The neighborhood where all my nightmares were born is a rather peaceful looking place. It’s outside the main city and heavily wooded, so everyone has a huge yard and a house to match. The amount of free space in between everything gives it a rather cozy feeling. It seems surreal to consider that once upon a time I actually lived in a place like this. Most people would probably consider me lucky, and maybe I would too if my life weren’t a living hell at the time.

“Oh! Here it is!” Anja says excitedly, as we pull up to Lily’s house. It’s not a remarkable house compared to its surroundings, a brick two-story home with what is clearly one of the worst-kept yards in the neighborhood. I guess that’ll happen when the people living there are two old people and a recluse.

“Imagine if Mom knew I was back here,” I comment as she pulls down the driveway. I look down the road in the direction of where my old house was, trying not to imagine what Mom would do if she happened to walk outside and see me.

“The good news is, you don’t have to care!” Anja reassures me. “Let’s head inside!”

We get out of the car, and Anja starts walking to the front door. I used to enter through the back, but I guess it’s been a while so going in the front is probably a good idea. I follow her.

After knocking on the door, Lily’s grandma opens it.

“Oh Anja! So nice to see you!” she greets cheerily.

“Hi Grandma!” Anja responds, giving her grandma a big hug.

“And Nova, it is so good to see you again! Have you been well?” she says to me.

“Oh yeah, pretty well,” I answer. “School’s driving me nuts as always, but I’m still kicking.”

“Very good to hear!” she responds.

A door behind her opens to reveal Lily. It’s been several months since I last saw her, and I swear she already looks older than last time.

“Nova! What is up?” she greets me loudly. “It has been forever, man!”

“Good to see you,” I say, as we give each other a firm handshake.

“Also, hi Anja,” she says.

“Hi,” Anja replies.

“Go wait in the living room for me,” Lily instructs us. “I need to finish a post.”

“A post?” I question.

“She means for her blog,” Anja tells me, rolling her eyes.

“It’ll only take a minute. Trust me,” Lily assures us. She disappears back into her room, and Anja and I walk to the living room.

“This is gonna be awkward,” I confess to Anja. “I haven’t played CoD since the summer, I’m gonna suck at it.”

“Huh. We’ll have to start training at my place then,” Anja responds, grinning.

“I always just panic every time someone starts shooting at me,” I continue. “Man, I’d be a terrible soldier. I hated that weird war shit in the Metaverse.”

“You’re a lover, and not a fighter. Just like me. I respect that.”

“Uh, Anja? We’re both fighters too.”

“Oh yeah. I guess I can’t really deny that.”

----------------------------------------

I was able to talk Lily into playing Smash Bros first, so I was saved the humiliation I thought I would get. Anja and I helped Lily unlock characters in the WiiU version. Man, it’d be so cool if I could get the game and its console for Christmas this year. I doubt I will, though.

We take a break for dinner after a few hours, and as is tradition Lily orders a pizza. While waiting on it, Lily told me about the post she was writing on her blog, which was about some dude who went to Antarctica and then went insane because he found aliens or something. I find it really hard to follow, honestly.

“…And that’s what the Nazis were looking for during WWII,” she continues on, long after the point where I was following the conversation. “And that’s why some people think that- get this- they went there to hide after the war was over! And then-“

“Where did Anja go?” I wonder out loud, looking around and suddenly realizing she wasn’t in the room.

“Uh… I dunno,” Lily admits, looking around the room herself.

We hear the sound of someone rummaging through something coming from the direction of the staircase…

“Oh no! She didn’t go upstairs, did she?” Lily asks, eyes wide.

Lily refuses to ever go to the upstairs part of the house because she claims that it’s haunted. I never believed her before, but after learning about the parallel world where spirits run amok, maybe the upstairs is haunted. I mean, why the hell not?

“Let’s go check,” I say. I walk to the stairs, noticing that Lily is trailing behind me quite a lot.

I march up the stairs, and it’s not long before I find where Anja went. There are two bedrooms on the floor, with a bathroom in between. The door to one of the bedrooms is closed, but in the other one, Anja is sitting on the floor, staring at what looks like a photo album.

“What are you looking at?” I ask her, getting to the door.

“Get in here and look at this, Nova,” Anja orders, her voice sounding excited.

I get on my knees and look down at the picture she’s pointing to. It’s a picture of two young women hugging each other and smiling.

“Who are they?” I ask Anja.

“The one on the left is my mom,” she says. She points to the one with brown hair like Anja’s that’s cut short and Anja’s rounded face shape. “And the other one…” she trails off, staring at the picture.

“She looks like Ashley,” I observe.

“She does!” Anja agrees. “I think it’s her mom. Remember what she said back at Olive Garden?”

“Wow. So they did know each other.”

“They don’t just know each other. Look how happy they are together! They were clearly good friends. I gotta show this to Ashley when we get back.”

She takes out her phone and aims it at the album to take a picture of it.

“Uhh, Anja?” Lily calls from the hallway. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you…”

“Don’t worry, I have flash off,” Anja assures her, taking the picture.

