Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with another chapter from VOiD. I have picked out a chapter for you guys containing the perfect balance of happy fluff and gut-wrenching sadness! You even get a glimpse into Kelsey's past! But before we get on with the fun, how about some replies to reviews?
Replies To Reviews
YoshiEmblem: Yes, I know, there was SOOOO much foreshadowing in that chapter!
Somebody10101: You'll find out EVERYTHING later, don't you worry... HEHEHEHEHEHEHEH!
Nwinds: I'm going to check that game out, it sounds like a buttload of fun.
Guest: Yeah, that's a common typo I always end up with, but I've got it fixed now.
clubby789: Just think of that golden hammer Fix-It Felix has in Wreck It Ralph, it's like that.
CSICreeper: Well thank you! :3 I can feel my face get hot... X3 You just made MY day, I'll just say that. :3333333
Enderdude: Oh, Lucas does have a very interesting story to tell, that's for certain!
JumpingJacks1357: Oh yes, don't you worry, there'll be PLENTY o' drama coming up later! And all those other questions of yours can't be answered, I'd give too much away, so you'll just have to wait until later in the story. Sorry, I'd answer every one if I could... Just keep reading to find out! ;D
Guest: Oh, I totally see what you mean, but trust me, I wasn't thinking of The Miners Destiny at the time, but I do see what you mean. Actually, with the whole Mickey talking to Mark thing, it's actually because he finds out he's a Mobwhisperer to ALL mobs later on. Shhh, don't tell anyone! ;)
Guest: I guess so, yeah.
BfheadGamer: Oh yeah, there are first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh walls involved. I don't remember what the first three are. I know that the fourth is the thought-space between a creator and the creation. The fifth wall is the physical space keeping a creation from being physically with his/her/its creator. The sixth wall is the wall that separates the creation from changing itself inside the creator's thoughts using the knowledge that it is just a thought. And the seventh wall... Well, the seventh wall includes all of them together so you have to try really hard to break the seventh wall. Got all that?
dadmitch1: You'll find out, I guess! HEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEHEH!
Kyle McShade: Just remember, this chapter is a mixture of both fluff AND depressing scenes.
Right-o! Now then, let's get back to the actual story!
Hello, this is Pastrinator64 with another chapter from VOiD. Last time on VOiD we watched as the entire group decided to stop for an entire week to rest before they continued on with their journey. As well as setting up their temporary home, Mark tried to set up a less-than-temporary relationship with Kelsey, but once again failed to do so. Once the house was set up and Rexum established the rules of the week, they found that if they were getting into trouble they'd be under house-arrest, ESPECIALLY if they wandered into a dangerous place called Whirlpool Alley just fifty blocks from the shores of the nearby beach. Mark went to bed that night and had a crazy love dream with Kelsey, only waking up to find himself kissing Lucas's filthy socks. Now we decide to split our views and see how Mark spends the rest of their first day of the week, and how Kelsey spends her day after that. (Warning, Mark's day will be roughly five times shorter because before this chapter started they'd already gone late into the afternoon with building a house, so he got more like a quarter-day.)
Now, let the story commence!
Chapter 11: Just One Week (Days 1-2)
Day 1-7: The Delusional Woods (Mark's POV)
Mark sat there for another twenty minutes wondering what to do. He couldn't really concentrate, because every time he looked over his shoulder he could see either Gabe or Lucas looking at him. He would just turn back around and ignore them, but that would only last for about thirty seconds before he looked back again.
So instead he decided to continue with his walk that he'd been on before. As he was walking out the door he heard an oink behind him and saw Mr. Pig following him.
"Alright, you can come too." muttered Mark.
So Mark and his new pet pig walked out through the door, and it squeaked again as he closed it behind him. He thought about replacing the door with another one, but he was just lazy and didn't want to do anything involving work, even something as minor as that.
So the two of them walked into the woods, taking a nice calm walk through. Everything was so quiet, and Mark could even hear his breath echoing through the trees. The trees seemed to be breathing, too, just breathing with life as he passed. He'd never actually thought much about nature, even despite the fact that his mom had been an environmental activist.
They both walked for another few hours before stopping to rest. Mark sat down on the grassy hill they were climbing and pulled out a porkchop. Then Mr. Pig scuttled backwards and squealed. Mark looked at the porkchop in his hand and laughed a little, putting it back in his hotbar.
"Oh, right." instead he pulls out two carrots, tossing one to Mr. Pig. "Here, we'll eat carrots instead.
After a quick snack of carrots they headed out into the forest again. But then a few more hours of breathtaking nature later, Mark looked up into the sky to see the sun just beginning to descend towards the horizon. He looked down at Mr. Pig and said,
"Alright, let's head back; we'll be able to make it back to the house before night. We wouldn't want to be stuck out here when it does turn night, everything'll mutate and try and kill us if we stay..."
