Miro and the group are busy enjoying their newest discovery in the Mall to its fullest extent. After seventeen rounds of bowling, Ricca and Kate were tied for first, Anna was around the middle, and Miro and Matthew's score hadn't yet risen above room temperature. After this many frustrating matches, Miro and Matthew decide something.
"Look, umm…" Miro begins, sighing a bit. "Can we take a break? I'm getting a bit bored of… taking a dive for you people."
Kate laughs at Miro's obvious lie.
"You're taking a dive, huh?" She says in total disbelief. "Then please explain why you kicked the shoe shelf after you got seventeen gutterballs in a row."
"…I was… playing the part." Miro says. Matthew nods, implying that he was doing the same when his anger got the better of him and he knocked a nearby ball washer well out of commission.
"And why, pray tell, are you doing us this favor?" Ricca asks, just as incredulous as Kate was.
"We're… we're nice." Matthew says. Miro nods this time.
"Oh? When did this start, just now?" Kate asks.
"Of course not!" Miro says. "We've always been nice, right, Matt?"
"…Possibly." Matthew says. "And… you only noticed how nice we are just now!"
"Really?" Kate says sarcastically. "Well, let's see here. I've kept track of your niceness for the past five years, Miro, let me see if I've overlooked something…"
Kate pulls a small book from a backpack that she had resting on the ground and flipped a few pages back on it.
"Hmm… Starting from my twelfth birthday: Not nice, not nice, not nice, not nice, not nice, indoors, indoors, had a flu, had a flu, had a flu, not nice, not nice, funny-"
"AHA!" Miro says. "You see, you overlooked that day! I was funny!"
"Yeah, but 'funny' isn't always nice." Kate says. "Remember? You were being chased by a bull and fell face-first into a bucket of giblets. That was the funny part."
"What was Jack doing with a bucket of chicken guts outside?" Lumina asks.
"They weren't originally…" Miro mumbles.
"What?" Lumina says.
"There was a bit of a hurricane that ran through the town," Miro explains. "We had trouble getting all of the chickens in the coop, and we… left one. Poor fella didn't stand a chance. He was blown right into Mom and Dad's bedroom window. Their… closed window."
"Ooh… 'splat'?" Lumina suggests.
"Big-time." Miro says. "It took ten days to clean it all off."
"Eew! So THAT'S what that was!" Lumina says, grossed quite out. "Oh, I thought that you had thrown a pot of chili against the window!"
The rest of the group had a bit of a gag reflex, but recover a moment later.
"Ugh… We had the same problem." Anna says. "I think it might've even been the same hurricane that passed by. One of our chickens, Monty… Dad hasn't really gotten over it yet."
"Yeah, I remember that…" Matthew says. "Monty whizzed through town and right through a fence…"
"Ooh…" Kate says.
"A wire fence." Ricca adds.
"Yeow…" Miro says. "Well, it could be worse. It could've been a cow."
"Yes, that would be quite tough to explain to the kids." Matthew says, nodding. "I can see Jack giving it a shot, though. 'Well, hon, it was raining and the glue that held Bessy together washed off. That's why she's all in little cubes.'"
"On the plus side, you wouldn't have to worry about running out of hamburger for a while." Kate adds.
"Can we please stop talking about this?" Anna asks. "I want to have a rest, too. There's some things I need to look for."
"Okay, fine." Ricca says. "Let's have an hour-long break, go on and do what you want."
"Okay." Miro and Matthew both say, walking off immediately. They exit through the doors, leaving everyone else to go and do whatever they intended to do.
After walking silently down a random hall for a while, Miro and Matthew go out of their deep thought processes and let out a 'Hmm…' before speaking.
"Any ideas on how we can turn the game around for us yet?" Miro asks.
"Nope." Matthew says, sighing. "You?"
"Nope." Miro replies. "I can't think of a single thing, we're in a pretty big rut."
"We could score perfect games twice, with the others not scoring a single point either time, and they would still be ahead. Yes, it is a pretty big rut." Matthew says in agreement. "We have to find some way to get the edge on them. Maybe we could cheat…"
"How do you cheat in bowling?" Miro asks. "That's one game where cheating is totally impossible!"
"Nothing's impossible, if you're willing, strong, and stupid enough to do anything possible." Matthew says. "That's some wise words that Jack gave me before he dove off of Mother's Hill with a hang glider built from potato skins and pipes from the plumbing of Barley's house, held together by chewing gum."