“No, not because of that. Come on, let’s go back downstairs, please.”

“Why?” Anja replies, looking up indignantly. “I’ve never gotten to see my mom’s room before.”

“Lily thinks the upstairs is haunted,” I explain to Anja. Anja giggles at this.

“Don’t believe it, huh?” Lily accosts her. “Open up that picture you just took on your phone.”

Anja rolls her eyes again, and then does so.

“See! I knew it!” Lily says, pointing at it.

“Uh… what?” Anja asks.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Ghost orbs! Look above their heads!”

“Ghost orbs? That’s just sunlight glinting from the photo!”

“But the sun’s setting in the other direction, Anja!”

Anja sighs heavily and shuts the album. “You’ve really gone off the deep end, you know that?”

“I’m serious, Anja. Being up here for this long is a bad idea… we need to leave…”

Anja ignores her, gets up and starts gazing around the room. The decorations seem to consist of political campaign signs, photographs of people (some of whom look familiar, such as Martin Luther King Jr. and some guy I think used to be president) and a few newspaper clippings. One news story catches my eye about the governor of Massachusetts starting a program to reduce the suicide rates of gay and lesbian youth.

“Eleanor Roosevelt is literally my spirit animal,” Anja says. I turn away from that news clipping to see that Anja’s looking at a poster of a well-dressed woman. She reaches out her hand and slides it across the woman’s fur coat, as if trying to feel the fabric of it.

“Don’t touch anything, please. The ghosts don’t like that,” Lily interjects nervously.

“Who even fucking cares what the ghost thinks,” I say derisively. “What can it do to us?”

“Quite a lot. Like, I dunno, possession?”

“Eh. Bring it on!” Anja jokes. “Let’s bring out the Ouija board and have a friendly chat. I ain’t ‘fraid of no ghost.”

“You guys are way too confident about this,” Lily criticizes. Then, she gasps. “Wait… you guys have experience with ghosts, don’t you.”

“Experience with ghosts? Not unless playing Luigi’s Mansion counts,” I say.

I must have not done a very good job lying, because she seems more suspicious now. “You guys know something. I heard you earlier. You were talking about tulpas.”

“What the fuck is a tulpa?” Anja questions incredulously.

Thankfully, we are saved from this conversation by the ringing of the doorbell, signaling that the pizza has arrived. I’m very grateful that pizza seems to have driven Lily’s weird suspicion of us out of her mind, because I’m pretty sure we’re not supposed to talk about this Metaverse shit outside the friend group.

----------------------------------------

A very amusing discussion breaks out over dinner, giving me hope that the rest of this stay will be at least mostly normal. Nova and Lily have been swapping stories about people they beat in video games who got overly salty afterwards. Some of the stories were friends they played against, but most of them were about online games. Nova just told the funniest one yet: a story about someone who lost in online Pokémon and started spamming the chat room with completely incoherent ranting.

“Hahaha… VileplumesViloplumes with Substitutes!” I joke in between our raucous laughter. “What a sore loser! Ha!”

“But I mean, can you really blame him?” Lily comments. “I would’ve been pissed about that too.”

“Yeah Anja, and you can be just as bad sometimes,” Nova teases. “Remember how much you raged the first time we ever played?”

“I was not nearly that bad! Shut the fuck up!” I retort, shoving him playfully.

“You gotta get good, Anja,” Lily chastises me. “Don’t be a fake gamer girl.”

“I mean, to be fair, she has gotten a lot better since I first moved to Enchantment City,” Nova compliments. “She can beat me like, three out of ten times now.”

“Don’t patronize me, mister!” I accost him.

He gets flustered at this. “What… no, I wasn’t trying to do that. Sorry.”

“No, don’t be sorry, I was just joking around,” I assure him.

“Wha- oh, okay,” Nova says, now looking confused. To make it up to him, I pat his head for a little bit, which relaxes him easily.

“Um… speaking of Enchantment City…” Lily interrupts, looking mildly uncomfortable.

“What about it?” I ask.

“Nova… how has your school been so far?” she asks.

“Uh, oh. It’s been fine, I guess,” Nova answers dismissively.

“Have either of you seen anyone there… acting odd?”

“Uhh… in what way?” Nova questions.

Lily looks around, as if checking if anyone is listening in even though that’s obviously not true. “Well… I learned about something you guys need to know about. A threat at your school…”

“Yeah, I remember the last time I needed to know about something,” I interrupt bitterly. “How about you keep it to yourself this time?”

“It’s not a supernatural thing this time!” Lily promises. “And it’s not even a conspiracy either! It’s a real threat, and I have proof of it.”

I roll my eyes and start getting up from the bed, but Nova grabs my arm. “Anja, I think she’s being serious. Let’s hear what it is, it could be important.”

I shake my head and yank my arm away from him. I’m opening the door to leave the room, when Lily blurts out, “Anja, it’s about a teacher at your school who’s… a predator.”

I freeze when I hear this, shocked by the idea; but then, my scowl returns. “Lily, you have no way of knowing that.”

