Thread: Passing Strange

I'm not sure what you just wrote but I like it. And the last line was hilarious and unexpected.

More to come. Much more.

I hope you like your part.

TWO

Passage

Somehow now I'm small enough to fit into the doghole, and drifting inexorably toward it. But just before I enter, a figure steps from the shadows and blocks me. It's a woman - blonde and rather voluptuous. In the good way. Not meaning fat. I can see her because her white gown shimmers, radiating the same faint fairy-dust glow as my notebook. So does her ephemeral white skin. Curiouser and curiouser. I bump gently into her front which is - soft and cushiony. Very soft and cushiony. Her breasts are ridiculously huge. Warm and soft like down pillows.

"What happened here darling?" Her voice is hushed, whispery-soft, and angelic. Yet husky - sexy. Her accent vaguely European.

"Ummm... you're awfully - sexy. For an angel."

"Nothing is quite what it seems here sweetums. In time you'll understand. But tell me. What happened?"

I know she means the memory. Me and Laverne (that isn't really her name, is it?). Here in The Coal Cellar. So long ago it seems almost poised at the very edge of time itself. So early in my life I can't tell if it's a memory or - something else. Why can't I think of the word? Certain words and ideas are completely eluding my grasp. So hard to think clearly.

Especially here - enveloped in the soft warmth of this angelic woman. Overwhelmed by the divine peace and serenity emanating from her. And suddenly - overwhelmingly in lust.

"Hey now! Watch that Darkus. Don't get carried away." She holds me safely at arm's length, as if I'm a kitten. Even here her numinous aura is overpowering.

"Oh god! Sorry - I can't seem to help it. I don't know what's wrong with me." Turning beet red and wishing I could sink into the ground now. She doesn't seem mad so much as vaguely annoyed. Looking like she does, I assume she gets this kind of reaction a lot. But no - this isn't normal. My sudden overwhelming emotion is as unnatural as so many other things happening here. She casts an imploring glance upward - toward - what? The dirt ceiling overhead? The strange house above it? Perhaps the sky? If there is a sky here. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't.

"I know. You can't help it. It's the Amygdala. We're all under its malicious primal influence here. It has far too much influence in this domain. But do me a favor - try to fight it ok? Think about baseball or something. Quantum mechanics. Rumi. Anything. But do tell me what happened. I think it's very important."

"You called me Darkus. Is - that my name?" I just realized, my own name is among the many things that seem unnaturally barred from my memory. "And who are you?"

She looks thoughtful for a moment, then frowns slightly. It's very attractive when she does it. Her face has an exotic European look, and her lips are very full and thick.

Baseball.

Rumi.

Who or what is Rumi?

Margaret Thatcher.

Dammit - nothing's working.




"Didn't you know darling? I'm Reality, Babe."

Something is happening. I can feel her fading already as she turns her beautiful head away.

"Sorry - I can't stay. But do try to remember. Please. Everything hinges on it." Her tone imploring - almost desperate.



And she dissipates like a cloud in a speeded-up YouTube clip, her wisps being sucked into the darkness of The Coal Cellar. Freed suddenly from her rather potent presence, the compulsion redoubles now and pulls me tumbling end over end into the dark hole where the white dog disappeared. I'm tiny - weightless. About the size of a small mouse I think. Tumbling. Tumbling. And still powerfully aroused.

Well this is embarrasing.

Ok people, I'm sorry this is so vague at this point and so - strange. I know it's all very mysterious and weird - but it had to begin this way. All mysteries will be explained as it goes on - well most anyway. As well as I understand them myself.

I'm curious though - is it clear enough what's happening? Could I get a bit of feedback on that please?

Also, I know the last chapter is pretty short and uneventful - hell the whole thing is so far really. Just setting the stage so far. The real fun begins with the next installment.

Trust me.

You will like it.

Three
O

Under my back the ground is hard. Thankfully I'm not anymore. How embarrassing, to enter a new chapter like that, with no idea who might be around! Speaking of which, I lift my head and look around. Well at least this place is much brighter than any I've seen yet. Large and roomy too, and so colorfully decorated. It seems to be a park with weird candy-colored bushes or low trees everywhere. No, they're - toadstools! All shapes types and sizes, ranging from teeny-tiny to gigantic. Brilliantly colored in bright primaries and secondaries in polka-dots, stripes, swirls and rings. Kind of reminds me of Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. The good one. Gene Wilder - not that Tim Burton piece of crap. Nothing wrong with Tim Burton mind you, but that movie wasn't exactly his finest moment is all.

