==Hi, everyone! Happy Easter weekend! I'm back with a new chapter AND A NEW STORY COVER! Surprise! This story has had the same exact cover for like two and half years, so I figured it needed something fresh to represent it. I know it's hard to see, but it's Zane and Macca not happy with each other as they wear identical symbols of their relationship around their necks (which will be introduced in a later chapter.) There is a big ghostly skull in the background of their drama to illustrate how the entity is waiting to take Macca when the right time comes. The new cover tells the whole story that is still being pieced together. I'll indicate when a new part from the cover shows up in the chain of events because I bet a lot of you probably don't understand a few things at the moment, but I hope you all can play along until it all makes sense! :) ==
DVBBS - "We Were Young"
We were young. We were dumb. We would do it all again.
Haunted: Collapse into Caliginosity
Chapter 68:
S(mall) Antics
I walked into the mall's spicy food restaurant to meet Linus and Trent for lunch. They were already seated in a booth with food on the table when I sat down next to Linus. "I just now texted you," he murmured.
"Yeah, I saw that," I replied, tearing the wrapping around my chopsticks. "Sorry I'm late. I got caught up at Rollin's."
"Rollin's?" Trent started in. "You two like a thing now or something?"
"No, but he wants it to be," I scoffed, picking at the food in my wooden bowl.
"After what I saw last night, I'm not surprised," Linus commented, taking a bite of his spiced red meat.
"He offered me a gig for Calico Pat's surprise birthday party," I continued. "I was just at the nicest penthouse in Ninjago City to get the whole spill about what's being planned and everything."
"You went to that huge penthouse that peasants like us dream about visiting someday?"
"Yes, and it's amazing. You can see the inside of the swimming pool from the main room. It's literally like a human aquarium." My phone began vibrating in my pants pocket. When I picked it up, I saw it was the Bounty calling me. "Hello?" I answered while shoving a piece of chicken in my mouth.
"Hey, Mac, you're on speaker," Kai informed me.
"Oh? You guys need something?"
"Sort of," Cole replied. "Zane refuses to tell us what happened last night. He claimed that you'd be 'embarrassed' if he told us."
"They're blackmailing me, Macca," Zane warned me. "I didn't want your pride to be damaged or for you to be mad at me again."
I laughed. "I appreciate the effort, Zane, but I don't care if you tell them. I was planning on telling my friends about it, anyway."
"Is it funny or bad?" Jay asked.
"A little bit of both. I was so pissed last night when it happened but now I can't stop thinking about Zane's scream after the fact," I giggled. "I'm actually in the middle of something, boys. I'll talk to you later."
"Okay. Bye, Macca!" they all finished.
I hung up my phone so that I could get back to lunch with Linus and Trent. "Tell us what?" they both wondered.
"It has nothing to do with Rollin," I immediately diverted. "I basically went home after the battle and found Zane in my closet after I just happened to take a shower."
"He broke into your apartment?" Trent chuckled.
"Yes, and I was naked," I admitted in a hushed tone.
Linus snorted, trying to suppress a laugh.
"Why were you naked?" Trent laughed, struggling to hook his stringy noodles with his chopsticks.
"Well, you know, it's my apartment and I live by myself. I kind of have the right to be naked if I want to be, and it's not like I was expecting company," I joked.
"Maybe it's time you get a pet so that Zane can be caught next time before another incident like this happens again."
"But I'm not much of an animal person. I mean, Geno hates me and all I wanna do is pet him."
"Oh yeah, because you're more of a baby person. Forget about getting a pet. You should go to a sperm bank and have a baby."
I leaned back against the brown leather of the booth and laughed. "Wait a second. You're suggesting that I get artificially inseminated and spend nine months being pregnant just so I give birth to an alarm that alerts me when Zane breaks into my apartment?"
Linus sniggered. "Zane better beware of the Mini Macca. It's clearly not on his side."
"But speaking of babies," I mentioned, momentarily covering my mouth as I chewed my food, "I had a dream last night that I had one- Aw, dammit, I didn't tell Cole about it!"
"Why Cole?" Linus asked as I pulled my phone back out.
"He was the baby daddy in my dream. Ah, I'll just tell him about it later," I declared, setting the phone on its face next to my bowl. "So, what are we doing today?"
