June 23rd, 1983
The group sat together in the cafeteria, trying to decide what to do next.
It was less a strategy meeting and more a collection of exhausted survivors forcing themselves to keep moving.
Gray had been tied to a chair off to the side. Apparently Nicholas had already tazed him several times, though judging by how intact he still looked, it hadn't done much beyond annoying him.
Eliza sat in the far corner, arms folded tightly, making a very deliberate effort not to look at Nicholas.
At one of the tables, Dorothea and Joseph were playing cards in tense silence, the game serving as little more than a distraction to keep their minds occupied. So far, Joseph was winning.
In the kitchen, Jasper worked over the stove, preparing something warm for the group while Cosmo sat loyally at his feet, staring up at him with the hopeful patience of a dog convinced a piece of meat might fall at any second.
And at the center of it all, Wren and Nicholas spoke in low voices, trying to decide what came next.
A few minutes later, Jasper stepped out from the kitchen carrying plates of food.
"I've been thinking," he said as he set them down. "How are the cult members even surviving? We have all the food. They should be starving by now."
Dorothea tossed down another losing card and frowned.
"He's got a point. We haven't fed Gray once since we tied him up, and he still looks perfectly fine."
Gray lifted his head at that, smiling pleasantly despite the ropes around him.
"Thanks to our lord's blessings," he said, "we no longer require such fickle things as food."
Then his eyes drifted toward the plates Jasper had set down.
He paused.
"…Though," Gray admitted, his mouth watering just a little, "that pasta does look kind of amazing."
Jasper immediately seized on that.
He stepped closer and deliberately held the plate right in front of Gray's face, letting the steam and rich smell of the food drift toward him.
"If you start talking," Jasper said, "and tell us more about how your body's been changed, maybe I'll make you a plate."
Gray inhaled slowly, almost dreamily.
"Well," he said, still smiling, "we all seem to receive very unique blessings from our lord."
He tilted his head.
"They each come with a small downside, I think. For example…" He gave a bright, awkward little laugh. "Mine appears to have made me incapable of feeling sadness."
His smile twitched wider.
"I'm sort of… permanently cheerful now."
The room went quiet for a second.
Nicholas looked deeply unimpressed.
"What kind of 'blessings' do the rest of you freaks have?" he asked, making air quotes with obvious disdain.
Gray's expression didn't change.
"Nope. Not a clue," he said. "Nobody really tells me anything."
He laughed again, light and nervous and completely wrong for the subject.
"They also left me in that death-library to die." He paused, then added with forced optimism, "But I'm sure that was just a test."
Dorothea stared at him.
"Wow," she said flatly. "That is sad."
Joseph looked up from his cards and quickly signed something.
Dorothea glanced at his hands, then snorted.
"And pathetic," she translated.
Gray kept smiling.
Which somehow made the whole thing feel even more miserable.
Wren let out a quiet sigh.
"I actually feel a little bad for him."
Before anyone could respond, Eliza suddenly pushed back her chair and stood.
"I need some air," she said. "I'll be back."
Nicholas straightened immediately.
"What? No." The panic in his voice was instant. "It's too dangerous to go wandering off alone. What if you run into a monster? Or worse?"
Eliza didn't even look at him.
"Then Wren can come with me. Or Dorothea. At this point, I'd even take Jasper over you."
Jasper looked up from the food.
"Wow. Rude."
Wren pushed herself to her feet with a tired sigh.
"I'll go with her," she said. Then she looked at Nicholas. "Give her your taser. Just in case."
Nicholas hesitated only a second before handing it over.
Eliza took it without a word.
Wren checked the gun in her own hand, then nodded toward the door.
The two women stepped out together.
"Be careful," Nicholas called after them.
Neither answered right away.
Once the cafeteria door shut behind them and the noise of the others faded, Wren glanced over at Eliza.
"You're really furious with him," she said. "So what did he do this time?"
Eliza folded her arms tightly as they walked.
"It's the same thing it's always been," Eliza muttered. "He never changes."
She let out a frustrated breath, her grip tightening around the taser Nicholas had handed her.
"Even when I think I'm finally getting through to him, he always slips backwards. He never really improves." She glanced sideways at Wren. "Hey, you're, what, fifty? Married for twenty years, I think? How did you deal with Arlo when he was being difficult?"
Wren immediately smacked her lightly on the arm.
"I'm thirty-six," she said flatly. "And I was married for almost five years."
Eliza winced.
"Sorry."
Wren's expression softened.
"We decided to get married the day after the Las Vegas incident," she said. Her voice grew quieter as the memory returned. "Arlo was devastated that he couldn't get down on one knee to propose properly." A faint, fragile smile crossed her face. "Especially after something so awful… seeing him hold that ring out to me anyway…"
She looked ahead, but her eyes had gone distant.
"It made me so happy."
For a moment, Eliza said nothing.
Then she sighed.
"Yeah. You had the perfect relationship." Her shoulders slumped. "Meanwhile I'm still in love with my stupid ex."
She paused.
"And I also kind of hate him."
Wren huffed a faint laugh.
"Love and hate are honestly just two sides of the same coin," she said. "Especially when it comes to romance."
She glanced at Eliza.
"In both cases, it just means you care too much to feel anything halfway."
"Beautiful detergent… need more detergent…"
The voice came warped and uneven from somewhere around the corner.
Both women froze.
Eliza let out a long, annoyed sigh.
"Do not tell Nicholas about this," she muttered. "He'll panic, lose his mind, and never let either of us leave the cafeteria alone again."
Wren gave a small nod.
Then, carefully, they moved toward the corner and looked.
What they found was almost certainly one of the facility's cleaners.
Or what had once been one.
Her outfit still resembled a maid's uniform, but only in shape. The "fabric" was flesh-colored, slick and uneven, with dozens of blinking eyes embedded throughout it like decorations stitched into living skin. Below the waist, her body split into sharp, spider-like limbs that skittered across the floor in frantic, stabbing motions.
Her upper half was worse.
She had no arms.
No proper shoulders.
Only a massive, dark maroon lump of flesh where her torso should have been, swollen and rounded like some grotesque mole ripped from the earth and forced upright. From the center of it, a long pink tongue lashed wildly through the air, slapping against the walls as she searched.
"Need to find detergent!" the Cleaner shrieked.
The spider-legs scraped harder against the floor.
"Need more detergent!"
Wren tightened her grip on the gun.
Beside her, Eliza silently raised the taser.
June 23rd, 1983
On this date, Wren Cromwell and Eliza Miller made first recorded contact with the Azathoth-infected organism later designated:
The Cleaner