Chapter Four: The Dream that Lasted a Day: Soaked with Irony
Murdocs' nightmare has come alive.
Noodle is jabbering her tongue off in nonstop Japanese. 2d has the volume turned up screeching loud and he wants to throw something at him- a sock. No! How ridiculous. Where are all of these socks coming from? Russell must be practicing taxidermy. The zombies from behind the television screen walk out as if they were from a superior dimension. They chase Murdoc around Kong.
Out of breath, Murdoc clutches his chest and topples over into an empty storage crate. Every sound burns his ears; he doesn't have time to think. He tries blaring for help and for everyone and everything to be silent. No one hears, cares, or listens. Or maybe he has lost the ability to scream. Even worse, he may have lost his vocal cords. Has he lost his breath? No, has he lost his mind?
Who knows?
Soon, every sound freezes in time. Moans, screeches, and even the television static, cease. Murdoc looks above his head toward the lid. Suddenly, a tearing slit of metal jeering through wood occur only inches above his head. He screams and grabs for the object, pulling back in sharp pain. Blood runs dry on his green hand.
"Get out of here!" Murdoc yelps. The lid becomes translucent and he recognizes a blurry figure, a hammer. He sees a tall figure, hears an evil laugh, and senses the foreshadowing of the end of time. The end of His time.
There is a flash, and Murdoc wakes to feel fingers rubbing his eyelids; they open. His red eyes adjust to a blinding light, the sun streaming through the window. Noodle is smiling her toothy grin.
"Noodle?"
"Konnichiwa!"
Oh right, she can't speak English.
He turns around to see a glaring figure in the darkness. Red circles. Spikes.
"…Dullaerd?"
"I am not a dullard," He grumbles. "Oh, and Murdoc, the zombie guy is after you."
They mutually disappear and Murdoc sees a flash again.
"You will pay. Hahahaha! Oh, I love that laugh! Let's do it again!"
Oh great, he thinks. De la soul, again.
"No, you big-faced hillbillies."
He howls with laughter and a blue midst circles Murdoc in the darkness.
"Say cheese, say goodbye to your little princess, your kingdom of candy cane beach."
"What? Wait… the windmill island!" Why is he mentioning that?
"The zombie guy owns it now."
"It's… broken." Murdocs' tone becomes dead serious. He wants to kick some sense into these fools. He clenches his fists.
"Oh, I'm soooo, like, totally scared," the blue mist sarcastically backs down. "I need a punching bag. Yo Marcus, get me my punching bag!"
"Urg, I need a beer right now." Murdoc grumbles, impatient. But what is there to be impatient about? Could he just leave now, forget this all happened? He wants to wake up immediately. Murdoc is, unfortunately, a deep sleeper.
"Oh no you don't, you little green bean," The midst starts to rant.
"I aint…"
"Coming mas-uh, Mur- uh…" A voice stumbled out of the darkness, weak and exhausted with fear.
"I'm Bryce, you idiot!" the midst hollers. The figure slumps foreword. Spikes, again.
"S-sorry, Br-ryce-OWw! Ah, that hurts!"
"Ah, weak there, fella?"
Then Murdoc realizes something, someone.
"Hey stop that, he's my mate!"
The laughter grows like a wave and he ignores Murdoc. Out of the squealing and wincing from watching the lanky man hunch over throbbing, the figure reaches out for his hand unsteadily.
"Help me. OW!"
"That's it!" Murdoc grits his teeth. "You quit that or I'm going to put my physical being into you face!"
Bryce repeats his statement in a little girl tone.
"I hate you," Murdoc answers. "Wait, Noodle! Noodle, you there? Noodle?"
"Shut up Bryce, I'm on his side for once," a foreign accent speaks.
"Russell?"
"Yeah, it's me. It's Taxidermy time. Del can pound you into bits."
"What?" Bryce repeats Murdocs' baffled expression. In seconds, Russell, Del, and the blue midst disappear.
"Ey, d', I know you'll never forgive me for letting you in," Russell sighs and picks the figure up, exiting into darkness. Murdoc finds himself thinking the same way, deep, aching pity, and a river of endless guilt.
"Murdoc…I knew it," the Japanese voice from above him observes, startling his skin.
"Noodle…"
"Up here." She is afloat, wrapped in slithering eels about six feet long, thick like rope.
"Noodle, girl! Hold on!" It takes forever to jump, ankle-deep in solidifying quick sand.
"Be careful, Murdoc-san."
A raw slab of salmon is flung in his face. The existence of gravity grows thin in the room. Momentarily, Murdoc is sky high, facing Noodle.
"How? Oh wait, don't tell me." They were in for hot water, bubbling from the brigade of zombies.
"Fly away, Murdoc-san, fly. Find the others along the way. Don't be selfish. The zombies own this planet now, but they'll never own us. We are all weak, while you are the strong one now."
And when he wakes, Murdoc puts meaning into her words.