Chapter 3 - “Club Meeting”

The club arrived at Khluen's apartment, about fifteen minutes away from the gymnasium. Khluen unlocked the door and walked inside with Thien and So following behind, with Thawee still thrown over his strong shoulders. Reasonable people would’ve gone straight to the hospital to have her vitals checked out but the club had placed their faith into a cocoon weaved together by a strange guy with spiders in his pockets. Thawee herself would’ve accepted the choice; she had tremendous faith in Thien with both her medical studies and metaphysical abilities to guide her back to a full recovery.

Walking into the living room of the apartment, So laid Thawee down onto a couch; he and Thien would sit on each side of her while Khluen paced in front of everyone and began his debriefing. “Well we knew that it wasn’t always going to be easy. Thien, how is she doing?”

“No major changes. I can still feel a slight life signature with her energy, growing stronger but very slowly. I can’t check out her physical vitals without unwrapping this…thing.” Thien concluded, her hands hovering above the webbed sack.

“Good, good. I must say, it doesn’t feel completely right to trust Arath at this point but he did save us.”

“That’s true.” So chimed in. “If what he said about the webs is true, then it sounds reasonable enough. She suffered a spiritual injury so incubating her in a hub of spiritual absorbent material does sound like it will do the trick.”

“I wonder how the webs pull in energy though.” Thien asked.

“Well from what I’ve seen with my studies in using enchantments, it’s all about the wavelengths at which objects vibrate with. If these spiders are from somewhere with higher spiritual frequencies, then it only makes sense that their webs would be the same but when they’re used in a lower frequency place, the energy will spread outwards like a pressure adjustment.” Khluen postulated.

“So Thawee’s near-empty spiritual state should make her like a sponge. Hm. How do you figure it takes energy from that monster though?” So said to Khluen.

“Just an idea but since ghosts are beings in transitional states, there’s distortion and chaos in their fluctuating spiritual energy and wave patterns. The web's vibration balances it out, expanding into the collection of energy that forms their figure until it’s formless and without chaos, a dilution. But this ghost had a more concrete physical form, possibly due to assimilation of its energy inside of Druvy’s human body. ”

“I think we need to talk to Druvy to see what he knows about his own possession.” Thien said to the group.

“I think so. I wonder if he was conscious at any point or if he saw us, Arath or the ghost. I guess we should make sure he made it home safe. I feel bad that all we did was tell the janitor that he was knocked out in there” Khluen replied.

“It was either that or we get seen with a body bag and have to answer a lot more questions about everything.” So said. “Anyways, I'm starving. Y’all want pizza? I’ll call in and use my discount.”

The group waited for half an hour after So called in for an order of pizzas from Spanko’s Pizza Pies, his place of work. The group turned on the TV and watched a few episodes of an old TV show they had been watching together in down time after club activities. They often bonded together over more relaxing and normal activities, despite their binding foundational purpose of friendship lying in the weird and unusual world of the paranormal. They were still just students at the end of the day.

After a few hours into their evening, their calmness was interrupted.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

Three consecutive knocks rang out into the room, the pounding of the wooden door startling all of the group at once.

“What the hell? Who is that?” Khluen thought aloud. He and So glanced at each other, nodded and stood up to walk to the door together. Thien stayed with Thawee as her primary caretaker at this point.

“I’ll check the peephole.” Khluen told So as they approached the door together but a white envelope was passed underneath the door and onto the tiled floor inside before they could look who it was. The two men stared at it for just a second before Khluen leaned down to pick it up. On the front was the first and last name of all four of the club members.

“Don’t open the door.” A low and gruff voice said from the other side of the door. Khluen finally looked into the peephole but all he could see was black, despite the sun still being out for about another hour.

“I think they’ve got a finger on the peep…” Khluen whispered to So before being interrupted.

“Read it.” The voice outside instructed.

Dear Paranormal Studies Club,

        Effective immediately, you are to cease all operations of club activity in and out of the university. As of now, the club has officially been terminated and all four of its registered members are placed on a temporary extracurricular suspension, barring each student from all school activities outside of in-term enrolled classes.

        It has come to our attention that you have bullied and harassed another student on campus during your club activities. This type of behavior is completely against our university code of ethics and has put all four of you students near the line of expulsion. Only at the special request of the bullied student in question are any of you receiving a final chance to remain enrolled.

You are not to contact Druvy Darwinson through any communication method. Breaking this rule could result in your immediate removal from campus as well as filing an official complaint with the police department.

        We do not make these disciplinary decisions lightly. It is in your best interests to be model students from here on out to protect your futures as well as showing respect to your fellow students.

        Enforcefully,

                        Paulson Perostaffoulus, Head of Disciplinary Affairs

“What the hell is this?” Khluen said to the visitor through the door, grabbing the handle and beginning to pull. He had unlocked it, yet it would not budge. The person standing on the other side had an oppressively strong grip and didn’t allow Khluen to crack the door in the slightest. “Hey, this is my apartment. You can’t keep me inside. Who are you?!”

So had also grabbed onto the door and began to pull in desperation to see the face of the person delivering the surprising letter. It was true that they had been there to see what happened to Druvy but they had in fact saved him from the ghost that was possessing him. He wasn’t conscious at any moment that they saw him during the conflict.

“That’s enough.”  The voice said firmly. “Let go of the door and listen up. You’ve made a tremendous mistake against a member of the Darwinson family. Do not interfere with him again or the consequences will reach much farther than the university itself. You’re lucky Druvy showed kindness. Don’t make me visit a second time.”

“You’re talking to the wrong people. We didn’t do anything to Druvy. What did he tell you?” Khluen shouted at the visitor.

“That’s all I have to say. Goodbye for now.” Footsteps echoed in the hallway as the visitor walked away and Khluen immediately grabbed the door handle again, opening up to get a good look at the person threatening the club. There was no one standing there in front of them. Khluen looked to the left and then the right and at the staircase at the end of the hall, a figure with black hair wearing a dark coloured tweed suit was descending the steps.

Khluen and So sprinted without a second thought towards the figure, not taking the threats of a stranger without having a real conversation. The head of the visitor turned towards them just before it was out of view but the face was covered by strands of their hair. Khluen and So were about to shout at him to stop walking away when they themselves were stopped immediately by two fingers suddenly touching their foreheads. They looked up and saw that the hands were not attached to a body, floating in the air with a dark swirling mist at the wrists.

Both of them were frozen in place at the shocking sight of the disembodied hands but were suddenly forcefully moved from their position when the pointed fingers reeled back and tucked themselves under the thumb before flicking both men in their forehead with enough might that they were lifted off their feet and thrust into the air and onto their bottoms. One of the hands simply waved side to side in a dismissive motion, communicating that not one more step should be taken. Then the hands sunk back into the mists that surrounded their wrists and just as quickly as they came, they had dissipated into the dusk air.

Khluen and So were once again powerless when faced with danger. For now, they could only retreat and tell Thien about their defeat and the club's demise.