There's a repetitive shsk of steel on steel coming from somewhere near. I get to my feet and find I can walk much better now than before. Rounding a towering cerulean blue stem the size of a Doric column ringed with bright scarlet bands I find its source - a hulking black dude seated on a low toadstool all strapped up in some kind of pseudo-military SWAT style gear and sharpening a glistening Katana. Without stopping his work he turns his shaved head to look at me. He's wearing badass black shades.


... "Blade?"

He smiles, revealing gleaming fangs.

"No - not Blade. ONK. Well, that's my acronym anyway. Stands for One Naughty Knight. Sometimes I spell it without the K though, depending on what kind of adventuring I'm up for on a given night. But however I spell it, it's still ONK - cause ONN is just retarded. Or just call me O - everybody does."

Something clicks in my head. For once something in this crazy mixed-up place seems right.

O.

I think it's the first right name I've heard here. But it doesn't stand for One Naughty Knight - not really. Something close though.

"Neener's dog bring you here?" he asks, sheathing the katana after giving its length a quick wipe against his black-clad thigh and standing to face me.

"Weiner dog?"

"No, Neener's dog - crazy little white thing that looks like some kind of balloon and floats just over the floor all the time. It brought us all. Something big is going down here. Were being corralled I think."

"Oh - yeah, that was it exactly! Nina's dog. Who's Nina?"

"Neener. Neener Neener. The Black Queen. A meaner queen you've never seen, nor leaner. Don't demean 'er. Dammit, I hate when I do that! The whole rhyming thing. I think it's part of the spell - whatever's happening here. It's got everybody acting weird and crazy - we all seem to have had certain memories systematically removed and our identities modified. I'm gonna get to the bottom of it though." His huge hands clenched into stony fists.

"Hrmmm, yeah, I've been noticing the same. Ever since this crazy adventure began back in my bedroom with my false... errr... whatever. Something. It was false though, whatever it was. I can't seem to access the word. And now I'm still in it. Whatever it's called."

"We're all in it" O said, indicating the entire park with a sweeping gesture. "We share it. And all I gotta do is figure out what it is we're all part of - figure out its name, and it's on!"

Now I begin to notice lots of other people in among all the crazy toadstools. groups of them mostly, all moving slowly - converging toward the center of the park where squats a single gigantic toadstool larger than any of the others. It's very low though - extremely broad but very short and squat. It somehow resembles a giant beanbag chair from the 60's. And nestled into a little depression in the top of it is what seems to be a huge caterpillar or segmented worm of some sort. Not surprisingly it's smoking a hookah.

"What's going on over there?" I ask.

"Let's head that way. I need to ask Ganja something. Fucker always talks in crazy riddles, but he seems to know more than the rest of us."

We make our way toward the massive toadstool, which is covered with a shockingly colorful Oriental pattern like some kind of t shirt from a head shop. I begin to hear music as we near it - and I notice two fellows standing beside the toadstool. One looks like some kind of vagabond minstrel and the other is in a traditional Scottish highland kilt and a GnR concert shirt. The Scottie is playing a bagpipe while the vagabond is blowing continuously into some kind of thick piece of bamboo thick as your arm and slightly longer than his body, which he holds upright in front of him. I believe it's a digeridoo. Strange mix of instruments, but together they're making a very hypnotic droning music filled with crazy little spinning subcurrents and rolling waves.

"That's Slush2112 and WalkingMonad making the crazy music. Mad respect to em both - coupla badass dudes. But we wanna talk to Ganjataki - he's the one on top. Watch out for that tuffin."

"What?"

"That tuffin - just aheada you there. Wasn't sure if you saw it or not."

Another low toadstool - a maroon one - with a young slender teenage girl seated on it. She's drinking something tall and foamy with a number of straws and spoons emerging from the top like a crooked little plastic forest.

"What's a tuffin?"

"lol well I don't know exactly. Yeah, I said lol - wanna make something of it?" I don't. "You just call it a tuffin cause she's sitting on it."

"Ok I'll bite - who is she?"

"Muffin. Well Lil Miss Muffin really, but we just call her Muffin. She sits on her tuffin. Drinking her hot latte. Along comes a spider, sits down beside her, and BAM!" This last said very loudly and accompanied by a quick violent arm gesture that seems to indicate an explosion of some sort. I screw up my face, scratch my head.