Mr. Pig seemed to understand his words somehow, because he too scuttled along Mark as he jogged in the direction they came. He continued to pace himself for the rest of the hours, and after about five hours they saw an opening in the trees.
"Alright! We made it!" said Mark.
Mr. Pig oinked excitedly as they came through the wall of trees into the opening. But then Mark stopped for a moment. Their house wasn't even there anymore. Mark looked around for a light of any kind, but there wasn't one. As he looked up at the sky he could see the sun almost touching the horizon. They didn't have much time to find the house; everything was going to mutate in just another hour.
So instead they crossed the small patch of grass amidst the line of trees and got back into the woods. They ran forward for a while, and Mark would check how far the sun went down practically every minute. After another half hour they still hadn't found their house. Mr. Pig began to squeal nonstop, quiet at first, but then louder as they got even more lost.
With only five more minutes to go, Mark was in a full-fledged sprint, his panic setting in, clouding his thoughts. He only had one goal in mind as he tore through the trees at top speed: Get the heck out of here. Then the sun had dipped completely below the horizon and the stars had come out, only each of them were glowing with red instead of calming white-blue light. The moon was back into its mutated phase, its mouth dripping with blood, its eyes searching the forest for someone to lick up and swallow. Mark and Mr. Pig had only been running for five more minutes before the trees in front of him formed a complete wall. Mark looked left and right and the wall stretched on and on. He punched the wood to get through to the other side, but then the trees vibrated, knocking Mark over.
The wall of trees started to shift around, breaking the long line. Mark and Mr. Pig seemed glued to the floor in fear as they watched the trees shuffle on their roots like spiders, all coming together to form a giant mass. The crawling trees clumped together to form two gigantic horny feet, two huge legs, and then a torso. The gigantic tree monster's chest split apart, and out from it came a cluster of jack-o-lanterns that formed a creepy face. The tree giant looked down at Mark and he let out a noise barely audible while Mr. Pig's squeals became even louder.
In his panic, Mark turned around and sprinted in the other direction, grabbing Mr. Pig around the middle to carry him to safety. The tree giant followed them with gigantic booming steps, crushing trees like they were made of paper as it walked. With every booming step Mark and Mr. Pig were launched five blocks into the air. Mark did his best to keep his balance and hold onto Mr. Pig at the same time, but then one time he fell flat on his stomach after the tree giant launched him with its footstep. Mark was lying scared and out of breath on the ground, the wind knocked from his lungs. A few seconds later he turned onto his back and stared up at the tree giant, which was bending over to get a good look at him with those jack-o-lantern eyes.
Then all of a sudden, the jack-o-lanterns that made up its mouth shifted from side to side to create an opening, and from out of it slithered many mossy vines, curling out like the tentacles of a monster. Mark was so horrified that he almost fainted right then and there, but he was jerked awake when the vines grabbed him around his two legs and hoisted him up into the air. He yelled out and screamed for help, but he couldn't. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Mr. Pig trying to avoid capture of the evil vines.
Mark was taken into the mouth of the pumpkin face, right inside the tree giant. He grabbed at the floor beneath him, trying to get a grip on something, but it was no use, the vines just dragged him across the floor. Then he found himself being dragged down a staircase. His chin bumped at every step.
"OWOWOWOWOWOWOW!" he repeated, his head thumping the staircase about twenty times before the vines turned in a different direction.
Mark got dragged down two more hallways until the vines chucked him into a larger room of exactly 10x10x10. Mark stood up and stared around him in the room, and to his horror he saw many other vines whipping both boys his age and grown adult men. There were no women, for some reason. Mark was completely enraged by the scene before him, and he whipped out his diamond sword, yelling as he charged the nearest jumble of vines. He slashed at a couple of vines whipping a young boy, splitting them in two. But the next moment later, the vines grew back as though he'd done nothing, and two of them wrapped around Mark's hand, wrenching it backwards, and his sword went flying.
He was then swung upward just by his arm, being thrown five blocks to the other side. Mark lay on the ground panting, his back aching badly. Then he felt something grab his leg, and he saw a vine that had dropped from the ceiling that was coiling around his leg he scratched and slammed his fists into the vines, but they just bounced back without any effect.
More vines dropped down like tentacles, wrapping around Mark's legs and arms, constricting tightly. Soon he was suspended in the air, his arms and legs completely wrapped in vines. Then two vines sprouted from the ground in front of him, and they rose up like rising snakes. The next moment, one of them pulled back and flew forward, whipping Mark's chest. He felt searing pain go through where it hit. The other vine whipped Mark too, and they continued to do that, and all Mark could do was scream out in pain. Soon Mark could feel blood soaking his chest, and still, what could he do to stop this? Nothing...
