Chapter 3

Hey, dare not push me.
I was going to jump off
anyway. Wheeeee! Dead.

I BRAKED AND BLINKED.

Try as I might, I could not believe my eyes. Morgan was right there, a few feet away from his watch and he was gone. Nowhere in sight. Disappeared.

"Morgan?" I yelled, my voice echoing in the cavernous building. A rat skittered out behind a coin-operated arcade, running straight at me. It was either scared of my voice or trying to scare me. 

"Gaah." I jumped back in alarm. I'll kindly appreciate if you don't laugh. Rats, my greatest fear. Maybe, after Claribel, Noire and Stonewall. Anyway, I despised them than they.

"Morg-Lord?" I called my adorkable friend by his username this time, hoping he'd hear me out, drop his strange act and reappear, yelling, Bibbidi Bobbidi Boo, Frankee Prankee Fool.

He didn't come out. 

Or perhaps, he went to play a last-minute game somewhere and this was all a virtual reality prank. That must be it!

"Cheap prank, alright, you got me." I made my way toward the alley where Morgan had disappeared, taking each step cautious, as if the slightest misstep might cause me to disappear too or most scarily, trigger another shaggy rat out of its hiding place.

Few inches away from where Morgan had vanished, I stretched my fingers and felt… a silky smooth, chilly and tingly sensation, like an invisible wet curtain or my hair texture after a rigorous swirlie by Claribel. Funnily, my hand vanished too, in a way that if you're watching from a lateral view, you'd think I got my fingers chopped off.

I thought it was cool. I dipped my hand deeper, down to my elbow, enjoying the tingling sensation. On cue, the spot suddenly crackled and I quickly retracted my arm.

"Ow, that hurts," I lied to no one in particular. Maybe myself, I think.

"It doesn't," a hooded figure said behind me and with a light nudge, pushed me inside the whatchamacallit. 

I disapparated like Morgan. The last thing I heard was a loud crackling sound and an electrical jolt all through my body.

♛♛♛♛♛

My mom would be dead worried.

Despite the fact that I was plummeting so fast that my shirt ballooned around me, all I could think of was my mom. She would be back from her work shift by now. I was supposed to be home since three at noon, mow the lawn, do the laundry, avoid washing the dishes (we all do), game till nine and repeat the cycle.

Getting pushed into a piece of fabric and falling into a pitch-black abyss wasn't part of it. But who would be so evil to push me into this invisible curtain? Maybe Claribel? No, she lived downtown in the Sprawls. Besides, she would never visit the arcade. I could picture her saying, Do I look like a kid? in her most disgusted face, as if gaming kids were the anomalies of life.

Personally, I thought she's an anomaly.

Perhaps, the stealthy evildoer was Noire. But then, last time I checked, I was the one hidden behind him, not the other way round. Noire was an attention hog. He enjoys being the shining beacon in the dark. On a normal day, he would've made himself visible, spread his arms, flash his stupid smile before pushing me. Also, he would not keep his cute face under a hood. That was so unlike of him.

I flipped through the endless list of enemies I have in my head: Was it Sloane the Skater of Slooms Blvd.? Not her. It should be Peter the Pelting Paperboy then? Not quite. He had an accident on his bicycle last week. I was ye this delightful. Maybe it's Andy the Ambusher of Avian Lane? That boy can creep like a ninja. Not him, he's an early sleeper, should be snoring by now. Ah, Rachel the Ratface? Improbable. (Mind you, she never did anything to me. I was particularly scared of her murine features, therefore, she's an automatic enemy.)

Who then?

Time was passing. I was falling. I couldn't tell how much time had elapsed. A minute? Five minutes? Ten? Fifty? There should be a limit to how long a fall should be. There will be a point where I'm supposed to hit my head… and a game controller hit my head.

"Wheeeee!" Overhead, a voice yelled, probably thinking this was a rollercoaster ride, a giant slide or something. "We should do this more often."

I somehow knew who it was. The hooded figure. I will make him pay, like I make my bullies at school pay. (*Insert sarcastic laughter here*)

Down the abyss — at least two hundred feet below me — I spotted a tiny white dot, like a twinkling star under a night sky. The closer I got, the bigger it became, the distinct it shaped and the brighter it shone, until I couldn't look at it again.

With a heavy sigh, I fell into the doorway with my eyes closed so tight that they were beginning to water. I felt myself disintegrating into blocky chunks, and then those chunks splitting into million bits like pixels.

I open my eyes. There was no eyes. I couldn't see myself again. I couldn't feel myself again. It was all too bright. If this was how death feels… 

Then, kindly considered me dead.

