complex illusions that were able to be seen by other people but not make himself float in headspace wasn’t lost on him. He would have chalked it up to burnout but such simple headspace manipulation didn’t actually expend any psychic energy. Simple things like that weren't all that different from lucid dreaming. Anyone could learn to do it with a bit of effort, you didn’t even need to be a psychic.

 

“I dun thimk I can do tha…” Eternity mumbled through a mouthful of carpet before finally turning his head and taking a deep breath, “Can I get sum help please?”

 

Hunter tried lifting Eternity telekinetically, but just like with the food on his face, Eternity’s body resisted Hunter’s attempts at affecting it.

 

That… is odd and frustrating… Let’s try this instead!

 

With a thought, instead of trying to lift Eternity up, Hunter tore apart the kitchen carpet and made the section underneath him float up. This time it worked and as the magic carpet rose up into the air, Eternity was lifted up on top of it.

 

“He can fly!” Hunter joked.

 

“Who’s he? Is it Peter Pan? Are you Tinklebear?” Eternity looked sleepily confused as it took him a bit to realize that he was floating suddenly, “Does this make me Wedny? …Wednesday? …The British gir-” The thought was cut off by a loud yawn and Eternity started drifting off again.

 

“Hey hey hey! Mr Stowaway! Stop crashing on me and tell me where your room is!”

 

“L- *yawn* Last storage room door, right before the *yawn* engine room.” Eternity responded with a point down the hallway. A moment later, his arm fell and hung limply over the edge of the carpet

 

Hunter rolled his eyes in annoyance and pushed the flying carpet forward into the lower level’s hallway. The door to the hallway opened automatically as they neared and Hunter was thankful that this hall didn’t have some wacky gimmick set up like the upper level’s hallway did. There was something off about it though as the door slid to the right and kept sliding and sliding… and sliding… before finally being open fully. It felt like the door was pointlessly wider than the hallway itself. Probably wider than the satellite itself.

 

“What is the deal with this now?” Hunter asked, not expecting an answer.

 

“You like it? I spent about a half-hour *yawn* rigging it up last night.” 

 

“What is the point?”

 

“You know those rolling backgrounds that they had on sets in old movies to make it look like the actors were *yawn* moving when they really weren't?” Eternity mumbled, “I wanted to make something like that outside the windows to make it look like we’re speeding through space *yawn* but needed some practice first which is why I made the door do this. It’s like one of those rolling garage doors *yawn* but sideways. There are spools in the corner that the door winds around.”

 

“Why though? Why make the door stupidly wide when it just needed to be as wide as the door frame?”

 

“*yawn* Needed to see how much fit onto one spool…”

 

Hunter gave up on trying to see the logic in it. At least he could let himself be somewhat impressed at the effort Eternity had spent in engineering the contraption when it would have been so much easier instead to just will normal physics not to apply. There was no need to know how much could fit onto a spool if you just ignored the rules of geometry and had the door slide into an infinite void on the side of the doorframe.

 

Hunter followed the bends of the hallway, past four other rooms until he got to the final door just before the entrance to the engine room. With how close the doors were to one another, he would have thought that these rooms were less than half the size of his own. At least these doors all looked like normal doors.

 

As Hunter opened the door to fly the carpet through, he realized that the room on the other side did not match up with the post-apocalyptic sci-fi warrior image that Eternity had been putting up. The room was remarkably cozy, with super plush carpeting and a loft on one right side of the room. The left wall had a tacky and cartoonish night sky wallpaper while the opposite wall, the one closest to the engine room, was just bare brownish metal.

 

There wasn’t a bed that Hunter could see. The floor was instead covered in children's toys while the loft had what looked like a giant rodent nest made of scraps of blankets in the corner between two bookshelves. There was a hammock across from the loft, but that was full of dozens of plushies.

 

“Where do you even sleep?” Hunter asked.

 

“*yawn* in the nest of course… Where else would I sleep?” 

 

“Right…” Hunter waited for Eternity to get down from the floating carpet but after a few moments it became apparent that Eternity wasn’t going to move under his own power. As he waited for Eternity to get down, Hunter decided to take a look around. 

