Nick was jolted out of his sleep-like low power state abruptly by a shrill, bone-chilling scream. He sat up quickly, taking hold of his lover's shoulders. Jill had awoken in a frenzy, eyes wild and fearful, shrieking in unholy terror. She'd never done this before. The detective was aware of her frequent nightmares, but they never usually bothered her. Something was terribly wrong this time. Although awake, she seemed to be unaware of Nick's presence. She stared straight ahead, screaming again as she kicked her feet frantically towards the foot of the bed. It was almost like she was trying to keep something away from her.

"Jill!" He took her face in his hands, attempting to force her to look at him. "Jill, what's wrong?!" She struggled against him, unwilling to look away from the edge of the bed. A piercing, inhuman shriek erupted from her. Tears of pure terror streamed down her cheeks, and her eyes were bloodshot, like she'd just taken a bad dose of Psycho. Nick looked over his shoulder, scanning the area Jill was watching. There was nothing there, and still she writhed and kicked and screamed. Tossing her head violently from side to side, she screwed her eyes shut, eventually breaking the old Synth's grip on her. There was a distressed pounding at the door, and the faint orange glow of a lantern sifting in from underneath it.

"Are you guys okay?!" It was Hancock. Jill's frightening wails must have awoken him, and quite possibly several others within the Old State House.

"Something's wrong with Jill!" Nick shouted back, his voice cracked. The General had gotten away from him, and was now perched on the night stand, wielding her Pip-Boy above her head as though it were a rock. Her gills fluttered agitatedly; such an alien movement on a human body causing her to appear slightly more menacing. She launched the Pip-Boy down toward the floor at the foot of the bed, her face twisted with dread and revulsion. Once the device bounced off of the wooden surface and skittered to the other end of the room, she blinked several times, staring at the point of impact in anticipation. When nothing happened, she looked up at her confused and distraught lover.

"Th-th-th...the gate..." She hissed, pulling her knees up to her chest. Her eyes were still wide and panicked, and her chest still heaved as she drew in sharp, staggered breaths. "He...he...the gate..."

"Jill..." Nick watched her in suspense, wondering if she was going to lash out again.

"Is it alright to come in?" Not at all to the detective's surprise, Hancock had remained at the door.

"Give me a minute..." Slowly, carefully, Nick got up out of bed. Keeping his eyes locked onto Jill's, he managed to pull his slacks on. She watched him intently, her breathing beginning to calm down. Her eyes followed his hand as she observed him reaching for her panties and his shirt. Standing up straight again, he approached her cautiously, handing her the articles of clothing. Hesitantly, she took her underwear, her hands trembling as she put it on. She slid off of the night stand, her knees knocking together as she took Nick's shirt from his outstretched hand. The detective backed away from her while she donned it, buttoning it up most of the way. She wobbled and swayed slightly, her quivering hands making slow work of the buttons as her eyes darted back and forth between them, and her perturbed lover.

Nick backed up towards the door, not yet ready to take his eyes off of her. The petrified woman shivered as she sat on the edge of the bed, then scooted herself back, pulling her knees swiftly up to her chest again. She'd given up on observing the old Synth, and went on to staring blankly at the floor. Nick assumed this meant she was at least mostly calm, and took it as an opportunity to allow Hancock and two neighborhood watchmen inside. He undid the rusted deadbolt and tarnished brass chain that kept the ancient oak door sealed. It creaked hideously as it swung open, and the Mayor stepped through the threshold. Lantern in hand, he glanced back and forth between the detective, and the shadowed mass on the bed that was the General. Turning to the watchmen, he gave them a stiff nod, signaling that it was in their best interest if they left. They did so without hesitation, and Nick couldn't blame them for it. He locked the door once more, resealing the room, unknowingly forbidding any terrible, unspeakable knowledge from creeping into any unfortunate, unsuspecting ears.

"Jill?" The Ghoul approached her with caution, his lantern outstretched in a feeble attempt to pierce the abysmal darkness that surrounded him. Even Nick's eyes looked almost dimmed in this dreadful, accursed blackness. As he rounded the corner of the bed to stand at her side, he noticed a new addition to her left wrist. It appeared to be a tattoo of sorts, shaped like a curved star with an abstract eye in the center. Despite its relatively familiar impression on the mind, something was horribly off about it. The damnable thing almost seemed to shimmer a grotesque greenish-purple color in the glow of the lantern. The lines of the star seemed to wave in a rhythmic pattern, and Hancock could have sworn that the demoniac eye within the shape's pentagonal center was watching him, its hateful gaze boring into the depths of his very soul. Shaking off these nonsensical thoughts, he chalked it up to being a trick of the light, as well as of his tired mind.

"I haven't seen her this pale since the day we met." Nick knelt in front of his lover, reaching up to place a hand on her pallid cheek. It was slick with icy sweat. She made no move, continuing to stare at the floor with an expression that suggested she'd seen something truly frightful beyond definition. "And I've never seen her like this."

"The gate..." Jill mumbled almost incoherently. "H-he's...the gate..." At last, her statuesque posture had been broken. She released her legs, letting them dangle off the side of the bed, and she stared at the mysterious new symbol on her arm. The detestable thing pulsed, and leaked inky black tendrils from the outline of the star, its repulsive shimmer brightening for about a second before fading back to its usual slight glow. At that moment, her face drained of any remaining color, her eyes tearing up. "Ask...and you shall receive..." Without warning, she broke into a fit of insane laughter, her eyes rolling up into the back of her head. She fell backwards onto the bed, cackling at the ceiling. "Y'AI'NG'NGAH, YOG-SOTHOTH!" The madwoman shrieked repeatedly in between bouts of hysteria. The two men exchanged horrified glances as her manic laughter eventually gave way to an otherworldly silence. The General had been rendered unconscious within a few minutes of having her episode. Her companions shifted her into a different position, so that she was lying comfortably on her side. Nick draped his coat over her as a blanket, silently wishing for her to wake up and be able to talk about whatever happened to her in the middle of the night.

