Summary: Ellie receives a message from the angels, Carlos comforts an upset Cecil and the team have a strange encounter at the House That Doesn't Exist.
When Ellie dreamt, her dreams were strange. Obviously they had gotten more abnormal as she had moved to Night Vale, but even before that she had weird dreams. They were a bundle of oddities, often with film and TV characters thrown in while she was dreaming about moving paintings and pumpkins that could kill you.
So to have a normal dream was an alien concept to Dr Ellie Green as she took in her surroundings. She was walking through a lush green field, the sky was a brilliant shade of azure and there was a gentle breeze picking up her strands of blonde hair and making them waft in the wind. The grass smelled like strawberries and the not-Angels looked quite content sitting on the hill. Wait....not-Angels?
Ellie stopped walking and looked at them. They were some of the absolutely non-existent Angels that used to be with Old Woman Josie before she disappeared.
"You...." She whispered, before immediately considering the possibility that someone was monitoring her dreams. That was a thing in Night Vale, right?
"You don't exist?" She said aloud just in case. "But....uh, hypothetically, if you did exist, would you need to tell me something?"
She was going to be arrested again, she was sure of it.
"Eleanor..."
She cringed at the name but listened.
"Eleanor...you have been doing good work for us."
"Er, if you were real, which you're not of course," The blonde woman babbled in reply. "I would express thanks."
"There is something that you must know."
Ellie raised an eyebrow, her glasses slipping slightly down her nose. Wait, since when has she had her glasses on? Well, at least this confirmed it was a dream.
"Your friend Natalia...she is alive."
Ellie's heart did some kind of front flip.
"Where is she?!" All sense of self-preservation caused by the dream invaders had vanished.
"That's the problem. She remembers her name, but little else. She is working for this Smiling God. She has been touched by the light of the unravelling of all things. We cannot reach her, even though we are Angels. By the way, my name is Erika."
The biochemist felt numb. Natalia, her best friend, working for Strex? The ones that were making Cecil upset (and by extension Carlos), wrecking up the town and who KIDNAPPED Natalia in the first place?!
"Is there anything that can be done, hypothetically if Angels were real?" She said solemnly.
"We are attempting to track her. Miss Flynn and her militia owe her a debt of gratitude for helping them, so they too are eager to see her saved from this light. But we are trapped in a strange desert otherworld. There is rumbling, and a bright light. It is hard for us to even protect the chosen ones in this place."
So Josie was alive, Ellie mused. And what was this 'strange desert otherworld'?
"Wait, what is that? How can I help Nat?" The scene began to blur and Ellie heard someone calling her name.
"Ellie........Ellie?"
"Wait, don't go!" She yelled at the Erika, who had turned away and begun heading down the hill out of sight.
"NO!" She awoke with a start and shot up immediately.
"Ellie, are you okay?" Rochelle was leaning over Ellie, who was asleep on her workbench at the lab; hair was covering most of the blonde woman's face and she sat up wearily.
"What are you doing sleeping in the lab again? We're going to be late!"
"Sorry....just worked too late again I guess."
"What were you dreaming about anyway? You sounded quite scared."
"N-nothing." Ellie said, pushing her fringe out of her face. ".....it was nothing."
~
"Listeners? There's a visitor in my studio today! No one you know. No one I know. Not even a thing you or I know. It is...umm, I am unsure what it is, let me describe it. Imagine a duck. But just the eyes. No, larger than that. Really large duck eyes. Now imagine fur. Puffy fur, like a bear cub. Soft, and tan, and a thick round belly, and no real discernible arms or legs, just...little nubs that flit about as it slowly moves across the floor..."
"Sounds like Cecil's havin' a blast today." Dave grinned as the team arrived in front of the House That Doesn't Exist for their weekly checkup.
They had been monitoring the strange situation with John Peters for a while. Carlos aimed to have someone or at least some cameras there all the time, but due to the Secret Police finding the latest set of cameras earlier that week, Carlos had asked the team to assemble for one day in order to attempt to solve it once and for all. However, everyone had so far been too scared to knock on the door. Even the reckless Dr Green (although mainly this was due to her watching too many sci-fi movies and expecting something too horrific to happen if the door opened) was too frightened to knock on the door. Carlos had mumbled lots about scientists needing to work together instead of admitting his own reluctance.
