Sixteen: Much Pain and a Flashback
The next day, Joanna woke up in the infirmary. She couldn't remember how she'd gotten there, but when she tried to stand up, her body ached like nothing else had ever ached. It felt like something had broken every bone in her body, and then allowing them to heal the wrong way. Her skin prickled as if stung by a thousand needles. And, which she noticed as she sniffed her clothes, she was smelling strongly of strawberries.
"Oh, dearie, you shouldn't try to move just yet," came the kind voice of Jennyanydots, who was standing by her side. "Take it easy. You have a lot of healing to do, and I suspect that you're rather weak at the moment."
Joanna blinked. Even that hurt. "What... happened?" she mumbled hoarsely.
Jennyanydots calmly dabbed the student's forehead with a moistened cloth. "You mean you don't remember?"
"No..."
Joanna frowned. She had vague recollections of the past evening. She remembered... dancing. And... having fun. And she thought she could remember a magic show as well, with Mistoffelees performing, showing them one trick after the other. She had barely drooled at all. She had felt extremely proud about that fact. And then... then...
Strawberries. Why were the strawberries important?
"Well, you did hit your head rather badly," said Jenny and sighed. "You're not the only one, my dear. A lot of people ended up here after last night."
"Was it... mini-Pollicles?"
Jenny smiled. "Oh no, dearie. Strong as they may be, they're not resilient enough to wreak such havoc. Actually, I believe they all went into hiding after the... incident. I haven't even seen 'Dots around, and she's usually so brave."
She was referring to her own mini, Jennyany-Dots, who was rather small but made up for her size by being spunkier than the rest of her kin. She could usually be found taunting Macvity, Macaivity, Mcavity and McCavity, all of them rather intimidating minis. So if 'Dots had run off to hide, something bad had definitely happened last night.
"We didn't... stampede anything, did we?" asked Joanna nervously.
She remembered the last time they had tried a collective stampede, and the punishment they had received by miss Minnaloushe. Sometimes she had nightmares about having to clean the entire university by herself, with the entire faculty chasing after her, waving whips of fire around and shouting at her in languages she didn't understand.
Joanna shivered. If that was the reason, that they had glomped the canons, then she really didn't want to find out exactly how mad miss Minnaloushe was.
But Jennyanydots shook her head again. "No, you didn't stampede. Actually, I think you did rather good. You behaved, and we were very proud. Of course, it wasn't your fault, the thing that happened. I'm sure the Twins didn't know exactly how bad things were going to get, once they'd freed their new invention..."
"Invention?" Joanna repeated. "What invention?"
Jenny pretended that she hadn't heard the question. "Anyway, your friend Misty is here to see you. She was one of the lucky ones. She got away with barely a scratch. A lot of students were not that fortunate, I'm afraid." She turned around and waved for Misty to come closer. "I'll leave you two alone."
Beneath her fur, Misty looked very pale. Her right arm was in a sling, and she had some scratches on her face, but otherwise she seemed fine. She gave Joanna a weak smile as she sat down by her side.
"Hey," she said softly. "You gave me quite a fright. How are you feeling?"
"Okay," said Joanna and tried to shrug, but it turned into a grimace of pain instead. "No wait, scratch that. I don't feel so good."
"Yeah, I can imagine that." Misty hesitated. "You... don't remember what happened, do you?"
"No. Jenny wouldn't tell me."
"Okay... er... Well, to put it bluntly, you sort of... died last night."
Joanna bolted up straight, not caring about the pain in her sore bones. "WHAT?"
Misty put up her paws in front of her face to protect herself in case of hysteria. "It's okay, the magicians fixed it! I mean, you're not still dead! I mean, you should be fine now!"
"How?" asked Joanna through clenched teeth. "How did I die? What happened? Misty, you've got to tell me!"
"Okay, fine, calm down!" Misty sighed. "But I... don't remember every little detail. So bear with me, okay?"
Joanna nodded impatiently. It was strange that she took this so seriously. She knew that students died rather often at OFUC. It wasn't such a big deal, honestly, you just sort of passed out and then you woke up in the infirmary with a scolding Jennyanydots nearby, who had nothing but Aspirin to offer for the pain. Joanna knew of a fair few students that had died more than once. Apparently a few of the more deranged ones had a competition to see who could die the most times before Christmas break.
Theoretically she knew that the process involved some deal with the Everlasting Cat, but that was all she'd figured out. Now she looked at Misty with disbelief in her eyes.
Misty opened her mouth and began...
Twelve hours earlier...
Misty looked around to spot her friend. Joanna was watching Mistoffelees, who was standing on stage with a large top hat in one paw. He did a magical gesture at the opening of the hat, released a little of the power that dwelt within him... and then he started to pull one little kitten after the other out of the hat.
"Magical!" bellowed the Rum Tum Tugger cheerfully and applauded.
The students cheered in ecstasy, and Mistoffelees blushed slightly. This made a few of his fangirls drool, but they restrained themselves from glomping him. They knew that the Canon Bodyguards were nearby, and they did have some sense of self-preservation.
Misty wasn't interested. Sure, Mistoffelees had his moments when he could be kind of hot, but she much preferred the Maine Coon standing beside him. She had been sitting closer to the stage when Tugger was playing the bagpipes earlier, and now she was all fangirled out for the time being. She was completely satisfied with standing by the food table, stuffing herself with cream and delicious winkles while keeping one eye on the stage in case Tugger would come back up.