 

It looked like someone had been playing with the toys on the floor not too long ago. There was a castle made of wooden blocks on one side upon which a giant gorilla toy was climbing up while holding a barbie doll hostage in one hand. Across from the castle, four Bionicle figures looked to be coming to her rescue. Two were riding on top of a plastic dump truck, one was on the back of a triceratops, and the last was sitting on top of an RC car.

 

Past the toys on the floor was an old looking TV stand with an oversized CRT on it. The stand had a few shelves built into it and on those, Hunter found dozens of VHS tapes. Some of the movies made sense for Eternity like the various Sci-fi flicks: Terminator 2, Alien, Tank Girl, The Matrix, Johnny Mnemonic, Star Wars, Flash Gordon and… Clockwork Orange? That seemed a weird addition to the collection, as was the film next to it that Hunter had never even heard of… some movie called Brazil. The shelves on the opposite side of the TV had a massive, and seemingly complete, collection of old Scooby Doo cartoons

 

Seeing that Eternity still hadn’t made a move off the carpet, Hunter floated it up toward the loft and then unceremoniously let one end of it fall. Eternity rolled off the carpet and landed lopsided in the nest.

 

Hunter let out a sigh and bemoaned the fact that he didn’t seem to be able to just move Eternity directly. He climbed the stairs and struggled to reorient Eternity but after a bit of effort, Eternity finally moved on his own to curl up into the nest.

 

If this was a cheesy anime or webnovel, Hunter figured that this would be the scene where he sneakily steals a kiss from the sleeping love interest. But this was the real world and Hunter would never do something like that. Instead he continued to be nosey and took a look at the bookshelves around the nest.

 

Most of the shelves were surprisingly covered in detective novels, including just about every Agatha Christie novel that Hunter knew about as well as Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys, and three different printings of Sherlock Holmes compendiums. There were much fewer Sci-fi novels on the shelves, none of them sounding familiar… Neuromancer, Count Zero, Mona Lisa Overdrive? That last one was kinda a mouthful and Hunter couldn’t even begin to guess at what it might be about based on the title alone.

 

“Didn’t know you were such a mystery fan, Eternity…” Hunter mused as he continued snooping through the bookshelves, “Certainly wouldn’t have thought that you were a Nancy Drew fan.”

 

Hunter spotted a Nancy Drew novel that he remembered reading as a kid and pulled it from the shelf out of nostalgia. The cover was worn and clearly something that had been read dozens of times. He opened the book up but stopped as he noticed the random page that he had opened to was almost half blank.

 

There were some complete paragraphs and scattered sentences, but there were random words missing from most of them and large chunks where there was just nothing printed on the page. Hunter skimmed through a few pages and found that most of them were similarly incomplete. Several pages were even almost blank, with only a few words on them without any context. One of the pages ironically stuck out due to what the only line on it said: ‘Something's missing here, but... what?’. 

 

Hunter reached out for one of the other books to see if they were the same. The second Nancy Drew novel that he grabbed was more complete but still had scattered words and paragraphs missing from it. He reached for one of the Agatha Christie books and to his surprise, only the title on the spine was readable. The cover of the book itself was a blurry mess of colors and the inside was completely blank aside from the first page.

 

Hunter grabbed for another Agatha Christie book and then one of the Hardy Boys. Both of these had real covers but were missing most of the words from inside them. Hunter didn’t even bother opening the books anymore and just looked at cover after cover. Most of the books that he grabbed were blurry nonsense, with the Nancy Drew books making up the bulk of the ones which weren’t. 

 

The entire thing was bizarre. Almost like most of the books were just there for show and their creator didn’t know a thing about the books themselves other than the titles.

 

Hunter put all the books back where he found them and then took a look to confirm that Eternity appeared to still be sleeping. He still was, so Hunter turned his attention to the movie collection next.

 

Hunter reached out and grabbed the tape that looked most out of place, A Clockwork Orange. As he pulled the VHS tape out of its cardboard sleeve, he discovered that there wasn’t actually a tape inside. It was just a plastic drawer in the shape of a VHS tape which hid a single pamphlet with the title ‘Women Are Objects!’

