~ Five Minutes Earlier in an Inn, Inevitably... ~
"S
o then I pulled out my foldable broadsword, which is a story
on its own, and I shouted 'the characters and events depicted
here are in no way intended to resemble any persons or events,
real or fictional, and any such resemblance is entirely
coincidental. Motherfucker!' See, that part's funny because-"
"Yes, John, you told me."
"I did? Right, so anyway: as he's
shooting through the air towards me with his scimitar, now he's
distracted from the fight because he's thinking to himself 'what does
that even mean? How can we possibly be sure that our reality isn't
actually just an elaborate fiction constructed in another, more "real"
reality? How did the legal authority that came up with that disclaimer
define "real"? Then again, if everything we experience is fictitious,
including ourselves, then aren't we just as real as the world around
us, making this entire question pointless?' These were the questions
that romped around the Doom Pirate's panicked subconscious like
philosophical piglets in the mud as I duelled him above the clouds,
sassed him in the sky, and finally jammed my blade into the back of
his throat."
Aerin tried to repress a sigh. "Amazing. But
you've still not answered my question."
"What made you think I
was going to? I think it adds to my mystery and intrigue as the main
character of your book."
John Boss and Aerin Liette sat across
from each other near the back of The Crossroads Inn. The atmosphere
was jovial and the drinks were free for the men who saved the town of
Ludorena from the marauding bandits who had once terrorised the
surrounding roads. The Inn's patrons had been regaled with the tale of
the courage and camaraderie of John Boss, Aerin Liette, and their dear
departed friend and ally Sir James Lockswell. Boss didn’t have the
heart to tell everyone that in reality Lockswell was actually one of
his many sworn enemies, mainly because spinning it into a sob story
about a fallen comrade was what landed them the free drinks in the
first place.
By this time of night, those who were listening to
the story were pissed enough to readily accept that the weedy elf had
not at any point in the story just stood off to the side of the bandit
camp and looked on as two raging titans battled before his unblinking
eyes. The revellers all raised their flagons to the memory of the
fallen warrior before joyfully condemning themselves to further
hangovers in the wee hours of the morning.
For the first time
in as long as he could remember, Aerin Liette was drinking to
celebrate. But in the midst of the party there was something he
couldn't stop thinking about: just who was John Boss? WHY was John
Boss? What chain of events led to the person sitting here, eulogising
someone who, just hours ago, had given their life trying to kill him?
If you broke his spirit down into its basic elements, what would you
find? Aerin asked these kinds of questions about everyone he met.
Well, everyone he found interesting.
For the past minute or so,
John Boss had been sitting quietly, staring at his glass and
occasionally fidgeting with the crimson sheen of Nazir Al-Zahabi's red
scimitar, which he'd laid on the table. Perhaps, unbelievably, he was
starting to get tired. He'd already completed a round of boasting as
well as the post-boast Q&A session followed by drinking and arm
wrestling with every poor soul who dared to try. He now seemed to be
observing the crowd while tapping three of his fingers on the wooden
table. It had been quiet at first, but now it was just getting
annoying, so Aerin tried to interrupt whatever internal orchestra
Boss' fingers were playing percussion for.
"So...any idea
where we're going next?"
Boss stopped the tapping and searched
for an answer. "Hmm, not sure. Where would you say a man might find
some excitement around here?"
"Well..." Aerin looked down at
his not-quite-empty glass. "I think there's a brothel not far from-"
"Boring."
"What?"
"How many decapitations per
capita?"
"What?!"
"What is the ratio of people who enter
this brothel with a head to people who leave without one?"
"I
don't know! Ideally, none."
"Exactly: boring."
"Well,
where would you go? If you could be anywhere in the world right now,
where would you be?"
Leaning back in his small chair, John Boss
was silent for a few seconds. In his experience, Aerin had found that
this vaguest and most interesting kind of question only ever raised
further questions about the people who answered them. The continued
silence answered; a pause in the riddle that was John Boss. Aerin
finished his drink to fill the time.
Finally, Boss replied.
"Somewhere new."
"Okay." Aerin pretended it was an interesting
answer and gestured towards the empty glasses. "Another?"
