Blood and gore warning this chapter, mostly rats, but described in kind of a lot of detail. Now is when I bring out the spook. I read somewhere that the key to writing good horror is to be afraid of what you're writing about, and, well, then this is pretty good horror. I may or may not sleep tonight.

Thank you for putting up with me, darlings, I really do appreciate it. So! Who wants a chapter?

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Turns out cats were fast when they wanted to be. The cat ran low to the ground, his lithe black body nearly eclipsed by the thickening fog, but we could see him just well enough to follow. Coraline led, and if I had processing power to spare I might have noticed the grace in her legs as she loped along. However: I did not. My internal monologue, always running and rarely dumbfounded, was stuck like a broken record on AAAAAAAAAH.

What the hell? What the hell?  What was happening? Why were we running? Could the cat really talk? Was I dreaming again? I must have been. It was the only thing that made sense. I was dreaming, because the cat spoke, and Coraline, this Coraline, running so close to me I could have taken her hand, was only a figment of my overactive imagination. That was good. That was safe.

I felt anything but good, anything but safe. My heart beat a crescendo up my throat and it was as dark as the night my brother died. It was a different kind of darkness than in New York, but thick and oppressive just the same. Deeper, falling from the sky like gooey rain and covering the pavement and the houses and Coraline's beautiful hair. The trees leered at us. This was not good, or safe.

The cat ran us down a path through the woods. I wasn't sure if Wybie, stumbling behind, knew where we were going, or if Coraline, pace beginning to lag, knew who "she" was. I was too winded to ask. The cat then abruptly stopped at the edge of the trees, frozen at the line where path became sparse grass.

Before us was the big pink house we had just left. Still big, still pink, but a stranger. The same house. Big, pink. The house I slept in when I visited Wybie. But not that house. Not my house, not his house, not Grandma's house. What was this place?

The cat turned to Coraline. "She sent a new doll to us."

"Did you see it? Who was it for? Did you stop it?"

"Y/N can answer those."

Coraline's eyes were on me. Purple (powerless, petrified). "Did you find a weird you-doll?"

"...Yes?"

"What did you do with it?!"

Why did she look so afraid? I wanted to hug her. "What the hell is going on?"

Wybie said, "We'll explain, I promise, just tell us where the doll is now. When did you last have it?"

"I dropped it in the well. Yesterday."

Wybie's hands flew to his mouth. I looked at Coraline; purple, panicked. The cat's eyes were great blue moons sliced in half with a slit of black.