Mistoffelees bowed and left the stage. His number was over, and his fangirls sighed in disappointment. The Jellicles to perform next were Coricopat and Tantomile. At least, that's what everyone thought.
The Twins went up on the stage.
"We have an announcement to make," they said together.
"An important announcement," added Coricopat.
"Our masterpiece is completed... And she is indeed a work of art. We wish to introduce her, if we may."
"What is this masterpiece?" asked miss Minnaloushe.
The Twins merely smiled mysteriously and bowed. Then they went up to the red drape in front of the pipe's opening, and they pulled them aside...
Misty stared. She knew that everyone else did so too. And how could they not stare?
It was huge. It must have been at least ten feet tall, and almost the same in breadth. The air suddenly filled with the sickenly sweet smell of artificial strawberries, so strong that Misty's eyes teared. She couldn't stop looking at it. Cold generated from its massive, pink body, that looked like it was made from jell-o more than anything else.
It looked at the students with large, pink eyes. It seemed surprised, although Misty couldn't for the life of her understand how a big blob could look anything but... well, blob-like. And then it howled.
Joanna looked sceptically at her friend. "A pile of pink goo? That's what everyone are so afraid of?"
Misty shivered. "You didn't see it coming. You... it... Oh, just let me finish the story, will you?"
It started to move. And it moved fast, much faster than you could expect from something that big. The Twins tried to stop it by shouting commands in a language that Misty had never heard before but supposed was magical in nature, but it had no effect at all.
The students closest to the stage were completely mowed down. Misty saw Joanna's frightened face as her friend disappeared under the body. She heard bones crack, and muffled screams. She saw it all, unable to move with terror, and the thing just kept getting closer.
Suddenly she was knocked to her side, and crashed into Puredeadthingy. Both students fell into a pile, with a Jellicle over them. Terrified though she was, Misty still recognized him as Plato.
"Run!" the tom hissed and clawed at them. "Run, you stupid girls!"
When Misty didn't move, Plato pulled her to her feet with surprising speed, and then turned to see if there was anything he could do.
Misty helped Puredeadthingy, and both girls took off running as fast as they could. The last thing Misty remembered was something grabbing her by her ankles and throwing her into the air... and then things went dark.
"And as you can see," finished Misty with a gesture towards her injured arm, "I didn't exactly escape with ease. I got off easy, though. I was lucky."
Joanna blinked. "How... how many people died?" she asked weakly.
Joanna shrugged with one shoulder. "At least twenty people. That's around half the student union. The ones who didn't die got badly wounded." She paused. "Jellicles got badly wounded. They're treating Plato here too. And Admetus."
She nodded at a pair of beds that had been shielded from view by a white screen. The blue lights coming from it told them that Mistoffelees was there, using his magical powers to heal his friends.
For the first time since coming to OFUC, Joanna didn't feel like glomping him. She didn't even feel like squealing.
"Did they stop that thing... whatever it was?" she wanted to know.
"I'm not sure. I think the Twins managed to calm it down somewhat. They're very sorry. They never meant for this to happen. They thought they could control it."
Joanna relaxed and laid back down. "Okay. Good." She sighed deeply, and then she noticed that she was still wearing her flower costume. The red petals looked rather tattered by now. "Some Halloween, huh?"
Misty smiled dryly. "Yeah. Some Halloween. Hey, Jo?"
Joanna, who had closed her eyes, opened them again. "What?"
"What's it like? You know... dying? I mean, I never did, yet."
Joanna thought about it. "I don't really remember. I hardly remember anything from the party, other than that there was dancing, and that Tugger played the bagpipes." She smiled a little. "That was rather cool. But the dying part? No. I don't know."
"Oh. Okay then." Misty stood up, prepared to leave. At the last moment she turned around again. "Jo?"
"Yeah?"
"For what it's worth, I really liked your costume. And your dance. I thought it was nice."
Joanna's smile grew wider, even though it hurt her face. "Thanks, Misty."
"You're welcome."
A/N: Hm, a much darker chapter... Creepy slimy jell-o monster...
Cookies to Lobo Diablo, Zazzie and Aislin of the Shadows for knowing that the movie I was looking for was "Casper"! Yay childhood!
Answers to Reviews:
Krissy4: I've read it more than twice, the thing with Macavity's levitation powers. It sort of annoyed me... And you're not imagining things, updates tend to come around twice a week. That's because my imagination is working overtime.
Roman de la Croix: Moppet? And yes, I am very proud indeed. I had no idea this story was going to be so popular!
TamerianRaven: Yes, yes, you are the fox. :)
Eclectica: Frank-N-Tugger... Actually, that sounds rather delicious.
Aislin of the Shadows: Yes, she is a Misto fangirl. At least, that's what she wrote in her enrollment form, and what she wrote in her enrollment form goes!
Jemima-luvah: Ah, you can get a cookie anyway, even though you didn't know the movie. :) You can be in any class you want, it doesn't matter what you write. I don't really look at that much.
In that story, it didn't make much sense at all. When I think "levitation powers" I think "the power to fly," not "throwing people around..." Hm. I wish I'd think things through more... And ack! An error! This shall be fixed right way!
Ralli-Rah: If you want to be the bunny, you can be the bunny. :)
And finally: Gamivair, I got your email, and you're in. I can't answer on emails from an aol Dot Com address for some reason, but I believe I've said so before...