"…And I'm guessing that five broken ribs, a broken arm, and fifty-seven stitches proved him wrong?" Miro suggests.
"No, actually…" Matthew says. "…It was fifty-nine."
"I see…" Miro says, cringing a bit. He then looks to his right and notices a very large store.
"Hey, y'think we'll find something in there?" He asks.
"Possibly." Matthew replies. "It looks to have many aisles, rows, sections and the like. There must be something useful…"
They both walk into the large room, which had a high roof and many sectioned aisles in different categories for people's shopping pleasure. Miro and Matthew first decide to check the hardware section for usable things. Once they were deep within the aisle, Miro notices something.
"Ah… This'll do well." He says, walking to a small pile of propane tanks.
"What do you have planned?" Matthew asks, looking at them from behind Miro.
"I think… we could put some of this inside their bowling balls, and then have them explode before they reach the pins!" Miro says.
"…But wouldn't the girls notice that their bowling balls are all exploding?" Mathew asks.
"Only one way to find out." Miro says, kneeling down and opening the nozzle of one. It hissed as the gas escaped from it.
"What're you doing?" Matthew asks.
"I need to make sure they're full." Miro says.
"Oh." Matthew replies. "Say, I've got the perfect thing to make them blow up." He pulls a lighter from a pocket in his backpack. He had been using it to light the bonfires as they traveled. It was lucky that he decided to bring it, because no one in the group had the patience to try the 'rub two sticks together' version of fire-lighting.
"Awesome." Miro says, ignoring the fact that the tank was still going. "But are you sure that it's not out of fluid?"
"Yeah, I'm sure." Matthew replies, walking up to the tanks and looking at them. He was trying to come up with a way to get the liquid in the propane tanks to not become a gas once it was released into the bowling balls. His mind wanders back to the lighter, however.
"Then again, I guess I should make sure…"
"MATTHEW, NO-"
The resulting explosion reduced a large section of the hardware aisle to a smouldering mound of discount tags and bits of former all-purpose battery-powered multi-functional things, which would have just ripped some poor idiot off anyway.
Matthew and Miro wake up a few minutes later, groggily shaking their heads clear of soot and patting down any parts of their clothing that were still smoldering. They both sit up, waiting patiently for their senses to put themselves back in place.
"Matthew…" Miro says slowly.
"Yeah?" Matthew replies, looking over to him.
"You… are a BAD DECISION-MAKER!" Miro yells.
"…Yeah." Matthew says in agreement, sighing. He looks around once, suddenly noticing that they had landed in a separate aisle, far distant from the one they were previously at.
"…Do you have any idea where we are, Miro?" Matthew asks.
"…No, actually." Miro replies, suddenly noticing this himself. "It's kind of… unsettling, though."
The aisle that they were in had very little resemblance with any place they had ever been. Everything was amazingly clean-looking, with many strange little containers, which were coloured in shades of blue, purple, teal-ish, or any other pigment which looked soft and fluffy. The boxes were labeled with strange names that were foreign to Miro and Matthew. They get up slowly, walking tentatively toward a shelf and looking at them.
"…Light …Days?" Miro reads on one of the boxes, confused.
"Flexible… Pads…?" Matthew says, just as confused.
"Non-crinkling?"
"Portable?"
"With wings?!" Miro exclaims. "What the hell is this?!"
"I don't know… but it frightens me…" Matthew says, him and Miro taking a small step back.
"It must be some sort of 'hygiene' thing." Miro says. "That would explain why we don't know what it is…"
"Some of these look like what I use to clean out the sink…" Matthew says observantly.
"Yeah…" Miro says. "…Let's get out of here."
"Good idea." Matthew says, him and Miro beginning to walk down an aisle. Miro stops them, however, and points down.
"Look, there's a trapdoor." Miro says. "I wonder where it leads…"
"Only one way to find out." Matthew says.
"Right." Miro replies. "Help me move the box of Maxis on top of it."
Matthew nods, he and Miro going to either side of the huge box and pulling it up with all of their strength. They groan and grumble, slowly stepping away from the trapdoor.
"Man… these things are heavy!" Miro says, straining to keep it held up.
"It even says so on the side of the box!" Matthew adds.
Once they had moved fully away from the trapdoor, both of them drop the massive box in relief, the box landing with a loud boom. The relief on Miro's face was short-lived, however, as he suddenly notices that that it had landed very hard on his right foot. He looks down, takes in a slow breath through clenched teeth, and shuts his eyes.
"Matthew…" He begins.
"Umm, yes?" Matthew replies.
