"I told you we should have hurried! Everyone's already here!" Travis strode through the door into the frat house's common room.
"Shhhh!" The fully blacked-out Peter put a finger up to his lips, "We should try to blend in." He pointed towards the back of the room.
Travis rolled his eyes before following Peter's lead. The two of them stuck close to a back wall on the far side of the room. The common space had a large chandelier in the middle of the ceiling, casting long shadows along the wall. It was easy to blend in with everyone else's silhouettes, and Travis had to admit it was a pretty cool effect.
"So... what, we're just going to stand here for the rest of the night?" Travis whispered.
Up on the foyer, Victor had returned. He was dressed in an impressive looking robe and was clutching an old looking leather-bound book. He cleared his throat, "As you all know, we're famous for our Halloween parties. Tonight you finally get to discover why."
"That's the idea." Peter whispered back. "Come on, you wanted something low-key tonight anyways."
Victor opened his book, turning through the pages. He continued his speech, but the two were only half-listening.
"Yeah, but I also want to join TFU." Travis shot back. "Does anyone else know we made it back in time?"
A bright light started to glow over by the foyer. Victor continued his proclamation, "Just make sure you're back here at the end of the night." Travis and Peter adjusted their placement on the wall to better fit between everyone's shifting shadows as the light grew brighter.
Peter did his best to keep his voice low, happy no one had shushed them yet, "We can just go talk to Vic after- Wait, what's he doing anyways?"
Travis and Peter finally looked up at the front of the room. The head of the frat had begun chanting something they couldn't understand, and his glowing book was floating several feet off the ground. Whatever Victor was doing finally came to fruition, and a brilliant light cast itself over the room.
When the light died down, everyone in the room had taken on new appearances. The vampire beside Victor had lost all of the color in his complexion. Frankenstein's monster was double-checking the tightness of two honest to goodness neck bolts. The zombies had limbs that were dangling to a distressing degree. Naturally, the pledges in the center of the room were starting to freak out.
One pledge dressed as a werewolf suddenly let out an eager howl. He began to pant with a long drooping tongue as the fur on his body began to take on a significantly more realistic look. As the pledges shifted into what their outfits had depicted, they suddenly found themselves in a frat house full of movie monsters, ancient myths, and other impossible figures. It took a few minutes to calm everyone down, but the frat house was finally able to reassure the pledges that they were in for a night they wouldn't soon forget.
All the while, no one seemed to have noticed that there were more shadows on the wall than people in the room.
Travis and Peter felt the strangest sensation of their whole world flattening. It was more than that though, everything was starting to feel insubstantial. Their feet stretched out, streaking across the floor until they met with the light in the center of the room. The two tried to reach out and get the attention of their fellow frat mates, but they both found themselves unable to reach out from the wall. There was simply nothing left of the two pledges anymore, save for the noticeable absence of light.
Travis waved his arms frantically at Peter. The other shadow nervously waved his hand back. Neither figure had eyes anymore, which didn't seem to be too much of an issue at the moment. They could see the room around them, but the lack of a functioning mouth was proving to be far more troublesome.
Both of the shadows tried nodding their head as if to speak, but nothing came out. When trying to express their frustration, they both found themselves making large exaggerated gestures. Travis scratched his head, while Peter dramatically stroked his chin.
Something weird was going on. It all started when Victor's book started to glow. Peter did his best to point across the room at the robed figure. Instead, he simply pointed off to his left along the wall. Arg! He put his hands on his hips, trying to figure out best how to express himself.
Travis's figure look back and forth for a moment. They could see into the room, but they seem stuck on this back wall. It was like their forms were being projected onto the room itself. He hesitantly took a step forward, and to his surprise he found it wasn't that hard to move. In fact, it was remarkably easy to slide his shadowy figure over the wall's surface. O-okay, this could work!
He gestured over at Peter, pointing the long way around the room over to where Victor and his shadow were standing. Peter hopped up and down a few times excitedly. Great, the two of them were on the same page. They needed to get someone's attention to figure out what was going on, and Victor seemed like the natural starting place. All they had to do was figure out how to cross the room and-
Travis walked straight into the shadow of a headless horseman. In his ethereal state, the act of running into someone else felt strange. But sure enough, the shadow cast by one of his house mates was too solid for him to just barge through.
The shadow of the headless horseman was holding a pumpkin shape in one arm, and a solo cup in the other. In the center of the room, the real headless horseman stumbled forward as if someone had run into him. He looked around in confusion, tightening his grip on the pumpkin. Thankfully he had managed to hold onto his head, but he did spill a decent amount of his beer.
"Woah, easy there!" The zombie beside him took a step back. Well, shuffled back.
Travis looked at the horseman's shadow. He curiously lifted up the figure's arm... and watched the real horseman respond in kind. Beer started to drip down the figure's arm as he did his best not to drop his pumpkin head.
Huh. Things just got interesting.