the last disease

"What is that supposed to mean."

Ghoul took a deep breath. That could have ended very badly, and the rise in electricity in the air signaled that everyone knew. But how could he not start something? It was a pain to leave such a razor-sharp remark unanswered.

He went for a classic. "You know exactly what I mean, brainwashed city rat."

"Yo-" Roadkill started, but there was no time.

There was so much shame about where Skull came from, inflicted by others, but mostly by herself. Over the years she was able to find pride in her past and in who she was now. But always with one foot stuck in the city, always with her brother’s face staring back whenever she closed her eyes. And Ghoul didnt understand anything about what she’d been through, he had no right to-

"Yes! I said what I said! Ghoul, you say one thing that you like about Skull."

"So?" Roadkill broke the silence "Mind telling us what in the FUCK happened between you and my best friend?"

“Man i dont know okay? This seems to be her trigger.” Under his breath he added “at least she didnt run away this time” Poison turned around again, quicker this time, like a snake jumping to catch its prey. “what?”, he hissed. “Oh yeah is this a bad time to mention that I was kind of the reason she left for months? Was definitely not on purpose tho” this got a sigh out of both of the killjoys sharing the front.

"I would've- I would've- Fucking tied her up, drugged her, beat the crap out of her- I don't know! You just let her go?! Let her sleep in a body bag again?! You remember how it fucking feels, Ghoul?!" he scratched his head, rough and fast, he needed to get a hold of himself. He took a breath but spoke through gritted teeth.

"We're supposed to keep each other safe. We built our house- we lived all these years, for each other! It's the only reason we're alive! Did you forget that? I was a fucking stray, my father dead and my mom off to Destroya knows where the fuck- you saved me. And I saved Skull. You better fucking remember that."

He felt Poison's hand on his thigh, they rubbed it subtly. Their eyes met. "That's enough." they mouthed, from behind their dark aviator shades. They were right, Roadkill took a deep breath and a black cigarette out of his pack.

She saw Roadkill on the sofa, his legs wide open and his arm across the armrest, head tilted to the side as if almost asleep. Skull decided to plunk down next to her friend, but did not say a word. That was when Ghoul went inside too, avoiding both of their looks and went straight around the corner where Skull could hear what was probably him falling face first onto his bed - something he usually did. Roadkill let out a sigh, letting Skull know he was still awake.

"What is that supposed to mean."

Ghoul took a deep breath. That could have ended very badly, and the rise in electricity in the air signaled that everyone knew. But how could he not start something? It was a pain to leave such a razor-sharp remark unanswered.

He went for a classic. "You know exactly what I mean, brainwashed city rat."

"Yo-" Roadkill started, but there was no time.

There was so much shame about where Skull came from, inflicted by others, but mostly by herself. Over the years she was able to find pride in her past and in who she was now. But always with one foot stuck in the city, always with her brother’s face staring back whenever she closed her eyes. And Ghoul didnt understand anything about what she’d been through, he had no right to-

"Yes! I said what I said! Ghoul, you say one thing that you like about Skull."

"So?" Roadkill broke the silence "Mind telling us what in the FUCK happened between you and my best friend?"

“Man i dont know okay? This seems to be her trigger.” Under his breath he added “at least she didnt run away this time” Poison turned around again, quicker this time, like a snake jumping to catch its prey. “what?”, he hissed. “Oh yeah is this a bad time to mention that I was kind of the reason she left for months? Was definitely not on purpose tho” this got a sigh out of both of the killjoys sharing the front.

"I would've- I would've- Fucking tied her up, drugged her, beat the crap out of her- I don't know! You just let her go?! Let her sleep in a body bag again?! You remember how it fucking feels, Ghoul?!" he scratched his head, rough and fast, he needed to get a hold of himself. He took a breath but spoke through gritted teeth.

"We're supposed to keep each other safe. We built our house- we lived all these years, for each other! It's the only reason we're alive! Did you forget that? I was a fucking stray, my father dead and my mom off to Destroya knows where the fuck- you saved me. And I saved Skull. You better fucking remember that."

He felt Poison's hand on his thigh, they rubbed it subtly. Their eyes met. "That's enough." they mouthed, from behind their dark aviator shades. They were right, Roadkill took a deep breath and a black cigarette out of his pack.

"What is that supposed to mean."

Ghoul took a deep breath. That could have ended very badly, and the rise in electricity in the air signaled that everyone knew. But how could he not start something? It was a pain to leave such a razor-sharp remark unanswered.

He went for a classic. "You know exactly what I mean, brainwashed city rat."

"Yo-" Roadkill started, but there was no time.

There was so much shame about where Skull came from, inflicted by others, but mostly by herself. Over the years she was able to find pride in her past and in who she was now. But always with one foot stuck in the city, always with her brother’s face staring back whenever she closed her eyes. And Ghoul didnt understand anything about what she’d been through, he had no right to-

"Yes! I said what I said! Ghoul, you say one thing that you like about Skull."

"So?" Roadkill broke the silence "Mind telling us what in the FUCK happened between you and my best friend?"

“Man i dont know okay? This seems to be her trigger.” Under his breath he added “at least she didnt run away this time” Poison turned around again, quicker this time, like a snake jumping to catch its prey. “what?”, he hissed. “Oh yeah is this a bad time to mention that I was kind of the reason she left for months? Was definitely not on purpose tho” this got a sigh out of both of the killjoys sharing the front.

"What is that supposed to mean."

Ghoul took a deep breath. That could have ended very badly, and the rise in electricity in the air signaled that everyone knew. But how could he not start something? It was a pain to leave such a razor-sharp remark unanswered.

He went for a classic. "You know exactly what I mean, brainwashed city rat."

"Yo-" Roadkill started, but there was no time.

There was so much shame about where Skull came from, inflicted by others, but mostly by herself. Over the years she was able to find pride in her past and in who she was now. But always with one foot stuck in the city, always with her brother’s face staring back whenever she closed her eyes. And Ghoul didnt understand anything about what she’d been through, he had no right to-

"Yes! I said what I said! Ghoul, you say one thing that you like about Skull."

"What is that supposed to mean."

Ghoul took a deep breath. That could have ended very badly, and the rise in electricity in the air signaled that everyone knew. But how could he not start something? It was a pain to leave such a razor-sharp remark unanswered.

He went for a classic. "You know exactly what I mean, brainwashed city rat."

"Yo-" Roadkill started, but there was no time.

There was so much shame about where Skull came from, inflicted by others, but mostly by herself. Over the years she was able to find pride in her past and in who she was now. But always with one foot stuck in the city, always with her brother’s face staring back whenever she closed her eyes. And Ghoul didnt understand anything about what she’d been through, he had no right to-

"Yes! I said what I said! Ghoul, you say one thing that you like about Skull."

"What is that supposed to mean."

Ghoul took a deep breath. That could have ended very badly, and the rise in electricity in the air signaled that everyone knew. But how could he not start something? It was a pain to leave such a razor-sharp remark unanswered.

He went for a classic. "You know exactly what I mean, brainwashed city rat."

"Yo-" Roadkill started, but there was no time.

There was so much shame about where Skull came from, inflicted by others, but mostly by herself. Over the years she was able to find pride in her past and in who she was now. But always with one foot stuck in the city, always with her brother’s face staring back whenever she closed her eyes. And Ghoul didnt understand anything about what she’d been through, he had no right to-

"Yes! I said what I said! Ghoul, you say one thing that you like about Skull."

"What is that supposed to mean."

Ghoul took a deep breath. That could have ended very badly, and the rise in electricity in the air signaled that everyone knew. But how could he not start something? It was a pain to leave such a razor-sharp remark unanswered.

He went for a classic. "You know exactly what I mean, brainwashed city rat."

"Yo-" Roadkill started, but there was no time.

There was so much shame about where Skull came from, inflicted by others, but mostly by herself. Over the years she was able to find pride in her past and in who she was now. But always with one foot stuck in the city, always with her brother’s face staring back whenever she closed her eyes. And Ghoul didnt understand anything about what she’d been through, he had no right to-

"Yes! I said what I said! Ghoul, you say one thing that you like about Skull."

"What is that supposed to mean."

Ghoul took a deep breath. That could have ended very badly, and the rise in electricity in the air signaled that everyone knew. But how could he not start something? It was a pain to leave such a razor-sharp remark unanswered.

He went for a classic. "You know exactly what I mean, brainwashed city rat."

"Yo-" Roadkill started, but there was no time.

There was so much shame about where Skull came from, inflicted by others, but mostly by herself. Over the years she was able to find pride in her past and in who she was now. But always with one foot stuck in the city, always with her brother’s face staring back whenever she closed her eyes. And Ghoul didnt understand anything about what she’d been through, he had no right to-

"What is that supposed to mean."

Ghoul took a deep breath. That could have ended very badly, and the rise in electricity in the air signaled that everyone knew. But how could he not start something? It was a pain to leave such a razor-sharp remark unanswered.

He went for a classic. "You know exactly what I mean, brainwashed city rat."

"Yo-" Roadkill started, but there was no time.

There was so much shame about where Skull came from, inflicted by others, but mostly by herself. Over the years she was able to find pride in her past and in who she was now. But always with one foot stuck in the city, always with her brother’s face staring back whenever she closed her eyes. And Ghoul didnt understand anything about what she’d been through, he had no right to-

The gang all slept in one room, but the occasions when all six of them spent the night together under that same roof were rare. Sometimes, Roadkill would be out hunting for that night’s fuck, Poison would be selling himself for drugs, Jet would sit for hours on the roof, looking at the stars. Kobra would join him often, and the others would hear the faint reach of conversation, sometimes even laughter. Skull spent a lot of time outside, Roadkill slept most of his nights in her bed. He made a pact with the rest of the gang not to tell her that he and Poison had had sex in her bed, Skull hid the fact that she already knew really well. Her bed was pretty damn comfortable.

That night, Poison and Roadkill were outside, with no intention to even cross eyes with the others. Enveloped in the throbs of power play and all those beautiful painful delights, they had been switching power positions since the moment they got there. In that moment it was Roadkill’s turn to be helpless. They were on all fours, in the dirt, with Poison’s boot resting on their neck. He pushed them down, going for the classics of degradation, the well known hits such as:”Pathetic little slut.” and “Beg for it, mutt.”. Well, that last one was more specifically tailored on Roadkill. After a couple of blows to their body, Roadkill was reaching that completely blissful headspace that she oh so dearly missed, that deep bond he shared with the infamous redhead. A state of mind that allowed them to completely give herself over to Poison, while still being able to answer to a simple stoplight safeword system. Poison leaned over them, a satisfied grin on his face, while pulling at the collar and leash that Roadkill always brought with them:”Good pup, you know you want to be-” he stopped, and Roadkill immediately looked up, confused. It took a second to shake off the haze and, when the fog cleared over their mind, she noticed Poison expression. It was this kind of forzenness, but not quite fear. Roadkill still had his boot on his neck, by then it had slightly moved over to his cheek. They pushed it down and sat up right to look at whatever it was that shook their weird psychic best friend so much. Then they froze as well.

“Please, can you help me? I’m lost.”

It sounded just like Roadkill’s voice, but not quite. It rang in their brains, as the grey matter itself was the source of it. Roadkill felt Poison’s hand on their head, and wondered if maintaining a dominant role to make sure that he as a sub was alright was what made P snap out of the hazy state. Nevertheless, it was comforting. She didn’t have to face it alone. She stood up, slowly, taking a couple of shaky breaths. She did wish she hadn’t just taken two quite forceful blows to the ribs, after asking explicitly to be kicked like a stray just like some song she’d heard on the radio and taped. It was the best before facing a double of oneself, a glitching ghost that looked just like them but at the same time not quite. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Wait. You’re the hooky spooky vision I got in the car the other day!” Poison exclaimed, while Roadkill pulled out their raygun, just in case.

“I’m- I’m tired. I think they killed my friends.”

The ghost didn’t move a step towards them, it stood still and with a terrifyingly good posture. Poison lost a bit of his eerie enthusiasm. The other ‘joy took a couple of steps forward, treading carefully like you thread when approaching a wild horse.

“Do you want to explain it to us so we can help you? Who is they?”

But the ghost said nothing, looking right through her and Poison. Roadkill thought that it looked as if she was experiencing connection issues, but on her existence. However, that was a silly thought: ghosts didn’t work on data, didn’t they? Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing they had seen out in that circus they called the Zones.

In the meanwhile, and a bit stupidly, they had been steady steps towards the ghost, approaching it slowly. Roadkill reached, a bit insecure. 

Poison’s breath caught in his throat:”You are not.”.

Roadkill held a hand up to the ghost of himself, who had an open gash on its forehead, she felt the stickiness of the blood on her fingers. Alright, by then she had started to get pretty fucking scared, but she was decided not to show it. That ghost seemed as terrified as them two were. The presence looked at the hand, then leaned in ever so slightly, and closed its empty eyes. And started crying, just like Poison had, in the car. 

“They’re just scared. I think.” his voice shook as he spoke. “We got you, ghosties. We can help you.”.

Then, just like Fake Poison did when Roadkill showed them kindness in the car, the presence started glitching. The moment it realized it, the physical killjoy felt the matter she was holding disappear, and the ghost started screaming. It screeched, loud, with an electrical ringing. They tried to push through it and reach the ghost, but fell right through it. Roadkill hit the floor, Poison stumbled, cursing and jumping to not step on his head. 

