-1Chapter 8
Jorelo woke up from the dream on his own this time, back to the fancy décor of the sour headquarters. The drowsy fudgehog stretched out his arms as far as they would go and let out a lengthy yawn. He wondered how long he had slept for as he searched of a clock. The clock next to him had shown ten forty-five A.M.
It didn't really matter though. Nothing in this life did when he thought about it now. The PDF bombings destroyed everything that he lived for, fought for… Well… Not everything, there was still Pandora, and truth be told, if she was gone, Jorelo would probably be unable to live another day. Maybe things still did mattered to Jorelo.
As the groggy fudgehog pulled himself out of bed he started to ponder if Pandora and Falkor were still relaxing in the hot tubs. He could use a nice cold shower himself, but before he could even think about getting into the shower the door to the main hallway flew open as a male pretztail of normal color swiftly emerged from the doorway.
"…Can I help you?" Jorelo asked the Pretztail, unsure of whether or not this was a friend or foe that came in.
"I need to hide- Anywhere will do!" The pretztail looked around the room as Jorelo studied him over.
"Hmm, he's not a sour… Maybe he's kept as a prisoner here? Seeing as he's in a hurry to hide…" Jorelo thought to himself. "May I ask why?" Jorelo tilted his head as the Pretztail scouted the room for a decent hiding space.
"I just broke out of my cell! The guards'll be up here at any moment!" He explained to them without making any eye contact.
"Look, I just woke up an-" Jorelo was cut off from another door opening. Steam rolled out as Falkor stepped through it all, wearing a towel around his lower torso.
"Hey! I see you're up Jor, h-" Falkor took notice of the stranger in the room, he couldn't help but eyeball him for a few seconds, "…Who's your new friend?" Falkor himself was surprised to see another free normal piñata alive after hearing about the bombing earlier, he would have been an eyewitness of it too, but Marly had different plans for Falkor. In fact why not go back and see it right through Falkor's eyes?
The white fudgehog was crouched low inside the aircraft behind Jorelo and Pandora who were shielding themselves by using the seats in front of them. The gunfire was slowly being drowned out by the oncoming explosions and quakes of the bombs. Falkor's sight soon focused itself on the gleaming golden patterns that shimmered on Jorelo and Pandora as they fell into a comatose.
"What the…" His voice trailed off as he was starting to recall the markings he had seen during his childhood. Falkor forgot most of his past once he escaped that troubled life, but now he could feel them creeping back again.
The memories had soon restored themselves in the fudgehog's mind. Falkor couldn't believe what his eyes were seeing, he never thought he'd see the two freaks again now that he came to recognize them. The desperate fudgehog wanted to wake them from their coma, but the oncoming blast of the bombs arrived to sweep them away and all was history.
Well… Not exactly as we've come to know now that the three survived the explosions. Falkor was captured by Marly in an instant as the hoarse, dying screams of the sours entered his ears, Jorelo's and Pandora's would be doom was near, but something unknown was keeping them alive. Something that was kept secret for so long, a secret about to be revealed in the imminent moments ahead of them.
An unconscious Falkor was taken to one of the many integration room inside of the sour headquarters. It took a few minutes for the fudgehog to return to his senses.
"Wha-… What is this?" Falkor managed out in a confused rage as he scanned the room around him in a nasty glare.
"My my, someone's cranky after their nap," Marly mocked the fudgehog, "maybe you need another?" His sarcasm showed as Falkor tried to get at Marly to teach him a thing or two about manners, but the restraints around his waist and arms prohibited him from doing that.
"Why you little-!" Falkor growled as his anger return along with more of his past memories, even the problems he had as a child.
"Back talk like that gets you a time out piñata!" Marly scolded the fudgehog as he pressed one of the numerous buttons on the wall. Falkor felt a sharp needle jam into his left arm without any mercy.
"O-o-w!" He hollered and caught a glance of a robotic arm holding a syringe packed with a bright red fluid that was being injected in his arm. Marly let out light sinister snicker while Falkor fell fast asleep from the dosage he received. It was soon after that Marly used Falkor as ransom to capture Jorelo and Pandora and all that eventually brought them back to where they stood now, but let's still stick with Falkor's story a little bit longer.
