The folk one is dying to meet
Disclaimer: none of the characters are mine, but belong to Impossible Pictures™.
"And so, Patrick, I've caught you at a long last."
Danny and his brother Patrick-slash-Ethan were sitting in a cave lost somewhere in the mist of time. Danny wasn't fully sure where their chase-and-pursuit had led them to, for while earlier in the fog he had seen some giant silhouettes that could've been giant carnivorous dinosaurs of the past or just as easily they could've been huge flightless birds from the future, now he wasn't seeing any of the local wildlife.
Then again, this didn't matter. His brother was finally with him, and he was driving Danny insane.
"Danny, listen to me," Ethan was telling the older man, "you can't take me back home? I'll go mad there, mad! Well, worse than I already am. Please let me go, I'm unfit for the regular society-"
Something snapped in Danny. "You want to talk about insanity?" he snapped, even as the fire in their cavern where they were staying for the night cast great black shadows upon the walls. "You want to talk about fitness into regular society? Don't you know the problem I'm having? The ghosts of Helen Cutter, and that wretched raptor, and those primitive ape-men – they all are haunting me ever since I left area 333 or whatever Connor has called it! They are present even now, mocking me with their glares and stares! Yet you don't see me taking out my frustrations on the neighbourhood, now do you?"
Something snapped. Something snapped high in the ceiling of the cavern that Danny and his brother were staying at, and a huge shower of granite and other stone debris fell on top of the two men, killing them by grinding them into dust even as the huge avalanche rolled down the slope and into the river that was flowing into a swamp...
/
"What has happened?" Ethan groaned, even as Danny was beginning to realize that on one hand, the other man was no longer tied, and on the other, their fire had gone out, plus-
Ethan was the first to catch on: "Where all of these characters have come from?"
"Didn't you hear him speak?" Helen Cutter asked, as she languidly stretched against one side of the cavern. "We're the ghosts that were haunting Danny because he forgot to bury us, see?"
Danny slowly looked around. Sure enough, Helen Cutter aside, the australopithecines (or their ghosts?) were there, slowly walking around the periphery of the cavern, looking rather cautious. Then again, considering that everyone else appeared to be rather bigger than they were, some caution wasn't amiss.
Ethan, however, wasn't finished. "If what Danny said is true, then where's the raptor he was babbling about?"
"Over there, playing with the alligator," Helen explained serenely, and sure enough, the raptor was there, playing indeed with some alligator that Danny hadn't seen before.
"The poor thing got swept up by the avalanche you started," Helen explained carefully, "and so it got smashed up and drowned in its burrow. Very depressive for it, I'm sure, but at least the raptor is enjoying the company of another reptile now, you know?"
"Hmm," Ethan said slowly. "Looks like we are dead, because this place looks nothing like the cavern we were in earlier – much too damp and dark. Oh well, better this than the underworld – do you have any cards or dice that we can pass time with?"
"I've got dice – I don't usually gamble," Helen replied, pulling out a pair of black and white dice. "These'll do?"
"In a pinch," Ethan agreed, and soon he and Helen were engaged in a lively game of dice (and the australopithecines were slowly gathering round to see what they were doing).
"No," Danny whispered desperately, "no. This isn't my afterlife! I cannot be stuck in a dark, damp hole underground with a bunch of animals, my brother and Helen! No!"
Danny fainted.
TBC