"Yes,
I'll go an-"
"No no." Aerin tried not to shoot up out of his
seat; he needed to get out of this vague awkwardness. "I need to stand
up anyway." He quickly walked down the short set of stairs before John
could object and disappeared into the middle of the room where the
bulk of the people were jabbering.
Aerin worked his way through
the crowd and over to where a lithe barman was effortlessly
gliding from customer to customer, casually firing drinks across the
polished wood of the bar and tossing a towel over his shoulder as he
seemed to slide over to where Aerin was standing. "Same again?" he
asked.
"Yeah."
"Two pints for the hero and his goblin
friend, coming right up." The barman span around and was already
filling up glasses.
Everything seemed to go quiet for Aerin as
he swallowed, his earlobes suddenly felt warm and his hands threatened
to break out into a cold sweat. Tonight, his life would be easier if
he just took the drinks and walked back to his table, but some idiot
part of him felt like it had to say something, anything. "Excuse me,
What did you just call me?" "Yes, Aerin, ask him a polite question.
That'll teach him. Wonderful. Prick."
The barman didn't do
anything.
Aerin took another breath. "Hello?"
"Aerin, I
don't think he's going to answer," called Boss from the other side of
the room.
"Well maybe if-" Aerin turned around to face Boss,
and stopped as he suddenly noticed why it was so quiet. "...oh."
Nobody did anything. Nobody moved. Nobody breathed. Nobody
blinked. The world had fallen completely still and silent.
A
waitress in front of Aerin had just been knocked over by some clumsy
drunkard, and she was frozen in panic as the four flagons of mead
she'd been carrying on a silver tray spilled over at once and never
hit the ground. Aerin hadn't been frozen, but wasn't moving either.
"...What?"
"See!? What did I tell you!" John cheerily replied
"We'll barely even have to make an effort to get into trouble,
adventure is simply drawn to me like a moth to a flame!"
"Are
you always this nonchalant in the face of inexplicable horror!?"
"Not inexplicable, Aerin. I mean, come ON."
Aerin looked
around in frustration and disbelief. "Alright then John. Tell me, WHY
has the entire inn suddenly frozen still?!"
"Nope. First
mistake."
"What?"
"Not the ENTIRE inn. Observe." John
raised his empty glass off the table, and smashed it on the ground.
"Oh, no." Aerin slumped down on a stool. "Oh for fuck's sake."
"That's right Aerin!" Boss got up off his seat, slotted the red
scimitar back into the sheath on his belt, and started to navigate
through the maze of still limbs. "Natural phenomena don't
discriminate, so obviously you and I must have been chosen! For what
purpose, and by whom, is completely unknowable." He squeezed out of
the crowd from behind two statues and ran his finger down the icicle
of airborne mead. "But I have a feeling we're about to find out."
Aerin jumped off the stool as the barman's head snapped around to
face them with a sickening crack. Blood trickled down from his
nostrils, soaking into his white shirt. The muscles in his face were
pulled by some external force into an unnervingly friendly smile.
Aerin covered his mouth and staggered backwards when he noticed the
man's belly, which looked heavily pregnant and was growing before his
eyes before the undulating mass in his stomach began to slither up
through his digestive system. Aerin had to look away and nearly
fainted, John Boss only stepped back to avoid the oncoming splatter.
All of the muscles in the man's upper body started to snap, the
structural integrity of his skeleton must have been destroyed by now,
yet he was still held up standing by invisible strings. The barman's
jaw was dislocated with a pop, his neck inflated like a toad's and out
of the expanding maw of stretched muscles, it became visible. It was a
slimy dark green, and as it slid out into the light Boss could see
that it was covered in what looked like giant leaves or scales. The
man's raggedy body hunched over, the fleshy thing fell out of his torn
face and hit the wooden bar with a loud slap. The spent corpse flopped
to the floor.
John Boss cautiously stepped forward to inspect
the mucous sac, which had now began to expand and contract silently as
if it were breathing.
Aerin had backed away to the door and was
hopelessly trying the handle behind his back. He whispered, "John what
are you doing? Don't touch that th-"
"Shhh!" Boss gently rested
his elbow on the bar, about half a metre away from the pulsating thing
whose flaps of skin had begun to stiffen and plume at the top as if it
were about to hatch. "Come on, you can come out now," he said - a hand
kept close to his sword - reassuring the thing which was still covered
in the barman's blood and stomach acids. As the sections separated and
began to open, Aerin shut his eyes behind his hands and waited for the
screams to start.
