one who stands before the cherubim: part 201/07/2007 "Karina, I'll be late. Hope you're doing well." During Joel's commute from work, when the bus went into Corey's neighborhood due to the car crash, he saw something strange. He saw a weird blue glow and heard screaming inside. He got off on the bus stop two houses from Corey's and knocked on the door. "Corey, are you OK? I heard screaming from your house." Corey opened the door slowly, looking like he had food poisoning. He greeted him at the door and acted like his usual cheerful self, but something felt off. "You good? You look like you haven't slept in days. Sleep on the couch for a bit, it's fine. I just wanted to know what was going on." Corey said, "Nothing bad. So...there was this giant...cockroach in my home office that landed on me and shot it's goop on my leg. The weird lights aren't from my house, I think the neighbors are partying again. I made something for you in the kitchen!" Joel walked into the kitchen, and everything looked alright, until he went to a trash can to throw some garbage out. There was strange black goop with blue areas, and it kept pulsating. Corey prepared him some homemade smashburgers and french fries made of sweet potatoes. Joel, while grateful for his offer, was confused. Corey was not the type to enjoy fast food, let alone prepare them. Maybe Corey was just making something new. Joel then saw the weird glow from upstairs, proving Corey wrong. While the lights from before weren't very obvious if they were coming from Corey's house or somewhere behind, he was certain something weird happened. Joel felt that it was impolite to sneak into Corey's room without his permission, so he tried to bring up the light from upstairs for permission. He then heard screaming from said room that sounded a lot like Corey himself. Joel entered the room and his jaw dropped. A corpse resembling Corey was laying on the cieling, surrounded with black and blue goop and screaming like a banshee, vomiting said goop. The corpse sprout wings and started to attack him. "YOU HURT ME. YOU LEFT ME FOR DEAD. I WILL REMEMBER YOU." Joel didn't remember doing anything that hurt Corey much, and was confused and didn't know if the corpse was Corey himself and the Corey he talked to was an impostor, or the corpse was an impostor. The corpse managed to grab onto Joel's jacket, and attempted to choke him, until Joel managed to grab a very sharp glass shard and said, "I'm sorry...I needed to protect myself. Please forgive me." Joel thrust the shard on the corpse's heart, and it's goop dissapeared suddenly. The corpse looked normal, and Joel heard something from the corpse. "Please...I'm sorry...The guy over there....egregore....The Watchers...." Joel stared at the corpse, and then saw a bunch of pamphlets and weird items. He suddenly got flashbacks of his childhood. He then saw a familiar symbol on Corey's leg. 6 eyes. A vine that resembled barb wire. A weird circular sun with an eye and rays. The Order of the Watchers got him. Joel walked home and held Corey to the backyard. He gave Corey a peaceful burial in his garden, where he spent much of his days. "I'm sorry they found you and hurt you. I and Karina will get vengeance."one who stands before the cherubim: part 101/06/2007 "hey, sweetie, i'm gonna be at soleil and alex's apartment. my car is being repaired, so i'll be taking the bus. see you there!" "thanks, jojo <3" Terri was waiting for Soleil or Alexandra to open the door after ringing the bell. Just as she was about to look at her phone, Alexandra opened the door, and greeted her. "Hey, Terri. How are you?" Terri responded, "Terrible. The rain damaged my hair and the wind kept fucking with my umbrella. Is it ok if I leave it next to the radiator for it to dry?" Alexandra told her it would be a bad idea and gave her a plastic bag. After that, Terri sat in the living room couch, and turned on the TV, but was dissapointed that Survivor would not be playing for 4 hours. "You got any DVDs? I hate daytime television." Alexandra gave her 3 of her DVDs to Terri. The first one was a shitty gore film about a bear possessed by the devil killing people for no reason. The second was some sort of Twilight parody. The last was a documentary that her favorite band, Cherry Novocaine, released last year. It was a prog/emo fusion band that Terri was familiar with due to Joel playing one of their songs on their first date, but not remembering which song he played specifically, only on their most popular album, Blood on the Beach. She planned to watch the documentary until Soleil came out of the kitchen. Soleil greeted her with a more light and silly tone than Alexandra. Terri hugged her and Soleil told her that she wanted to show something she just made. When Terri got into her room, she was more than stunned. Soleil's room felt like the I Spy books she read during her youth, and of a mad scientist's. It was covered in psychidelic artwork, weird machines, and silly trinkets. "Terri, you good?" Terri nodded and stated, "Where is your little machine of yours?" Soleil told her, "Just let me get it. It's fragile and I spent last week on it. It's for communicating with aliens. I also gotta get my notebook." Terri was about to chuckle. She never believed aliens were real and felt that most alien sighting stuff was just bullcrap. However, she was too nice to voice her opinions on Soleil's machine. Soleil showed her the machine. It looked like a radio from the 70s, but with a big screen that said "ALIEN TRANSMISSION NOT DETECTED" and "S.L. FISCHER 2007" "So Terri, I use this to contact alien signals from outer space. I've read documents that NASA uses for their spacecraft. I'm quite good at math and shit, and I think I've gotten a couple. It takes a while, but you know what they say, Rome wasn't built in a day. It's portable, but I usually keep it in my house or the balcony if I can't take it outside to get better signals. I also heard some signals from my brother Corey's house, but he hasn't talked to me for a while. I think he's sick but he hasn't texted me. I hope he's doing well." Terri wished Soleil well, and looked at the machine. She stared attentively at Soleil, as she attempted to turn on the machine, but wouldn't recieve signals. "DAMN STUPID MACHINE WON'T FUCKING WORK!!!!" Although Terri didn't know much about engineering, let alone experimental machines built for alien transmissions, she tried to comfort Soleil and asked her for some chips. Soleil accepted her offer. The door rang, and Soleil went to the door, and when she opened it, Joel came. "Jojo, what happened? It's been 25 minutes." Joel stated, "Terri, please forgive me. The bus was delayed and there was a car crash on the usual route. I had to take a 10 minute detour." Terri offered her a hug and comforted him. "I understand." He then put his coat and umbrella on the coat hanger and an umbrella bag. She showed him Soleil's machine, and Joel was more into Soleil's machine than Terri. Joel believed in the supernatural and aliens, but never really made any of these machines. Joel stared at the machine, while Terri and Alexandra watched the Cherry Novocaine documentary. "Jojo, remember this band? It reminds me of you....OH WAIT THE SONG FROM OUR DATE! JOJO COME!!!!" Joel came and watched the documentary with her and Alexandra. He didn't like the band as much as when he used to play their songs with Terri, but watched it anyway. While they watched TV in the living room, Soleil detected something weird. A big signal for the first time, but didn't feel alien. Felt something....occult. Aggressive. Eldritch as well. Soleil stared at the machine, ready to record the results.