The lava had disappeared overnight without a trace, leaving everything the same as it had been before it was there. No burning furniture, or carpet, or security camera, with a library full of still-intact furry porn.

Everyone sat at the table, eating the last of the macaroni and cheese for breakfast. All that was left was a single cucumber now.

"What are we going to do about food?" Dominus Apis asked, not really caring, because now that he had a choice to what emotion he was feeling, he could just choose to not be affected by the feelings caused by killing someone. He just wanted to hear what everyone else thought about the situation. Then he could kill whoever he wanted.

Marilyn shrugged. "We could just not eat for the next five days. It's not like we're gonna starve."

Ashlee gasped. "No! We could never do that!" Five days without food? For Ashlee, that was like five days without internet, which was like five days without air for everyone else. "Even Spencer is out of brownies."

Spencer nodded sadly, but did not speak. He just stared into space as if nobody else existed, lost in his mourning for weed brownies.

Sad and Dead sat in their own little corner of the table, secluded from everyone else.

"We have done it before."

"Not eat for five days?" Dead thought for a moment. "Yeah, that one time with the-" A loud screeching followed by a bright light drowned out the rest of his statement. Everybody jumped away from the table, knocking over chairs and hitting away bowls of mac and cheese in the process.

Something appeared inside the light, growing bigger and bigger with every second. Something humanoid.

He stood up and put a hand on his hip, a confident smirk growing on his face. "Miss me?"

Ashlee gasped. Of all the people who could fall out of a randomly appearing hole of light, it had to be him, didn't it? The guy who would not stop flirting with her? Whom she did not like?

Satan did a finger gun at Ashlee and winked. "Hey baby, are you an angel? Because I find them really unpleasant and if you are, this is not going to work out."

In that case, yes, she was an angel. But Ashlee didn't want to hurt Satan's feelings, because he obviously liked her, so she just laughed politely. She was too nice sometimes.

Satan dropped his finger gun and jumped from the table. "Anyway, as much as I'd like to continue our-" He wiggled his eyebrows- "discussion, it's not the reason I clawed myself out of the void." Satan pointed to Dead, who was huddled behind Sad in the corner, and glared at him.

Satan lifted his hand to explode Dead. Dead curled into a ball.

Satan clicked his fingers.

Dead scrunched his eyes closed, waiting for that horrible moment to come.

But it didn't.

Dead looked up.

Satan clicked again. His expression twisted from one of confidence to one of confusion. He clicked again. He clicked once more. He clicked with his other hand. He clicked with both hands at once. He kept clicking, both hands, one before the other, at the same time, one hand, the other hand, clicking to the Addams family tune, until he was just staring intently at his fingers and clicking furiously.

Still Dead stayed intact.

The intercom buzzed on. Satan groaned.

"So, it, uh...looks like Satan's back! Welcome back, Satan."

Satan looked straight into the nearest camera and stuck his middle finger up at it.

"Very original, Satan, that's never happened before," they said sarcastically. "Anyway, the, uh...nice eldritch abomination behind me-" They laughed nervously- "wishes to inform you all that Satan's powers have been taken away."

Dead pumped his fist with a silent 'yessssssss'. Satan found another security camera and stuck his other middle finger up at it.

"Oh, I'm so insulted. And you know?" The DM's voice dropped to a scared whisper. "It can see you." The DM laughed nervously again before returning to their normal loud volume. "Anyway-"

The inmates heard an abrupt scream from the speakers, then silence.

"Are they..." Ashlee said quietly. "Are they dead?"

"No, I'm Dead," Dead replied not-quietly. "They're the dungeon master."

"No, I mean, are they actually dead," she clarified with a finger on her throat and a tongue out of her mouth, to gesture 'death'.

Nobody responded. Nobody knew.

Well, they all knew the DM was dead, but nobody wanted to say it, so they all sat in silence.

Then there was laughter. From the intercom, loud, happy laughter. "Jeez. Your faces were priceless." They kept laughing. "No, Othilli has not imploded my organs and used my corpse as a comfort object. I just wanted to drive the point home. By the way, Dead, it says hi."

Dead jumped up and waved his arms at the same camera Satan was still flipping the bird at. "Thanks for saving me, Othilli! I love you!"

If Othilli had cheeks and blood, it would have blushed. The human loved it? Maybe Othilli should reach out to them, show them its thanks- no. That would kill the Favourite Human.

It instead touched the nearest lightbulb.

The humans in front of it were talking. What were they talking about? Othilli did not understand much of what the humans said.

"Are you sure we should be getting friendly with a- that thing?!" The angry human hissed, pointing to Othilli.