"That doesn't rhyme. Doesn't even make sense really. BAM meaning what? It leaves things in some doubt as to the outcome - I mean it's obviously decisive and final, but who wins? And what exactly happens? Rather a poor nursery rhyme really."

O rubs a thumb along his stubbly jawline looking perplexed. "Damn you're right. Another memory stolen. I know that's how it goes, in this crazy place anyway, but I can't remember why. Wait - here comes the spider now - let's watch and see."

And sure enough, down from the mass of mushroom heads high above comes a very large spider dangling on the end of a web and descending toward her. A mechanical spider.

"Why is it mechanical?"

"It's a bot. Goggle I think. Shhh... just watch... "

"That thing's bigger than she is! We can't just let it attack her! Shouldn't we... "

"Don't worry - Muffin can take care of herself. She's nobody's pushover. Watch."

The robotic spider touches down silently about 8 feet behind her. She obviously hasn't heard it yet. It scuttles forward rapidly, surging ahead with a sickening oily smoothness, all it's complex black limbs intertwining with uncanny grace. I catch a glimpse of several unrecognizable corporate logos on its flank as it closes in.

Upon seeing it, the girl leaps away with startling speed and power, spasmodically hurling her hot foamy beverage into what seems to be its face and letting out a piercingly loud shriek. Spotting us, she runs toward us in a long arcing curve, arms gesticulating wildly in the air over her head and shrieking repeatedly - hysterical if you ask me. This does not seem like a girl capable of taking care of herself. More what I'd call a panicky screamer.

"Well that's not right" O breathes, brows drawn down sharply. His arm flashes and half a dozen gleaming black shuriken throwing stars bury themselves in the robot's thorax. It sparks and sputters for a second then slumps on the spot and stops moving.

"She's supposed to be badass... have some kind of powers... "

From 6 feet away she launches herself against O's thick torso and clamps herself there, making sounds that could have been sobbing or laughing. She buries her head between his meaty shoulder and neck, her long brown hair streaming down his chest.

"O!! Thank god! What the hell was that thing? Heck. I mean heck. You know I don't cuss. I'm just a sweet little Canadian girl."

He lays one hand on her head and one on her back, and pretty well engulfs her in the process. "It's ok now little lady - it can't hurt you now." Somehow he can say little lady without sounding the least bit patronizing. My respect for this guy is now through the roof. They disentangle themselves and we set off toward the spectacle at the center of the park.

New update, but not a complete chapter this time. Hey, it's a long chapter! And yeah, I know my writing style has completely changed... fuck you. I'm doing this for FUN.

Ok, so I decided that was a complete chapter after all. Screw it. Here's the next one:

FOUR

Alas Poor Muffin

Muffin's head keeps swiveling around rapidly - craning all the way to look over her shoulder every few seconds. O stops, goes to one knee to get their faces on a level and looks steadily into her eyes, which are streaming tears. Her eyes are now ringed with dark circles - surely she isn't wearing mascara at her age?

"Poor thing - you're shaking like a leaf." He wipes the tears away with the back of a hand larger than her head, but they're immediately replaced by more. The dark racoon circles don't wipe away - so not mascara. Her mouth is wide open and trembling as if she's gripped in the absolute depths of horror. O again engulfs her in his massive arms and picks her up bodily as if carrying a baby. "There there lil Muffy."

"The Amygdala" I breathe. O's head swivels toward me, a finger pushes the gleaming black shades up onto his forehead.

"It's something someone told me, just before I got - here. The Amygdala. I don't know what it is - maybe an Italian dish or something? But it seems to have an inordinate amount of control in this place, and it apparently lends a little extra oomph to our more primal emotions."

O narrows his eyes in thought. "Yeah - Italian can do that."

Now we're right in front of the massive mushroom cap that's our goal. Quite a crowd is beginning to gather around it in clumps, with more streaming in all the time at a leisurely pace. Up close I can see the thick leathery skin of the mushroom is heavily seamed and wrinkled, like elephant skin. In fact I notice now that many of the toadstools throughout the park are in various stages of decay, some no more than moldering mounds of brown ooze. As I watch, a tall slender one across the park that's leaning and sagging alarmingly to one side suddenly tips and crashes ponderously to the ground, releasing a huge cloud of bright lavender spore dust and sending everybody near it scurrying away rather comically. They don't scurry far though - in fact as soon as the immediate danger of crushing is past everyone near it converges and happily lets the swirling lavender dust cloud engulf them.

