I
couldn’t believe what I had done. Rifsakkia had been possessed by a demon, but
I hadn’t meant to kill her along with it, damnit! This is one of those times
that I wish I were blind or deaf or both, as Rifsakkia’s whines of pain and
bloody self were becoming embedded in my mind.
I
found it amazing how she has survived this long with arterial bleeding, and
normal bleeding from various places. I know for a wretched fact that I cut some
of the muscle in her tail, too. God, that had to hurt.
I
looked to where I thought Sarah had been standing, expecting her to be shaking
with rage. She wasn’t there. Instead, she was approaching Rifsakkia from the
opposite side. Either I’m a raving lunatic, or Sarah was holding two plump
Maximum Tomatoes in her paws. I fully understood her intent, but was two enough?
Rifsakkia was kinda... big... and in really bad condition here.
As
Sarah approached her, Rifsakkia started looking somewhat eager, eager to be
healed. I, too, was eager, because the sooner Rifsakkia was in better condition,
the sooner I could stop feeling like a total jerk towards her species.
Rifsakkia
weakly reached her head out, going closer to Sarah until she snapped her massive
jaws around both tomatoes at the same time, narrowly missing Sarah’s paws.
Sarah jumped back in surprise, and then just looked at her.
I
had never seen a Maximum Tomato in the process of healing someone, I just knew
that it felt really weird, but as I watched Rifsakkia being healed, I learned
that it looked kinda weird too. It started at her eyes, and the vessels within
them were restored to normal blood vessels. Her scales re-aligned themselves and
the eighty-fifth degree burns I gave her disappeared. The demonic spikes that
covered her body literally fell off, and the wound where I had stabbed her
closed and healed cleanly.
Throughout
this, Rifsakkia had her eyes closed, but as the process started to end, she
opened her eyes. Instead of bright red, they were now deep sapphire, her pupils
thin and catlike.
Thank
you, Sarah. Thank you, Kirby. I heard in my mind. My God, even though
Maximum Tomatoes were all-healing, Rifsakkia still had scars and what remained
of the cuts I gave her. I shuddered, knowing that since Galaxia made those
scars, they weren’t going to heal. They would always be there, no matter what.
I
looked up, and noticed that the rest of the Oripeons were either going up to
Rifsakkia or to me. Most of them either asked me how I could fight like that and
not kill her, or wanted my autograph. Its funny, a snake wanting your autograph.
I
didn’t feel like I deserved this attention, I nearly killed her, ya know! And
yet, the Oripeons didn’t seem to care about the then,
just the now.
Normally I would find this to be wise, but known I couldn’t find it more
wrong. But because of constant request, I did do some autographs, I did tell the
story from my view twice, and I did not make it out of the crowd very quickly.
Sarah had her own crowd to deal with, and basically the same thing was happening
there.
About
five hours and two hundred autographs later, we were all back outside of the
cave, and Terakka was having one of her speeches about a rock’s rights again.
“-I
was just sitting under a tree the whole time, while YOU got to fight a demon,
sign autographs, and have a good time with your new fanatics. God, why do you
Star Warriors get to have all of the fun? DOES ANYBODY CARE ABOUT THE ROCK IN
THE BACKGROUND ANYMORE!?!? I don’t think so, because-“
Well,
she went on longer, but I stopped listening about right there. Ugh, she gives
the same speech every time something exiting happens to me, and every time it
gets more and more angry and powerful. Terakka is kinda sensitive when it comes
to her physical being, and if anybody ever mentioned it, she would KEEL
YOU. No, not kill you, keel you.
There’s a difference, and I have bruises to prove it.
It
was nearing nighttime now, our home star sending out its final rays of light for
the day, creating a magnificent array of reds and oranges in the twilight sky. A
few shimmering stars decorated the already darkening sky, along with the faint
silhouettes of birds of various species. A peaceful setting, you would agree,
but I was in no such mood to enjoy it.
As
we approached the village, I heard something snap, like a twig or something. I
turned around and saw an albino Oripeon following us. She (or He) was fairly
small for her (or his) species, only about five or so feet long. But I could
tell that she (or he) was not a child.
I’m
not here. You don’t see me.
“Uh,
yeah we do.” Terakka said as-a-matter-of-factly, “Why the hell are you
following us?”
I’ve
got nowhere else to go. Please, if I can just follow you guys? I’ll be no
burden, and I’ll be really quiet, you’ll see.
“I’m
not so sure about the ‘really quiet’ part.”
“Terakka!
Hmf, anyway, what do you mean you’ve got nowhere else to go? We were just in a
cave full of Oripeons, I’m sure-“
I
don’t want to be there. There’s no freedom, you see. I cannot possibly stay
in there my whole life. It would kill my soul. And besides, who wants to spend
there whole life in a cave?
“Good
point, but why us? Can’t you just follow somebody else around?”
I
saw the way you fought back there, and even though that was an Oripeon, I
thought that was awesome. If I go with you guys, I don’t really have to worry
about anything weird happening to me, so it’s safest.
He
had a point. I don’t really take pride in my fighting abilities, but he would
be pretty safe if he was with me. He didn’t seem like he would be any weight
on my back, he had manners, (unlike someone
else I know) and a will for freedom. Meh, I guess he could come...
“Alright-“
WHOOHOO!!!