Coraline said, "Oh, no."

~~~

They didn't explain anything to me. Well, they did, they tried, but it went in one ear out the other because it didn't make sense. Something about a door, and a key, and my doll. Something about a beldam. Something about Coraline.

She was different, somehow. Sharper. Not different like the house, which we approached slowly and tentatively. She was... more grown up. Not like her parents, not even like Mrs. D, but grown up like heroes in action movies. Held together with spit and determination. I could almost picture a sword or gun in her hand.

If only. If only we had swords or guns.

Coraline opened the door to the house, what would have been her door if this was a safe place. I flinched, but there was nothing there. Just a gaping, empty hallway, stretching endlessly into the darkness.

Coraline stepped in. She turned to us. Wybie was quivering. Coraline reached for me, and I took her hand, and we faced the emptiness.

There was a scrabbling, a flash of red in the dark, and the cat darted forward so fast I almost missed it. There was a tiny scream, a crunch. The cat came back holding a rat in its mouth.

"Are there more?" Coraline asked. "Are they sand or real this time?"

The cat dropped the rat's body. "Real. Sickeningly real."

I looked at the rat. Sickening indeed. Blackish blood oozed out of it onto the floor. Its neck was the wrong way around. One beady eye pointed off somewhere near where I assumed Wybie to be.

Wait.

"Wy?"

No answer.

The door slammed shut.

Coraline's hand in mine tightened, and I thought she said something, but I didn't hear it over the sound of my heart in my skull. Wybie. Wybie. Where was he?

"Cat?" said Coraline.

"Here," said the cat. "And she is not. At least, not at present. Only a few more rats down the hall."

I didn't understand how the cat could see. Its eyes were just so barely luminescent, and the rest of the world was that oppressive, inky darkness from outside. Nothing in New York was like this, nothing my brother had ever said or done, no amount of danger, not even his blood pooling on the ground was like this. I was so, so scared. But Coraline's hand was steady in mine, and I wanted to find my cousin.

"What happened to Wybie?" It came out of me barely higher than a whisper.

Coraline's hand squeezed mine. "I don't know."

The cat said, "I suspect we will have to ask her."

"But we're not going to. Because the doll can't be that fast and we're going to catch it, and we're going to tear it apart, and hide the key even better."

I was so confused. But, dutifully, I followed when Coraline pulled me along. We walked carefully down the hallway and its horrible, devouring darkness. From time to time there would be sounds of scrabbling, then: tiny scream, crunch. My hand shook. Coraline's did not. We walked, and walked, and walked.

Coraline stopped. I almost ran into her. She stood still for a moment, and I wanted nothing more than to bury my head against her shoulder and wake up.

Then, she opened a door.

The light hurt my eyes. There were reds and purples, and the wardrobe had antennae. Coraline closed the door, and told me, "Not the room we're after."

I wanted to cry. "What are we looking for?"

"A small door. I just need to make sure it locked, and then we need to take back the key and put it somewhere even her dolls can't find it."

"Who is 'she'?"

"My Other Mother."

"Like... a mother figure? Your Mrs. D? Or your biological mom you don't live w-"

"She's not my mother."

"Oh."

Coraline gave no further explanation. I did not press for one.

The next door Coraline opened led to an empty room, only greenish tones and sad, grey dust. There was no ceiling light or lamp, but the room provided a muted light which spilled hesitantly into the hall. It was by this light which I could see, just ahead, a small, square door.

"Is that it?" I said, pointing.

Coraline let go of my hand, but hadn't finished running to the door before a chorus of small voices picked up.

We are small and we are many.
We are many, we are small.

I couldn't scream. I couldn't move. There was a sound behind the voices, a sctritching of tiny feet inside the walls, crinkling the wallpaper and making me picture a worm digging under someone's skin.

We were here before you rose.
We will be here when you fall.

The cat made a quiet noise like a siren. In my peripheral I could see it puff up as much of its fur as it could, and its ears go flat back against its head. I wanted to pick it up and hold it. I couldn't move. I couldn't scream.

We have teeth and we have tails.
We have tails, we have eyes.

Coraline didn't move. Coraline didn't scream. Coraline stared at the wall, so close to her face, ripple with the tiny bodies moving in it. I pictured the wall bursting like a blood vessel and spraying her with sickly pus.

We here here before you fell.
You will be here when we rise.

The square door swung open as the door to the empty grey room slammed shut, and the space beyond the square door inhaled, beckoning. Down the hall a seam in the wallpaper split and out poured a mass of writhing, dark, sharp-eyed rats. Coraline took my hand and pulled me through the door.

The inside was softer than I had imagined. The door shut and the lock clicked behind us, and Coraline seemed to find this comforting. There was no light, but this darkness was sleepy and soft, yawning into the space and settling like a weighted blanket. Nearly alive. Very nearly. Possibly too nearly.

Acutely, I felt the age of this place. The big pink house that was not the big pink house had felt distantly antique, but this cavernous place was older. It was very old and very angry. But it had yet to hurt us. This hall, this tunnel, was older than the fear in the house and the rocks beneath the town we had come from. And it was angry. Why did I know this?

Coraline touched the wall. "Thank you."

The tunnel exhaled, and we walked. The door seemed further with every step we took, and even the cat's footsteps felt disrespectfully loud, but Coraline took my hand again and suddenly the door was right there in front of us.

We took a breath with the tunnel.

I said, on a wave of impulse, "I hated you."

"What?"

"At first. Before. When we met, I hated you. And I hated that Wybie liked you."

"Do you hate me now?"

"No."

It wasn't a confession, far from it, but it settled on her face like it was. She gave me a smile, then, a crooked, devastating smile, and I felt my heart swell. She squeezed my hand and opened the door.

Then something slammed against it from the other side, closing it hard, and the lock clicked.

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There we are, then. Another cliffhanger but now I'm Invested so hopefully I won't make you poor lot wait another year. I am truly, deeply sorry about that. If it makes you feel better I haven't updated any other books either lmao