And now I see that people are breaking off chunks of the soft spongey toadstool in front of us and eating it. I reach forward, touch its deeply seamed surface - it has a very nice texture. Unable to help myself, I run my hands over it, feeling every pit and pucker and the soft yielding sponginess of it. Inexplicably as I do this, my vision improves dramatically and I suddenly seem able to think much more clearly. O's massive hand covers both of mine, pinning them to the spot.

"Don't do it - you don't want to become a Shroomhead. All you'll want to do is keep eating more and drifting off into weird hallucinations, then whenever you come down you'll just do it again. I've seen too many of em succumb to it - poor bastards."

Looking around I can see it now - everyone has a glassy faraway stare and dilated pupils - some larger than the irises themselves - some with no actual white showing at all, just glassy black orbs for eyes - like that crazy cartoonish dog that led me into this whole mess.

"Alright, I won't eat any of it - but try this. Just run your hands over it - feel the surface. It seems to clear things up very nicely."

He does so, looks around slowly, and nods sagely. "Yes - this is powerful. This is good. Still large gaps in the memory, but everything is so much clearer now. Gotta get Muffin to do this - it might bust her out of - The Horror". As he says the last part he runs a hand slowly, almost lovingly over his shaved head. I can hear water drip somewhere. Weird.

"Where is Muffin?" I wonder. He had set her down on reaching our goal, and now I don't see her.

"Aw crap!! MUFFIN! Where are you?" He scans the crowd around us rapidly. "MUFFFFFFINNNNNNNN!!"

"There!" I catch sight of her briefly, far away and disappearing into a mass of people much taller than she is. She's running and still looks terrified. We sprint after her, and I suddenly notice the digeridoo music cuts off and WalkingMonad is sprinting alongside us.

"What's up with Muffin?" he asks. "Her energy feels really off."

I start to notice other girls about her size and apparent age - which I take to be about 12. They're standing around tucked into odd corners of the crowd with their arms dangling leadenly and their weird eyes just staring. In contrast to the shroomheads with the glassy solid black orbs, these girls have solid white - er make that off-white - or more of a greyish-yellow actually - eyes ringed with dark sunken flesh. All their flesh in fact is also rather greyish and sunken and displaying some fairly alarming wounds and gashes, and their hair hangs in lax dank rags and appears to be very in need of a good shampooing.

"Zombi Gurlz!" Monad exclaims and redoubles his speed. "We can't let them get ahold of her! Not our little Muffin!"

I recall the dark rings I saw forming around her eyes earlier. "Uhhh - we better hurry then."

O puts out an arm and stops me. "Let Monad go after her - he has resources you can't even begin to understand. And friends - lots of friends. Nobody is better qualified to rescue Muffin than he is - trust me. Especially once he calls in RaveAllNight and BoSH.But this is important - we seriously need to talk to Ganja - in fact that might be the kind of help Muffy really needs."

I'm still staring disbelievingly after Monad. "How can he run so damn fast?"

"... Who's running?"

And it's true - he actually seems to be gliding on an invisible skateboard. A really fast invisible skateboard. As he glides effortlessly, weaving a miraculous path through the shifting crowd, he raises an arm over his head and shouts "To me my minions!" - at which various people in the crowd break off and start moving toward him rapidly. I can't tell if they're running or using some less likely mode of conveyance. I concede she's in good hands.

Just then a crackling fireball the size of both my fists doubled up flies with a hot WHOOMPH! past my face.

Just chiming in to let you know that I haven't had the chance to read it all yet, but, I'm planning on it while I'm at work tonight.

Hooray!! A comment!!

Haha - awesome!! Hope you like it. Hell it's practically The Story of O so far! (no - not THAT Story of O! )

Awesome stuff so far, man! I really like the Wonderland feel, but with the completely original twist and dream-related nuances (which gives it a much more 'DV-ish' feel to it. Definitely looking forward to reading more.

Before reading on, i should mention that your narration makes all this so plain and easy to like.

I am all of a sudden riveted.


No regrets.

acatalephobic, I thank you for responding to my shameless begging for comments!

