The Hunters regrouped in the living room to discuss their findings. Cricket and Young Sir Reginald shared first. Salem confirmed that the art in the corner of the basement was nothing new – Sarah had been putting weird goop on it for the past couple of months on and off. She started after the Virtual began, so he was suspicious of it, but he didn’t think it was related to the immediate threat. The piece of the Greeble, on the other hand, triggered more than a few hisses and growls.
Boris shared next, telling the group of the seemingly sourceless smell in the kitchen. Cricket said she’d heard of that happening a couple times before, and it was always directly before a major breach – at least bigger than the one in the basement. Mittens and Sir Reginald Senior nodded along, though they had nothing additional to add.
Finally, Salem asked if Craig could describe what he saw in Sarah’s room.
He hesitated, wondering if he had simply imagined the disturbing scene, but with some gentle encouragement, he started, “Well, okay, this is going to sound really weird, and I’m not sure if it was real because Salem couldn’t see it.”
Cricket cocked her head at this detail. Her eyes narrowed, focusing on Craig, and her predatory instincts showed a little more than he was comfortable with. “What did you see?” she asked.
“It was some kind of glowing symbol,“ he stammered. ”I could see the glow as soon as I walked in the room, but when I stared at it, it… it drew me in. I couldn’t look away, couldn’t even tell Salem I’d found something. It was bizarre, like it was controlling my–”
A violent cacophony ripped through the night, loud enough to make every pet cringe. To the untrained ears, it sounded like the wretched squelching of a common house cat regurgitating on the carpet, a glass shattering as it’s pushed onto a hard wood floor, and the ripping of a massive bedsheet all at once. To Cricket, the source was clear:
A Greeble had breached The Gate.
Immediately, the stray bolted up the stairs, leaping three at a time. The rest of the Hunters followed close behind her, including Craig, though again, he froze at the top of the steps. Within the few precious seconds it took them to climb the stairs, the bedroom exploded with noise. First, they heard a slow, gurgling, slurping sound, but it was quickly drowned out by the sound of a scream: Sarah’s scream.
Summoning all his strength and speed, Salem sprinted past Cricket in the hallway and slammed into the door, throwing it open for his companions to follow. For a split second, he took in the scene in front of him. Sarah was huddled in the far corner of her bed, pressing her body against the wall and covering her face with her hands, hiding from the nightmare looming over the opposite side.
The Greeble was horrifying to behold. Its body, if it could be described as such, was a glob of writhing, slimy mucus, covered with tiny, hair-like tentacles, some of which extended to seemingly random lengths, the longest of which could easily reach across the room. Embedded within its amorphous form were hundreds of eyeball-like structures, though without lashes or brows, encircling a series of hard beaks, spread about the nightmarish form haphazardly.
Without even acknowledging the Hunters, the thing reversed directions, ignoring the defenseless human until it could deal with the troublesome intruders. Its tiny tentacles grasped and pulled as it began rolling itself toward the bedroom door.
“S-Salem?” Sarah whimpered, confused and terrified.
Salem drew back, preparing to lunge, his fur standing straight up and his tail pointing straight down. But before he could spring, Boris lunged from behind him, jumping over the cat and barreling straight into the monster, taking as big of a chomp as he could. Salem joined his friend, all claws and teeth, and the Reginalds jumped in just behind him.
Their claws made contact and slipped through its slimy skin with ease, and their bites filled their mouths with whatever disgusting goo this monster was made of. At first, they thought they were making an impact, but the Greeble hardly flinched. It used three of its massive tentacles to wrap around its four attackers, slamming them up against the wall.
“No!” Sarah shouted from the bed.
Cricket watched in dismay as their magically strengthened attacks sloughed off a few pieces of the monster without any apparent effect. Normally, a few strong swipes would weaken the creature, and they would continue attacking until it eventually retreated back through The Gate, but it was clear they needed another plan. “Our attacks aren’t working! You can distract it, but we can’t defeat it like this!” she cried.
A million memories raced through Mittens’s mind while she searched for any information that might help, any scrap of knowledge she’d picked up during her heyday that might explain how this Greeble had grown so strong. After a few precious seconds, it dawned on her: the speed at which it appeared combined with its impossible strength could only mean it was summoned here intentionally. If Sarah didn’t do it, and if there were no other humans here, that must mean it was bound to an object!
“Craig!” she shouted. “Where was the vase with the glowing symbols!?”
Within those precious seconds, the Greeble had slithered back to the bedside and was starting to wriggle its putrid mass over the covers. Boris, Salem, and the Reginalds were still stunned, crumpled against the various walls, leaving Sarah defenseless. Seeing her seconds from death broke something inside of Craig. Instead of her face, he saw his little Kimberly, scared and defenseless. His fear vanished, replaced with righteous rage, and he charged into the bedroom.
“On the nightstand, right next to the bed!” he squeaked, launching himself across the floor before latching onto one of the creature’s many beaks with his teeth.
The distraction was enough. The Greeble ceased its slithering toward Sarah and tried ripping the guinea pig off, but he was latched on tight, and he wasn’t letting go until Sarah was safe.
Meanwhile, a calico blur launched herself onto the nightstand as soon as Craig’s words left his tiny lips. Cricket took one final look at the monster below before knocking the vase down onto the ground, where it shattered immediately.
The same sickening sequence of sounds that the group had heard less than a minute ago ripped through the night once more as the Greeble was forced back through The Gate. Its form shrank and contorted as it deflated, like it was being sucked through a tiny hole from the inside. Within seconds, every last slimy piece of it had been sucked back through The Gate.