Travel with Me

October 31st. Halloween night. Like many nights, this is a night for the Fairies of the other world to explore our world. They mingle with our children and take delight in causing mischief and pranks on each other. It is a yearly tradition that both sides greatly enjoy. But all of the fairies have to return to their world eventually. Before the end of the night, they must go through the portal to the other world before the stroke of midnight. Missing the deadline means losing their powers. By 11pm however, most fairies will have gone home by then.

...Except for the Jack brothers. Jack Frost, Pyro Jack and Jack the Ripper were much too busy having fun to realize that time had slipped away for them. They only had but an hour to reach back home before it was too late. It would be a long and arduous journey involving fighting the many creatures that Earth would usually inhabit but there was something off about today. A thin mist overtook the town the brothers were in which had left Pyro unsettled. Frost urged him to continue moving forward, if only out of a sense of amusement and wanting to see him get more scared.

Ripper meanwhile continued to walk, relying on his memory to guide him. He went through the streets at night, his hands in his pockets with one rested over his knife. His eyes tried to see through the mist but the further he walked along away from his brothers, the thicker it became. The only thing he could clearly see were for the stores right next to him. The wide windows showed off all kinds of things, from clothes to books and to electronics. The last one in particular got his attention. He snuck a glance at what was inside, looking at a variety of kitchen equipment, washing machines and a TV proudly presented in the middle. It was displaying a movie he hadn't seen before. He held out his hands and tried to push them onto the glass to get a better look.

But there wasn't a window for this store. He slipped right inside and found himself sitting right in front of the TV. The movie then started to flicker into static. And then the static soon began to flicker into nothing but blackness. Until two red spots appeared on the screen. Their shape soon took the form of eyes. And the eyes looked at Ripper and began to speak to him, in a flat and lifeless tone.

HELLO JACK. IT'S GOOD TO FINALLY MEET.

Jack the Ripper was very much confused. He had never met anyone with red eyes before. Nor did he know anyone that could mess with a TV like that. So for his first question to the stranger, he asked how he knew his name.

IT'S WHAT I'M MEANT TO KNOW. BECAUSE I'M MR VIRTUAL. I NEED TO KNOW THESE THINGS.

Ripper was starting to lose interest in this "Mr Virtual" and made a move to leave the store. But in trying to get out through the way he came in, his hands rested on glass again. The window to the store had been put back in place.

NO NEED TO GO. YOU STILL HAVE QUITE SOME TIME LEFT BEFORE YOU NEED TO GO HOME. AS A MATTER OF FACT, THAT'S WHY I WANT TO TALK TO YOU. I CAN TAKE YOU TO ANOTHER WORLD.

Ripper turned to face Mr Virtual while still keeping his hands on the glass. His right hand drifted down the glass to his pocket, just in case he needed to protect himself.

IT'S A PLACE FAR GREATER THAN HERE. YOU CAN SPEND AS LONG AS YOU NEED THERE, NO TIME LIMIT ATTACHED. ONCE YOU'RE DONE, YOU CAN GO BACK HOME WHENEVER YOU NEED TO.

Mr Virtual's red eyes drew back to show off his smile. It was an open smile, letting Ripper see the static inside. A thin red hand crawled up from the bottom of the screen. Its fingernails scratched through the top of the screen, peeking through into the world. It soon got a grasp of the glass before it threw it down onto the ground, shattering it into pieces. It stretched itself out from the TV to beckon towards Ripper. Blackened fingernails that were sharpened into talons almost pricked him by the cheek.

TRAVEL WITH ME, JACK. THERE'S SO MUCH TO SEE.

Ripper paused. He considered it. But then he held onto his knife and smashed the window with the hilt. With his chance to escape taken, Ripper jumped through the window pane and ran off in a daze. His mind needed to focus on returning home as soon as possible. His pace grew to be uneven and fierce but as long as he got home the right way, he'd be safe. A few right turns here and a few lefts turn there and he could be back home. Or was it a couple left turns and then some right turns? That road didn't seem all too familiar to him. Nor the next couple of roads after that. It could've been the mist. Or he could've gotten lost in his frenzy. No matter, he'd just need to retrace some steps. Could he have afforded the time for retracing? He wasn't sure. It wouldn't have hurt to try that though. Not at all.

Unlike the trip running away, he knew exactly where to go in order to return to the store. He moved freely and quickly with the only care in the world being to start from scratch. But he knew this to be wrong. Maybe those streets were familiar but the mist just hid that fact. Or it could've been something else. He wasn't sure of his own thoughts anymore. If they even were his thoughts. He couldn't quite figure out what was going on. A part of him wasn't sure if he even had that option. But eventually he made his return to the shop. But facing ahead of him past the thin mist was something he was not prepared to see.

Frost and Pyro were standing by the broken window. They were looking inside the store. And he could just about barely see that the TV was still on. He stopped running at a brisk pace and went back into a fierce sprint as he tried to stop his brothers from doing anything wrong. The two were holding out their hands inside the store. Were they going to accept his offer? Whether or not they were going to, he had to stop them. He was almost there, he just had to push them out of the way. Just a little bit more and...

Frost and Pyro disappeared. Ripper realized too late that they were never there to begin with. With his arms outstretched, his upper body went through the window while the rest of him was stuck outside. But before he could jut himself out, Mr Virtual held onto his hands.

GOT YOU.

The redness that was on Mr Virtual's arm began to spread across Ripper's body. It transformed him as it passed through. His body grew longer and larger while his face was shifting. A thin layer of flesh was being added to his skull that barely clung onto him. His teeth splintered out of his jaw and onto the floor while new ones started jutting out. And his eyes exploded into chunks that dripped down his face, replaced with ones that fitted into his new sockets.

GOOD AS NEW. YOU'LL FIT RIGHT IN.

As soon as the transformation was complete, Mr Virtual began to drag Ripper into the TV. The pain in his new body was too intense for him to fight back and soon enough, he fell into the new world. All that he could see was pitch blackness.

WHEN I AM FINISHED WITH YOU, YOU CAN GO BACK. UNTIL THEN, WE'RE GOING TO HAVE SOME FUN. I'M EXCITED FOR THIS, JACK.

The clock struck midnight. Frost and Pyro had just entered their portal by the skin of their teeth. Unsure of where their brother went, they began to search the fairy world for him. Between them, they decided that if he wasn't home then they would dedicate next Halloween to finding him. The last they saw him was by an electronics store, they decided to run off without him since they already had a TV.

It'd be the first place they would check.