The park was serene, and for the first time in ages, there were no evil, otherworldly, or random catastrophes or phenomena present to disturb the atmosphere. It was no longer a bustling, crowded setting - this surely would have disappointed Mr. Maellard - because all of the hectic excitement and movement had finally died down. The late afternoon sky was a blotchy blue-gray, consisting of blotted out sunlight behind the exhausted storm clouds that were still trying to decide whether or not to unleash the heavy rain and hail onto the land below.
The house gave off a comforting, homey feeling to the hybrid as she followed the enormous yeti outside. Truth be told, she looked like the clouds that hovered directly over her head: rugged, grim, lonely, and uncertain. However, despite her numerous untreated injuries that were most likely infected by now, she felt very much like the park she resided in: calm, peaceful, and unexpectedly happy. Kairo believed that it wasn't the park that made her feel so lighthearted, so content, it was the person that she was with. Well, technically, the yeti she was with, but this was beside the point. Kairo felt and unexplainable eagerness to learn more about him, to interact more with him, to be around him simply to feel away from the world. Not, it wasn't necessarily in the name of love that drove her to want this; one could very well say that it was in the name of curiosity.
If only that dumb old saying about curiosity killing the cat wasn't in the way.
Skips gently sat down on the second to bottom step of the staircase that led up to the house, and Kairo plopped down right next to him, subconsciously flicking her tail back and forth with delight. Skips noticed this in a flash.
"Happy to be relaxing for a while, huh?" he politely questioned.
Kairo's maroon ears twitched. "Hm? Oh, yeah, uh, sort of. Feels good to just sit down…" Even though it hurts my cuts and bruises like a motherf-
Skips interrupted her thoughts.
"You look really tired. You should get some more sleep, you know. Hopefully, now that you're part cat, you'll be sleeping more."
"What does the cat part have to do with anything?" Kairo lifted an eyebrow.
"Cats sleep most of the day."
"Oh. Duh."
Skips chuckled. "You also look very, uh…what's that word I'm looking for?" he rested his bulky chin on his palm. He knew she would take the bait. Before thinking anything through, Kairo blurted out.
"Malnourished?" she said with a voice full of hope and optimism, happy to be of help to a friend, before she realized that Skips had tricked her into saying something she otherwise would've kept to herself. Skips couldn't help letting a little bit of laughter escape from under his breath. "Precisely," he chuckled. "Malnourised. The 17-year old hybrid let out a high-pitched groan and buried her hands into her face. "Ugh! Gosh, I'm such a retard! It's just…you're so easy to talk to, you know? Promise you won't tell?" she spoke with a scratchy voice.
"You can tell me anything, you know." he responded, pulling something out of his back pocket and handing it to her. "Here, this should hold you over until the pizza comes. Not a lot of nutritional value, but it should make you feel better." Kairo took the crackers gratefully and greedily tore open the plastic wrapper. "I noticed…" he began to speak as Kairo stuffed an entire cracker into her mouth hungrily. "that after you got all excited over the music you got from the mall, you used up a lot of your energy, causing you to feel drained and exhausted and resulting in you collapsing into Benson." For a second, Kairo didn't know what the heck he was talking about. Then she realized that he was referring to what happened five minutes prior to coming outside with him, and she eyed him with awe and curiosity.
"You fbwere fwatsching me?" she asked with a mouthful of crackers. Skips shook his head no.
"The Portal was. That's what it does, it has to make sure its efforts to keep you safe weren't in vain. You are the one it chose to be sent here for that reason, and if there's anything that threatens your safety or wellbeing, you've got to tell one of us." he sounded much like a reprimanding father, something that Kairo missed with all her heart, but wasn't willing to give in to. In other words, there was no way that anyone at the park (aside from Pops, of course) would know about the gashes that resided just beneath the clothes she wore.
"Anyway," Skips refocused the conversation, snapping Kairo out of her temporary trance. But Kairo interrupted him.
"Whoa, wait. You said that the Portal was watching me. So how do you know about it?"
Skips grunted. "Well, not only was I standing there watching you," Kairo slapped her hand over her face. "But every Immortal has a connection with the Portal, and knows what comes through, where it shows up…" Why the chosen ones are sent…Skips added in his mind, not saying it aloud because he knew that Kairo would most likely freak. "So that means, all of the Immortals in both this realm and in your realm know you are here."
"There's Immortal people in my realm."
"They're sent to every realm by the Portals. One way or another, chosen ones come in contact with them. You have most likely already met one of them in your realm. Do you…happen to remember anyone from Earth that was easy to talk to, like me?"
Kairo racked her brain for anybody that didn't threaten to kill her for talking to them alone. "Um…there was this one dude…Gourdon. Can't really remember his last name. He was really nice to me, and protected me from all of the…bad things that were in my realm." she concluded quietly.
"Having met him is probably why you are here in the first place; without him, the Portal Panel may have never found its way out of the dusty corners of the attic. See, everything the Immortals see, the Portal see. Everything that the Portal see, the Immortals see. That's how it works. Anyway," he tried again to refocus their discussion for the second time. "Usually, one only loses energy so rapidly after not eating for a long period of time, say… three, four days."
