Chapter Text
The chill of the night wrapped around Aubrey in a cold, dead embrace, and she shivered. She’d left her sweatshirt at her apartment. Why had she done that? It didn’t feel this cold over at Mari's house, she thought.
Or maybe Aubrey really was losing it.
Get a grip, she told herself, picking up her pace. You’re going to go over there and see what’s really going on. It probably was nothing. You’re probably just imagining things. And now you’re going to look like a fool in front of Kel and Hero.
“Hey.” The voice belonged to Kel, and it was soft and comforting. “We’re in this together now, Aubs, don’t you remember?” He slung an arm around her shoulder, and Aubrey felt his warmth envelop her. Kel really was a ray of sunshine. Aubrey didn’t deserve him. No one did, really.
As they walked, Aubrey slowly got used to the feeling of Kel’s arm around her shoulder. It had been—God, had it really been years since someone had done something like that for her? It didn’t mean much, really—but it was a little reminder he cared, and Aubrey needed those little reminders. She remembered the days when she and Kel had been close—closer than family. Back before Mari died, Aubrey had spent every waking hour possible at the Martinez’s house, playing with Kel and Sunny and Basil when they all were younger and studying when they were older, enjoying Hero and Mari’s homemade snacks. But for some reason, she and Kel had always been the closest among them. Something about Kel made him inherently trustworthy. He was so open, and so willing to listen.
Aubrey hated talking about her home life. What was there to say, really? Her mom was a raging alcoholic, and her father had only left after giving his fair share of beatings to both mother and daughter. She walked home every night to the smell of beer and wine and God knows what else her mother was drowning her sorrows in and to the grimy, greasy coating that covered all of the surfaces in their house.
Aubrey hated it, hated the burgeoning list of chores she had to do all on her own, hated the feeling of helplessness that washed over her every time she spotted another festering pile of dishes or another overfilled garbage can that she had to clean. Even her room, her one and only sanctuary, was subject to routine rummagings by her mother, who took what she pleased and left a mess in her wake.
For most of her life, no one had known where she had come from. She tried her best to look presentable, pretended her parents’ jobs were the reason they didn’t come to parent-teacher conferences or school plays or science fairs or whatever school event was happening, made polite excuses when someone asked her to walk home with them. She had become a master of disguise—and a master of hiding. Hiding from her mother, hiding from the mandatory monthly calls with her father according to the custody agreement, hiding from the truth.
Always running and hiding—the same things she had gotten angry with Sunny over. How nice it would have felt to lock the door and never come out during the days when she climbed into her bedroom through the window to avoid entering the front door, because the distraction of the door opening might have been enough for her father to stop hitting her mother and turn on her instead. How nice it would have felt to retreat into her room forever during the days when the sound of her parents screaming at each other lasted long into the night, leaving Aubrey exhausted every single day. How nice it would have felt to drown in her own subconscious on the days when her father stormed into her room and dragged her into the living room by her hair, forcing her to take responsibility for the pitiful state her mother was in. Maybe she really couldn’t blame Sunny.
“What’s on your mind?” Kel asked, bringing Aubrey out of the dark recesses of her thoughts and into the present.
“Just…thinking,” Aubrey said. Would she be able to talk to Kel now? After everything that had happened? She looked into his deep brown eyes and felt that longing again, that longing to break open and tell him all her deepest fears. Back then Kel had been the only one to have even an inkling of how Aubrey had been living. Was that former bond enough to bridge the rift that had split them these past few years?
“Thinking about?” Kel asked. It seemed like he really did want to know how she was doing. Maybe, slowly, Aubrey could open up. Putting words to the pain of the last seven years felt impossible…but she could try.
“It’s…complicated,” Aubrey said. “Hey, what if I called you later and…and we talked?” Kel grinned.
“That sounds great! We’ve got a lot of catching up to do, don’t we, Aubs?” Aubrey grinned, blushing faintly at the sound of the old nickname. God. After all this time, he was still the same Kel.
--
“This is it,” Aubrey said, stopping short at the sight of the abandoned old house. “This is where I saw him.” The bitter wind blowing through the suburban landscape had been swiftly replaced with a frigid rain, soaking Aubrey through her thin tank top and shorts.
“Where was he?” Hero asked. “I mean, when you saw him?”
“In—In the shed,” Aubrey said nervously. “Behind the house.”
“Lead the way,” Kel said, and Aubrey obliged, her footsteps light through the puddles on the ground. She fumbled with the latch and opened the gate, trying her best not to look around at the devastated garden, and found her way to the shed in the damp darkness.
“Here goes,” Aubrey muttered, opening the shed door.
Inside was the same bleak surroundings. Same cobwebbed lawnmower. Same rack of tools.
Same shadowy figure lounging in the corner.