Falkor awoke in a jail cell in the basement of the sour headquarters. It looked somewhat like a dark, medieval dungeon crossed with modern day prisons. The apprehensive fudgehog assessed his cell and surroundings while he got off his stone cold bed. A sour macaracoon appeared from the shadows beyond the light and greeted Falkor acrimoniously behind the bars.
"You're wanted in the higher floors," the sour informed the fudgehog bitterly as he opened the cell door and welcomed himself in. Falkor believed that this was going to be the end of his life, but he didn't fight back, he couldn't. If he did there would be hell to pay, there were a countless number of sours and only one of him, and this was no action movie where the protagonist always wins. No, this story is far from it.
Falkor let the sour bind him in an assortment of steel restraints, including a muzzle that was custom fit for a fudgehog. The stressed out fudgehog sighed as he was led out of his cell. Along the way, he was given rude comments by the other prisoners there. He tried his best not to take notice, but curiosity forced him to glance at a few. Most of the prisoners were from either Piñata Resistance or PDF. The confined piñatas were starved, deformed, and some were missing body parts like legs, arms, and such.
The fear really started to tickle up and down the frightened fudgehog's spine when he saw how his fellow piñata's went through the sour's merciless experimentation in the nearby labs. Some of them were half normal and half sour, foaming feverishly at the mouth. Others had patches of their mache missing, or their pupils dilated along with heavily bloodshot eyes, the majority of them leaped onto the bars of their cells as they snarled and growled furiously at the horrified fudgehog.
Fortunately for Falkor, this was far from his fate, but the fear still had shown in his eyes. The two soon ended their horrendous walk in front of a fairly large elevator. The sour elbowed Falkor aside and pressed one of the buttons on the wall panel. The bulky doors parted open as the sour grabbed Falkor by the chains to his muzzle restraint and yanked him inside. They were consumed inside as the elevator closed shut, rising skywards as the sour requested for the top floor.
The trip to the top floor felt like forever, luckily Falkor's thoughts kept him entertained for the time being. The contemplative fudgehog kept thinking about Jorelo and Pandora, the thought of them agitated him slightly. Memories back at the playground started to haunt him more than anything, he wish he could have taken all of what he done in the past back. The two piñatas weren't as bad as he thought they were. The Falkor of the past was wrong about both of them in every way. Feeling heavily remorseful, Falkor believed he would never be able to face them the same way ever again.
Falkor was finally released from his bindings when the sour brought him inside the suite room. The fudgehog was free to do whatever until further orders were given. Falkor saw that Jorelo was sleeping on a nicely sized bed with Pandora standing by his bedside. The keen pretztail heard the shackles being removed as her eye sight guided her towards the white fudgehog.
"Falkor!" Pandora shouted, running towards him without a care if it had woken up Jorelo or not, "you're alive!"
"…Of course I am," Falkor shrugged as he was unexpectedly embraced by Pandora, however with the nagging thoughts going through his head about the past mistakes made him want to push Pandora off of him, but he pushed the thoughts away instead.
"I was afraid that sir-what's-his-face wasn't going to keep his promise," Pandora sighed joyfully as she pulled herself away from Falkor.
"…Jorelo still sleeping?" Falkor asked as he raised himself on his toes to look over Pandora and at the snoozing Jorelo.
The pretztail nodded and glanced back at Jorelo, "he's been that way since we got here, which is like two hours give or take…"
"Hmm… I'm still kind of feeling beat, I might get some rest myself," Falkor stretched himself out while eyeing up one of the beds next to Jorelo's.
"Why not look around for awhile? There's a lot of neat things around here," Pandora suggested to him with an eager smile.
"Hm? …I guess a quick tour wouldn't hurt," the fudgehog decided.
Pandora pointed out a random door in the room, "go on, you might like what's behind that door over there," she chuckled as Falkor obeyed, walking towards said door.
"Holy crap!" Falkor yelled as he realized what was behind the door, "a hot tub?" He closed the door behind him and not a word was said after. Letting out a depressive sigh, Pandora returned to watching over Jorelo.