 

That was… concerning…

 

Hunter grabbed another tape, The Matrix this time, but found a real VHS tape inside. A sudden snore startled Hunter who quickly put the tape back in its sleeve and on the shelf. He kept the fake tape for A Clockwork Orange though. The pamphlet in there was strange and Hunter needed to take a closer look at it.

 

Hunter made his way back up to the loft and stared at the sleeping Eternity as he tried to figure out just what his deal was.

 

Why do you have a bunch of fake books on your shelves? Are they just for show? Some kind of act that you’re putting on?

 

Are the toys just for show too or were you actually playing with them? And that pamphlet…?

 

What is your deal?

 

As he stared at the sleeping boy, Hunter’s attention was suddenly drawn to a gap between the two bookshelves that was mostly covered up by the next. There was a hole back there… a disguised hole that you wouldn’t be able to get to without moving the nest out of the way.

 

Well… you wouldn’t be able to get to it if this was reality. With a thought, Hunter teleported himself past the nest and found himself in a brightly colored plastic tube that looked like it belonged in a Chuck E. Cheese rather than a spacecraft. 

 

The tube was cramped… child sized really… but Hunter had a solution to that too. With a thought, his body began transforming, shrinking and sprouting fur until he was a brown version of the rabbit form he had used when he visited Mark’s mind. He was now the perfect size to traverse the tunnel without crawling on his hands and knees.

 

Hunter made his way down the plastic tunnel which changed to different colors every five feet. After about roughly a minute, he came up to a T-intersection. 

 

Stick to the left?

 

Hunter went left and continued down the tunnel another hundred feet or so before the realization suddenly came to him. The hole he crawled into wasn’t too far from the edge of the satellite. A left turn should have gone off into space after only a few feet. Was there a big mess of plastic tubes sticking out the side of their satellite? 

 

Hunter ignored the thought until he came to another intersection.

 

Great… a freaking maze. Just keep sticking left and you won’t get lost. That’s how it works right?

 

Hunter turned left and was surprised to find the tunnel curved to the left only a few feet past the intersection. He followed the tunnel as it made another left turn a few feet down, then another left turn after a few more feet… and another left turn… and another left turn.

 

The tube wasn’t angled upwards or downwards or anything so he must have been going in circles. Except the tubes weren’t connected to each other.

 

Damn, liminal spaces!

 

Hunter cursed in his head. It was only a few minutes ago that he thought Eternity was being foolish for sticking to regular physics. Turns out the brat was also experimenting with adding non-euclidean spaces to Hunter’s head. Just perfect!

 

“What the hell is he hiding back here?” Hunter wondered aloud as the tunnel continued spiraling in the same direction. The pamphlet was weird enough, as were the fake books on the shelves and this hidden maze. Hunter needed to know what Eternity’s deal was but after going in circles for a few more minutes, he realized that he just needed to give up.

 

He turned around, ready to go back the way he came from and found… another left turn? That wasn’t right? If he was going left this whole time then going backwards should be going right instead… but this wasn’t right at all. Hunter turned back to look in the direction he was originally going but found that the tunnel suddenly ended behind him. No, that wasn’t right either. The tunnel didn’t quite end… there was a pit there instead. The tunnel turned downward now.

 

Hunter thought about teleporting out of the maze to return to somewhere that made sense but the desire to figure out whatever Eternity was hiding was too strong. Hunter decided to keep going and jumped down the hole.

 

The fall was surprisingly short, barely a couple of feet, but Hunter discovered that he wasn’t in the tunnels anymore. Instead he was standing right in the middle of a normal bedroom. 

 

There was a twin sized bed that had sheets covered in a stars and moon pattern, plastic glow-in-the-dark stars stuck to the popcorn ceiling, and as he turned around, he saw a chalk outline drawn on the floor. An outline of someone who looked like they were torn in half at the stomach.

 

There was no body in the outline but there was blood inside of it. There was also a scrap of paper next to it with the words ‘Who killed Missus Clawford?’ written on it.

