Chapter 54: No-Where's Ville
At seeing the sign's happy greeting, Ralph was anything but happy. His eyes narrowed, he gently set his good dog collar down on the ground for a moment.
"Sugar Russia City...," he breathed softly out loud in disbelief as he peered over back at the little town.
Wait- haven't I heard of this town before?... He thought after a second before making the connections.
Oh, yeah...Back in the ambulance, one of those ladies had said something about a 'Sugar Russia' Animal Hospital... Although I don't see one here...He wondered as he peered once again through the town.
Oh! And back on the police force, the mastiff recalled, those officers had mentioned Sugar Russia...and I was the supposed "captain" of this town's police K-9 unit...
At his memory, Ralph couldn't help but chuckle at his inadvertently clever lie. He hadn't even heard of this town at the time...
But as he began to think even deeper about this town...Ralph realized that he had thought he hadn't heard of this town before then...But he had- or, at least, how it was described.
He'd heard from others of a weird, lonely town in the south that had many, many food places...that had an overwhelming, strong smell of sugar in which the town was named after... and that was just a few miles further south of a big town called Whack-A-Mole Village...
"This is just got to be that weird, sugar-crazed town kinda over by Whack-A-Mole Village I heard about..." Ralph mumbled out loud to himself. "It's the only other town I think could be around here somewhere...other than that town with the horrible road, whatever that town's name was-"
But there were no other real towns visible further down south, or even west or east of this Sugar Russia... So, where is Whack-A-Mole Village from here then? Ralph pondered for a moment as he peered around on the hill...before turning to look over his shoulder.
Looking back north, from his vantage point on the hill, he now saw a warm glow of lights from a town many miles back towards the direction he had come from.
Confusion settled in Ralph as he tried pieced everything together, looking back towards Sugar Russia.
"Wait...That has to be Whack-A-Mole with all the lights back that way, then...meaning we possibly drove through that town during the ambulance ride... trying to get to this town of Sugar Russia..."
A sudden realization hit Ralph then, a feeling of rage and despair quickly beginning to bubble up inside him.
"But a trip to the town of Whack-A-Mole Village from Arcadia could be a day or more's journey on foot...! There's no telling how long it's gonna take me to get back home from here in Sugar Russia... which is even further down in the south than Whack-A-Mole Village and that stupid other town is...!!"
Ralph snarled in frustration and jerked his head up as he continued his rant and panic.
He didn't even attempt to calm himself down by pointing that at least he knew where he was now or to pause and construct a plan on how to get home from the starting point of Sugar Russia City- not that it would've even mattered if he had tried to do so, however.
He knew that there was too far of a distance to travel between this town and his, especially traveling on foot. It could be a journey that could end up being well over a two days trip- if not more, what with that one town's bad road. And Ralph couldn't bear to go over that jagged, bumpy road again.
His heart sinking, the mastiff realized that there'd be almost no possible way he would get back to the pet shop in time to win the bet.
Even though he had the collar now and the bet wasn't even technically over yet, Ralph already knew he had lost.
Lost everything, in fact.
And at that horrible point of fact, Ralph felt sick and sad... And straight up mad.
Vicius bad dog mad- all at the cutesy, sleeping town of Sugar Russia.
"I knew I should've just followed this road back the way I came! That would've gotten me a little bit closer to home I bet!" He bitterly and loudly shouted as he narrowed his eyes down back at the source of his rage."Closer than I am now! I just wasted precious time following that stupid road getting up here! AND on top of that, I'm even further from home than I thought I might be! Argh!"
His eyes narrowed in rage, Ralph snorted as his ears flattened. "I gotta get out of this little no-where ville!"
Huffing in indignation, the dog was about to turn back the way he came and charge back down the hill...but never made it that far.
As he turned, the infuriated Ralph came face-to-face with the biggest mutated scorpion he had seen yet.