“Shit.” Poison said, when his unstoppable tumbling movement had finally found a halt. He rested his hands on his knees, as if he had just ran a marathon. 

“Fuck.” he added, breathlessly, after a bit. What else was there to say?

Roadkill found no reason to get up, they stayed in the dirt, their body finally relaxing. The two killjoys looked at each other, confused beyond reason. Then they heard another screeching, metallic sound. It came from the other side of the Hideout.

“Ghoul and Skull! Fuck!”.

Suddenly Ghoul was looking over her shoulder, saying with an amused but ever so slightly confused expression on his face “Oh Poison how the hell did you get in here? You and Roadkill done that fast?” Skull turned around to see a Poison standing behind her, a Poison who looked… off? “Whoa you okay?” She said, trying to touch his face, that suddenly had an open wound across the cheek. “And where did your stubble go? Ghoul and I were just saying-” But she couldnt finish her sentence, as instead of Party Poisons face, she was touching what felt like nothing mixed with cold glass. And then the figure before her started to flicker. Without taking her eyes off the thing that was pretending to be Poison, she said with a shakey voice: “ummm Ghoul youre seeing this too right?”

“get away from that.” was all he said, dragging her away while she was slowly getting out her gun. all this time, the fake Poison was just staring. Their facial expression was that of pure terror.

They heard Ghoul screaming, they stopped in front of the Hideout’s door, or better, they had to stop. Poison grabbed onto Roadkill’s jacket, but he couldn’t save him from the impact with the ghost. Who stumbled forth, then turned around.

“What even are you?”

Just like last time, Fake Poison manage to form one fully formed sentence before breaking down crying. Roadkill and Skull crossed gaze, Roadkill nodded. They immediately understood.

“Doesn’t matter. You need help.” Roadkill said.

“What help!? We don’t even know what this- this thing is!” Ghoul protested, then he searched Poison’s approval, but found only uncertainty.

“Thank you, thank you!” the presence smiled, but the mere movement of his face ripped open the gash that seemed to be barely healing. “We’re trying to leave, they won’t let us, they killed my brothers!” it couldn’t seem to stop crying. It reached for Skull, weak on his knees.

“They’re glitching again.” said Roadkill, almost matter of factly. He leaped forward, hugging and holding onto the glitching presence, that could’ve gone very wrong, very very wrong. Roadkill felt electricity, it went from a faint buzzing to a true pain. Fake Poison kept sobbing and apologising, Roadkill consciousness felt like it was gonna rip from their brain.

“What the fuck is going on?! Why is Roadkill just rolling with it?!” Poison wondered what possessed Ghoul to speak, they were still completely starstruck.

Roadkill fell to the ground, the presence disappeared with a final screech, just like the time before. It tore through everyone’s ears. Poison ran up to the ‘joy, frantically checking on them. Then they drew a sigh if relief.

“They’re breathing.”

“Let’s go inside,” he said, simply “Have you eaten, baby?” he looked at Skull, in his eyes she read everything in due time.

After that, Skull and Poison sat on chairs, shortly joined by Jet and Kobra. Ghoul was still in no condition to, well, be still.

The white, then black again. Was that some mean, dumb joke? He barely had any time to think more about that possibility. Finally: surroundings. Well, surroundings, but not quite. An unsettling, material dream. As if stepping inside a slow picture, one of those old movies from before the Helium Wars. A world with out air to fill it, a dream to see right through. It seemed like the Lobby, he remembered it from that time he had to escape Bat City’s maximum security facillity. He had hoped not to see it in a while, they never understood Skull’s fascination with that Witchforsaken city.

And, speaking of fascination, that was the name of the street, from what she could gather. Fascination Street, like that song. If Roadkill had had any power over their body, they would’ve shrugged: the name was cool, sure, but meaningless for that time.

They squinted, trying to understand any more of that soulless picture. The only thing worth of note was the presence of Porno Droids, disheveled robot and all the picturesque character that populated the Lobby. Then, there. Something caught his atrociously inattentive eye. A person in a suit, a white hood over their head and hiding their neck, like a Scarecrow’s but completely white, though with some faded dark stains. They were walking into a building and, just as the door was about to close, the killjoy saw a BLI/nd nametag.

“Kat” it said “Researcher // Projekt Somnium - Black Summer unit.”

“I got something to add too.” Poison raised his hand, wrist limp, index finger up. “I saw you before. I mean, Fake You. In the car. That’s probably why I lost consciousness.”

Roadkill ignored the Fab 4’s protests and demands to know more, though she didn’t give them any shit for it: if he had had a ghostly presence in his car, one that made one of his best friends lose conscience, he’d want to be notified promptly. 

“You said it was between you and Ghoul, right? Then why didn’t it affect him, as well?”

“I’d like to be kept out of this.”

Poison passed him a pack and he got a cig with his teeth, right out of the pack. Everyone took it as a moment to think, silently. Then smoke filled the little praying circle they had going on, and Roadkill resume:”There was something, I saw a name tag on a Scarecrow looking type it said Kat, Projekt…mhh…Somnium, which was what Fake Poison told me him name was, when I first saw him.” “Wait, so that time I kind of manifested myself- ugh, this doen’t make any sense.” Poison’s head fell onto his had, bright red hair sprawling in disordely strips.

“No, it does.” Roadkill added to Jet’s hand on the redhead’s shoulders “Let’s proceed orderly. You saw fake me, were in contact with fake me, it disappeared, psychic mumbo jumbo ensued. There you are in front of me, as some kind of electric conscience. It doesn’t make sense, sure-”

“But it kinda does.” nodded Jet Star.

“Right? Then, second point: the name tag. It sad Kat…” the joy took a marker out of their wide cargo shorts and wrote on their legs, trying to remember “I think it was Reasearch…Project Somnium, Black Summer Unit…or something like that.”

“what motor bike???” said Ghoul and Kobra in unison, looks of excitement and confusion in their face. “Oh it’s out there.” Skull pretended to be hyper-casual about it, just in order to annoy them. She pointed in the general direction of where she fell off earlier. Suddenly, they all got up and ran outside, Skull following them with a satisfied grin, thats how you get your fellow killjoy’s attention. Having a motor bike out here was like winning in the lottery. Not depending on the roads while still being fast, that was basicall the best way to blow drac-ass and not killing yourself  in the process. After a few “Ahh”s and “OOh”s and “fucking hell”s from Skull’s friends, Poison looked at her with the face of a true father and said “Okay but that still doesnt answer the question of who the fuck Kat is”

“I met her for the first time a month ot so after I left, me and my new crew went to the edge of zone 3, my plan was to sneak off and pay the city a little visit. Never happened tho.” Skull looked down, she hated thinking about the fact that all this time when she was alone and ‘independent’, she’d never actually gotten into the city. Thinking of her brother’s face was getting more painful each day, she wasnt even sure what he looked like by now.

He smiled and pulled out his switchblade knife.

“Hear me out, Birdie.” the mere idea got into his brain, arousing him. “What you say we give this Kat a visit?”

Poison had already guess their intentions the moment Skull started speaking, everyone could tell that sure, it was a good idea to try out, better than nothing for sure. But Roadkill was a bit to excited at the proposal.

“Well, ehm…” he faked his confidence a bit, his flamboyance betrayed his mind while making him quite funny to the others.

“Well what?” Ghoul couldn’t hide a grin.

Poison gave him a look, then looked at Ghoul, then gestured to the car with his head. Ghoul got very excited, leaving the other two joys to wonder if it was just going to be Party Poison and his two dogs. Poison seemed to be the one most focused on the situation, at least he thought about the situation at all. Roadkill and Ghoul were thinking about two different things, but certainly not the situation. Roadkill was eager to put his knife to use, as he hadn’t had the chance in a while. Ghoul hadn’t thought of the situation for a second, his usual reaction to things he wouldn’t understand was either violent confusion or not giving a single fuck, he was there to get off on Roadkill scaring some fucker with a knife, then hopefully get what he wanted. Anyways, the three of them sat in the car, Roadkill turned the radio on, a soft voice spoke, introducing a song by MC5.

They waited for Crow Skull to speed up in front of them, gave her some space so they were not going to get lost in the cloud of smoke.

“Hopefully the drive isn’t too long, I’ve got a boner again.”

“That can be fixed.” Roadkill and Ghoul caught each other saying the same thing, then chuckled. Roadkill, being the one that hadn’t seen Poison’s penis in a while, was given honorary green light. Ghoul wondered how was Poison able to drive and getting head at the same time, he always needed to stop. Practice, he guessed.

“Wait, I think Skull’s pulling over.”

“Hell no, there’s no way I’m getting put of this car before I’m finished.” Poison’s voice was strained and sounded very very hot but, as much Ghoul was enjoying the show, and he was enjoying it a lot, he knew it wasn’t smart to leave his friend alone outside in potentially unsafe territory.

“Be quick.” he chuckled, then left the car, and Poison stretched himself, then looked down. At the hand that tangled into Roadkill faded blonde hair.

It was Poison that answered first.

“What is it Ghoulie?” Roadkill asked, taking a light from his box and struggling with the flam a bit.

The gang all slept in one room, but the occasions when all six of them spent the night together under that same roof were rare. Sometimes, Roadkill would be out hunting for that night’s fuck, Poison would be selling himself for drugs, Jet would sit for hours on the roof, looking at the stars. Kobra would join him often, and the others would hear the faint reach of conversation, sometimes even laughter. Skull spent a lot of time outside, Roadkill slept most of his nights in her bed. He made a pact with the rest of the gang not to tell her that he and Poison had had sex in her bed, Skull hid the fact that she already knew really well. Her bed was pretty damn comfortable.

That night, Poison and Roadkill were outside, with no intention to even cross eyes with the others. Enveloped in the throbs of power play and all those beautiful painful delights, they had been switching power positions since the moment they got there. In that moment it was Roadkill’s turn to be helpless. They were on all fours, in the dirt, with Poison’s boot resting on their neck. He pushed them down, going for the classics of degradation, the well known hits such as:”Pathetic little slut.” and “Beg for it, mutt.”. Well, that last one was more specifically tailored on Roadkill. After a couple of blows to their body, Roadkill was reaching that completely blissful headspace that she oh so dearly missed, that deep bond he shared with the infamous redhead. A state of mind that allowed them to completely give herself over to Poison, while still being able to answer to a simple stoplight safeword system. Poison leaned over them, a satisfied grin on his face, while pulling at the collar and leash that Roadkill always brought with them:”Good pup, you know you want to be-” he stopped, and Roadkill immediately looked up, confused. It took a second to shake off the haze and, when the fog cleared over their mind, she noticed Poison expression. It was this kind of forzenness, but not quite fear. Roadkill still had his boot on his neck, by then it had slightly moved over to his cheek. They pushed it down and sat up right to look at whatever it was that shook their weird psychic best friend so much. Then they froze as well.

“Please, can you help me? I’m lost.”

It sounded just like Roadkill’s voice, but not quite. It rang in their brains, as the grey matter itself was the source of it. Roadkill felt Poison’s hand on their head, and wondered if maintaining a dominant role to make sure that he as a sub was alright was what made P snap out of the hazy state. Nevertheless, it was comforting. She didn’t have to face it alone. She stood up, slowly, taking a couple of shaky breaths. She did wish she hadn’t just taken two quite forceful blows to the ribs, after asking explicitly to be kicked like a stray just like some song she’d heard on the radio and taped. It was the best before facing a double of oneself, a glitching ghost that looked just like them but at the same time not quite. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Wait. You’re the hooky spooky vision I got in the car the other day!” Poison exclaimed, while Roadkill pulled out their raygun, just in case.

“I’m- I’m tired. I think they killed my friends.”

The ghost didn’t move a step towards them, it stood still and with a terrifyingly good posture. Poison lost a bit of his eerie enthusiasm. The other ‘joy took a couple of steps forward, treading carefully like you thread when approaching a wild horse.

“Do you want to explain it to us so we can help you? Who is they?”

But the ghost said nothing, looking right through her and Poison. Roadkill thought that it looked as if she was experiencing connection issues, but on her existence. However, that was a silly thought: ghosts didn’t work on data, didn’t they? Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing they had seen out in that circus they called the Zones.

In the meanwhile, and a bit stupidly, they had been steady steps towards the ghost, approaching it slowly. Roadkill reached, a bit insecure. 

Poison’s breath caught in his throat:”You are not.”.

Roadkill held a hand up to the ghost of himself, who had an open gash on its forehead, she felt the stickiness of the blood on her fingers. Alright, by then she had started to get pretty fucking scared, but she was decided not to show it. That ghost seemed as terrified as them two were. The presence looked at the hand, then leaned in ever so slightly, and closed its empty eyes. And started crying, just like Poison had, in the car. 

“They’re just scared. I think.” his voice shook as he spoke. “We got you, ghosties. We can help you.”.

Then, just like Fake Poison did when Roadkill showed them kindness in the car, the presence started glitching. The moment it realized it, the physical killjoy felt the matter she was holding disappear, and the ghost started screaming. It screeched, loud, with an electrical ringing. They tried to push through it and reach the ghost, but fell right through it. Roadkill hit the floor, Poison stumbled, cursing and jumping to not step on his head. 

