This is the tenth chapter, please enjoy!
Chapter 10: Designed Journey
The following cuts to the next morning at seven o'clock. After a long interview with investigators and detectives, Goombella and Dry Bones were allowed to leave only if they were to come back the following day for more interviews. As they were outside alone in a lone part of a hotel, Goombella took out the photograph of Wendy to show her death clue.
"The bottom of the movie sign poster has hook supporters, pointing right behind her head," explained Goombella in misery. "I was too ignorant to see that."
"No, don't say that," said Dry Bones. "We tried our best, and you saved Ludwig at least."
"I shouldn't have," she muttered. "Ludwig is such a dork. Wendy was just starting to believe all about Death when she was killed suddenly." She sighed and looked around her, trying to figure out where to go next. It was already Tuesday morning, and their flight would leave at the night of Friday.
"We'll find Jill," said Goombella. "I bet she was on that Insanity ride along with Frank too."
"Why do you think that?" Dry Bones asked.
"Because it makes sense," she explained. "But let's go find her before it's too late. I heard she was in an academy, so probably an academy in Las Vegas."
"We'll hope for the best," said Dry Bones. Like always, he used the computer in a Computer Pay Place without paying and searched for academies in their area, with Goombella at his side thinking about Lahla and her picture.
"There's an academy the closest to us called the Big Brain Academy," said Dry Bones. "But I don't think she's there."
"Try checking the list of faculty members for each one you see," suggested Goombella. "Look for Jill Hillsherry."
"Jill Hillsherry," he repeated. He soon found a list of all the academies in Las Vegas and clicked on each one to find their members working in each academy. Meanwhile, something was bothering Goombella about the day before.
Right after Wendy's death, her hand had changed into a dark shadow of some unknown sort. She had felt different, in an evil way of pleasure of what was in front of her. The feeling was too strong at that moment the night before, but she could clearly recall it at that moment.
She had felt pleasure in Wendy's death.
Then she was falling down, down to the Earth and to the glistening ground below. She was having the exact same falling vision that she was receiving for the past days. Falling, falling, falling…
"Death!" gasped Goombella suddenly, causing Dry Bones to look at her in surprise. She was sitting in her chair in the Computer Pay Place.
"Are you okay Goombella?" he asked cautiously.
"I'm just recovering from Wendy's death, that's all."
"I know it was very bad," said Dry Bones. "But I know something that'll make you happy."
"What?"
"Five minutes to get rid of it!" he chuckled.
"Stop it!"
"Fine," he replied. "I found out that you were correct and that Jill Hillsherry is in an academy called Degree Effluence at Trihydrate H20, which is around twenty minutes from here."
"You found that already?" asked Goombella in amazement.
"Already?" he asked back. "I don't think forty-five minutes was really quick, do you?" Goombella shook her head to clear her mind up from her dizziness, and followed Dry Bones to his car, which he had just bought when they were released by the police. Feeling positive and excited to finally meet another experienced person, Goombella relaxed her mind. What if Jill knew the solution to Death's design?
"I think she's a water maniac," added Dry Bones. "She was the head master of the Water Department Headquarters in the Mushroom Kingdom, but then it got destroyed when Death targeted it." They drove in further silence, just gazing out in front of them in an awkward stillness.
They pulled up at the academy in twenty minutes, to find out that there were no students over the spring/summer vacation. There were only a few cars in the parking space, making the academy look desolate and quiet.
"Do you think she's in this academy right now?" asked Goombella doubtfully.
"We have a six out of……one-hundred and sixty-nine chance," said Dry Bones. "Six cars in this parking lot besides us, and this academy has one-hundred and sixty-nine faculty members. If you reduce it, it is two out of……fifty-six and a third of a person, perhaps an amputee or an anorexic person who looks like one-third the size of a normal body."
"I don't think there could be one third of a person," pointed out Goombella. "But please, Jill has to be here." They slowly entered through the doors.
"Room, uh, 666," read Dry Bones, noticing the unlucky number. "Professor Hillsherry, Water Academy Master. Owner of Degree Effluence at Trihydrate H20 Academy."
"Wow, this academy belongs to her," realized Goombella. "She must be here right now." After finding the elevator, they both entered it to discover how technology filled the elevator was. There was a touch pad directly in the middle of the elevator, and small lock spaces in the walls for students to store their stuff as they ride their way in the elevator. There was a TV in the corner of the ceiling, which Goombella thought to be a tutor video. Besides this were a couple of more interesting gadgets in the six by eight foot area
"Wow," examined Dry Bones. "You have to draw your floor number to continue, just like the Nintendo DS." With excitement he drew the number sixty in his sloppiest yet still-readable way, and the machine replied back.
"Floor 50."
"Not exactly," Dry Bones called out. "I wanted floor 60."
"Very well," replied the machine. It examined their faces with its built-in face scanner, and because someone had installed the two peoples' faces, the machine recognized them immediately.
"Welcome, Goombella Cheney and Drew B. Discet. Jill Hillshery has been looking a lot forward to seeing you two." The machine beeped, signaling that it turned off. They looked at each other.
"Jill already knew about us too!" said Goombella in surprise. "She probably knows our situation, just as we knew hers."
"Then let's go!" exclaimed Dry Bones. "She's definitely here."
To both of their delight and relief, they realized that the sixth room had their lights on, with a whooshing sound being heard from the inside, an experiment Jill was currently working on. On the front and the side of the door was the name of the professor, cheater, young toad, water-obsessed character, scientist, survivor, or any other word to describe the strong-willed character who worked so hard on finding a solution, who would end up dead by a flash of Death in a sooner chapter: Jill Brakenex Hillsherry.
She turned around, startled, until she realized who the two visitors were. She was a toad with dark, brunette hair tied in a bun to keep her hair from danger, with blue eyes which matched along with her crimson lipstick. Although she was in a lab and was supposed to dress more proper, she was wearing a black tank-top along with a pair of rusty jeans. She was pretty, but smiling her brightest when she saw Goombella and Dry Bones.
"What a coincidence!" she smiled. "I was just about to leave off and search for you guys in the next hour."
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Ms. Hillsherry," replied Goombella. "I was always looking forward to meeting you in person."
"Pleasure to meet you too, Ms. Hillsherry," Dry Bones said. "We read all about your blimp situation, and we read your Infamous Death Curse History essay thing on a website."
"Just call me Jill," she said back.
"Do you know our situation?" asked Goombella. "Our situation with the Insanity Ride and me having the premonition, then my friends and us dying shortly after? I believe you were on the ride too."
"I was, unfortunately," said Jill in a disappointed voice. "And Frank was probably sitting next to me the whole time on the ride, but I had no idea because I was talking to my new friends in the arm next to me."
"Who were they?" asked Dry Bones.
"Oh, they were the Comedians Brothenians, those famous comedian and stunt brothers," said Jill.
"Those brothers," suddenly remembered Goombella. "When I suddenly fainted on the monorail, they helped me get up. They were two hammer bros in those sparkly clothes."
"Those are them," said Jill. "But, the downside is I might have been sitting with one of the brothers instead. You know, the three of them, Frank and the two brothers, they're all hammer bros, and I might have gotten confused."
"Besides that," said Goombella. "Have you discovered any information of a way of cheating Death?"
"Yes," said Jill excitedly. "To cheat Death you need to be erased from his list. This is what I discovered." She made her way to a long, glass chute laid across a table horizontally filled with water which was being pushed by two machines on both ends, making the water wave against two sides.
"First, according to the puzzle, the origin of Death as a figure originated in Germany," she explained. "The German word for Death is Tod, and I needed to find an acronym for Tod. Try to guess."
"Turn of…Destiny?" guessed Goombella.
"Truth or Dare!" said Dry Bones. "Or am I wrong?"
"That's what I thought of first," said Jill. "But I needed to think, and then I got it. Time of Departure. The only one I came up with was the time departure for the blimp. So I took out my blimp ticket from my Death journal and saw the time; 10: 27 A.M."
"What was that for?" asked Goombella.
"I found the coordinates for them, ten degrees North and 27 degrees West," Jill explained further. "And it led to the Western Sahara in Africa, near the city of Hawza. So I traveled all the way there."