I realize I've violated 2 of the fundamental rules of storytelling -



1) Grab em right away

2) the main character should be actively pursuing some goal and not be a wet blanket



Due to the dreamy/lost/aimless nature of the beginning I did neither here.

But, it's been years since I did any writing, and I decided to just plunge in with only half-formed ideas and see where it takes me. I wrote the first few lines with basically no real ideas. And as usual after a long period of stasis, it took a couple chapters to get my flow on. But now I'm remembering how much fun it is to be writing a story when suddenly the story starts to write itself.

I've reached a point where I need to make a lot of decisions affecting the rest of the story before I can write chapter 5, but I'm chewing on it. I don't like to rush these big decisions, I like to fill my head with possibilities and then sleep on it a few times, let things bubble around a bit and see what comes to the surface. I'll probably work a few things out as I walk the dog, which is when lot of my writing takes place.

It's damnably hard to remember to keep writing in present tense!! I don't think I've ever done that before, but it seemed necessary to keep the sense that this is all a dream happening in real time. I keep finding parts where I lapsed into past tense, but I think I've fixed them all now. If not I apologize, and for all the grammatical errors and whatnot too. Like I said, I'm doing this for fun and mostly on the fly. Anywho - here's chapter 5:

FIVE

Ganja

I notice little fires lit here and there on the ground amid the milling crowd, and several more hissing fireballs are hurled toward the giant toadstool. In response several hulking fellows in black hoodies run into view from atop the toadstool, a few leaping down while the rest remain on top and begin stomping and batting out the sputtering flames wherever a fireball has landed. The largest of the newcomers, a barrel-chested Nordic guy, runs right past us to the little fire behind us from whence the first fireball had been hurled and grapples with the hurler. He simply clamps the guys collar with one brawny hand and slaps the living shit out of him with the other, leaving the poor firehurler reeling and dazed.

"Hey wut up Tatte87." O greets the stranger, who is as large and imposing as himself, and whose spikey black tattoos spill around the edges of his black hoodie. They knuckle bump in silent greeting. It's like a pair of hams slamming together.

"Damn E D!" Tatte curses, his steely eyes taking in the surging crowd with distaste. They're growing increasingly unruly as the afternoon light wanes and I can now hear arguing and name-calling all around.

"What's E D mean?"I ask.

The newcomer thinks for a moment and scratches his head, then shrugs. "Hell if I can remember, it's just E D. This is what they do - they argue all night about bullshit and slander each other all to hell, and talk on and on and on about all this weird philosophical crap. Damn shroomheads are trippin balls - they think they're at Flaming Man." Another volley of fireballs arcs up onto the massive toadstool and again the security team rush to put them out before any damage is done. "All you gotta do is slap the shit out of em - disorients em and they forget what they were doing and just wander around drooling. Just fuckin glad it isn't R/S!"

O cuts in: "Hey Tatte, you're actually just the guy I was hoping to run into. I gotta talk to Taki."

"What is your business with the Oracle?" asks the hulking Nordic looking fellow.

"We got some questions for him. Very important ones. Important for all of us in fact."

This seems to satisfy the northerner, who extends both thick hands and helps us up onto the spongey unsteady surface. It's like walking on a memory foam mattress. With a colorful psychedelic bedspread. The thing is as big around as a house, and sinks in a little toward the center. As we approach, the strange figure there comes into view - long segmented wormlike body of medium blue with a human head sporting a shaggy sort of light brown afro. He's wearing freaky spectacle-style shades in ever-shifting rainbow metallics and sitting in a worn old recliner. And sitting in front of him is the biggest hookah I've ever seen, sprouting hoses all over and with a decorative ceramic bowl you could eat cereal out of - mounded high with heaping dried vegetable matter and glowing cheerily orange. We sit in two of the empty chairs arranged in a circle surrounding the hookah - chairs seemingly taken at random from a salvation army store. I now notice a pair of spindly human arms emerging from the wormbody which offer us each a hose.

"Ganja dudes." Says the caterpillar fellow, a cloud of thick aromatic smoke wafting around his head like a swirling fogbank. It seems to be a greeting, so we both return it and accept the offered hoses. There's a moment of silence while we fill our lungs with some very potent smoke, during which I notice a flurry of graceful swirling movement in the middle distance - in fact right at the spot where O had first introduced me to Muffin. A strikingly beautiful young woman in an amazingly layered burnt-orange and green satin Gypsy dress is dancing and whirling toward the disabled Gogglebot spider. This seems very odd to me but nobody else seems to notice. A very pleasant warm buzzing starts to suffuse my head.