“Shit.” Poison said, when his unstoppable tumbling movement had finally found a halt. He rested his hands on his knees, as if he had just ran a marathon. 

“Fuck.” he added, breathlessly, after a bit. What else was there to say?

Roadkill found no reason to get up, they stayed in the dirt, their body finally relaxing. The two killjoys looked at each other, confused beyond reason. Then they heard another screeching, metallic sound. It came from the other side of the Hideout.

“Ghoul and Skull! Fuck!”.

Suddenly Ghoul was looking over her shoulder, saying with an amused but ever so slightly confused expression on his face “Oh Poison how the hell did you get in here? You and Roadkill done that fast?” Skull turned around to see a Poison standing behind her, a Poison who looked… off? “Whoa you okay?” She said, trying to touch his face, that suddenly had an open wound across the cheek. “And where did your stubble go? Ghoul and I were just saying-” But she couldnt finish her sentence, as instead of Party Poisons face, she was touching what felt like nothing mixed with cold glass. And then the figure before her started to flicker. Without taking her eyes off the thing that was pretending to be Poison, she said with a shakey voice: “ummm Ghoul youre seeing this too right?”

“get away from that.” was all he said, dragging her away while she was slowly getting out her gun. all this time, the fake Poison was just staring. Their facial expression was that of pure terror.

They heard Ghoul screaming, they stopped in front of the Hideout’s door, or better, they had to stop. Poison grabbed onto Roadkill’s jacket, but he couldn’t save him from the impact with the ghost. Who stumbled forth, then turned around.

“What even are you?”

Just like last time, Fake Poison manage to form one fully formed sentence before breaking down crying. Roadkill and Skull crossed gaze, Roadkill nodded. They immediately understood.

“Doesn’t matter. You need help.” Roadkill said.

“What help!? We don’t even know what this- this thing is!” Ghoul protested, then he searched Poison’s approval, but found only uncertainty.

“Thank you, thank you!” the presence smiled, but the mere movement of his face ripped open the gash that seemed to be barely healing. “We’re trying to leave, they won’t let us, they killed my brothers!” it couldn’t seem to stop crying. It reached for Skull, weak on his knees.

“They’re glitching again.” said Roadkill, almost matter of factly. He leaped forward, hugging and holding onto the glitching presence, that could’ve gone very wrong, very very wrong. Roadkill felt electricity, it went from a faint buzzing to a true pain. Fake Poison kept sobbing and apologising, Roadkill consciousness felt like it was gonna rip from their brain.

“What the fuck is going on?! Why is Roadkill just rolling with it?!” Poison wondered what possessed Ghoul to speak, they were still completely starstruck.

Roadkill fell to the ground, the presence disappeared with a final screech, just like the time before. It tore through everyone’s ears. Poison ran up to the ‘joy, frantically checking on them. Then they drew a sigh if relief.

“They’re breathing.”

“Let’s go inside,” he said, simply “Have you eaten, baby?” he looked at Skull, in his eyes she read everything in due time.

After that, Skull and Poison sat on chairs, shortly joined by Jet and Kobra. Ghoul was still in no condition to, well, be still.

The white, then black again. Was that some mean, dumb joke? He barely had any time to think more about that possibility. Finally: surroundings. Well, surroundings, but not quite. An unsettling, material dream. As if stepping inside a slow picture, one of those old movies from before the Helium Wars. A world with out air to fill it, a dream to see right through. It seemed like the Lobby, he remembered it from that time he had to escape Bat City’s maximum security facillity. He had hoped not to see it in a while, they never understood Skull’s fascination with that Witchforsaken city.

And, speaking of fascination, that was the name of the street, from what she could gather. Fascination Street, like that song. If Roadkill had had any power over their body, they would’ve shrugged: the name was cool, sure, but meaningless for that time.

They squinted, trying to understand any more of that soulless picture. The only thing worth of note was the presence of Porno Droids, disheveled robot and all the picturesque character that populated the Lobby. Then, there. Something caught his atrociously inattentive eye. A person in a suit, a white hood over their head and hiding their neck, like a Scarecrow’s but completely white, though with some faded dark stains. They were walking into a building and, just as the door was about to close, the killjoy saw a BLI/nd nametag.

“Kat” it said “Researcher // Projekt Somnium - Black Summer unit.”

“I got something to add too.” Poison raised his hand, wrist limp, index finger up. “I saw you before. I mean, Fake You. In the car. That’s probably why I lost consciousness.”

Roadkill ignored the Fab 4’s protests and demands to know more, though she didn’t give them any shit for it: if he had had a ghostly presence in his car, one that made one of his best friends lose conscience, he’d want to be notified promptly. 

“You said it was between you and Ghoul, right? Then why didn’t it affect him, as well?”

“I’d like to be kept out of this.”

Poison passed him a pack and he got a cig with his teeth, right out of the pack. Everyone took it as a moment to think, silently. Then smoke filled the little praying circle they had going on, and Roadkill resume:”There was something, I saw a name tag on a Scarecrow looking type it said Kat, Projekt…mhh…Somnium, which was what Fake Poison told me him name was, when I first saw him.” “Wait, so that time I kind of manifested myself- ugh, this doen’t make any sense.” Poison’s head fell onto his had, bright red hair sprawling in disordely strips.

“No, it does.” Roadkill added to Jet’s hand on the redhead’s shoulders “Let’s proceed orderly. You saw fake me, were in contact with fake me, it disappeared, psychic mumbo jumbo ensued. There you are in front of me, as some kind of electric conscience. It doesn’t make sense, sure-”

“But it kinda does.” nodded Jet Star.

“Right? Then, second point: the name tag. It sad Kat…” the joy took a marker out of their wide cargo shorts and wrote on their legs, trying to remember “I think it was Reasearch…Project Somnium, Black Summer Unit…or something like that.”

“what motor bike???” said Ghoul and Kobra in unison, looks of excitement and confusion in their face. “Oh it’s out there.” Skull pretended to be hyper-casual about it, just in order to annoy them. She pointed in the general direction of where she fell off earlier. Suddenly, they all got up and ran outside, Skull following them with a satisfied grin, thats how you get your fellow killjoy’s attention. Having a motor bike out here was like winning in the lottery. Not depending on the roads while still being fast, that was basicall the best way to blow drac-ass and not killing yourself  in the process. After a few “Ahh”s and “OOh”s and “fucking hell”s from Skull’s friends, Poison looked at her with the face of a true father and said “Okay but that still doesnt answer the question of who the fuck Kat is”

“I met her for the first time a month ot so after I left, me and my new crew went to the edge of zone 3, my plan was to sneak off and pay the city a little visit. Never happened tho.” Skull looked down, she hated thinking about the fact that all this time when she was alone and ‘independent’, she’d never actually gotten into the city. Thinking of her brother’s face was getting more painful each day, she wasnt even sure what he looked like by now.

He smiled and pulled out his switchblade knife.

“Hear me out, Birdie.” the mere idea got into his brain, arousing him. “What you say we give this Kat a visit?”

Poison had already guess their intentions the moment Skull started speaking, everyone could tell that sure, it was a good idea to try out, better than nothing for sure. But Roadkill was a bit to excited at the proposal.

“Well, ehm…” he faked his confidence a bit, his flamboyance betrayed his mind while making him quite funny to the others.

“Well what?” Ghoul couldn’t hide a grin.

Poison gave him a look, then looked at Ghoul, then gestured to the car with his head. Ghoul got very excited, leaving the other two joys to wonder if it was just going to be Party Poison and his two dogs. Poison seemed to be the one most focused on the situation, at least he thought about the situation at all. Roadkill and Ghoul were thinking about two different things, but certainly not the situation. Roadkill was eager to put his knife to use, as he hadn’t had the chance in a while. Ghoul hadn’t thought of the situation for a second, his usual reaction to things he wouldn’t understand was either violent confusion or not giving a single fuck, he was there to get off on Roadkill scaring some fucker with a knife, then hopefully get what he wanted. Anyways, the three of them sat in the car, Roadkill turned the radio on, a soft voice spoke, introducing a song by MC5.

They waited for Crow Skull to speed up in front of them, gave her some space so they were not going to get lost in the cloud of smoke.

“Hopefully the drive isn’t too long, I’ve got a boner again.”

“That can be fixed.” Roadkill and Ghoul caught each other saying the same thing, then chuckled. Roadkill, being the one that hadn’t seen Poison’s penis in a while, was given honorary green light. Ghoul wondered how was Poison able to drive and getting head at the same time, he always needed to stop. Practice, he guessed.

“Wait, I think Skull’s pulling over.”

“Hell no, there’s no way I’m getting put of this car before I’m finished.” Poison’s voice was strained and sounded very very hot but, as much Ghoul was enjoying the show, and he was enjoying it a lot, he knew it wasn’t smart to leave his friend alone outside in potentially unsafe territory.

“Be quick.” he chuckled, then left the car, and Poison stretched himself, then looked down. At the hand that tangled into Roadkill faded blonde hair.

It was Poison that answered first.

The gang all slept in one room, but the occasions when all six of them spent the night together under that same roof were rare. Sometimes, Roadkill would be out hunting for that night’s fuck, Poison would be selling himself for drugs, Jet would sit for hours on the roof, looking at the stars. Kobra would join him often, and the others would hear the faint reach of conversation, sometimes even laughter. Skull spent a lot of time outside, Roadkill slept most of his nights in her bed. He made a pact with the rest of the gang not to tell her that he and Poison had had sex in her bed, Skull hid the fact that she already knew really well. Her bed was pretty damn comfortable.

That night, Poison and Roadkill were outside, with no intention to even cross eyes with the others. Enveloped in the throbs of power play and all those beautiful painful delights, they had been switching power positions since the moment they got there. In that moment it was Roadkill’s turn to be helpless. They were on all fours, in the dirt, with Poison’s boot resting on their neck. He pushed them down, going for the classics of degradation, the well known hits such as:”Pathetic little slut.” and “Beg for it, mutt.”. Well, that last one was more specifically tailored on Roadkill. After a couple of blows to their body, Roadkill was reaching that completely blissful headspace that she oh so dearly missed, that deep bond he shared with the infamous redhead. A state of mind that allowed them to completely give herself over to Poison, while still being able to answer to a simple stoplight safeword system. Poison leaned over them, a satisfied grin on his face, while pulling at the collar and leash that Roadkill always brought with them:”Good pup, you know you want to be-” he stopped, and Roadkill immediately looked up, confused. It took a second to shake off the haze and, when the fog cleared over their mind, she noticed Poison expression. It was this kind of forzenness, but not quite fear. Roadkill still had his boot on his neck, by then it had slightly moved over to his cheek. They pushed it down and sat up right to look at whatever it was that shook their weird psychic best friend so much. Then they froze as well.

“Please, can you help me? I’m lost.”

It sounded just like Roadkill’s voice, but not quite. It rang in their brains, as the grey matter itself was the source of it. Roadkill felt Poison’s hand on their head, and wondered if maintaining a dominant role to make sure that he as a sub was alright was what made P snap out of the hazy state. Nevertheless, it was comforting. She didn’t have to face it alone. She stood up, slowly, taking a couple of shaky breaths. She did wish she hadn’t just taken two quite forceful blows to the ribs, after asking explicitly to be kicked like a stray just like some song she’d heard on the radio and taped. It was the best before facing a double of oneself, a glitching ghost that looked just like them but at the same time not quite. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Wait. You’re the hooky spooky vision I got in the car the other day!” Poison exclaimed, while Roadkill pulled out their raygun, just in case.

“I’m- I’m tired. I think they killed my friends.”

The ghost didn’t move a step towards them, it stood still and with a terrifyingly good posture. Poison lost a bit of his eerie enthusiasm. The other ‘joy took a couple of steps forward, treading carefully like you thread when approaching a wild horse.

“Do you want to explain it to us so we can help you? Who is they?”

But the ghost said nothing, looking right through her and Poison. Roadkill thought that it looked as if she was experiencing connection issues, but on her existence. However, that was a silly thought: ghosts didn’t work on data, didn’t they? Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing they had seen out in that circus they called the Zones.

In the meanwhile, and a bit stupidly, they had been steady steps towards the ghost, approaching it slowly. Roadkill reached, a bit insecure. 

Poison’s breath caught in his throat:”You are not.”.

Roadkill held a hand up to the ghost of himself, who had an open gash on its forehead, she felt the stickiness of the blood on her fingers. Alright, by then she had started to get pretty fucking scared, but she was decided not to show it. That ghost seemed as terrified as them two were. The presence looked at the hand, then leaned in ever so slightly, and closed its empty eyes. And started crying, just like Poison had, in the car. 

“They’re just scared. I think.” his voice shook as he spoke. “We got you, ghosties. We can help you.”.

Then, just like Fake Poison did when Roadkill showed them kindness in the car, the presence started glitching. The moment it realized it, the physical killjoy felt the matter she was holding disappear, and the ghost started screaming. It screeched, loud, with an electrical ringing. They tried to push through it and reach the ghost, but fell right through it. Roadkill hit the floor, Poison stumbled, cursing and jumping to not step on his head. 