"Awwww, no," cooed Boss. "Look at you!"
"What is it?? What's happening?"
"Aerin, open your eyes."
Aerin peeked through his fingers, and then let down his hands as
he saw what had happened. The thing had blossomed on the table into
what was surely the biggest, most colourful and sweetest-smelling
flowers either of them had ever seen. Each of the huge petals
glistened with every colour, and converged into what almost looked
like a cushion-y nest; inside which, bunched up and cozy in its little
fluffy dreams, was a little white cat, who was fast asleep. As Aerin
slowly approached, the cat's ears pricked up like radars before it got
up and straightened itself out with a chirp, blinking the sleep out of
its large eyes; its left glowing bright blue and the right glowing
pink. Both John and Aerin were silent as they tried to work out how
the overwhelming horror they had just witnessed had birthed something
so small and innocent, which had now pattered off onto the bar and was
rubbing its head on Boss's arm.
"That's..." Aerin stared in
disbelief. "That's impossible!"
"OF COURSE IT'S BLOODY POSSIBLE
IF IT WAS IMPOSSIBLE YOU WOULDN'T BE SAYING "THAT'S IMPOSSIBLE!" LIKE
A BLOODY IDIOT BECAUSE IT WOULDN'T HAVE BLOODY HAPPENED BECAUSE IT
WOULDN'T EVEN BE POSSIBLE YOU TROGLODYTIC
FUCK!"
said the cat,
who spoke with two voices, and who was now furiously wheezing through
its pink button nose.
John stepped back from the bar a little
and the cat collected itself. "I do apologise about the volume. New
body, the controls are all in different places." The cat looked down
at the barman's corpse and the flower that had spilled out of him. "I
usually try to keep a low profile and go for "human" but, well, "floofy
baby" is all I had to work with. The cat delved into the flower's
centre and pulled out a bowler hat with a little blue ribbon and half
of a twirly, thin moustache which it stuck on to one side of its face.
"My name is..." The cat muttered to itself. "Sparky, lucky, blitzen?
Boxer...BRITAIN! And I'll be helping you with...your..." It looked
blankly at John and Aerin "...oh bugger, I forgot to pack the
memor...right, John Boss! Put your hand on the bar."
John
didn't question the cat, not even as it began to lick all the way up
his finger.
It rolled its tongue around in its mouth and licked
its lips. "Species: Brain. Location...I'm
getting...Ludorena...Magnusshire. Third largest province in the
wonderful world of..." It stopped and looked confused "...Wurld. Main
continent on..." The cat raised its head to the roof as it inhaled
deeply "...the planet Timperley." It suddenly furrowed its brow and
stared intensely at a spot on the floor. And stared.
And
stared.
John was the first person to venture a question "so,
what are-"
"SHHH!"
Aerin wasn't sure he'd even breathed
this whole time. Britain's ears seemed to be rotating around to scan
the room. "I can't hear anything...that's weird, why can't I-" It
looked up at the frozen inn. "Oh of course, I stopped time. Makes
sense. What's today's date?"
Aerin wouldn't speak, so John
replied. "'tis the 17th day of The Suffocation, year 14 of the 21st
era."
The cat narrowed its vibrant eyes. "So what you're
saying is...it's 2014."
"Yes."
"It is two thousand and
fourteen. Here. Right now."
"Is there a problem?"
"Oh!"
The cat backed up and sounded politely defensive. "Oh not at all, I
just thought you lot would have grown out of the whole 'Swords &
Sorcery' thing by now. I mean it's 2014 on Kaldazar III two galaxies
down, and they have a Dyson Sphere now. That they bought with their
own money!" The cat nodded. "And lives. They sold a tenth of the
population's bodies to The Infernal Hive-Spirit of Molok The
Ever-Conquering Terrorzoid. But, oh well, life is full of compromises.
And now they have a Dyson Sphere."
John folded his arms and
nodded, pretending to understand a word of what was just said. "And
more power to them."
Britain snapped out of his contemplation.
"Anyway! The good news is: the three of us are all going on an
adventure!"