Finishing his hit, O begins:

"Taki, something passing strange is going on. We need answers."

"Coo'. All is passing strange, aint it? And answers are less important than questions. Fire away dudes."

"First, what is the true nature of this existence we're in? I don't think it's the one we're supposed to be in. Second, certain words and ideas have been deleted from our minds - all of our minds. What are they, and why? And how would be nice too. Also who."

"Damn O! Fuckin investigative reporter and shit!" Ganjataki lets out a snorting choking laugh that releases a series of new clouds around his head. He begins another huge hit on the hooka. While we wait I nudge O and motion toward the Gypsy dancer who is now seated next to the disabled spider robot on the maroon toadstool where I first saw Muffin sitting. Her tuffin. If it can be called that when she's not sitting on it, which is entirely beyond my reckoning. She's tinkering with the robot. But even as O turns his head she vanishes, and the spiderbot along with her.

Taki suddenly leans toward me and lowers the reflective rainbow shades onto his nose, his rainbow-shifting eyes drilling into my head with an incredible intensity, but seeming unfocused all the same. "The unasked question is the most important. The Vanishing Woman. The Spider Princess. Beware her most of all. She weaves the deadliest magick. You must find the center of her web to unravel all these mysteries. That is all I can say. It's too much already, but yet not nearly enough. Now fuck off dickheads. Quit bogartin' all my stash."

With that the strange caterpillar man starts giggling insanely and building a thick cloud all around himself like a cocoon. And Tatte and several of his security henchmen appear, obviously coming to remove us forcibly if necessary. We stand up and start to walk away, but just as we do I notice the worm-man's spindly arms fiddling with something buried in his left armpit - a zipper. He slides it down, opening what I now see is a sleeping bag, and thus revealing the secret of his strange segmented body. He's just a dude. A stoner. In a sleeping bag.

Tatte takes hold of O's upper arms and begins to escort him to the edge, and a burly henchman does the same for me. But O calls back toward Taki, who is now all but invisible inside his thickening cloud cocoon. "Who is the Spider Princess? How do we find her?"

A flurry of sharp coughs emerges from the cloud, causing a quickening of the swirls right in the front where Taki's mouth must be. "Dude! Come on man! GTFO. I don't know shit but what I told you man. Damn, I'm comin down hard. Need some Dorintoes and Sally-Qs and Orange Squirt."

We drop down to solid ground again. The crowd has largely dispersed with the falling of ultramarine semi-darkness. A few small fires still burn weakly here and there, and the few clusters of people remaining have become very quiescent. O is tense, jaw tight and head hung down in angry concentration. He slams a fist into this palm. "Dammit!!! He didn't tell us shit man!! Vanishing woman?! What the hell does all that crap mean?"

"Uhm... I was trying to show you... a Gypsy dancer. She did something to that spiderbot, and then she disappeared, and took it with her."

Tatte leans down and "Psssts" us quietly. Apparently so Ganja his boss can't hear. "She's SaffronAxe. Nobody ever sees her for more than a few seconds, then she disappears. Happens all the time." Then he withdraws his blonde head.

Just then a commotion breaks out in the crowd. People step aside as something moves through. Something too small to see, but it makes a very familiar jinglebell sound. O's eyes widen and he grabs me by the arm, pulls me with him as he steps behind a cluster of nearby toadstools slightly taller than us. "Shit!! It's too late!! Neener is here! Whatever you do, don't let her see you."

The strange little white dog that led me into all this suddenly bursts from the crowd, drifting smoothly a few inches off the ground and working its little legs comically. The pleasant buzz that began when I hit off Ganjataki's hookah is rapidly escalating now to something more like a tornado in my head, making me all confused and disoriented. I can feel my pulsebeat pounding in my head and its rhythm seems to make everything jump and vibrate in my field of vision. I recognize the signs - I'm about to black out.

Now something larger is moving through the crowd - making it part much wider. As colorless dots mount in my vision I can make out a tall slender woman of immense majesty and statuesque form, her head and shoulders visible above the people surrounding her and gliding forward smoothly as if she's standing on a moving platform of some kind. Where she moves she's surrounded by a stunned hush.

