Gremlin

Lucas spent a moment rubbing the crust from his eyes before looking around for some drinking water. After unpeeling his tongue from the roof of his mouth, he let his head fall back onto his pillow with a grunt and wished he'd had the night of drinking before what felt like an epic hangover. Whilst there with his eyes shut again, he replayed the...whatever it was in his head. Unable to pinpoint the moment he hit the deck, Lucas decided to see if he could figure out where he was and maybe fill in some of the blanks. He sat up and swung his legs from the bed, gritting his teeth against his pounding head. With another grunt, Lucas pulled back the curtain, noticing the pink colouring everything seemed to have. "That can't be good." Lucas thought, wondering if he'd suffered a brain injury or some sort of burst blood vessel.

Lucas' natural curiosity took over as he approached the locks mounted in the wall. When he was within arms length of it he focused on a couple close to it, trying to force the names into clarity. His reward was a painful jolt of electricity that ran up his key and caused him to stagger a few steps, along with the sense that those names were none of his damned business. To his horror, the key he had fashioned began to melt away, forcing Lucas to ignore his now numb arm. He took the hint and returned his concentration to maintaining the key's form, inserting it into his own lock.

Lisa and her concerned cries were quickly forgotten about when Lucas was faced with the tower. When the tendrils of power passed through him, he flinched, expecting the pain of an electric shock or worse. Instead, he somehow knew that it had simply made him more. A quick look told Lucas that there was no convenient mat, rock or garden gnome with a key hidden beneath it. With no other option presenting itself, he reached out towards the keyhole and, without knowing where the thought came from, willed some of the energy within him into the lock.

Not a problem. Works gone crazy for me past couple of months, I'm trying to arrange a wedding & I keep getting "toddler-ed", so I know how it is. From what I can see, everyone's sticking around.

When the image leapt from his screen, it was everything Lucas could do to not fall out of the chair. He wondered what, if anything anyone in the communal kitchen would see if they looked his way. That became less of a concern when the storm began to rage around his office. Briefly, he wondered if the lightning strokes would damage the building's electricals and if he would be blamed, and therefore billed for it. That too faded into insignificance when he felt the storm's wordless call. Feeling a similar urge to what some have named 'the call of the void' and despite the rational part of his brain telling him it wasnt possible, Lucas stood as if to grab a thunderbolt before it vanished. What he might do if he was successful and survived, he had no idea.

OOC Tried to add my roll to my previous post, clearly I've still not got the hang of the new roller. Then I forgot to label the roll.🤦‍♂️

When he got back to the office Lucas helped himself to another coffee, more to give himself time to order his thoughts than any actual desire for the drink. After giving it some thought, he decided to try an internet search for reports similar to Marty's before plugging the USB stick into his computer.

"Hmm." Lucas muttered to himself, seeing nothing that might send the rodents nuts. "Probably a predator." He reasoned as he stood. Lucas shook his head and reminded himself to not get distracted. The weird light show was the case here, not animals behaving unusually. Unless the two were linked, "Nope, don't be seeing rabbit holes where there are none." "I'll leave you in peace for now." He told Marty, giving the client a few seconds to add any final details before he set off back to his office.

Lucas started slightly as the damned critter shot from the bushes and wondered what had the thing so riled up. "No need, it got me as well." He looked again towards the bush the little monster had come from and felt the need to satisfy his curiosity. Lucas approached the bush, peering inside and around it. He was not quite sure what he expected to find but at the same time, but knew he couldn't leave without taking a look.

Lucas looked into the shrubs to see if he could locate the source of their movement. It was almost as if the breeze that followed was an afterthought to cover up the movement. But that would mean someone could control it, and that simply wasn't possible. After pulling a plain black watch cap from his pocket an donning it, he held out a hand to Marty in the hope of appearing professional. "As soon as I have somethin'." "Assuming I get anything." He added, in his head.

"Don't worry, I'm not in the habit of bankruptin' clients." Lucas hoped he sounded reassuring. "Stops repeat business an' once word got around no-one'd hire me." There was also the fact that he wanted to figure out just what the hell was going on. When he'd branched out on his own, he'd expected to be looking into cheating spouses and insurance claims. Not whatever this turned out to be.

"Since I have no idea what else to class this as, I'll call it general investigative services. For those, it's a hundred dollars an hour with a four hour minimum, plus expenses." Lucas answered, quoting from his website. "Billable expenses." He amended, since it was often hard to provide receipts for bribes, payments to informants and other outlays that people wanted to keep quiet. "Is that gonna be a problem?"

Lucas stood to leave. "I think we can rule that out already. I've seen it myself, after all" He told his client, hoping it sounded reassuring. "But I think we'll both sleep easier if I can figure out what's goin' on. Try to film any more incidents an' I'll keep you updated from my side."

Lucas nodded, "That's that possibility gone then." he said more to himself than Marty. Thinking that he hed covered pretty much everything with Marty, he asked "OK, is there anything else about all this you think we haven't covered?"

Just the usual around this time of year. I'm either working or doing the rounds visiting family depending on what day it is.

"There it is again." Lucas thought at Marty's mention of having seen something disturbing. Although they had definitely experienced something at the same time, his had been borderline wondrous. Lucas could barely think how best to describe the tower. There was however, one last thing he needed to know. "You had this place checked for gas leaks before contacting me, didn't you?"

"Somethin' similar, complete with headache." Lucas massaged the top of his nose between his eyes as he replied, then got back to making notes. He included his own experience as well as Marty's before time could dilute the memory. Comparing the two, Luas noticed no mention of a tower of any sort in Marty's version of events, and no 'terrible blackness' in his own. "Don't worry about not recording it. You sure that's all you remember?"

As his eye readjusted to the relative gloom of Marty's room, Lucas couldn't help wondering what might have happened had he been in a position to sign his name in the space that was seemingly set aside for him. He felt a sense of disappointment as he blinked some more and wiped the sweat from his forehead, even though the headache was still in full swing. "Dramatic, yeah. That's one way to describe it." Forgetting himself for a few seconds, Lucas helped himself to a refill of his own water from the sink. After taking a large gulp, buying himself some time to allow his heart rate to start coming down and to think, he thought "Well, he's not crazy or hallucinating...unless we both are." Which led Lucas to his next question. "Before time messes with your memory, can you tell me exactly what you just saw?"

"The Press." Lucas thought to himself with a barely suppressed shudder. Even if he could convince a journalist the pair of them hadn't blown a gasket, he would have to demonstrate the weirdness in person. Not to mention the challenge of actually convincing them to go along with it in the first place. Ditto for anyone acting in an official capacity. "One step at at a time, eh Marty." At the noise of the thump, he swore "Bloody hell!" After recovering from the involuntary twitch at the impact against the window, Lucas shot to his feet and rushed towards the noise. He pulled the curtain to one side, hoping to get a look at whatever had caused the noise.

"The spreadsheet log's a good start". Lucas told his client. When the file transfer was complete, he took the USB from Marty and placed it into a pocket. Realising that he'd gotten a little too wrapped up in things thanks to witnessing his own little piece of strangeness, Lucas remembered he hadn't asked a particularly important question of Marty. "Assuming I can find the source of all this." He began, being careful to make no promise of success. "What outcome are you lookin' for?"