Kairo began to wring her hands, her eyes jolting from one place to another. Slowly the puzzle was beginning to fit together. "Um…hey Skips?"
"Yeah?"
"About the Portal thing… you said that whatever the Portals see, the Immortals see, so whatever the Portals happen to see is also seen by the Immortals…what-what exactly can the Portal see?"
The yeti looked down at her with solemn eyes. "The Portal sees everything, Kairo."
Kairo felt a shiver go down her spine and an uncomfortable knot in her stomach formed. Everything that had happened to her in the past, maybe even her thoughts, had been broadcasted to a bunch of Immortal dudes she didn't even know through the Portal. This was all but reassuring. A loud honk came from in front of the house, and they turned their heads to see a bright blue pizza delivery truck desperately trying to get their attention. Skips stood up abruptly and pulled Kairo up with ease. Together, they walked inside to fetch the money. Before they were all the way inside the house, Skips turned around and eyed the truck suspiciously, but shaking it off and not thinking much of the unsettling wave that overcame him.
Coming out about 30 seconds later, alone, to find that the pizza truck had been abandoned with its engine still running, was enough to make Kairo feel frightened. As she stood dumbfounded in front of the vehicle and fiddled with the twenty dollars in her hand, she heard someone come out of the house and spun her head around.
"Did ya pay yet?" Benson asked, closing the door behind him and leaning up against the wall of the house, crossing his arms as he did so.
"Well, I would, if there was someone to pay." she said calmly. A quizzical expression found its way to Benson's face. "What?"
"Look, dude." Kairo stepped aside and pointed at the empty driver seat of the pizza delivery truck. "They totally left. And they left the engine on, too. What is up with people these days?" Kairo stuck her head inside the truck, her rear being the only . "There isn't even any pizza in here, man! I bet they took it and-" something came up behind her and kicked her right below her tail, sending her lurching forward into the car. She let out a screech.
"Really, Muscleman!?" Benson said angrily after seeing that he had literally kicked her butt and sent her flying into the vehicle. Muscleman let out a hoot. "What now, Shorty!? I just kicked your butt into a pizza truck! You know who else likes to kick Shorty's butts into pizza trucks?" He asked the hovering ghost beside him. "MY MOM!"
"MUSCLEMAN!" Benson shouted again to get his attention, feeling his face grow red. Muscleman turned around and smiled. "Oh hey Benson! I didn't know you were out here!"
"Clearly," he muttered, before taking it upon himself to walk to the other side of the pizza delivery truck and opening the passenger side door. She was sent tumbling out and was sprawled out awkwardly on the ground. She looked up and saw Benson staring down at her with an ear-to-ear smile (well, if he had ears, it would be one). "My bottom," She put on a pouty face that randomly changed into a bland one. "I'm hungry." she stated plainly.
"Well, nice to meet you Hungry, I'm Benson." he said as he gently pulled herself up from the ground and plucked a twig that was protruding from her hair. "Let's go fix you up something that'll hold you over while Muscleman finds those pizza delivery guys and brings them here so we could show them a piece of our mind," he said venomously, looking over his left shoulder to glare at his pudgy employee. He was satisfied when he heard a low, depressed groan, and turned around contently.
-X-
Muscleman slammed the door to the truck, probably cracking its window, and snorted with loathing for his gumball machine boss. "Man, why do we always get stuck with having to do the dirty work?" he huffed before turning to his friend. "Hey Fives, do you think you can fly up above the park to see where those losers went?" High Five Ghost replied with a thumbs-up and skyrocketed into the air; if he were still human, he wouldn't even have broken a sweat.
HFG flew up as high as the storm would allow him to go, which, in truth, wasn't really that high at all. He didn't need to worry about sunlight obscuring his vision because for one, it went right through him, and two, by this time the sun was completely hidden behind the storm clouds that began to grumble and groan faintly. Squinting the holes in his head that were supposed to be eyes, he scanned the park, looking for people with the same colored uniform that was on the car - Cheezer's Pizza Delivery Service. When he thought he saw the guys he was looking for, he hovered just above them to see them more clearly. But when he saw that they were not necessarily what he was expecting, he gasped. "Oh no, not again!" he exclaimed before flying back down to his friend.
"Did you find 'em, bro?" Muscleman questioned. High Five Ghost shook his head. "Well, yes, but…" he leaned in and whispered something into Muscleman's ear.
Muscleman's face went pale and expressionless. "Oh no, bro…" he said, before running as fast as he could into the house to spread the dreadful news.
Author's Note: Okay, I know. Late post. You have the right to scold me. I'm sorry it's so late (and it's so short), but what did I tell ya? Anyway, I hate to go Judith on you (it's sort of a downer to hear XD haha Where The Wild Things Are lame joke not funny whatever) but don't be expecting an update any time soon. But, you have my word that I will not stop this story. Because I hate when people write a well-rounded story and just stop in the middle of it. It bugs me. So I'm not gonna pull that on you guys.
See ya l8r Angel H8rs
~Toxin