Her little dog spins around three times in a clear area next to the toadstool cluster where O and I are hiding, and suddenly from out of the crowd springs a scroungy little white mongerel mutt whose hair is all plastered down with something crusty and white. It leaps onto Neener's softly glowing white dog and bears it down to the ground under its weight, mounts it and starts humping for all its worth. The poor little thing turns its head toward me, beady black eyes nearly bulging out of its skull as it yelps and yips helplessly. O's arm shoots out and expertly grabs the scroungy white-caked mutt by the scruff of its neck and snatches it off her back, withdraws back into the cluster of toadstools.

"Damn!! What have we here?!" he asks, holding the mutt up and looking into its big brown puppy-dog eyes, which look immensely sad. Its muzzle opens and a strange growling animalistic speech comes out.

"Naughty Knight. Let me hammer the bitch. Get my revenge. Her black mistress did this to me! Drag that shiny balloon animal through the mud. Like me, through the salt of the sea. The salt of all my uncried tears."

"WTF!?! ScurvySeaMutt??!! Is that YOU??!! I'd recognize those immensely sad puppydog eyes anywhere! What the hell happened to you man?"

"It was Neener. I made the mistake of loving her. I love everyone, but I hate them all too. I watched Neener at her bath in the waterfall under the acacia groves with her handmaidens laving her ivory body, and I saw her in all her naked glory. I was transfixed to the spot - unable to turn away because I was stricken to the core by her supernatural beauty. For that crime she called me dog, and dog she made me. But that was not enough. She fixed chains to my collar and chained me to an ivory ship and dragged me through the depths of the sea till I emerged caked with all its salts. Let me drill that proud little bitch of hers into the dirt. All I want now is revenge."

"Sorry dude" O breathed. "That'd draw her attention right toward us. Now keep quiet - don't make me hafta muzzle you."

Now the Black Queen's coterie begins to emerge from the edge of the crowd. She's standing on a broad low platform that seems to float just over the ground. Pulling it is a team of 8 pure white stallions of immense size led by 8 massive white wolves tall as a man, and arrayed on her shoulders a pair of jet black ravens that blend with the blackness of her elaborately coiffed hair. Her statuesque ivory form is wrapped in a long white toga draped like something from a Roman sculpture and her hair is worked with fine silver filigree and studded with gems. Walking behind the platform is a pair of ornately rigged white elephants with elaborately carved tusks.

"Loving her was their only crime." growled the salt-crusted dog still hanging by his scruff from O's brawny fist. At least O had turned him so he could see what was going on. And it dawned on me - the wolves, ravens and horses and elephants... all had once been human. Transformed by her magicks as ScurvySeaMutt had been.

"It's what she does." O hissed through clenched teeth. "Turns them into her slaves. And that's the ones she likes. Her lovers. The rest she turns into poor dumb brutes like Scurvy here and lets them fend for themselves. Or lets her ravens and wolves hunt them."

And with that one of the ravens lifts powerfully and silently from her ivory shoulder and pinions directly toward us. There's something terrifying about its sense of absolute purpose, the intelligence in its black eyes. But not nearly as terrifying as the look the Black Queen fixes on us a second later as her aquiline head follows her raven's flight. Her eyes are solid black orbs like her dogs eyes, like the eyes of the shroomheads all around us. She waves a hand at the cluster of toadstools behind which we crouch and they suddenly grow at incredible speed, as if in one of those speeded-up iTube clips shot in time lapse. They balloon up ridiculously, then begin to shrink rapidly and fall instantly into rotting piles of brown pulp that just as rapidly disappear, absorbed into the ground. It's all very Freudian.

Now the other raven and the wolves all come at us. The white wolves, as tall as a man, form a ring around us and bare gleaming fangs as long as my pinkie finger. The two ravens grasp ScurvySeaMutt by his collar and lift him, bear him bodily to the ground before the Black Queen's floating platform and deposit him there, trembling and whimpering in terror. They land and take up positions flanking him in case he tries anything. O's jaws are clenching and unclenching rhythmically as beads of sweat run down his face. He seems frozen to the spot with terror.

Her obsidian eyes are locked on O's now. "My little wiggly piggly." she intones. His eyes now bulge from his head and he begins to tremble all over. And her head snaps forward suddenly, viciously, eyes slitted teeth gritted and lips drawn back in a horrible grimace to hurl the curse.