“I thought you’d come back,” the stranger said, stepping into the thin ray of moonlight cast on the floor.
“Well, you were right,” Aubrey said. “Listen, I don’t know what you are, but all I know is that my friend is hurt, and you know something about it.” The stranger chuckled.
“You mean the dreamer?” he said. “The dreamer and I have gotten to know each other quite well over these years. Though he wouldn’t know me now…”
“What do you mean, he wouldn’t know you now?” Hero asked. “Why?” The stranger chuckled.
“The dreamer has a bad habit,” he said. “He runs in cycles. I’ve seen it happen.” Aubrey’s patience with the cryptic stranger was waning.
“Just tell us what’s wrong with Sunny!” Aubrey burst out. The stranger went silent all of a sudden, tilting his head to the side in confusion.
“Sunny?” he asked. “The boy living in that house isn’t Sunny by a long shot.” Aubrey felt a nervous jolt run through her.
“What do you mean, he’s not Sunny?” Kel asked, his face wrought with horror. “Who is he?” The stranger looked Kel dead in the eye when he answered.
“He calls himself Omori.”
--
“So, go over this all one more time,” Kel said. He, Aubrey, and Hero were sitting on the floor of the abandoned shed as the stranger explained the horrifying inner workings of Sunny’s —Omori’s— mind.
“It’s like this,” the stranger began. “Omori starts off in Headspace, happy—or at least close—and surrounded by friends. Then Basil disappears.”
“It’s always Basil?” Aubrey asked. “Basil is always the one to disappear?” The stranger nodded.
“Always Basil,” he said. “And after Basil disappears, they go and look for him. This causes Black Space and its creatures to start entering Headspace.”
“What’s Black Space again?” Kel asked for the third time. Aubrey could have sworn she saw the stranger roll his eyes.
“It’s not a real place, per se,” he said. “Just like Headspace isn’t. It’s all more of an extension of Sunny’s trauma.”
“Which is…” Kel said, trailing off. No one needed him to say it. They all knew the words that came after. Mari’s death.
“Yes, it is,” the stranger said. “Mari’s death. Either way, they find Basil…and every time, Omori kills him.” The group looked on with grim interest. The first time they had heard this, all had been shocked. Aubrey had cried. Kel had sat unmoving in the corner, face stone-blank. Hero had started pacing the floor. But now, this knowledge was just another horrible detail of Sunny’s life for the past seven years, and they knew they needed to know every horrible detail to help him now. Whatever reactions they had had were already being pushed away.
“He kills Basil…” Aubrey said, trying to wrap her head around the premise. Suddenly a horrible thought hit her. Did Sunny somehow think he was responsible for Basil’s death?
How could Sunny think he was responsible when Sunny wasn’t the one who had said those awful things to Basil? Aubrey had tormented him for years on end. She had thrown every insult in the book at him, brought along the other hooligans to tease him, done nothing as they beat him up day after day after day. She could never bring herself to lay a hand on him…but that didn’t make her any better of a person.
And for what? To cut ties with her oldest friend? She had been there for Basil before anyone else. She was the one who had brought him to the friend group. Aubrey couldn’t imagine what it would be like if someone she had trusted so deeply turned on her so drastically. God, she really had been an awful person.
At least she had a chance to do something good now.
“The cycle repeats again and again,” the stranger said. “Headspace is fine. Basil disappears. Black Space corrupts Headspace. Omori kills Basil. Sunny becomes aware and fights Omori. Sunny loses. Omori takes control again. Repeat.”
“How do we beat him?” Aubrey asked.
“We break the cycle,” the stranger said. “There’s something holding Sunny back from beating Omori—deep down, he’s scared of the truth.” Aubrey tilted her head, confused.
“The truth?” she asked. The stranger nodded.
“The truth,” the stranger confirmed. “If I could tell the truth, I would, and it would save you all a lot of trouble. But it’s Sunny’s job to do that. It’s the only way to free Omori.”
“So all we have to do is ask Sunny to tell the truth,” Kel said.
“Omori,” the stranger said. “Remember, the ghost in that house is not your friend. He will resist. He may even turn violent.”
“He’s a ghost,” Hero said. “What can he do, really?” The stranger merely gave him a soul-searching look.
“Don’t take this lightly,” the stranger said. “Please. Be careful.” And with that, he disappeared into the shadows.
Aubrey looked at the brothers. Both of them looked just as scared as she felt.
“So this is real,” Hero said. “This is really happening.” Sinking to his knees, he stared blankly into the distance.
“I can’t believe Sunny was dealing with that all this time,” Aubrey said, half lost in her thoughts. “I—I can’t believe we didn’t help him…”
“He didn’t…I don’t think he knew how to receive help back then,” Kel said.