Aerin's confusion turned to dread. "What's the bad
news?"
"Is it somewhere new?" asked Boss.
"But what's
the bad news?"
Britain chuckled. "Well John, 'new' is
definitely one way of putting it. So is 'going' now that you mention
it."
"John! Are you crazy?! He's a..." Aerin pointed angrily
at the cat. "She's a...he's-"
"I'm a what?"
He sighed.
"Which one are you? You have a male and a female voice at the same
time and one of your eyes is blue and the other's pink and you've got
a moustache on one side of your face and the other has massive
eyelashes and..." Aerin was just gesturing with his hand now, hoping
to communicate through flapping.
The cat sighed. "Mr. Liette, I
am a five thousand-headed Octomillipede who slithers across your
constellations of stars as if they were grains of sand on a beach, and
I'm currently trapped in the brain of a fluffy child! I don't even
have space to remember how fridges work let alone your people's
nonsense filing systems!" The cat dramatically exhaled. "You know, on
Kaldazar III they just have Innies and Outies which you can push in or
pull out depending on what mood you're in. I'm just saying, it's an
idea."
Aerin shrugged the matter off. John Boss stepped in
between them. "But back to the adventure."
"OOHHHHHH! Yes.
That's the bad news!" The cat grinned.
"Oh, no." Aerin moaned.
"Since actual time travel is mostly impossible, I've had to
improvise and bend the rules of existence a bit." Britain rubbed their
paws together. "See, contrary to what Aerin's about to say 200 years
in the future, this WAS a dream. All of it. Since you were born.
Everyone you know, everyone you love. They've all been dead for
years."
Both men were silent for a few seconds. Aerin shook his
head slowly. "What?"
"I'll explain later." And with that, that
cat exploded into a cloud of purple glitter, which slowly fell to the
ground and left the room completely still again.
Aerin turned
to John. "What." That hadn't been a question, just a quiet declaration
of continued absurdity.
John and Aerin felt the building lurch
beneath their feet, as if it had just lifted from the ground. Before
either of them could react, the whole room began to spin and rumble.
They both clung to the bar as gravity began to pull everything that
wasn't nailed down into the centre of the room where the wooden floor
had begun to smash and get sucked down into a shining vortex below.
The force became irresistible and Aerin's fingers slipped. Boss tried
to grab him but in a second he'd been pulled over the edge of the
screaming vortex and was being smothered by the mass of statues, which
got tighter and tighter before he could do anything but be thankful
that the light had swallowed him, just as his bones had begun to be
crushed.
He was sitting alone in the back of a long gondola. His
body felt light and sedate and it didn't even bother him that the boat
was flying above a infinite plane of pulsating geometric mush. He
ducked slightly as large squares of
COLOUR
span around in all
directions. The boat seemed incredibly small compared to the
paper-thin TITANS
whose feet alone were taller than the
h
i
s
s
i
n
g
solid
clouds
solid clouds
,
, , , ,
,
, , / ,
,
, , , ,
solid clouds
,
, / ,
,
, , , , ,
, , , , ,
, \ ,
, ,
, , , , ,
, , , , ,
, , \ ,
,
, , , , ,
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of grainy gray and black mist. They were the
people from the inn, but they'd been flattened out in such a
way that Aerin could see every surface of their
bodies, inside and out. He peeled away a
fleck of wood on the boat as if it were just very realistic
wallpaper to reveal whole paragraphs stuffed
beneath the surface to give the boat its solid form. He took the
start of a sentence between his finger and thumb and p u l l e d it
out of the paragraphs as if it were a thread on wool. Aerin
thought to himself "I sat in this boat as a
child in Lieopes. I was scared that a monster would come up from the
water and drown me and one day somebody pushed me into the river and
I cried in the arms of a stranger and kept away from riverside
streets ever since."
As Aerin read the coiling thread of words, he noticed that the words
were solidifying into existence after he read them out in his
internal voice, as he was thinking them, BEFORE he was thinking
them.
He pulled faster and looked down the sentence string, which read:
"As Aerin read the coiling thread of words, he noticed that the
words were fading into existence after he read them out in his
internal voice, as he was thinking them, BEFORE he was thinking
them.
He pulled faster and looked down the sentence string, which read: