Nothing moved. The whole world was still. Birds who were chirping became silenced. Flowing water froze in big wet walls. Gossiping people stopped in mid sentence, frozen forever in time.
It was lonely. Walking down the street, everything completely immobile. No clouds moved. No wind blew. No grass waved.
The only one who seemed to be moving was a tall, red skinned person wearing high heels. He was walking casually down a suburban street. His heels clicking against the pavement were the only sounds in this strange still world.
He passed a kindergarten where a pretty young woman was waving up at the sky. He walked passed houses and streets and cars filled with silence.
And then he stopped. He was standing in the middle of Townsville's main street. Above him were 3 motionless girls, looking like they were in some kind of race.
"Excellent," his strangely high-pitched voice rang out.
#
Not much earlier that afternoon, Ms Keane had been writing a lot of complex sums up on the board. While the children stared, flabbergasted, someone was watching.
Him had been calmly sipping a champagne and watching the kindergarten teacher's theory of time travel. Thinking about it, something clicked in his brain and he had leapt up in glee.
"I've got it! Oh yes, this is a simply fantastic idea! Yes, yes, yes!" A very excited Him, danced around the room.
He watched as the raven haired puff challenged her other sister's to a race. He had never really liked that girl too much. So aggressive.
While the girls flew, bystanders shouting at them to slow down, he had done it. He had frozen time. It was alarming, one minute the whole world was bustling and lively and then in a split second, nothing. Silence.
Quickly, trying to ignore the stifling stillness, Him had gathered up the three girls, and taken them back to his lair. He sat them down on the fluffy pink carpet and looked into their glassy eyes.
"Hello girls, how lovely to see you again," he greeted. Of course the frozen girls did nothing.
Smiling to himself, he placed his claws over the girl's heads and focused very hard. He told them what to see when they awoke. He explained to them what the new world would be like when they opened their eyes. The red sky. The cracked ground. The wrecked houses. He told them everything and when he asked if they understood, they nodded their little heads.
He never expected driving the girls insane would be so easy.
#
Now with the girls stuck in the parallel universe, Him was rather lonely. Normally when he constructed a plan he had a lot of people to show it off too, but with the world frozen he had no one. No one at all.
Maybe he could wake one person from their slumber to show them what he had done. But who would appreciate this? Who would acknowledge what marvellous evilness he had created. Who?
#
It was funny, but Him had never been into Mojo's lair before. What he found inside, impressed him quite a bit. There was a wide laboratory, on one side a vast bench piled with wrenches, screwdrivers and other inventing materials. On the other side of the room was a half finished creation with multi-coloured wires trailing out of it and sparks frozen in time.
Mojo Jojo was frozen, screwing a bazooka gun onto the machine's arm. Him grinned as he moved to stand next to the monkey. For a moment Him wondered how he was going to wake the chimp up without the whole world following suit. See if the world started moving again, the girls would be brought back home from their little fantasy world and Him was sure that wouldn't be too good.
After a few seconds of thinking about this little dilemma he smiled to himself. He stretched out his claw and took hold of Mojo's arm tightly.
Wake up. Only you wake up. Wake up…
Mojo dropped his wrench onto the floor and gave out a startled shout. Him flinched at the sudden noise, having started to get used to the stifling silence.
The chimp pulled his arm away from Him's grip and glared up at the demon.
"What are you doing in my secret laboratory that no one should be in? It is not for you to be going into and I don't want anyone going inside it! The only person who should be in my secret laboratory is I, Mojo Jojo, for I live here and am the only one who should be in here in the first place! I demand you to leave at once!" Mojo yelled.
Him just smirked at the monkey and played with his goatee. Mojo looked at him uneasily. Than he looked around, frowning slightly. Him waited patiently for the chimp to figure out what was wrong.
"Where…where have all the noises gone? Why…why is everything so quiet?" He raced over to the window and peered out of it.
"Nothing is moving! Things that used to move before are now still! How is this happening?"
Him quietly walked up next to Mojo.
"Isn't it brilliant?" He asked softly.
Mojo had no reply.
#
Mojo disliked Him. He disliked Him quite a lot. Whenever he was in the same room as Him he felt the urge to run away as fast as he could in the opposite direction.
As he looked out at the deadly quiet world, for the first time in his life, he couldn't find anything to say. For the first time he started to feel a little…scared?
"I want to show you something, Mojo," he heard the demon say.
The chimp didn't answer. He just stared outside. He felt a claw grab his shoulder.
"Come with me Mojo. You'll love what I show you," Him said. Mojo was quiet. The claw tightened.
"Okay. I will accompany you with whatever you want to show me."
Him smiled.
"Let's go, Monkey-Boy."
#
They were travelling in a vortex as faster than anything Mojo had ever been in. Blue and silver streaked past and he felt his fur stand on end. A high-pitched squealing filled his ears and his brain like a microphone and he shut his eyes, trying to block it out. Stars and streaks and colours all flew madly past Mojo as they went faster and faster.
Then they stopped. For 5 seconds they stopped, suspended in the blue, purple and silver void. Frozen. He heard a voice, "I knew you'd be the only one to appre…."
Slowly they built up speed. Slowly, slowly, slowly…and then they were flying faster than a hyper-active cheetah on steroids. Mojo saw his laboratory faintly at the end of the vortex. The colours were turning orange and red as they neared the end and suddenly Him gave a high-pitched giggle besides Mojo.