Day 2-7: The Vivicious Vines (Kelsey's POV)
Kelsey was lying on her bed that night worrying about Mark. He hadn't come back yet and it was already past midnight. Her thoughts wandered to the thought of him being attacked, and her stomach sickened. If he really had died, it was her fault for not telling him about her true feelings. Just the thought that she wouldn't be able to talk to him ever again made tears come to her eyes.
She thought of the dream she had the night before for the fifth or sixth time that day. She had gotten a glimpse of her past, her greatest memories with her old boyfriend. She loved it when she had those dreams, because now that she was alone she was still able to feel loved in those little moments. She longed to be loved like that again.
Finally, Kelsey reached her decision and stood up from bed quietly. She was going to go look for Mark even if she died in the process. Kelsey grabbed a bunch of torches and her iron sword, and then tiptoed towards the door. Unfortunately, Rexum sat meditating right next to the door, so she had to be extremely careful when she passed him. As she was pushing the door open it squeaked—even though she'd bothered to replace it several times, the squeak didn't ever go away. She held her breath and watched Rexum's face to see if he was stirring. He wasn't, so she pushed the rest of the door open and walked through into the night.
Kelsey walked to her left into the forest nearby, and then remembered that there were mutant mobs in the forest at night. So she kept her guard, walking slowly and silently. The wet grass squeaked beneath her bare feet, and the only other noise was the occasional screech, gurgle or hiss of a monster somewhere else in the forest. Kelsey was left alone, though, by the mutated mobs hidden in the forest. Just a half hour later she found a long wall of trees lined up side by side. She looked curiously at it, tapping it with her finger, putting her ear to it, and then she looked from side to side at its endlessness. Suddenly, there was a snapping sound and Kelsey screamed as snakelike vines began to slither from out of the cracks in between the trees in front of her.
Kelsey turned around and ran, up the grass was wet and slippery, and she tripped over. A searing pain coursed through her ankle, and she knew that she broke something. Then something wrapped around her other ankle, and the next thing she knew she was yanked up into the air by one leg. She screamed at the top of her lungs as the ground shrank farther and farther away. She flailed, trying to get rid of whatever was around her ankle, but all she did was drop her iron sword, which fell until it hit the ground, wedging into the dirt with the handle up.
Kelsey just continued to scream, flailing desperately, but her other ankle burned with so much pain that she had to stop and save her breath. She continued to be dragged into the air for only a few more seconds, because then she felt herself jerk to the left, still hanging upside down. Then the thing around her ankle let go and she felt herself hit something spongy. Her ankle burned even more and she gasped in pain. She turned her head to where she had been a moment ago and saw a doorway to the outside. She was about to attempt and escape, but then the doorway turned into solid oak wood, vines covering it the next moment.
Kelsey looked around and saw that she was in a small room of only 5x5x5. She also noticed that the walls, the floor and the ceiling were made of oak wood as well. One other interesting thing was that vines were covering each inch of the room, even the floor, which felt spongy. Kelsey stood up with effort, putting all her weight on her good foot, and looked around at the room. She limped over to the side of the room and punched at the vine-covered wood, but before she could do anything the vines clustered together to absorb the punch, making her fist bounce back.
She walked back to the middle of the tiny room and looked around for another way out, but found none, and started to panic even more. Suddenly, she felt the floor beneath her shift, and when she looked down she saw the vines from the floor curling around her ankle again. She panicked and shook the vines off, backing away, only to step in another set of moving vines. They grabbed her bad ankle, and she screamed in pain, but she couldn't yank herself free. She kneeled and tried to pry the vines off, but then they just tightened and began to snake up her leg.
Kelsey continued screaming, her one leg now stuck in place, and felt something along her other leg. She turned to see the other vines wrapped around her other ankle, and she started breathing fast, her panic making her dizzy and sick. She could no longer stop the vines from completely overtaking her. Soon the vines had slithered up to her torso, coiling around her like snakes. She couldn't even stand anymore, because more vines from the floor wrapped around her waist and pulled her to the floor. There was a clump of vines behind her, and they pulled her down to it so that her back was up against it like it was a chair, only the vines from the clump slithered forth and wrapped around both her arms, pulling them to either side.
Now Kelsey was completely ensnared by the vines, and her screams did her no use, just making her tired. If she had just brought the proper armor instead of wearing pjs, the vines wouldn't have been able to get her so easily. Finally, the noise in the room stopped, and Kelsey looked from her tangled torso to her pinned-down legs to the vines wrapped around her ankles.
"What do you things want?! Let me go!" she screamed, trying and failing to tug her way out.
