Chapter Text
(Art by Barbouille Pierre.
Link: https://x.com/BarbouilleP
***
*Sector: Zone Futurum*
*Dimension: Universe CFC-20*
*Location: London, England, Year 2020*
***
On a night yet to be fraught with chills, Dante Dalmatian was traveling down the almost empty streets of Camden. Almost empty, not just for the occasional car that passed by or the few humans remaining outside that kept mostly to themselves, but because he was not alone. The inverted-colored Dalmatian was joined by his girlfriend: Elvira, a primarily black and white and pink mixed-breed dog with an always sunny, peppy and outgoing demeanor… who paradoxically also happens to be a goth.
Elvira had invited Dante to hang out with her at an animal cemetery located in Hampstead within the woods, one of her favorite spots — present company included. She told him she saw something cool and creepy there she wanted to show him, and who was he to refuse her?
Now, anyone who hasn't caught up with recent events would think it strange that Dante would actually hang out with someone like Elvira, or that she was his girlfriend. I mean, Dante? The doomer pup who's always worked up about “the end of the world” and constantly makes it everyone's business? Why would anyone like her want to spend time with him, let alone be romantically interested in him? Even Dante himself couldn't believe it at first.
Well… to keep a long story short and sweet, let's just say she saw something in him that no one else did at the time… and the more they got to know each other, the more he began to rethink his stance on life and the world in general.
Nobody in the Dalmatian Family could've expected it, but in the end, Elvira had changed Dante for the better. She made him happy. She had helped to save him from himself, in more ways than anyone but his family mostly understood. She was the light to his darkness — as ironic as it was and corny as it sounded — a burning flame of happiness casting away all the shadows of doubt and fear that haunted him for so long, and Dante didn't know where he would be now if he hadn't met her.
The charcoal black dog frowned in thought as he looked back on his life for a moment. Actually, scratch that, Dante knew EXACTLY where he'd be right now. Still stuck in his paranoid delusions… still grieving over the past… still acting like a maniac trying to convince everyone that the world was going to end soon, thinking he was doing something good when all he was doing was scaring his siblings…
He looked over to Elvira as he walked. She noticed this and looked back at him. And she smiled, perhaps in understanding, perhaps because it was him, perhaps because she just wanted to.
And he stared at her smile, and immediately his troubles melted away like candle wax.
And Dante smiled back.
‘But that's all in the past now,’ he thought as he went back to focusing on the path ahead. ‘That's not who I am anymore.’
It wasn't too long before the gothic duo reached the cemetery. The area was more dark and gloomy than the local graveyard in Camden Town, with dead trees and slightly overgrown vegetation among aged, slightly cracked gravestones. It looked like it was abandoned.
“Here we are, Dante,” said Elvira, gesturing towards the place with a small flourish. She flicked her gaze to him and grinned in excitement, her tail wagging. “You ready to go see it?”
“Sure,” said Dante. Though he spoke calmly, on the inside he was a little worried. Something about the cemetery rubbed him the wrong way for reasons he couldn't put together; he didn't want to sound paranoid, but it seemed like there was something in there… something dark, something … he could… faintly… feel? He… he wasn't sure.
Whatever it was though, it was clear that Elvira didn't feel it at all, for she gained a playful glint in her eyes.
“Okay. Follow me!”
And then she promptly took off, running away faster than Dante could react.
“Wha-! Elvira! Wait up!” he exclaimed before he went after her. Elvira giggled loudly as both dogs journeyed into the land of the dead, Dante having little trouble keeping up with her. And throughout this silly little moment, Dante wondered what it was that Elvira wanted to show him.
He also wondered if it had something to do with that weird sensation he keeps feeling. Growing stronger by the second.
Oh, dog. He hoped this place wasn't haunted. Dylan and Dolly would kill him if he came back possessed by an evil spirit.
Only a short amount of time passed before Elvira stopped at a certain plot of gravestones. As Dante reached her, he found the mutt muttering under her breath as she looked around their surroundings.
“Elvira?” He stepped forward and sat next to her, observing the bemused look on face with one on his own.