"Don't be stupid, George, Othilli is the best. It's actually really friendly," said the other human, before reaching their hand out to Othilli and whispering, in its own language, something along the lines of "please don't kill me".

Othilli poked the human's hand and retreated. It did not want to kill them.

"We're going to have to fix half the lights in the house! It just-" The angry human waved their arms around, pointing to the video feed- "it just blew them out!"

"Stop throwing a hissy, George, it's not that big a deal." The Friend Human turned to Othilli and spoke to it in the language they could both understand. "Othilli, fix."

Othilli screeched a reply of approval and slid into the void from the other corner.

The presence of an eldritch abomination lay itself heavily on the room. Marilyn could feel it in the air, pressing against her, but nobody else could.

It was too late to warn them. If it wanted them dead, they'd all die a quick and painless death in seconds.

If it didn't want them dead, they would be fine. Mostly. Probably.

Seconds passed. Nobody was dead. Everyone was not dead.

Except for Dead, because he was literally Dead. Dead was alive, but he was called Dead. Anyway.

The next option was the second worst-case-scenario in which the abomination didn't care about humans and didn't want them dead, but that also caused problems because in that case they were all going to die painfully and slowly as the eldritch abomination did whatever it wanted, unaware of their pain.

Good times.

If that was the case, they'd all be dead in the next three minutes.

The air became thicker. Everyone went silent. They could all feel it too, now. Seconds continued to pass, in the pitch-black and silent, waiting for their deaths,

A ghostly blue figure flickered in front of them. Ashlee and Linda screamed and grabbed onto each other.

The figure had no arms or legs, but four long tentacle-like appendages drooped down from where its arms and legs should have been. Its structure was humanoid, but the dripping, loose form of its body looked anything but human. A patch of some sort covered its right eye, and the other was blank and glassed-over.

It looked like something that had never seen a human, but was trying to imitate one with a brief and innacurate description. The thing opened its mouth to speak, but instead of words, all that came out was a gurgling sound.

Nobody understood what it was trying to communicate but Marilyn at least understood a little bit of it.

"Othillli," she asked slowly. "Right?"

It slid over, purple fog trailing behind it, and threw its tentacles around her in what she could only assume was an attempt to be friendly.

Ashlee and Linda screamed again and hugged each other tighter.

Marilyn ignored the faint tingling-burning feeling of Othilli's tentacles and 'hugged' Othilli back. It was in a form that wouldn't kill her.

That was nice, but also, slowly getting more painful. If she stayed like this, she would probably start dissolving.

Marilyn pushed Othilli away in the politest way possible. Othilli gurgled something in (hopefully) understanding.

The lights flickered back on. Othilli lost its eerie glow, but it was still there, looking more like slime than a ghost.

Satan ran away to the library before the abomination saw him. He didn't want to die today. He hadn't even killed Dead yet. He'd fought his way out of the deep and endless void just so he could kill Dead, and he wasn't going to die before he could do that. He needed a plan.

But he didn't have his powers. How was he going to kill Dead without them?

Then again, exploding someone's head wasn't the only way to kill someone. Stupid, stupid Satan. He'd forgotten that. There were so many other things in the House he could use. Kitchen knife? Strangely indestructible furry porn book? Bedside lamp? He could use almost literally anything-

The door of the library opened and a hand pulled him out.

Crap crap crap crap crap he was going to die crap crap shit.

The hand dropped him on to the floor and slammed the door shut, allowing him a glimpse of his captor. Relief flooded through him.

Ashlee. Beautiful, presumably naturally blonde Ashlee. She was so beautiful.

"Hey girl, are you from outer space? 'Cause you're out of this world."

Ashlee folded his arms and glared at him, but didn't comment on his line.

Maybe that was good.

"You're not allowed in the library. You weren't here for the A. E. 'incident' but since then none of us have been allowed in there."

Satan gave her a thumbs up and sat up, still relieved to be not dead. "Who cares about the library? Let's get dinner."

Ashlee groaned and walked away.

Lily opened the fridge and stared at the last remaining cucumber. She turned to Spencer, who was standing next to her. "Wanna split it?"

Spencer shrugged. "Sure."

Dominus Apis stood behind them, watching their dastardly scheming. He was hungry. He wanted that cucumber. And now that he could choose his feelings, he could do whatever he needed to get it.

He stepped up confidently, holding his head high. "I would like that cucumber," he boomed.

Spencer turned to Apis and folded his arms. "What would you do for it?"

"I propose..." He stroked his chin. "...a fight to the death."

Somehow, nobody saw how completely irrational it was to fight to the death for a cucumber. Like, come on, a fight to the death for love  almost makes sense but a cucumber?

"Sounds good-" Spencer shrugged- "Why not?"