"Just having some fun," Trent mischievously stated, not making eye contact with me.
"What does that mean?"
He and Linus glanced at each other...and busted out laughing. I smiled and rolled my eyes. This should be good.
Both of them had sat me down in front of their dressing rooms in a store. I had no idea that they came to the mall so much earlier than me just to screw around by themselves, but they apparently came by here and requested for certain articles of clothing. They immediately went to the cash register as soon as we walked in and the cashier handed them each a stack of clothes that had been stashed away for them. While waiting for them to come out, I pulled out my phone and got ready to record them. They were snickering to themselves, which meant something was up.
"Macca," Linus called from behind the white door.
"What?" I answered, pressing the record button.
"Ready for this?"
"Sure...?"
Both the doors suddenly opened to reveal the grand entrances of my idiot friends. A hand covered my mouth as they both emerged with blouses and skirts on. "Oh my! Look at me!" Trent played in a high pitched voice, adjusting his rimmed gardening hat like a model.
"You're a bumbling fool," he replied, mimicking the high pitched voice. He tried walking in high heels toward me, but his ankles were like rubber because he couldn't keep his balance. I laughed even harder at the sight of how poorly coordinated he was in women's shoes. "Fuck these," he suddenly said, kicking them off violently away from me. "Who are you, pretty lady? Want some Loretta love?"
I pushed him away as he approached with his fake persona radiating off his skin. "No, no, no!" I sniggered. "Get away from me, you son of a bitch."
"You heard her. She wants some Trinity time. Ooh," Trent intervened, leaning into me like a drag queen who was single and ready to mingle.
"You guys are disgusting," I joked, avoiding their hands as they tried to touch my hair and face.
"Uh oh, Loretta. We got a tipper," Trent pulled from nowhere. "Come here, sexy."
I watched them both suddenly reach for the buttons on their blouses. "Oh god," I cringed, wanting to shield my eyes.
They both tried pulling their blouses off, but their arms got stuck in the sleeves. My laughter went silent as they both bent over with their arms behind their backs as they tried pulling off the fabric. Then I was sitting in front of two shirtless dudes who were either humping the air or swinging the blouses over their heads like lassos.
We were making a lot of commotion in the back of the store with laughter and inappropriate behavior. "Hey!" the store manager shouted. "Get out!"
Linus and Trent suddenly stopped goofing off and got scared. "Run for it!" one of them voiced. Both their skirts got ripped off and thrown on the floor. Next thing I know, they just grab their clothes and scurry away like mice. I followed close by, getting a bad glare from the employees because of the mess left behind for them to clean up. Meanwhile, they both went running out of the store in their boxers, and I just continued to charge after them, laughing with building worry in my mind. We could get arrested for this! But god, it was hilarious.
The final frames of the video caught them escaping into a random men's restroom to put their clothes back on.
I stood outside of the men's restroom, literally tapping my foot against the floor as I waited for them to come out...hopefully fully dressed. The moment a forehead peeked around the corner, I was tempted to pretend to be a police officer just to get a reaction out of them, but I decided against it. "You're both lucky we're here on a weekday," I began as they came out with guilty smiles on their faces, "especially during a time when barely anybody is around-"
"Shh..." Linus insisted, pressing his finger to my lips. "You need candy."
"What?" I asked, my lips unable to move.
Trent stepped forward and threw me over his shoulder.
"Hey!" I protested. "Just because I'm short doesn't mean you can just use that against me whenever you want."
"Yeah, you need candy," Linus repeated, following us. "You're in a bad mood."
"Am not."
"Dang, Mac, you gained weight or something," Trent commented, readjusting his hold on me.
"Okay, now I'm in a bad mood."
They took me across the mall to a popular candy store where you pick a plastic bag and just go to town. I got a small one and wandered the place. There were all kinds of choices. You could go to the wall of dispensers and pull a lever to fill your bag with the candy of your choice. There was a chocolate fountain in the center that you could dip any kind of sweet treat in. Some stations had cake items like icing. You could even get packages of candy from shelves to take home with you.
I for one just spent time at the dispensers getting chocolate, sour candies, and super sweet stuff. "I'm getting so fat after all this," Trent cheered in a gay voice.