"It seems so." Jeffries replied. "But his heart'll always to Carlos. Well, Carlos and Khoshekh." He corrected as the eccentric man suddenly began fawning over the cat on the radio.
Carlos frowned from the driver's wheel. The team suppressed laughter at the thought of the last time Carlos went to see Khoshekh. The kittens had attempted to play with Carlos...using their venom sacs. Carlos had also had an allergic reaction and Cecil had had to give him a lot of allergy medicine. Suffice to say, Carlos, although he thought Khoshekh was cute, was not the cat's biggest fan.
"Ooh, ooh, turn this bit up!" Ellie suddenly shouted from the backseat, whipping out her Game of Thrones Targaryen notebook, which she recorded all of her observations on Hiram McDaniels for her project.
"...Supporters of the Faceless Old Woman are claiming that, while officially acquitted of insurance fraud, evidence suggests that Hiram is in possession of a stolen truck. They checked the registration of his vehicle, and found that it belonged to one Frank Chen, who was found dead nearly two years ago. Frank's body was covered in claw and scorch marks, and the coroner gave the cause of death as 'Dragon, at least three heads.' Hiram denies that he stole the truck, and says that Frank is a friend, and is TOTALLY not dead."
"Oh..." Ellie shrunk back into her seat.
"You still wanna vote for him?" Rochelle asked sardonically.
"Hidden Gorge decides the Mayor." Dave reminded them both as they parked.
"I just find him interesting." Ellie muttered.
"You find him interesting because Game of Thrones has started up again." Carlos smiled at Jeffries remark. The woman had been incredibly happy that a) they could get HBO in Night Vale and b) due to the nature of the show, it hadn't been changed from how it would have been shown outside of Night Vale, aside from censoring the word 'angel' among a few other obvious words. So she could enjoy it as much as she pleased.
"Right, who wants to attempt to open the door?" Carlos said cheerfully. The team, understandably, gave him a dark look.
Finally, Ellie suddenly piped up. "I'll do it."
The biochemist had had an idea. If John Peters had gone missing, he could be in the same place as Josie and the Erikas. John Peters was in the house, ergo, Josie could be in the house. Josie had answers about Natalia. Ergo again, help for Natalia was behind this door.
She went ahead and stood in front of the House That Doesn't Exist. The team stepped back unconsciously as Dr Green hesitated in front of the door handle. Come on, she goaded herself internally. This is for answers. And science. She placed her fingers over the handle and attempted to open the door.
Except it didn't open. It didn't even budge.
"Huh." Ellie observed.
"Let me try." Dave said, gesturing for Ellie to move aside. He tried himself, shaking it hard. He tried again, increasingly frustrated.
"No change with John Peters." Rochelle observed with surprise.
"Ugh this stupid door! Just OPEN ALREADY!" Ellie kicked the door and shook the handle even more, venting her annoyance into the door. Dr Green went in for another kick when the door suddenly slammed open and she nearly fell. The scientists looked up to see a tall woman standing in the doorway.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT?!" The woman shouted at the now terrified and surprised scientists.
Jeffries and Carlos peeked in the door, seeing the same layout, but no John Peters in sight. The woman directed her angry gaze at Ellie.
"We...wanted to see what that man was...doing in there?" She meekly replied to the woman.
"What man?" the woman said in an irritated tone. "I live alone."
"But..." Ellie looked in the window, then back through the open doorway in confusion. "Who are YOU?" She demanded bluntly.
"Dr Green, you're being rude." Dave whispered.
"Well she's not John Peters, but she lives in a house that we have proved does not actually exist." Ellie pointed out.
"My name is Cynthia. I have lived in this house for 19 years and I assure you it exists for me. Now go away."
She shut the door in the scientists' faces abruptly.
After a few moments of silence, Rochelle spoke. "Do you think we should call Cecil?"
Carlos nodded and took out his phone. This would be a long text.
~
After Carlos finished his text, the team reconvened and decided to go back to the lab; after all, everyone felt rather awkward staying at the Desert Creek Housing Development after the encounter with Cynthia.
Carlos ran his fingers through his tussled hair. "If no-one has any scientific objections, I'm going to place the house higher on the scale."