Her expression soon turned into disappointment. “Aww, it's gone…”
“What's gone? Elvira, what was it you wanted to show me?”
“It was a statue, it was a statue of a dog, I think,” she explained. “It was right here-”, she gestured widely to the empty spot of ground before them, “-the last time I came here.”
‘A statue of a dog, huh? That's interesting.’ And it really was, despite his worries. “What did it look like?”
Elvira gestured some more, putting a lot of emphasis and energy in her descriptions. “Well, it was tall, not really tall but tall, it was sitting with holes in its legs — probably ‘cause of weather, I guess — its paws were shaped like ugly claws, it had no tail, no mouth, no nose. And it had three eyes.”
Dante raised a gray eyebrow. “No mouth, no nose and three eyes?” he repeated. “Really?”
“Yep! Can you believe it?” And unsurprisingly, she had a huge smile on her face again. “It had one big eye on its face and the other two were on its ears. It looked so cool!” Her smile lessened slightly, her ears sagging. “I really wanted to show it to you.”
Dante's own ears burned at the sadness underlying Elvira's voice. He looked at her with sympathy; as much as a strange part of him didn't want to see that statue for whatever reason, he knew how much something like this meant to her. He had to do something.
Deciding to bury his fears, he said to her, “Well, uh, hey, maybe it isn't gone. You said you've been here before, right? Did anything weird happen back then, anything at all?”
A look of surprise emerged on Elvira's face at first, but then a light bulb went off in her head as she remembered something. “Oh! Now that you mention it,” she placed a paw on her chin, “I don't recall it ever being here the first few times I came to this cemetery. It looked old and falling apart though, like it's always been here, but I know it hasn't.”
“Ok, but did anything happen the last time?” Dante asked again.
“Well… that's the weird part,” she said, scratching her head, and she looked a bit bothered, to Dante's concern. “I remember walking over here, and there was nothing here like before, but then… I blacked out.”
“What?!” Dante leaned in close and grabbed Elvira by the shoulders, their muzzles pressed together, his worried eyes scanning her face. “Are you alright? Why didn't you say anything sooner?”
Elvira held up her paws in a placating gesture, giving him a gentle grin. “Tee-hee! Dante, it's okay, I wasn't hurt at all.” Reluctantly, Dante let go and pulled himself back from Elvira. “I was going to tell you about it during our walk earlier, buuut…”
The formerly gloomy goth Dalmatian threw her a half-lidded deadpan, crossing his forelegs over his chest. “You wanted to show me the statue first, didn't you?”
The not-so gloomy goth mutt averted her eyes in a not-so innocent manner, “Hmm, maaaybe…”
With a sigh, Dante said, “Well, it's good that you're alright, I guess.” He turned his head to the side bashfully, a small wave of relief mixed with embarrassment washing over him, though it hid the unease and concern still persisting within. If he wasn't so used to her blithe strangeness, he'd be seriously questioning how in the underworld she could be so calm about blacking out out of nowhere while in the midst of a gloomy cemetery at night.
Elvira giggled again at Dante's reaction, then switched back to her earlier solemn mood. “But yeah, I blacked out. I don't know how it happened, I…” Her eyes went downcast. “I remember smelling something dog awful. Like the dead here had risen from their graves as zombies,” she said, patting the ground where a grave stood innocuously. “Then I think I heard someone laugh, and then I saw this purple smoke rise around me and I suddenly felt really sleepy.
“Next thing I knew… I had a weird dream about a creepy dog in a cloak looming over me… and for a moment, Dante, I thought it was you.”
***
“Elviiiraaa… Elviiiraaa…”
“Ughh…” Groggily, Elvira slowly opened each of her eyes to a quite peculiar sight. Small shadowy wisps swirled above her head, some ending in bulbous shapes painted with radioactive green faces, each one etched in an agonizing wail. She could hear their tortured screams, distant but ever present. There were several paws outstretched to the sky, connected to forelegs that seemed disembodied and long as a tube, writhing like snakes from far away. They were dark violet, highlighted in green and covered in many small rifts and tufts, and each one wore a worn-out collar around their wrists as well. Through her haze, Elvira almost recognized those collars…
A strange purple, misty void surrounded them all, evoking the last thing she had seen before-
Wait… had she fallen asleep? Was this a dream? She had been in the cemetery, why would she…?