“Well, at least you tried,” Aubrey said, crossing her arms, unable to look him in the eye. “You went there almost every day just to check up on him, and I never saw him again after…after Mari’s funeral.”
“It’s not your fault,” Kel said. “No one can blame you. Mari was his sister, but she was your friend, too. You…You had a right to grieve before comforting others.” How did Kel know how to put this all into words? Aubrey marveled at his innate sense of emotion, how he always knew the right thing to say. He’d always seemed like he’d coped with Mari’s death the best of any of them.
“Yeah, well, I could’ve done something,” Aubrey said, growing angry not with Kel, but with the resurgence of memories of her own treatment of Sunny. It made her so angry, so angry to think that she had been such an awful person all that time. “Face it, Kel, I’m not who I was before Mari died!”
“Please, don’t fight—” Hero started.
“I know!” Kel said. “None of us are. You’re nineteen now, Aubrey, you don’t have to be the same person that you were when you were twelve, for Christ’s sake!”
“I hurt you!” Aubrey burst out. “I hurt you, and I hurt Hero, and I hurt B-Basil, and—and I hurt Sunny!”
“Aubrey—Aubrey, please–” Kel started.
“No!” Aubrey cried. Hot tears ran down her face, mixing with the cold rainwater dripping from her soaked brown-and-pink hair, and the feeling only made her more angry, angry that she was letting some sliver of emotion show through. She hated this weakness, because yes, her anger wasn’t a strength that let her pick fights and win, it was both cripple and crutch at the same time.
“Don’t tell me it’s all going to be okay!” she exploded. “Nothing is okay, Kel! Nothing will bring Sunny back, or Basil, or—or—or Mari, and whatever the hell is going on with the Basil stranger and this Omori thing and Mari’s ghost—whatever’s going on with that, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know!” Her voice rose to a desperate, hoarse roar, and she collapsed back to the ground, curling into a ball, wanting to do nothing but scream and scream and scream.
--
At some point, Aubrey stopped feeling the crushing, suffocating weight of her unadulterated rage, and she started to take in the world around her again. She was still in the shed. Immediately she looked around for the shadowy stranger figure, but he was nowhere to be seen.
“Aubrey?” The soft voice from the corner startled her from her daze. She turned around.
Of course.
There he was again, as constant as the sun in the sky.
Kelsey Martinez.
“Kel?” Aubrey said, her voice small and weak. Kel smiled sadly.
“Yep,” Kel said. Aubrey looked around again. Someone was missing.
“Where’s Hero?” she asked.
“He left to get a good night’s sleep,” Kel said. “He’s got a job interview tomorrow.” Aubrey nodded. Job interview. The idea struck Aubrey as funny for some reason. Her world had been turned upside down when she learned she could see Mari again. She’d have given anything in the world to hear her voice one last time…
And yet, that’s not how the cards had fallen.
The first day that Aubrey had come over to see if Kel’s outrageous, impossible claim—the claim that Mari still was here on this earth, in some form or another—had any validity, she had waited there on what used to be Sunny’s front doorstep, hair rustling in the wind.
What would Mari say if she saw me?
Aubrey had asked that question to herself a thousand times since Mari had died. In anger, in fear, in disappointment, in regret—in as many flavors as the amount of times she had breathed the words on her lips, letting the question float away with the breeze, unanswered as the million whys that had followed Mari’s suicide.
What would Mari say if she saw me?
She had thought it while crying, she had thought it while smashing her own belongings to pieces in her rage, she had thought it while standing by and doing nothing as the other hooligans beat Basil within an inch of his life.
Never had she thought it in the present tense.
What will Mari say when she sees me?
The minute Kel told her about the ghost living in the walls of the Suzuki’s old house, the question followed her around everywhere. Seven years had passed, after all. Would Mari even recognize her? Though, she supposed, Mari hadn’t seen her for a while. The pink-haired, teal-eyed facade that Aubrey was used to now was gone, and she looked more like she had seven years ago than ever.
When she’d first seen the glimmering, otherworldly glow emanating from the doorway, Aubrey felt her heart rushing. After seven years, she was finally going to see Mari again. Mari, Mari who was like an older sister to Aubrey, Mari who was the one to teach Aubrey how to do makeup and what products to use her hair and who told her everything about what being in love was like.
What will Mari say when she sees me?
But the lingering hope of the question wasn’t built to last.
The door opened, and there she was—Mari, wearing a beautiful white dress, looking as ethereally, eternally beautiful as she had on that fateful day. She gave a smile—God, how Aubrey had missed her smile—and a wave, and Aubrey ran over to meet her.
“Mari!” she shouted, and as Mari leaned in to embrace her, Aubrey felt a slight cool presence, the opposite of the warmth of a live body, but comforting nonetheless. They broke apart.
“...”
