The Outlands

Tess returned to her breakfast, slightly speeding up now that she had something to do other than standard freelancing work. And, within thirty minutes, she and her wives were back in Gramps’s house on Mael.

“So…I guess we just wait around now?” Ellie said. “Not like we can have him get here any faster.”

“I think I’d like to browse the internet here, while I have the opportunity.” Maven said. “I want to see exactly what people are saying about Tess and this town.”

“And I think that episode of the show we did an interview for came out?” Tess said. “We should probably watch it.”

“Oh, good call.” Ellie replied, reaching into her bag and pulling out a laptop. “Here, Maven, I keep a laptop in my bag, you can use that to browse while I pull up the show.” She handed Maven the laptop, then got to work at the TV, navigating through the TV’s apps until she got to WatchNow, Mael’s premiere video on demand service.

It was pretty easy to find the show there, and it turned out that they had made the episode into a two-parter. The first part was nothing truly exciting; it mostly went over the stuff Isabella had been doing, minor hauntings and generic poltergeist activity, but during it the host, Marley, kept making subtle allusions to “something bigger” and “the real meat of the thing”.

It took Tess until halfway through the episode to realize that this being a two-parter was probably being done as a surprise for people watching as it aired. While the episode had “part one” in its title, nowhere in the episode itself had Marley mentioned a second part, and the episode certainly seemed to be structured as a standalone, so Tess had a sneaking suspicion that when the episode had first aired, the part one hadn’t been in the title.

The most interesting thing that they showed was security camera footage of Isabella, appearing without being invisible. A “full figure manifestation”, as they had excitedly said on the show. Isabella had been fascinated by that segment, even going so far as to come out of Tess’s body so she could get closer to the TV to watch. It was cute, in a way; Isabella hardly ever left Tess’s body, generally only when Tess asked her to or was in need of privacy, so it was nice to see her so interested in something.

And, finally, at the end of the episode, Marley turned to the camera, nearly vibrating with enthusiasm. “But, folks, those of you who are in the know are probably screaming at your televisions right now. ‘What about that thing? That monster that showed up a few months ago? Surely you know about it!’ Well, viewer, you better believe our team knows about it! And, in fact, we know so much that we’ve decided to split it into a whole second episode!

“That’s right, for the first time ever, we’re doing a two-part episode! And believe you me, folks, this is not an episode you are going to want to miss. We have some absolutely groundbreaking stuff, and we just can’t wait to share it with you. In fact, we’re so impatient that we are releasing it right now! Yes, right now!

“I understand that doesn’t mean much for those of you watching after time of release, but whether you’re watching the moment this comes out or later it means the same thing; you just sit tight and the next episode will play automatically. So…we’ll see you then with more of Mael’s unseen wonders!”

A short outro and credits later, the next episode did indeed queue itself up, and they were right back into it. “Folks, if you’re just joining in on this episode, I would recommend going back and watching the previous one; we’re doing a two-parter for the first time, and you’ll be missing context for this one. For those of you who have seen it, though, buckle up, it’s going to be a wild one!”

He walked over to a large projector screen and gave the camera a smile. “Believe it or not, we have the world’s first high-quality footage of a real supernatural event. For those of us in paranormal circles, it’s long been accepted that the paranormal destroys the quality of videos that are taken of it, but we have reason to believe that that won’t be the case for much longer. Video of this incident is out there, but I think this is the first time a high-quality version has been released to the public. So, without further ado, here it is!”

The screen cut to the first frames of a surprisingly high-quality video, clearly not shot from a phone. “Ladies and gentlemen, do I have an announcement for you!” Aaron’s voice boomed over the school speakers. By the looks of it, this video was being shot by someone on the edge of the crowd of the yearbook signing, likely one of Aaron’s people seeing as how the recording had started just before he started talking.

The event proceeded more or less how Tess remembered it, but it was interesting to be able to properly see it from an outside perspective. And…now that she was thinking about it…

With that question answered, Tess turned her attention back to the show. After a couple minutes spent dissecting the video, the show began going through interviews with Tess’s classmates about the event, and about Tess herself. And that meant that, for the first time since it had all gone down, Tess got to hear her classmates’ unfiltered opinions about her. Or…probably unfiltered, one or two likely assumed that Tess would eventually see this.

The stories from her classmates, at least the ones that were shown, were pretty similar. They talked about how they had known Tess since she was a little girl and she had never shown any signs of being able to do something like this. They would give their opinions on her, mostly about how she had always been quiet and even boring as one had put it, then talked about the incident.