“Elviiiraaa… heh-hee-hee!”
Her train of thought halted at the sound of that voice. That voice…! It sounded much older and raspy, like an old guy who just crawled through a desert in desperate need of water, and it dripped with a quality of mischief and playfulness that felt off, wrong even, but Elvira still recognized that voice. How could she not?
But what was he doing here? When did he get here?
It didn't fully register in her mind that she was lying on her back until a towering shape appeared diagonally in her vision, looking down at her with that same unnatural green light in the shape of twin oval dots. A Shadow reminiscent of the Grim Reaper, haunting and mysterious yet familiar in a strange sense. Like an old friend she was meeting again for the first time, or a lost lover returned in a different form. The dark plum strands of its tattered cloak curved and flowed upward freely, impossibly, despite there being no wind in the area.
She was frozen in place, breathless. The Shadow was beautiful, also unnerving but not in a good way, something Elvira usually felt the opposite of when it came to scary things.
It could've been the arms — or rather forelegs — left uncovered by the cloak. The goth's eyes flashed to them, noting the ugly bulging veins pushing outward some of the Shadow's black fur, as well as the black fur itself. She recognized that black fur...
It could've been the peculiar symbol on the Shadow's forehead: a vertical third eye, as vibrant as the other two and just as piercing, feeling as if it's looking into her very soul.
It could've been the wide, toothy, disgusting smile the Shadow put on full display after it said, “Hello, Elvira,” its face practically invisible underneath the hood of the cloak, but its smile crystal clear and full of sharp, yellowish canine teeth and fangs. A crazed cheshire grin similar to that of a serial killer or a mad dog.
But ultimately, it was the voice. All those other things were kinda creepy, sure, but the voice was the cherry on top.
That and everything else combined created an eerie sensation somewhere deep within that rattled Elvira's entire being; that told her that everything about the Shadow was wrong, unworldly, a thing that didn't belong.
And it should've fascinated her, it should've thrilled her!
…but it didn't.
And a certain part of her knew the reason why.
And as she stared at the Shadow, with her lips curved and an repugnant taste on her tongue, Elvira let it out in an uncertain whisper:
“...Dante…?”
And at that name, the Shadow sneered and threw its head back, laughing hoarsely.
***
“And then he said, “See you soon,” and walked away from me, fading into the mist. And then I woke up a while after. Pretty crazy, huh? Heh. Yeah, I know. The way he smiled at me, and that laugh, eugh…” She shivered in plain distaste… then her mood immediately brightened like she had a switch flipped inside her head. “Buuut on the bright side, I found that statue in front of me afterwards, and I knew I just had to show it off to you, one of the best dogs in the whole wide world.”
Elvira had moved forward and pulled Dante in a side hug as she said that.
Dante didn't hug back.
The silence that followed was so apparent that an owl could be heard hooting from a mile away. Elvira kept hugging him as she closed her eyes, enjoying the moment, relatively unbothered. Meanwhile, Dante reacted to her tale as if she had just told him she almost died. And given what she said…
“E-Elvira, are you sure it was just a dream?” he stuttered. It's not that he thought it wasn't a dream, but he did think there was more to it. Yeah, Dante may not be all doom and gloom like he was in the past (for the most part, mind you; he can never be too sure that a certain De Vil boy won't fall back to his old tricks), but a part of him still believed in the supernatural, just not to an extreme like he did before.
He could tell Elvira wasn't making any of her story up — or at least he was sure that something bad had happened to her. He's known her long enough to tell when she's kidding around and when she's being serious, and right now she was being serious… er, well, sort of.
And that was why, right now, he was afraid.
Elvira looked up at Dante, meeting his apprehensive stare. “Hm?”