♛♛♛♛♛

I found myself… I mean, my pixel self merging back in pieces like a jigsaw puzzle, growing and glowing from my foot up to my waistline. Out of fear, I willed the growth to stop and I was left without a torso. I almost yelped but I remembered I don't have a mouth. Not yet, anyway. 

I continued my pixelated growth until I was whole again. I caught a glimpse of fur draped on me, and something like metal blades, before the aura emanating from my body dimmed. I tried to feel for my head and my hand came away with a handful of fur.

"Whoa," I said. "Who wore me a fur helmet?"

Behind me, the hooded figure appeared the way I did, his legs hitting the ankle-deep wet stone floor. I couldn't see much since it was dark and my eyes were not accustomed to the dark yet. But I could hear the plops of water dripping from pipes. The sulfuric smell of gas. I could also make out the outlines of walls and a square light coming from a manhole in the distant roof.

"I didn't," the figure said innocently.

"You again!" I growled. "You pushed me!"

"Shhh. You're making a noise. You wouldn't want to wake the sleepers up." The hooded figure said. I could make out the figure's outline and his lime-green eyes glowing in the dark. Annoyingly, the eyes were smiling. More annoyingly, they were slitting into a smirk.

"How dare you tell me to 'shhh!'" I yelled and blindly made for the green eyes. For the first time, I felt myself. I wasn't myself. My body was thickset. I felt strong. Too stronger than my former self — which was as strong as a worm. My steps were heavy and quick. I almost hit the eyes but at the last moment, it dashed sideways. I stumbled and fell into the water with a splash. I didn't feel any pain but my ego seemed to take it personal.

"I spy with my little green eyes, a boy whose name I don't know, but I think begins with an F." The voice said by my right.

"Garhhhh!" I sprang up and barreled towards the eyes, determined to knock out the playful smirk together with its owner. 

In one fluid motion, the figure kicked a hard, slippery stuff in my way. Like a blind fool — which I was, I stepped on it. My heel shot out under me, my legs crumpled and I hit my head on the hard floor. This time, I felt a pinprick of pain behind my neck.

"A fool," the hooded figure concluded his guessing game.

"Who the sod are you?" I asked soggily, standing up and preparing to charge again. All I felt was anger at this tricky fellow. I could feel my new muscles tensing up, ready to garrote him with my arm. "Where did you take my friend?"

"I am Elronde the Blonde." The figure said.

"Hellhound?" I said uncharacteristically ignorantly, attempting to infuriate him.

"El-ronde," he mouthed slowly. "I'm a Hybrid dark half-elf."

"With blonde hair, right?" I remarked, laughing out my guts. "Haha, you must be kidding me, man."

"I'm a girl," he said, sounding a bit offended. 

"W-Wha… what?" My mouth spasmed, as if the sentence had short-circuited my brain. "A girl with a male voice?"

"Stop talking loudly. We're on enemy's territory," he warned again.

"I dunno which stinks more. Your lies or this place." I covered my nose with a large, rough hand. Wait, what? My hands had been neither large nor callused. "Where's my friend?" I requested.

"Probably spawned in another location." The figure said. "I'm betting it's the Snowy Plains or the Deadlands and not the unsafe Mushroom Forest. He should be dead by now if he fell in the Deadlands." The figure's eyes twinkled with delight.

"You think you're funny. You're not. Your sense of humor is darker than this place." I spread out my arms to indicate I meant the location we're in.

"I'm glad you have a little sense of humor even with your new form." The figure acknowledged, bowing his head in mock-salute.

This was my chance to strangle him. Yes. I took a small step forward. My new weight betrayed me.

The figure raised his head. "The Berserkers are known to be boneheads. All they do is to charge into battle without thinking twice, just like you were about to do a second ago."

I blushed furiously. This figure was really clever. Also, he mentioned something. "The what now?"

"The Berserkers." He sniffed the air. "I can smell it in you. A whiff of them and more of toilet smell and Earth dust."

I rolled my eyes ignorantly, switching the subject with the gesture. "Where are we and why is it so cold in here?"

"We're spawned in the Sewers —"

"I know!"

"And you're not wearing anything, dummy." The green-eyed figure intentionally allowed his eyes to bob up and down, as if assessing me.

Heat rose to my cheeks. I looked down. I couldn't see much of myself but I covered my nether region in humiliation. "Stop looking. Wait, what do you mean by, 'earth dust?' Did you mean we're in the sewer system of Bloomsville which is underground instead of being on the earth surface?"

To answer my question, I heard claws scratching the walls and loud squeaks coming from the tunnels.

"The rats are awake." Elronde said in a small voice. "Come, quick."

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