 

“Who is Missus Clawford?” Hunter asked aloud.

 

“That would be me.” 

 

A deep feminine voice coming from behind him shocked Hunter. His head whipped around and suddenly he wasn’t in that bedroom anymore. He was in a concrete hallway that had a line of life-sized barbie dolls standing on the other side of a red velvet rope. At the end… or front (?) of the line stood a wolf-girl in a denim jacket with the sleeves ripped off.

 

“What do you need? Unless you have a backstage pass, I’m gonna need you to wait in line to see The Hex Girls just like everyone else.” The wolf-girl spoke in the same deep voice that he had heard just a moment ago.

 

The Barbie dolls towered over Hunter’s rabbit form but this wolf-girl towered over them just as much as they did over him. She had to be almost 8 or 9 feet tall by Hunter’s guess.

 

The wolf approached Hunter with a growl and suddenly grabbed him by the collar, “I asked what you wanted with me!?”

 

Being lifted into the air like that started choking Hunter so he grabbed onto her arm to try to get out of the hold… and suddenly he was back in the bedroom. The line of barbies were gone, the chalk outline on the floor was gone, and he was suddenly holding a small plush wolf in his hand. He was also wearing a comically childish pink princess dress…

 

A door slammed open suddenly and Hunter turned to find a large man entering the bedroom. The man was hunchbacked, with green skin, brown hair, and an oversized green suit.

 

“Jeepers! It’s the creeper! Run Missus Clawford!” The voice of a young girl sounded out right behind Hunter, but when he turned, there was no one there.

 

“Goddamn it kid! What have I told you about playing these queer ass, faggy make believe games!” A deep voice growled behind him.

 

Hunter turned just in time to see the green man was right on top of him. He didn’t have a chance to react as a slap from the man hit him right across the face. Hunter fell hard and blood splattered across the floor of the bedroom.

 

He didn’t have time to orient himself again before he was grabbed by the collar again and the man ripped the wolf plush out of his hand.

 

“Nooo! Give her back!” The young girl’s voice cried out again.

 

“Shut your whining, you lil pansy!” The green man shoved Hunter to the floor hard, and as he hit the ground, the princess costume vanished.

 

“I told you what I was going to do if you kept this crap up instead of training!” 

 

“NOOO! Uncle Marv, DON’T! I promise that I’ll behave!!! I swear!”

 

“Oh, I’ll make sure of it!” The man snarled as he ripped the wolf plush in half and tossed it to the floor. The pieces landed in the small puddle of blood, right in the spot where the chalk outline had been when Hunter first arrived.

 

The girl let out a heart wrenching scream as the room suddenly faded to black.

 

Just as quickly, light returned to the room but everything was in black and white and jazz noir started playing from somewhere. The chalk outline was on the floor again with the pieces of the wolf plush laying where they were thrown. The only color that Hunter could make out was the red blood on the floor.

 

Tsk tsk. Always a shame when this happens to a broad…

 

The bedroom door opened once again and Eternity walked in, only this time he wasn’t wearing his silver spacesuit. Eternity was dressed in a black suit without the jacket. There was a fedora on his head and a lit cigar in his mouth.

 

“Eternity?” Hunter asked, “Marvin!? What the hell is going on here!?”

 

Eternity ignored Hunter’s shouted question and squatted next to the chalk outline.

 

I’d seen the dame just three days prior. She’d come into my office telling me that someone was after her life and here she is now. It seems she was right…

 

Eternity’s voice was deeper than usual and he still paid no attention to Hunter. His lips didn’t even move as he continued speaking.

 

I made the right call by deciding to tail her. I’d half expected her to lead me a kitchen… a woman’s natural habitat… but the kitchen that doll led me to didn’t cook burgers or pasta. This kitchen cooked meth.

 

“Eternity! Stop with this crap already and tell me what’s going on!”

 

Eternity stood up and walked over to a desk where an oversized office printer stood.

 

The kitchen didn’t just make Meth either. It also made dough, it seems…

 

It also seems like I wasn’t the only person to find this crime scene.

