She thought she heard a faint "bye," from the other side, but she'd already hopped off the projector. That was a bit rude of me, she thought, but she couldn't help it. She was actually excited about this now. She would be going home!
"So," she said, clasping her hands together and looking at the Director with anticipation. "What do we do now?"
"Now, we need to contact the other planes," the Director said. "We've been planning this for a long time, and now that we finally have all the people we need, it's time to get everyone together."
~X~
When the Director had said "get everyone together", Tove hadn't expected she meant it quite like this.They'd gathered in a large meeting room on the 5th floor, one that could easily contain a few dozen people. Which it why it confused Tove so much when it was only the Director, Celind, Illien and her, plus a couple more employees. But the Director had instructed someone to "send the invites", so clearly more were coming. They waited for a while, and then something very strange happened.
One of the chairs around the table flickered, lighting up, and then a man was sitting on it.
Tove jumped a bit when it happened the first time, but then it happened again. And again. And again. Soon there were roughly 15 figures seated around the table. They looked similar to the way Ronja and Alaia had looked in the projector machine downstairs; they looked almost like they were made of light and clearly they weren't physically there, just an image of them. Tove looked up at Celind.
"Pretty cool, huh?" they whispered with a grin. "This meeting room was built specifically for communicating with all our colleagues stuck on other planes. It took a looooong time to calibrate everything properly."
"So it's like that machine downstairs?" Tove asked.
"Sorta, but much more impressive."
"Well, it certainly is that..."
"Thank you all," the Director addressed the gathered images and Tove fell quiet, "for being able to gather with such short notice. We have some good news." She was standing at the end of the long table, as was only appropriate of someone of her status, and Tove had been seated on her left side. Now she gestured at her to stand up as well, and Tove did, feeling just a tad awkward as she gave the visions a little wave.
"Hi, I'm Tove," she said, and then the Director continued.
"Tove is from the 7th plane." An excited murmur passed through the gathered group. "Yes, I'm sure you all know what that means. It means we finally have a way to contact all 12 planes, and organize a raid that the Imp cannot escape.
"Here is a map of Ariolas," the Director continued, as Illien spread a large paper on the table. On it was drawn one of the most detailed maps Tove had ever seen. It had several spots marked on it with different colors. "The red ones," she said, clearly talking to Tove more than anyone at this point, "are the conformed crossing locations of the Imp that we can guard on all planes. Is any of them one, that you think your people could barricade or otherwise close off."
Tove thought about that, as she looked the red dots over. There were only three of them, and they were all reasonably close together. She pointed at the one closes to the harbour. "That's where I woke up, right?" she asked.
"Yes, that's the one we got readings off of when you crossed," Celind said. "And this is where we met!" They pointed at a market square not too far from that location.
The Director hummed. "Do you know what type of area that is on plane 7?"
"Pretty similar, actually," Tove said. "Oh, wait!" She pulled out her notes from her bag and shuffled through them real quick, before pulling out a small map of the city centre. It had all the locations of interest marked on it. "This should be useful."
"Indeed!" the Director said, looking the map over. "It's very fortunate that you have that with you."
After a quick comparison, they found that the geography of the area was identical, but the city layout was vastly different. But they did also find out that the location Tove crossed over would indeed be the best one to corner the Imp in. The other two spots that would work everywhere else were in the middle of a busy market place and inside City Hall in Embärfjell, so that wouldn't really work.
"The Imp spends a lot of time on plane 7 nowadays," the Director said, rubbing her lower lip with a long finger. "We've been pursuing it in the planes we have people in for a while now, so it's been forced to retreat to yours more often."
"You thinking we spook it there, and when it jumps planes, we just catch it wherever it comes out?" Tove asked.
"Something like that I was thinking, yes," the Director said.
"Y'all'll need a bait for sumthin like that," said a short woman with big ears (Alyssa, stuck on plane 3, Celind provided). "Ya know, to lure it out."
"Probably," Tove said. "But what could that be?"
"How about tisyröevä?" suggested a stocky man with a big beard (Penme, stuck on plane 9). "We always find the blasted thing digging them up over here."
"I don't..." Tove started, confused. The filter hadn't translated that word? "What is that, I didn't... understand?" She looked at Celind and then at the Director.
"They are a root that people use for sustenance on plane 9," the Director said.
"Similar to potatoes," Celind added. "The translator didn't catch that one, huh? I guess it's a word that doesn't have a translation, since they don't grow anywhere else."
"Well, uh, we don't have any tisu-- tisyröö-- whatever they were called," Tove said, rubbing a hand over her face. "We do have potatoes, would potatoes work?"
"I do not recall the Imp having any particular preference to potatoes, at least over here," said a tall, buff woman (Chia, stuck on plane 6) and laughed, a hearty laugh straight from the gut. "And we have a lot of potatoes."
"What's the difference between potatoes and the other things, then?" Tove asked. Everyone fell silent for a moment. "I'm just saying, that might be the thing that the Imp likes. If there's some kind of chemical or--"
"Vitamin A," said Illien. Everyone turned to look at him. His face was as passive as ever. "The biggest difference between potatoes and tisyröegir is how much vitamin A they contain."