“Oh yes I do! Here, let me pull up the blog for you.”

“You mean the blog you write?” Nova asks.

“No no no. The one the predator writes… just wait until you hear this, it’s demented…”

I sigh. As reluctant as I am to get caught up in another one of her tall tales, if this does turn out to have some weight to it it’s something that I’d definitely want to know. I close the door and turn back towards the computer desk.

To my surprise, the “blog” she’s pulling is on none other than tumblr.com, land of Superwholock, every variety of gay/trans person you can think of, and particularly esoteric memes. And porn. Lots of porn.

“How do you know this person even lives in Enchantment City?” I question Lily.

“I have a very reliable source that says he is. You can trust me on this one. This man says he’s a teacher, and he says all kinds of sick stuff about his own students…”

“What kinda sick stuff?” Nova asks, already looking revolted. “Do you think he wants to… do it with them?”

“Well, let me read a recent post for you and you can decide for yourself.” She clears her throat, and then begins in a sultry, dramatic voice:

“’You guys ever have that one student who’s just special? I have a student who’s just an absolute joy. Such a nice girl. Brunette with beautiful eyes. Very hardworking. Very into athletics. I watch every morning from my window… And absolutely no luck with boys. Students that age are so immature, they don’t know who the good dates are. I wish I could say more, but I don’t want to threaten anyone’s privacy… so I’ll leave it at that.’”

“Uh, okay,” I comment. “That might not be so bad. He just has a favorite student. The thing about watching out the window was a little creepy, but that’s not evidence of anything nefarious.”

“Hold on, Anja. There’s more. ‘I think soon enough I may get a golden opportunity. Don’t ask how, because it’s top secret… but over the weekend I’ve been busy, and I’m going to get a chance to show my special student some extra lessons. It’s great to get to teach in more than one subject, wouldn’t you agree? I was the most popular boy in school back in my own high school days, so I’m very experienced. Being the sports star of the school comes with perks… It’ll be nice to relive the good times, before I had to join this awful adult world… I’m sure once my catch is ensnared, she’ll be more than happy to share in my knowledge, wouldn’t you agree? We all know how kids that age are. They’ll act all scared, but once given a taste of real freedom they’ll be more than willing to jump on it…”

The word ensnares triggers something in my memory. Suddenly, I remember when a vine lassoed around my ankle, dragging me through the jungle… when my limbs were suspended in mid-air, leaving me helpless…

“Jesus Christ!” Nova exclaims. “How the fuck is that still up? Hasn’t someone reported this dude by now?”

“With a few tricks, you can get away with just about anything on the internet,” Lily explains. “This blog just popped up very recently, so it’s pretty obscure… but you know what’s even worse? This guy has some supporters who are egging him on in the notes… check this one out. ‘Good luck with your ‘teaching,’ babe!’ Here’s another one: ‘Make sure you keep your student calm during the experience. If they get too spooked, you may get yourself into real trouble…’”

“SHUT UP! STOP READING THAT SHIT!” I explode, unable to take any more. I ignore both of their shocked glances and run to the opposite side of the bed, sitting down facing away as the tears start rolling uncontrollably.

It’s not long before I feel someone touching my hand. “Anja? Are you alright?” Nova’s voice says softly.

I turn towards him, and look him straight in the eyes, which look back at me with concern and confusion. Did he think of the same thing I did? Probably not… he wasn’t there, that was only Ashley and I.

“Well yeah… it’s really horrifying,” Lily says quickly, sounding embarrassed. “That’s what I just needed to let you guys know…”

“We should be letting the police know!” Nova demands, turning back to Lily. “That dude was barely trying to hide what he was talking about!”

“Well, my source obviously already made a report,” Lily reasons. “But this guy is not a dummy. He leaves absolutely no identifying information about himself other than him being a teacher, and only a very vague description of the student he’s targeting. He never even said what state he lives in. I only know that he’s at your high school because of outside knowledge.”

“Can’t the police track his IP, then?” Nova urges.

“Well, they could. But they haven’t done it yet, for whatever reason. And how long will it take for them to get to it?”

“God damn it!” Nova yells angrily, collapsing onto the bed. “He should at least have his blog shut down!”

“Well, Tumblr’s staff is famously incompetent,” I add, my breathing finally starting to steady.

“And they could be leaving it up on purpose to try and find clues on him, too,” Lily suggests. “So yeah… uh, we don’t have to talk any more about that... Anyways, I found this funny rage compilation of people losing in Showdown earlier, let me show it to you guys, oh this one guy got…”

Lily tries to smoothly transition out of that uncomfortable subject, but I’m still perturbed for the rest of the night. While Lily is distracted with a video, I tell Nova on Skype about my suspicions… if this person really does teach at our high school, it has to be the person who owns the jungle palace. Due to a lack of any leads, we’ve been putting off dealing with that… but now that this person could be planning something soon, we need to drastically accelerate our plans.

~Beginning of Movement III: A Wolf In Business Casual~