"Excuse me?!" Claire shouted.
She ran her hands through her hair, gripping at her scalp in frustration.
Toby looked over at her, phone in hand, feeling nervous, "Well...yeah."
"Did your Nana even notice?!"
Toby paused. He put his phone down on the table and offered Claire a cookie, which she declined. She was too exasperated to enjoy a cookie right now.
"Claire, my Nana is legally blind...and deaf..." He trailed off, "I noticed because the camera detected motion. She asks me to watch the camera to make sure Mr. MeowMeow PI gets home okay, because of all the missing cats. But I saw...that."
His finger indicated to a dark shape that had hurdled the garden fence, a green glow deep within the grooves in its skin. It paced around the garden a few times before curling up and sleeping. Toby fast-fowarded the footage, light streaming into the yard. As dawn hit, they saw a human form rise from the grass and look around disheveled. They skirted round the furniture and vanished behind an old couch.
Claire scowled at the footage, scrunching up her face like crumpled paper.
"Plus," Toby added, leading her out the backdoor, "come check this out."
She followed him to a hole in the fence. On first glance it seemed fairly unremarkable, as if caused by general wear and tear. Then she noticed emerald coloured web-like patterns swirling across the splintering wood. The hole itself looked as if it had been ripped wider like a paper envelope torn open wide by an excitable child. Claire lightly ran her fingers across the fence panel. A flash of something shot through her memories, something akin to déja vu perhaps? A vague familiarity to seeing a troll-like beast run from her. This was weird.
"So...you wanted to show me...a hole?" She folded her arms feigning annoyance with Toby.
Domzalski poked the hole and spoke, "Yeah. This was the hole Jim used to use to sneak to mine at night after Nana had gone to bed. Back when we were just kids. Look at all the green markings, it matches with the colour of that creature and the glow from Jim's eyes. I think the creature I saw was Jim."
"I don't think that's such a crazy assumption." Claire responded, pulling a pen from behind her ear and clicking it furiously as she thought.
Toby stared at the message he'd texted Jim last night. I guess now they had even more reason to talk to him. The text had been left on read, prompting Toby to cast his phone to the ground in sadness. He was feeling downtrodden. Claire seemingly picked up on this and lightly patted his shoulder.
"Maybe we should go find those trolls Jim spoke to? They might know something? Or maybe we could check out the bookstore he was hanging around? In the meantime we should go over to his place and see if he's home. If we get no answers, then go check out these other things?" Toby asked.
Claire nodded and paused momentarily, "I'm definitely down for that, but I also really wanna check out where that asteroid landed too...I was talking to Aja about it earlier and she agreed to meet me tonight to help me look for it!"
"Claire!" Toby protested.
"Sorry! Ah, she's so cool and Cantaloupia sounds so fascinating. Aja actually had warrior training! Did you know that they have an advanced AI system that can carry out basic maintenance tasks? Krel said it was like a home security system. BUT it also can run diagnostic checks on biological matter - I bet that AI could tell us all sorts of things about what's happening to Jim." Claire babbled.
Toby grew frustrated again, "CLAIRE!"
"Right, yes, speak to Jim! Then go check out cool AI things if we don't get an answer?"
YOU ARE READING
For Whom The Bell Tolls (Trollhunters continuation/Evil Jim AU)
Fanfiction"Time unfolds differently, like a flower. The Trollhunter will know what to do." James Lake Jr. is close to losing his mind. Nearly being driven mad by repeatedly resetting the timelines to save his friends, to save Toby from an inevitable fate. N...