“I mean,” he continued, brows folded in gradually building panic, “don't you see it? You getting knocked out somehow, then the dog in your “dream”, then the statue showing up out of nowhere,” he listed off with his left paw, ”there's clearly a connection there,” he pointed out. “I think that dog could be an evil spirit trying to mess with you. It's probably still here, watching us… waiting to strike!”
He deliberately chose not to get into how said dog apparently sounded like and somewhat resembled him according to her. That was a different can of worms he REALLY didn't want to open up.
Elvira pulled herself off of Dante and took a few steps back as he was now scanning the area intently and quite skittish, throwing his eyes at every gravestone and every tree and even every weed and mushroom in sight.
Elvira attempted to reason with him. “Hey, I know it sounds bad, but-”
“Sounds bad?!” The Dalmatian didn't mean to raise his voice, and he regretted it the instant he saw Elvira flinch. “Sorry. I'm sorry. It's just…” He sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, mentally scolding himself. ‘What are you doing? Get a hold of yourself.’
“All of this sounds like more than just a coincidence or a bad dream, Elvira. We could be dealing with an actual poltergeist here! And dog knows what it plans to do to you or me if we stick around here any longer.”
“Dante…” Elvira started to say, but Dante held up a paw, voice trembling as he continued.
“Don't get me wrong, I'm willing to stay and help you find that statue, but what if something bad happens to one or both of us? What if we get possessed or cursed or-or worse? What if you-?!” His breathing hitched as he choked on his words mid-sentence like they were expired chewy snacks. He couldn't say it. He didn't want to say it.
It was then that Dante's imagination unhelpfully started to flood his mind with vivid imagery of those worst-case scenarios, most of them involving Elvira more than himself. He held his head tight, digging his claws into his own fur as he worked quickly to try and shove those bad thoughts down like he always did, shove them all down in a black chest that he could lock and bury six feet below in the depths of his subconscious.
However, he was having some trouble doing that. The idea of Elvira one day getting hurt or (dog forbid) worse was something that troubled Dante at times, but at best he was able to push it to the back of his mind and go on with his day.
But now? Now that he knew that something bad had happened to her, and that it could've gone worse, and that he wasn't there to help her?
The dark images still plagued Dante. A familiar phrase itched at his brain, one he had avoided saying for a while. The cursed words moved to the tip of his tongue, and he bit his lip to prevent them from coming out.
But he was losing the battle.
“We're… we're…”
His inner self pleaded, ‘Don't say it! Don't say it! Don't SAY IT!’
And just as he opened his mouth again…
“Dante!”
A pair of paws gently grabbed onto his face.
“Dante. Look at me.”
He opened his eyes. A warm and soft face greeted him, with bright eyes that were kind, patient and full of pity that a part of him felt he didn't deserve at all.
Elvira placed her forehead against Dante's, and he registered the softness of her fur in that instance. Like snuggling into a warm and cozy blanket at home while a thunderstorm rages outside. She took a deep breath, and he followed.
Inhale… exhale.
All of that was enough to calm him down only slightly as he let go of his head and lowered his paws to the ground.
She let go of his face after that, backing away a few paces to give him space. There was an anxious several second pause, both of them awkwardly avoiding eye-contact with each other.
Dante spoke up first, sending quite an apologetic gaze towards the other dog, struggling to get his words out. “Elvira, I — I-I'm sor-”
“Could I… show you something? If you don't mind?” Elvira asked him before he could finish. Her voice was hesitant, a little unsure. Then she briskly added with a nervous chuckle, “It's not about the statue or anything, I promise, heh heh heh.”
Elvira fiddled with her bat-shaped collar as she awaited his response. To be honest, Dante was kinda nervous, too. And ashamed of himself. He had snapped at her. He had become paranoid again. He had nearly given in to his own fears and became his old self again.
‘But it was for a good reason this time,’ a part of himself argued. ‘She could be in danger. We're only trying to look out for her.’
Yeah, and wasn't that one of the excuses he used to always justify his actions back then? ‘They just don't get it yet.’ ‘The end will come, you'll see!’ Stuff like that was what the old him used to say. And nobody bothered to listen to him.
Nobody… until Elvira came along.