 

The bedroom door slammed open and the man in green walked in again.

 

“If it isn’t the chief of police… Do you know anything about our suspects?” Eternity spoke aloud and he turned to face the green man.

 

The man rolled his eyes and said, “I told ya boy, I don’t give a crap about your sissy games!”

 

The men on the force called him Uncle Marv. He was the no nonsense type that took his job seriously and his men respected him for it. It kept them alive!

 

“Goddamit boy!” The man cursed under his breath, “As you were… detective…” The man forced out through gritted teeth. “I’m just here to collect the evidence and I’ll be on my way.”

 

Eternity waved his hand at the printer and the man walked up to it and picked up a stack of money. 

 

I’d let the cops handle the counterfeit bills and the drugs. For me, the only thing that mattered was finding justice for this gal. Bringing her murderer to the station should be enough to let her wife and kids sleep soundly once more…

 

“Oh hoh hoh!” The man burst out in laughter as a greedy smile crept up onto his face, “Good job kiddo! Illusions that you can touch! You can’t even tell that they aren’t real!”

 

“Thanks Uncle Marv!” The girl’s voice said happily. 

 

The man in green scowled and loomed over Eternity, “If I have to tell you one more-”

 

Everything faded to black once again and as the light returned, Eternity and the man were both gone and the room appeared as it did when Hunter first fell down the hole. The only thing different this time was the stinging pain in Hunter’s cheek from where ‘Uncle Marv’ had slapped him. Hunter gently held his face and could feel that a tooth had been knocked out.

 

He decided that he had had enough exploration for the day and teleported out of the maze back to his own bedroom on the satellite. He morphed back into the human form he had crafted earlier that moment and collapsed onto his bed.

 

The only things that he had come away with from that experience was a swollen cheek and a whole lot more questions. 

 

And also this thing… Hunter thought as he pulled the pamphlet out of his pocket. ‘Women are objects’!? What kind of sociopath even made something like this!?

 

Hunter pulled out the compact that Eternity had given him and checked on what his body was currently doing. Mamata seemed to have things under control at the moment. She had gotten dressed in thankfully normal men’s clothes and was in the middle of cleaning up the mess in the kitchen. And that meant… there was nothing for Hunter to do.

 

Any other day, Hunter would be getting ready for work while messing around on the internet, but Mamata was controlling their body right now and headspace didn’t have an internet connection. Eternity was asleep now, so it wasn’t like they could chat or something.

 

Was there anything that he could even do in here? He’d seen most of what Eternity had made in his head and he wasn’t inclined to waste time playing with all the mechanical gimmicks that Eternity had come up with.

 

What did Mamata even do before Eternity added all of this stuff? Nothing? Could Hunter just do nothing? Do nothing and just… relax? Relaxing would be a good idea, but how did people even relax normally without the internet to browse or a TV to watch?

 

He did already make the largest bathtub that he could think of in his bathroom. He used to love reading in the bath for hours on end. It was the one place where he didn’t need to worry about someone bursting in on him without warning. People respected the privacy of the bathroom and always knocked before entering. His parents rarely showed his bedroom the same respect when he was growing up.

 

A bath did sound like it would be relaxing… he could summon up some bath bombs too! That would be great!

 

Hunter didn’t have to wait for water to heat or the tub to fill up. All it took was a thought for the large tub to fill to the top with near scalding water and another thought to make the water covered in bright blue and pink fizzy bubbles.

 

He started stripping but as he pulled off his shorts, he caught sight of his reflection in the bathroom mirror and couldn’t help but pause and stare at his nude body. The package that he was used to seeing on himself wasn’t there anymore. He knew that he hadn’t put it back on as he tweaked Mamata’s avatar for his own use, but this was the first time that he actually saw what he looked like without it… and he couldn’t stop staring.

 

For a minute, Hunter just stood there staring at his own privates in the mirror. This should have been the moment that Hunter confirmed that he really was just a terrible pervert, but at the same moment that thought came to him, he also realized that he wasn’t aroused in the least bit. He just felt… normal. The sight of his own body fascinated him, but he couldn’t figure out why he was so interested in it if it wasn’t sexual.

