December 24th, 2023
Day One
Despite the dream waking up JJ abruptly, he'd managed to sleep through the the whole night. Or maybe, he should've labelled it as a nightmare; having a killer clown carve his hand only to find that those same creatures would find his hiding place into twenty days, certainly wasn't pleasant.
In fact, the information shook him to his core.
JJ expected to see Mikey next to him, but he was gone. Suddenly feeling anxious about being alone, he got up right away and opened the door. However, his stress wasn't helped when he was met with a long, dark hallway. It was was made of obsidian, and had no light source except for way off in the distance. JJ was already stressed about his nightmare and anxious about being alone, but it was made worse when he heard a scraping noise behind him.
Breaking into another cold sweat, JJ turned and looked behind him. It had sounded as if something had made a long scratch against the wall, but there wasn't a dent in sight. Had he imagined it?
"It sounded so real." JJ thought. He tried wracking his brain to figure out what the noise had been, but suddenly, he heard the sound of something falling and breaking.
It had come from the small kitchen just next to him. Slowly looking inside, he saw nothing damaged or broken. As he began to hear his own breathing, he heard a small creak from the door, and he jumped at the sound. Refusing to take his eyes off of it, JJ waited to see if something would appear, or if it would be confirmed that his mind was playing tricks on him.
Just then, he saw a pair of claws reach around and grip the edge of the door.
Shrieking, JJ bolted right of the room and into the dark hallway. He couldn't tell how close he was to the walls or when he would run into them, but he didn't care. He saw a light ahead and and refused to look back, and he also payed no attention when he was suddenly met with a crowd of people. It seemed as though the military base could hardly hold all of these people, so it was basically inevitable when JJ ended up bumping into multiple people to get past them.
He knew Mikey was here, and he needed to find him.
When he caught sight of his green skin amongst the crowd, he only went faster.
"Mikey!" He shouted. "The killer clowns already got inside! They've snuck in! One of them was in the living space!"
Mikey seemed like he was talking to someone, standing just a few feet away from the steps leading up to a house. Distracted, he didn't hear what JJ had said, and he was especially caught off guard when JJ came in too fast and ran into him, taking them both down.
"Oh!" Mikey exclaimed, too much in shock to shake off JJ, who was smothering him at this point. Just then, someone came out of the house previously mentioned.
"Mikey! Are you okay?"
"Yes Carrie, I'm fine." Mikey said, accepting his fate and laying under JJ's weight.
"Wait. Carrie?" JJ recognized that name. Looking over to the house, he saw exactly who he thought it was: One of him and Mikey's old friends, whom they haven't seen in years. It was definitely a suprising discovery to find that she was here, considering she was an animal as well, and therefore didn't need to shelter from the killer clowns. He got up then, dusting himself off, and just stared. "All this time that had passed, and she's still the smallest person I've ever seen..."
"JJ doesn't look like he's sleeping," Carrie continued. "At least, that's what you said he was doing."
"I guess not." Mikey got up too. "But I think he was shouting something at me when he was coming. Were you?"
JJ was too distracted by this new presence to even remember what he was previously going to say to him. So instead, he just kept staring, still trying to process this.
"Okay, well, since you're here now," Carrie walked up to hiim, and JJ had to look down, as if he were about to interact with some sort of toddler; in terms of height. "I guess I can finally say hello to you, JJ. It's been so long."
She reached her hand up to him, and he shook it lightly, feeling the fur covering it being an esreal experience. "Yes... it has..."
"We were just talking about you, all three of us. Mikey says you've been acting strange since yesterday, and he thought maybe a little time with us can help you relax a little bit."
"All three?"
"Yes. Banana Kid is here too."
Another genuine shocker. At this point JJ felt dizzy, and he had to put in actual effort in order not to fall over. It's been even longer since he'd seen Banana Kid, and it was even more confused that he was here as well; he lived in an entirely different dimension, and he was royalty, in fact, he was supposed to be king right now!
"Isn't Banana Kid supposed to be ruling over his empire?" JJ asked, looking around to see if he could find him. He was nowhere in sight. "Like, as the king?"
"Oh no, definitely not." Carrie said. "He's why too shy and soft-spoken for that. He handed off the role to somebody else, but the price of that was banishment from the empire... so now, he just lives with me. At least, he did, until all of this happened. I don't know what's going to happen now, but whatever it is, we'll still stick together. And now, we have you two to hang out with as well."
"Right. So... where is he?"
"In the house. He likes avoiding the public eye; everyone seems to be out and about today. Although, they don't look very happy."
It seemed that Carrie didn't really understand the severity of the situation at hand. As far as he knew, she lived quite a distance away from the area he lived in; so far away that, it could hardly be considered to be even in the area at all. Additionally, she wouldn't be able to understand the danger the killer clowns brought due to being an animal, as she'd never been attacked or chased by one.
"I'm so excited for you to hang out with us," Mikey beamed. "It'll be a great way to distract yourself. But I gotta ask, what were you yelling at me on your way over here?"
JJ looked at the entrance to the hallway. Nothing was there. The idea that a killer clown had gotten in here already, and into the room he had been in specifically, was to convenient to be true. Convinced it was his mind playing tricks on him, he brushed it off and labelled it as "nothing," and the three of them went inside of the house.
At least, he hoped it had been nothing.