Still, a gnawing sense of danger persisted. He stared ahead, straight into her eyes, mouth twisted with unease. Would Dante really risk everything by staying in this graveyard, just to see what else Elvira had to show him?
“...Sure. Let's go.”
Well, it's not like he hasn't been put in mortal peril before. If Dante was able to survive the Bovine, Hunter and the Devil Woman, then he can probably survive a ghost.
Maybe.
Hopefully.
***
Elvira held onto Dante's paw for comfort as she carefully led him to their destination. They moved in sync and on three legs, Elvira taking one step, Dante taking the next, and so on. It was a short but calm walk, and it helped to relieve some of the tension and anxiety in the air.
“Here we are,” said Elvira once they reached the spot, letting go of Dante's paw. He noticed that the cheerfulness in her tone sounded a bit forced compared to when they first came to the cemetery.
Dante nonetheless responded with a simple, “Cool,” before he looked around and noticed that where they were now wasn't that much different from the other area. A few more gravestones than before, but still. “So, what's the thing you wanted to show me?”
Elvira said nothing, she simply pointed upward. And Dante followed her direction, turning his head upward towards the night sky.
“Oh, the moon is out,” he said somewhat dumbly, having not noticed it before. But there it was, settled nicely in-between a row of trees as it hung up there along the navy blue. “It looks kinda dark from here.”
The goth girl smiled softly as they both settled down on their forelegs, sitting close to each other. “I know, but the stars make up for it, don'tcha think?”
Dante shrugged. “I guess… didn't know you even liked stargazing.” He glanced sidelong at her, eyebrow raised.
The corners of Elvira's lips tugged slightly as she looked back. “You never asked, silly.”
“Touché. But how come you never seemed interested before whenever Dylan invites you or Deidra to look at some stars with him in his tree house?” he questioned.
Elvira responded with, “Do you want the short answer or the long one?”
“Whichever works for you, I guess?” Dante wasn't particularly picky, but he was curious nonetheless.
“Well, alright, a while back there was this stargazing event over at Primrose Hill…”
“Oh yeah, I remember hearing about that from Dylan,” said Dante. “He wanted to go there, but he caught a cold from Diesel.”
A bunch of his siblings did, including Delgado, Dimitri 2 and 3. That's what happens when your little brother decides it's a good idea to go digging in the backyard during a cold rain shower. Again. Dante was lucky to not catch it that time, though it was kind of a pain to have to pick up the slack around the house while Dylan had been out of commission.
“I bet Dylan must've been pretty disappointed he couldn't go. I should tell him about it the next time I see you guys,” said Elvira with sympathy. “Anyway, our humans’ daughter wanted to go to the event, and Deidra and Cleo wanted to go there too, so all of us ended up going. I'm not gonna lie, I wasn't all that interested at first, I only went along with everyone because I was kinda bored.
“But once we got there… It was magical, Dante.” She sighed in-between her pause, sounding almost nostalgic. “The stars were so beautiful and shiny like white Christmas lights. There were a lot of people there, humans and animals, family and friends, sitting together. And can you guess what the best part was, Dante?”
The inverted Dalmatian had a good guess. “Your whole family was there with you?”
“That's part of it,” Elvira said, a singsong inflection in her voice. “Good guess.”
“So, what's the best part?”
“Okay, picture this… Deidra and Cleo getting along.
Dante blinked twice out of disbelief. “I can't really picture that,” he said truthfully, and Elvira couldn't blame him for that. Elvira had three siblings: Juday, her older brother — Cleo, her younger sister — and Deidra, a kitten they had adopted as their sister, or at least only Juday and Elvira appeared to consider her as one. Despite Deidra's troubled past, to put it lightly, Cleo had a problem accepting the little cat as part of the family, always acting distant and rude towards her. Elvira however believed that Cleo does care for Deidra deep down.
“I know, it sounds hard to believe, I was surprised too, but it's true. They were getting along! Well, kinda. Cleo was the one mostly talking, but Deidra started the conversation and Cleo didn't push her away for once. They were talking about which stars looked the prettiest. I didn't even have to try to encourage either of them at all! I hope they can have more moments like that together.”