“Shit.” Poison said, when his unstoppable tumbling movement had finally found a halt. He rested his hands on his knees, as if he had just ran a marathon. 

“Fuck.” he added, breathlessly, after a bit. What else was there to say?

Roadkill found no reason to get up, they stayed in the dirt, their body finally relaxing. The two killjoys looked at each other, confused beyond reason. Then they heard another screeching, metallic sound. It came from the other side of the Hideout.

“Ghoul and Skull! Fuck!”.

Suddenly Ghoul was looking over her shoulder, saying with an amused but ever so slightly confused expression on his face “Oh Poison how the hell did you get in here? You and Roadkill done that fast?” Skull turned around to see a Poison standing behind her, a Poison who looked… off? “Whoa you okay?” She said, trying to touch his face, that suddenly had an open wound across the cheek. “And where did your stubble go? Ghoul and I were just saying-” But she couldnt finish her sentence, as instead of Party Poisons face, she was touching what felt like nothing mixed with cold glass. And then the figure before her started to flicker. Without taking her eyes off the thing that was pretending to be Poison, she said with a shakey voice: “ummm Ghoul youre seeing this too right?”

“get away from that.” was all he said, dragging her away while she was slowly getting out her gun. all this time, the fake Poison was just staring. Their facial expression was that of pure terror.

They heard Ghoul screaming, they stopped in front of the Hideout’s door, or better, they had to stop. Poison grabbed onto Roadkill’s jacket, but he couldn’t save him from the impact with the ghost. Who stumbled forth, then turned around.

“What even are you?”

Just like last time, Fake Poison manage to form one fully formed sentence before breaking down crying. Roadkill and Skull crossed gaze, Roadkill nodded. They immediately understood.

“Doesn’t matter. You need help.” Roadkill said.

“What help!? We don’t even know what this- this thing is!” Ghoul protested, then he searched Poison’s approval, but found only uncertainty.

“Thank you, thank you!” the presence smiled, but the mere movement of his face ripped open the gash that seemed to be barely healing. “We’re trying to leave, they won’t let us, they killed my brothers!” it couldn’t seem to stop crying. It reached for Skull, weak on his knees.

“They’re glitching again.” said Roadkill, almost matter of factly. He leaped forward, hugging and holding onto the glitching presence, that could’ve gone very wrong, very very wrong. Roadkill felt electricity, it went from a faint buzzing to a true pain. Fake Poison kept sobbing and apologising, Roadkill consciousness felt like it was gonna rip from their brain.

“What the fuck is going on?! Why is Roadkill just rolling with it?!” Poison wondered what possessed Ghoul to speak, they were still completely starstruck.

Roadkill fell to the ground, the presence disappeared with a final screech, just like the time before. It tore through everyone’s ears. Poison ran up to the ‘joy, frantically checking on them. Then they drew a sigh if relief.

“They’re breathing.”

“Let’s go inside,” he said, simply “Have you eaten, baby?” he looked at Skull, in his eyes she read everything in due time.

After that, Skull and Poison sat on chairs, shortly joined by Jet and Kobra. Ghoul was still in no condition to, well, be still.

The white, then black again. Was that some mean, dumb joke? He barely had any time to think more about that possibility. Finally: surroundings. Well, surroundings, but not quite. An unsettling, material dream. As if stepping inside a slow picture, one of those old movies from before the Helium Wars. A world with out air to fill it, a dream to see right through. It seemed like the Lobby, he remembered it from that time he had to escape Bat City’s maximum security facillity. He had hoped not to see it in a while, they never understood Skull’s fascination with that Witchforsaken city.

And, speaking of fascination, that was the name of the street, from what she could gather. Fascination Street, like that song. If Roadkill had had any power over their body, they would’ve shrugged: the name was cool, sure, but meaningless for that time.

They squinted, trying to understand any more of that soulless picture. The only thing worth of note was the presence of Porno Droids, disheveled robot and all the picturesque character that populated the Lobby. Then, there. Something caught his atrociously inattentive eye. A person in a suit, a white hood over their head and hiding their neck, like a Scarecrow’s but completely white, though with some faded dark stains. They were walking into a building and, just as the door was about to close, the killjoy saw a BLI/nd nametag.

“Kat” it said “Researcher // Projekt Somnium - Black Summer unit.”

“I got something to add too.” Poison raised his hand, wrist limp, index finger up. “I saw you before. I mean, Fake You. In the car. That’s probably why I lost consciousness.”

Roadkill ignored the Fab 4’s protests and demands to know more, though she didn’t give them any shit for it: if he had had a ghostly presence in his car, one that made one of his best friends lose conscience, he’d want to be notified promptly. 

“You said it was between you and Ghoul, right? Then why didn’t it affect him, as well?”

“I’d like to be kept out of this.”

Poison passed him a pack and he got a cig with his teeth, right out of the pack. Everyone took it as a moment to think, silently. Then smoke filled the little praying circle they had going on, and Roadkill resume:”There was something, I saw a name tag on a Scarecrow looking type it said Kat, Projekt…mhh…Somnium, which was what Fake Poison told me him name was, when I first saw him.” “Wait, so that time I kind of manifested myself- ugh, this doen’t make any sense.” Poison’s head fell onto his had, bright red hair sprawling in disordely strips.

“No, it does.” Roadkill added to Jet’s hand on the redhead’s shoulders “Let’s proceed orderly. You saw fake me, were in contact with fake me, it disappeared, psychic mumbo jumbo ensued. There you are in front of me, as some kind of electric conscience. It doesn’t make sense, sure-”

“But it kinda does.” nodded Jet Star.

“Right? Then, second point: the name tag. It sad Kat…” the joy took a marker out of their wide cargo shorts and wrote on their legs, trying to remember “I think it was Reasearch…Project Somnium, Black Summer Unit…or something like that.”

“what motor bike???” said Ghoul and Kobra in unison, looks of excitement and confusion in their face. “Oh it’s out there.” Skull pretended to be hyper-casual about it, just in order to annoy them. She pointed in the general direction of where she fell off earlier. Suddenly, they all got up and ran outside, Skull following them with a satisfied grin, thats how you get your fellow killjoy’s attention. Having a motor bike out here was like winning in the lottery. Not depending on the roads while still being fast, that was basicall the best way to blow drac-ass and not killing yourself  in the process. After a few “Ahh”s and “OOh”s and “fucking hell”s from Skull’s friends, Poison looked at her with the face of a true father and said “Okay but that still doesnt answer the question of who the fuck Kat is”

“I met her for the first time a month ot so after I left, me and my new crew went to the edge of zone 3, my plan was to sneak off and pay the city a little visit. Never happened tho.” Skull looked down, she hated thinking about the fact that all this time when she was alone and ‘independent’, she’d never actually gotten into the city. Thinking of her brother’s face was getting more painful each day, she wasnt even sure what he looked like by now.

He smiled and pulled out his switchblade knife.

“Hear me out, Birdie.” the mere idea got into his brain, arousing him. “What you say we give this Kat a visit?”

Poison had already guess their intentions the moment Skull started speaking, everyone could tell that sure, it was a good idea to try out, better than nothing for sure. But Roadkill was a bit to excited at the proposal.

“Well, ehm…” he faked his confidence a bit, his flamboyance betrayed his mind while making him quite funny to the others.

“Well what?” Ghoul couldn’t hide a grin.

Poison gave him a look, then looked at Ghoul, then gestured to the car with his head. Ghoul got very excited, leaving the other two joys to wonder if it was just going to be Party Poison and his two dogs. Poison seemed to be the one most focused on the situation, at least he thought about the situation at all. Roadkill and Ghoul were thinking about two different things, but certainly not the situation. Roadkill was eager to put his knife to use, as he hadn’t had the chance in a while. Ghoul hadn’t thought of the situation for a second, his usual reaction to things he wouldn’t understand was either violent confusion or not giving a single fuck, he was there to get off on Roadkill scaring some fucker with a knife, then hopefully get what he wanted. Anyways, the three of them sat in the car, Roadkill turned the radio on, a soft voice spoke, introducing a song by MC5.

They waited for Crow Skull to speed up in front of them, gave her some space so they were not going to get lost in the cloud of smoke.

“Hopefully the drive isn’t too long, I’ve got a boner again.”

“That can be fixed.” Roadkill and Ghoul caught each other saying the same thing, then chuckled. Roadkill, being the one that hadn’t seen Poison’s penis in a while, was given honorary green light. Ghoul wondered how was Poison able to drive and getting head at the same time, he always needed to stop. Practice, he guessed.

“Wait, I think Skull’s pulling over.”

“Hell no, there’s no way I’m getting put of this car before I’m finished.” Poison’s voice was strained and sounded very very hot but, as much Ghoul was enjoying the show, and he was enjoying it a lot, he knew it wasn’t smart to leave his friend alone outside in potentially unsafe territory.

“Be quick.” he chuckled, then left the car, and Poison stretched himself, then looked down. At the hand that tangled into Roadkill faded blonde hair.

The gang all slept in one room, but the occasions when all six of them spent the night together under that same roof were rare. Sometimes, Roadkill would be out hunting for that night’s fuck, Poison would be selling himself for drugs, Jet would sit for hours on the roof, looking at the stars. Kobra would join him often, and the others would hear the faint reach of conversation, sometimes even laughter. Skull spent a lot of time outside, Roadkill slept most of his nights in her bed. He made a pact with the rest of the gang not to tell her that he and Poison had had sex in her bed, Skull hid the fact that she already knew really well. Her bed was pretty damn comfortable.

That night, Poison and Roadkill were outside, with no intention to even cross eyes with the others. Enveloped in the throbs of power play and all those beautiful painful delights, they had been switching power positions since the moment they got there. In that moment it was Roadkill’s turn to be helpless. They were on all fours, in the dirt, with Poison’s boot resting on their neck. He pushed them down, going for the classics of degradation, the well known hits such as:”Pathetic little slut.” and “Beg for it, mutt.”. Well, that last one was more specifically tailored on Roadkill. After a couple of blows to their body, Roadkill was reaching that completely blissful headspace that she oh so dearly missed, that deep bond he shared with the infamous redhead. A state of mind that allowed them to completely give herself over to Poison, while still being able to answer to a simple stoplight safeword system. Poison leaned over them, a satisfied grin on his face, while pulling at the collar and leash that Roadkill always brought with them:”Good pup, you know you want to be-” he stopped, and Roadkill immediately looked up, confused. It took a second to shake off the haze and, when the fog cleared over their mind, she noticed Poison expression. It was this kind of forzenness, but not quite fear. Roadkill still had his boot on his neck, by then it had slightly moved over to his cheek. They pushed it down and sat up right to look at whatever it was that shook their weird psychic best friend so much. Then they froze as well.

“Please, can you help me? I’m lost.”

It sounded just like Roadkill’s voice, but not quite. It rang in their brains, as the grey matter itself was the source of it. Roadkill felt Poison’s hand on their head, and wondered if maintaining a dominant role to make sure that he as a sub was alright was what made P snap out of the hazy state. Nevertheless, it was comforting. She didn’t have to face it alone. She stood up, slowly, taking a couple of shaky breaths. She did wish she hadn’t just taken two quite forceful blows to the ribs, after asking explicitly to be kicked like a stray just like some song she’d heard on the radio and taped. It was the best before facing a double of oneself, a glitching ghost that looked just like them but at the same time not quite. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Wait. You’re the hooky spooky vision I got in the car the other day!” Poison exclaimed, while Roadkill pulled out their raygun, just in case.

“I’m- I’m tired. I think they killed my friends.”

The ghost didn’t move a step towards them, it stood still and with a terrifyingly good posture. Poison lost a bit of his eerie enthusiasm. The other ‘joy took a couple of steps forward, treading carefully like you thread when approaching a wild horse.

“Do you want to explain it to us so we can help you? Who is they?”

But the ghost said nothing, looking right through her and Poison. Roadkill thought that it looked as if she was experiencing connection issues, but on her existence. However, that was a silly thought: ghosts didn’t work on data, didn’t they? Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing they had seen out in that circus they called the Zones.

In the meanwhile, and a bit stupidly, they had been steady steps towards the ghost, approaching it slowly. Roadkill reached, a bit insecure. 

Poison’s breath caught in his throat:”You are not.”.

Roadkill held a hand up to the ghost of himself, who had an open gash on its forehead, she felt the stickiness of the blood on her fingers. Alright, by then she had started to get pretty fucking scared, but she was decided not to show it. That ghost seemed as terrified as them two were. The presence looked at the hand, then leaned in ever so slightly, and closed its empty eyes. And started crying, just like Poison had, in the car. 

“They’re just scared. I think.” his voice shook as he spoke. “We got you, ghosties. We can help you.”.

Then, just like Fake Poison did when Roadkill showed them kindness in the car, the presence started glitching. The moment it realized it, the physical killjoy felt the matter she was holding disappear, and the ghost started screaming. It screeched, loud, with an electrical ringing. They tried to push through it and reach the ghost, but fell right through it. Roadkill hit the floor, Poison stumbled, cursing and jumping to not step on his head. 

“Shit.” Poison said, when his unstoppable tumbling movement had finally found a halt. He rested his hands on his knees, as if he had just ran a marathon. 