"Treat yo'self," I giggled, finally closing up my bag after finding the number of contents satisfactory. Without thinking much of it, I went over to the cake sections and searched for some buttercream icing. When I found the motherlode, I made an angelic choir sound. White, red, blue, green, you name it! It was there, waiting to be eaten in a nauseating binge.
When I went to the register with my goodies, I noticed Linus was gone. "Trent, where is that bozo?" I asked.
"I don't know. He's too lame to act like a kid once in a while, I guess."
Armed with a buttload of candy that can last us a few days, Trent and I ventured downstairs to take advantage of the empty kids' area. It was full of cartoonish yet climbable statues and objects. Usually, it was crawling with the little monsters. Parents would sit on the benches against the perimeter to take a break from shopping. Today, however, it was a ghost town.
"Man, I remember being so mad as a kid because of this place," I reminisced.
"Why?"
"Because I was too small to climb to the top of that Dalmatian over there," I explained, pointing to the big black and white dog that had its tongue sticking out.
He scanned me for a moment before eating a piece of candy. "Nothing's changed."
I hit his arm, making him laugh.
"I'm kidding! Go climb on top of it now."
Taking advantage of the opportunity, I hopped up from the bench and approached the thing from my childhood. It was kind of funny to see that I could now mount its snout with just three movements, but hey, I'm sure that frustrated little girl inside of me would be happy to see that I would eventually be able to conquer the once impossible challenge.
Trent clapped for me as I came down. "You did it!"
"It took like thirteen years, but yeah. I did do it."
For some reason, a red light suddenly beamed against Trent's cheek. He didn't notice it, so the moment I got close enough, I slapped him.
"Ow! What the hell was that for?"
I laughed and gazed up at the overhead balcony to find our missing friend armed with a bulky laser pointer. "There, I hit him! Happy now?" I voiced in his direction.
"Where'd you go?" Trent called.
"I went next door. You guys weren't paying attention," Linus answered.
"I'm not sharing my candy with you," I enforced. "You missed out."
"I know but look what I got."
He shined the laser directly in my eye, causing me to immediately dodge it. "Why, though? You're not the one who's got a cat."
"Try to catch it," he played, pointing it at the floor in front of me.
I shook my head and bent over to touch it, but he shifted it just out of my reach. "Ugh! You're an ass," I complained, hearing him snicker above our heads.
"You gotta put more energy into it, Mac," Trent reasoned. "Channel your inner cat."
"Inner cat? I already got a cat," I joked, grabbing my crotch.
Trent gave me a "so done" face that made me laugh.
"You walked straight into that one, my friend," I playfully taunted, grabbing my candy bag for a piece of chocolate. "But if you insist..." I jumped toward the red dot on the floor only to have to swipe out of the way again. "Dammit." I tried again, but Linus was just messing with me at that point. I could hear both of my friends laughing at me as I remained bent over while running around the kids' area in pursuit of a stupid light. He would move it around the floor and then temporarily put it on top of one of the climbable statues just so I had to work harder to get to it. It eventually flew out of the kids' area completely, so I chased after it with a glaze beginning to form on my skin.
Linus made me go in circles, around furniture, and even in the plants that were planted above waist level for decoration. Sometimes I would lose its location so I would pop back up and throw my head around to find it somewhere around me again. My hands were extended but were unable to lay a finger on it whatsoever. The moment I was confident in my abilities to "catch" it, I leaped for it. The sound of my skin squeaking against the tile floor resounded throughout the room as I slid a few feet, only to have the light abruptly move farther away.
I didn't move for a second because I was so out of breath from all the running. Linus and Trent continued to laugh at me until I rolled over in defeat.
"Hey, Macca," Linus called, pointing it right next to my hand.
When I slapped my hand against the marked spot, he moved it again, causing me to miss it. I just shook my head and pretended to wave a little white flag in surrender.
Yeah, nothing too detrimental happened this time around, but there will definitely be more to come! Thank you RandomDragon2.0, SpitfirewaterNinja, Dbee717, and PixelatedNinjas for reviewing and thanks BionicFemme, AuroraRain18, and Crystal Cea for favoriting and following this story :) It means a lot to me!
RandomDragon2.0 - Uh, your link did NOT work XD Oh well. Good try, though :P