"All for that?" exclaimed Dry Bones. "I mean, yeah! Of course I would do the same thing you did."
"No, I actually thought I was going crazy," admitted Jill. "But I had a fear of hot places, and my obsession with water couldn't help me at all, plus the fact that I was still on Death's list. So I flew all the way to Hawza and traveled West in the hot sun for days, and then my gas went down. I fell into a pit of scorpions because Death was still after me, but I managed to dig a long tunnel until I finally reached the surface of the sand. And it turned out that someone stole my jeep while I was gone for two hours." She let out a small chuckle.
"But I finally reached the ancient tribe whom I was supposed to meet, as I felt. The chief master was Head T, and I explained why I came here. He said I was courageous, and it doing so, he gave me a white crystal which he said would give me a hint in my most desired question, which was, of course, 'How do you get out of Death's list?' So I took it, and his comrade drove me in a helicopter to Japan, where he said that the country was also a hint, and I should find another person who knew how to find the crystal. He dropped me off in a place called Mizu Hodai."
"Then what happened next?" asked Goombella, impressed and amazed at Jill's hard work. "I'm really impressed and amazed in your hard work."
"Thanks," Jill replied. "Anyway, I went into a store and saw an old Japanese woman, who spoke English and had rather colorful hair. I explained my entire journey, and she said that this town's name might be helpful in figuring what to do. I got a Japanese dictionary the next day and found out that 'Mizu' meant water and 'Hodai' meant subtitle. The next day the old woman brought me to a Japanese restaurant, and the place had lots of clocks in it. I had some delicious katsudon, and asked her what clock was in Japanese. She said it was Tokei. I was suddenly reminded of Catherine Tamago, the Japanese birdo who died in our blimp situation in a horrible way. The restaurant she worked at was the Tokei Numa, where she unintentionally killed Yoshi. I said goodbye to the old lady the next morning and headed straight to Las Vegas, where I thought my life would be safe. I won in less than a week to actually own the academy, which many people actually liked and favored. But then just recently, the day before yesterday, I remembered to finish my Death solution. I tried to figure what to do, and I came up with this; put the white crystal in a long sideways channel filled with mizu, water, and since hodai meant subtitle, I'll submerge it, and send a 'Tidal' wave towards it, by pushing waves to it by both sides to create the effects of a tidal wave. And I'll wait until something happens to the white crystal before I can continue." She finished talking with a smile of satisfaction on her face.
"Wow," said Dry Bones. "You are a genius."
"Are you sure everything you did was correct?" asked Goombella. "I have a feeling that everything is correct, but just in case something is wrong…"
"No, everything is correct," confirmed Jill. "I had a dream of it by Death. He's getting very angry at me, because he was sending vices to me and all that stuff, but I know I'm correct."
"We'll try to defeat him before someone else dies next," said Goombella. "Death would then become stoppable, and our lives would be new."
"There's only one problem," said Dry Bones. "Who's next to die?" Goombella took the photographs out of her bag and told Dry Bones to explain what they were to Jill, and as they talked about the pictures, Goombella thought of the night of the disaster.
Like a frisby, the eight-legged machine struck directly into the observation deck below, shattering glass as the people in the deck watched in horror. The arm which had struck into the glass was the seats of Wendy and Ludwig, and blood was only seen at the edge of the arm, along with a horrific dissortment of two bodies. The other seven arms were sticking in the air, as two other people fell below, their screams echoing through the air.
"Jill was one of them," remembered Goombella clearly, and remembered that Jill had been the second one to fall. The first person was definitely a hammer bro., but she tried to remember who it was. Then the look of the hammer bro. suddenly flew into her head. It was Frank's distorted face as she remembered him screaming to his doom.
"Frank," she whispered loudly to the other two. "He's going to be killed next."
Once again, the cliff hanger ends with mentioning Frank. This is you last chance to email Frank before something happens to him! Try to find his email in the previous chapter.
Thank you for reading people! My goal is to reach 45 reviews for the tenth chapter, so thank you if you choose to review. I will update later.