The two hit the floor of the laboratory hard and painfully. Mojo blacked out for a few seconds than unsteadily stood up. Pain shot into his head so agonizing it was like a whole bunch of elephants were playing the drums in his brain.
"What on earth was that? I agree to accompany you to whatever you would like to show me, and what do you do? You nearly kill me, and than you bring me back to the place where we started! My laboratory! We started here and now we've ended here as well! Tell me what is happening!"
Mojo stared at Him who was brushing dirt from himself. He made no attempt to answer the question. The monkey felt like screaming his lungs out at his captor. He felt like bashing him senseless.
He told himself quietly to calm himself. He might've had the biggest ego ever for a monkey, but he wasn't stupid. No way was he stupid. Just look at the brain popping out of his skull. Mojo knew if he tried to fight Him he would get splattered like a cockroach.
While he was thinking about this Him had decided to finally answer the monkey's question.
"That vortex, if you were smart enough to realize, was a highway if you want to put it that way. It was a highway between the normal, frozen world and this world. My own little apocalypse!"
Mojo blinked. They were…in a different world? A parallel universe? Apocalypse?
For the first time Mojo took a good look around his laboratory. There was a huge hole torn in the roof and a red light was beaming feebly inside. The front door had been ripped open and now lay, smashed on the ground. All the benches and instruments and inventions had been pushed over and wrecked beyond recognition. Dead leaves had floated into the room via the hole in the roof and were rustling around and lazy circles.
Wait a moment! Leaves were rustling around? Does that mean…there's WIND! Things are moving! The world is no longer still!
Mojo raced out of the broken door and ran down the torrent of stairs. The noises! The movement! It was amazing, it was…
Mojo stopped. Something was dreadfully wrong here. The sky was a deep forbidding red and the ground was brown and cracked. As he slowly looked at the destroyed buildings he thought to himself, this is my dream isn't it? To see Townsville destroyed and suffereing. Then why do I feel so…so…horrified?
The demon was laughing behind Mojo. "Isn't it just brilliant, Monkey-Boy? Don't you think it's great? I knew you'd be the only one to appreciate this."
Him happily pranced over to stand next to the chimp. "Do you want to see something even better?"
Mojo looked at Him warily. The demon looked right back.
"Alright, I am willing to take a look at what you want to show me. If it includes going through another vortex I will most definitely decline your offer."
Him gave a little chuckle. "No, no, Mojo. You don't have to go through any highways this time."
He started to float off, towards the centre of Townsville. Mojo remained standing at the bottom of the stairs. Him looked around.
"Aren't you coming?'
Mojo glared up at Him. "I cannot come with you, for I cannot fly. I am unable to soar, levitate, take to the air or flutter. I cannot do any of this without the help of a machine. So I will not go along with you for I cannot fly!"
Him stared at the monkey for a few seconds. "I forgot about that." He landed in front of Mojo again. He held out a claw. Mojo stared at Him as if he was mentally unstable.
"Take my claw!"
"Why on earth would I take your claw?"
Him sighed and rolled his eyes. "If you take hold of my claw I can take you to see the most amazing thing in your pathetic little life."
Mojo nervously took hold of Him's claw. They flew off.
#
Why had it gotten so cold? When they were in the laboratory it was just a normal temperture, pleasant. Maybe it was flying at a fairly high altitude. But Mojo didn't think that was right. When he had taken hold of Him's claw a wave of coldness had run through the chimp like an ice. The first thought that came into his head was, let go of his claw and run away! Now!
When they were flying over Townsville Mojo stared in quiet horror. He saw all the hopeless people. He saw the sadness and decay. This was the thing that Mojo always wanted to achieve. Take over Townsville. Crush the people's spirit. Why was this so awful then? Why did he feel so sick?
He saw them. Those three girls. Surronded by moaning, hopeless people. A big black shape was leering over them, laughing manically. Him gave a little giggle.
"Guess who that is, Monkey-Boy?" He asked pointing at the cackling shadow. "It's me in a different reality. Isn't that awesome?"
Mojo wasn't listening. He was staring at the girls. Blossom was shaking her head, trying to convince herself it wasn't happening. Buttercup was shaking uncontrollably, trying not to sob. Bubbles, ever the baby, was crying hysterically.
The moans, the sobs the laughter all rang in his brain.
"STOP IT! JUST STOP IT!"
#
Blossom raised her head slowly and blinked. The sun was shining the birds were chirping and she heard the people of Townsville chatting happily to each other. She looked around. Bubbles and Buttercup were blinking around next to her, looking just as confused and frightened as herself.
Bubbles was the first one to speak up.
"W-w-what was that place?"
They all looked at each other. Then Buttercup whispered, "let's go home."
#
When they were safe, bundled in the Professor's arms, Blossom tried to ignore the strange feeling gnawing at the back of her brain. Memeries of the horrible future world had already started disappearing…but she did remember one last thing.
When they flew away, flew away from the haunted, blaming faces, away from Him flew away from everything…she heard something. A high-pitched voice, screaming as if it was in mortal pain, "I thought you'd understand! I thought you understood me! But you're just like the rest of them. Your not anything like me at all…"
But Blossom didn't give it any other thought. Because she wanted to go somewhere were she was safe again. Far from this wasteland. Back to the happy place she called home. When she was in her father's arms she calmly pushed the memory away.
Well seriously, why would she keep on thinking about it? She was only a 5 year old after all…