"Cods have a lot of vitamin A," said Tove, and this time everyone turned to look at her. "Oh, um, one of the weird things this Imp has done in our plane is make a ship disappear. It did reappear later, but the cargo was gone... It was a fishing boat, it had just come back from a fishing trip. Of, of cod. It was filled with cod. And then it wasn't."
"So you're suggesting," the Director started, "that the Imp likes vitamin A?"
~X~
Tove was in the darkness again. It was a peaceful way to sleep, although she did miss dreaming somewhat. But right now being well rested was more important than having interesting dreams. After the meeting was over, she'd called Ronja and Alaia and told them the plan and they'd been a bit confused but agreed to do their part. The Imp moved about almost exclusively during the night, so they'd decided to wait until 2 o'clock to initiate the plan, which meant they had several hours of free time. Free time Tove had decided to spend sleeping, because Gods knew she needed more rest.
So she slept, and just floated there, and let her body relax.
Then there was the presence again. She opened her eyes. Out in the nothing there was something, someone. She was more aware of it this time, and now she knew what it was. She recognized the magic after all.
Hello, Tove, came a voice but not actually a voice and then there was a figure. Clad in a white sundress Tove had brought her, Ulriika was there, floating in front of her, smiling. Tove almost reached a hand towards her, until she caught herself. That was not Ulriika. It was an imposter.
It was the Imp.
We are very happy to see you again, it said-without-saying. We were hoping we'd find you here.
"We?" Tove asked.
You call us an imp, yes, but that is not entirely accurate, it said. We are more than one. We are numerous. We are the ones fallen in between, the ones who are stuck, the ones who are lost and the ones who lose. We are the ones who have no place to go and so we've found a place within ourselves.
"That doesn't... really make sense," Tove said, trying to wrap her head around what the Imp, the thing had just said.
It will, was the only thing it said. She looked at it, and it looked back, Ulriika looked back, smiling and there. She was there, but she wasn't.
It was making Tove very uncomfortable.
"Why do you look like her?" Tove asked, she needed to know. What was the angle, everyone had an angle. And with something this personal, it had to be something big.
The thing looked down at its stolen form, lifting the hem of the sundress to spread it out. It had a light blue floral pattern on it. Then it spun around in place, the skirt twirling around it and wrapping around its legs. Ulriika's legs.
We gained a glimpse into your mind, it said, when you jumped planes with us. We surmised this form would be the best to contact you.
"Well, you surmised wrong," she spat out. She would do anything to see Ulriika again, but not like this. Never like this. This was wrong, it was not her, there was life in her body but not in her eyes.
The Thing looked contemplative for a moment. Very well, it said slowly. Perhaps a different for would be better. And then a swarm of black cocooned around it, like slime molding around it, almost instantly making it a throbbing, wriggling shape, only slightly human in shape and absolutely goddamn terrifying.
Would this be better? it asked, as the face of it peeled back and Tove would have gagged if this was happening in the physical world. Hiya, kiddo, the Thing said, and from under the pulsating black goo emerged the face of her father.
"N-no," was the only thing Tove could mutter. Again it looked just like her father, but behind its eyes were nothing, they were dead and soulless. "No, I don't want it."
What about this? it said and again the face was swallowed by the black only to resurface as the face of Ronja.
"No! No, no no!" said Tove, her pulse speeding up. It morphed again, the blackness dripping onto one face and off a different one and then it was her mom, her grandpa, Alaia, her neighbour, Andersson, Marqués... Face after face stared at her from the black, all of their eyes hollow. Tove screamed, she could not take it any longer and she tore her eyes from the Thing, screwed them shut and pressed her hands on her face. She was breathing hard, trying to anyway, but it felt like there was no air.
A soft giggle. Her giggle.
Something snapped in Tove. How dare it? This thing had the audacity to take her laugh, to steal Tove's favourite sound in the world and taint it, turn it into something alien and wrong. This was unacceptable. Tove set her hands back down, straightened her back. She looked the Thing dead in its empty eyes.
"Have you enjoyed toying with me?" she asked, voice level. She saw this thing, and no longer did she feel empathy for it, even if it did look like Ulriika. Because it was not her, it was an imp, an amalgamation, it was a menace to the societies it plagued, and catching it was her way home.
A little, the Thing admitted. But that was not our intention, we promise.
"Then what was?"
That is not important right now, the Thing said and smiled sweetly. There's no time. We'll see you later!
Tove wake up with a jolt.
_____________________________________________________
Ahh it's so short and bad but it's late and I'm barely awake and I will definitely make more of an effort on the last part.
Topic is "Hush"?? Sure why not, good night.
Pie out.
EDIT:
Hi! It's me, Pie! I've slept now, so y'know. That really helps with the words and the thinking and all that. Who would have thought that proper rest was a contributing factor to writing good prose lmao
Anyway I got a few complaints (from Mutu) about the shortness of the thing, and I agree, it was really short and bad, but I wasn't going to do anything about it, until! I got an idea!! And now there's more~ Two more parts to go, things are getting exciting!!!!!!!!!
Your topic is still "Hush" bc I said so.
Pie out. (again)
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