"Neener Neener!" she shrieks, sounding like a bird of prey screaming its inhuman rage and hatred. And before my eyes O transforms into a squealing pink pig. His clothing and weaponry transforms with him, shrinking to fit. Even the little black shades still fit him. He grunts and screams his displeasure but the ring of immense white wolves keeps him from running.

And then her eyes turn on me. "And what have we here, tagging along? You're new, aren't you. I haven't seen you before." She makes a pretty little moue as she considers what to do with me. But I hardly notice because the rising tide of unconsciousness that began with Ganjataki's powerful weed is swelling to uncontrollable proportions and making everything seem far away now - so far away...

Lovin' it. Amazing entrance for the Black Queen (and a not so graceful turn of events for yours truly. Lol). I have to ask; have you ever seen Mirror Mask? I would be surprised if you haven't. Some of the elements seem like they might have been inspired by the movie (though not too deeply inspired, which is good), so I'm just curious.

Great stuff.

Many thanks Sir O!

Wow, this is indeed passing strange for me... you commenting on the story I'm writing with you in it. Layers of reality and dream and story merging and intertwining and becoming indistinguishable.

I have seen Mirrormask, but I must say, I didn't really care for it much. I also don't remember it very well. Very dark as I recall, and something about it I just didn't like, though usually I love everything Dave McKean touches, and the darker the better. It's possible it remains in my subconscious and influences my writing, but more likely we're just drawing from the same influences.

I'm a little surprised at the way this is going - it mostly flows out of my mind with little or no input on my part aside from hammering out the basic plot points and laboring to come up with names that fit the characters to some extent.

Heh - I have no idea what most of these people look like or much else about them, so sometimes my descriptions might be way off. Consider it poetic license. I just got mine renewed and damn the written test was a bitch!!

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Many thanks Sir O!

Wow, this is indeed passing strange for me... you commenting on the story I'm writing with you in it. Layers of reality and dream and story merging and intertwining and becoming indistinguishable.

Lmao. Amazing, isn't it? It's like, you're reading my comment on a dream site about what I read in the story you're writing about dreaming that has me in it...

I think the left hemisphere of my brain just exploded.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I have seen Mirrormask, but I must say, I didn't really care for it much. I also don't remember it very well. Very dark as I recall, and something about it I just didn't like, though usually I love everything Dave McKean touches, and the darker the better. It's possible it remains in my subconscious and influences my writing, but more likely we're just drawing from the same influences.

I hear that. I found it entertaining, but there was so much more that could have been done with it. It's got that same kind of 'dark, dreamy, down-the-rabbit-hole' feel to the beginning of it, which you're pulling off rather well, here.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I'm a little surprised at the way this is going - it mostly flows out of my mind with little or no input on my part aside from hammering out the basic plot points and laboring to come up with names that fit the characters to some extent.

Heh - I have no idea what most of these people look like or much else about them, so sometimes my descriptions might be way off. Consider it poetic license. I just got mine renewed and damn the written test was a bitch!!

Haha. Well, I say keep it goin. The imagery you create with these DV (and otherwise dream-related) concepts is outstanding. Just the characterization of even the little things, like the dog in Nina's avatar, is great. I have the most hilarious image in my head, of that dog just hovering around everywhere. Lol.

Lol thanks!!!

After finishing this chapter when it came time to post it I got a little tremor of doubt. I suddenly started to wonder how many people will end up hating me because of this. I don't think I'm being unkind to anybody though - I genuinely like all the people I'm writing about, and I don't think my caricatures of them are too harsh. I hope. Gulp.

Oh damn. O, a little more of the story has written itself.

I just want to say - I'm sorry man. In advance.

The good news though - you will be back...

Bring it on, man. I can take it.

...I hope.

Lol I don't know man - this is gonna be rough. Hard for me to write even. Damn - I didn't realize Nina could be so heartless...

I think it'll be a couple chapters before we see your fate though. Well you had a good run. And I don't know - maybe you can still come back.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Lol I don't know man - this is gonna be rough. Hard for me to write even. Damn - I didn't realize Nina could be so heartless...

Ok, now I'm a little worried. Lol.

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

I think it'll be a couple chapters before we see your fate though. Well you had a good run. And I don't know - maybe you can still come back.

DamnitalltaHell!

Heh I don't want to run this into the ground, but I can't pass up one last pun. You'll be begging to be barbequed...