Just then, she saw something appear up against the wall in front of her. It had appeared from out of the vine-covered wood. The thing looked like a large Venus flytrap, and of course it had many bristly green teeth. It traveled through the wood, down the wall and then straightened up on its stem at the feet of Kelsey, and she stared in horror at the abomination.
"What are you?! Let me go!"
Then the Venus flytrap shook its head no, and Kelsey tugged even harder. Just then, the Venus flytrap sprouted two vines from either side of its stem, which slithered along the floor towards her hurt foot. Kelsey shook her head and said,
"Please! Don't break my foot again! Please..."
But instead of breaking her foot, they did something completely different. One vine curled around her foot so that the spongy tip of it was positioned on her sole, and it started to massage. The other vine slithered up and curled in between her toes, massaging as well. Kelsey felt her face turn hot and she started to murmur,
"Oh... Ohhhh..."
The nice sponginess of the vine felt soft and smooth on her sole, and for some reason she didn't think that this creature was going to hurt her. In fact, about a minute of massaging later, the pain in her ankle was completely gone. She looked at the Venus fly trap curiously.
"Um... Thank you?"
It nodded, and then suddenly sprouted two more vines, one on either side. The two slithered over to her other foot and did the same thing, massaging in between her toes and on her sole. Kelsey wondered why this creature had abducted her, scared her to death and dragged her to the ground, just so that it could massage her feet.
Then the Venus flytrap looked at her and, if she wasn't mistaken, smiled. Kelsey felt her right foot give an involuntary twitch as she felt something prickly touch her sole. Then the same thing happened with her left. The prickly thing turned out to be the vines with new tiny bristles grown onto the ends. She felt the bristles go up and down her soles, their prickly little barbs touching her skin lightly, and a bubble of laughter formed in her stomach. She looked at the Venus flytrap and said,
"Oh, I see. You're just lonely here in this dark, damp forest, aren't you?"
The Venus flytrap nodded, and Kelsey felt the vines in between her toes start to get all prickly as well. In between laughs, she talked to the plant.
"You just, heehee, w-wanted someone to play with, didn't you?"
Again the plant nodded, and then Kelsey noticed it sprouting yet two more long vines. The two new ones slithered past her feet, up her legs and to her stomach. They lifted her shirt slightly, showing her flat, smooth belly. The vines grew bristles and crawled onto her stomach, tickling along her sides. Kelsey laughed out loud, squirming underneath her prison of vines. She managed to choke out,
"Quit it!"
But the Venus flytrap shook its head and kept tickling her two most sensitive areas. Another few minutes later she started to get tired, and she looked at the Venus flytrap and said,
"Okay! Heeheeheehee! Stop!" but she was immediately denied. Then she had an idea and said, "Alright, heehee! I'll make you a deal, plant!"
The tickling stopped and the Venus flytrap looked at her, leaning close to her face. She felt hot breath come from in between its many bristly teeth.
"Listen, I have to leave and find my friends, but I'll still make you a deal. Let me go back home, and I'll come here tomorrow and bring everyone with me! Then I can visit you every day!" she offered in a perfect singsong voice.
The Venus flytrap nodded and gave another toothy smile. Then Kelsey remembered why she was out in the woods in the first place.
"And you have to let my friend go; the one you took last night."
The plant didn't do anything for a moment, but then nodded about ten seconds later. Kelsey felt the vines pinning her to the ground retract, slithering away and into the wood floor. Kelsey stood up to brush herself off, but was immediately grabbed by the Venus flytrap's many vines, hugging her close. She laughed as the giant plant let out a lolling blue tongue and gave her a lick on her cheek. She was let go, and as she looked at the plant she said,
"I'm gonna call you Lalita. It fits you because it means playful!"
A doorway at the back of the room opened behind the vines. Lalita traveled across the room, snaking through the ground like it was water. Kelsey walked through the doorway into a larger 10x10x10 room. She didn't know what kind of tree this was all inside, but whatever is was it was pretty darn big.
What Kelsey saw in the room was another thing, and it was surely horrifying. There were areas all around the room where snakelike vines had grown. Kelsey could see about ten different people ensnared in the vines all around the room, but instead of the vines being playful, they were whipping, yes, WHIPPING the people being ensnared. Kelsey shrieked and said,
"Lalita! What's happening?! Let them go!"
Lalita whimpered, but agreed. All of the people in the room were let down from their dangling traps. All of them had bloody whip marks running along their bodies. Then Kelsey realized that every one of them was male. She searched the crowd for Mark, and then spotted him lying crumpled on the ground seven blocks in front of her. There was blood pooling around him, and when Kelsey saw this she turned and screamed at Lalita.
"HOW COULD YOU?! HEAL HIM! NOW!"