“Fuck.” he added, breathlessly, after a bit. What else was there to say?

Roadkill found no reason to get up, they stayed in the dirt, their body finally relaxing. The two killjoys looked at each other, confused beyond reason. Then they heard another screeching, metallic sound. It came from the other side of the Hideout.

“Ghoul and Skull! Fuck!”.

Suddenly Ghoul was looking over her shoulder, saying with an amused but ever so slightly confused expression on his face “Oh Poison how the hell did you get in here? You and Roadkill done that fast?” Skull turned around to see a Poison standing behind her, a Poison who looked… off? “Whoa you okay?” She said, trying to touch his face, that suddenly had an open wound across the cheek. “And where did your stubble go? Ghoul and I were just saying-” But she couldnt finish her sentence, as instead of Party Poisons face, she was touching what felt like nothing mixed with cold glass. And then the figure before her started to flicker. Without taking her eyes off the thing that was pretending to be Poison, she said with a shakey voice: “ummm Ghoul youre seeing this too right?”

“get away from that.” was all he said, dragging her away while she was slowly getting out her gun. all this time, the fake Poison was just staring. Their facial expression was that of pure terror.

They heard Ghoul screaming, they stopped in front of the Hideout’s door, or better, they had to stop. Poison grabbed onto Roadkill’s jacket, but he couldn’t save him from the impact with the ghost. Who stumbled forth, then turned around.

“What even are you?”

Just like last time, Fake Poison manage to form one fully formed sentence before breaking down crying. Roadkill and Skull crossed gaze, Roadkill nodded. They immediately understood.

“Doesn’t matter. You need help.” Roadkill said.

“What help!? We don’t even know what this- this thing is!” Ghoul protested, then he searched Poison’s approval, but found only uncertainty.

“Thank you, thank you!” the presence smiled, but the mere movement of his face ripped open the gash that seemed to be barely healing. “We’re trying to leave, they won’t let us, they killed my brothers!” it couldn’t seem to stop crying. It reached for Skull, weak on his knees.

“They’re glitching again.” said Roadkill, almost matter of factly. He leaped forward, hugging and holding onto the glitching presence, that could’ve gone very wrong, very very wrong. Roadkill felt electricity, it went from a faint buzzing to a true pain. Fake Poison kept sobbing and apologising, Roadkill consciousness felt like it was gonna rip from their brain.

“What the fuck is going on?! Why is Roadkill just rolling with it?!” Poison wondered what possessed Ghoul to speak, they were still completely starstruck.

Roadkill fell to the ground, the presence disappeared with a final screech, just like the time before. It tore through everyone’s ears. Poison ran up to the ‘joy, frantically checking on them. Then they drew a sigh if relief.

“They’re breathing.”

“Let’s go inside,” he said, simply “Have you eaten, baby?” he looked at Skull, in his eyes she read everything in due time.

After that, Skull and Poison sat on chairs, shortly joined by Jet and Kobra. Ghoul was still in no condition to, well, be still.

The white, then black again. Was that some mean, dumb joke? He barely had any time to think more about that possibility. Finally: surroundings. Well, surroundings, but not quite. An unsettling, material dream. As if stepping inside a slow picture, one of those old movies from before the Helium Wars. A world with out air to fill it, a dream to see right through. It seemed like the Lobby, he remembered it from that time he had to escape Bat City’s maximum security facillity. He had hoped not to see it in a while, they never understood Skull’s fascination with that Witchforsaken city.

And, speaking of fascination, that was the name of the street, from what she could gather. Fascination Street, like that song. If Roadkill had had any power over their body, they would’ve shrugged: the name was cool, sure, but meaningless for that time.

They squinted, trying to understand any more of that soulless picture. The only thing worth of note was the presence of Porno Droids, disheveled robot and all the picturesque character that populated the Lobby. Then, there. Something caught his atrociously inattentive eye. A person in a suit, a white hood over their head and hiding their neck, like a Scarecrow’s but completely white, though with some faded dark stains. They were walking into a building and, just as the door was about to close, the killjoy saw a BLI/nd nametag.

“Kat” it said “Researcher // Projekt Somnium - Black Summer unit.”

“I got something to add too.” Poison raised his hand, wrist limp, index finger up. “I saw you before. I mean, Fake You. In the car. That’s probably why I lost consciousness.”

Roadkill ignored the Fab 4’s protests and demands to know more, though she didn’t give them any shit for it: if he had had a ghostly presence in his car, one that made one of his best friends lose conscience, he’d want to be notified promptly. 

“You said it was between you and Ghoul, right? Then why didn’t it affect him, as well?”

“I’d like to be kept out of this.”

Poison passed him a pack and he got a cig with his teeth, right out of the pack. Everyone took it as a moment to think, silently. Then smoke filled the little praying circle they had going on, and Roadkill resume:”There was something, I saw a name tag on a Scarecrow looking type it said Kat, Projekt…mhh…Somnium, which was what Fake Poison told me him name was, when I first saw him.” “Wait, so that time I kind of manifested myself- ugh, this doen’t make any sense.” Poison’s head fell onto his had, bright red hair sprawling in disordely strips.

“No, it does.” Roadkill added to Jet’s hand on the redhead’s shoulders “Let’s proceed orderly. You saw fake me, were in contact with fake me, it disappeared, psychic mumbo jumbo ensued. There you are in front of me, as some kind of electric conscience. It doesn’t make sense, sure-”

“But it kinda does.” nodded Jet Star.

“Right? Then, second point: the name tag. It sad Kat…” the joy took a marker out of their wide cargo shorts and wrote on their legs, trying to remember “I think it was Reasearch…Project Somnium, Black Summer Unit…or something like that.”

“what motor bike???” said Ghoul and Kobra in unison, looks of excitement and confusion in their face. “Oh it’s out there.” Skull pretended to be hyper-casual about it, just in order to annoy them. She pointed in the general direction of where she fell off earlier. Suddenly, they all got up and ran outside, Skull following them with a satisfied grin, thats how you get your fellow killjoy’s attention. Having a motor bike out here was like winning in the lottery. Not depending on the roads while still being fast, that was basicall the best way to blow drac-ass and not killing yourself  in the process. After a few “Ahh”s and “OOh”s and “fucking hell”s from Skull’s friends, Poison looked at her with the face of a true father and said “Okay but that still doesnt answer the question of who the fuck Kat is”

“I met her for the first time a month ot so after I left, me and my new crew went to the edge of zone 3, my plan was to sneak off and pay the city a little visit. Never happened tho.” Skull looked down, she hated thinking about the fact that all this time when she was alone and ‘independent’, she’d never actually gotten into the city. Thinking of her brother’s face was getting more painful each day, she wasnt even sure what he looked like by now.

He smiled and pulled out his switchblade knife.

“Hear me out, Birdie.” the mere idea got into his brain, arousing him. “What you say we give this Kat a visit?”

Poison had already guess their intentions the moment Skull started speaking, everyone could tell that sure, it was a good idea to try out, better than nothing for sure. But Roadkill was a bit to excited at the proposal.

“Well, ehm…” he faked his confidence a bit, his flamboyance betrayed his mind while making him quite funny to the others.

“Well what?” Ghoul couldn’t hide a grin.

Poison gave him a look, then looked at Ghoul, then gestured to the car with his head. Ghoul got very excited, leaving the other two joys to wonder if it was just going to be Party Poison and his two dogs. Poison seemed to be the one most focused on the situation, at least he thought about the situation at all. Roadkill and Ghoul were thinking about two different things, but certainly not the situation. Roadkill was eager to put his knife to use, as he hadn’t had the chance in a while. Ghoul hadn’t thought of the situation for a second, his usual reaction to things he wouldn’t understand was either violent confusion or not giving a single fuck, he was there to get off on Roadkill scaring some fucker with a knife, then hopefully get what he wanted. Anyways, the three of them sat in the car, Roadkill turned the radio on, a soft voice spoke, introducing a song by MC5.

They waited for Crow Skull to speed up in front of them, gave her some space so they were not going to get lost in the cloud of smoke.

“Hopefully the drive isn’t too long, I’ve got a boner again.”

“That can be fixed.” Roadkill and Ghoul caught each other saying the same thing, then chuckled. Roadkill, being the one that hadn’t seen Poison’s penis in a while, was given honorary green light. Ghoul wondered how was Poison able to drive and getting head at the same time, he always needed to stop. Practice, he guessed.

“Wait, I think Skull’s pulling over.”

“Hell no, there’s no way I’m getting put of this car before I’m finished.” Poison’s voice was strained and sounded very very hot but, as much Ghoul was enjoying the show, and he was enjoying it a lot, he knew it wasn’t smart to leave his friend alone outside in potentially unsafe territory.

“Be quick.” he chuckled, then left the car, and Poison stretched himself, then looked down. At the hand that tangled into Roadkill faded blonde hair.

The gang all slept in one room, but the occasions when all six of them spent the night together under that same roof were rare. Sometimes, Roadkill would be out hunting for that night’s fuck, Poison would be selling himself for drugs, Jet would sit for hours on the roof, looking at the stars. Kobra would join him often, and the others would hear the faint reach of conversation, sometimes even laughter. Skull spent a lot of time outside, Roadkill slept most of his nights in her bed. He made a pact with the rest of the gang not to tell her that he and Poison had had sex in her bed, Skull hid the fact that she already knew really well. Her bed was pretty damn comfortable.

That night, Poison and Roadkill were outside, with no intention to even cross eyes with the others. Enveloped in the throbs of power play and all those beautiful painful delights, they had been switching power positions since the moment they got there. In that moment it was Roadkill’s turn to be helpless. They were on all fours, in the dirt, with Poison’s boot resting on their neck. He pushed them down, going for the classics of degradation, the well known hits such as:”Pathetic little slut.” and “Beg for it, mutt.”. Well, that last one was more specifically tailored on Roadkill. After a couple of blows to their body, Roadkill was reaching that completely blissful headspace that she oh so dearly missed, that deep bond he shared with the infamous redhead. A state of mind that allowed them to completely give herself over to Poison, while still being able to answer to a simple stoplight safeword system. Poison leaned over them, a satisfied grin on his face, while pulling at the collar and leash that Roadkill always brought with them:”Good pup, you know you want to be-” he stopped, and Roadkill immediately looked up, confused. It took a second to shake off the haze and, when the fog cleared over their mind, she noticed Poison expression. It was this kind of forzenness, but not quite fear. Roadkill still had his boot on his neck, by then it had slightly moved over to his cheek. They pushed it down and sat up right to look at whatever it was that shook their weird psychic best friend so much. Then they froze as well.

“Please, can you help me? I’m lost.”

It sounded just like Roadkill’s voice, but not quite. It rang in their brains, as the grey matter itself was the source of it. Roadkill felt Poison’s hand on their head, and wondered if maintaining a dominant role to make sure that he as a sub was alright was what made P snap out of the hazy state. Nevertheless, it was comforting. She didn’t have to face it alone. She stood up, slowly, taking a couple of shaky breaths. She did wish she hadn’t just taken two quite forceful blows to the ribs, after asking explicitly to be kicked like a stray just like some song she’d heard on the radio and taped. It was the best before facing a double of oneself, a glitching ghost that looked just like them but at the same time not quite. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Wait. You’re the hooky spooky vision I got in the car the other day!” Poison exclaimed, while Roadkill pulled out their raygun, just in case.

“I’m- I’m tired. I think they killed my friends.”

The ghost didn’t move a step towards them, it stood still and with a terrifyingly good posture. Poison lost a bit of his eerie enthusiasm. The other ‘joy took a couple of steps forward, treading carefully like you thread when approaching a wild horse.

“Do you want to explain it to us so we can help you? Who is they?”

But the ghost said nothing, looking right through her and Poison. Roadkill thought that it looked as if she was experiencing connection issues, but on her existence. However, that was a silly thought: ghosts didn’t work on data, didn’t they? Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing they had seen out in that circus they called the Zones.

In the meanwhile, and a bit stupidly, they had been steady steps towards the ghost, approaching it slowly. Roadkill reached, a bit insecure. 

Poison’s breath caught in his throat:”You are not.”.

Roadkill held a hand up to the ghost of himself, who had an open gash on its forehead, she felt the stickiness of the blood on her fingers. Alright, by then she had started to get pretty fucking scared, but she was decided not to show it. That ghost seemed as terrified as them two were. The presence looked at the hand, then leaned in ever so slightly, and closed its empty eyes. And started crying, just like Poison had, in the car. 

“They’re just scared. I think.” his voice shook as he spoke. “We got you, ghosties. We can help you.”.

Then, just like Fake Poison did when Roadkill showed them kindness in the car, the presence started glitching. The moment it realized it, the physical killjoy felt the matter she was holding disappear, and the ghost started screaming. It screeched, loud, with an electrical ringing. They tried to push through it and reach the ghost, but fell right through it. Roadkill hit the floor, Poison stumbled, cursing and jumping to not step on his head. 

“Shit.” Poison said, when his unstoppable tumbling movement had finally found a halt. He rested his hands on his knees, as if he had just ran a marathon. 

“Fuck.” he added, breathlessly, after a bit. What else was there to say?

Roadkill found no reason to get up, they stayed in the dirt, their body finally relaxing. The two killjoys looked at each other, confused beyond reason. Then they heard another screeching, metallic sound. It came from the other side of the Hideout.

