Disclaimer: I think it should be enough just to have that word here. Dis - claimer...it speaks for itself, no?

Chapter Two: Crimson Tunnel to/from Hell?

"Uh. Yeah. How much did you give him? He looks pretty…out there. Like in an insane way…" The young man noticed Lucas was mumbling, but couldn't make out what he was saying. The fact that Lucas was sitting in a kiddy chair at the top of a plastic twisty slide didn't bode too well for his current level of coherentness. It was also three in the morning and the park was supposed to be closed.

"Hey! Lucas is responsible for his own body. I'm not his mommy. He knew what he was doing."

"He doesn't look like he knows what he's doing right now." John interjected.

The young girl folded her arms on her chest and glared at her companion.

Glaring back, John stated, "Fine. Yes. OK. Whatever. But we can't just leave him here." He gestured to Lucas.

Their eyes followed John's gesture. Lucas was drooling. 'It'll be funny later' John thought with an inward shrug.

"All right, I'll try to wake him."

Terry leaned down so she was eye level with the slumped Lucas. Plastering on a sweet smile, she reached her hand up to ruffle his hair.

"Luuuuuucaaaasssss," she cooed, "Luuuuuuuucass."

"LUCAS!" It was a screech this time.

Lucas' eyes flew open like a wild animal who was just disturbed by humans for the first time. He didn't take the time to wonder about his surroundings. With a "Gah!" and a few yelps he was tumbling down the crimson tunnels of Hell, landing hard at the bottom.

Strange. Mulch in Hell?

"LUCAS!" It was Terry screeching again.

Suddenly Lucas knew who was calling his name. It wasn't the spawn of Satan or some other demonic creature. Well, not exactly, anyway.

Lucas rolled slowly over onto his back to see wonderful, real, stars in the real sky. They twinkled and winked at him.

Terry and John came into view above him. Their worried faces were surprisingly amusing, making Lucas laugh so hard tears streamed down his cheeks.

Now their faces seemed angry. But it's ok, because that's funny too.

a little later

Terry and John were arguing behind some trees. Lucas would eavesdrop if it weren't for all the distractions. There are more important things right now.

Everything Lucas saw had a face, some things even had tall bodies to go with. He tried not to look too much at the trees though, they were giants with gigantic heads that had green monkeys living in them. The monkeys whispered and smelled foul.

Lucas dare not turn around either, there was an alien-owl behind him and the streetlamp was moving… but it wasn't. Lucas wasn't sure why just the light was moving and nothing else. The only plausible explanation: it was possessed by a demon of some sort.

Crawling slowly and cautiously, as not to squish all the tiny frogs, Lucas made it over to a bed of flowers, to try to find some friends. They kept popping out and hiding again, startling Lucas so much he would jump and gasp.

Asking them to stop did nothing. They must not speak English. Well of course they don't, they're not real people. At least Lucas knew that much.

Hmm. Maybe this really was Hell and his friends were really demon spawn. Then he must go back up the tunnel. Lucas' head whooshed around to spy it. It was the way to freedom.

Lucas knew the rules of Hell: one must use their inside voice and one must never go back to the nothing place. The rules weren't told to him, but it was obvious to Lucas what they were.

Still on all fours, Lucas started over to the tunnel. He was a long ways away, in crawling distance, that is.

He glanced around nervously at his 'friends' and the demon spawn, he didn't want to get caught. Lucas decided he'd try to look inconspicuous by picking up the frogs and moving them out of the way while giving them encouragement to do so. He was very careful not to squish. Squishing was not forbidden in Hell, but Lucas just didn't want to be like everyone else. He liked the frogs; they didn't disappear or hide when he talked to them.

Lucas finally made it to the mulch part of the playground, where there were fewer frogs.

But the mulch reminded Lucas too much of being a flea on a bear and so he climbed up the plastic rock-wall and sat at the top to take in the view. He didn't like being this high, he didn't feel hidden enough. To compensate for the altitude, Lucas lied down and tried rolling to the nearest bridge. The dimply plastic he rolled on reminded Lucas of the skin of a chicken, and he immediately assumed that was what it was. But Lucas didn't mind because it kept him safe.

Lucas slid head first off of the chicken skin bridge and into the bear fur next to the tunnel of freedom. Sitting there for a few moments trying to recap his time spent in Hell, something very interesting occurred to Lucas: he changed his perception while in Hell. The crimson tunnel to hell was a dangerous thing while in Nothingness, it was to be feared and left alone. Now Lucas needed it, and it had become his tunnel out of Hell. Lucas used his logic to prove that he was correct about realities changing based on perception.

He must remember his time spent here so he may learn from it. That said Lucas started his way up to freedom. This must be part of the lesson: it was much easier to get to Hell than to get out. Lucas will remember that too, even though while here, he spent no time wondering how or why he would be in Hell. Using his sneakers' traction he winded up through the tunnel, inches away from his destination. He could now see the chair that he came out of Nothingness in. He was almost there.

over at the trees

Terry's arms were on her hips. She wished she could have been Lucas tonight. Instead, she was getting a lecture from someone who most definitely should not be giving her a lecture.

"Don't roll your eyes! You know he could have easily gotten puke-sick and you left him alone! Don't you know how dangerous that is!? You're a horrible sitter. I can't believe he trusted you!" John wasn't yelling, but his voice was higher pitched and tenser that it's usual relaxed tone.

Terry was getting impatient. They had been standing around arguing for almost ten minutes. "I'm not a bad sitter! But I'm tired, can we pah-lease finish this later? Let's just get him and bring him back to my house."

The sincerity in Terry's voice made John give in, he was a little tired too. "All right." he said in his normal tone.

They both turned to search the half-lit playground for their blond-headed friend. They had left him in the grass not even ten feet from them.

Walking around toward the slide, John was about to call out for Lucas when he stopped dead in his tracks.

Terry stopped also.

"Oh. My. God. You have got to be kidding me!" Terry gasped.

John let his head fall to his chest as he also sighed in defeat. This was going to be a long night.

Lucas sat in the kiddy chair at the top of the twisty slide. He was drooling.

If you haven't figured out, this is Lucas on shrooms. Terry and John were based on some friends of mine. blah.

Ahem. Uh, I took a lot of this from a recent shroom experience I had, so it's legit. haha…legit!…(sorry!)

This took a while because I had a different plot I was gonna do, and I couldn't decide which would work better. But the other one would have been really long and strange and would have lost some people since it was a xover. I'll do that one another way.

So this is I guess the predictable plot…ya know drugs and all. Anyways!

Thanks BUNCHES for the reviews of the first part! I hope someone reads this far…geh…and tells me about it! 8)

Question: would somebody tell me what they thought was going on in the first part? I guess I'm just curious. 0.o