Lalita slithered quickly towards Mark, growing about ten different vines from its stem. All of them wrapped around Mark, lifting him into the air. There was a little burst of green light, and Mark's whip marks sealed up completely, the blood drain stopping the next moment. Mark flailed and fell on his back on the wood floor, panting, staring at Lalita, who started to make a grumbling noise and bear her sharp bristle teeth. All of a sudden, Mark saw something and ran straight past Lalita and Kelsey without a second glance, shouting,
"Piggy, no!"
Kelsey turned around to see vines slithering speedily towards the chubby pink blur that was Mr. Pig, who was squealing frantically. Kelsey looked up at Lalita, who was licking her lips at the sight of what was planned to be her next meal. Lalita stomped her foot and said,
"Let the pig be!"
Lalita whimpered, but still agreed, and stopped her vines from chasing Mr. Pig, who stopped the next moment, keeling over a second later from sheer exhaustion. Mark picked up his pig and watched him snooze, and then turned around, saying,
"What's the big deal with... Oh, Kelsey..."
He just noticed Kelsey standing there. He looked from her to Lalita and his eyes widened,
"Kelsey, get away from that thing, it's dangerous!"
Suddenly, a hiss-like voice echoed inside his head that must have belonged to Lalita.
"No! This girl is friendly and loves to cuddle with me, and I love her and she loves me. You are not going to take her away!"
Lalita rose to twice her previous height and let out a hiss, her blue tongue creeping through her teeth. Kelsey hugged Lalita and said,
"Lalita, don't. This is the friend I..." then she looked around at all the other people who'd been being whipped. They all lay unconscious or dead in bloody piles on the floor, she couldn't tell which, and she saw boys of young age and adults. But still no girls.
"Lalita, what did you do with all the females you caught?"
Mark interrupted her by saying,
"Kelsey, I think I can actually hear... Er, Lalita in my head, just like I can hear what Mickey says."
Lalita answered the previous question inside Mark's head again.
"I love the females. They are pretty and cute and nice. I bring them into separate rooms to play with them because they love to laugh and play... But males are evil and reckless; they carry weapons of destruction like fire. Fire has killed many of my kind through them starting forest fires. I whip males in here as revenge for all the ancestors of mine that were burned to ashes."
Mark repeated Lalita's answer to Kelsey, who frowned at first, and then just sighed.
"Don't you ever let the females go, though?"
Lalita shook her head and then slithered towards the wall, having Mark and Kelsey follow. Then the wall in front of them became transparent, and they could see inside a small room covered in vines, just like the one Kelsey had been in. There was a little girl about the age of ten there. She was shrieking with laughter as she was cuddling up next to a large Venus flytrap like Lalita, the vines snaked under her shirt, poking at her stomach.
Kelsey smiled a little, but then she replaced it with a frown and said,
"Lalita, she probably has a family that's missing her; wouldn't it be better to put that girl back where she came from?"
Lalita spoke into Mark's mind, saying in a sad-sounding voice,
"You make a good point, I think you are right. I loved playing with the girls, but I know now that it is best to leave them to their lives. I shall let everyone inside my secret tree go..."
Mark turned to Kelsey, who was staring at him, waiting for an answer.
"She said she'll let everyone in here go."
Kelsey sighed with relief and said,
"Good."
All of a sudden, the wall behind them was blasted open, and a whole lot of gold light burst from the hole. Lalita's voice hissed angrily inside Mark's head, saying,
"WHO IS HERE?!"
Rexum walked through the hole slowly, casting a gaze around the room at all the bodies on the ground.
"Alright, what is all this about?!" he saw Mark and Kelsey and said, "What are you two DOING?! Get away from that horrid thing!"
Suddenly, Lalita spoke aloud for the first time, her voice still like a deranged hiss.
"REXUM?! HOW DARE YOU COME INTO MY SECRET TREE AGAIN!"
Rexum stared at Lalita with a look of malice.
"I thought that I exterminated your kind years ago!"
"You misunderstand our kind, Rexum! We are peace-loving creatures!"
"You lie through your teeth, you horrid abomination! You and your Vinekinds killed off hundreds of Minecraftians!"
"And you have killed off HUNDREDS of thousands of us! We have only attacked to protect ourselves from extinction! And now thanks to you we've been reduced to a mere forty-five! I have only found thirty-three of my kind, all of the others have fled throughout Buenomalo because of YOU!"
Rexum froze for a moment, struck by the point like he was slapped with it. Finally, he sighed and said,
"Alright then, I see your reasoning. You may continue to reproduce to restore your kind, but I must... I must also be... Restored."
Lalita paused for a moment, turning her head to look away. Then she turned to Rexum and said,
"Fine, I shall restore you."