"GET THIS BOX OFF OF ME!!!" Miro demands, losing his calmness and desperately trying to pull his foot out from under it. Matthew quickly runs over to Miro's side and tries to push the box off. Failing to do this, he tries kicking it off. This attempt also failing, he instead tries to kick Miro's foot out from under it. He can't kick the foot itself, so he aims for the next nearest thing; the shin.
"OWW! OWW!" Miro says. "Quit that! Just help me lift it!"
With their combined effort, Miro and Matthew both tilt the box over, freeing Miro's foot and making the box fall on one side. Miro immediately begins hopping on one foot, holding his other, crushed one and mumbling phrases that are best left unquoted.
"You okay, man?" Matthew says.
Miro stops and looks at him.
"No." He says in a very palpable, obvious, 'no-duh-you-moron' way.
"Right…" Matthew says, putting a hand behind his head. "So anyway, let's open that trapdoor."
The two of them approach the trapdoor, Miro not daring to put much pressure on his right foot as he walked, and they pull at the handle, opening it and letting it fall to one side. They couldn't tell what was inside, or how far down it went, since everything below was shrouded in darkness.
"…You first." Miro says.
"No, I'm okay, you can go…" Matthew says, not looking away from it.
"No, I insist." Miro says. "It's the least I can do after you helped get that box off of my foot!"
Miro quickly puts one hand on Matthew's back and gives him a headstart on the way down. Matthew's yells could be heard as he fell, and once Miro heard a sound that determined that Matthew had found the floor, he whistles in commendment. It was a deep hole.
"You okay, Matt?" Miro yells down.
"I will be, just give me a minute to re-locate my more important joints!" Matthew yells back from below.
"…Hey, can you put something soft down there for me to land on?" Miro requests.
"Sure. Actually, there's already something soft down here!" Matthew replies.
"Are you sure?" Miro asks.
"Oh, yeah, there's a ton of it all over this place!" Matthew says.
"Okay…" Miro says hesitantly. "I'm trusting you. Here I come!"
Miro takes in a breath, exhales slowly, and lets himself fall down the hole. After a moment of freefalling, Miro makes a much, much harder landing than expected. The ground was slightly sandy, with a very solid layer of rock underneath the sand. Miro remains on the ground for a long while, and then gets up extremely slowly, obviously in less good condition than he was previously. That was saying something, too, since he had just recently been near the center of an explosion.
"…I thought you said… that there was something soft down here…" Miro says in an acidic tone.
"What's softer than air?" Matthew points out. A vein in Miro's head became very visible and he clenches his fists. After a moment, he takes in a breath and calms down. No need to lose composure over something like a freefall into almost solid rock.
"Let's just try to find a way out of here." Miro says.
The room that they were in was extremely strange. It looked like an underground cavern. The walls and roof were made up of soil and rock, and the only source of light was a hole in the roof about ten meters away, in which sunlight shone down. How sunlight could get in through the middle of a mall was up for questioning, but Miro and Matthew just figured that there was a sunroof somewhere nearby. The two of them stepped under the light in interest, looking up. The hole was about a meter wide, large enough for them to climb through. Unfortunately, it was much too high.
"Fer-get it. There's no way out." A macabre-sounding voice spoke from beside them. Miro and Matthew jump, looking in its direction. The voice sounded old; wasted-away. Once Miro and Matthew's eyes adjust to the light, they see what the source of the voice was.
"Wh… n-no way…" Miro stammers, stepping back slightly with his eyes open wide.
(HA! Time for me to leave you in suspense! I know, you're making strangling motions at your computer monitors right now, but the chapter I had planned was just way too long… maybe even longer than that last one I did. This just seemed like a good cut-off point. Besides that fact (the fact being that I'm lazy and I wanna publish this chapter before I'm presumed dead and/or fingerless), myself and a couple of other authors are co-working on… well, I'll keep it secret for now. Needless to say, it's HM and it's going to be pretty friggin' long.
Oh, and before I forget, look at the bottom-left of the screen. Do you see the little whitish-blue rectangle, kinda the same colour as those weird potatoes that you were once double-dared to eat, with the words 'Submit Review' in it? Good. Now, do you see the little 'Go' button next to it? Nonono, more to the right… right… right… STOP- No, wait, left… left… GOOD! Now please push it, and tell me what you think about the story! I like opinions, ideas, suggestions, thoughts, indeterminable grunting, whatever! Okay, yes, I'm milking it… I'll just shut up now… REVIEW!)