Yeah, this’ll be awesome dude and dudetts! I promise, you won’t regret
letting me come! Ooh, we can stay up late, tell scary stories, and do insane
things YEAH!!! And I can tell you about the time that I saw a-
Well,
he seemed enthusiastic about this. Ah well, he wouldn’t be too bad, I mean,
who can be evil and want to stay up late at the same time?
*** Terakka ***
I’ll
say it now. I don’t really like Onyx, that Oripeon that joined me and Kirby on
this mission that was over. He talks too much, and nothing bothers him AT ALL. I
mean, Kirby is like that a little, but Onyx was just insane. I swear, he cannot
turn his motor mouth off.
-and
then there was this huge wave that gushed into the cave and flooded it. God, it
took awhile for that to go away. Right about then was when me and some of my old
friends went out to see-
Ugh.
We
had been able to get Sarah’s mother’s permission to stay at her house for
tonight, and but Onyx had to stay outside. If you’re wondering how he is still
talking to us, then I’ll give you a hint. His head fits right through the
window.
Sarah’s
mother had seemed surprisingly calm about having an Oripeon as a
half-houseguest. Her only insist was that he goes to sleep when we do, as not to
keep us up all night. If only she knew her mistake then.
It
happened a few hours before midnight, when I saw Kirby draw Galaxia and set it
on the guest room bedside table. Kirby had sighed, and then looked into the
mirror. Even I saw that Kirby’s reflection was not his own. Instead, there was
only a man about three times Kirby’s height. The man’s skin was a deep
purple color, in heavy contrast to his amber eyes and wild, blond hair.
This
must’ve been why Kirby had wanted to go to Fumu’s place, to understand this
phenomenon. I felt so sorry for Kirby right now; he was standing in front of the
reflection of a dead guy, trembling. Then I heard Kirby do something he has
never done before. He whined. A high-pitched, almost cute sound, but it was
created from fear.
The
man in the mirror bent down a little, and reached his hand out to Kirby’s paw.
It wouldn’t have been nearly as scary if his hand didn’t go right
through the mirror. Literally, his hand was on our side of the mirror!
That’s just creepy. Wake up wake up wake
up!, I thought, hoping that this was just some wretched nightmare.
Kirby
backed away from the man’s hand whining involuntarily again. The man’s face
fell, and then tuned angry. He reached out to Kirby again and grabbed his paw
and mouthed out, ‘Come on. Lets go.’. Kirby just shook his head rapidly.
‘No? Then I’LL TAKE YOU!’ he mouthed out angrily. The moment he finished
his eyes flashed red and he took Kirby firmly by the paw and dragged him into
the mirror!!! I almost screamed, but this was too horrifying for words. I... I
had to do something! But what?
KIRBY!!!!,
I heard Onyx’s voice echo in my mind, and for once I was glad to hear him.
Despite
Sarah’s mother’s insist, Onyx slithered in through the window and lunged
right at the mirror. Surprisingly, it did not break. Instead he, too went into
that side of the mirror. If it would hold for Onyx, that damned mirror would
hold for me.
I
ran out from behind the door and jumped at the mirror. I passed through the very
being of the mirror, and then everything went black.
When
I woke up, I noticed immediately that I was sitting on something hard. Hard and
round. I looked down and saw that it was a... watermelon? I looked around me
and, you guessed it, I was sitting in a huge field of watermelons. There
didn’t seem to be anything else but the watermelons.
“Okay,
this is weird.” I said to myself.
I
took a second look around this place. Apparently, there was no grass, only
watermelons. The sky was an odd shade of periwinkle, and there was a
butterscotch-colored mountain in the distance. A river cut through the
watermelons, but the water was red. Not orange like in the Orange Ocean, it was
pale red.
To
tell the truth, I didn’t think that I was on Popstar anymore. Or Hotbeat,
Mecheye, Ripple Star, Halfmoon, Flora, or Aqualiss, I thought I had to be in
some other dimension. This place didn’t make any sense! Then again, my life
stopped making sense when I met Sarah...
I
got up and looked around for somebody who could explain all of this to me. I saw
nobody. Great, not only was this some wacked-out place, it was deserted. Just as
I was about to totally give up, I saw somebody walking in and out of the
watermelons, like it was a maze.
“Hello!
Uh, hello there! Can you tell me where I am?” I asked the figure.
For
awhile, he-she-it said nothing, and then I heard a faint, “Here.”
Oh
God. “I know I’m here, but where is here?!”
The
figure looked towards me, saying, “Here’s right here.” From the look on
the figure’s face, he-she-it obviously had no idea what I was talking about.
God, person, I know that I’m here,
but where exactly is here?
The
figure approached me, and he (I’m guessing on the gender) looked a lot like
Kirby. The body shape was the same, but he was a deep purple color, with pure
sterling eyes that flashed at me like the feathers of a starling. He had an odd
pattern of spirals and helixes painted across his face in black, giving him an
almost mystical appearance. He himself had an odd feeling about him, but I
couldn’t quite place why.
“Hmm...
you’re new here, right? Look you have to leave-“ He was interrupted by a
massive but short-lived fissure that echoed across this dreamscape of a world
like thunder in a storm. The simple being of it caused several watermelons to
explode, sending red fruit in all directions.
“-here
now before he finds out.”
“He?”
“Nightmare.
His name is Nightmare, and he is taking over this mind.”
