Kyla typed away at her keyboard, perusing her usual carousel of internet distractions. She had plenty of free time these days. Her life was charmed by most metrics, the primped and gorgeous housewife to a successful supply contractor. Their wealth freed her of most burdens, except boredom. What the demure lady craved, was a thrill, like she used to enjoy when she was a teenager. With a mind towards stoking her old interests in the paranormal, Kyla found herself willfully spiraling down a rabbithole of conspiracy theories, supernatural encounters, and grainy footage.
At first, Kyla grew absorbed in the more cursory fringe material on Youtube. Fanciful stories recounted by robotic text-to-speech announcers failed to hold her interest for long, and she grew a talent for better discerning the 'true believers' among the unorthodox material she perused. Ghost sightings, cryptid creatures, government coverups, the bored housewife rapidly developed a savviness for the variegated info-fodder the internet had in store.
Franklin hadn't realized what had captivated his wife as of late, until his attentive nature bore through one dinner. "Honey, you always have your nose glued to the screen these days, even at the dinner table. What's been getting into you? You seem possessed by that phone," Franklin's warm voice hid a tinge of genuine concern.
Kyla's voice was glowing with enthusiasm as she replied, "Oh, it's these stories, you wouldn't believe the stuff that's out there. It makes me feel like a kid again, reading up on all this 'hidden lore' that's been developing. I think there's really something to it, these people all seem to be honing in on different aspects of something larger." Kyla's enthusiastic revelation was met by a raised eyebrow of concern from Franklin, who clinked his fork against the dinnerplate while trying to find the words to respond. "You can't let these crazy ideas roost in your head, Kyla, or they'll drive you up the wall. There's no use wondering about such spurious distractions, even if it's not all hogwash, there's no discerning the few gems of truth and goodness from the useless muck that surrounds it."
The blonde-haired woman seemed slightly deflated, but brushed off the moment, replying, "I guess I have been spending too much time online, better to stay grounded in reality."
But the housewife's enthusiasm for the paranormal did not end there, far from it. After spending countless nights combing mainstream sites for the most intriguing leads she could find, the kernels of information and snippets of evidence that consistently corroborated each other, she moved on to new grounds. Obscure Discord chatrooms, old and nearly defunct forums, barely-moderated video hosting sites, these became the new investigative haunts of the intrigued and listless woman. The major theme that captivated her focus were reports of mystical cryptids, particularly the foreboding and enigmatic lore surrounding the existence of 'gnomes'.
At first, it was easy to dismiss the flimsy evidence she found as nonsense, the more Kyla investigated, the more compelling she found the arguments that gnome believers were making. Footage of encounters bore unmistakable similarities, with eye-witness accounts synchronizing up perfectly from Argentina to Siberia, it seemed people were having spooky and climactic encounters with the 'duendes', 'leprechauns', and other similarly small, but mischievous, entities. However, nothing could have prepared her for the revelations to come.
Kyla's earlier stratagems of discerning fact from fiction were put to the test as she perused her latest vein of examination. Redflag after redflag was raised as she watched a series of low-quality audio recordings discussing the 'global gnomish conspiracy', uploaded to Dailymotion by a defunct account, but something compelled her to look deeper. She followed the inactive account's links, which lead to an ancient landing page that hadn't been updated in many years, talking about diagnosing and combating a status known as 'advanced gnome infestation'. What she read there would haunt her deeply.
Giant, comic-sans frontpage writing loudly questioned the reader "Are Your Loved Ones Suffering from Advanced Gnome Infestation? Here Are The Facts: Does Your Loved One Demand Sugared Alcoholic Beverages At All Meals And Times Of The Day? Does Your Loved One Randomly Snack On Passing Insects, Especially Snails And Slugs? Can Mysterious Giggling And Bathroom Noises Be Heard Inside Your Partner At Odd Hours? If You Have Noticed These Signs, You May Be Dealing With A Gnome-Infested Person!"
The site then ended with a link to a filehosting service Kyla had never heard of, which contained a horrifying video that seemed to defy belief. If it hadn't been for her rising paranoia, Kyla would have turned the video off, as grizzly footage of a restrained man having boiling water poured down his mouth played on the screen. Kyla gave a small yelp of alarm when a writhing bulge began working its way from the screaming man's abdomen, worming back up his neck. Grainy footage of a steaming figure appeared soon after, clawing out from between the man's scorched lips and teeth. The other people in the footage launched themselves upon the tiny, emerging monster before the video clip ended.
Kyla's terrified mind raced through her past relationship with Franklin, taking account of the strange things she had brushed off over the years. He had claimed to have developed a stomach condition after a foreign business trip, requiring the specialized diet, but why the thing with the bugs? And the giggling, how could this mysterious online document know so much about the inexplicable encounters that had sleeplessly kept her up at night?
Kyla's moment of tense introspection was interrupted by a choked voice from behind. "I'm so sorry. For Hyperborea." Kyla hadn't even fully turned around, before the harsh, whistling shriek of several silenced gunshots sent her sprawling over the computer desk. Franklin strode forth, and quickly turned his dying wife off the chair, before busily resuming her place on the blood-soaked swivel chair. He began examining every detail of the website she had just visited, quickly coursing over her search history, beginning to build a plan of action in his head. He had had a good, honest life here, away from the arcane politics of his homeland, and they had taken that from him. He knew he had to move quickly. His cover had been blown metaphorically, something that would need to be made literal quite soon.
The police sirens honed in with surprising speed, the neighbors alarmed by the strange noises from their neighbor's house. He had done as much cursory research as possible with the limited time, and lifted the pistol to his head with surprising strain. Struggling and trembling, Franklin put the pistol under his chin, before pulling the trigger. Not soon after, a distinctive bulge could be seen, teeming and writhing up the cooling flesh of Franklin's bloody neck. Gordgnorb's head crested first, bald and lacking his traditional red cap, instead wreathed with fresh blood. The tiny gnome wriggled forth from the human man's blown-apart jaw like a pilot escaping a crashed fighter jet. He was just shaking the blood from his white beard when the police knocked on the front door. The diminutive possessor was now free of his discarded husk.
Gordgnorb looked around for the optimal lurking spot, realizing he needed to strike into his next host with clandestine precision, given the natural wariness of the arriving officers. The experienced gnome infiltrator knew he couldn't count on a clean entry using the preferred method, and would have to rely on his tried and true back-up plan. His tiny legs took a worrying amount of time to scurry to the bathroom, but he entered quickly by going prone and crawling under the door seal. With a leaping bound, his short, chubby arms hooked over the porcelain rim, and a plop signaled his entry into the toilet bowl interior.
The gnome waited patiently, hidden under the toilet seat rim. He knew that, perhaps the first team of officers would resist, but eventually, someone would urgently need to use the house's only toilet. That's when he'd strike, and assume his new host. An officer's badge and clearance would be the perfect asset for continuing his investigation into the Gnome Hunters that had up-ended his once-happy suburban life. Now, all that remained was to bide his time for the perfect opportunity, for a new body to take control of, for a chance at revenge.