“Ghoul and Skull! Fuck!”.

Suddenly Ghoul was looking over her shoulder, saying with an amused but ever so slightly confused expression on his face “Oh Poison how the hell did you get in here? You and Roadkill done that fast?” Skull turned around to see a Poison standing behind her, a Poison who looked… off? “Whoa you okay?” She said, trying to touch his face, that suddenly had an open wound across the cheek. “And where did your stubble go? Ghoul and I were just saying-” But she couldnt finish her sentence, as instead of Party Poisons face, she was touching what felt like nothing mixed with cold glass. And then the figure before her started to flicker. Without taking her eyes off the thing that was pretending to be Poison, she said with a shakey voice: “ummm Ghoul youre seeing this too right?”

“get away from that.” was all he said, dragging her away while she was slowly getting out her gun. all this time, the fake Poison was just staring. Their facial expression was that of pure terror.

They heard Ghoul screaming, they stopped in front of the Hideout’s door, or better, they had to stop. Poison grabbed onto Roadkill’s jacket, but he couldn’t save him from the impact with the ghost. Who stumbled forth, then turned around.

“What even are you?”

Just like last time, Fake Poison manage to form one fully formed sentence before breaking down crying. Roadkill and Skull crossed gaze, Roadkill nodded. They immediately understood.

“Doesn’t matter. You need help.” Roadkill said.

“What help!? We don’t even know what this- this thing is!” Ghoul protested, then he searched Poison’s approval, but found only uncertainty.

“Thank you, thank you!” the presence smiled, but the mere movement of his face ripped open the gash that seemed to be barely healing. “We’re trying to leave, they won’t let us, they killed my brothers!” it couldn’t seem to stop crying. It reached for Skull, weak on his knees.

“They’re glitching again.” said Roadkill, almost matter of factly. He leaped forward, hugging and holding onto the glitching presence, that could’ve gone very wrong, very very wrong. Roadkill felt electricity, it went from a faint buzzing to a true pain. Fake Poison kept sobbing and apologising, Roadkill consciousness felt like it was gonna rip from their brain.

“What the fuck is going on?! Why is Roadkill just rolling with it?!” Poison wondered what possessed Ghoul to speak, they were still completely starstruck.

Roadkill fell to the ground, the presence disappeared with a final screech, just like the time before. It tore through everyone’s ears. Poison ran up to the ‘joy, frantically checking on them. Then they drew a sigh if relief.

“They’re breathing.”

“Let’s go inside,” he said, simply “Have you eaten, baby?” he looked at Skull, in his eyes she read everything in due time.

After that, Skull and Poison sat on chairs, shortly joined by Jet and Kobra. Ghoul was still in no condition to, well, be still.

The white, then black again. Was that some mean, dumb joke? He barely had any time to think more about that possibility. Finally: surroundings. Well, surroundings, but not quite. An unsettling, material dream. As if stepping inside a slow picture, one of those old movies from before the Helium Wars. A world with out air to fill it, a dream to see right through. It seemed like the Lobby, he remembered it from that time he had to escape Bat City’s maximum security facillity. He had hoped not to see it in a while, they never understood Skull’s fascination with that Witchforsaken city.

And, speaking of fascination, that was the name of the street, from what she could gather. Fascination Street, like that song. If Roadkill had had any power over their body, they would’ve shrugged: the name was cool, sure, but meaningless for that time.

They squinted, trying to understand any more of that soulless picture. The only thing worth of note was the presence of Porno Droids, disheveled robot and all the picturesque character that populated the Lobby. Then, there. Something caught his atrociously inattentive eye. A person in a suit, a white hood over their head and hiding their neck, like a Scarecrow’s but completely white, though with some faded dark stains. They were walking into a building and, just as the door was about to close, the killjoy saw a BLI/nd nametag.

“Kat” it said “Researcher // Projekt Somnium - Black Summer unit.”

“I got something to add too.” Poison raised his hand, wrist limp, index finger up. “I saw you before. I mean, Fake You. In the car. That’s probably why I lost consciousness.”

Roadkill ignored the Fab 4’s protests and demands to know more, though she didn’t give them any shit for it: if he had had a ghostly presence in his car, one that made one of his best friends lose conscience, he’d want to be notified promptly. 

“You said it was between you and Ghoul, right? Then why didn’t it affect him, as well?”

“I’d like to be kept out of this.”

Poison passed him a pack and he got a cig with his teeth, right out of the pack. Everyone took it as a moment to think, silently. Then smoke filled the little praying circle they had going on, and Roadkill resume:”There was something, I saw a name tag on a Scarecrow looking type it said Kat, Projekt…mhh…Somnium, which was what Fake Poison told me him name was, when I first saw him.” “Wait, so that time I kind of manifested myself- ugh, this doen’t make any sense.” Poison’s head fell onto his had, bright red hair sprawling in disordely strips.

“No, it does.” Roadkill added to Jet’s hand on the redhead’s shoulders “Let’s proceed orderly. You saw fake me, were in contact with fake me, it disappeared, psychic mumbo jumbo ensued. There you are in front of me, as some kind of electric conscience. It doesn’t make sense, sure-”

“But it kinda does.” nodded Jet Star.

“Right? Then, second point: the name tag. It sad Kat…” the joy took a marker out of their wide cargo shorts and wrote on their legs, trying to remember “I think it was Reasearch…Project Somnium, Black Summer Unit…or something like that.”

“what motor bike???” said Ghoul and Kobra in unison, looks of excitement and confusion in their face. “Oh it’s out there.” Skull pretended to be hyper-casual about it, just in order to annoy them. She pointed in the general direction of where she fell off earlier. Suddenly, they all got up and ran outside, Skull following them with a satisfied grin, thats how you get your fellow killjoy’s attention. Having a motor bike out here was like winning in the lottery. Not depending on the roads while still being fast, that was basicall the best way to blow drac-ass and not killing yourself  in the process. After a few “Ahh”s and “OOh”s and “fucking hell”s from Skull’s friends, Poison looked at her with the face of a true father and said “Okay but that still doesnt answer the question of who the fuck Kat is”

“I met her for the first time a month ot so after I left, me and my new crew went to the edge of zone 3, my plan was to sneak off and pay the city a little visit. Never happened tho.” Skull looked down, she hated thinking about the fact that all this time when she was alone and ‘independent’, she’d never actually gotten into the city. Thinking of her brother’s face was getting more painful each day, she wasnt even sure what he looked like by now.

He smiled and pulled out his switchblade knife.

“Hear me out, Birdie.” the mere idea got into his brain, arousing him. “What you say we give this Kat a visit?”

Poison had already guess their intentions the moment Skull started speaking, everyone could tell that sure, it was a good idea to try out, better than nothing for sure. But Roadkill was a bit to excited at the proposal.

“Well, ehm…” he faked his confidence a bit, his flamboyance betrayed his mind while making him quite funny to the others.

“Well what?” Ghoul couldn’t hide a grin.

The gang all slept in one room, but the occasions when all six of them spent the night together under that same roof were rare. Sometimes, Roadkill would be out hunting for that night’s fuck, Poison would be selling himself for drugs, Jet would sit for hours on the roof, looking at the stars. Kobra would join him often, and the others would hear the faint reach of conversation, sometimes even laughter. Skull spent a lot of time outside, Roadkill slept most of his nights in her bed. He made a pact with the rest of the gang not to tell her that he and Poison had had sex in her bed, Skull hid the fact that she already knew really well. Her bed was pretty damn comfortable.

That night, Poison and Roadkill were outside, with no intention to even cross eyes with the others. Enveloped in the throbs of power play and all those beautiful painful delights, they had been switching power positions since the moment they got there. In that moment it was Roadkill’s turn to be helpless. They were on all fours, in the dirt, with Poison’s boot resting on their neck. He pushed them down, going for the classics of degradation, the well known hits such as:”Pathetic little slut.” and “Beg for it, mutt.”. Well, that last one was more specifically tailored on Roadkill. After a couple of blows to their body, Roadkill was reaching that completely blissful headspace that she oh so dearly missed, that deep bond he shared with the infamous redhead. A state of mind that allowed them to completely give herself over to Poison, while still being able to answer to a simple stoplight safeword system. Poison leaned over them, a satisfied grin on his face, while pulling at the collar and leash that Roadkill always brought with them:”Good pup, you know you want to be-” he stopped, and Roadkill immediately looked up, confused. It took a second to shake off the haze and, when the fog cleared over their mind, she noticed Poison expression. It was this kind of forzenness, but not quite fear. Roadkill still had his boot on his neck, by then it had slightly moved over to his cheek. They pushed it down and sat up right to look at whatever it was that shook their weird psychic best friend so much. Then they froze as well.

“Please, can you help me? I’m lost.”

It sounded just like Roadkill’s voice, but not quite. It rang in their brains, as the grey matter itself was the source of it. Roadkill felt Poison’s hand on their head, and wondered if maintaining a dominant role to make sure that he as a sub was alright was what made P snap out of the hazy state. Nevertheless, it was comforting. She didn’t have to face it alone. She stood up, slowly, taking a couple of shaky breaths. She did wish she hadn’t just taken two quite forceful blows to the ribs, after asking explicitly to be kicked like a stray just like some song she’d heard on the radio and taped. It was the best before facing a double of oneself, a glitching ghost that looked just like them but at the same time not quite. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Wait. You’re the hooky spooky vision I got in the car the other day!” Poison exclaimed, while Roadkill pulled out their raygun, just in case.

“I’m- I’m tired. I think they killed my friends.”

The ghost didn’t move a step towards them, it stood still and with a terrifyingly good posture. Poison lost a bit of his eerie enthusiasm. The other ‘joy took a couple of steps forward, treading carefully like you thread when approaching a wild horse.

“Do you want to explain it to us so we can help you? Who is they?”

But the ghost said nothing, looking right through her and Poison. Roadkill thought that it looked as if she was experiencing connection issues, but on her existence. However, that was a silly thought: ghosts didn’t work on data, didn’t they? Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing they had seen out in that circus they called the Zones.

In the meanwhile, and a bit stupidly, they had been steady steps towards the ghost, approaching it slowly. Roadkill reached, a bit insecure. 

Poison’s breath caught in his throat:”You are not.”.

Roadkill held a hand up to the ghost of himself, who had an open gash on its forehead, she felt the stickiness of the blood on her fingers. Alright, by then she had started to get pretty fucking scared, but she was decided not to show it. That ghost seemed as terrified as them two were. The presence looked at the hand, then leaned in ever so slightly, and closed its empty eyes. And started crying, just like Poison had, in the car. 

“They’re just scared. I think.” his voice shook as he spoke. “We got you, ghosties. We can help you.”.

Then, just like Fake Poison did when Roadkill showed them kindness in the car, the presence started glitching. The moment it realized it, the physical killjoy felt the matter she was holding disappear, and the ghost started screaming. It screeched, loud, with an electrical ringing. They tried to push through it and reach the ghost, but fell right through it. Roadkill hit the floor, Poison stumbled, cursing and jumping to not step on his head. 

“Shit.” Poison said, when his unstoppable tumbling movement had finally found a halt. He rested his hands on his knees, as if he had just ran a marathon. 

“Fuck.” he added, breathlessly, after a bit. What else was there to say?

Roadkill found no reason to get up, they stayed in the dirt, their body finally relaxing. The two killjoys looked at each other, confused beyond reason. Then they heard another screeching, metallic sound. It came from the other side of the Hideout.

“Ghoul and Skull! Fuck!”.

Suddenly Ghoul was looking over her shoulder, saying with an amused but ever so slightly confused expression on his face “Oh Poison how the hell did you get in here? You and Roadkill done that fast?” Skull turned around to see a Poison standing behind her, a Poison who looked… off? “Whoa you okay?” She said, trying to touch his face, that suddenly had an open wound across the cheek. “And where did your stubble go? Ghoul and I were just saying-” But she couldnt finish her sentence, as instead of Party Poisons face, she was touching what felt like nothing mixed with cold glass. And then the figure before her started to flicker. Without taking her eyes off the thing that was pretending to be Poison, she said with a shakey voice: “ummm Ghoul youre seeing this too right?”

“get away from that.” was all he said, dragging her away while she was slowly getting out her gun. all this time, the fake Poison was just staring. Their facial expression was that of pure terror.

They heard Ghoul screaming, they stopped in front of the Hideout’s door, or better, they had to stop. Poison grabbed onto Roadkill’s jacket, but he couldn’t save him from the impact with the ghost. Who stumbled forth, then turned around.

“What even are you?”

Just like last time, Fake Poison manage to form one fully formed sentence before breaking down crying. Roadkill and Skull crossed gaze, Roadkill nodded. They immediately understood.

“Doesn’t matter. You need help.” Roadkill said.

“What help!? We don’t even know what this- this thing is!” Ghoul protested, then he searched Poison’s approval, but found only uncertainty.

“Thank you, thank you!” the presence smiled, but the mere movement of his face ripped open the gash that seemed to be barely healing. “We’re trying to leave, they won’t let us, they killed my brothers!” it couldn’t seem to stop crying. It reached for Skull, weak on his knees.