A proud smile settled nicely on Elvira once she finished.
“That’s really nice, Elvira,” Dante began. “But I don't think you really answered my question.”
“Yeah I did.” At Dante's mild confusion, Elvira simply explained, “All those times I wasn't interested in stargazing was before the event, but now I am, sorta.“
“Sorta?”
“I mean, stars are pretty neat and all, on their own — but put them together with something like all this?” She spread her forelegs wide, gesturing to the entire cemetery, before looking back up at the stars, Dante following suit. “It makes them look even brighter.”
Things went quiet after that, the two pups taking their time to admire the view overhead. Dante had to admit, there was something strangely tranquil about it all. From this area, the sky and the land were opposites; the former was vivid and full of life while the latter was decrepit and overlaid with death; one was full of things that will last long after everyone here on Earth has reached their end, the other was an embodiment of the end itself, a final resting place for fallen souls.
And yet — when you put the two together, it created something unique and, honestly, amazing to an extent.
Dante wasn't exactly a philosopher, but he supposed he could say there was a deep message to it all. That there's light and beauty even in the darkest of times and places, or something like that.
He could kind of see now why Elvira liked this place despite her ordeal with that statue. It was like her in a way: dark in one aspect, bright in another, but beautiful all together.
“...Hey, Dante?”
Dante's ears perked up at Elvira's voice, though he kept looking at the stars. “Yeah?”
There was a brief but heavy pause, “We don't have to look for that statue anymore if you don't want to.”
The Dalmatian finally turned to the mutt, a small remorseful look upon her face. Once again he felt a pang of sympathy, combined with the guilt from earlier resurfacing. He considered what she said, wondering if he should take her up on her offer.
“Do you still want to look for it?” he asked instead.
Elvira blinked in surprise, she must've not expected him to say that. “Well… I do, but not if you're bothered by it.” She rubbed the back of her left paw with the other paw as she said that last part.
“It's not just the statue I'm worried about…” Dante admitted. And when Elvira asked him what else it was that had him concerned, Dante faltered and bowed his head, turning away.
“I'm afraid. Afraid of-” He paused.
‘I'm afraid of losing you.’
Why was it always easier to say this stuff in his head than aloud to someone he cared about? He should be used to this by now.
“Of what?” Elvira prompted gently.
Dante sighed and brought his head back up, deciding to get straight to the point but still refusing to meet her gaze. “Have you ever wondered what your life would be like if we had never met?”
Through the corner of his eye, he saw Evira frown. “No. Not at all. Why would I want to think about a life without you in it?”
Her words were firm and true, carrying no doubts nor hesitation. Of course they were, Elvira would never imagine living a life without having met Dante. She loved him, and Dante loved her. And even if something bad happened, they would always be there to have each other's backs.
Except for the time when he wasn't there.
He must've gone quiet for too long because he felt a comforting paw being placed on his back.
“Dante, what's troubling you?” Elvira's soft voice was full of concern. “Whatever it is, you know you can tell me. I'm here.”
When he faced her again, Dante knew what he had to do. With a gulp, he swallowed down his anxiety and opened his mouth, prepared to tell Elvira of his fear, a fear perhaps greater than that of the apocalypse.
“I’m-”
Unfortunately, fate had other plans.
“Heh-hee-hee!”
Both dogs jumped in alarm as a malicious laugh from out of nowhere echoed throughout the cemetery. Their conversation was all but forgotten.
“I'm not the only one who heard that, right?” Dante asked nervously.
“No, I heard it too,” said Elvira, her tone unreadable, yet there was recognition clear in her eyes. It was there in Dante's eyes as well, but for a faintly different reason that sent a chill down his spine just thinking about it.
They both looked around to see where the menacing sound came from. They couldn't spot anyone, but they had a feeling they were being watched. Neither Dante nor Elvira moved from their places, however, not yet, staying in each other's company.
Unsurprisingly, Elvira was taking the situation a lot more calmly than Dante was.
