The sinkhole began to suck everything into the ground starting at the center and growing, while the wind picked up and began to blow all the debris towards the center as a small tornado began to grow out of the hole in the ground while reaching for the sky. Running as fast as he had ever run in his life Tepic fled the destruction of Arnold’s mind.
Silence followed, broken only by stories that he was able to picture in his mind that were read by voices he no longer recognized. Then there were moments of time that were lost. Times where he was in some other world and going about a city. As time went it felt like he and that other him were slowly growing together…shapes and forms began to move about him as he rested.
He didn’t want to move quickly or rush into a recovery, things were going slowly, peacefully…
“Wake up, Cat!” An old woman called out as she banged on the table beside him with her cane, “It’s 5 AM! Don’t tell me you’re turning into one of those other layabouts!”
Arnold sat up startled, disoriented, and confused. Hadn’t he just fallen asleep at the Gangplank? He now appeared to be in an elderly woman’s home, and the sound of crashing waves suggested that they were overlooking a bluff nearby. “Miss Sharp?”
She responded with suspicious, narrowed eyes. “Sleeping in, that’s what you’ve been doing. No wonder you’ve fallen so far behind on your chores!”
She thrust out a pair of work clothes for him, the clothes he had seen street urchins wearing. He could smell them as well as feel them as they flew into his face in a pile, “Hurry up and get dressed, your chores aren’t going to do themselves!”
She stormed out of the room, and Arnold laid there watching her after she left before he got dressed. Wrong or not, the clothes felt real as did this place and he needed to see what was going on.
Miss Sharp had prepared a list of his daily chores, but added things that had never been in his job descriptions…but that he had simply done anyways. The list continued for several pages until the cat looked up frowning, “How is anyone supposed to do all of this in one day?”
“You’ll manage, Cat.” Mumsy replied as she ate her morning danish. “That is what you do isn’t it? Work?”
The meal finished in silence and he went outside and was surprised to find he was on an island. There was nowhere else to go, only the places where he was supposed to do his chores seemed to exist. He frowned, and set himself to his tasks, and wondered if something was supposed to happen.
But nothing happened, he just worked tirelessly until the end of the day chopping wood, cooking, and everything else that Mumsy had requested while storm clouds brewed and the wind increased.
He made his way back inside when he saw the strange half-cat half-rabbit, Zaros, sitting on the front step of the entrance to Mumsy’s home. She greeted him and then inspected him closely, “You look exhausted, must have just finished a great adventure I’ll bet!”
Arnold shook his head, unaware that here he had no scar and no wound, and told her the truth. She seemed horrified.
“Trapped on this little bluff, and working for a woman or for someone else my whole life…I’d go insane in a day! You don’t really think you’re going to find out who you really are doing things like this do you?!” Zaros asked him as she jumped to her feet and began to walk about excitedly, her hands moving as she spoke. “You’re an adventurer! You need an adventure!”
She rummaged in her pack and grabbed a glowing green crystal, something he was sure she had already done in the other world. “Here, hold onto this to remind yourself that there’s more to the world and to you than doing chores for old people!”
Arnold took the strange glowing crystal and put it around his head again, though the last one had gone dead, “How am I supposed to go on an adventure trapped here?”
Zaros grinned, “Don’t worry about that! Something always comes up! Or down! Like that tornado heading for us!”
“The what?!” Arnold shouted as he stared at the darkened sky above them, as a dark funnel began to arch directly towards them.
The wind howled about them ferociously, Arnold tried to fight his way to the house, the crystal and his loose clothing flapping freely in the wind, while Zaros watched the coming torrent expectantly. He called for her to follow him inside, but she just grinned at him as they were both sucked into the sky.
He screeched as he was flung about, swirling in the vortex as the world fell away from him. As he flailed helplessly there was a slamming of a door–
–Arnold woke up in the Plank where he had fallen asleep, breathing heavily and excited for a moment as he stared about confused and disoriented. The feeling passed soon, and all memory of the event slipped away as he gripped his head. Had he been asleep? He didn’t feel very rested if he had. He rolled over on the couch and tried to sleep again.
One Comment