“They’re glitching again.” said Roadkill, almost matter of factly. He leaped forward, hugging and holding onto the glitching presence, that could’ve gone very wrong, very very wrong. Roadkill felt electricity, it went from a faint buzzing to a true pain. Fake Poison kept sobbing and apologising, Roadkill consciousness felt like it was gonna rip from their brain.

“What the fuck is going on?! Why is Roadkill just rolling with it?!” Poison wondered what possessed Ghoul to speak, they were still completely starstruck.

Roadkill fell to the ground, the presence disappeared with a final screech, just like the time before. It tore through everyone’s ears. Poison ran up to the ‘joy, frantically checking on them. Then they drew a sigh if relief.

“They’re breathing.”

“Let’s go inside,” he said, simply “Have you eaten, baby?” he looked at Skull, in his eyes she read everything in due time.

After that, Skull and Poison sat on chairs, shortly joined by Jet and Kobra. Ghoul was still in no condition to, well, be still.

The white, then black again. Was that some mean, dumb joke? He barely had any time to think more about that possibility. Finally: surroundings. Well, surroundings, but not quite. An unsettling, material dream. As if stepping inside a slow picture, one of those old movies from before the Helium Wars. A world with out air to fill it, a dream to see right through. It seemed like the Lobby, he remembered it from that time he had to escape Bat City’s maximum security facillity. He had hoped not to see it in a while, they never understood Skull’s fascination with that Witchforsaken city.

And, speaking of fascination, that was the name of the street, from what she could gather. Fascination Street, like that song. If Roadkill had had any power over their body, they would’ve shrugged: the name was cool, sure, but meaningless for that time.

They squinted, trying to understand any more of that soulless picture. The only thing worth of note was the presence of Porno Droids, disheveled robot and all the picturesque character that populated the Lobby. Then, there. Something caught his atrociously inattentive eye. A person in a suit, a white hood over their head and hiding their neck, like a Scarecrow’s but completely white, though with some faded dark stains. They were walking into a building and, just as the door was about to close, the killjoy saw a BLI/nd nametag.

“Kat” it said “Researcher // Projekt Somnium - Black Summer unit.”

“I got something to add too.” Poison raised his hand, wrist limp, index finger up. “I saw you before. I mean, Fake You. In the car. That’s probably why I lost consciousness.”

Roadkill ignored the Fab 4’s protests and demands to know more, though she didn’t give them any shit for it: if he had had a ghostly presence in his car, one that made one of his best friends lose conscience, he’d want to be notified promptly. 

“You said it was between you and Ghoul, right? Then why didn’t it affect him, as well?”

“I’d like to be kept out of this.”

Poison passed him a pack and he got a cig with his teeth, right out of the pack. Everyone took it as a moment to think, silently. Then smoke filled the little praying circle they had going on, and Roadkill resume:”There was something, I saw a name tag on a Scarecrow looking type it said Kat, Projekt…mhh…Somnium, which was what Fake Poison told me him name was, when I first saw him.” “Wait, so that time I kind of manifested myself- ugh, this doen’t make any sense.” Poison’s head fell onto his had, bright red hair sprawling in disordely strips.

“No, it does.” Roadkill added to Jet’s hand on the redhead’s shoulders “Let’s proceed orderly. You saw fake me, were in contact with fake me, it disappeared, psychic mumbo jumbo ensued. There you are in front of me, as some kind of electric conscience. It doesn’t make sense, sure-”

“But it kinda does.” nodded Jet Star.

“Right? Then, second point: the name tag. It sad Kat…” the joy took a marker out of their wide cargo shorts and wrote on their legs, trying to remember “I think it was Reasearch…Project Somnium, Black Summer Unit…or something like that.”

“what motor bike???” said Ghoul and Kobra in unison, looks of excitement and confusion in their face. “Oh it’s out there.” Skull pretended to be hyper-casual about it, just in order to annoy them. She pointed in the general direction of where she fell off earlier. Suddenly, they all got up and ran outside, Skull following them with a satisfied grin, thats how you get your fellow killjoy’s attention. Having a motor bike out here was like winning in the lottery. Not depending on the roads while still being fast, that was basicall the best way to blow drac-ass and not killing yourself  in the process. After a few “Ahh”s and “OOh”s and “fucking hell”s from Skull’s friends, Poison looked at her with the face of a true father and said “Okay but that still doesnt answer the question of who the fuck Kat is”

“I met her for the first time a month ot so after I left, me and my new crew went to the edge of zone 3, my plan was to sneak off and pay the city a little visit. Never happened tho.” Skull looked down, she hated thinking about the fact that all this time when she was alone and ‘independent’, she’d never actually gotten into the city. Thinking of her brother’s face was getting more painful each day, she wasnt even sure what he looked like by now.

He smiled and pulled out his switchblade knife.

“Hear me out, Birdie.” the mere idea got into his brain, arousing him. “What you say we give this Kat a visit?”

Poison had already guess their intentions the moment Skull started speaking, everyone could tell that sure, it was a good idea to try out, better than nothing for sure. But Roadkill was a bit to excited at the proposal.

The gang all slept in one room, but the occasions when all six of them spent the night together under that same roof were rare. Sometimes, Roadkill would be out hunting for that night’s fuck, Poison would be selling himself for drugs, Jet would sit for hours on the roof, looking at the stars. Kobra would join him often, and the others would hear the faint reach of conversation, sometimes even laughter. Skull spent a lot of time outside, Roadkill slept most of his nights in her bed. He made a pact with the rest of the gang not to tell her that he and Poison had had sex in her bed, Skull hid the fact that she already knew really well. Her bed was pretty damn comfortable.

That night, Poison and Roadkill were outside, with no intention to even cross eyes with the others. Enveloped in the throbs of power play and all those beautiful painful delights, they had been switching power positions since the moment they got there. In that moment it was Roadkill’s turn to be helpless. They were on all fours, in the dirt, with Poison’s boot resting on their neck. He pushed them down, going for the classics of degradation, the well known hits such as:”Pathetic little slut.” and “Beg for it, mutt.”. Well, that last one was more specifically tailored on Roadkill. After a couple of blows to their body, Roadkill was reaching that completely blissful headspace that she oh so dearly missed, that deep bond he shared with the infamous redhead. A state of mind that allowed them to completely give herself over to Poison, while still being able to answer to a simple stoplight safeword system. Poison leaned over them, a satisfied grin on his face, while pulling at the collar and leash that Roadkill always brought with them:”Good pup, you know you want to be-” he stopped, and Roadkill immediately looked up, confused. It took a second to shake off the haze and, when the fog cleared over their mind, she noticed Poison expression. It was this kind of forzenness, but not quite fear. Roadkill still had his boot on his neck, by then it had slightly moved over to his cheek. They pushed it down and sat up right to look at whatever it was that shook their weird psychic best friend so much. Then they froze as well.

“Please, can you help me? I’m lost.”

It sounded just like Roadkill’s voice, but not quite. It rang in their brains, as the grey matter itself was the source of it. Roadkill felt Poison’s hand on their head, and wondered if maintaining a dominant role to make sure that he as a sub was alright was what made P snap out of the hazy state. Nevertheless, it was comforting. She didn’t have to face it alone. She stood up, slowly, taking a couple of shaky breaths. She did wish she hadn’t just taken two quite forceful blows to the ribs, after asking explicitly to be kicked like a stray just like some song she’d heard on the radio and taped. It was the best before facing a double of oneself, a glitching ghost that looked just like them but at the same time not quite. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Wait. You’re the hooky spooky vision I got in the car the other day!” Poison exclaimed, while Roadkill pulled out their raygun, just in case.

“I’m- I’m tired. I think they killed my friends.”

The ghost didn’t move a step towards them, it stood still and with a terrifyingly good posture. Poison lost a bit of his eerie enthusiasm. The other ‘joy took a couple of steps forward, treading carefully like you thread when approaching a wild horse.

“Do you want to explain it to us so we can help you? Who is they?”

But the ghost said nothing, looking right through her and Poison. Roadkill thought that it looked as if she was experiencing connection issues, but on her existence. However, that was a silly thought: ghosts didn’t work on data, didn’t they? Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing they had seen out in that circus they called the Zones.

In the meanwhile, and a bit stupidly, they had been steady steps towards the ghost, approaching it slowly. Roadkill reached, a bit insecure. 

Poison’s breath caught in his throat:”You are not.”.

Roadkill held a hand up to the ghost of himself, who had an open gash on its forehead, she felt the stickiness of the blood on her fingers. Alright, by then she had started to get pretty fucking scared, but she was decided not to show it. That ghost seemed as terrified as them two were. The presence looked at the hand, then leaned in ever so slightly, and closed its empty eyes. And started crying, just like Poison had, in the car. 

“They’re just scared. I think.” his voice shook as he spoke. “We got you, ghosties. We can help you.”.

Then, just like Fake Poison did when Roadkill showed them kindness in the car, the presence started glitching. The moment it realized it, the physical killjoy felt the matter she was holding disappear, and the ghost started screaming. It screeched, loud, with an electrical ringing. They tried to push through it and reach the ghost, but fell right through it. Roadkill hit the floor, Poison stumbled, cursing and jumping to not step on his head. 

“Shit.” Poison said, when his unstoppable tumbling movement had finally found a halt. He rested his hands on his knees, as if he had just ran a marathon. 

“Fuck.” he added, breathlessly, after a bit. What else was there to say?

Roadkill found no reason to get up, they stayed in the dirt, their body finally relaxing. The two killjoys looked at each other, confused beyond reason. Then they heard another screeching, metallic sound. It came from the other side of the Hideout.

“Ghoul and Skull! Fuck!”.

Suddenly Ghoul was looking over her shoulder, saying with an amused but ever so slightly confused expression on his face “Oh Poison how the hell did you get in here? You and Roadkill done that fast?” Skull turned around to see a Poison standing behind her, a Poison who looked… off? “Whoa you okay?” She said, trying to touch his face, that suddenly had an open wound across the cheek. “And where did your stubble go? Ghoul and I were just saying-” But she couldnt finish her sentence, as instead of Party Poisons face, she was touching what felt like nothing mixed with cold glass. And then the figure before her started to flicker. Without taking her eyes off the thing that was pretending to be Poison, she said with a shakey voice: “ummm Ghoul youre seeing this too right?”

“get away from that.” was all he said, dragging her away while she was slowly getting out her gun. all this time, the fake Poison was just staring. Their facial expression was that of pure terror.

They heard Ghoul screaming, they stopped in front of the Hideout’s door, or better, they had to stop. Poison grabbed onto Roadkill’s jacket, but he couldn’t save him from the impact with the ghost. Who stumbled forth, then turned around.

“What even are you?”

Just like last time, Fake Poison manage to form one fully formed sentence before breaking down crying. Roadkill and Skull crossed gaze, Roadkill nodded. They immediately understood.

“Doesn’t matter. You need help.” Roadkill said.

“What help!? We don’t even know what this- this thing is!” Ghoul protested, then he searched Poison’s approval, but found only uncertainty.

“Thank you, thank you!” the presence smiled, but the mere movement of his face ripped open the gash that seemed to be barely healing. “We’re trying to leave, they won’t let us, they killed my brothers!” it couldn’t seem to stop crying. It reached for Skull, weak on his knees.

“They’re glitching again.” said Roadkill, almost matter of factly. He leaped forward, hugging and holding onto the glitching presence, that could’ve gone very wrong, very very wrong. Roadkill felt electricity, it went from a faint buzzing to a true pain. Fake Poison kept sobbing and apologising, Roadkill consciousness felt like it was gonna rip from their brain.

“What the fuck is going on?! Why is Roadkill just rolling with it?!” Poison wondered what possessed Ghoul to speak, they were still completely starstruck.

Roadkill fell to the ground, the presence disappeared with a final screech, just like the time before. It tore through everyone’s ears. Poison ran up to the ‘joy, frantically checking on them. Then they drew a sigh if relief.

“They’re breathing.”

“Let’s go inside,” he said, simply “Have you eaten, baby?” he looked at Skull, in his eyes she read everything in due time.

After that, Skull and Poison sat on chairs, shortly joined by Jet and Kobra. Ghoul was still in no condition to, well, be still.

The white, then black again. Was that some mean, dumb joke? He barely had any time to think more about that possibility. Finally: surroundings. Well, surroundings, but not quite. An unsettling, material dream. As if stepping inside a slow picture, one of those old movies from before the Helium Wars. A world with out air to fill it, a dream to see right through. It seemed like the Lobby, he remembered it from that time he had to escape Bat City’s maximum security facillity. He had hoped not to see it in a while, they never understood Skull’s fascination with that Witchforsaken city.

And, speaking of fascination, that was the name of the street, from what she could gather. Fascination Street, like that song. If Roadkill had had any power over their body, they would’ve shrugged: the name was cool, sure, but meaningless for that time.

They squinted, trying to understand any more of that soulless picture. The only thing worth of note was the presence of Porno Droids, disheveled robot and all the picturesque character that populated the Lobby. Then, there. Something caught his atrociously inattentive eye. A person in a suit, a white hood over their head and hiding their neck, like a Scarecrow’s but completely white, though with some faded dark stains. They were walking into a building and, just as the door was about to close, the killjoy saw a BLI/nd nametag.