In her mind Kelsey thought,
"Restore what? Do these two have some history, or what?"
Rexum suddenly pulled off his tattered green robes to reveal his skinny, bony-white torso, and Kelsey felt her eyes widen when she saw the long whip marks on his back. Lalita sprouted out two of her vines and they hovered around Rexum's back, and then she stroked each of the whip marks, and as she did they disappeared. Rexum sighed with relief as the marks disappeared, and it appeared as though he'd had them for a long time. Once Lalita was done, Rexum slipped his green robes back on and turned to face her, bowing with his golden oak staff to the side.
"Now you may be free from any torment."
He raised his staff and shot a sphere of golden glitter around Lalita, and he said,
"Now if you are ever threatened by another individual from my old extermination group or any others you will be able to tell them that I have personally protected you with magic. Now go and bring back your kind if you must, I have to leave here with the boy and girl."
Then Lalita turned down to look at Kelsey and whimpered a little, murmuring,
"B-but you'll come back tomorrow to play, right?"
Kelsey grinned and hugged Lalita around her long stem body.
"Of course!"
So Kelsey said her goodbyes, and they all went back to the gigantic hole that Rexum had blasted into the wall. He twirled his golden oak staff, creating three small clouds of gold particles. He hopped onto one, and Mark and Kelsey did the same. Kelsey was surprised to see that they really were solid, like sitting on a pile of pillows. Once they were on the funny-looking clouds Rexum jerked his staff once more, and they jerked forward like a hook had grabbed them. They sped through the night air, and Kelsey laughed and whooped at the amazing feeling of soaring, her hair flying back in the wind. She turned to look at Mark and noticed he was looking at her, and so she blushed and turned to look the other way.
They flew for another two minutes before they arrived back at the house. As soon as they landed, Rexum stood in front of the door and crossed his arms, looking scornfully at them both.
"I can't believe this... You two have caused nothing but trouble for yourselves. What can you possibly accomplish by wandering off into a mutated forest alone and hardly prepared to defend yourself?" Kelsey and Mark both glued their eyes to the ground. "I expect that you never go off on your own again."
Then he stepped to the side and let them walk back inside. As soon as Kelsey walked in the door she was met with a hug from Gabe. While she was being held, she heard Gabe whisper,
"I thought I'd lost you..."
Kelsey stroked a finger through his hair and said,
"Me too..." she replied.
Then she saw Mark walk past with a disgusted look on his face. She wished so bad that she could tell Mark everything in her head, but... It was just too complicated. So instead everyone went back to bed, leaving Kelsey with guilt bubbling inside her stomach. She still had those love dreams to look forward to, at least...
That night Kelsey had another dream about her old boyfriend, the music choice of this dream being "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams" by Green Day. She was standing in the cafeteria of her old school. About a hundred kids her age walked around her. They all were smiling, laughing and talking with one another, all of them with his or her friends. She took her place in line by the lunch counters. As she was grabbing a carton of milk something bumped her, and the carton fell, breaking open at her feet, soaking her shoes with milk. She looked behind her and saw two tall kids with dark jackets on.
"Hey Butterfingers, don't slip!"
He and the other guy laughed, and Kelsey could feel her face go red. She turned around and got a new milk carton, but the boy snatched it out of her hand, pushing past her, and in her soggy shoes she slipped, almost landing on the floor. They sniggered and the boy muttered,
"Move it, Butterfingers, I'm hungry and I'm not waiting behind a klutz like you."
Kelsey just ignored them and continued through the lunch line. Once she had her tray she walked away from the two boys, who were muttering dirty words and pointed at her. She walked towards a table with a spot left over. She was about to set her tray down when a girl came and pushed her aside, making her nearly fall again, and she sat herself down in the chair. The other girls at the table laughed very high pitched and fake laughs. One of them sneered at Kelsey and shouted,
"Hey Flatfront! You gonna be Flatfront AND Butterfingers today?"
She stood there extremely angry and embarrassed as the girl stood up and walked over to her, guiding her hand with those painted nails first over her back, saying,
"Flat back!" then over her chest. "Flat front!"
Kelsey stormed away, the girls' laughter ringing in her ears, the name "FLATFRONT" following her as she went. Every time she tried to sit down at a table, the people would trip her or shove her tray away. As she was walking towards another table, she yelped as something tripped her, and she landed on her stomach, her food flying out in front of her. She turned on her aching back, her head pounding, and saw the two boys standing over her along with three more boys, all of them tall and mean and wearing sweatshirts with the hoods pulled up.