 

His reflection captivated him, but he couldn’t just stare at himself forever. Eventually, Hunter was done looking at himself and hopped into the bathtub. Instantly, he felt the heat of the water permeate throughout his body. It was scaldingly hot and if this was reality his skin would be turning red, but it also felt amazing to just let the heat be absorbed into himself.

 

Hunter closed his eyes and leaned back, submerging himself up to his head. He let the bath do it’s magic as he felt like his muscles were loosening and his pores were sweating out impurities. He could fall asleep from how comfortable he felt… but he didn’t want to go back to sleep. He had a meeting soon after all.

 

Somewhat reluctantly, Hunter made the bathwater cool off until it was merely lukewarm. It was still relaxing but no longer lulling him to sleep. Idly, Hunter’s mind went back to the things that he had seen in Eternity’s room. Was that girl’s voice that he heard coming from Eternity, or was it someone else’s? The way that green man acted, it seemed like that could have been Eternity. But who even was that man? He was dressed like one of the classic Scooby Doo monsters… The Creeper… was there some kind of significance behind that?

 

Experiencing someone else’s memories like that was usually disorienting and often subjective, making them unreliable at face value. Hunter had experienced things like that when diving into others' heads in the past, but he never would have expected something like that to happen in his own mind.

 

He decided to put those thoughts away for now as they were counterproductive to his relaxation. Instead his thoughts wandered back to that first Nancy Drew novel that he had grabbed. It was one that he loved as a kid and he also loved reading in the bath as a kid too.

 

With a nostalgic smile, Hunter recreated a copy of that book from his memory and began reading as he let himself relax once more. As he read, he noticed that his own copy was incomplete just like Eternity’s had been, but missing things in different places. He supposed that it did make sense. It had been years since he’d read it and while he remembered a lot of the story, he didn’t have an eidetic memory so it was natural for him to have gaps in what he could recall.

 

Hunter lost track of time as he read through the story again, glossing over the parts that were missing or trying to think about what could have happened based on the context that followed. It was a surprisingly enjoyable exercise that gradually filled in a few of the gaps as he thought about the story more and more. His fun was eventually interrupted though as the sound of the apartment’s doorbell echoed throughout his headspace.

 

They’re here!!!

 

The joy that he could hear in Mamata’s voice brought another smile to his face but that doorbell also meant that relaxation time was over. With a thought, the water drained from the tub and Hunter’s clothes reappeared on his body. With another thought, he teleported up to the bridge just in time to see on the screen the moment that Mamata opened the door to see his coworker Fran with her niece, Robbie. 

 

“Hunter! Thank you so much for helping to arrange the babysitter for me!” Francene said quickly. One hand was holding Robbie’s but the other had her phone right against her cheek. 

 

“I am so sorry to hear about your grandmother being in the hospital and I really hope that she gets well soo- Yes! Yes, sir! I’m on my way right now! I’ll be there in less than 20 minutes!”

 

As Fran hung up her phone, she gave them an apologetic smile and ushered Robbie into the apartment, “I am so sorry to have to rush out of here, but apparently there was a small emergency over the holiday and the boss needs me to be at the office five minutes ago. Again, thank you two so much!”

 

Fran was speaking at a rapid pace and needed to take a few breaths before leaning down and patting Robbie on the head, “Robbie, I need you to be a good boy today and behave for your teacher, Mr. Crawford. Don’t break anything in his apartment, please. Can you do that for me?”

 

“Yeth Anty Fwan!” Robbie exclaimed back at her aunt and as Francene smiled back down at her, Hunter noticed Mamata’s hand move slightly to rest on their stomach.

 

“Robbie will be in good hands with us~ go ahead and get to the office~!” Mamata said to Fran. As Fran looked back at them with a questioning look, Hunter’s stomach turned to ice. Mamata was still using the voice…

 

Fran didn’t say anything about it though. She gave them a peculiar look then rushed off towards the staircase as Mamata closed the door behind her.

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