The team nodded vigorously. Carlos fiddled with the Velcro on the laminated scale they had made. Old and discarded mysteries of the town were further down the list, such as 'Glowing Cloud' and 'Floating cat?'. Near the top were 'Angels?' (although Rochelle and Dave had subtly indicated on many an occasion that angels are totally not a thing, so therefore they should not be on the list) and 'Dog Park - forbidden'. The 'forbidden' had originally had a question mark next to it, but after the fiasco where Carlos and Perez were detained attempting to figure out if it was, it was no longer a question.
Carlos shifted the two down and put 'House That Doesn't Exist', which usually held a pretty consistent third, to the top of the list.
"Carlos, I'm going to update the log books, that okay?" Rochelle called from the other room.
"That's fine. And you're free to go whenever you finish."
"Thanks. Have a safe evening." Well, as safe as an evening in Night Vale could be, she thought briefly.
The list now updated, Carlos turned his attention back to the radio. A few minutes drinking his coffee and listening to it would do no harm. He had been decreasing his caffeine intake after living with Cecil due to the fact that, as lovely as it was waking up Cecil snuggling him and asking if he'd like to make coffee for him, he was not the biggest fan of the subsequent loud hammer noises coming from the kitchen which Cecil apparently counted as grounding coffee.
"Intern Jeremy? Can you, one: call Animal Control, and two: take us now to the weath–" Cecil's voice was quiet, then there were some loud yelping and strangled noises in the background. "What was that? No! No no! KHOSHEKH! What have you done to my cat, you monster?!"
Carlos' eyes widened. Someone or something was attacking Khoshekh...?
"Carlos, are you hearing this?" Jeffries interrupted Carlos' train of thought as him and Ellie came into the room, Ellie's portable radio in his hand. Carlos nodded in concern as the weather played in the background.
"We didn't hear what attacked him, but I tell you right now, whatever it is, they aren't getting away with it." Dr Green gritted her teeth.
Carlos was a little taken aback by her outburst. She was fond of the cat, as they all were. The only one of the team that had ever really gotten close to loving the floating cat as much as Cecil was not Carlos, nor Ellie, however, but Dr Johnson. The physicist had often made excuses to go to the radio station on Station Management's less active days to see Khoshekh.
Carlos was sure that if she had been there, she would have busted out her old katana and gone crazy trying to find whomever was responsible. The fact that Natalia had one at all scared him. Ellie, obviously, thought it was awesome that Natalia had taken it up in college as a 'sport'; in reality, the woman had taken it up as part of her continued interest in self defence. Given that Natalia had been brought up in one of the rougher areas of Chicago, he recalled her telling them that she took the attitude of 'be tougher' growing up.
"Khoshekh has been hurt. Very badly. Animal Control came and took him to a hospital. They think he will live. They think he will live...differently." Cecil's voice sounded broken coming out of the radio and Ellie turned it up. "...He is my boy. He is my buddy! I love him so much. And this...thing, this THING, comes here, and–"
Jeffries swallowed thickly and over the next few minutes, the team continued to listen in the usual Night Vale manner: gaped mouth silence.
"'Daniel and I and the whole StrexCorp management team got you that StrexPet, because we know you love animals so much!'" Everyone could see Carlos getting more fidgety.
"I'm going to go now. Go see my Khoshekh. He should be out of surgery in half an hour or so, and...I'm sure he will live..." Cecil finished meekly. Carlos stood up and walked calmly towards the door.
"Carlos!" Ellie ran after him. She knew this mood. Carlos was so upset he wasn't saying anything. Which was bad. "Carlos, breathe."
"I'm going for scientific and non-scientific reasons to the Animal Hospital." He replied with as much calm as he could muster. "As a scientist, I have a duty to help those who do not understand the fundamentals of science. That is one of the things a scientist is. As well as FINE. Which I am."
Ellie nodded solemnly. StrexCorp had already stolen something from the team, and she was certain that Carlos did not want anything else taken from them. That encompassed Khoshekh too.
"Just...just text us if everything's okay, will you?"
"I will." Carlos promised, giving her a small smile as he closed the door behind him gently. As she watched him leave, Ellie once again felt a pang of worry and she thought about what the not-angel had told her. Natalia was alive. And they were going to get her back. They would get it all back. She could feel that something big was coming. But, as the future is as unpredictable as the town of Night Vale itself, she could never predict how big.