Aubrey tilted her head, puzzled. Mari’s mouth was moving, but no sound was coming out.
“Mari?” Aubrey asked. Mari tilted her head, confused. “Mari, I can’t…I can’t hear you,” Aubrey said. Mari’s face fell.
“There…there have been a couple of other people who can’t…can’t interact with Mari fully,” Kel said, moving from his position propped against the wall of the house. Now it was Aubrey’s turn for her face to fall. All this time…all this time…
After everything, she still was just as far from Mari as she had been the day she died.
Aubrey couldn’t help it. She felt a tear roll off her eyelashes and onto her cheek. Mari rested a cold hand on her shoulder, but all it reminded Aubrey of was Mari, Mari leaving them behind forever, Mari’s cold, pale skin tangled in the branches of the tree.
But still…
Something brought Aubrey back to the house, even though Mari’s very presence reminded Aubrey of the worst day of her life, even though the sight of Mari and Kel talking just like they had seven years ago broke Aubrey’s heart. Kel insisted Mari was in trouble…and, well, Mari had certainly been through enough, what with whatever had been going on inside Mari’s brain that had made her commit suicide that day.
“Aubrey?” Kel’s voice cut through Aubrey’s haze. “Aubrey, can we…Can we go? This place…I get the feeling we shouldn’t…it’s not right to hang around here.” Aubrey nodded, squeezing out her still-wet hair one last time before stepping outside once more.
The rain hadn’t let up since she and Kel had last been outside, and Aubrey felt herself shivering even more, the cold dew settling on her skin and chilling her to her marrow. She crossed her arms, trying desperately to keep out the cold, but nothing stopped the biting sensation of frigid raindrops on skin, not when the rain was coming down hard as it was.
She felt a tap on her shoulder, and turned around.
It was—who else?—Kel. In his outstretched hand was his white sweatshirt, the Orange Joe logo emblazoned on the back.
“Take it,” Kel said. “I can’t imagine having to brave this cold in just a little tank top.”
“Kel…” Aubrey said, glancing over the tanned young man. “Kel, that’s exactly what you’ll be wearing if you give me your sweatshirt.” Kel shrugged.
“And I have way less of a walk home,” Kel said. “Hey…” Kel said then, as if a light switch was flipped in his head. “Hey, what if I walked you home? It’s raining, and it’s late, and, well, I just want to make sure you get home safe.” Aubrey felt a slight flush grow over her face despite the cold.
“That…sounds really nice, actually,” Aubrey said. They set off for Aubrey’s apartment, with Aubrey nestled in Kel’s sweatshirt, Kel’s arm finding its home around her shoulder once more.
Aubrey couldn’t help but think the night wasn’t so cold anymore.
The Stranger felt it before it happened.
He might have been simply a manifestation caused by whatever had been going on in Sunny’s mind the past seven years, but there was something real in this shed—something real in the Stranger’s soul.
His hand glowing faintly white was the next clue to what was happening. Yes, it was him again.
“Come off it,” Stranger said, talking to his glowing hand. “Just get on with it and get out here.” As if heeding his call, a thin, pale, glowing figure began to split from the Stranger, slowly taking form before his eyes.
“S—S—Sunny,” the figure said in a shaking voice. “S—S—Sunny’s…Sunny’s dead…” The Stranger heaved a deep sigh.
“Figured that out, have you?” he said. “That he is. That he is, dear Basil.”
Basil’s ghost stepped out into the rain, the moonlight piercing his stark white form. In this light he looked angelic, a picture of innocence…until one looked down to the ugly, ugly wound in his stomach. Yes, there had been something—or rather, Something—that had invaded his mind, that had caused him to open up that hole through his stomach with the very gardening shears he had used to carefully tend to the plants he had loved so much.
Now the boy wandered the abandoned garden when he was strong enough to take his own form, otherwise spending his days as a whiny little voice in the Stranger’s head.
“I—I know…I know about…about Sunny…” the shivering, sniveling little ghost said. The Stranger rolled his eyes.
“Figured,” the Stranger said. “You can’t quite do anything about it, though, yes?”
“I…I…I will!” the ghost burst out. “I have to…I have to help Sunny!”
“He’s not Sunny,” the Stranger said again. He was getting quite tired of repeating this little fact by now. “He’s dangerous. What does a little coward like you have against a monster like him?”
“I…I d—don’t…well, y—you can’t st—stop me!” the ghost burst out, and before the Stranger could say anything, the frail little boy had already run past the boundary of the garden and into the cold night.
Stupid boy, the Stranger thought. Did no one else know of the danger Omori presented. Whatever attitude the Stranger had towards little ghostly Basil, he was still rather protective of him—rather attached.
He’s not going to get hurt, the Stranger told himself. But he had a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach telling him otherwise.