They all laughed at her, and she felt tears come to her eyes as she stood up, running away from them. She only went two feet before slipping in the egg salad that had fallen from her tray, and she fell again into a slimy pile of it, most or all of it getting in her hair. She started crying on the floor, the boys' laughter echoing in the air, and not even a teacher or lunch lady came to her aid. While crouched on the floor, slimy and covered in egg salad, her hot face streaked with tears, she heard someone shout out, and then she heard what sounded like fists colliding with bodies. She looked up through her head of long, messy, blond hair and saw another boy who wasn't wearing a sweatshirt smashing his fist into the boy leader's nose, and blood started to pour as the kid recoiled.
"You guys are jerks! Just leave her alone!" Kelsey heard him shout.
The rest of the boys started beating up the other boy, and it was four against one, and the other boy looked like he was helpless against them all. Finally, one of their teachers swooped in and pulled them apart, and she heard a couple words through the pounding of her heart, of which were "all of you" and "detention". Kelsey watched as all of them were taken away by a different teacher, and as the first teacher bent down, grabbing her hands to pull her to her feet. As she was being taken to the bathroom to wash up she caught a glance to the side, seeing all the girls at the other table shrieking with laughter, pointing at her. She thought about that boy, why he had come to help her, about how he dared to punch the school bully.
The next day Kelsey tried to find the boy and thank him. After several boring classes she ran to the office and asked if she could see him, but the hawk-like office lady shook her head and sternly said that people in detention do not get visits. So instead she waited for another day. But the next day she didn't see him. And the next day, and the day after that. This boy was nowhere in sight. Maybe she'd never see him again. The only good thing was that she wasn't bothered or given the nicknames of Butterfingers or Flatfront for a while. After a couple days she gave up and just lived life normally. She was only ten at the time...
Kelsey opened her eyes, which were drying up from all the crying she'd done in her sleep. She looked to her side in bed and saw Mark with his head turned to the other side, his shaggy black hair poking out from over the blanket. She smiled when she looked at him because he reminded her of this boy. Brave, compassionate, great sense of humor. But still, he just wasn't quite the same...
Everyone slept in that morning, staying in bed until around noon. Everyone had gotten extra-tired from the ordeal of the vicious yet vivacious vine attack on Kelsey and Mark, so it was natural that they all slept in late. Once they were up, Kelsey remembered that she was going to bring everyone to visit Lalita as promised, so she jumped out of bed and started making breakfast.
For a whole hour she tried to rush everyone through their breakfast so that they could visit Lalita quickly. Once everyone had eaten she led them out the door and towards the forest. As they walked the path she had taken earlier towards the tree wall where Lalita was hidden Kelsey kept finding herself looking back at Mark, who seemed to be ignoring him, and instead focusing on Adrian. They talked the whole time, and Kelsey even saw them laughing. But then Mark looked her way, but caught her gaze and quickly turned away. She turned away and felt even more guilt build up in her gut.
"Oh, I shouldn't have ever acted like I did towards Gabe earlier, now Mark is angry with me. This just isn't going well at all." she thought to herself, the guilt now becoming very sickening.
So she put any negative or guilty thoughts from her mind and just focused on walking. They found the long wall of trees a moment later, and so Kelsey approached the wall and tapped it, saying,
"Lalita! I'm back!"
A few seconds went by before the vines started to snake from out of the cracks in the trees. Then the trees all shifted together like before until they formed the tree giant with the jack-o-lantern face. Lalita's vines slithered down the side and set themselves on the ground, winding together to form a large platform. Kelsey hopped onto it, turned around to see that no one else was getting on, and waved her hand, saying,
"C'mon, guys!"
So the rest of them walked forward and stepped onto the platform, which was large even for everyone to fit on. Once everyone was on the platform, the vines that supported it lifted it high into the air. They flew up about thirty or so blocks to the chest of the tree giant, and on a convenient note, the hole was still there, so they were just pulled right into the 10x10x10 room of wood blocks. Kelsey no longer saw any boys or men or girls or women, so they must've all been healed and/or set free after they left. They stepped off of the vine-crafted platform.
Lalita appeared a moment later, rising up out of the wooden floor. Once she caught sight of Kelsey her Venus flytrap mouth curled into a smile and she slithered forward quickly, her six different vines outstretched. Kelsey ran forward and they caught in a hug, Kelsey becoming wrapped almost entirely by vines.
"I missed you." said Lalita, running a vine through her flowing blond hair.
"I missed you." replied Kelsey.
Then Kelsey introduced everyone, and they awkwardly exchanged hellos. For some reason, when Lalita looked at Lucas she let out a strange warning noise.
"What is wrong with him...? He smells... Different..."
Everybody looked at Lucas, who looked back at them, then held up his arm and sniffed.
"Not me, I swear!" he said embarrassedly.
Then Lalita caught sight of Vanessa—who was actually hiding behind Rexum in fear—and she launched her vines forward, declaring,
"Another girl! Hooray!"