More laughter rang through the air, lasting a bit longer than the first. Right as it did, a foreboding fog patiently crept in, starting low on the ground — wisps of it slithering around the gravestones — then rising until it covered the entire cemetery. It was thick enough to block out the sky.
“This didn't happen before,” Elvira commented, glancing up at where the stars and moon had once been. She tapped her chin in thought. “Hmm. Hey, is it a bad time to say I kinda like the purple void dream more?”
“Please don't give the evil spirit any ideas,” Dante begged.
“I'm not. I'm just saying, the fog is a good touch, but it's only a start. That dream it gave me was more thrilling than this is so far… besides the ‘fake you’ bit.”
Dante couldn't help but stare at her incredulously. “Are — are you really judging the spirit — for not being scary enough?”
“Yep.”
The fact that she said it so casually with a smile — which normally would be endearing in any other time — shouldn't have left the Dalmatian as absolutely stunned as it did, but somehow it happened.
“Elvira, I really think we should get out of here!” he whisper-yelled, as if trying not to draw the spirit's attention even if it was a little too late for that. Dante’s fight-or-flight instincts screamed at him to run, but his formerly distant rational side urged him to stay. He didn't want to abandon Elvira, no matter how scared he was.
Unfortunately for him, Elvira wouldn't budge. “No, not yet, Dante,” she said.
“Uh, why not?!” He was trying really hard not to listen to his instincts.
“Because we're not in danger yet, at least I don't think we are.” Elvira looked at Dante then, and in response to the confusion and fear plain on his face, she explained, “Think about it, if the spirit really wanted either of us dead, why didn't it try to hurt me the first time around? Why isn't it trying to hurt us now?”
Dante didn't have to think to answer what seemed obvious to him, “Because it wants to use you for something nefarious! And me too, maybe,” he murmured the last part.
“Like I said, it could've tried to hurt me before, or possess me or whatever, but it didn't. It had no reason to let me go like that, so why?”
“Because…!” And unlike before, Dante found himself thinking about this one. He shook his head and groaned. “I don't know… but that doesn't mean it isn't planning something with us.”
“Mm, no doubt about that,” Elvira replied.
“So, what's the plan? Do we just stay here, see what happens, and pray to Dog that we make it out of here with our souls still in our bodies?” he asked rhetorically.
“Pretty much.”
Dante took a deep breath in an attempt to steel his nerves. “If anything worse happens, I'm blaming you. No offense.”
“None taken,” said Elvira with a short giggle. “And hey, look on the bright side-”
‘There's a bright side to this?’ Dante thought to himself incredulously.
“-we’re experiencing an actual haunting together.” Her smile widened into a grin, stars in her eyes, tail wagging. “We're getting a chance to see a real ghost, isn't that so cool?”
Well, leave it to Elvira to make the best out of a bad situation. Dante could barely suppress a smile, though shaky, of his own at her infectious enthusiasm.
A thud from behind reached both dogs’ ears as something hard and heavy fell to the ground suddenly. It happened again right before their eyes, a gravestone getting knocked over by a shadowy blob moving fast, getting absorbed into the fog as it fell.
Dante and Elvira held their breaths in anticipation, one out of dread and the other out of excitement.
Then something truly strange happened.
Things started to… gLiTCh?
Everything around the goth duo suddenly shifted and became warped and stretched and warbled like a static-y television screen. The laughter came again, but this time distorted and stuttery. Either this was all an illusion or the spirit was so otherworldly that its presence disturbed reality itself, but either way, Dante and even Elvira were shocked beyond words by it.
And then words — actual, seemingly physical words — flashed before their eyes in big bold purple letters:
TURN AROUND.
And then the world went still.
The scene shifted again and the static was gone. The trees and gravestones were no longer bent out of shape. Even the fog had mostly evaporated, with barely visible remnants left behind here and there. Everything had snapped back into place. In but a split second the cemetery was more or less back to the way it was before, as if almost nothing had happened.
Except, there was a new addition to the cemetery… two, actually…
And unbeknownst to the pair of pups, four eyes were watching everything from above… beneath three of them the same deranged grin Elvira had seen in her dream.