"Okay, Nick...I really need an explanation, because I am seriously freaked out right now." The Mayor was nearly speechless, unsure of how to respond to all of this. He looked as though he might faint as he sat down on the couch at the other end of the room. The old Synth, reluctant to leave his partner's side, heaved a sigh and joined Hancock on the worn, red sofa. The two remained silent for a few moments longer as they lit up a couple of cigarettes. It was clear by the tension in the ghostly silence that neither of them actually wished to speak of this.

"I don't know what happened." When Nick finally spoke, his voice trembled. "She just woke up and started screaming, and kicking at something that wasn't there. Even threw her Pip-Boy at it..." Leaning over, he picked the device up off the floor, seeing that it was three-thirty in the morning. Giving it a quick once-over, he was astonished to see that there wasn't even a single crack in its surface. "Wow. Vault-Tec really knew how to make their equipment durable, at least." For the first time, he felt compelled to look at the part that was always fastened around Jill's arm. He was shocked to find that most of the cushioning had been carved out, as well as the plastic covering underneath it. A sleek, metallic black plate had been installed in place of the plastic, held tightly in spot by thirteen screws. "I guess they didn't anticipate having to make these things Jill-proof, though."

Hancock bent over in his seat, trying to get a better look at it. "How'd she get the metal to bend like that?" He reached out, sliding his finger down the curved, alien material. Almost instantly, he withdrew his hand, appearing repulsed. "Is that even metal?"

"Your guess is as good as mine." Nick took a puff from his cigarette before continuing. "I'm not gonna mess with it. Jill's picky about her science projects, and I'm assuming this is one of them." He leaned forward over the coffee table, holding the Pip-Boy up to the lantern to see if there was any damage he may have missed. Much to his relief, there was none. The black substance shimmered queerly in the dim light, flashing phosphorescent veins of light blue that jogged the detective's memory. "Wait a minute...this is the same stuff that's inside that telescope of hers."

"I don't like this at all, man." The Ghoul shuddered, sinking further into the couch as though trying to get away from the Pip-Boy. "Didn't you say she might have connections to 'strange and unspeakable things?'"

"Yeah." Nick sighed, setting the Pip-Boy on the coffee table, no longer willing to look at it. Something about it made him terribly uneasy. "I'm really beginning to believe it, too. She's always been a tinkerer, and she's always had nightmares, but ever since the Dunwich incident..." He trailed off, his eyes cast to the floor, his expression grim. "Ever since then, she's become more secretive about her scientific endeavors, and her nightmares kept getting worse. They don't normally scare her, but they've been getting more frequent. This has never happened before." He took a lengthy drag from his cigarette, allowing Hancock to chime in.

"So, what's the Dunwich incident?" The Mayor raised an eyebrow inquisitively, not knowing what kind of terrible knowledge he was asking for. The detective, although hesitant, related to his friend the entire grisly tale. He spared none of the morbid details, having to pause several times to allow Hancock a moment to get his bearings. The Synth's story was truly revolting, leaving the poor Ghoul in a state of nauseated fright. "H-how...? I'm sorry, man, but that sounds insane." He laughed nervously, clearly unwilling to believe in the truth of such an awful account. How such abominable things could possibly exist in their world, he couldn't comprehend.

"I know it does. Give me a sec." The detective rose from his seat, shuffling over to the loaded backpack his lover always carried. He sifted through its contents carefully, trying his best to not disrupt her meticulous system of organization, until he found what he was looking for. The object was of a moderate size, shaped like a rectangle, and wrapped tightly in ragged cloth. Returning to his visibly disturbed friend, he sat by his side once more, unfolding the many layers of fabric around the artifact.

"Holy shit...it's real..." Hancock stared in shock and awe at the damnable tome in the detective's hands. Just as Nick had described, the loathsome thing had a cover forged of several stitched together patches of a strange, leathery material. Its pages were yellowed, presumably by age, and its contents were scribed in a black ink that seemed practically untouched by the sands of time. Throughout the terrible book were drawings of symbols, diagrams, and grotesque, indescribable, outright alien creatures. The majority of the pages had dried blood dripped and streaked across them.

"We agreed not to talk about this again until she translated it, but..." Nick sighed, his eyes cast on the image of one of those abominable creatures. Jill had left a folded up paper with that page. She'd written "Yog-Sothoth," and underlined it, noting it as the thing's name. She went on to describe him as "The Gate," and "The Lurker at the Threshold." She wrote of his knowledge of all that is, was, and ever will be. "I think she's translated enough." His mechanical heart faltered for a moment. He stared gravely at the last line of Jill's otherwise neatly written notes. It was scribbled in an apparent haste, suggesting she may have been stressed when she scrawled it down. He read it aloud, his voice shaking. "I fucked up."

"What?" Hancock raised an eyebrow, his interest peaked by the irrefutable proof of the detective's ghoulish story. "What does that mean?"

"I'm not sure I want to know. However..." Nick snapped the ancient book shut, taking a moment to, oddly, appreciate the strange motif on the leathery cover. It was of many stars within stars inside a circle – much different from the one on Jill's arm. There were out of place curves, lines, and three little circles. It was unlike anything the old Synth had ever seen before, and in his travels, he'd come across quite a few new, made-up symbols used by cult-like raider gangs. "I need to know...for Jill." Turning to his friend, he passed over the tome, his expression grim. "I'm waking her up."