Without exception, they said that moment when Tess had roared during the yearbook signing was the most terrified they’d ever been in their life. They said that even though they wanted to move, wanted to run as far away as they could, their bodies wouldn’t listen. And then, when they could move, they suddenly weren’t that scared anymore.

Most of them had no idea what Tess was doing now. A couple had seen her since, hanging out with her friends, and a couple others had heard about what Tess had done with Joan, but other than that she might as well have vanished. And that made sense; Tess was spending less and less time on Mael, and she didn’t have much reason to attend most social events if they weren’t from her immediate circle of friends.

After that round of interviews, the show returned once again to Marley in the studio. “Well, folks, I think it’s time for one of our favorite games here on the show! That’s right, we’re going to play ‘what monster is this’! So, let’s collate all the information we know; for almost eighteen years, up until about half a year ago, Tess was a perfectly normal girl, and that alone narrows our options down immensely.

“Given that, you’d normally think we’re looking at something similar to a doppelganger or changeling. And you could be forgiven for that, but I don’t think that’s the case. You see, normally, when a monster that replaces a human is discovered, they run away and look for an opportunity to take a new disguise. But this one hasn’t done that, and, what’s even more interesting, was the one to reveal its disguise first. So, that being the case, I would have wagered we’re actually looking at some sort of creature that feeds on fear, a fearmonger. This one is probably manipulating the situation to its advantage by causing both the hauntings and the high-profile case with Tess.

“Unfortunately, these monsters are rarely the kind to be easily categorized, so what do you do if you’re a resident of this town? How can you keep yourself safe? First, with any fearmonger, it’s important to remember that you don’t want to be food. Simply by not being scared, you become much less of a target. Creatures such as this are more likely to target those who are susceptible to it before moving onto harder prey.”

“That’s…actually good advice.” Maven commented. “It’s the kind we would give to any village waiting on some high-level person to come deal with a problem. He’s probably going to recommend calling a Hunter, right?”

“But,” Marley continued, “I can already hear you wondering about the case with Tess. Didn’t it claim that it didn’t want the townsfolk to be scared of her? Well, they don’t have to be. Just by proving something supernatural is real, it makes its real work, the hauntings, much more credible.

“That sort of display isn’t something a fearmonger can do often, so if something like that happens, you’re actually probably safer in the immediate aftermath. Just don’t draw its attention to you, and it won’t feed on your essence. And, as always, if you suspect there to be monster activity near you, the first course of action is to contact the local branch of the church and see if they can call in a Hunter.

“And that’s exactly what happened here. We don’t have any video of this next event, but at the local high school’s graduation, a Hunter came and confronted Tess. And then…left. She would go on to tell the residents that Tess was, in fact, not a monster, and what was even more curious, that she could feel the aura of the gods about her. Then, she took up residence in the town, to handle any other incidents, should they arise.

“But we didn’t know about that at the time. In fact, it was something we only found out after we had arrived in Kaas to investigate. And, one day near the beginning of our investigation, we saw Tess out in the streets. Of course, the first thing I did was rush out and ask for an interview, and, believe it or not, we got one!”

Marley beamed at the camera. “So, without further ado, let’s listen, shall we?”

The interview was more or less how Tess had remembered it. There were some cuts made to make it flow better, but it didn’t misrepresent anything she said or anything of the sort. The most interesting part was the slow-motion footage they had captured of Tess’s claws coming out. It was interesting to see as they sort of…faded into existence over the course of a couple of seconds, when normally the process was far too quick to see in any sort of detail.

The rest was mostly uninteresting; some short interviews with Marie and Pastor Faust, speculation on what Tess’s revelations meant, and some assurances that the team of the show would continue to do what they were doing until everyone understood the truth of the world. Still, Tess had to admit that, had she not known about the wider world and the existence of the supernatural, she probably would have found it significantly more entertaining. What had once been fantastical concepts were now mundane, and that sense of wonder was something she couldn’t get back, even if she had wanted to.

Once the show ended, she and her wives ended up turning on an earlier episode, one Marley had mentioned to them when they had met, where he chased down a bone horror with a Hunter. Tess had been curious as to how Hunters normally worked, and they needed something to kill time while waiting for Aaron. Unfortunately, the gods said he was still at least two hours away from getting there, so there was nothing to do for it but sit back and wait.