Vanessa yelped as the vines snatched her up by her legs, screaming. Lalita suspended her in the air, licking her face with her forked blue tongue.
"Get off me! GET OFF!" screamed Vanessa.
Then there was a burst of red light, and Lalita was the one to shriek and screech that time as all six of her vines burnt up with bright red magic. When Vanessa landed on the ground Kelsey noticed she had that book of hers, "Moby Dick", and that the magic was still embedded deep in the pages. Lalita continued to screech in pain as lots of sappy liquid spilled out of the holes in her stem where the vines used to come from.
Kelsey ran forward and was so angry at Vanessa that she slapped her on the cheek. Everyone froze except for Lalita, watching Kelsey and Vanessa stare at each other. Kelsey stared her down with a look of anger, while Vanessa stared back with a look of shock, a red handprint clear on her cheek. Then Vanessa ran off crying towards the giant gaping hole in the wall, sitting down at the edge with her legs curled over the edge, her body shaking from her sobs.
Kelsey suddenly felt embarrassed, and she noticed Mark's expression when he was running over to Vanessa. It looked like he was surprised by Vanessa's crying as though she'd never been punished for anything in a long, LONG time. Rexum walked towards the screeching Lalita and waved his golden oak staff, covering her massive stem in gold light. When the gold light dissipated all six holes were sealed up by Rexum's magic.
Their visit ended pretty quickly, because they left about ten seconds later on Rexum's gold clouds. Vanessa especially needed some time, if anything. Once they were home they had to stay within twenty blocks from the house due to a force field made by Rexum, which was their punishment. As Kelsey sat on her bed with her chin resting on her fist she pondered how she could've lost control and slapped Mark's little sister. Now Mark probably hated her even MORE! She pounded herself on the head, thinking,
"Stupid! Stupid! You're stupid, Kelsey! How is this going to work out now?! Now Mark definitely doesn't like me!"
And unfortunately for Kelsey, she still had to spend five more days with nothing to put her mind to, which meant five more days to mess up in front of Mark.
Woah! I believe I have to give the national award for Most Tear-Jerking Backstory to Kelsey. Did I hear any of you sniffling as you read about Kelsey's blast from the past?
Now then, putting the sad dream out of our minds, let's get on with some more QAA!
To lovesick Mark: How does it feel to be acting out your dreams in front of Kelsey?
Mark: Oh, that dream. Man, I've never had such an awesome dream in my life, her body just felt... So... Oooohhhh... Oh! Sorry, I was daydreaming. What were you saying?
To the Fourth Wall Repairman: It is me who has been bombing the fourth wall!
Fourth Wall Repairman: So YOU'RE the one who blew up our factory in 2001! It took us years to fix that, you little— *jumps up and strangles you*
To Lucas: Did the Glitch do something to you?
Lucas: N-no! Why does everybody look at me as though I'm possessed by the Glitch?! Even Mark looks at me like that!
To the Fourth Wall Repairman:You should probably join the Union, so Pastrinator would pay you more for your stressful job. I even here if you join the Union you can say whatever you want to your boss without getting fired. And you should buy some more tools, man. I don't think Wall Glue is going to hold it very well. One more thing, you should marry and have kids and force your kids to help you repair the Fourth Wall.
Fourth Wall Repairman: Oh, I just couldn't. My boss would let me starve before he'd let me quit. I'm bound to this job by a contract, you see, so I can't quit. Besides, my wife Tammy works in a similar field to mine. She works with restoring disruptions in the time-space continuum flow, so she's VERY busy, we just couldn't settle down unless we both took vacation days, which, as you might expect, I have little of. Still, becoming a member of the Union is very tempting...
To Mark: Can't you get a different block power by going to school?
Mark: You can? Is that what school is like in the Minecraft Dimension? Cool, I wish I'd always gone to school here, then, it sounds like more fun than reading, writing and arithmetic, that's for sure. -_-
To Mark: *gives Mark a white horse and shining armor* Use these wisely to get your girl! Please?
Mark: Hmph... I don't know, after what Kelsey did to Vanessa I'm not sure I want to give her anything. Unless she apologizes, I'm keeping this horse and horse armor to myself. *walks off with the white pony who is now named Elmer*
Alright! Long chapter, wasn't it? Not the longest, but still... Now then, how will things work out now that almost everyone had tension between them? Will they be able to last a whole week with each other? And how could've a beautiful and innocent girl like Kelsey been so abused in her younger years? Find out next chapter in VOiD!
But for now, this is Pastrinator64, and I'll see you later with chapter numbah twelve!
*throws sugar bomb, disappears in a cloud of fine white sugar*
Byyyyyeeeeee...
~Pastrinator64 [~]