“Kat” it said “Researcher // Projekt Somnium - Black Summer unit.”

“I got something to add too.” Poison raised his hand, wrist limp, index finger up. “I saw you before. I mean, Fake You. In the car. That’s probably why I lost consciousness.”

Roadkill ignored the Fab 4’s protests and demands to know more, though she didn’t give them any shit for it: if he had had a ghostly presence in his car, one that made one of his best friends lose conscience, he’d want to be notified promptly. 

“You said it was between you and Ghoul, right? Then why didn’t it affect him, as well?”

“I’d like to be kept out of this.”

Poison passed him a pack and he got a cig with his teeth, right out of the pack. Everyone took it as a moment to think, silently. Then smoke filled the little praying circle they had going on, and Roadkill resume:”There was something, I saw a name tag on a Scarecrow looking type it said Kat, Projekt…mhh…Somnium, which was what Fake Poison told me him name was, when I first saw him.” “Wait, so that time I kind of manifested myself- ugh, this doen’t make any sense.” Poison’s head fell onto his had, bright red hair sprawling in disordely strips.

“No, it does.” Roadkill added to Jet’s hand on the redhead’s shoulders “Let’s proceed orderly. You saw fake me, were in contact with fake me, it disappeared, psychic mumbo jumbo ensued. There you are in front of me, as some kind of electric conscience. It doesn’t make sense, sure-”

“But it kinda does.” nodded Jet Star.

“Right? Then, second point: the name tag. It sad Kat…” the joy took a marker out of their wide cargo shorts and wrote on their legs, trying to remember “I think it was Reasearch…Project Somnium, Black Summer Unit…or something like that.”

“what motor bike???” said Ghoul and Kobra in unison, looks of excitement and confusion in their face. “Oh it’s out there.” Skull pretended to be hyper-casual about it, just in order to annoy them. She pointed in the general direction of where she fell off earlier. Suddenly, they all got up and ran outside, Skull following them with a satisfied grin, thats how you get your fellow killjoy’s attention. Having a motor bike out here was like winning in the lottery. Not depending on the roads while still being fast, that was basicall the best way to blow drac-ass and not killing yourself  in the process. After a few “Ahh”s and “OOh”s and “fucking hell”s from Skull’s friends, Poison looked at her with the face of a true father and said “Okay but that still doesnt answer the question of who the fuck Kat is”

"I met her for the first time a month ot so after I left, me and my new crew went to the edge of zone 3, my plan was to sneak off and pay the city a little visit. Never happened tho." Skull looked down, she hated thinking about the fact that all this time when she was alone and 'independent', she'd never actually gotten into the city. Thinking of her brother's face was getting more painful each day, she wasnt even sure what he looked like by now.

The gang all slept in one room, but the occasions when all six of them spent the night together under that same roof were rare. Sometimes, Roadkill would be out hunting for that night’s fuck, Poison would be selling himself for drugs, Jet would sit for hours on the roof, looking at the stars. Kobra would join him often, and the others would hear the faint reach of conversation, sometimes even laughter. Skull spent a lot of time outside, Roadkill slept most of his nights in her bed. He made a pact with the rest of the gang not to tell her that he and Poison had had sex in her bed, Skull hid the fact that she already knew really well. Her bed was pretty damn comfortable.

That night, Poison and Roadkill were outside, with no intention to even cross eyes with the others. Enveloped in the throbs of power play and all those beautiful painful delights, they had been switching power positions since the moment they got there. In that moment it was Roadkill’s turn to be helpless. They were on all fours, in the dirt, with Poison’s boot resting on their neck. He pushed them down, going for the classics of degradation, the well known hits such as:”Pathetic little slut.” and “Beg for it, mutt.”. Well, that last one was more specifically tailored on Roadkill. After a couple of blows to their body, Roadkill was reaching that completely blissful headspace that she oh so dearly missed, that deep bond he shared with the infamous redhead. A state of mind that allowed them to completely give herself over to Poison, while still being able to answer to a simple stoplight safeword system. Poison leaned over them, a satisfied grin on his face, while pulling at the collar and leash that Roadkill always brought with them:”Good pup, you know you want to be-” he stopped, and Roadkill immediately looked up, confused. It took a second to shake off the haze and, when the fog cleared over their mind, she noticed Poison expression. It was this kind of forzenness, but not quite fear. Roadkill still had his boot on his neck, by then it had slightly moved over to his cheek. They pushed it down and sat up right to look at whatever it was that shook their weird psychic best friend so much. Then they froze as well.

“Please, can you help me? I’m lost.”

It sounded just like Roadkill’s voice, but not quite. It rang in their brains, as the grey matter itself was the source of it. Roadkill felt Poison’s hand on their head, and wondered if maintaining a dominant role to make sure that he as a sub was alright was what made P snap out of the hazy state. Nevertheless, it was comforting. She didn’t have to face it alone. She stood up, slowly, taking a couple of shaky breaths. She did wish she hadn’t just taken two quite forceful blows to the ribs, after asking explicitly to be kicked like a stray just like some song she’d heard on the radio and taped. It was the best before facing a double of oneself, a glitching ghost that looked just like them but at the same time not quite. She opened her mouth, then closed it again.

“Wait. You’re the hooky spooky vision I got in the car the other day!” Poison exclaimed, while Roadkill pulled out their raygun, just in case.

“I’m- I’m tired. I think they killed my friends.”

The ghost didn’t move a step towards them, it stood still and with a terrifyingly good posture. Poison lost a bit of his eerie enthusiasm. The other ‘joy took a couple of steps forward, treading carefully like you thread when approaching a wild horse.

“Do you want to explain it to us so we can help you? Who is they?”

But the ghost said nothing, looking right through her and Poison. Roadkill thought that it looked as if she was experiencing connection issues, but on her existence. However, that was a silly thought: ghosts didn’t work on data, didn’t they? Wouldn’t be the weirdest thing they had seen out in that circus they called the Zones.

In the meanwhile, and a bit stupidly, they had been steady steps towards the ghost, approaching it slowly. Roadkill reached, a bit insecure. 

Poison’s breath caught in his throat:”You are not.”.

Roadkill held a hand up to the ghost of himself, who had an open gash on its forehead, she felt the stickiness of the blood on her fingers. Alright, by then she had started to get pretty fucking scared, but she was decided not to show it. That ghost seemed as terrified as them two were. The presence looked at the hand, then leaned in ever so slightly, and closed its empty eyes. And started crying, just like Poison had, in the car. 

“They’re just scared. I think.” his voice shook as he spoke. “We got you, ghosties. We can help you.”.

Then, just like Fake Poison did when Roadkill showed them kindness in the car, the presence started glitching. The moment it realized it, the physical killjoy felt the matter she was holding disappear, and the ghost started screaming. It screeched, loud, with an electrical ringing. They tried to push through it and reach the ghost, but fell right through it. Roadkill hit the floor, Poison stumbled, cursing and jumping to not step on his head. 

“Shit.” Poison said, when his unstoppable tumbling movement had finally found a halt. He rested his hands on his knees, as if he had just ran a marathon. 

“Fuck.” he added, breathlessly, after a bit. What else was there to say?

Roadkill found no reason to get up, they stayed in the dirt, their body finally relaxing. The two killjoys looked at each other, confused beyond reason. Then they heard another screeching, metallic sound. It came from the other side of the Hideout.

“Ghoul and Skull! Fuck!”.

Suddenly Ghoul was looking over her shoulder, saying with an amused but ever so slightly confused expression on his face “Oh Poison how the hell did you get in here? You and Roadkill done that fast?” Skull turned around to see a Poison standing behind her, a Poison who looked… off? “Whoa you okay?” She said, trying to touch his face, that suddenly had an open wound across the cheek. “And where did your stubble go? Ghoul and I were just saying-” But she couldnt finish her sentence, as instead of Party Poisons face, she was touching what felt like nothing mixed with cold glass. And then the figure before her started to flicker. Without taking her eyes off the thing that was pretending to be Poison, she said with a shakey voice: “ummm Ghoul youre seeing this too right?”

“get away from that.” was all he said, dragging her away while she was slowly getting out her gun. all this time, the fake Poison was just staring. Their facial expression was that of pure terror.

They heard Ghoul screaming, they stopped in front of the Hideout’s door, or better, they had to stop. Poison grabbed onto Roadkill’s jacket, but he couldn’t save him from the impact with the ghost. Who stumbled forth, then turned around.

“What even are you?”

Just like last time, Fake Poison manage to form one fully formed sentence before breaking down crying. Roadkill and Skull crossed gaze, Roadkill nodded. They immediately understood.

“Doesn’t matter. You need help.” Roadkill said.

“What help!? We don’t even know what this- this thing is!” Ghoul protested, then he searched Poison’s approval, but found only uncertainty.

“Thank you, thank you!” the presence smiled, but the mere movement of his face ripped open the gash that seemed to be barely healing. “We’re trying to leave, they won’t let us, they killed my brothers!” it couldn’t seem to stop crying. It reached for Skull, weak on his knees.

“They’re glitching again.” said Roadkill, almost matter of factly. He leaped forward, hugging and holding onto the glitching presence, that could’ve gone very wrong, very very wrong. Roadkill felt electricity, it went from a faint buzzing to a true pain. Fake Poison kept sobbing and apologising, Roadkill consciousness felt like it was gonna rip from their brain.

“What the fuck is going on?! Why is Roadkill just rolling with it?!” Poison wondered what possessed Ghoul to speak, they were still completely starstruck.

Roadkill fell to the ground, the presence disappeared with a final screech, just like the time before. It tore through everyone’s ears. Poison ran up to the ‘joy, frantically checking on them. Then they drew a sigh if relief.

“They’re breathing.”

“Let’s go inside,” he said, simply “Have you eaten, baby?” he looked at Skull, in his eyes she read everything in due time.

After that, Skull and Poison sat on chairs, shortly joined by Jet and Kobra. Ghoul was still in no condition to, well, be still.

The white, then black again. Was that some mean, dumb joke? He barely had any time to think more about that possibility. Finally: surroundings. Well, surroundings, but not quite. An unsettling, material dream. As if stepping inside a slow picture, one of those old movies from before the Helium Wars. A world with out air to fill it, a dream to see right through. It seemed like the Lobby, he remembered it from that time he had to escape Bat City’s maximum security facillity. He had hoped not to see it in a while, they never understood Skull’s fascination with that Witchforsaken city.

And, speaking of fascination, that was the name of the street, from what she could gather. Fascination Street, like that song. If Roadkill had had any power over their body, they would’ve shrugged: the name was cool, sure, but meaningless for that time.

They squinted, trying to understand any more of that soulless picture. The only thing worth of note was the presence of Porno Droids, disheveled robot and all the picturesque character that populated the Lobby. Then, there. Something caught his atrociously inattentive eye. A person in a suit, a white hood over their head and hiding their neck, like a Scarecrow’s but completely white, though with some faded dark stains. They were walking into a building and, just as the door was about to close, the killjoy saw a BLI/nd nametag.

“Kat” it said “Researcher // Projekt Somnium - Black Summer unit.”

“I got something to add too.” Poison raised his hand, wrist limp, index finger up. “I saw you before. I mean, Fake You. In the car. That’s probably why I lost consciousness.”

Roadkill ignored the Fab 4’s protests and demands to know more, though she didn’t give them any shit for it: if he had had a ghostly presence in his car, one that made one of his best friends lose conscience, he’d want to be notified promptly. 

“You said it was between you and Ghoul, right? Then why didn’t it affect him, as well?”

“I’d like to be kept out of this.”

Poison passed him a pack and he got a cig with his teeth, right out of the pack. Everyone took it as a moment to think, silently. Then smoke filled the little praying circle they had going on, and Roadkill resume:”There was something, I saw a name tag on a Scarecrow looking type it said Kat, Projekt…mhh…Somnium, which was what Fake Poison told me him name was, when I first saw him.” “Wait, so that time I kind of manifested myself- ugh, this doen’t make any sense.” Poison’s head fell onto his had, bright red hair sprawling in disordely strips.

“No, it does.” Roadkill added to Jet’s hand on the redhead’s shoulders “Let’s proceed orderly. You saw fake me, were in contact with fake me, it disappeared, psychic mumbo jumbo ensued. There you are in front of me, as some kind of electric conscience. It doesn’t make sense, sure-”

“But it kinda does.” nodded Jet Star.

“Right? Then, second point: the name tag. It sad Kat…” the joy took a marker out of their wide cargo shorts and wrote on their legs, trying to remember “I think it was Reasearch…Project Somnium, Black Summer Unit…or something like that.”

“what motor bike???” said Ghoul and Kobra in unison, looks of excitement and confusion in their face. “Oh it’s out there.” Skull pretended to be hyper-casual about it, just in order to annoy them. She pointed in the general direction of where she fell off earlier. Suddenly, they all got up and ran outside, Skull following them with a satisfied grin, thats how you get your fellow killjoy’s attention. Having a motor bike out here was like winning in the lottery. Not depending on the roads while still being fast, that was basicall the best way to blow drac-ass and not killing yourself  in the process. After a few “Ahh”s and “OOh”s and “fucking hell”s from Skull’s friends, Poison looked at her with the face of a true father and said “Okay but that still doesnt answer the question of who the fuck Kat is”